’T was merry Christmas when he came, Our little boy beneath the sod; And brighter burned the Christmas flame, And merrier sped the Christmas game, Because within the house there lay A shape as tiny as a fay— The Christmas gift of God! In wreaths and garlands on the walls The holly hung its ruby balls, The mistletoe its pearls; And a Christmas tree’s fantastic fruits Woke laughter like a choir of flutes From happy boys and girls. For the mirth, which else had swelled as shrill As a school let loose to its errant will,
Ne Rubeam, Pingui donatus Munere (Horace, Epistles II.i.267) While you, great patron of mankind, sustain The balanc'd world, and open all the main; Your country, chief, in arms abroad defend, At home, with morals, arts, and laws amend;
As rising from the vegetable World My Theme ascends, with equal Wing ascend, My panting Muse; and hark, how loud the Woods Invite you forth in all your gayest Trim. Lend me your Song, ye Nightingales! oh pour The mazy-running Soul of Melody Into my varied Verse! while I deduce, From the first Note the hollow Cuckoo sings,
Of Chesterton, In the County of Huntingdon, Esquire How blessed is he, who leads a Country Life, Unvex’d with anxious Cares, and void of Strife! Who studying Peace, and shunning Civil Rage, Enjoy’d his Youth, and now enjoys his Age:
For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love, Or chide my palsy, or my gout, My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout, With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve, Take you a course, get you a place, Observe his honor, or his grace, Or the king's real, or his stampèd face Contemplate; what you will, approve, So you will let me love.
Alas, alas, who's injured by my love? What merchant's ships have my sighs drowned? Who says my tears have overflowed his ground? When did my colds a forward spring remove? When did the heats which my veins fill
‘Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent:Σίβυλλα τίθέλεις; respondebat illa:άποθανεîνθέλω.’ For Ezra Pound il miglior fabbro. I. The Burial of the Dead
I always wonder what they think the niggers are doing while they, the pink and alabaster pragmatists, are containing Russia and defining and re-defining and re-aligning China,
En mi país el Otoño nace de una flor seca, de algunos pajaros; . . . o del vaho penetrante de ciertos rios de la llanura. —Molinari, “Oda a una larga tristeza” Each instant comes with a price, the blue-edged bill
Bedfordshire A blue bird showing off its undercarriage En route between our oldest universities Was observed slightly off-course above Woburn In the leafy heart of our sleepiest county: Two cyclists in tandem looked up at the same moment, Like a busy footnote to its asterisk.
Like the waxwings in the juniper, a dozen at a time, divided, paired, passing the berries back and forth, and by nightfall, wobbling, piping, wounded with joy.
Or a party of redwings grazing what falls—blossom and seed, nutmeat and fruit— made light in the head and cut by the light, swept from the ground, carried downwind, taken....
Thus they in lowliest plight repentant stood Praying, for from the Mercie-seat above Prevenient Grace descending had remov'd The stonie from thir hearts, & made new flesh Regenerate grow instead, that sighs now breath'd Unutterable, which the Spirit of prayer Inspir'd, and wing'd for Heav'n with speedier flight Then loudest Oratorie: yet thir port
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? And how can body, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
The Genius of the place invites the Goddess of Botany, 1. She descends, is received by Spring, and the Elements, 59. Addresses the Nymphs of Fire. Star-light Night seen in the Camera Obscura, 81. I. Love created the Universe. Chaos explodes. All the Stars revolve. God, 97. II. Shooting Stars. Lightning. Rainbow. Colours of the Morning and Evening Skies. Exterior Atmosphere of inflammable Air. Twilight. Fire-balls. Aurora Borealis. Planets. Comets. Fixed Stars. Sun’s Orb, 115. III. 1. Fires of the Earth’s Centre. Animal Incubation, 137. 2. Volcanic Mountains. Venus visits the Cyclops, 149. IV. Heat confined on the Earth by the Air. Phosphoric lights in the Evening. Bolognian Stone. Calcined Shells. Memnon’s Harp, 173. Ignis fatuus. Luminous Flowers. Glow-worm. Fire-fly. Luminous Sea-insects. Electric Eel. Eagle armed with Lightning, 189. V. 1. Discovery of Fire. Medusa, 209. 2. The chemical Properties of Fire. Phosphorus. Lady in Love, 223. 3. Gunpowder, 237. VI. Steam-engine applied to Pumps, Bellows, Water-engines, Corn-mills, Coining, Barges, Waggons, Flying-chariots, 253. Labours of Hercules. Abyla and Calpe, 297. VII. 1. Electric Machine. Hesperian Dragon. Electric Kiss. Halo round the heads of Saints. Electric Shock. Fairy-rings, 335. 2. Death of Professor Richman, 371. 3. Franklin draws Lightning from the Clouds. Cupid snatches the Thunderbolt from Jupiter, 383. VIII. Phosphoric Acid and Vital Heat produced in the Blood. The great Egg of Night, 399. IX. Western Wind unfettered. Naiad released. Frost assailed. Whale attacked, 421. X. Buds and Flowers expanded by Warmth, Electricity, and Light. Drawings with colourless sympathetic Inks; which appear when warmed by the Fire, 457. XI. Sirius. Jupiter and Semele. Nothern Constellations. Ice-Islands navigated into the Tropic Seas. Rainy Monsoons, 497. XII. Points erected to procure Rain. Elijah on Mount Carmel, 549. Departure of the Nymphs of Fire like Sparks from artificial Fireworks, 587.
“Stay your rude steps; whose throbbing breasts infold The legion-fiends of Glory, or of Gold! Stay! whose false lips seductive simpers part, While Cunning nestles in the harlot-heart!— For you no Dryads dress the roseate bower, For you no Nymphs their sparkling vases pour; Unmark’d by you, light Graces swim the green, And hovering Cupids aim their shafts, unseen.
“But Thou! whose mind the well-attemper’d ray Of Taste and Virtue lights with purer day;
Unlike Francis Bacon, we no longer believe in the little patterns we make of the chaos of history. —Overheard remark As he looked up from his glass, its quickly melting ice, into the bisected glowing demonic eyes of the goat, he sensed that something fundamental had shifted,
At hawthorn-time in Wiltshire travelling In search of something chance would never bring, An old man’s face, by life and weather cut And coloured,—rough, brown, sweet as any nut,— A land face, sea-blue-eyed,—hung in my mind When I had left him many a mile behind. All he said was: “Nobody can’t stop ’ee. It’s A footpath, right enough. You see those bits Of mounds—that’s where they opened up the barrows Sixty years since, while I was scaring sparrows. They thought as there was something to find there, But couldn’t find it, by digging, anywhere.”
To turn back then and seek him, where was the use? There were three Manningfords,—Abbots, Bohun, and Bruce:
He woke, fully clothed, in his bed. He remembered only one thing, the birds, how when he came in, he had gone around the rooms and got them back in their cage, the green one first, she with the bad leg, and then the blue, the one they had hoped was a male
Thousands lavishing, thousands starving; intrigues, war, flatteries, envyings, hypocrisies, lying vanities, hollow amusements, exhaustion, dissipation, death—and giddiness and laughter, from the first scene to the last. —Samuel Palmer, 1858
THERE ARE HILLS LIKE SHARKFINS and clods of mud. The mind drifts through in the shape of a museum, in the guise of a museum dreaming dead friends: Jim, Tom, Emmet, Bill.
By the last few times we saw her it was clear That things were different. When you tried to help her Get out of the car or get from the car to the door Or across the apartment house hall to the elevator There was a new sense of heaviness Or of inertia in the body. It wasn’t That she was less willing to be helped to walk But that the walking itself had become less willing.
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