She walks in beauty
I
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
II
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had Half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raves tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenly sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.
III
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
Theory
Into love and out again,
Thus I went, and thus I go.
Spare your voice, and hold your pen-
Well and bitterly I know
All the songs were ever sung,
All the words were ever said;
Could it be, when I was young,
Someone dropped me on my head?
To Althea, from Prison
When Love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair
And fettered to her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.
When flowing cups run swiftly round,
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes, that tipple in the deep.
Know no such liberty.
When, like committed linnets, I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty
And glories of my King;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlarged winds, that curl the flood,
Know no such liberty.
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage.
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.
Meeting at Night
The gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!
When I was one-and-twenty
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
'Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.'
But I was one-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
'The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.'
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
To me he seems like a god
To me he seems like a god
as he sits facing you and
hears you near as you speak
softly and laugh
in a sweet echo that jolts
the heart in my ribs. For now
as I look at you my voice
is empty and
can say nothing as my tongue
cracks and slender fire is quick
under my skin. My eyes are dead
to light, my ears
pound, and sweat pours over me.
I convulse, paler than grass,
and feel my mind slip as I
go close to death
[but must suffer all, being poor.]
A Red, Red, Rose
O my luve's like a red, red, rose,
That's newly sprung in June;
O my luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
O I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve,
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile.
Possibly
to wake and find you sitting up in bed
with your black hair and gold skin
leaning against the white wall
a perfect slant of sunlight slashed
across your chest as if God
were Rembrandt or maybe Ingmar Bergman
but luckily it's too early to go to the movies
and all the museums are closed on Tuesday
anyway I'd rather be here with you
than in New York or possibily Amsterdam
with our eyes and lips and legs and bellies
and the sun as big as a house in the sky
and five minutes left before the world begins
I Must Sing of That
I must sing of that which I would rather not,
so bitter I am towards him who is my love:
for I love him more than anyone;
my kindness and courtesy make no impression on him,
nor my beauty, my virtue or my intelligence;
so I am deceived and betrayed,
as I should be if I were unattractive
One thing consoles me: that I have never wronged you,
my love, by my behavior towards you;
indeed I love you more than Sequin loved Valensa;
and I am glad that my love is greater than yours,
my love, since you are more the worthy;
you are haughty towards me in your words and your
demeanor,
yet you are friendly to everybody else.
I am amazed how deceitful you have grown,
my love, towards me, which gives me
good reason to grieve;
it is right that another love should
take you away from me
whatever she may say to attract you
remember how our love began
God forbid
that I should be to blame for our
parting
the great prowess which you have
and your fine reputation worry me,
for I know no woman, near or far,
who would not turn to you, if she
were inclined to love;
but you, my love, are discerning enough
to know who loves you most truly:
and remember the agreement we made.
My reputation and my noble birth should sway you,
and my beauty and above all my
faithful heart;
therefore I send to you where you dwell
this song to be my messenger;
I want you to know, my noble love,
why you are so haughty and
disdainful towards me;
I do not know whether it is pride or malice
But most of all I want you to tell him,
messenger,
that excess of pride has been
the downfall of many.
You Loved Me
You loved me. And your lies had their own probity.
There was a truth in every falsehood.
Your love went far beyond any possible
boundary as no one else's could.
Your love seemed to last even longer
than time itself. Now you wave your hand-
and suddenly your love for me is over!
That is the truth in five words.
from A Satirical Romance
I can't hold you and I can't leave you,
and sorting the reasons to leave you or hold you,
I find an intangible one to love you,
and many tangible ones to forgo you.
As you won't change, nor let me forgo you,
I shall give my heart a defence against you,
so that half shall always be armed to abhor you,
though the other half be ready to adore you.
Fire Roses
Today you grasped
the stars as
they were slipping off
the edge of my horizon
and shook them back
into the sky.
You are
quicksilver
can leave me
slow-footed
wordless.
My skin is alive
with the soft imprint
of your mouth.
How many miracles
can there be?
As I burnt your letters
the pages spread and curled
bloomed
like fire roses.
You Thought I Was That Type
You thought I was that type:
that you could forget me,
and that I'd plead and weep and throw myself
under the hooves of a bay mare,
or that I'd ask the sorcerers
for some magic potion made from roots
and send you a terrible gift:
my precious perfumed handkerchief.
Damn you! I will not grant
your cursed soul vicarious tears or a single glance.
And I swear to you by the garden of the angels,
I swear by the miracle-working ikon,
and by the fire and smoke of our nights:
I will never come back to you.
Wild Women Blues
I've got a different system
And a way of my own,
When my man starts kicking
I let him find another home.
I get full of good liquor
And walk the street all night,
Go home and put my man out
If he don't treat me right,
Wild women don't worry,
Wild women don't have the blues.
You never get nothing
By being an angel child,
You better change your ways
And get real wild.
I want to tell you something
I wouldn't tell you no lie,
Wild women are the only kind
That really get by,
'Cause wild women don't worry,
Wild women don't have the blues.
The Heart of a Woman
The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn,
As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on,
Afar o'er life's turrets and vales does it roam
In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home.
The heart of a woman falls back with the night,
And enters some alien cage in its plight,
And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars
While it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars.
Beloved
I brought my love
wrapped
in cottons and silks
its face and hands
washed
clean as an innocent.
I cupped my hands
for love to drink from,
filled,
filled
with the sweet
mingling
of joy with fear.
I bared the red,
soft,
centre
where my heart had been
to nourish my beloved
and turn the hunger inside
into a field in harvest.
My love was tumbled to the ground
doused with the salt from my own eyes
then tossed aside in a careless gesture.
He who cannot accept a gift of love
does not deserve it.
To Earthward
Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air
That crossed me from sweet things,
The flow of -- was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Downhill at dusk?
I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they're gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle
I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.
Now no joy but lacks salt,
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain
Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.
When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it hard
In grass and sand,
The hurt is not enough:
I long for weight and strength
To feel the earth as rough
To all my length.
The Mess of Love
We've made a great mess of love
Since we made an ideal of it.
The moment I swear to love a woman, a certain
woman, sll my life
That moment I begin to hate her.
The moment I even say to a woman: I love you! --
My love dies down considerably.
The moment love is an understood thing between us,
we are sure of it,
It's a cold egg, it isn't love any more.
Love is like a flower, it must flower and fade;
If it doesn't fade, it is not a flower,
It's either an artificial rag blossom, or an immortelle,
for the cemetary.
The moment the mind interferes with love, or the will fixes on it,
Or the personality assumes it as an attribute, or the
ego takes possession of it,
It is not love any more, it's just a mess.
And we've made a great mess of love,
mind-perverted, will-perverted, ego-perverted love.
A Love Song
Reject me not if I should say to you
I do forget the sounding of your voice,
I do forget your eyes that searching through
The mists perceive our marriage, and rejoice.
Yet, when the apple-blossom opens wide
Under the pallid moonlight's fingering,
I see your blanched face at my breast, and hide
My eyes from diligent work, malingering.
Ah, then, upon my bedroom I do draw
The blind to hide the garden, where the moon
Enjoys the open blossoms as the straw
Their beauty for his taking, boon for boon.
And I do lift my aching arms to you,
And I do lift my anguished, avid breast,
And I do weep for very pain of you,
And fling myself at the doors of sleep, for rest.
And I do toss through the troubled night for you,
Dreaming your yielded mouth is given to mine,
Feeling your strong breast carry me on into
The peace where sleep is stronger than even wine.
Under the Oak
You, if you were sensible,
When I tell you the stars flash signals, each one dreadful,
You would not turn and answer me
"The night is wonderful."
Even you, if you knew
How this darkness soaks me through and through, and infuses
Unholy fear in my vapour, you would pause to distinguish
What hurts, from what amuses.
For I tell you
Beneath this powerful tree, my whole soul's fluid
Oozes away from me as a sacrifice steam
At the kife of a Druid.
Again I tell you, I bleed, I am bound with withies,
My life runs out.
I tell you my blood runs out on the floor of this oak,
Gout upon gout.
Above me springs the blood-born mistletoe
In the shady smoke.
But who are you, twittering to and fro
Beneath the oak?
What thing better are you, what worse?
What have you to do with the mysteries
Of this ancient place, of my ancient curse?
What place have you in my histories?
Better Not
Lifw would perhaps
be easier if I had
never met you
Less sadness
each time when we
must part
less fear of the next parting
and the next after that
And not so much either
of this poowerless longing
when you're not there
which wants only the
impossible and that
right away next minute
and then
when that can't be
is hurt
and finds breathing difficult
Life would perhaps be
simpler
If I hadn't met you
only it wouldn't be
my life.
This is to Let You Know
This is to let you know
That there was no moon last night
And that the tide was high
And that on the broken horizon glimmered the
lights of ships
Twenty at least, like a sedate procession passing by.
This is to let you know
That when I'd turn out the lamp
And in the dark I lay
That suddenly piercing loneliness, like a knife,
Twisted my heart, for you were such a long
long way away.
This is to let you know
That there are no English words
That could ever explain
How, quite without warning, lovingly you were here
Holding me close, smoothing away the idiotic pain.
This is to let you know
That all I feel for you
Can never wholly go.
I love you and miss you, even two hours away,
With all my heart. This is to let you know.
Reproach
Had I but know yesterday,
Helen, you could discharge the ache
Out of the cloud;
Had I known yesterday you could take
The turgid electric ache away,
Drink it up with your proud
White body, as lovely white lightning
Is drunk from an agonized sky by the earth,
I might have hated you, Helen.
But since my limbs gushed full of fire,
Since from out of my blood and bone
Poured a heavy flame
To you, earth of my atmosphere, stone
Of my steel, lovely white flint of desire,
You have no name.
Earth of my swaying atmosphere,
Substance of my inconstant breath,
I cannot but cleave to you.
Since you have drunken up the drear
Painful electric storm, and death
Is washed from the blue
Of my eyes, I see you beautiful.
You are strong and passive and beautiful,
I come like winds that uncertain hover;
But you
Are the earth I hover over.
I am No Good at Love
I am no good at love
My heart should be wise and free
I kill the unfortunate golden goose
Whoever it may be
With over-articulate tenderness
And too much intensity.
I am no good at love
I batter it out of shape
Suspicion tears at my sleepless mind
And, gibbering like an ape,
I lie alone in the endless dark
Knowing there's no escape.
I am not good at love
When my easy heart I yield
Wild words come tumbling from my mouth
Which should have stayed concealed;
And my jealousy turns a bed of bliss
Into a battlefield.
I am no good at love
I betray it with little sins
For I feel the misery of the end
In the moment that it begins
And the bitterness of the last good-bye
Is the bitterness that wins.
Bloody Men
Bloody men are like bloody
buses--
You wait for about a year
And as soon as one approaches
your stop
Two or three others appear.
You look at them flashing their
indicators,
Offering you a ride.
You're trying to read the
destinations,
You haven't much time to decide.
If you make a mistake, there is no
turning back.
Jump off, and you'll stand there
and gaze
While the cars and the taxis and
lorries go by
And the minutes, the hours, the
days.