The wind rests its cheek upon the ground and feels the cool damp And lifts its head with twigs and small dead blades of grass Pressed into it as you might at the beach rise up and brush away The sand. The day is cool and says, “I’m just staying overnight.” The world is filled with music, and in between the music, silence And varying the silence all sorts of sounds, natural and man made: There goes a plane, some cars, geese that honk and, not here, but Not so far away, a scream so rending that to hear it is to be
You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe In which I have lived like a foot For thirty years, poor and white, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.
Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time—— Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
I Put a sun in Sunday, Sunday. Eleven please ten hoop. Hoop. Cousin coarse in coarse in soap. Cousin coarse in soap sew up. soap. Cousin coarse in sew up soap.
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
Granny’s come to our house, And ho! my lawzy-daisy! All the childern round the place Is ist a-runnin’ crazy! Fetched a cake fer little Jake, And fetched a pie fer Nanny, And fetched a pear fer all the pack That runs to kiss their Granny!
Lucy Ellen’s in her lap, And Wade and Silas Walker Both’s a-ridin’ on her foot, And ’Pollos on the rocker; And Marthy’s twins, from Aunt Marinn’s, And little Orphant Annie,
Clownlike, happiest on your hands, Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled, Gilled like a fish. A common-sense Thumbs-down on the dodo’s mode. Wrapped up in yourself like a spool, Trawling your dark as owls do. Mute as a turnip from the Fourth Of July to All Fools’ Day,
When in Wisconsin where I once had time the flyway swans came whistling to the rotten Green Bay ice and stayed, not feeding, four days, maybe five, I shouted
and threw stones to see them fly. Blue herons followed, or came first. I shot a bittern’s wing off with my gun. For that my wife could cry.
Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter, Out of black bean and wet slate bread, Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar, Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies, They Lion grow. Out of the gray hills Of industrial barns, out of rain, out of bus ride, West Virginia to Kiss My Ass, out of buried aunties,
To the Memory of the Household It Describes This Poem is Dedicated by the Author
“As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits, which be Angels of Light, are augmented not only by the Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood Fire: and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same.” —Cor. Agrippa, Occult Philosophy, Book I.ch. v.
“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of Storm.” EMERSON, The Snow Storm. The sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon.
Farm boys wild to couple With anythingwith soft-wooded trees With mounds of earthmounds Of pinestrawwill keep themselves off Animals by legends of their own: In the hay-tunnel dark And dung of barns, they will Say I have heard tell
Wheer 'asta beän saw long and meä liggin' 'ere aloän? Noorse? thoort nowt o' a noorse: whoy, Doctor's abeän an' agoän; Says that I moänt 'a naw moor aäle; but I beänt a fool; Git ma my aäle, fur I beänt a-gawin' to breäk my rule.
Doctors, they knaws nowt, fur a says what 's nawways true; Naw soort o' koind o' use to saäy the things that a do. I 've 'ed my point o' aäle ivry noight sin' I beän 'ere.
composed at clevedon, somersetshire My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o’ergrown With white-flowered Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Myrtle,
I am thirty this November. You are still small, in your fourth year. We stand watching the yellow leaves go queer, flapping in the winter rain, falling flat and washed. And I remember mostly the three autumns you did not live here. They said I’d never get you back again.
Houses red as flower of bean, Flickering leaves and shadows lean! Pantalone, like a parrot, Sat and grumbled in the garret— Sat and growled and grumbled till Moon upon the window-sill Like a red geranium Scented his bald cranium. Said Brighella, meaning well: “Pack your box and—go to Hell! Heat will cure your rheumatism!” . . . Silence crowned this optimism— Not a sound and not a wail: But the fire (lush leafy vales) Watched the angry feathers fly.
I A whim of Time, the general arbiter, Proclaims the love, instead of death, of friends. Under the domed sky and athletic sun Three stand naked: the new, bronzed German The communist clerk, and myself, being English.
Yet to unwind the travelled sphere twelve years Then two take arms, spring to a soldier's posture:
Before the unseen cock had called the time, Those workers left their beds and stumbled out Into the street, where dust lay white as lime Under the last star that keeps bats about. Then blinking still from bed, they trod the street, The doors closed up and down ; the traveller heard Doors opened, closed, then silence, then men’s feet Moving to toil, the men too drowsed for word.
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