He sees through stone he has the secret eyes this old black one who under prison skies sits pressed by the sun against the western wall his pipe between purple gums
The town is old and very steep A place of bells and cloisters and grey towers, And black-clad people walking in their sleep— A nun, a priest, a woman taking flowers To her new grave; and watched from end to end By the great Church above, through the still hours: But in the morning and the early dark The children wake to dart from doors and call
Here, in the darkness, where this plaster saint Stands nearer than God stands to our distress, And one small candle shines, but not so faint As the far lights of everlastingness, I’d rather kneel than over there, in open day Where Christ is hanging, rather pray To something more like my own clay, Not too divine;
It is not to be bought for a penny in the candy store, nor picked from the bushes in the park. It may be found, perhaps, in the ashes on the distant lots, among the rusting cans and Jimpson weeds. If you wish to eat fish freely, cucumbers and melons,
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 large, dark hands are those at the window Lifted, grasping the golden light Which weaves its way through the creeper leaves To my heart's delight?
Ah, only the leaves! But in the west, In the west I see a redness come Over the evening's burning breast — — 'Tis the wound of love goes home!
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees. The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas. The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding— Riding—riding— The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
He’d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
Nights, by the light of whatever would burn: tallow, tinder and the silken rope of wick that burns slow, slow we wove the baskets from the long gold strands of wheat that were another silk: worm soul spun the one, yellow seed in the dark soil, the other.
The fields lay fallow, swollen with frost, expectant winter. Mud clung to the edges
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