Past and Future

Sonnet 42 - 'My future will not copy fair my past'

XLII

'My future will not copy fair my past'-
I wrote that once; and thinking at my side
My ministering life-angel justified
The word by his appealing look upcast
To the white throne of God, I turned at last,
And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied
To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried
By natural ills, received the comfort fast,
While budding, at thy sight, my pilgrim's staff
Gave out green leaves with morning dews impearled.
I seek no copy now of life's first half:
Leave here the pages with long musing curled,
And write me new my future's epigraph,
New angel mine, unhoped for in the world!

Sonnet 36 - When we met first and loved, I did not build

XXXVI

When we met first and loved, I did not build
Upon the event with marble. Could it mean
To last, a love set pendulous between
Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled,
Distrusting every light that seemed to gild
The onward path, and feared to overlean
A finger even. And, though I have grown serene
And strong since then, I think that God has willed
A still renewable fear . . . O love, O troth . . .
Lest these enclasped hands should never hold,
This mutual kiss drop down between us both
As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold.
And Love, be false! if he, to keep one oath,
Must lose one joy, by his life's star foretold.

Sonnet 22 - When our two souls stand up erect and strong

XXII

When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curved point,-what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher,
The angels would press on us and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
Rather on earth, Beloved,-where the unfit
Contrarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits, and permit
A place to stand and love in for a day,
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.

My Heart and I

I.
ENOUGH ! we're tired, my heart and I.
We sit beside the headstone thus,
And wish that name were carved for us.

The moss reprints more tenderly
The hard types of the mason's knife,
As heaven's sweet life renews earth's life

With which we're tired, my heart and I.

II.
You see we're tired, my heart and I.
We dealt with books, we trusted men,
And in our own blood drenched the pen,
As if such colours could not fly.
We walked too straight for fortune's end,
We loved too true to keep a friend ;

At last we're tired, my heart and I.

III.
How tired we feel, my heart and I !
We seem of no use in the world ;
Our fancies hang grey and uncurled

About men's eyes indifferently ;
Our voice which thrilled you so, will let
You sleep; our tears are only wet :

What do we here, my heart and I ?

IV.
So tired, so tired, my heart and I !
It was not thus in that old time
When Ralph sat with me 'neath the lime

To watch the sunset from the sky.
`Dear love, you're looking tired,' he said;
I, smiling at him, shook my head :

'Tis now we're tired, my heart and I.

V.
So tired, so tired, my heart and I !
Though now none takes me on his arm
To fold me close and kiss me warm

Till each quick breath end in a sigh
Of happy languor. Now, alone,
We lean upon this graveyard stone,

Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I.

VI.
Tired out we are, my heart and I.
Suppose the world brought diadems
To tempt us, crusted with loose gems

Of powers and pleasures ? Let it try.
We scarcely care to look at even


A pretty child, or God's blue heaven,
We feel so tired, my heart and I.

VII.
Yet who complains ? My heart and I ?
In this abundant earth no doubt
Is little room for things worn out :

Disdain them, break them, throw them by
And if before the days grew rough
We once were loved, used, -- well enough,

I think, we've fared, my heart and I.

Minstrelsy


For ever, since my childish looks
Could rest on Nature's pictured books;
For ever, since my childish tongue
Could name the themes our bards have sung;
So long, the sweetness of their singing
Hath been to me a rapture bringing!
Yet ask me not the reason why
I have delight in minstrelsy.


I know that much whereof I sing,
Is shapen but for vanishing;
I know that summer's flower and leaf
And shine and shade are very brief,
And that the heart they brighten, may,
Before them all, be sheathed in clay! --
I do not know the reason why
I have delight in minstrelsy.


A few there are, whose smile and praise
My minstrel hope, would kindly raise:
But, of those few -- Death may impress
The lips of some with silentness;
While some may friendship's faith resign,
And heed no more a song of mine. --
Ask not, ask not the reason why
I have delight in minstrelsy.


The sweetest song that minstrels sing,
Will charm not Joy to tarrying;
The greenest bay that earth can grow,
Will shelter not in burning woe;
A thousand voices will not cheer,
When one is mute that aye is dear! --
Is there, alas! no reason why
I have delight in minstrelsy.


I do not know! The turf is green
Beneath the rain's fast-dropping sheen,
Yet asks not why that deeper hue
Doth all its tender leaves renew; --
And I, like-minded, am content,
While music to my soul is sent,
To question not the reason why
I have delight in minstrelsy.


Years pass -- my life with them shall pass:
And soon, the cricket in the grass
And summer bird, shall louder sing
Than she who owns a minstrel's string.
Oh then may some, the dear and few,
Recall her love, whose truth they knew;
When all forget to question why



She had delight in minstrelsy!

III


Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart !
Unlike our uses and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise
On one another, as they strike athwart
Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art
A guest for queens to social pageantries,
With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part
Of chief musician. What hast thou to do
With looking from the lattice-lights at me,
A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through
The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree ?
The chrism is on thine head,--on mine, the dew,--
And Death must dig the level where these agree.

I


I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair:
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,-'
Guess now who holds thee ? '--' Death,' I said. But, there,
The silver answer rang,--' Not Death, but Love.'

Aurora Leigh (excerpts)

[Book 1]
I am like,

They tell me, my dear father. Broader brows

Howbeit, upon a slenderer undergrowth

Of delicate features, -- paler, near as grave ;

But then my mother's smile breaks up the whole,

And makes it better sometimes than itself.

So, nine full years, our days were hid with God

Among his mountains : I was just thirteen,

Still growing like the plants from unseen roots

In tongue-tied Springs, -- and suddenly awoke

To full life and life 's needs and agonies,

With an intense, strong, struggling heart beside

A stone-dead father. Life, struck sharp on death,

Makes awful lightning. His last word was, `Love --'

`Love, my child, love, love !' -- (then he had done with grief)

`Love, my child.' Ere I answered he was gone,

And none was left to love in all the world.

There, ended childhood. What succeeded next

I recollect as, after fevers, men

Thread back the passage of delirium,

Missing the turn still, baffled by the door ;

Smooth endless days, notched here and there with knives ;

A weary, wormy darkness, spurr'd i' the flank

With flame, that it should eat and end itself

Like some tormented scorpion. Then at last

I do remember clearly, how there came

A stranger with authority, not right,

(I thought not) who commanded, caught me up

From old Assunta's neck ; how, with a shriek,

She let me go, -- while I, with ears too full

Of my father's silence, to shriek back a word,

In all a child's astonishment at grief

Stared at the wharf-edge where she stood and moaned,

My poor Assunta, where she stood and moaned !

The white walls, the blue hills, my Italy,

Drawn backward from the shuddering steamer-deck,

Like one in anger drawing back her skirts

Which supplicants catch at. Then the bitter sea

Inexorably pushed between us both,

And sweeping up the ship with my despair

Threw us out as a pasture to the stars.

Ten nights and days we voyaged on the deep ;

Ten nights and days, without the common face

Of any day or night ; the moon and sun

Cut off from the green reconciling earth,

To starve into a blind ferocity

And glare unnatural ; the very sky

(Dropping its bell-net down upon the sea

As if no human heart should 'scape alive,)

Bedraggled with the desolating salt,

Until it seemed no more that holy heaven


To which my father went. All new and strange
The universe turned stranger, for a child.
Then, land ! -- then, England ! oh, the frosty cliffs
Looked cold upon me. Could I find a home
Among those mean red houses through the fog ?
And when I heard my father's language first
From alien lips which had no kiss for mine
I wept aloud, then laughed, then wept, then wept,
And some one near me said the child was mad
Through much sea-sickness. The train swept us on.
Was this my father's England ? the great isle ?
The ground seemed cut up from the fellowship
Of verdure, field from field, as man from man ;
The skies themselves looked low and positive,
As almost you could touch them with a hand,
And dared to do it they were so far off
From God's celestial crystals ; all things blurred
And dull and vague. Did Shakspeare and his mates
Absorb the light here ? -- not a hill or stone
With heart to strike a radiant colour up
Or active outline on the indifferent air.
I think I see my father's sister stand
Upon the hall-step of her country-house
To give me welcome. She stood straight and calm,
Her somewhat narrow forehead braided tight
As if for taming accidental thoughts
From possible pulses ; brown hair pricked with grey
By frigid use of life, (she was not old
Although my father's elder by a year)
A nose drawn sharply yet in delicate lines ;
A close mild mouth, a little soured about
The ends, through speaking unrequited loves
Or peradventure niggardly half-truths ;
Eyes of no colour, -- once they might have smiled,
But never, never have forgot themselves
In smiling ; cheeks, in which was yet a rose
Of perished summers, like a rose in a book,
Kept more for ruth than pleasure, -- if past bloom,
Past fading also.

She had lived, we'll say,
A harmless life, she called a virtuous life,
A quiet life, which was not life at all,
(But that, she had not lived enough to know)
Between the vicar and the country squires,
The lord-lieutenant looking down sometimes
From the empyrean to assure their souls
Against chance-vulgarisms, and, in the abyss
The apothecary, looked on once a year
To prove their soundness of humility.
The poor-club exercised her Christian gifts
Of knitting stockings, stitching petticoats,
Because we are of one flesh after all


And need one flannel (with a proper sense

Of difference in the quality) -- and still

The book-club, guarded from your modern trick

Of shaking dangerous questions from the crease,

Preserved her intellectual. She had lived

A sort of cage-bird life, born in a cage,

Accounting that to leap from perch to perch

Was act and joy enough for any bird.

Dear heaven, how silly are the things that live

In thickets, and eat berries !
I, alas,

A wild bird scarcely fledged, was brought to her cage,

And she was there to meet me. Very kind.

Bring the clean water, give out the fresh seed.

She stood upon the steps to welcome me,

Calm, in black garb. I clung about her neck, --

Young babes, who catch at every shred of wool

To draw the new light closer, catch and cling

Less blindly. In my ears, my father's word

Hummed ignorantly, as the sea in shells,

`Love, love, my child.' She, black there with my grief,

Might feel my love -- she was his sister once,

I clung to her. A moment, she seemed moved,

Kissed me with cold lips, suffered me to cling,

And drew me feebly through the hall into

The room she sate in.
There, with some strange spasm

Of pain and passion, she wrung loose my hands

Imperiously, and held me at arm's length,

And with two grey-steel naked-bladed eyes

Searched through my face, -- ay, stabbed it through and through,

Through brows and cheeks and chin, as if to find

A wicked murderer in my innocent face,

If not here, there perhaps. Then, drawing breath,

She struggled for her ordinary calm

And missed it rather, -- told me not to shrink,

As if she had told me not to lie or swear, -


`She loved my father, and would love me too

As long as I deserved it.' Very kind.

[Book 5]

AURORA LEIGH, be humble. Shall I hope
To speak my poems in mysterious tune
With man and nature ? -- with the lava-lymph
That trickles from successive galaxies
Still drop by drop adown the finger of God
In still new worlds ? -- with summer-days in this ?
That scarce dare breathe they are so beautiful ?--
With spring's delicious trouble in the ground,
Tormented by the quickened blood of roots,
And softly pricked by golden crocus-sheaves


In token of the harvest-time of flowers ?--

With winters and with autumns, -- and beyond,

With the human heart's large seasons, when it hopes

And fears, joys, grieves, and loves ? -- with all that strain

Of sexual passion, which devours the flesh

In a sacrament of souls ? with mother's breasts

Which, round the new-made creatures hanging there,

Throb luminous and harmonious like pure spheres ? --

With multitudinous life, and finally

With the great escapings of ecstatic souls,

Who, in a rush of too long prisoned flame,

Their radiant faces upward, burn away

This dark of the body, issuing on a world,

Beyond our mortal ? -- can I speak my verse

Sp plainly in tune to these things and the rest,

That men shall feel it catch them on the quick,

As having the same warrant over them

To hold and move them if they will or no,

Alike imperious as the primal rhythm

Of that theurgic nature ? I must fail,

Who fail at the beginning to hold and move

One man, -- and he my cousin, and he my friend,

And he born tender, made intelligent,

Inclined to ponder the precipitous sides

Of difficult questions ; yet, obtuse to me,

Of me, incurious ! likes me very well,

And wishes me a paradise of good,

Good looks, good means, and good digestion, -- ay,

But otherwise evades me, puts me off

With kindness, with a tolerant gentleness, --

Too light a book for a grave man's reading ! Go,

Aurora Leigh : be humble.
There it is,

We women are too apt to look to One,

Which proves a certain impotence in art.

We strain our natures at doing something great,

Far less because it 's something great to do,

Than haply that we, so, commend ourselves

As being not small, and more appreciable

To some one friend. We must have mediators

Betwixt our highest conscience and the judge ;

Some sweet saint's blood must quicken in our palms

Or all the life in heaven seems slow and cold :

Good only being perceived as the end of good,

And God alone pleased, -- that's too poor, we think,

And not enough for us by any means.

Ay, Romney, I remember, told me once

We miss the abstract when we comprehend.

We miss it most when we aspire, -- and fail.

Yet, so, I will not. -- This vile woman's way

Of trailing garments, shall not trip me up :

I 'll have no traffic with the personal thought


In art's pure temple. Must I work in vain,
Without the approbation of a man ?
It cannot be ; it shall not. Fame itself,
That approbation of the general race,
Presents a poor end, (though the arrow speed,
Shot straight with vigorous finger to the white,)
And the highest fame was never reached except
By what was aimed above it. Art for art,
And good for God Himself, the essential Good !
We 'll keep our aims sublime, our eyes erect,
Although our woman-hands should shake and fail ;
And if we fail .. But must we ? -


Shall I fail ?
The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase,
`Let no one be called happy till his death.'
To which I add, -- Let no one till his death
Be called unhappy. Measure not the work
Until the day 's out and the labour done,
Then bring your gauges. If the day's work 's scant,
Why, call it scant ; affect no compromise ;
And, in that we have nobly striven at least,
Deal with us nobly, women though we be.
And honour us with truth if not with praise.

this(let's remember)day died again and...

this(let's remember)day died again and
again;whose golden,crimson dooms conceive


an oceaning abyss of orange dream


larger than sky times earth:a flame beyond
soul immemorially forevering amand
as collapsing that grey mind by wave
doom disappeared,out of perhaps(who knows?)


eternity floated a blossoming


(while anyone might slowly count to soon)
rose-did you see her?darling,did you(kiss
me)quickly count to never?you were wrong


-then all the way from perfect nowhere came


(as easily as we forget something)
livingest the imaginable moon

in time of daffodils(who know

in time of daffodils(who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why,remember how


in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so(forgetting seem)


in time of roses(who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if,remember yes


in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek(forgetting find)


and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me,remember me

When We Are Old And These Rejoicing Veins

When we are old and these rejoicing veins
Are frosty channels to a muted stream,
And out of all our burning their remains
No feeblest spark to fire us, even in dream,
This be our solace: that it was not said
When we were young and warm and in our prime,
Upon our couch we lay as lie the dead,
Sleeping away the unreturning time.
O sweet, O heavy-lidded, O my love,
When morning strikes her spear upon the land,
And we must rise and arm us and reprove
The insolent daylight with a steady hand,
Be not discountenanced if the knowing know
We rose from rapture but an hour ago.

The Return From Town

As I sat down by Saddle Stream
To bathe my dusty feet there,
A boy was standing on the bridge
Any girl would meet there.


As I went over Woody Knob
A youth was coming up the hill
Any maid would follow.


Then in I turned at my own gate,—
And nothing to be sad for—
To such a man as any WIFE
Would pass a pretty lad for.

Sonnet 05: If I Should Learn, In Some Quite Casual Way

If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
That you were gone, not to return again—
Read from the back-page of a paper, say,
Held by a neighbor in a subway train,
How at the corner of this avenue
And such a street (so are the papers filled)
A hurrying man—who happened to be you—
At noon to-day had happened to be killed,
I should not cry aloud—I could not cry
Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place—

I should but watch the station lights rush by
With a more careful interest on my face,
Or raise my eyes and read with greater care


Where to store furs and how to treat the hair.

Oh, Oh, You Will Be Sorry

Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!
Give me back my book and take my kiss instead.
Was it my enemy or my friend I heard,
"What a big book for such a little head!"
Come, I will show you now my newest hat,
And you may watch me purse my mouth and prink!
Oh, I shall love you still, and all of that.
I never again shall tell you what I think.
I shall be sweet and crafty, soft and sly;
You will not catch me reading any more:
I shall be called a wife to pattern by;
And some day when you knock and push the door,
Some sane day, not too bright and not too stormy,
I shall be gone, and you may whistle for me.

Journey


Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass
And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind
Blow over me—I am so tired, so tired
Of passing pleasant places! All my life,
Following Care along the dusty road,
Have I looked back at loveliness and sighed;
Yet at my hand an unrelenting hand
Tugged ever, and I passed. All my life long
Over my shoulder have I looked at peace;
And now I fain would lie in this long grass
And close my eyes.

Yet onward!

Cat birds call
Through the long afternoon, and creeks at dusk
Are guttural. Whip-poor-wills wake and cry,
Drawing the twilight close about their throats.
Only my heart makes answer. Eager vines
Go up the rocks and wait; flushed apple-trees
Pause in their dance and break the ring for me;
And bayberry, that through sweet bevies thread
Of round-faced roses, pink and petulant,
Look back and beckon ere they disappear.
Only my heart, only my heart responds.
Yet, ah, my path is sweet on either side
All through the dragging day,—sharp underfoot
And hot, and like dead mist the dry dust hangs—
But far, oh, far as passionate eye can reach,
And long, ah, long as rapturous eye can cling,
The world is mine: blue hill, still silver lake,
Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road
A gateless garden, and an open path:
My feet to follow, and my heart to hold.

If Still Your Orchards Bear

Brother, that breathe the August air
Ten thousand years from now,
And smell—if still your orchards bear
Tart apples on the bough—


The early windfall under the tree,
And see the red fruit shine,
I cannot think your thoughts will be
Much different from mine.


Should at that moment the full moon
Step forth upon the hill,
And memories hard to bear at noon,
By moonlight harder still,
Form in the shadow of the trees, —
Things that you could not spare
And live, or so you thought, yet these
All gone, and you still there,


A man no longer what he was,
Nor yet the thing he'd planned,
The chilly apple from the grass
Warmed by your living hand—


I think you will have need of tears;
I think they will not flow;
Supposing in ten thousand years
Men ache, as they do now.

Grown-up

Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight?

And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And vows were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far, -
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.

For Annie

Thank Heaven! the crisisThe
danger is past,
And the lingering illness
Is over at lastAnd
the fever called "Living"
Is conquered at last.

Sadly, I know
I am shorn of my strength,
And no muscle I move
As I lie at full lengthBut
no matter!-I feel
I am better at length.

And I rest so composedly,
Now, in my bed
That any beholder
Might fancy me deadMight
start at beholding me,
Thinking me dead.

The moaning and groaning,
The sighing and sobbing,
Are quieted now,
With that horrible throbbing
At heart:- ah, that horrible,
Horrible throbbing!

The sickness- the nauseaThe
pitiless painHave
ceased, with the fever
That maddened my brainWith
the fever called "Living"
That burned in my brain.

And oh! of all tortures
That torture the worst
Has abated- the terrible
Torture of thirst
For the naphthaline river
Of Passion accurst:I
have drunk of a water
That quenches all thirst:


Of a water that flows,
With a lullaby sound,
From a spring but a very few
Feet under groundFrom
a cavern not very far
Down under ground.

And ah! let it never


Be foolishly said
That my room it is gloomy
And narrow my bed;
For man never slept
In a different bedAnd,
to sleep, you must slumber
In just such a bed.

My tantalized spirit
Here blandly reposes,
Forgetting, or never
Regretting its rosesIts
old agitations
Of myrtles and roses:

For now, while so quietly
Lying, it fancies
A holier odor
About it, of pansiesA
rosemary odor,
Commingled with pansiesWith
rue and the beautiful
Puritan pansies.

And so it lies happily,
Bathing in many
A dream of the truth
And the beauty of AnnieDrowned
in a bath
Of the tresses of Annie.

She tenderly kissed me,
She fondly caressed,
And then I fell gently
To sleep on her breastDeeply
to sleep
From the heaven of her breast.

When the light was extinguished,
She covered me warm,
And she prayed to the angels

To keep me from harmTo
the queen of the angels
To shield me from harm.


And I lie so composedly,
Now, in my bed,
(Knowing her love)
That you fancy me deadAnd
I rest so contentedly,
Now, in my bed,
(With her love at my breast)


That you fancy me deadThat
you shudder to look at me,
Thinking me dead.

But my heart it is brighter
Than all of the many
Stars in the sky,
For it sparkles with AnnieIt
glows with the light

Of the love of my AnnieWith
the thought of the light
Of the eyes of my Annie.

Reflection


You have given me riches and ease,
You have given me joys through the years,
I have sat in the shade of your trees,
With the song of your birds in my ears.
I have drunk of your bountiful wine
And done as I've chosen to do,
But, oh wonderful country of mine,
'How little have I done for you!


You have given me safe harbor from harm,
Untroubled I've slept through the nights
And have waked to the new morning's charm
And claimed as my own its delights.
I have taken the finest of fine
From your orchards and fields where it grew,
But, oh wonderful country of mine,
How little I've given to you!


You have given me a home and a place
Where in safety my babies may play;
Health blooms on each bright dimpled face
And laughter is theirs every day.
You have guarded from danger the shrine
Where I worship when toiling is through,
But, oh wonderful country of mine,
How little have I done for you!


I have taken your gifts without thought,
I have revelled in joys that you gave,
That I see now with blood had been bought,
The blood of your earlier braves.
I have lived without making one sign
That the source of my riches I knew,
Now, oh wonderful country of mine,
I'm here to do something for you!

We Lying By Seasand

We lying by seasand, watching yellow
And the grave sea, mock who deride
Who follow the red rivers, hollow
Alcove of words out of cicada shade,
For in this yellow grave of sand and sea
A calling for colour calls with the wind
That's grave and gay as grave and sea
Sleeping on either hand.
The lunar silences, the silent tide
Lapping the still canals, the dry tide-master
Ribbed between desert and water storm,
Should cure our ills of the water
With a one-coloured calm;
The heavenly music over the sand
Sounds with the grains as they hurry
Hiding the golden mountains and mansions
Of the grave, gay, seaside land.
Bound by a sovereign strip, we lie,
Watch yellow, wish for wind to blow away
The strata of the shore and drown red rock;
But wishes breed not, neither
Can we fend off rock arrival,
Lie watching yellow until the golden weather
Breaks, O my heart's blood, like a heart and hill.

Should Lanterns Shine

Should lanterns shine, the holy face,
Caught in an octagon of unaccustomed light,
Would wither up, an any boy of love
Look twice before he fell from grace.
The features in their private dark
Are formed of flesh, but let the false day come
And from her lips the faded pigments fall,
The mummy cloths expose an ancient breast.


I have been told to reason by the heart,
But heart, like head, leads helplessly;
I have been told to reason by the pulse,
And, when it quickens, alter the actions' pace
Till field and roof lie level and the same
So fast I move defying time, the quiet gentleman
Whose beard wags in Egyptian wind.


I have heard may years of telling,
And many years should see some change.


The ball I threw while playing in the park
Has not yet reached the ground.

Once It Was the Colour of Saying

Once it was the colour of saying
Soaked my table the uglier side of a hill
With a capsized field where a school sat still
And a black and white patch of girls grew playing;
The gentle seaslides of saying I must undo
That all the charmingly drowned arise to cockcrow and kill.
When I whistled with mitching boys through a reservoir park
Where at night we stoned the cold and cuckoo
Lovers in the dirt of their leafy beds,
The shade of their trees was a word of many shades
And a lamp of lightning for the poor in the dark;
Now my saying shall be my undoing,
And every stone I wind off like a reel.

January 1939

Because the pleasure-bird whistles after the hot wires,
Shall the blind horse sing sweeter?
Convenient bird and beast lie lodged to suffer
The supper and knives of a mood.
In the sniffed and poured snow on the tip of the tongue of the year
That clouts the spittle like bubbles with broken rooms,
An enamoured man alone by the twigs of his eyes, two fires,
Camped in the drug-white shower of nerves and food,
Savours the lick of the times through a deadly wood of hair
In a wind that plucked a goose,
Nor ever, as the wild tongue breaks its tombs,
Rounds to look at the red, wagged root.
Because there stands, one story out of the bum city,
That frozen wife whose juices drift like a fixed sea
Secretly in statuary,
Shall I, struck on the hot and rocking street,
Not spin to stare at an old year
Toppling and burning in the muddle of towers and galleries
Like the mauled pictures of boys?
The salt person and blasted place
I furnish with the meat of a fable.
If the dead starve, their stomachs turn to tumble
An upright man in the antipodes
Or spray-based and rock-chested sea:
Over the past table I repeat this present grace.