M A L L
OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA™
The Sixty
The Sixty is a short
entertainment and meditation of sixty poetry pieces that evoke feelings of
happy reminiscent times, humor, normal love and passion, purpose, sadness, and
sense (from authors who had it in a world filled with situations which time and
time again make none). The Sixty is also
a quick read, one allowing you to go about your day to day activities and Mall
of the United States of America in record time efficiently and joyfully without
developing a poem-reading addiction or spending too much time on poems. Reflect upon your own personal experiences
while enjoying the unique special enchantment of each selection, and come back
frequently to relive the beauty, comedy, extraordinary burning and genuine
love, power, and wisdom your favorite poems make nicely imaginable – never
forgetting the way they each make you feel every time.
1918
BORIS PASTERNAK
Stars were racing; waves were washing headlands.
Salt went blind, and tears were slowly drying.
Darkened were the bedrooms; thoughts were racing,
And the Sphinx was listening to the desert.
Candles swam. It seemed
that the Colossus’
Blood grew cold; upon his lips was spreading
The blue shadow smile of the Sahara.
With the turning tide the night was waning.
Sea-breeze from Morocco touched the water.
Simooms blew. In snowdrifts
snored Archangel.
Candles swam; the rough draft of ‘The Prophet’
Slowly dried, and dawn broke on the Ganges
A Lecture upon the Shadow
JOHN DONNE
Stand still, and I will read to thee
A lecture, love, in love’s philosophy.
These three hours that we
have spent,
Walking here, two shadows
went
Along with us, which we
ourselves produc’d.
But, now the sun is just above our head,
We do those shadows tread,
And to brave clearness all
things are reduc’d.
So whilst our infant loves did grow,
Disguises did, and shadows, flow
From us, and our cares; but now ’tis not so.
That love has not attain’d the high’st degree,
Which is still diligent lest others see.
Except our loves at this noon stay,
We shall new shadows make the other way.
As the first were made to
blind
Others, these which come
behind
Will work upon ourselves,
and blind our eyes.
If our loves faint, and
westwardly decline,
To me thou, falsely, thine,
And I to thee mine actions
shall disguise.
The morning shadows wear
away,
But these grow longer all
the day;
But oh, love’s day is short,
if love decay.
Love is a growing, or full
constant light,
And his first minute, after
noon, is night.
As the Ruin Falls
CLIVE STAPLES LEWIS
All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.
Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love—a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek—
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.
Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And
everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man.
And now the bridge is breaking.
For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.
At the Un-National Monument along the Canadian Border
WILLIAM STAFFORD
This
is the field where the battle did not happen,
where the unknown soldier did not die.
This is the field where grass joined hands,
where no monument stands,
and the only heroic thing is the sky.
Birds
fly here without any sound,
unfolding their wings across the open.
No people killed—or were killed—on this ground
hallowed by neglect and an air so tame
that people celebrate it by forgetting its name.
Barbra Allen
(Author is unknown.)
In London City where I once did dwell, there’s where I got my
learning,
I fell in love with a pretty young girl, her name was Barbra
Allen.
I courted her for seven long years, she said she would not have
me;
Then straightaway home as I could go and liken to a dying.
I wrote her a letter on my death bed, I wrote it slow and moving;
‘Go take this letter to my old true love and tell her I am dying.’
She took the letter in her lily-white hand, she read it slow and
moving;
‘Go take this letter back to him, and tell him I am coming.’
As she passed by his dying bed she saw his pale lips quivering;
“No better, no better I’ll ever be until I get Barbra Allen.”
As she passed by his dying bed; “You’re very sick and almost
dying,
No better, no better you will ever be, for you can’t get Barbra
Allen.”
As she went down the long stair steps she heard the death bell
toning,
And every bell appeared to say, ‘Hard-hearted Barbra Allen!’
As she went down the long piney walk she heard some small birds
singing,
And every bird appeared to say, ‘Hard-hearted Barbra Allen!’
She looked to the East, she looked to the West, she saw the pale
corpse coming,
“Go bring them pale corpse unto me, and let me gaze upon them.
Oh, mama, mama, go make my bed, go make it soft and narrow!
Sweet Willie died today for me, I’ll die for him tomorrow!”
They buried Sweet Willie in the old church yard, they buried Miss
Barbra beside him;
And out of his grave there sprang a red rose, and out of hers a
briar.
They grew to the top of the old church tower, they could not grow
any higher,
They hooked, they tied in a true love’s knot, red rose around the
briar.
Birdsong
(Author is unknown.)
He doesn’t know the world at all
Who stays in his nest and doesn’t go out.
He doesn’t know what birds know best
Nor what I want to sing about,
That the world is full of loveliness.
When dewdrops sparkle in the grass
And earth’s aflood with morning light,
A blackbird sings upon a bush
To greet the dawning after night.
Then I know how fine it is to live.
Hey, try to open up your heart
To beauty; go to the woods someday
And weave a wreath of memory there.
Then if the tears obscure your way
You’ll know how wonderful it is
To be alive.
Bitter-Sweet
GEORGE HERBERT
Ah, my dear angry Lord,
Since Thou dost love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford;
Sure I will do the like.
I will complain, yet praise;
I will bewail, approve:
And all my sour-sweet days
I will lament, and love.
The Dream
JOHN DONNE
Dear Love, for nothing less than thee
Would I have broke this happy dream;
It was a theme
For reason, much too strong
for fantasy,
Therefore thou wak’d’st me wisely; yet
My dream thou brok’st not, but continued’st it.
Thou art so true that thoughts of thee suffice
To make dreams truths, and fables histories;
Enter these arms, for since thou thought’st it best,
Not to dream all my dream, let’s act the rest.
As lightning, or a
taper’s light,
Thine eyes, and not thy noise wak’d me;
Yet I thought thee
(For thou lovest truth) an
angel, at first sight;
But when I saw thou sawest
my heart,
And knew’st my thoughts,
beyond an angel’s art,
When thou knew’st what I
dreamt, when thou knew’st when
Excess of joy would wake me,
and cam’st then,
I must confess, it could not
choose but be
Profane, to think thee any
thing but thee.
Coming and staying show’d
thee, thee,
But rising makes me doubt, that now
Thou art not thou.
That love is weak where
fear’s as strong as he;
’Tis not all spirit, pure
and brave,
If mixture it of fear,
shame, honour have;
Perchance as torches, which
must ready be,
Men light and put out, so
thou deal’st with me;
Thou cam’st so kindle, goest
to come; then I
Will dream that hope again,
but else would die.
Enticer
RICHARD WILLARD ARMOUR
A married man who begs his friend,
A bachelor, to wed and end
His lonesome, sorry
state,
Is like a bather in the sea,
Goose-pimpled, blue from neck to knee,
Who cries, “The water’s
great!”
Eve
RALPH HODGSON
Eve, with her basket, was
Deep in the bells and grass
Wading in bells and grass
Up to her knees,
Picking a dish of sweet
Berries and plums to eat,
Down in the bells and grass
Under the trees.
Mute as a mouse in a
Corner the cobra lay,
Curled round a bough of the
Cinnamon tall . . .
Now to get even and
Humble proud heaven and
Now was the moment or
Never at all.
‘Eva!’ Each syllable
Light as a flower fell,
‘Eva!’ he whispered the
Wondering maid,
Soft as a bubble sung
Out of a linnet’s lung,
Soft and most silverly
‘Eva!’ he said.
Picture that orchard sprite,
Eve, with her body white,
Supple and smooth to her
Slim finger tips,
Wondering, listening,
Listening, wondering,
Eve with a berry
Half-way to her lips.
Oh had our simple Eve
Seen through the make-believe!
Had she but known the
Pretender he was!
Out of the boughs he came,
Whispering still her name,
Tumbling in twenty rings
Into the grass.
Here was the strangest pair
In the world anywhere,
Eve in the bells and grass
Kneeling, and he
Telling his story low . . .
Singing birds saw them go
Down the dark path to
The Blasphemous Tree.
Oh, what a clatter when
Titmouse and Jenny Wren
Saw him successful and
Taking his leave!
How the birds rated him,
How they all hated him!
How they all pitied
Poor motherless Eve!
Picture her crying
Outside in the lane,
Eve, with no dish of sweet
Berries and plums to eat,
Haunting the gate of the
Orchard in vain . . .
Picture the lewd delight
Under the hill tonight—
‘Eva!’ the toast goes round,
‘Eva!’ again.
Fear
RAYMOND CARVER
Fear of seeing a police car pull into the drive.
Fear of falling asleep at night.
Fear of not falling asleep.
Fear of the past rising up.
Fear of the present taking flight.
Fear of the telephone that rings in the dead of night.
Fear of electrical storms.
Fear of the cleaning woman who has a spot on her cheek!
Fear of dogs I’ve been told won’t bite.
Fear of anxiety!
Fear of having to identify the body of a dead friend.
Fear of running out of money.
Fear of having too much, though people will not believe this.
Fear of psychological profiles.
Fear of being late and fear of arriving before anyone else.
Fear of my children’s handwriting on envelopes.
Fear they’ll die before I do, and I’ll feel guilty.
Fear of having to live with my mother in her old age, and mine.
Fear of confusion.
Fear this day will end on an unhappy note.
Fear of waking up to find you gone.
Fear of not loving and fear of not loving enough.
Fear that what I love will prove lethal to those I love.
Fear of death.
Fear of living too long.
Fear of death.
I’ve said that.
Hawks
CHARLES TOMLINSON
Hawks hovering, calling to each other
Across the air, seem
swung
Too high on the risen wind
For the earth-clung
contact of our world:
And yet we share with them that sense
The season is bringing
in, of all
The lengthening light is promising to exact
From the obduracy of March. The pair
After their kind are lovers and their cries
Such as lovers alone
exchange, and we
Though we cannot tell what it is they say,
Caught up into their
calling, are in their sway,
And ride where we cannot climb the steep
And altering air,
breathing the sweetness
Of our own excess, till we are kinned
By space we never
thought to enter
On capable wings to such reaches of desire.
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
The Highwayman
ALFRED NOYES
PART I
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding–
Riding–riding–
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
He’d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his
chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin.
They fitted with never a wrinkle.
His boots were up to the thigh.
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts
a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard.
He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and
barred.
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the
landlord’s daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened.
His face was white and peaked.
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord’s daughter,
The landlord’s
red-lipped daughter.
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say–
‘One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I’m after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by
moonlight,
I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.’
He rose upright in the stirrups.
He scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair in the casement. His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(O, sweet black
waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to
the west.
PART II
He did not come in the dawning.
He did not come at noon;
And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise of the moon,
When the road was a gypsy’s ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching–
Marching–marching–
King George’s men came marching, up to the old inn-door.
They said no word to the landlord.
They drank his ale instead.
But they gagged his daughter, and bound her, to the foot of her
narrow bed.
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And hell at one
dark window;
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.
They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest.
They had bound a musket beside her, with the muzzle beneath her
breast!
‘Now, keep good watch!’ and they kissed her. She heard the doomed man say–
Look for me by
moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I’ll come to
thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!
She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or
blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled
by like years
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the
stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it!
The trigger at least was hers!
The tip of one finger touched it.
She strove no more for the rest.
Up, she stood up to attention, with the muzzle beneath her breast.
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
Blank and bare in
the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins, in the moonlight, throbbed to her
love’s refrain.
Tlot-tlot;
tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horsehoofs ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot;
tlot-tlot, in
the distance? Were they deaf that they
did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding–
Riding–riding–
The red coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still.
Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot,
in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer.
His face was like a light.
Her eyes grew wide for moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket
shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him–with her
death.
He turned. He spurred to
the west; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o’er the musket, drenched with her own blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, and his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord’s daughter,
The landlord’s
black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the
darkness there.
Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished
high.
Blood red were his spurs in the golden noon; wine-red was his
velvet coat;
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on
the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at
his throat.
* * *
* *
And still of a
winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon
is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road
is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman
comes riding–
Riding–riding–
A highwayman
comes riding, up to the old inn-door.
Over the cobbles
he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard.
He taps with
his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred.
He whistles a
tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the
landlord’s black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord’s daughter,
Plaiting a
dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
Hymn to the Night
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
'Ασπασίη,
τρίλλιστος
I heard the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her
marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial
walls!
I felt her presence, by its spell of might,
Stoop o’er me from
above;
The calm, majestic presence of the Night,
As of the one I love.
I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
The manifold, soft
chimes,
That fill the haunted chambers of the Night
Like some old poet’s
rhymes.
From the cool cisterns of the midnight air
My spirit drank repose;
The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,—
From those deep
cisterns flows.
O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear
What man has borne
before!
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,
And they complain no
more.
Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!
Descend with broad-winged
flight,
The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,
The best-beloved Night!
Internal Harmony
GEORGE MEREDITH
Assured of worthiness we do not dread
Competitors; we rather give them hail
And greeting in the lists where we may fail:
Must, if we bear an aim beyond the head!
My betters are my masters:
purely fed
By their sustainment I likewise shall scale
Some rocky steps between the mount and vale;
Meanwhile the mark I have and I will wed.
So that I draw the breath of finer air,
Station is nought, nor footways laurel-strewn,
Nor rivals tightly belted for the race,
Good speed to them! My
place is here or there;
My pride is that among them I have place:
And thus I keep this instrument in tune.
Intoxication
BORIS PASTERNAK
Under osiers with ivy ingrown
We are trying to hide from bad weather.
I am clasping your arms in my own,
In one cloak we are huddled together.
I was wrong. Not with
ivy-leaves bound,
But with hops overgrown is the willow.
Well then, let us spread out on the ground
This our cloak as a sheet and a pillow.
It Is a Beauteous Evening
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free;
The holy time is quiet as a nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is
awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder—everlastingly.
Dear child! dear girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year,
And worship’st at the Temple’s inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.
The Junior God
ROBERT WILLIAM SERVICE
The Junior God looked from his place
In the conning towers
of heaven,
And he saw the world through the span of space
Like a giant golf-ball
driven.
And because he was bored, as some gods are,
With high celestial
mirth,
He clutched the reins of a shooting star,
And he steered it down
to earth.
The Junior God, ’mid leaf and bud,
Passed on with a weary
air,
Till lo! he came to a pool of mud,
And some hogs were
rolling there.
Then in he plunged with gleeful cries,
And down he lay supine;
For they had no mud in paradise,
And they likewise had
no swine.
The Junior God forgot himself;
He squelched mud
through his toes;
With the careless joy of a wanton boy
His reckless laughter
rose.
Till, tired at last, in a brook close by,
He washed off every stain;
Then softly up to the radiant sky
He rose, a god again.
The Junior God now heads the roll
In the list of heaven’s
peers;
He sits in the House of High Control,
And he regulates the
spheres.
Yet does he wonder, do you suppose,
If, even in gods
divine,
The best and wisest may not be those
Who have wallowed
awhile with the swine?
The Last Leaf
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again
The pavement stones resound
As he totters o’er the ground
With his cane.
They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the crier on his round
Through the town.
But now he walks the streets,
And he looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
‘They are gone.’
The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.
My grandmamma has said—
Poor old lady, she is dead
Long ago—
That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow.
But now his nose is thin,
And it rests upon his chin
Like a staff,
And a crook is in his back,
And a melancholy crack
In his laugh.
I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!
And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.
Lazybones
PABLO NERUDA
In Chile now, cherries are dancing,
the dark, secretive girls are singing,
and in guitars, water is shining.
The sun is touching every door
and making wonder of the wheat.
The first wine is pink in colour,
is sweet with the sweetness of a child,
the second wine is able-bodied,
strong like the voice of a sailor,
the third wine is a topaz, is
a poppy and a fire in one.
My house has both the sea and the earth,
my woman has great eyes
the colour of wild hazelnut,
when night comes down, the sea
puts on a dress of white and green,
and later the moon in the spindrift foam
dreams like a sea-green girl.
I have no wish to change my planet.
Love
(Author is unknown.)
There’s the wonderful love of a beautiful maid,
And the love of a
staunch true man,
And the love of a baby that’s unafraid—
All have existed since
time began.
But the most wonderful love, the Love of all loves,
Even greater than the
love for Mother,
Is the infinite, tenderest, passionate love
Of one dead drunk for
another.
Love (III)
GEORGE HERBERT
Love bade me welcome: yet
my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From
my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I
lacked anything.
‘A guest,’ I answered, ‘worthy to be here’:
Love
said, ‘You shall be he.’
‘I, the unkind, ungrateful?
Ah, my dear,
I
cannot look on thee.’
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
‘Who made the eyes but I?’
‘Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
Go
where it doth deserve.’
‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘who bore the blame?’
‘My
dear, then I will serve.’
‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’
So I
did sit and eat.
Love in Twilight
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
THERE is darkness behind the light—and the pale light drips
Cold on vague shapes and figures, that, half-seen loom
Like the carven prows of proud, far-triumphing ships—
And the firelight wavers and changes about the room,
As the three logs crackle and burn with a small still sound;
Half-blotting with dark the deeper dark of her hair,
Where she lies, head pillowed on arm, and one hand curved round
To shield the white face and neck from the faint thin glare.
Gently she breathes—and the long limbs lie at ease,
And the rise and fall of the young, slim, virginal breast
Is as certain-sweet as the march of slow wind through trees,
Or the great soft passage of clouds in a sky at rest.
I kneel, and our arms enlace, and we kiss long, long.
I am drowned in her as in sleep.
There is no more pain.
Only the rustle of flames like a broken song
That rings half-heard through the dusty halls of the brain.
One shaking and fragile moment of ecstasy,
While the grey gloom flutters and beats like an owl above.
And I would not move or speak for the sea or the sky
Or the flame-bright wings of the miraculous Dove!
Love Song: I and Thou
ALAN DUGAN
Nothing is plumb, level or square:
the studs are bowed,
the joists
are shaky by nature, no piece fits
any other piece without
a gap
or pinch, and bent nails
dance all over the
surfacing
like maggots. By Christ
I am no carpenter. I built
the roof for myself, the walls
for myself, the floors
for myself, and got
hung up in it
myself. I
danced with a purple thumb
at this house-warming,
drunk
with my prime whiskey:
rage.
Oh I spat rage’s nails
into the frame-up of my work:
it held. It settled plumb,
level, solid, square and true
for that one
moment. Then
it screamed and went on through
skewing as wrong the other
way.
God damned it. This is
hell,
but I planned it, I
sawed it,
I nailed it, and I
will live in it until
it kills me.
I can nail my left palm
to the left-hand
cross-piece but
I can’t do everything myself.
I need a hand to nail
the right,
a help, a love, a you, a wife.
Love-Hate1
GAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS
I hate and I love. And why,
perhaps you’ll ask.
I don’t know: but I feel,
and I’m tormented.
1Alternate
more contemporary translation is later poem ‘LXXXV’. ‘Love-Hate’ is Catullus’ eighty-fifth poetry
piece.
Lucifer in Starlight
GEORGE MEREDITH
On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose.
Tired of his dark dominion, swung the fiend
Above the rolling ball, in cloud part screened,
Where sinners hugged their specter of repose.
Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.
And now upon his western wing he leaned,
Now his huge bulk o’er Afric’s sands careened,
Now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows.
Soaring through wider zones that pricked his scars
With memory of the old revolt from Awe,
He reached a middle height, and at the stars,
Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank.
Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank,
The army of unalterable law.
LXXXV2
GAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS
I hate and I love. Why? you
might ask
but I can’t tell. The
feeling seizes me
and riddles me with pain.
2Literal
translation is earlier poem ‘Love-Hate’.
May He Lose His Way on the Cold Sea
ARCHILOCHUS
May he lose his way on the cold sea
And swim to the heathen Salmydessos,
May the ungodly Thracians with their hair
Done up in a fright on the top of their heads
Grab him, that he may know what it is to be alone
Without friend or family.
May he eat slave’s bread
And suffer the plague and freeze naked,
Laced about with the nasty trash of the sea.
May his teeth knock the top on the bottom
As he lies on his face, spitting brine,
At the edge of the cold sea, like a dog.
And all this it would be a privilege to watch,
Giving me great satisfaction as it would,
For he took back the word he gave in honor,
Over the salt and table at a friendly meal.
The Men that Don’t Fit In
ROBERT WILLIAM SERVICE
There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t stay
still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world
at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the
mountain’s crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don’t know how
to rest.
If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and
brave and true;
But they’re always tired of the things that are,
And they want the
strange and new.
They say: ‘Could I find my
proper groove,
What a deep mark I
would make!’
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh
mistake.
And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant,
fitful pace,
It’s the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win the lifelong
race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime
is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that’s dead,
In the glare of the
truth at last.
He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things
by half.
Life’s been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to
laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the
Legion Lost;
He was never meant to
win;
He’s a rolling stone, and it’s bred in the bone;
He’s a man who won’t
fit in.
The Mortgage: to Furius3
GAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS
Furius, your little villa’s not exposed
to the southerlies, or the westerlies,
the savage north-wind, or the easterly breeze,
but truly to fifteen thousand two hundred cash.
O terrifying and destructive wind!
3’The Mortgage: to Furius’ is Catullus’ twenty-sixth poetic
work; translation is literal.
My Star
ROBERT BROWNING
All that I know
Of a certain star
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue;
Till my friends have said
They would fain see,
too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:
They must solace
themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?
Mine has opened its
soul to me; therefore I love it.
Oh terrible, beloved! A poet’s loving
BORIS PASTERNAK
Oh terrible, beloved! A
poet’s loving
Is a restless god’s passionate rage,
And chaos out into the world comes creeping,
As in the ancient fossil age.
His eyes weep him mist by the ton,
Enveloped in tears he is mammoth-like,
Out of fashion. He knows it
must not be done.
Ages have passed-he does not know why.
He sees wedding parties all around,
Drunken unions celebrated unaware,
Common frogspawn found in every pond
Ritually adorned as precious caviare.
Like some Watteau pearl, how cleverly
A snuffbox embraces all life’s matter,
And vengeance is wreaked on him, probably
Because, where they distort and flatter,
Where simpering comfort lies and fawns,
Where they rub idle shoulders, crawl like drones,
He will raise your sister from the ground,
Use her like a bacchante from the Grecian urns,
And pour into his kiss the Andes’ melting,
And morning in the steppe, under the sway
Of dusted stars, as night’s pallid bleating
Bustles about the village on its way.
And the botanical vestry’s dense blackness,
And all the ravine’s age-old breath,
Waft over the ennui of the stuffed mattress,
And the forest’s ancient chaos spurts forth
On a Clergyman’s Horse Biting Him
(Author is unknown.)
The steed bit his master;
How came this to pass?
He heard the good pastor
Cry, ‘All flesh is
grass.’
On Looking for Models
ALAN DUGAN
The trees in time
have something else to do
besides their treeing. What
is it.
I’m a starving to death
man myself, and thirsty, thirsty
by their fountains but I cannot drink
their mud and sunlight to be whole.
I do not understand these presences
that drink for months
in the dirt, eat light,
and then fast dry in the cold.
They stand it out somehow,
and how, the Botanists will tell me.
It is the ‘something else’ that bothers
me, so I often go back to the forests.
Parental Pride
RICHARD WILLARD ARMOUR
My day-old son is plenty scrawny,
his mouth is wide with screams, or yawny;
His ears seem larger than he’s needing,
His nose is flat, his chin’s receding.
His skin is very, very red,
He has no hair upon his head,
and yet I’m proud as can be,
To hear you say he looks like me.
Poetry Is a Destructive Force
WALLACE STEVENS
That’s what misery is,
Nothing to have at heart.
It is to have or nothing.
It is a thing to have,
A lion, an ox in his breast,
To feel it breathing there.
Corazon, stout dog,
Young ox, bow-legged bear,
He tastes its blood, not spit.
He is like a man
In the body of a violent beast
Its muscles are his own . . .
The lion sleeps in the sun.
Its nose is on its paws.
It can kill a man.
Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man
OGDEN NASH
It is common knowledge to every schoolboy and even every Bachelor
of Arts,
That all sin is divided into two parts.
One kind of sin is called a sin of commission, and that is very
important,
And it is what you are doing when you are doing something you
ortant,
And the other kind of sin is just the opposite and is called a sin
of omission and is equally bad in the eyes of all right-thinking people, from
Billy Sunday to Buddha,
And it consists of not having done something you shuddha.
I might as well give you my opinion of these two kinds of sin as
long as, in a way, against each other we are pitting them,
And that is, don’t bother your head about sins of commission
because however sinful, they must at least be fun or else you wouldn’t be
committing them.
It is the sin of omission, the second kind of sin,
That lays eggs under your skin.
The way you get really painfully bitten
Is by the insurance you haven’t taken out and the checks you
haven’t added up the stubs of and the appointments you haven’t kept and the
bills you haven’t paid and the letters you haven’t written.
Also, about sins of omission there is one particularly painful
lack of beauty,
Namely, it isn’t as though it had been a riotous red-letter day or
night every time you neglected to do your duty;
You didn’t get a wicked forbidden thrill
Every time you let a policy lapse or forgot to pay a bill;
You didn’t slap the lads in the tavern on the back and loudly cry
Whee,
Let’s all fail to write just one more letter before we go home,
and this round of unwritten letters is on me.
No, you never get any fun
Out of things you haven’t done,
But they are the things that I do not like to be amid,
Because the suitable things you didn’t do give you a lot more
trouble than the unsuitable things you did.
The moral is that it is probably better not to sin at all, but if
some kind of sin you must be pursuing,
Well, remember to do it by doing rather than by not doing.
Psalm 121: A song of degrees
KING DAVID
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my
help.
My help cometh from the
LORD, which made heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is
thy shade upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.
The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this
time forth, and even for evermore.
Psalm 133: A song of
degrees of David
KING DAVID
Behold,
how good and how pleasant it is for
brethren to dwell together in unity!
It is like the precious ointment
upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard: that
went down to the skirts of his garments;
As
the dew of Herˊ-mon, and as the dew
that descended upon the mountains of Zion:
for there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.
Relativity and the ‘Physics’ of
Love
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Sit next to a pretty girl for an hour,
it seems like a minute.
Sit on a red-hot stove for a minute,
it seems like an hour.
That's relativity!
Oh, it should be possible
to explain the laws of physics
to a barmaid! . . .
but how could she ever,
in a million years,
explain love to an Einstein?
All these primary impulses,
not easily described in words,
are the springboards
of man's actions—because
any man who can drive safely
while kissing a pretty girl
is simply not giving the kiss
the attention it deserves!
Remembrance
EMILY BRONTË
Cold in the earth—and the deep snow piled above thee,
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time’s all-severing wave?
Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains, on that northern shore,
Resting their wings where heath and fern leaves cover
Thy noble heart forever, ever more?
Cold in the earth—and fifteen wild Decembers,
From those brown hills, have melted into spring;
Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers
After such years of change and suffering!
Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee,
While the world’s tide is bearing me along;
Other desires and other hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!
No later light has lightened up my heaven,
No second morn has ever shone for me;
All my life’s bliss from thy dear life was given,
All my life’s bliss is in the grave with thee.
But, when the days of golden dreams had perished,
And even Despair was powerless to destroy,
Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,
Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy.
Then did I check the tears of useless passion—
Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;
Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten
Down to that tomb already more than mine.
And, even yet, I dare not let it languish,
Dare not indulge in memory’s rapturous pain;
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again?
Rhyme 21
GUSTAVO ADOLFO BÉCQUER
What is poetry? you ask, while fixing
your blue pupil on mine.
What is poetry! And you are asking me?
Poetry . . . is you.
¿Qué es poesía?, dices mientras clavas
en mi pupila tu pupila azul.
¡Qué es poesía! ¿Y tú me lo
preguntas?
Poesía . . . eres tú.
Rose Aylmer
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Ah, what avails the sceptered race,
Ah, what the form
divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never
see,
A night of memories and of sighs
I consecrate to thee.
The Seven Spiritual Ages of Mrs. Marmaduke Moore
OGDEN NASH
Mrs.
Marmaduke Moore, at the age of ten
(Her
name was Jemima Jevons then),
Was
the quaintest of little country maids.
Her
pigtails slapped on her shoulderblades;
She
fed the chickens, and told the truth
And
could spit like a boy through a broken tooth.
She
could climb a tree to the topmost perch,
And
she used to pray in the Methodist church.
At
the age of twenty her heart was pure,
And
she caught the fancy of Mr. Moore.
He
broke his troth (to a girl named Alice),
And
carried her off to his city palace,
Where
she soon forgot her childhood piety
And
joined the orgies of high society.
Her
voice grew English, or, say, Australian,
And
she studied to be an Episcopalian.
At
thirty our lives are still before us,
But
Mr. Moore had a friend in the chorus.
Connubial
bliss was overthrown
And
Mrs. Moore now slumbered alone.
Hers
was a nature that craved affection;
She
gave herself up to introspection;
Then
finding theosophy rather dry
Found
peace in the sweet Bahai and Bahai.
Forty!
and still an abandoned wife,
She
felt old urges stirring to life,
She
dipped her locks in a bowl of henna
And
booked a passage through to Vienna.
She
paid a professor a huge emolument
To
demonstrate what his ponderous volumes meant.
Returning
she preached to the unemployed
The
gospel according to St. Freud.
Fifty!
she haunted museums and galleries,
And
pleased young men by augmenting their salaries.
Oh,
it shouldn’t occur, but it does occur,
That
poets are made by fools like her.
Her
salon was full of frangipani,
Roumanian,
Russian and Hindustani
And
she conquered par as well as bogey
By
reading a book and going Yogi.
Sixty!
and time was on her hands—
Maybe
remorse and maybe glands.
She
felt a need for free confession
To
publish each youthful indiscretion,
And
before she was gathered to her mothers,
To
compare her sinlets with those of others,
Mrs.
Moore gave a joyous whoop,
And
immersed herself in the Oxford group.
That
is the story of Mrs. Moore,
As
far as it goes. But of this I’m sure—
When
seventy stares her in the face
She’ll
have found some other state of grace.
Mohammed
may be her lord and master,
Or
Zeus, or Mithros, or Zoroaster,
For
when a lady is badly sexed
God
knows what God is coming next.
Song: When I Am Dead, My
Dearest
CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI
When
I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant
thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree.
Be
the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And
if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
I
shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I
shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on as if in pain.
And
dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply
I may remember,
And haply may forget.
Sonnet 43: From the
Portuguese
(How Do I Love Thee? Let Me
Count the Ways)
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
How
do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Sonnet 116: Shakespeare’s
Sonnets/
SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.
(Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds)
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Let
me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit
impediments. Love is not love
Which
alters when it alteration finds,
Or
bends with the remover to remove,
O,
no! it is an ever-fixèd mark
That
looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It
is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose
worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s
not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within
his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love
alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But
bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down
KRIS KRISTOFFERSON
Well, I woke up Sunday mornin’
with no way to hold my
head that didn’t hurt;
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad,
so I had one more for
dessert;
Then I fumbled in my closet
through my clothes and
found my cleanest dirty shirt;
Then I washed my face, and combed my hair,
and stumbled down the
stairs to meet the day.
I’d smoked my mind the night before
with cigarettes and
songs I’d been pickin’;
But I lit my first and watched a small kid
playing with a can that
he was kickin’;
Then I walked across the empty street and caught
the Sunday smell of someone
fryin’ chicken;
And it took me back to somethin’ that
I’d lost somewhere
somehow along the way.
On the Sunday mornin’ sidewalk, I’m wishin, Lord, that I was
stoned,
‘Cause there’s
something in a Sunday that makes a body feel alone;
And there’s nothing short of dyin’ that’s half
as lonesome as the sound
On the sleeping
city sidewalk; and Sunday mornin’ comin’ down.
In the park I saw a daddy
with a laughing little
girl that he was swingin’;
And I stopped beside a Sunday school
and listened to the
song they were singin’;
Then I headed down the street,
and somewhere far away
a lonely bell was ringin’;
And it echoed thru the canyon
like a disappearing
dream of yesterday.
On the Sunday mornin’ sidewalk, I’m wishin’, Lord, that I was
stoned,
‘Cause there’s
something in a Sunday that make a body feel alone;
And there’s nothing
short of dyin’ that’s half as lonesome as the sound
On the sleeping
city sidewalk; and Sunday mornin’ comin’ down.
Thirty Days Hath September
(Author is unknown.)
Thirty days hath September,
ApriI, June, and November.
All the rest have thirty-one,
Except February alone,
To which we twenty-eight assign,
Till leap year makes it twenty-nine.
This Heart that Flutters Near My
Heart
JAMES JOYCE
This heart that flutters near my heart
My hope and all my riches is,
Unhappy when we draw apart
And happy between kiss and kiss;
My hope and all my riches—yes!—
And all my happiness.
For there, as in some mossy nest
The wrens will divers treasures keep,
I laid those treasures I possessed
Ere that mine eyes had learned to weep.
Shall we not be as wise as they
Though love live but a day?
The Three Roses4
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
When the buds began to burst,
Long ago, with Rose the First
I was walking; joyous then
Far above all other men,
Till before us up there stood
Britonferry’s oaken wood,
Whispering, ‘Happy as thou
art,
Happiness and
thou must part.’
Many summers have gone by
Since a Second Rose and I
(Rose from that same stem) have told
This and other tales of old.
She upon her wedding day
Carried home my tenderest lay:
From her lap I now have heard
Gleeful, chirping, Rose the Third.
Not for her this hand of
mine
Rhyme with nuptial wreath shall twine;
Cold and torpid it must lie,
Mute the tongue, and closed the eye.
4This sequel
to the poem, Rose Aylmer, is a romanticized biography of the Rose Aylmer daughters’
line with the first Rose being Rose Aylmer herself, the second her niece, and
third her grandniece.
To a Young Girl
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
My dear, my dear, I know
More than another
What makes your heart beat so;
Not even your own mother
Can know it as I know,
Who broke my heart for her
When the wild thought,
That she denies
And has forgot,
Set all her blood astir
And glittered in her eyes.
To My Dear and Loving Husband5
ANNE DUDLEY BRADSTREET
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye women if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee, give recompence.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold I pray.
Then while we live, in love lets so persever,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
5‘To My Dear
and Loving Husband’ was first published in 1678.
To Myself
PAUL FLEMING
Let nothing make thee sad or fretful,
Or too regretful;
Be still;
What God hath ordered must be right;
Then find in it thine own delight,
My will.
Why shouldst thou fill to-day with sorrow
About to-morrow.
My heart?
_One_watches all with care most true;
Doubt not that he will give thee too
Thy part.
Only be steadfast; never waver,
Nor seek earth’s favor,
But rest:
Thou knowest what God wills must be
For all his creatures, so for thee,
The best.
Truth
JAMES HEARST
How the devil do I know
if there are rocks in your field,
plow it and find out.
If the plow strikes something
harder than earth, the point
shatters at a sudden blow
and the tractor jerks sidewise
and dumps you off the seat—
because the spring hitch
isn’t set to trip quickly enough
and it never is—probably
you hit a rock. That means
the glacier emptied his pocket
in your field as well as mine,
but the connection with a thing
is the only truth that I know of,
so plow it.
The Two Rivers6
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Slowly the hour-hand of the clock moves round;
So slowly that no human eye hath power
To see it move! Slowly in
shine or shower
The painted ship above it homeward bound,
Sails but seems motionless as if aground;
Yet both arrive at last; and in his tower
The slumberous watchman wakes and strikes the hour,
A mellow, measured, melancholy sound.
Midnight! the outpost of advancing day!
The frontier town and citadel of night!
The watershed of Time, from which the streams
Of Yesterday and Tomorrow take their way,
One to the land of promise and of light,
One to the land of darkness and of dreams.
6The object in
this work is the classic grandfather clock, one with a miniature picture of a
ship riding waves of the sea to the beat of the clock pendulum (the picture is
located above the dial of the clock). A
miniature watchman emerges from his tower every hour to sound the new hour by
his strike.
Village Don Juan
ROBERT WILLIAM SERVICE
Lord, I’m grey, my face is run,
But by old Harry, I’ve had my fun;
And all about, I seem to see
Lads and lassies that look like me;
Ice-blue eyes on every hand,
Handsomest youngsters in the land.
‘Old Stud Horse’ they say of me,
But back of my beard I laugh with glee.
Far and wide have I sown my seed,
Yet by the gods I’ve improved the breed:
From byre and stable to joiner’s bench,
From landlord’s daughter to serving wench.
Ice-blue eyes and blade-straight nose,
Stamp of my virile youth are those;
Now you’ll see them on every side,
Proof of my powers, far and wide:
Even the parson’ handsome scamp,
And the Doctor’s daughter have my stamp.
Many a matron cocks an eye
Of secret knowledge as I pass by;
As for the hubbies, what they don’t know
Will never hurt them, so let them go:
The offspring most they seem to prize
Have blade-straight noses and ice-blue byes.
Yet oh, I have a haunting dread
Brother and sister lust the bed;
The Parson’s and the Doctor’s lass,
Yestreen in the moon I saw them pass;
The thought of them wed is like a knife. . . .
Brother and sister – man and wife.
What Makes a Dad
(Author is unknown.)
God took the strength of a mountain,
The majesty of a tree,
The warmth of a summer sun,
The calm of a quiet sea,
The generous soul of nature,
The comforting arm of night,
The wisdom of the ages,
The power of the eagle’s flight,
The joy of a morning in spring,
The faith of a mustard seed,
The patience of eternity,
The depth of a family need,
Then God combined these qualities,
When there was nothing more to add,
He knew His masterpiece was complete,
And so, He called it . . . Dad
Women and Roses
ROBERT BROWNING
1
I dream of a red-rose tree.
And which of its roses three
Is the dearest rose to me?
2
Round and round, like a dance of snow
In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go
Floating the women faded for ages,
Sculptured in stone, on the poet’s pages.
Then follow women fresh and gay,
Living and loving and loved today.
Last, in the rear, flee the multitude of maidens,
Beauties yet unborn. And all, to one
cadence,
They circle their rose on my rose tree.
3
Dear rose, thy term is reached,
Thy leaf hangs loose and bleached:
Bees pass it unimpeached.
4
Stay then, stoop, since I cannot climb,
You, great shapes of the antique time!
How shall I fix you, fire you, freeze you,
Break my heart at your feet to please you?
Oh, to possess and be possessed!
Hearts that beat 'neath each pallid breast!
Once but of love, the poesy, the passion,
Drink but once and die!—In vain, the same fashion,
They circle their rose on my rose tree.
5
Dear rose, thy joy’s undimmed,
Thy cup is ruby-rimmed,
Thy cup’s heart nectar-brimmed.
6
Deep, as drops from a statue’s plinth
The bee sucked in by the hyacinth,
So will I bury me while burning,
Quench like him at a plunge my yearning,
Eyes in your eyes, lips on your lips!
Fold me fast where the cincture slips,
Prison all my soul in eternities of pleasure,
Girdle me for once! But no—the old
measure,
They circle their rose on my rose tree.
7
Dear rose without a thorn,
Thy bud’s the babe unborn:
First streak of a new morn.
8
Wings, lend wings for the cold, the clear!
What is far conquers what is near.
Roses will bloom nor want beholders,
Sprung from the dust where our flesh molders.
What shall arrive with the cycle’s change?
A novel grace and a beauty strange.
I will make an Eve, be the artist that began her,
Shaped her to his mind!—Alas! in like manner
They circle their rose on my rose tree.
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