With Drizzled Warm Butter, Intensely Rendered

Here, in this darkened room of this old house,
I sit beside the fire. I hear again,
Within, the scutter where the mice carouse,
Without, the gutter dropping with the rain.
Opposite, are black shelves of wormy books,
To left, glazed cases, dusty with the same,
Behind, a wall, with rusty guns on hooks,
To right, the fire, that chokes one panting flame.

Thy mercy, Lord, Lord, now thy mercy show:
On thee I lie;
To thee I fly.
Hide me, hive me, as thine own,
Till these blasts be overblown,
Which now do fiercely blow.

To highest God I will erect my cry,
Who quickly shall
Dispatch this all.
He shall down from heaven send
From disgrace me to defend
His love and verity.

My soul encaged lies with lions’ brood,

It ever was allow’d, dear Madam,
Ev’n from the days of father Adam,
Of all perfection flesh is heir to,
Fair patience is the gentlest virtue;
This is a truth our grandames teach,
Our poets sing, and parsons preach;
Yet after all, dear Moll, the fact is
We seldom put it into practice;

Camille Corot's painting, stolen from the Louvre, May 1998 It might have always been meant
that they walked completely away,
this man on horse, woman with basket.
With their backs to us and the painter,

Greenland’s icy mountains are fascinating and grand,
And wondrously created by the Almighty’s command;
And the works of the Almighty there’s few can understand:
Who knows but it might be a part of Fairyland?

Because there are churches of ice, and houses glittering like glass,
And for scenic grandeur there’s nothing can it surpass,
Besides there’s monuments and spires, also ruins,

1.

The dark socket of the year
the pit, the cave where the sun lies down
and threatens never to rise,
when despair descends softly as the snow
covering all paths and choking roads:

then hawkfaced pain seized you
threw you so you fell with a sharp

AH whither, Love, wilt thou now carry me?
What wontless fury dost thou now inspire
Into my feeble breast, too full of thee?
Whilst seeking to aslake thy raging fire,
Thou in me kindlest much more great desire,
And up aloft above my strength dost raise
The wondrous matter of my fire to praise.

Thin are the night-skirts left behind
By daybreak hours that onward creep,
And thin, alas! the shred of sleep
That wavers with the spirit's wind:
But in half-dreams that shift and roll
And still remember and forget,
My soul this hour has drawn your soul
A little nearer yet.

1.
One girl of many. Hungry from her birth
Half-fed. Half-clothed. Untaught of woman’s worth.
In joyless girlhood working for her bread.
At each small sorrow wishing she were dead,
Yet gay at little pleasures. Sunlight seems
Most bright & warm where it most seldom gleams.