I need more time, a simple day in Paris hotels and window shopping. The croissants will not bake themselves and the Tower of London would Like to spend a night in the tropics with gray sassy paint. It has many Wounds and historic serial dreams under contract to Hollywood. Who will play the head of Mary, Queen of Scots, and who will braid her
Hair? Was it she who left her lips on the block for the executioner, Whose hands would never find ablution, who would never touch a woman Again or eat the flesh of a red animal? Blood pudding would repulse him Until joining Anne. That is the way of history written for Marlow and Shakespear. They are with us now that we are sober and wiser,
Not taking the horrors of poetry too seriously. Why am I telling you this Nonsense, when I have never seen you sip your coffee or tea, In the morning? Not to mention,
Ae weet forenicht i’ the yow-trummle I saw yon antrin thing, A watergaw wi’ its chitterin’ licht Ayont the on-ding; An’ I thocht o’ the last wild look ye gied Afore ye deed!
There was nae reek i’ the laverock’s hoose That nicht—an’ nane i’ mine;
To the Lord General Cromwell, May 1652, On the proposals of certain ministers at the Committee for Propagation of the Gospel Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud Not of war only, but detractions rude, Guided by faith and matchless fortitude, To peace and truth thy glorious way hast plough'd,
New England. Alas, dear Mother, fairest Queen and best, With honour, wealth, and peace happy and blest, What ails thee hang thy head, and cross thine arms, And sit i’ the dust to sigh these sad alarms? What deluge of new woes thus over-whelm The glories of thy ever famous Realm? What means this wailing tone, this mournful guise? Ah, tell thy Daughter; she may sympathize.
Old England. Art ignorant indeed of these my woes, Or must my forced tongue these griefs disclose, And must my self dissect my tatter’d state, Which Amazed Christendom stands wondering at?
Thus from a mixture of all kinds began, That het’rogeneous thing, an Englishman: In eager rapes, and furious lust begot, Betwixt a painted Britain and a Scot. Whose gend’ring off-spring quickly learn’d to bow, And yoke their heifers to the Roman plough: From whence a mongrel half-bred race there came, With neither name, nor nation, speech nor fame.
And Mrs. C, our tart old Scots landlady, with her stomping legs, four bristles sprouted from her chin- wart, she who briskly chats away about Montrose, founder of her clan, as though she’s just now fresh
The farmhouses north of Driggs, silos for miles along the road saying BUTLER or SIOUX. The light saying rain coming on, the wind not up yet, animals waiting as the front hits everything on the high fiats, hailstones bouncing like rabbits under the sage. Nothing running off. Creeks clear.
Nothing to tell why I cannot write in re Nobody; nobody to narrate this latter acknowledgement: the self that counts words to a line, accountable survivor pain-wedged, pinioned in the cleft trunk, less petty than a sprite, poisonous as Ariel to Prospero's own knowledge. In my room a vase of peacock feathers. I will attempt to describe them, as if for evidence on which a life depends. Except for the eyes they are threadbare, the threads hanging as from a luminate tough weed in February. But those eyes—like a Greek letter, omega, fossiled in an Indian shawl; like a shaved cross section of living tissue,
(To Two Scots Lads) Lying in dug-outs, joking idly, wearily; Watching the candle guttering in the draught; Hearing the great shells go high over us, eerily Singing; how often have I turned over, and laughed
A longish poem about wallpaper. A short lyric about discouragement in white. A medium-length thesis of uncertain importance. Another sonnet, about scholarship. A couplet of olives.
A long narrative about the exaggeration of your absence. Several quatrains about candle stubs. That old sestina on Isaiah. Palindromes about Scots presbyters of the 18th century. Some rock lyrics from Benares.
A nature poem about committees. Seven heroic couplets about Art Murphy. Several more heroic couplets on Murphy’s Law.
When biting Boreas, fell and doure, Sharp shivers thro' the leafless bow'r; When Phoebus gies a short-liv'd glow'r, Far south the lift, Dim-dark'ning thro' the flaky show'r, Or whirling drift:
Ae night the storm the steeples rocked, Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked, While burns, wi' snawy wreeths upchoked, Wild-eddying swirl, Or thro' the mining outlet bocked, Down headlong hurl.
O Mary, at thy window be, It is the wish'd, the trysted hour! Those smiles and glances let me see, That makes the miser's treasure poor: How blythely wad I bide the stoure, A weary slave frae sun to sun, Could I the rich reward secure, The lovely Mary Morison.
Yestreen when to the trembling string The dance gaed thro' the lighted ha' To thee my fancy took its wing, I sat, but neither heard nor saw: Tho' this was fair, and that was braw, And yon the toast of a' the town,
Is there, for honest poverty, That hings his head, an' a' that? The coward slave, we pass him by, We dare be poor for a' that! For a' that, an' a' that, Our toils obscure, an' a' that; The rank is but the guinea's stamp; The man's the gowd for a' that,
What tho' on hamely fare we dine, Wear hoddin-gray, an' a' that; Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, A man's a man for a' that. For a' that, an' a' that, Their tinsel show an' a' that;
Aulder than mammoth or than mastodon Deep i’ the herts o’ a’ men lurk scaut-heid Skrymmorie monsters few daur look upon. Brides sometimes catch their wild een, scansin’ reid, Beekin’ abune the herts they thocht to lo’e And horror-stricken ken that i’ themselves A like beast stan’s, and lookin’ love thro’ and thro’ Meets the reid een wi’ een like seevun hells.
It was a' for our rightful king That we left fair Scotland's strand; It was a' for our rightful king We e'er saw Irish land, My dear, We e'er saw Irish land.
Now a' is done that men can do, And a' is done in vain! My love, and native land, fareweel! For I maun cross the main, My dear, For I maun cross the main.
Ye banks, and braes, and streams around The castle o' Montgomery, Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, Your waters never drumlie! There Simmer first unfald her robes, And there the langest tarry: For there I took the last Fareweel O' my sweet Highland Mary.
How sweetly bloom'd the gay, green birk, How rich the hawthorn's blossom; As underneath their fragrant shade, I clasp'd her to my bosom! The golden Hours, on angel wings, Flew o'er me and my Dearie;
My heart is a-breaking, dear Tittie, Some counsel unto me come len'; To anger them a' is a pity, But what will I do wi' Tam Glen?
I'm thinking, wi' sic a braw fellow, In poortith I might mak a fen': What care I in riches to wallow, If I mauna marry Tam Glen?
There's Lowrie, the laird o' Dumeller, "Guid-day to you,"—brute! he comes ben: He brags and he blaws o' his siller, But when will he dance like Tam Glen?
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