THE COMING OF WISDOM WITH TIME Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun; Now I may wither into the ruth. William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
THE DEAD These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvelously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colors of the earth. These has seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone; Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended. There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after, Frost, with a gesture, stays the winds that dance And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance, A width, a shining peace, under the night. Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)
GOD'S GRANDEUR The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame our, like shining from the shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare not, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs- Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bringht wings. Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
BLACKBERRY SWEET Black girl black girl lips as curved as cherries full as grape bunches sweet as blackberries Black girl black girl when you walk you are magic as a rising bird or a falling star Black girl black girl what's your spell to make the heart in my breast jump stop shake Dudley Randall (b.1914)
TRAVELING THROUGH THE DARK Traveling through the dark I found a deer dead on the edge of the Wilson River road. It is usually best to roll them into the canyon: that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead. By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing; she had stiffened already, almost cold. I dragged her off; she was large in the belly. My fingers touching her side brought me the reason- her side was warm, her fawn lay there waiting, alive, still, never to be born. Beside that mountain road I hesitated. The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights; under the hood purred the steady engine. I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red; around our group I could hear the wilderness listen. I thought hard for us all-my only swerving-, then pushed her over the edge into the river. William Stafford (b.1914)
SOUND AND SENSE True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense, The sound must seem an echo to the sense: Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar; When Ajzx strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labors, and the words move slow; Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main. Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise, And bid alternate passions fall and rise! Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
THE SOUND OF NIGHT And now the dark come on, all full of chitter noise. Birds huggermugger crowd the trees, the air thick with their verper cries, and bats, snub seven-pointed kites, skitter across the lake, swing out, squek, chirp, dip, and skim in skates of air, and the fat frogs wake and prink wide-lipped, noisy as ducks, drunk on boozy black, gloating chink-chunk. And now on the narrow beach we defend ourselves from dark. The cooking done, we build our firework bright and hot and less for outlook than for magic, and lie in our blankets while nightnickers around us. Crickets chorus hallelujahs; paws, quiet and quick as raindrops, play on the stones expertly soft, run past and are gone; fish pulse in the lake; the frogs hoarsen. Now every voice of the hour - the known, the supposed, the strange, the mindless, the witted, the never seen- sing, thrum, impinge, and rearrange endlessly; and debarred from sleep we wait for the birds, importantly silent, for the crease of first eye-licking light, By the lake, locked black away and tight, we lie, day creatures, overhearing night. Maxine Kumin (b.1925)
DEATH, BE NOT PROUD Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure-then, from thee much more must flow; And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones and soul's delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell; And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well, And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou them? One short sleep passed, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die. John Donne (1572-1631)
ACQUAINTED WITH THE NIGHT I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain - and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed bu the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street, But not to call me back or say good-by; And further still at an inearthly height One luminary clock against the sky Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. I have been one acquainted with the night. Robert Frost (1874-1963)
GOD'S WILL FOR YOU AND ME Just to be tender, just to be true, Just to be glad the whole day through, Just to be merciful, just to be mild, Just to be trustful as a child, Just to be gentle and kind and sweet, Just to be helpful with willing feet, Just to be cherry when things go wrong, Just to drive sadness away with a song, Whether the hours is dark or bright, Just to be loyal to God and right, Just to believe that God know best, Just in his promises ever to rest - Just to let love be our daily keys, That is God's will for you and me.
THE WANT OF YOU The want of you is like no other thing; It smites my soul with sudden sickening; It binds my being with a wreath of rue- This want of you. If flashes on me with the waking sun; It creeps upon me when the day is done; It hammers at my heart the long night through- This want of you. It sighs within me with the misting skies; Oh, all the day within my heart it cries, Old as your absence, yet each moment new- This want of you. Mad with demand and aching with despair, It leaps within my heart and you are --where? God has forgotten, or he never knew- This want of you.
A DAY What does it take to make a day? A lot of love along the way: It takes a morning and a noon, A father's voice, a mother's croon; It takes some task to challenge all The powers that a man may call His own: the powers of mind and limb; A whispered word of love; a hymn Of hope-a comrade's cheer- A baby's laughter and tear; It takes a dream, a hope, a cry Of need from soul passing by; A sense of brotherhood and love; A purpose sent from God above; It takes a sunset in the sky, The stars of night, the winds that sigh; It takes a breath of scented air, A mother's kiss, a baby's prayer. That is what it takes to make a day: A lot fo love along the way.
BE STRONG Be strong! We are not here to play,-to dream, to drift. We have hard work to do and loads to lift. Shun not the struggle,-face it: 'tis God's gift. Be strong! Say not the days are evil. Who's to blame? And fold the hands and acquisce,-O shame! Stand up, speak out, and bravely, in God's name. Be strong! It matters not how deep intrenched the wrong, How hard the battle goes, the day how long; Faint not,-fight on! Tomorrow comes the song.
MUSEE DES BEAUX ARTS About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters; how well they understood It's human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverntly, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martydom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman many Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disppearing into the green Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get and sailed colmly on. W.H. Auden (1907-1973)
ETERNITY He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses joy as it flies Lives in eternity's sunrise. William Blake (1757-1827)
IF THOU MUST LOVE ME If thou must love me, let it be for naught Except for love's sake only. Do not say "I love her for her smile-her look-her way Of speaking gently-for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and certes brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"- For these things in themselves, Beloved, may Be changed, or change for thee-and love, so wrought, May be unwrought so. Neither love me for Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry- A creature might forget to weep, who bore Thy confort long, and lose thy love thereby! But love me for love's sake, that evermore Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)
KUBLA KHAN In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round: And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war! The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare-device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight, 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality. We slowly drove; he knew no haste, And I had put away My labor and leisure too, For his civility. We passed the school, where children strove, At recess, in the ring, We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun, Or rather, he passed us; The dews frew quivering and chill; For only gossamer, my gown; My tippet, only tulle. We paused before a house that seemed A swelling of the ground; The roof was scarcely visible. The cornice, in the ground. Since then, 'tis centuries, and yet Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses' heads Were toward eternity. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
THE GOOD-MORROW I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did till we loved? were we not weaned till then, But sucked on country pleasures childishly? Or snorted we in the seven sleepers' den? 'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be. If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee. And now good-morrow to our waking sould, Which watch not one another out of fear; For love all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room an everywhere. Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone; Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown; Let us possess one world; eath hath one, and is one. My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain haerts do in the faces rest; Where can we find two better hemispheres Without sharp north, without declining west? Whatever dies was not mixed equally; If our two loves be one, ot thou and I Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die. John Donne (1572-1631)
ENDING The love we thought would never stop now cools like a congealing chop. The kisses that were hot as curry are bird-pecks taken in a hurry. The hands that held electric charges now lie inert as four moored barges. The feet that ran to meet a date are running slow and running late. The eyes that shone and seldom shut are victims of a power cut. The parts that then transmitted joy are now reserved and cold and coy. Romance, expected once to stay, has left a note saying GONE AWAY. Gavin Ewart (b.1916)
SONG: TO CELIA Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I'll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine, But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine. I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honoring thee As giving it a hope that there It could be withered be. But thou thereon didst only breathe, And sent'st it back to me; Since when, it grows, and smells, I swear, Not of itself, but thee. Ben Jonson (1573?-1637)
ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,- That thou, light-winged Dryad of trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. O for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou amoung the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and specter-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs, Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Through the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Clustered around by all her starry Fays; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast fading violets covered up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of fliew on summers eves. Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain- To thy high requiem become a sod. Thou was not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plantive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the nest valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:-Do I wake or sleep? John Keats (1795-1821)
OFFSPRING I tried to tell her: This way the twig is bent. Born of my trunk and strengthened by my roots, you must strech newgrown branches closer to the sun that I can reach. I wanted to say: Extend my self to that far atmosphere only my dream allow. But the twig broke, and yesterday I saw her walking down an unfamiliar street, feet confident face slanted upward toward a threatening sky, and she was smiling and she was her very free, her very individual, unpliable own. Naomi Long Madgett (b.1923)
THE AMATEURS OF HEAVEN Two lovers to a midnight meadow came High in the hills, to lie there hand in hand Life effigies and look up at the stars, The never-setting ones set in the North To circle the Pile in idiot majesty, And wonder what was given them to wonder. Being amateurs, they knew some of the names By rote, and could attach the names to stars And draw the lines invisible between That humbled all the heavenly things to farm And forest things and even kitchen things, A bear, a wagon, a long-handled ladle; Could wonder at the shadow of the world That brought those lights to light, could wonder too At the ancestral eyes and the dark mind Behind them that had reached the length of light To name the stars and draw the animals And other stuff that dangled in the height, Or was it in the deep? Did they look in Or out, the lovers? till they grew bored As even lovers will, and got up to go, But drunken now, with staggering and dizziness, Because the spell of earth had moved them so, Hallucinating that the heavens moved. Howard Nemerov (1920-1991)
I KNEW A WOMAN I knew a woman, lovely in her bones, When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them; Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one: The shapes a bright container can contain! Of her choice virtues only gods should speak, Or English poets who grew up on Greek (I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek). How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin, She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand; She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin; I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand; She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake, Coming behind her for her pretty sake (But what prodigious mowing we did make). Love likes a gander, and adores a goose: Her full lips pursed, the errant not to seize; She played it quick, she played it light and loose; My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees; Her several parts could keep a pure repose, Or one hip quiver with a moble nose (She moved in circles, and those circles moved). Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay: I'm martyr to a motion not my own; What's freedom for? To know eternity. I swear she cast a shadow white as stone. But who would count eternity in days? These old bones live to learn her wanton ways: (I measure time by how a body sways). Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see the blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
REAPERS Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones In their hip-pockets as a think that's done, And start their silent swinging, one by one. Black horses drive a mower through the weeds, And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds, His belly close to ground. I see the blade, Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade. Jean Toomer (1894-1967)
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