I I weep for Adonais—he is dead! Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head! And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, And teach them thine own sorrow, say: "With me Died Adonais; till the Future dares Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be An echo and a light unto eternity!"
II Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, When thy Son lay, pierc'd by the shaft which flies In darkness? where was lorn Urania
MEanwhile the hainous and despightfull act
Of Satan done in Paradise, and how
Hee in the Serpent, had perverted Eve,
Her Husband shee, to taste the fatall fruit,
Was known in Heav'n; for what can scape the Eye
Of God All-seeing, or deceave his Heart
Omniscient, who in all things wise and just,
Hinder'd not Satan to attempt the minde
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:
Nous devrions pourtant lui porter quelques fleurs; Les morts, les pauvres morts, ont de grandes douleurs, Et quand Octobre souffle, émondeur des vieux arbres, Son vent mélancolique àl'entour de leurs marbres, Certe, ils doivent trouver les vivants bien ingrats.
Les Fleurs du Mal. I Shall I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel, Brother, on this that was the veil of thee? Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea,
To the Priest, on Observing how most Men mistake their own Talents When beasts could speak (the learned say, They still can do so ev'ry day), It seems, they had religion then, As much as now we find in men.
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.
The ground dove stuttered for a few steps then flew up from his path to settle in the sun-browned branches that were now barely twigs; in drought it coos with its relentless valve, a tiring sound, not like the sweet exchanges of turtles in the Song of Solomon, or the flutes of Venus in frescoes though all the mounds in the dove-calling drought
HAil holy Light, ofspring of Heav'n first-born, Or of th' Eternal Coeternal beam May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light, And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate. Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal stream, Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the Sun, Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice Of God, as with a Mantle didst invest The rising world of waters dark and deep, Won from the void and formless infinite. Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing, Escap't the Stygian Pool, though long detain'd In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
That Whitsun, I was late getting away: Not till about One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out, All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense Of being in a hurry gone. We ran Behind the backs of houses, crossed a street Of blinding windscreens, smelt the fish-dock; thence
They splay at a bend of the road, rifles slung, the shadows minimal, their hands tugging their slings by the upper swivel to ease the routine of the march. They have been moving since morning, and over each has descended that singleness, mournful and comatose, which is the mysterious gift of the march. Their helmets shadow their eyes, their chinstraps dangling. In the raddle of grasses their solitude
I should be dumb before thee, feathered sage! And gaze upon thy phiz with solemn awe, But for a most audacious wish to gauge The hoarded wisdom of thy learned craw.
Art thou, grave bird! so wondrous wise indeed? Speak freely, without fear of jest or gibe— What is thy moral and religious creed?
Moving from Cheer to Joy, from Joy to All, I take a box And add it to my wild rice, my Cornish game hens. The slacked or shorted, basketed, identical Food-gathering flocks Are selves I overlook. Wisdom, said William James,
Is learning what to overlook. And I am wise If that is wisdom.
The station platform, clean and broad, his stage for push-ups, sit-ups, hamstring stretch, as he laid aside his back pack, from which his necessaries bulged, as he bulged through jeans torn at butt, knee and thigh, in deep palaver with himself—sigh, chatter, groan. Deranged but common. We sat at a careful distance to spy on his performance, beside a woman in her thirties, dressed as in her teens— this is L.A.—singing to herself. How composed, complete and sane she seemed. A book by the Dalai Lama in her hands, her face where pain and wrong were etched, here becalmed, with faint chirps
Off Highway 106 At Cherrylog Road I entered The ’34 Ford without wheels, Smothered in kudzu, With a seat pulled out to run Corn whiskey down from the hills,
Deola passes her mornings sitting in a cafe, and nobody looks at her. Everyone’s rushing to work, under a sun still fresh with the dawn. Even Deola isn’t looking for anyone: she smokes serenely, breathing the morning. In years past, she slept at this hour to recover her strength: the throw on her bed was black with the boot-prints of soldiers and workers, the backbreaking clients. But now, on her own,
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