Whose lives are hidden in God? Whose? Who can now tell what was taken, or where, or how, or whether it was received: how ditched, divested, clamped, sifted, over- laid, raked over, grassed over, spread around, rotted down with leafmould, accepted as civic concrete, reinforceable base cinderblocks:
Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease. But one such death remain'd to come; The last poetic voice is dumb— We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb.
When Byron's eyes were shut in death, We bow'd our head and held our breath.
Dogs are Shakespearean, children are strangers. Let Freud and Wordsworth discuss the child, Angels and Platonists shall judge the dog, The running dog, who paused, distending nostrils, Then barked and wailed; the boy who pinched his sister, The little girl who sang the song from Twelfth Night, As if she understood the wind and rain, The dog who moaned, hearing the violins in concert.
Difficile est proprie communia dicere HOR. Epist. ad Pison I Bob Southey! You're a poet—Poet-laureate, And representative of all the race; Although 'tis true that you turn'd out a Tory at
We drank our faces off until the sun arrived, Night after night, and most of us survived To waft outside to sunrise on Second Avenue, And felt a kind of Wordsworth wonderment—the morning new, The sidewalk fresh as morning dew—and us new, too.
How wonderful to be so magnified. Every Scotch and soda had been usefully applied. You were who you weren't till now.
My desk is cleared of the litter of ages; Before me glitter the fair white pages; My fountain pen is clean and filled, And the noise of the office has long been stilled. Roget’s Thesaurus is at my hand, And I’m ready to do some work that’s grand, Dignified, eminent, great, momentous, Memorable, worthy of note, portentous, Beautiful, paramount, vital, prime, Stirring, eventful, august, sublime. For this is the way, I have read and heard, That authors look for the fitting word. All of the proud ingredients mine To build, like Marlowe, the mighty line. But never a line from my new-filled pen
I When Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter," And proved it—'twas no matter what he said: They say his system 'tis in vain to batter, Too subtle for the airiest human head; And yet who can believe it! I would shatter Gladly all matters down to stone or lead, Or adamant, to find the World a spirit, And wear my head, denying that I wear it.
II What a sublime discovery 'twas to make the Universe universal egotism, That all's ideal—all ourselves: I'll stake the World (be it what you will) that that's no schism.
I know that he told that I snared his soul With a snare which bled him to death. And all the men loved him, And most of the women pitied him. But suppose you are really a lady, and have delicate tastes, And loathe the smell of whiskey and onions. And the rhythm of Wordsworth's "Ode" runs in your ears, While he goes about from morning till night Repeating bits of that common thing; "Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" And then, suppose: You are a woman well endowed, And the only man with whom the law and morality Permit you to have the marital relation Is the very man that fills you with disgust
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