I have a wound that only trust will heal,
a scab encrusted on my bleeding soul.
Your eyes will tell me how much to reveal.

At first, the pain was much too great to feel;
the void within a black and gaping hole.
I have a wound that only trust will heal.

I learned the need to cover and conceal -
to curse the hurt and go on with my role.
Your eyes will tell me how much to reveal.

Love's embrace a temporary seal,
the depths too raw for topical control;
I have a wound that only trust will heal.

Another saw it, said it was not real
and did not want to see I was not whole;
your eyes will tell me how much to reveal.

Debride the edges gently, I appeal;
a healing touch will help the stitches hold.
I have a wound that only trust will heal;
your eyes will tell me how much to reveal.

Love and the gentle heart are one thing,
just as the poet says in his verse,
each from the other one as well divorced
as reason from the mind’s reasoning.

Nature craves love, and then creates love king,
and makes the heart a palace where he’ll stay,
perhaps a shorter or a longer day,
breathing quietly, gently slumbering.

Then beauty in a virtuous woman’s face
makes the eyes yearn, and strikes the heart,
so that the eyes’ desire’s reborn again,
and often, rooting there with longing, stays,

Till love, at last, out of its dreaming starts.
Woman’s moved likewise by a virtuous man.

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may **** me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman—
I have detested you long enough.
I come to you as a grown child
Who has had a pig-headed father;
I am old enough now to make friends.
It was you that broke the new wood
Now is a time for carving.
We have one sap and one root—
Let there be commerce between us.

Workingmen believed
He busted trusts,
And put his picture in their windows.
"What he'd have done in France!"
They said.
Perhaps he would--
He could have died
Perhaps,
Though generals rarely die except in bed,
As he did finally.
And all the legends that he started in his life
Live on and prosper,
Unhampered now by his existence.

I SIT in a chair and read the newspapers.

Millions of men go to war, acres of them are buried, guns and ships broken, cities burned, villages sent up in smoke, and children where cows are killed off amid hoarse barbecues vanish like finger-rings of smoke in a north wind.

I sit in a chair and read the newspapers.

Julia, I bring
          To thee this ring,
Made for thy finger fit;
          To show by this
          That our love is
(Or should be) like to it.

          Close though it be
          The joint is free;
So, when love’s yoke is on,
          It must not gall,
          Or fret at all
With hard oppression.

          But it must play
          Still either way,
And be, too, such a yoke
          As not too wide
          To overslide,
Or be so straight to choke.

          So we who bear
          This beam must rear
Ourselves to such a height
          As that the stay
          Of either may
Create the burden light.

          And as this round
          Is nowhere found
To flaw, or else to sever:
          So let our love
          As endless prove,
And pure as gold for ever.

I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love—put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
Swept by the tempest of your love,
A taper in a rushing wind.

Some ladies love the jewels in Love’s zone
And gold-tipped darts he hath for painless play
In idle scornful hours he flings away;
And some that listen to his lure’s soft tone
Do love to deem the silver praise their own;
Some prize his blindfold sight; and there be they
Who kissed his wings which brought him yesterday
And thank his wings to-day that he is flown.

My lady only loves the heart of Love:
Therefore Love’s heart, my lady, hath for thee
His bower of unimagined flower and tree:
There kneels he now, and all-anhungered of
Thine eyes grey-lit in shadowing hair above,
Seals with thy mouth his immortality.

Three sang of love together: one with lips
  Crimson, with cheeks and ***** in a glow,
Flushed to the yellow hair and finger-tips;
  And one there sang who soft and smooth as snow
  Bloomed like a tinted hyacinth at a show;
And one was blue with famine after love,
  Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low
The burden of what those were singing of.
One shamed herself in love; one temperately
  Grew gross in soulless love, a sluggish wife;
One famished died for love. Thus two of three
  Took death for love and won him after strife;
One droned in sweetness like a fattened bee:
  All on the threshold, yet all short of life.

Fragments 91, 92, 99, 106, 104, 103, 100, 105, 101, 102, 96, 109, 93, 94, 97, 95, and 133 combined.

Raise high the beams of the raftered hall,
(Sing the *****-refrain!)
Ye builders, of the bridal-dwelling!
(Sing the *****-refrain!)
Lo, the bridegroom comes, as the War-god tall —
(Sing the *****-refrain!)
Now nay — yet our tallest in stature excelling;
(Sing the *****-refrain!)
For stately he towers above all the throng
As the Lesbian singer towers among
All alien poets, a prince of song.

O happy bridegroom! it cometh to-day,
The bridal thine heart hith longed for aye!
At last shall she be thine own, the maid
For whom thou hast sighed, for whom thou hast prayed.
For none other maiden beneath the skies,
O bridegroom, was like unto her in thine eyes.
Whereunto may I liken thee, bridegroom dear?
To a green vine-shoot in the spring of the year.
Now, now let the bridegroom rejoice, for the bride
Into the hall cometh joyful-eyed.
Ethereal-pale is her lovely face.
Hail, bridegroom! Hail, bride, queenly in grace!
How goodly to see thy lord stands there!
And his goodness will keep him for thee ever fair.
Ah, doth she, ah doth she regretfully brood? —
Does her heart still yearn after maidenhood?
Nay, not in this hour she cries:
'Maidenhood, maidenhood, whither away
Forsaking me?'
While maidenhood replies:
'Not again unto thee shall I come for aye,
Not again unto thee!'
No more, no more doth she chant
Proud young virginity's vaunt:
'As the sweet-apple flames on the tip of a spray against the sky,
At its uttermost point, which the gleaners forgat, and passed it by —
O nay, they forgat it not, but they could not attain so high.'
But she thinks of the fate, an evil thing,
That the years fast-fleeting to fair maids bring.
When the roses are faded, the gold turns grey.
And the smoothness is furrowed, as singeth the lay —
'As the hyacinth-flower on the mountain-side that the shepherds tread
Underfoot, and low on the earth its bloom dark-splendid is shed.'
Lo, her hand into thine hath her father given.
And thou leadest her home 'neath the Star of Even;
To thy portal the bridal-train draws near.
And the Chant Processional rings out clear:
'Hail, Hesper, who bringest home all
That radiant Dawn scattered wide,
Bringest back unto fold and stall
The sheep and the goat, and thy call
Brings the child to the mother's side.
Let the rose-ringed Star of the Evenfall
Usher thee on, love's willing thrall,
Bride, garden of loves like roses blowing.
Bride, loveliest image of Paphos' Queen!
So pass to the bride-bower, pass within
To the nuptial couch, for the sweet bestowing
On the bridegroom, whose measure is overflowing.
Of the bliss, wherein honoured is Hera: 'tis owned
Of the Marriage-goddess, the silver-throned.'

1316

Winter is good—his **** Delights
Italic flavor yield
To Intellects inebriate
With Summer, or the World—

Generic as a Quarry
And hearty—as a Rose—
Invited with Asperity
But welcome when he goes.

I thirst, but not as once I did,
The vain delights of earth to share;
Thy wounds, Emmanuel, all forbid
That I should seek my pleasures there.

It was the sight of Thy dear cross
First wean'd my soul from earthly things;
And taught me to esteem as dross
The mirth of fools and pomp of kings.

I want that grace that springs from Thee,
That quickens all things where it flows,
And makes a wretched thorn like me
Bloom as the myrtle, or the rose.

Dear fountain of delight unknown!
No longer sink below the brim;
But overflow, and pour me down
A living and life-giving stream!

For sure of all the plants that share
The notice of thy Father's eye,
None proves less grateful to His care,
Or yields him meaner fruit than I.