Do not allow me to sink, I said To a top floating ribbon of kelp. As I was lifted on each wave And made to slide into the vale I wanted not to drown. I wanted To make it all right with my dear, To tell my cat I’ll be away, To have them all destroyed, the poems
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;
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.
—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
I have led her home, my love, my only friend, There is none like her, none. And never yet so warmly ran my blood And sweetly, on and on Calming itself to the long-wished-for end, Full to the banks, close on the promised good.
None like her, none. Just now the dry-tongued laurels’ pattering talk Seem’d her light foot along the garden walk, And shook my heart to think she comes once more; But even then I heard her close the door, The gates of Heaven are closed, and she is gone.
I In a far country, and a distant age, Ere sprites and fays had bade farewell to earth, A boy was born of humble parentage; The stars that shone upon his lonely birth Did seem to promise sovereignty and fame— Yet no tradition hath preserved his name.
II ’T is said that on the night when he was born, A beauteous shape swept slowly through the room; Its eyes broke on the infant like a morn, And his cheek brightened like a rose in bloom;
[Introduction] Lo now! four other acts upon the stage, Childhood, and Youth, the Manly, and Old-age. The first: son unto Phlegm, grand-child to water, Unstable, supple, moist, and cold’s his Nature. The second: frolic claims his pedigree; From blood and air, for hot and moist is he. The third of fire and choler is compos’d, Vindicative, and quarrelsome dispos’d. The last, of earth and heavy melancholy, Solid, hating all lightness, and all folly. Childhood was cloth’d in white, and given to show, His spring was intermixed with some snow. Upon his head a Garland Nature set: Of Daisy, Primrose, and the Violet.
When he would not return to fine garments and good food, to his houses and his people, Loingseachan told him, “Your father is dead.” “I’m sorry to hear it,” he said. “Your mother is dead,” said the lad. “All pity for me has gone out of the world.” “Your sister, too, is dead.” “The mild sun rests on every ditch,” he said; “a sister loves even though not loved.” “Suibhne, your daughter is dead.” “And an only daughter is the needle of the heart.” “And Suibhne, your little boy, who used to call you “Daddy”—he is dead.” “Aye,” said Suibhne, “that’s the drop that brings a man to the ground.” He fell out of the yew tree; Loingseachan closed his arms around him and placed him in manacles.—AFTER THE MIDDLE-IRISH ROMANCE, THE MADNESS OF SUIBHNE
Some days I catch a rhythm, almost a song in my own breath. I'm alone here in Brooklyn Heights, late morning, the sky above the St. George Hotel clear, clear for New York, that is. The radio playing "Bird Flight," Parker in his California tragic voice fifty years ago, his faltering "Lover Man" just before he crashed into chaos. I would guess that outside the recording studio in Burbank the sun was high above the jacarandas, it was late March, the worst of yesterday's rain had come and gone, the sky washed blue. Bird could have seen for miles if he'd looked, but what he saw was so foreign he clenched his eyes, shook his head, and barked like a dog—just once—
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