41 His classic studies made a little puzzle, Because of filthy loves of gods and goddesses, Who in the earlier ages raised a bustle, But never put on pantaloons or bodices; His reverend tutors had at times a tussle, And for their Aeneids, Iliads, and Odysseys, Were forced to make an odd sort of apology, For Donna Inez dreaded the mythology.
42 Ovid's a rake, as half his verses show him, Anacreon's morals are a still worse sample,
I came here, being stricken, stumbling out At last from streets; the sun, decreasing, took me For days, the time being the last of autumn, The thickets not yet stark, but quivering With tiny colors, like some brush strokes in The manner of the pointillists; small yellows Dart shaped, little reds in different pattern, Clicks and notches of color on threaded bushes,
For years my heart inquired of me Where Jamshid's sacred cup might be, And what was in its own possession It asked from strangers, constantly; Begging the pearl that's slipped its shell From lost souls wandering by the sea.
Last night I took my troubles to The Magian sage whose keen eyes see
Can we not force from widow'd poetry, Now thou art dead (great Donne) one elegy To crown thy hearse? Why yet dare we not trust, Though with unkneaded dough-bak'd prose, thy dust, Such as th' unscissor'd churchman from the flower Of fading rhetoric, short-liv'd as his hour, Dry as the sand that measures it, should lay Upon thy ashes, on the funeral day? Have we no voice, no tune? Didst thou dispense Through all our language, both the words and sense? 'Tis a sad truth. The pulpit may her plain And sober Christian precepts still retain, Doctrines it may, and wholesome uses, frame, Grave homilies and lectures, but the flame Of thy brave soul (that shot such heat and light
Difficile est proprie communia dicere HOR. Epist. ad Pison I Bob Southey! You're a poet—Poet-laureate, And representative of all the race; Although 'tis true that you turn'd out a Tory at
When thou, poor excommunicate From all the joys of love, shalt see The full reward and glorious fate Which my strong faith shall purchase me, Then curse thine own inconstancy.
A fairer hand than thine shall cure That heart, which thy false oaths did wound;
I am the centre Of a circle of pain Exceeding its boundaries in every direction
The business of the bland sun Has no affair with me In my congested cosmos of agony From which there is no escape On infinitely prolonged nerve-vibrations
It ever was allow’d, dear Madam, Ev’n from the days of father Adam, Of all perfection flesh is heir to, Fair patience is the gentlest virtue; This is a truth our grandames teach, Our poets sing, and parsons preach; Yet after all, dear Moll, the fact is We seldom put it into practice;
“Feel me to do right,” our father said on his deathbed. We did not quite know—in fact, not at all—what he meant. His last whisper was spent as through a slot in a wall. He left us a key, but how did it fit? “Feel me to do right.” Did it mean that, though he died, he would be felt through some aperture, or by some unseen instrument our dad just then had come to know? So, to do right always, we need but feel his spirit? Or was it merely his apology
1. At this precise moment of history With Goody-two-shoes running for Congress We are testing supersonic engines To keep God safe in the cherry tree. When I said so in this space last Thursday I meant what I said: power struggles.
2. You would never dream of such corn. The colonials in sandalwood like running wide open and available for protection. You can throw them away without a refund.
3. Dr. Hanfstaengel who was not called Putzi except by those who did not know him is taped in the national archives. J. Edgar Hoover he ought to know And does know.
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