When they confess that they have lost the penial bone and outer space is Once again a numinous void, when they’re kept out of Other Places, And Dr Fieser falls asleep at last and dreams of unburnt faces, When gold medals are won by the ton for forgetting about the different races, God Bless America.
When in the Latin shanties the scented priesthood suffers metempsychosis And with an organ entry tutti copula the dollar uncrosses
The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.
Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness, Like the flight of a moth which, had it known, Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle’s flame.
Others would deal with ways to silence anxiety, The little whisper which, though it is a warning, is ignored.
I would deal separately with satisfaction and pride, The time when I was among their adherents
217 Ambition was my idol, which was broken Before the shrines of Sorrow and of Pleasure; And the two last have left me many a token O'er which reflection may be made at leisure: Now, like Friar Bacon's brazen head, I've spoken, 'Time is, Time was, Time's past', a chymic treasure Is glittering youth, which I have spent betimes— My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes.
Ave Faustina Imperatrix, morituri te salutant. Lean back, and get some minutes' peace; Let your head lean Back to the shoulder with its fleece Of locks, Faustine.
There is something in the sound of drum and fife
That stirs all the savage instincts into life.
In the old times of peace we went our ways,
Through proper days
Of little joys and tasks. Lonely at times,
When from the steeple sounded wedding chimes,
Telling to all the world some maid was wife—
But taking patiently our part in life
See, Winter comes to rule the varied year, Sullen and sad, with all his rising train— Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my theme, These, that exalt the soul to solemn thought And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms! Congenial horrors, hail! With frequent foot, Pleas’d have I, in my cheerful morn of life, When nurs’d by careless solitude I liv’d And sung of Nature with unceasing joy, Pleas’d have I wander’d through your rough domain; Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure; Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst; Or seen the deep-fermenting tempest brew’d In the grim evening-sky. Thus pass’d the time, Till through the lucid chambers of the south
—Was it for this That one, the fairest of all Rivers, lov'd To blend his murmurs with my Nurse's song, And from his alder shades and rocky falls, And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice That flow'd along my dreams? For this, didst Thou, O Derwent! travelling over the green Plains Near my 'sweet Birthplace', didst thou, beauteous Stream
Now swarthy Summer, by rude health embrowned, Precedence takes of rosy fingered Spring; And laughing Joy, with wild flowers prank'd, and crown'd, A wild and giddy thing, And Health robust, from every care unbound, Come on the zephyr's wing, And cheer the toiling clown.
If Heaven has into being deigned to call Thy light, O Liberty! to shine on all; Bright intellectual Sun! why does thy ray To earth distribute only partial day? Since no resisting cause from spirit flows Thy universal presence to oppose; No obstacles by Nature’s hand impressed, Thy subtle and ethereal beams arrest;
(Double Portrait in a Mirror)
I
To the meeting despair of eyes in the street, offer
Your eyes on plates and your liver on skewers of pity.
When the Jericho sky is heaped with clouds which the sun
Trumpets above, respond to Apocalypse
With a headache. In spirit follow
The young men to the war, up Everest. Be shot.
Stranger, you who hide my love In the curved cheek of a smile And sleep with her upon a tongue Of soft lies that beguile, Your paradisal ecstasy Is justified is justified By hunger of the beasts beneath The overhanging cloud
I have always aspired to a more spacious form that would be free from the claims of poetry or prose and would let us understand each other without exposing the author or reader to sublime agonies.
In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent: a thing is brought forth which we didn’t know we had in us, so we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had sprung out and stood in the light, lashing his tail.
(Variant printed in Samuel Daniel’s 1623 Works) To thee, pure spirit, to thee alone addressed Is this joint work, by double interest thine, Thine by his own, and what is done of mine Inspired by thee, thy secret power impressed.
Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon, With the old Moon in her arms; And I fear, I fear, my Master dear! We shall have a deadly storm. (Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence) I Well! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence
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;
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