I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread; And when white moths were on the wing, And moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor I went to blow the fire a-flame, But something rustled on the floor, And someone called me by my name: It had become a glimmering girl With apple blossom in her hair
My hair is grey, but not with years, Nor grew it white In a single night, As men's have grown from sudden fears: My limbs are bow'd, though not with toil, But rusted with a vile repose, For they have been a dungeon's spoil, And mine has been the fate of those
You are a friend then, as I make it out, Of our man Shakespeare, who alone of us Will put an ass's head in Fairyland As he would add a shilling to more shillings, All most harmonious, — and out of his Miraculous inviolable increase Fills Ilion, Rome, or any town you like Of olden time with timeless Englishmen; And I must wonder what you think of him — All you down there where your small Avon flows By Stratford, and where you're an Alderman. Some, for a guess, would have him riding back To be a farrier there, or say a dyer; Or maybe one of your adept surveyors; Or like enough the wizard of all tanners.
What shall I do with this absurdity — O heart, O troubled heart — this caricature, Decrepit age that has been tied to me As to a dog's tail? Never had I more Excited, passionate, fantastical Imagination, nor an ear and eye
Happy Birthday Kenneth Koch/Feb 27 We went to all those places where they restore sadness and joy and call it art. We were piloted by Auden who became Unbearably acrimonious when we dropped off Senghor into the steamy skies of his beloved West Africa. The termites and ants
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose
This is how the wind shifts: Like the thoughts of an old human, Who still thinks eagerly And despairingly. The wind shifts like this: Like a human without illusions, Who still feels irrational things within her. The wind shifts like this:
(from A Midsummer Night's Dream, spoken by Bottom)
When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is “Most fair Pyramus.” Heigh-ho! Peter Quince?
Flute the bellows-mender? Snout the tinker? Starveling? God’s my life, stol'n hence, and left me asleep?
I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream—past the wit of man to say what dream it was.
Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was—there is no man can tell what.
Methought I was, and methought I had—but man is but a patched fool if he will offer to say what methought I had.
The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream.It shall be called “Bottom’s Dream” because it hath no bottom. And I will sing it in the latter end of a play before the duke. Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death.
When you get in on a try you never learn it back umpteen times the tenth part of a featured world in black and in back it’s roses and fostered nail bite rhyme sling slang, a song that teaches without travail of the tale, the one you longing live and singing burn
It’s insane to remain a trope, of a rinsing out or a ringing whatever, it’s those bells that . . .
As day did darken on the dewless grass, There, still, wi’ nwone a-come by me To stay a-while at hwome by me Within the house, all dumb by me, I zot me sad as the eventide did pass.
An’ there a win’blast shook the rattlèn door, An’ seemed, as win’ did mwoan without,
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;
Learning to love differently is hard, love with the hands wide open, love with the doors banging on their hinges, the cupboard unlocked, the wind roaring and whimpering in the rooms rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds that thwack like rubber bands in an open palm.
As I was going down impassive Rivers, I no longer felt myself guided by haulers: Yelping redskins had taken them as targets And had nailed them naked to colored stakes.
While that my soul repairs to her devotion, Here I intomb my flesh, that it betimes May take acquaintance of this heap of dust; To which the blast of death's incessant motion, Fed with the exhalation of our crimes, Drives all at last. Therefore I gladly trust
My body to this school, that it may learn To spell his elements, and find his birth Written in dusty heraldry and lines ; Which dissolution sure doth best discern, Comparing dust with dust, and earth with earth. These laugh at jet, and marble put for signs,
60 Her eye (I'm very fond of handsome eyes) Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise Flash'd an expression more of pride than ire, And love than either; and there would arise A something in them which was not desire, But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul Which struggled through and chasten'd down the whole.
61 Her glossy hair was cluster'd o'er a brow Bright with intelligence, and fair, and smooth; Her eyebrow's shape was like the aerial bow, Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth,
As the dead prey upon us, they are the dead in ourselves, awake, my sleeping ones, I cry out to you, disentangle the nets of being!
I pushed my car, it had been sitting so long unused. I thought the tires looked as though they only needed air. But suddenly the huge underbody was above me, and the rear tires were masses of rubber and thread variously clinging together
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