Emotions and Feelings

Night Song

WHEN on thy pillow lying,

Half listen, I implore,
And at my lute's soft sighing,
Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?
For at my lute's soft sighing
The stars their blessings pour


On feelings never-dying;
Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?
Those feelings never-dying
My spirit aid to soar


From earthly conflicts trying;
Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?
From earthly conflicts trying
Thou driv'st me to this shore;


Through thee I'm thither flying,--
Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?
Through thee I'm hither flying,
Thou wilt not list before


In slumbers thou art lying:
Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

I Am A Beggar Always

i am a beggar always
who begs in your mind


(slightly smiling, patient, unspeaking
with a sign on his
chest
BLIND)yes i


am this person of whom somehow
you are never wholly rid(and who


does not ask for more than
just enough dreams to
live on)

after all, kid


you might as well
toss him a few thoughts


a little love preferably,
anything which you can't
pass off on other people: for
instance a
plugged promise


the he will maybe (hearing something
fall into his hat)go wandering
after it with fingers;till having


found
what was thrown away

himself
taptaptaps out of your brain, hopes, life
to(carefully turning a
corner)never bother you any more


Anonymous submission.

I Am A Beggar Always

i am a beggar always
who begs in your mind


(slightly smiling, patient, unspeaking
with a sign on his
chest
BLIND)yes i


am this person of whom somehow
you are never wholly rid(and who


does not ask for more than
just enough dreams to
live on)

after all, kid


you might as well
toss him a few thoughts


a little love preferably,
anything which you can't
pass off on other people: for
instance a
plugged promise


the he will maybe (hearing something
fall into his hat)go wandering
after it with fingers;till having


found
what was thrown away

himself
taptaptaps out of your brain, hopes, life
to(carefully turning a
corner)never bother you any more


Anonymous submission.

I Am A Beggar Always

i am a beggar always
who begs in your mind


(slightly smiling, patient, unspeaking
with a sign on his
chest
BLIND)yes i


am this person of whom somehow
you are never wholly rid(and who


does not ask for more than
just enough dreams to
live on)

after all, kid


you might as well
toss him a few thoughts


a little love preferably,
anything which you can't
pass off on other people: for
instance a
plugged promise


the he will maybe (hearing something
fall into his hat)go wandering
after it with fingers;till having


found
what was thrown away

himself
taptaptaps out of your brain, hopes, life
to(carefully turning a
corner)never bother you any more


Anonymous submission.

Egypt, Tobago

There is a shattered palm
on this fierce shore,
its plumes the rusting helmet
of a dead warrior.


Numb Antony, in the torpor
stretching her inert
sex near him like a sleeping cat,
knows his heart is the real desert.


Over the dunes
of her heaving,
to his heart's drumming
fades the mirage of the legions,


across love-tousled sheets,
the triremes fading.
Ar the carved door of her temple
a fly wrings its message.


He brushes a damp hair
away from an ear
as perfect as a sleeping child's.
He stares, inert, the fallen column.


He lies like a copper palm
tree at three in the afternoon
by a hot sea
and a river, in Egypt, Tobago


Her salt marsh dries in the heat
where he foundered
without armor.
He exchanged an empire for her beads of sweat,


the uproar of arenas,
the changing surf
of senators, for
this silent ceiling over silent sand


this grizzled bear, whose fur,
moulting, is silvered for
this quick fox with her
sweet stench. By sleep dismembered,


his head
is in Egypt, his feet
in Rome, his groin a desert
trench with its dead soldier.


He drifts a finger
through her stiff hair



crisp as a mare's fountaining tail.
Shadows creep up the palace tile.


He is too tired to move;
a groan would waken
trumpets, one more gesture
war. His glare,


a shield
reflecting fires,
a brass brow that cannot frown
at carnage, sweats the sun's force.


It is not the turmoil
of autumnal lust,
its treacheries, that drove
him, fired and grimed with dust,


this far, not even love,
but a great rage without
clamor, that grew great
because its depth is quiet;


it hears the river
of her young brown blood,
it feels the whole sky quiver
with her blue eyelid.


She sleeps with the soft engine of a child,


that sleep which scythes
the stalks of lances, fells the
harvest of legions
with nothing for its knives,
that makes Caesars,


sputtering at flies,
slapping their foreheads
with the laurel's imprint,
drunkards, comedians.


All-humbling sleep, whose peace
is sweet as death,
whose silence has
all the sea's weight and volubility,


who swings this globe by a hair's trembling breath.


Shattered and wild and
palm-crowned Antony,
rusting in Egypt,
ready to lose the world,



to Actium and sand,

everything else
is vanity, but this tenderness
for a woman not his mistress
but his sleeping child.

The sky is cloudless. The afternoon is mild.

A Father's Prayer

Lord, make me tolerant and wise;
Incline my ears to hear him through;
Let him not stand with downcast eyes,
Fearing to trust me and be true.
Instruct me so that I may know
The way my son and I should go.


When he shall err, as once did I,
Or boyhood folly bids him stray,
Let me not into anger fly
And drive the good in him away.
Teach me to win his trust, that he
Shall keep no secret hid from me.


Lord, strengthen me that I may be .
A fit example for my son.
Grant he may never hear or see
A shameful deed that I have done.
However sorely I am tried,
Let me not undermine his pride.


In spite of years and temples gray,
Still let my spirit beat with joy;
Teach me to share in all his play
And be a comrade with my boy.
Wherever we may chance to be,
Let him find happiness with me.


Lord, as his father, now I pray
For manhood's strength and counsel wise;
Let me deal justly, day by day,
In all that fatherhood implies.
To be his father, keep me fit;
Let me not play the hypocrite!

A Father's Prayer

Lord, make me tolerant and wise;
Incline my ears to hear him through;
Let him not stand with downcast eyes,
Fearing to trust me and be true.
Instruct me so that I may know
The way my son and I should go.


When he shall err, as once did I,
Or boyhood folly bids him stray,
Let me not into anger fly
And drive the good in him away.
Teach me to win his trust, that he
Shall keep no secret hid from me.


Lord, strengthen me that I may be .
A fit example for my son.
Grant he may never hear or see
A shameful deed that I have done.
However sorely I am tried,
Let me not undermine his pride.


In spite of years and temples gray,
Still let my spirit beat with joy;
Teach me to share in all his play
And be a comrade with my boy.
Wherever we may chance to be,
Let him find happiness with me.


Lord, as his father, now I pray
For manhood's strength and counsel wise;
Let me deal justly, day by day,
In all that fatherhood implies.
To be his father, keep me fit;
Let me not play the hypocrite!

Parting


THERE'S no use in weeping,
Though we are condemned to part:
There's such a thing as keeping
A remembrance in one's heart:


There's such a thing as dwelling
On the thought ourselves have nurs'd,
And with scorn and courage telling
The world to do its worst.


We'll not let its follies grieve us,
We'll just take them as they come;
And then every day will leave us
A merry laugh for home.


When we've left each friend and brother,
When we're parted wide and far,
We will think of one another,
As even better than we are.


Every glorious sight above us,
Every pleasant sight beneath,
We'll connect with those that love us,
Whom we truly love till death !


In the evening, when we're sitting
By the fire perchance alone,
Then shall heart with warm heart meeting,
Give responsive tone for tone.


We can burst the bonds which chain us,
Which cold human hands have wrought,
And where none shall dare restrain us
We can meet again, in thought.


So there's no use in weeping,
Bear a cheerful spirit still;
Never doubt that Fate is keeping
Future good for present ill !

Parting


THERE'S no use in weeping,
Though we are condemned to part:
There's such a thing as keeping
A remembrance in one's heart:


There's such a thing as dwelling
On the thought ourselves have nurs'd,
And with scorn and courage telling
The world to do its worst.


We'll not let its follies grieve us,
We'll just take them as they come;
And then every day will leave us
A merry laugh for home.


When we've left each friend and brother,
When we're parted wide and far,
We will think of one another,
As even better than we are.


Every glorious sight above us,
Every pleasant sight beneath,
We'll connect with those that love us,
Whom we truly love till death !


In the evening, when we're sitting
By the fire perchance alone,
Then shall heart with warm heart meeting,
Give responsive tone for tone.


We can burst the bonds which chain us,
Which cold human hands have wrought,
And where none shall dare restrain us
We can meet again, in thought.


So there's no use in weeping,
Bear a cheerful spirit still;
Never doubt that Fate is keeping
Future good for present ill !

Parting


THERE'S no use in weeping,
Though we are condemned to part:
There's such a thing as keeping
A remembrance in one's heart:


There's such a thing as dwelling
On the thought ourselves have nurs'd,
And with scorn and courage telling
The world to do its worst.


We'll not let its follies grieve us,
We'll just take them as they come;
And then every day will leave us
A merry laugh for home.


When we've left each friend and brother,
When we're parted wide and far,
We will think of one another,
As even better than we are.


Every glorious sight above us,
Every pleasant sight beneath,
We'll connect with those that love us,
Whom we truly love till death !


In the evening, when we're sitting
By the fire perchance alone,
Then shall heart with warm heart meeting,
Give responsive tone for tone.


We can burst the bonds which chain us,
Which cold human hands have wrought,
And where none shall dare restrain us
We can meet again, in thought.


So there's no use in weeping,
Bear a cheerful spirit still;
Never doubt that Fate is keeping
Future good for present ill !

Reveille


Wake: the silver dusk returning
Up the beach of darkness brims,
And the ship of sunrise burning
Strands upon the eastern rims.


Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters,
Trampled to the floor it spanned,
And the tent of night in tatters
Straws the sky-pavilioned land.


Up, lad, up, 'tis late for lying:
Hear the drums of morning play;
Hark, the empty highways crying
"Who'll beyond the hills away?"


Towns and countries woo together,
Forelands beacon, belfries call;
Never lad that trod on leather
Lived to feast his heart with all.


Up, lad: thews that lie and cumber
Sunlit pallets never thrive;
Morns abed and daylight slumber
Were not meant for man alive.


Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;
Breath's a ware that will not keep.
Up, lad: when the journey's over
There'll be time enough to sleep.

There was a woman tore off a red velvet gown 
And slashed the white skin of her right shoulder
And a crimson zigzag wrote a finger nail hurry.

There was a woman spoke six short words 
And quit a life that was old to her
For a life that was new.

There was a woman swore an oath 
And gave hoarse whisper to a prayer
And it was all over.

She was a thief and a whore and a kept woman, 
She was a thing to be used and played with.
She wore an ancient scarlet sash.

The story is thin and wavering, 
White as a face in the first apple blossoms,
White as a birch in the snow of a winter moon.

The story is never told. 
There are white lips whisper alone.
There are red lips whisper alone.

In the cool of the old walls, 
In the white of the old walls,
The red song is over.

With sweeter notes each rising temple rung;
A Raphael painted and a Vida sung;
Immortal Vida! on whose honour'd brow
The poet's bays and critics ivy grow:
Cremona now shall ever boast they name,
As next in place to Mantua, next in fame!

But soon by impious arms from Latium chased,
Their ancient bounds the banish'd Muses pass'd;
Thence arts o'er all the northern world advance,
But critic learning flourish'd most in France;
The rules a nation born to serve obeys,
And Boileau still in right of Horace sways.
But we, brave Britons, foreign laws despised,
And kept unconquer'd and uncivilized;
Fierce for the liberties of wit, and bold,
We still defied the Romans, as of old.
Yet some there were, among the sounder few
Of those who less presumed and better knew,
Who durst assert the juster ancient cause,
And here restor'd WIt's fundamental laws.
Such was the Muse whose rules and practice tell
``Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.''
Such was Roscommon, not more learn'd than good,
With manners gen'rous as his noble blood;
To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known,
And every author's merit but his own.
Such late was Walsh--the Muse's judge and friend,
Who justly knew to blame or to commend;
To failings mild but zealous for desert,
The clearest head, and the sincerest heart.
This humble praise, lamented Shade! receive;
This praise at least a grateful Muse may give:
The Muse whose early voice you taught to sing,
Prescribed her heights, and pruned her tender wing,
(Her guide now lost), no more attempts to rise,
But in low numbers short excursions tries;
Content if hence th'unlearn'd their wants may view,
The learn'd reflect on what before they knew;
Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame;
Still pleas'd to praise, yet not afraid to blame;
Averse alike to flatter or offend;
Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend.

Not that I love thy children, whose dull eyes
See nothing save their own unlovely woe,
Whose minds know nothing, nothing care to know,
But that the roar of thy Democracies,
Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies,
Mirror my wildest passions like the sea
And give my rage a brother -!Liberty!
For this sake only do thy dissonant cries
Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings
By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades
Rob nations of their rights inviolate
And I remain unmoved - and yet, and yet,
These Christs that die upon the barricades,
God knows it I am with them, in some things.

The sin was mine; I did not understand.
So now is music prisoned in her cave,
Save where some ebbing desultory wave
Frets with its restless whirls this meagre strand.
And in the withered hollow of this land
Hath Summer dug herself so deep a grave,
That hardly can the leaden willow crave
One silver blossom from keen Winter's hand.
But who is this who cometh by the shore?
(Nay, love, look up and wonder!) Who is this
Who cometh in dyed garments from the South?
It is thy new-found Lord, and he shall kiss
The yet unravished roses of thy mouth,
And I shall weep and worship, as before.

The sin was mine; I did not understand.
So now is music prisoned in her cave,
Save where some ebbing desultory wave
Frets with its restless whirls this meagre strand.
And in the withered hollow of this land
Hath Summer dug herself so deep a grave,
That hardly can the leaden willow crave
One silver blossom from keen Winter's hand.
But who is this who cometh by the shore?
(Nay, love, look up and wonder!) Who is this
Who cometh in dyed garments from the South?
It is thy new-found Lord, and he shall kiss
The yet unravished roses of thy mouth,
And I shall weep and worship, as before.

These are the letters which Endymion wrote
To one he loved in secret, and apart.
And now the brawlers of the auction mart
Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note,
Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote
The merchant's price. I think they love not art
Who break the crystal of a poet's heart
That small and sickly eyes may glare and gloat.

Is it not said that many years ago,
In a far Eastern town, some soldiers ran
With torches through the midnight, and began
To wrangle for mean raiment, and to throw
Dice for the garments of a wretched man,
Not knowing the God's wonder, or His woe?

Christ, dost Thou live indeed? or are Thy bones
Still straitened in their rock-hewn sepulchre?
And was Thy Rising only dreamed by her
Whose love of Thee for all her sin atones?
For here the air is horrid with men's groans,
The priests who call upon Thy name are slain,
Dost Thou not hear the bitter wail of pain
From those whose children lie upon the stones?
Come down, O Son of God! incestuous gloom
Curtains the land, and through the starless night
Over Thy Cross a Crescent moon I see!
If Thou in very truth didst burst the tomb
Come down, O Son of Man! and show Thy might
Lest Mahomet be crowned instead of Thee!

To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which can winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom and austere control?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
With idle songs for pipe and virelay,
Which do but mar the secret of the whole.
Surely there was a time I might have trod
The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance
Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God:
Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod
I did but touch the honey of romance -
And must I lose a soul's inheritance?

Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand,
For I am drowning in a stormier sea
Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee:
The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,
My heart is as some famine-murdered land
Whence all good things have perished utterly,
And well I know my soul in Hell must lie
If I this night before God's throne should stand.
'He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,
Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name
From morn to noon on Carmel's smitten height.'
Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,
The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
The wounded hands, the weary human face.

Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand,
For I am drowning in a stormier sea
Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee:
The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,
My heart is as some famine-murdered land
Whence all good things have perished utterly,
And well I know my soul in Hell must lie
If I this night before God's throne should stand.
'He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,
Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name
From morn to noon on Carmel's smitten height.'
Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,
The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
The wounded hands, the weary human face.

How steep the stairs within King's houses are
For exile-wearied feet as mine to tread,
And O how salt and bitter is the bread
Which falls from this Hound's table, - better far
That I had died in the red ways of war,
Or that the gate of Florence bare my head,
Than to live thus, by all things comraded
Which seek the essence of my soul to mar.
'Curse God and die: what better hope than this?
He hath forgotten thee in all the bliss
Of his gold city, and eternal day' -
Nay peace: behind my prison's blinded bars
I do possess what none can take away,
My love and all the glory of the stars.

I stood by the unvintageable sea
Till the wet waves drenched face and hair with spray;
The long red fires of the dying day
Burned in the west; the wind piped drearily;
And to the land the clamorous gulls did flee:
'Alas!' I cried, 'my life is full of pain,
And who can garner fruit or golden grain
From these waste fields which travail ceaselessly!'
My nets gaped wide with many a break and flaw,
Nathless I threw them as my final cast
Into the sea, and waited for the end.
When lo! a sudden glory! and I saw
From the black waters of my tortured past
The argent splendour of white limbs ascend!

I stood by the unvintageable sea
Till the wet waves drenched face and hair with spray;
The long red fires of the dying day
Burned in the west; the wind piped drearily;
And to the land the clamorous gulls did flee:
'Alas!' I cried, 'my life is full of pain,
And who can garner fruit or golden grain
From these waste fields which travail ceaselessly!'
My nets gaped wide with many a break and flaw,
Nathless I threw them as my final cast
Into the sea, and waited for the end.
When lo! a sudden glory! and I saw
From the black waters of my tortured past
The argent splendour of white limbs ascend!