I In a far country, and a distant age, Ere sprites and fays had bade farewell to earth, A boy was born of humble parentage; The stars that shone upon his lonely birth Did seem to promise sovereignty and fame— Yet no tradition hath preserved his name.
II ’T is said that on the night when he was born, A beauteous shape swept slowly through the room; Its eyes broke on the infant like a morn, And his cheek brightened like a rose in bloom;
MEanwhile the hainous and despightfull act
Of Satan done in Paradise, and how
Hee in the Serpent, had perverted Eve,
Her Husband shee, to taste the fatall fruit,
Was known in Heav'n; for what can scape the Eye
Of God All-seeing, or deceave his Heart
Omniscient, who in all things wise and just,
Hinder'd not Satan to attempt the minde
Ay me, to whom shall I my case complain, That may compassion my impatient grief? Or where shall I unfold my inward pain, That my enriven heart may find relief? Shall I unto the heavenly pow’rs it show, Or unto earthly men that dwell below?
To heavens? Ah, they, alas, the authors were, And workers of my unremedied woe: For they foresee what to us happens here, And they foresaw, yet suffered this be so. From them comes good, from them comes also ill, That which they made, who can them warn to spill.
Leo bends over his desk Gazing at a memorandum While Stuart stands beside him With a smile, saying, "Leo, the order for those desks Came in today From Youngstown Needle and Thread!" C. Loth Inc., there you are Like Balboa the conqueror Of those who want to buy office furniture Or bar fixtures In nineteen forty in Cincinnati, Ohio! Secretaries pound out Invoices on antique typewriters— Dactyllographs
The dog stops barking after Robinson has gone. His act is over. The world is a gray world, Not without violence, and he kicks under the grand piano, The nightmare chase well under way.
The mirror from Mexico, stuck to the wall, Reflects nothing at all. The glass is black. Robinson alone provides the image Robinsonian.
I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all hearts
The fleet astronomer can bore And thread the spheres with his quick-piercing mind: He views their stations, walks from door to door, Surveys, as if he had designed To make a purchase there; he sees their dances, And knoweth long before Both their full-eyes aspècts, and secret glances.
The nimble diver with his side Cuts through the working waves, that he may fetch His dearly-earnèd pearl, which God did hide On purpose from the venturous wretch; That he might save his life, and also hers Who with excessive pride Her own destruction and his danger wears.
You little stars that live in skies And glory in Apollo’s glory, In whose aspècts conjoinèd lies The heaven’s will and nature’s story, Joy to be likened to those eyes, Which eyes make all eyes glad or sorry; For when you force thoughts from above, These overrule your force by love.
And thou, O Love, which in these eyes Hast married Reason with Affection, And made them saints of Beauty’s skies, Where joys are shadows of perfection, Lend me thy wings that I may rise Up, not by worth, but thy election;
It’s true we have invented quark-extraction, and this allows our aiming gravity at will; it’s true also that time can now be made to flow backward or forward by
the same process. It may be true as well that what is happening at the focal point, the meristem of this process,
after this, the cold more intense, and the night comes rapidly up . angels in the fall . around a tongue of land, free from trees . awakened by feeling a heavy weight on your feet, something that seems inert and motionless . awestruck manner, as though you expected to find some strange presence behind you . coming through the diamond-paned bay window of your sanctum . a crimson-flowered silk dressing gown, the folds of which I could now describe . deathly pallor overspreading
Set up curbside, jewelry tray entanglement with things looking up, but nothing sells unless there is someone looking down, and who might that be? For the moment it’s not raining and off-coast in pods the gray whales parade south. Photographs sprout with the season. The gray whale’s spout is heart shaped, enough said. Just listen for the icon’s intake of breath and see what you can see. Yes, but that was yesterday and which way are prices going to go? There is a pack forming and they will need a leader. It’s then you kick the snot out of them, not before, and make it believable this one last time; but don’t depend on it, auditors, even though it’s turned out like this so many times before. There may be an image whose mind has changed. Sorry, no rain checks in this scheme of things, the windows are broken and boards keep out the light, it’s the cheapest thing to do and then forget it, as has been done before, before, etc. Could you pick out of a lineup who is the culprit here? The mirror is one-way and there’s no way to be sure which side you’re on, but so what? Go on making faces anyway, but be sure, now and then, to check your hand before your face, if just to say Wheaties, the best is yet to be. Our inventions, gods and needles, for instance, are built to say this to us ever and forever. It’s obvious why we can’t give them up, they’re ours, for ourself self’s sake! We live in the afterlife of what, unalterable, has already taken place. The minute you start acting like Robinson Crusoe it’s plain to see you’ve lost your hold on the world. There are many such, so many, washed up on our island shores! They end up sleeping over grates and in doorways at night, far distant from tree ripe fruit and warm sand. The dumps of our artifacts bewilder them. They probe, not knowing what to expect from excess. They act out an experiment, a hairline calculation for survival: is the expenditure of energy to dig up carrots from the frozen ground more than their return in calories? Did you notice the price tag when the wine was poured, the cool chardonnay, the special cabernet, white and red absurdities of words? The motion lights are set to react outside the house but, tell me, did you see the clutter in the study, one would think! Those catalogs, the cave, shadows.
We aren't serious when we're seventeen. —One fine evening, to hell with beer and lemonade, Noisy cafés with their shining lamps! We walk under the green linden trees of the park
The lindens smell good in the good June evenings! At times the air is so scented that we close our eyes.
These are the lines on which a committee is formed. Almost as soon as work was begun in the tunnel men began to die among dry drills. No masks. Most of them were not from this valley. The freights brought many every day from States all up and down the Atlantic seaboard and as far inland as Kentucky, Ohio. After the work the camps were closed or burned.
Curtains drawn back, the door ajar. All winter long, it seemed, a darkening Began. But now the moonlight and the odors of the street Conspire and combine toward one community.
These are the rooms of Robinson. Bleached, wan, and colorless this light, as though All the blurred daybreaks of the spring Found an asylum here, perhaps for Robinson alone,
Somewhere in Chelsea, early summer; And, walking in the twilight toward the docks, I thought I made out Robinson ahead of me.
From an uncurtained second-story room, a radio Was playing There’s a Small Hotel; a kite Twisted above dark rooftops and slow drifting birds. We were alone there, he and I, Inhabiting the empty street.
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