My sister in her well-tailored silk blouse hands me the photo of my father in naval uniform and white hat. I say, “Oh, this is the one which Mama used to have on her dresser.”
My sister controls her face and furtively looks at my mother, a sad rag bag of a woman, lumpy and sagging everywhere, like a mattress at the Salvation Army, though with no holes or tears, and says, “No.”
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:
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;
I always wonder what they think the niggers are doing while they, the pink and alabaster pragmatists, are containing Russia and defining and re-defining and re-aligning China,
Now as the farmer sits at his accounts Reviewing fleeces neath deciduous beeches And notes in red contented ink Net profits of his quite impossible serenity; As graded apples marketably beautiful Into the bushel-baskets sink And trussed hay to the tin roof reaches, And where red tiles through darkening trees are reared
Salvation comes by Jesus Christ alone, The only Son of God; Redemption now to every one, That love his holy Word. Dear Jesus we would fly to Thee, And leave off every Sin, Thy Tender Mercy well agree; Salvation from our King.
I am waiting for my case to come up and I am waiting for a rebirth of wonder and I am waiting for someone to really discover America and wail and I am waiting for the discovery
Up the reputable walks of old established trees They stalk, children of the nouveaux riches; chimes Of the tall Clock Tower drench their heads in blessing: “I don't wanna play at your house; I don't like you any more.” My house stands opposite, on the other hill, Among meadows, with the orchard fences down and falling; Deer come almost to the door.
Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind, What the weak head with strongest bias rules, Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools. Whatever Nature has in worth denied, She gives in large recruits of needful pride; For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind; Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence, And fills up all the mighty void of sense! If once right reason drives that cloud away, Truth breaks upon us with resistless day; Trust not yourself; but your defects to know, Make use of ev'ry friend—and ev'ry foe.
AS one who in his journey bates at Noone, Though bent on speed, so heer the Archangel paus'd Betwixt the world destroy'd and world restor'd, If Adam aught perhaps might interpose; Then with transition sweet new Speech resumes.
Thus thou hast seen one World begin and end; And Man as from a second stock proceed. Much thou hast yet to see, but I perceave Thy mortal sight to faile; objects divine Must needs impaire and wearie human sense: Henceforth what is to com I will relate, Thou therefore give due audience, and attend. This second sours of Men, while yet but few; And while the dread of judgement past remains
You whom I could not save Listen to me. Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another. I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words. I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.
What strengthened me, for you was lethal. You mixed up farewell to an epoch with the beginning of a new one, Inspiration of hatred with lyrical beauty;
We had a city also. Hand in hand Wandered happy as travellers our own land. Murmured in turn the hearsay of each stone Or, where a legend faltered, lived our own. The far-seen obelisk my father set (Pinning two roads forever where they met) Waved us in wandering circles, turned our tread Where once morass engulfed that passionate head.
Thus they in lowliest plight repentant stood Praying, for from the Mercie-seat above Prevenient Grace descending had remov'd The stonie from thir hearts, & made new flesh Regenerate grow instead, that sighs now breath'd Unutterable, which the Spirit of prayer Inspir'd, and wing'd for Heav'n with speedier flight Then loudest Oratorie: yet thir port
let elizur rejoice with the partridge Let Elizur rejoice with the Partridge, who is a prisoner of state and is proud of his keepers. For I am not without authority in my jeopardy, which I derive inevitably from the glory of the name of the Lord.
[Supposed to be written by one at the point of death] Give me my scallop shell of quiet, My staff of faith to walk upon, My scrip of joy, immortal diet, My bottle of salvation,
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