I

Out of the little chapel I burst
Into the fresh night-air again.
Five minutes full, I waited first
In the doorway, to escape the rain
That drove in gusts down the common’s centre
At the edge of which the chapel stands,
Before I plucked up heart to enter.
Heaven knows how many sorts of hands
Reached past me, groping for the latch
Of the inner door that hung on catch
More obstinate the more they fumbled,
Till, giving way at last with a scold
Of the crazy hinge, in squeezed or tumbled
One sheep more to the rest in fold,
And left me irresolute, standing sentry
In the sheepfold’s lath-and-plaster entry,
Six feet long by three feet wide,
Partitioned off from the vast inside—
I blocked up half of it at least.
No remedy; the rain kept driving.
They eyed me much as some wild beast,
That congregation, still arriving,
Some of them by the main road, white
A long way past me into the night,
Skirting the common, then diverging;
Not a few suddenly emerging
From the common’s self through the paling-gaps,
—They house in the gravel-pits perhaps,
Where the road stops short with its safeguard border
Of lamps, as tired of such disorder;—
But the most turned in yet more abruptly
From a certain squalid knot of alleys,
Where the town’s bad blood once slept corruptly,
Which now the little chapel rallies
And leads into day again,—its priestliness
Lending itself to hide their beastliness
So cleverly (thanks in part to the mason),
And putting so cheery a whitewashed face on
Those neophytes too much in lack of it,
That, where you cross the common as I did,
And meet the party thus presided,
“Mount Zion” with Love-lane at the back of it,
They front you as little disconcerted
As, bound for the hills, her fate averted,
And her wicked people made to mind him,
Lot might have marched with Gomorrah behind him.

II

Well, from the road, the lanes or the common,
In came the flock: the fat weary woman,
Panting and bewildered, down-clapping
Her umbrella with a mighty report,
Grounded it by me, wry and flapping,
A wreck of whalebones; then, with a snort,
Like a startled horse, at the interloper
(Who humbly knew himself improper,
But could not shrink up small enough)
—Round to the door, and in,—the gruff
Hinge’s invariable scold
Making my very blood run cold.
Prompt in the wake of her, up-pattered
On broken clogs, the many-tattered
Little old-faced peaking sister-turned-mother
Of the sickly babe she tried to smother
Somehow up, with its spotted face,
From the cold, on her breast, the one warm place;
She too must stop, wring the poor ends dry
Of a draggled shawl, and add thereby
Her tribute to the door-mat, sopping
Already from my own clothes’ dropping,
Which yet she seemed to grudge I should stand on:
Then, stooping down to take off her pattens,
She bore them defiantly, in each hand one,
Planted together before her breast
And its babe, as good as a lance in rest.
Close on her heels, the dingy satins
Of a female something past me flitted,
With lips as much too white, as a streak
Lay far too red on each hollow cheek;
And it seemed the very door-hinge pitied
All that was left of a woman once,
Holding at least its tongue for the *****.
Then a tall yellow man, like the Penitent Thief,
With his jaw bound up in a handkerchief,
And eyelids ******* together tight,
Led himself in by some inner light.
And, except from him, from each that entered,
I got the same interrogation—
“What, you the alien, you have ventured
To take with us, the elect, your station?
A carer for none of it, a Gallio!”—
Thus, plain as print, I read the glance
At a common prey, in each countenance
As of huntsman giving his hounds the tallyho.
And, when the door’s cry drowned their wonder,
The draught, it always sent in shutting,
Made the flame of the single tallow candle
In the cracked square lantern I stood under,
Shoot its blue lip at me, rebutting
As it were, the luckless cause of scandal:
I verily fancied the zealous light
(In the chapel’s secret, too!) for spite
Would shudder itself clean off the wick,
With the airs of a Saint John’s Candlestick.
There was no standing it much longer.
“Good folks,” thought I, as resolve grew stronger,
“This way you perform the Grand-Inquisitor
When the weather sends you a chance visitor?
You are the men, and wisdom shall die with you,
And none of the old Seven Churches vie with you!
But still, despite the pretty perfection
To which you carry your trick of exclusiveness,
And, taking God’s word under wise protection,
Correct its tendency to diffusiveness,
And bid one reach it over hot ploughshares,—
Still, as I say, though you’ve found salvation,
If I should choose to cry, as now, ‘Shares!’—
See if the best of you bars me my ration!
I prefer, if you please, for my expounder
Of the laws of the feast, the feast’s own Founder;
Mine’s the same right with your poorest and sickliest,
Supposing I don the marriage vestiment:
So, shut your mouth and open your Testament,
And carve me my portion at your quickliest!”
Accordingly, as a shoemaker’s lad
With wizened face in want of soap,
And wet apron wound round his waist like a rope,
(After stopping outside, for his cough was bad,
To get the fit over, poor gentle creature
And so avoid distrubing the preacher)
—Passed in, I sent my elbow spikewise
At the shutting door, and entered likewise,
Received the hinge’s accustomed greeting,
And crossed the threshold’s magic pentacle,
And found myself in full conventicle,
—To wit, in Zion Chapel Meeting,
On the Christmas-Eve of ‘Forty-nine,
Which, calling its flock to their special clover,
Found all assembled and one sheep over,
Whose lot, as the weather pleased, was mine.

III

I very soon had enough of it.
The hot smell and the human noises,
And my neighbor’s coat, the greasy cuff of it,
Were a pebble-stone that a child’s hand poises,
Compared with the pig-of-lead-like pressure
Of the preaching man’s immense stupidity,
As he poured his doctrine forth, full measure,
To meet his audience’s avidity.
You needed not the wit of the Sibyl
To guess the cause of it all, in a twinkling:
No sooner our friend had got an inkling
Of treasure hid in the Holy Bible,
(Whene’er ‘t was the thought first struck him,
How death, at unawares, might duck him
Deeper than the grave, and quench
The gin-shop’s light in hell’s grim drench)
Than he handled it so, in fine irreverence,
As to hug the book of books to pieces:
And, a patchwork of chapters and texts in severance,
Not improved by the private dog’s-ears and creases,
Having clothed his own soul with, he’d fain see equipt yours,—
So tossed you again your Holy Scriptures.
And you picked them up, in a sense, no doubt:
Nay, had but a single face of my neighbors
Appeared to suspect that the preacher’s labors
Were help which the world could be saved without,
‘T is odds but I might have borne in quiet
A qualm or two at my spiritual diet,
Or (who can tell?) perchance even mustered
Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon:
But the flock sat on, divinely flustered,
Sniffing, methought, its dew of Hermon
With such content in every snuffle,
As the devil inside us loves to ruffle.
My old fat woman purred with pleasure,
And thumb round thumb went twirling faster,
While she, to his periods keeping measure,
Maternally devoured the pastor.
The man with the handkerchief untied it,
Showed us a horrible wen inside it,
Gave his eyelids yet another *******,
And rocked himself as the woman was doing.
The shoemaker’s lad, discreetly choking,
Kept down his cough. ‘T was too provoking!
My gorge rose at the nonsense and stuff of it;
So, saying like Eve when she plucked the apple,
“I wanted a taste, and now there’s enough of it,”
I flung out of the little chapel.

IV

There was a lull in the rain, a lull
In the wind too; the moon was risen,
And would have shone out pure and full,
But for the ramparted cloud-prison,
Block on block built up in the West,
For what purpose the wind knows best,
Who changes his mind continually.
And the empty other half of the sky
Seemed in its silence as if it knew
What, any moment, might look through
A chance gap in that fortress massy:—
Through its fissures you got hints
Of the flying moon, by the shifting tints,
Now, a dull lion-color, now, brassy
Burning to yellow, and whitest yellow,
Like furnace-smoke just ere flames bellow,
All a-simmer with intense strain
To let her through,—then blank again,
At the hope of her appearance failing.
Just by the chapel a break in the railing
Shows a narrow path directly across;
‘T is ever dry walking there, on the moss—
Besides, you go gently all the way up-hill.
I stooped under and soon felt better;
My head grew lighter, my limbs more supple,
As I walked on, glad to have slipt the fetter.
My mind was full of the scene I had left,
That placid flock, that pastor vociferant,
—How this outside was pure and different!
The sermon, now—what a mingled weft
Of good and ill! Were either less,
Its fellow had colored the whole distinctly;
But alas for the excellent earnestness,
And the truths, quite true if stated succinctly,
But as surely false, in their quaint presentment,
However to pastor and flock’s contentment!
Say rather, such truths looked false to your eyes,
With his provings and parallels twisted and twined,
Till how could you know them, grown double their size
In the natural fog of the good man’s mind,
Like yonder spots of our roadside lamps,
Haloed about with the common’s damps?
Truth remains true, the fault’s in the prover;
The zeal was good, and the aspiration;
And yet, and yet, yet, fifty times over,
Pharaoh received no demonstration,
By his Baker’s dream of Baskets Three,
Of the doctrine of the Trinity,—
Although, as our preacher thus embellished it,
Apparently his hearers relished it
With so unfeigned a gust—who knows if
They did not prefer our friend to Joseph?
But so it is everywhere, one way with all of them!
These people have really felt, no doubt,
A something, the motion they style the Call of them;
And this is their method of bringing about,
By a mechanism of words and tones,
(So many texts in so many groans)
A sort of reviving and reproducing,
More or less perfectly, (who can tell?)
The mood itself, which strengthens by using;
And how that happens, I understand well.
A tune was born in my head last week,
Out of the thump-thump and shriek-shriek
Of the train, as I came by it, up from Manchester;
And when, next week, I take it back again,
My head will sing to the engine’s clack again,
While it only makes my neighbor’s haunches stir,
—Finding no dormant musical sprout
In him, as in me, to be jolted out.
‘T is the taught already that profits by teaching;
He gets no more from the railway’s preaching
Than, from this preacher who does the rail’s officer, I:
Whom therefore the flock cast a jealous eye on.
Still, why paint over their door “Mount Zion,”
To which all flesh shall come, saith the pro phecy?

V

But wherefore be harsh on a single case?
After how many modes, this Christmas-Eve,
Does the self-same weary thing take place?
The same endeavor to make you believe,
And with much the same effect, no more:
Each method abundantly convincing,
As I say, to those convinced before,
But scarce to be swallowed without wincing
By the not-as-yet-convinced. For me,
I have my own church equally:
And in this church my faith sprang first!
(I said, as I reached the rising ground,
And the wind began again, with a burst
Of rain in my face, and a glad rebound
From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me,
I entered his church-door, nature leading me)
—In youth I looked to these very skies,
And probing their immensities,
I found God there, his visible power;
Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense
Of the power, an equal evidence
That his love, there too, was the nobler dower.
For the loving worm within its clod
Were diviner than a loveless god
Amid his worlds, I will dare to say.
You know what I mean: God’s all man’s naught:
But also, God, whose pleasure brought
Man into being, stands away
As it were a handbreadth off, to give
Room for the newly-made to live,
And look at him from a place apart,
And use his gifts of brain and heart,
Given, indeed, but to keep forever.
Who speaks of man, then, must not sever
Man’s very elements from man,
Saying, “But all is God’s”—whose plan
Was to create man and then leave him
Able, his own word saith, to grieve him,
But able to glorify him too,
As a mere machine could never do,
That prayed or praised, all unaware
Of its fitness for aught but praise and prayer,
Made perfect as a thing of course.
Man, therefore, stands on his own stock
Of love and power as a pin-point rock:
And, looking to God who ordained divorce
Of the rock from his boundless continent,
Sees, in his power made evident,
Only excess by a million-fold
O’er the power God gave man in the mould.
For, note: man’s hand, first formed to carry
A few pounds’ weight, when taught to marry
Its strength with an engine’s, lifts a mountain,
—Advancing in power by one degree;
And why count steps through eternity?
But love is the ever-springing fountain:
Man may enlarge or narrow his bed
For the water’s play, but the water-head—
How can he multiply or reduce it?
As easy create it, as cause it to cease;
He may profit by it, or abuse it,
But ‘t is not a thing to bear increase
As power does: be love less or more
In the heart of man, he keeps it shut
Or opes it wide, as he pleases, but
Love’s sum remains what it was before.
So, gazing up, in my youth, at love
As seen through power, ever above
All modes which make it manifest,
My soul brought all to a single test—
That he, the Eternal First and Last,
Who, in his power, had so surpassed
All man conceives of what is might,—
Whose wisdom, too, showed infinite,
—Would prove as infinitely good;
Would never, (my soul understood,)
With power to work all love desires,
Bestow e’en less than man requires;
That he who endlessly was teaching,
Above my spirit’s utmost reaching,
What love can do in the leaf or stone,
(So that to master this alone,
This done in the stone or leaf for me,
I must go on learning endlessly)
Would never need that I, in turn,
Should point him out defect unheeded,
And show that God had yet to learn
What the meanest human creature needed,
—Not life, to wit, for a few short years,
Tracking his way through doubts and fears,
While the stupid earth on which I stay
Suffers no change, but passive adds
Its myriad years to myriads,
Though I, he gave it to, decay,
Seeing death come and choose about me,
And my dearest ones depart without me.
No: love which, on earth, amid all the shows of it,
Has ever been seen the sole good of life in it,
The love, ever growing there, spite of the strife in it,
Shall arise, made perfect, from death’s repose of it.
And I shall behold thee, face to face,
O God, and in thy light retrace
How in all I loved here, still wast thou!
Whom pressing to, then, as I fain would now,
I shall find as able to satiate
The love, thy gift, as my spirit’s wonder
Thou art able to quicken and sublimate,
With this sky of thine, that I now walk under
And glory in thee for, as I gaze
Thus, thus! Oh, let men keep their ways
Of seeking thee in a narrow shrine—
Be this my way! And this is mine!

VI

For lo, what think you? suddenly
The rain and the wind ceased, and the sky
Received at once the full fruition
Of the moon’s consummate apparition.
The black cloud-barricade was riven,
Ruined beneath her feet, and driven
Deep in the West; while, bare and breathless,
North and South and East lay ready
For a glorious thing that, dauntless, deathless,
Sprang across them and stood steady.
‘T was a moon-rainbow, vast and perfect,
From heaven to heaven extending, perfect
As the mother-moon’s self, full in face.
It rose, distinctly at the base
With its seven proper colors chorded,
Which still, in the rising, were compressed,
Until at last they coalesced,
And supreme the spectral creature lorded
In a triumph of whitest white,—
Above which intervened the night.
But above night too, like only the next,
The second of a wondrous sequence,
Reaching in rare and rarer frequence,
Till the heaven of heavens were circumflexed
Another rainbow rose, a mightier,
Fainter, flushier and flightier,—
Rapture dying along its verge.
Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge,
Whose, from the straining topmost dark,
On to the keystone of that are?

VII

This sight was shown me, there and then,—
Me, one out of a world of men,
Singled forth, as the chance might hap
To another if, in a thu

Howe's Final version

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fatal lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His Truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps.
His Day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:
'As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.'

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat:
Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his ***** that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

2. Howe's First Manuscript Version
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
He is trampling out the wine press, where the grapes of wrath are stored,
He hath loosed the fateful lightnings of his terrible swift sword,
His truth is marching on.

I have seen him in the watchfires of an hundred circling camps
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps,
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps,
His day is marching on.

I have read a burning Gospel writ in fiery rows of steel,
As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal
Let the hero born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Our God is marching on.

He has sounded out the trumpet that shall never call retreat,
He has waked the earth's dull sorrow with a high ecstatic beat,
Oh! be swift my soul to answer him, be jubilant my feet
Our God is marching on.

In the whiteness of the lilies he was born across the sea
With a glory in his ***** that shines out on you and me,
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
Our God is marching on.

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave
He is wisdom to the mighty, he is sucour to the brave
So the world shall be his footstool, and the soul of Time his slave
Our God is marching on.

You have dreams, don’t you?
Every night before you sleep,
I’m sure there is something you long for to have, do or keep.
I know, everyone has plans;
but not everybody is ready to dance.
You see, there are these little things I call cramps.
I don’t know if you got me or not;
I’m talking about those little things behind every evil plot.
You know that time,
when disappointed of the day you go to bed,
and the only thing that can put you to sleep,
are the lies to your soul you have fed?
Them are those cramps,
Them are those damps.
In the morning you get up, I guess all sore;
but nothing looks like the thoughts you had the night before.
All those things you said you’d do,
now seem foolish, pointless, untrue…
The past and future seem within reach,
and the present looks like one hell of a glitch.
That is just the thing we tell ourselves,
looking for excuses, shuffling between shelves.
But we all deeply know,
that firstly before us, that is low.
Motivation is bad, it won’t get you what you seek.
The mind changes all the time, it is terribly weak.
Persistence is what you need;
Your own discipline is what you need to feed.
Push it to the edge,
until it’s hanging from the ledge.
Do it, even if it hurts,
if that is what your soul lurks.
Then you’ll know what you want, what you need.
Opinions and perspective change all the time;
Your own hill, only you can climb.
It’s not important what you think is stupid or smart.
Get your aim at the stuff that fill your heart.
Aim and shoot,
shoot and in your target the bullet beroot.
Rub and scratch those little cramps,
those nasty damps;
Give it all, yell and shout,
until the cramps get burned out.

(A Virginia Legend.)

The Planting of the Hemp.

Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas
(Black is the gap below the plank)
From the Great North Bank to the Caribbees
(Down by the marsh the hemp grows rank).

His fear was on the seaport towns,
The weight of his hand held hard the downs.
And the merchants cursed him, bitter and black,
For a red flame in the sea-fog's wrack
Was all of their ships that might come back.

For all he had one word alone,
One clod of dirt in their faces thrown,
"The hemp that shall hang me is not grown!"

His name bestrode the seas like Death.
The waters trembled at his breath.

This is the tale of how he fell,
Of the long sweep and the heavy swell,
And the rope that dragged him down to hell.

The fight was done, and the gutted ship,
Stripped like a shark the sea-gulls strip,

Lurched blindly, eaten out with flame,
Back to the land from where she came,
A skimming horror, an eyeless shame.

And Hawk stood upon his quarter-deck,
And saw the sky and saw the wreck.

Below, a **** for sailors' jeers,
White as the sky when a white squall nears,
Huddled the crowd of the prisoners.

Over the bridge of the tottering plank,
Where the sea shook and the gulf yawned blank,
They shrieked and struggled and dropped and sank,

Pinioned arms and hands bound fast.
One girl alone was left at last.

Sir Henry Gaunt was a mighty lord.
He sat in state at the Council board;
The governors were as nought to him.
From one rim to the other rim

Of his great plantations, flung out wide
Like a purple cloak, was a full month's ride.

Life and death in his white hands lay,
And his only daughter stood at bay,
Trapped like a hare in the toils that day.

He sat at wine in his gold and his lace,
And far away, in a ****** place,
Hawk came near, and she covered her face.

He rode in the fields, and the hunt was brave,
And far away his daughter gave
A shriek that the seas cried out to hear,
And he could not see and he could not save.

Her white soul withered in the mire
As paper shrivels up in fire,
And Hawk laughed, and he kissed her mouth,
And her body he took for his desire.


The Growing of the Hemp.

Sir Henry stood in the manor room,
And his eyes were hard gems in the gloom.

And he said, "Go dig me furrows five
Where the green marsh creeps like a thing alive --
There at its edge, where the rushes thrive."

And where the furrows rent the ground,
He sowed the seed of hemp around.

And the blacks shrink back and are sore afraid
At the furrows five that rib the glade,
And the voodoo work of the master's *****.

For a cold wind blows from the marshland near,
And white things move, and the night grows drear,
And they chatter and crouch and are sick with fear.

But down by the marsh, where the gray slaves glean,
The hemp sprouts up, and the earth is seen
Veiled with a tenuous mist of green.

And Hawk still scourges the Caribbees,
And many men kneel at his knees.

Sir Henry sits in his house alone,
And his eyes are hard and dull like stone.

And the waves beat, and the winds roar,
And all things are as they were before.

And the days pass, and the weeks pass,
And nothing changes but the grass.

But down where the fireflies are like eyes,
And the damps shudder, and the mists rise,
The hemp-stalks stand up toward the skies.

And down from the **** of the pirate ship
A body falls, and the great sharks grip.

Innocent, lovely, go in grace!
At last there is peace upon your face.

And Hawk laughs loud as the corpse is thrown,
"The hemp that shall hang me is not grown!"

Sir Henry's face is iron to mark,
And he gazes ever in the dark.

And the days pass, and the weeks pass,
And the world is as it always was.

But down by the marsh the sickles beam,
Glitter on glitter, gleam on gleam,
And the hemp falls down by the stagnant stream.

And Hawk beats up from the Caribbees,
Swooping to pounce in the Northern seas.

Sir Henry sits sunk deep in his chair,
And white as his hand is grown his hair.

And the days pass, and the weeks pass,
And the sands roll from the hour-glass.

But down by the marsh in the blazing sun
The hemp is smoothed and twisted and spun,
The rope made, and the work done.


The Using of the Hemp.

Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas
(Black is the gap below the plank)
From the Great North Bank to the Caribbees
(Down by the marsh the hemp grows rank).

He sailed in the broad Atlantic track,
And the ships that saw him came not back.

And once again, where the wide tides ran,
He stooped to harry a merchantman.

He bade her stop. Ten guns spake true
From her hidden ports, and a hidden crew,
Lacking his great ship through and through.

Dazed and dumb with the sudden death,
He scarce had time to draw a breath

Before the grappling-irons bit deep,
And the boarders slew his crew like sheep.

Hawk stood up straight, his breast to the steel;
His cutlass made a ****** wheel.

His cutlass made a wheel of flame.
They shrank before him as he came.

And the bodies fell in a choking crowd,
And still he thundered out aloud,

"The hemp that shall hang me is not grown!"
They fled at last. He was left alone.

Before his foe Sir Henry stood.
"The hemp is grown, and my word made good!"

And the cutlass clanged with a hissing whir
On the lashing blade of the rapier.

Hawk roared and charged like a maddened buck.
As the cobra strikes, Sir Henry struck,

Pouring his life in a single ******,
And the cutlass shivered to sparks and dust.

Sir Henry stood on the blood-stained deck,
And set his foot on his foe's neck.

Then from the hatch, where the rent decks *****,
Where the dead roll and the wounded *****,
He dragged the serpent of the rope.

The sky was blue, and the sea was still,
The waves lapped softly, hill on hill,
And between one wave and another wave
The doomed man's cries were little and shrill.

The sea was blue, and the sky was calm;
The air dripped with a golden balm.
Like a wind-blown fruit between sea and sun,
A black thing writhed at a yard-arm.

Slowly then, and awesomely,
The ship sank, and the gallows-tree,
And there was nought between sea and sun --
Nought but the sun and the sky and the sea.

But down by the marsh where the fever breeds,
Only the water chuckles and pleads;
For the hemp clings fast to a dead man's throat,
And blind Fate gathers back her seeds.

Notus in fratres animi paterni.
                       Hor. Carm. lib.II.2.

A blesséd lot hath he, who having passed
His youth and early manhood in the stir
And turmoil of the world, retreats at length,
With cares that move, not agitate the heart,
To the same dwelling where his father dwelt;
And haply views his tottering little ones
Embrace those agéd knees and climb that lap,
On which first kneeling his own infancy
Lisp’d its brief prayer. Such, O my earliest Friend!
Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy.
At distance did ye climb Life’s upland  road,
Yet cheered and cheering: now fraternal love
Hath drawn you to one centre. Be your days
Holy, and blest and blessing may ye live!

  To me the Eternal Wisdom hath dispens’d
A different fortune and more different mind—
Me from the spot where first I sprang to light
Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fix’d
Its first domestic loves; and hence through life
Chasing chance-started friendships. A brief while
Some have preserved me from life’s pelting ills;
But, like a tree with leaves of feeble stem,
If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze
Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once
Dropped the collected shower; and some most false,
False and fair-foliag’d as the Manchineel,
Have tempted me to slumber in their shade
E’en mid the storm; then breathing subtlest damps,
Mix’d their own venom with the rain from Heaven,
That I woke poison’d! But, all praise to Him
Who gives us all things, more have yielded me
Permanent shelter; and beside one Friend,
Beneath the impervious covert of one oak,
I’ve rais’d a lowly shed, and know the names
Of Husband and of Father; not unhearing
Of that divine and nightly-whispering Voice,
Which from my childhood to maturer years
Spake to me of predestinated wreaths,
Bright with no fading colours!
                                               Yet at times
My soul is sad, that I have roam’d through life
Still most a stranger, most with naked heart
At mine own home and birth-place: chiefly then,
When I remember thee, my earliest Friend!
Thee, who didst watch my boyhood and my youth;
Didst trace my wanderings with a father’s eye;
And boding evil yet still hoping good,
Rebuk’d each fault, and over all my woes
Sorrow’d in silence! He who counts alone
The beatings of the solitary heart,
That Being knows, how I have lov’d thee ever,
Lov’d as a brother, as a son rever’d thee!
Oh! ’tis to me an ever new delight,
To talk of thee and thine: or when the blast
Of the shrill winter, rattling our rude sash,
Endears the cleanly hearth and social bowl;
Or when, as now, on some delicious eve,
We in our sweet sequester’d orchard-plot
Sit on the tree crook’d earth-ward; whose old boughs,
That hang above us in an arborous roof,
Stirr’d by the faint gale of departing May,
Send their loose blossoms slanting o’er our heads!

  Nor dost not thou sometimes recall those hours,
When with the joy of hope thou gavest thine ear
To my wild firstling-lays. Since then my song
Hath sounded deeper notes, such as beseem
Or that sad wisdom folly leaves behind,
Or such as, tuned to these tumultuous times,
Cope with the tempest’s swell!

                                                These various strains,
Which I have fram’d in many a various mood,
Accept, my Brother! and (for some perchance
Will strike discordant on thy milder mind)
If aught of error or intemperate truth
Should meet thine ear, think thou that riper Age
Will calm it down, and let thy love forgive it!

Whither?  say, whither shall I fly,
To slack these flames wherein I fry?
To the treasures, shall I go,
Of the rain, frost, hail, and snow?
Shall I search the underground,
Where all damps and mists are found?
Shall I seek (for speedy ease)
All the floods and frozen seas?
Or descend into the deep,
Where eternal cold does keep?
These may cool; but there’s a zone
Colder yet than anyone:
That’s my Julia’s breast, where dwells
Such destructive icicles,
As that the congelation will
Me sooner starve than those can ****.

XXIII

Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,
Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?
And would the sun for thee more coldly shine
Because of grave-damps falling round my head?
I marvelled, my Beloved, when I read
Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine—
But . . . so much to thee? Can I pour thy wine
While my hands tremble ? Then my soul, instead
Of dreams of death, resumes life’s lower range.
Then, love me, Love! look on me—breathe on me!
As brighter ladies do not count it strange,
For love, to give up acres and degree,
I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange
My near sweet view of Heaven, for earth with thee!

As I lay here
Encapsulated in softness
I close my eyes tenderly
For my dreams are placid
Gossamer, floating wild yet gently
My dreams are the sparkles
My dreams are the ambers
But my dreams are not dreams
My dreams are honeyed streams
Manifestation
Of bliss, of love so pure

I am witness of a miracle
I was born once as mortal clay
Buried deep within, seeds of my dark fate
They said,
“You can change not,
Your fate is forged,
On iron pages it is wrought”
Exclaimed I;
“Does not moisture crack the seeds?
Does not I carry that grows to reed?”

So I marched on barren lands
Wildly searching that could damp
Scared,  a step with each heartbeat
Thorns piercing and bleeding my feet
To heavens I prayed in desperate I cried,
Tears of agony in my eyes
That moment bestowed upon me
Our blood is the water that damps the seeds
The more we bleed, the more we reap

Hence I was reborn amongst sunniest rays
To taste the sweetness in bitterness
To experience the noise in silence
To listen the music in smiles
To see the laughter in eyes

As I drift to sleep now
I will not dream, I can never dream
My reality is too beautiful,
My reality is all I dream

Until that day when,
My reality becomes only a dream,
When my lids would turn stones
And the blood in me runs dry
Till that last day,
I will use my blood
To moist my seeds of fate

betweenwe
there,s a stiff flower

    bloomING

she plays slightly, it like

a lute likea minstrellike a goddess a.she,s
twining curdled moans, my arms about. softly;
    
      i

climb clamor clamor into the moist
   into the damps
into the wet architecture of her lips and the cusp
of endless pleasure erupting a basin of pale shoulders
and glittering eternal emeralds bust from the kind sockets

         the habitual tumors of her *******, the strong scent of her
health, and the

tongue of flavor of her melody strangling. night the night air the soft
     heat of her flesh. the morsels of her fingers dimple fastidiously chaotic
rumbling stupid majesty exploding
oblong jousts of sallow skin. my neck. onmyneck. her nails. onmyneck.
i'm this:i'myours

1
the bird hums
to the pattern of the
pitter patter

2
the blue in grandma's eyes fades just a little as a mixture of sound and blood escape her dry lips

3
Grandma's hands shake
as her warm hand touch the cold
leather gun in this
ever so shifting darkness
we have captured ourselves in

4**
Grandma's eyes stare into
mine
one
last
*******
time
as the the pool of blood that damps her back
swallows her in an embrace that was
so much bigger then my own

Then you check if they're asleep,
Sneak at the wash room,
Check if you made it right,
Damps some towel and looks for some holes,
Then you light it up.
As it gets to you, you hear them,
You know they're not there.
You just hear them.
And you realize when you go to bed,
Hearing the noise of the air-conditioner,
Your eyes adjusting to the darkness,
You see your pillow just the way you want it.
But no one can deny,
Your home is nowhere.
Not here, definitely not there.

                                                         ­           You just grew apart.

with passion
i pressed my wet lips
on yours
so i could taste
your tongue
soft and sweet
in a mouth full of drops
or somewhere between
two subtle tongues
when the sky fell down
on us
we
dancing in the storm
and heavy rain
jumping with the thunder
all we needed
we
between all
damps from the day
wishing to be naked
and free
like our bodies
during an evening storm

Michael Wigglesworth (1631–1705)

STILL was the night, serene and bright,
  When all men sleeping lay;
Calm was the season, and carnal reason
  Thought so ’t would last for aye.
Soul, take thine ease, let sorrow cease,         5
  Much good thou hast in store:
This was their song, their cups among,
  The evening before.

Wallowing in all kind of sin,
  Vile wretches lay secure:         10
The best of men had scarcely then
  Their lamps kept in good ure.
Virgins unwise, who through disguise
  Amongst the best were number’d,
Had clos’d their eyes; yea, and the wise         15
  Through sloth and frailty slumber’d.

Like as of gold, when men grow bold
  God’s threat’nings to contemn,
Who stop their ear, and would not hear;
  When mercy warned them:         20
But took their course, without remorse,
  Till God began to pour
Destruction the world upon
  In a tempestuous shower.

They put away the evil day,         25
  And drown’d their care and fears,
Till drown’d were they, and swept away
  By vengeance unawares:
So at the last, whilst men sleep fast
  In their security,         30
Surpris’d they are in such a snare
  As cometh suddenly.

For at midnight break forth a light,
  Which turn’d the night to day,
And speedily an hideous cry         35
  Did all the world dismay.
Sinners awake, their hearts do ache,
  Trembling their ***** surpriseth;
Amaz’d with fear, by what they hear,
  Each one of them ariseth.         40

They rush from beds with giddy heads,
  And to their windows run,
Viewing this light, which shines more bright
  Than doth the noonday sun.
Straightway appears (they see ’t with tears,)         45
  The Son of God most dread;
Who with his train comes on amain
  To judge both quick and dead.

Before his face the heavens gave place,
  And skies are rent asunder,         50
With mighty voice, and hideous noise,
  More terrible than thunder.
His brightness damps heaven’s glorious lamps,
  And makes them hide their heads,
As if afraid and quite dismay’d,         55
  They quit their wonted steads.

Ye sons of men that durst contemn
  The threat’nings of God’s word,
How cheer you now? your hearts I trow,
  Are thrill’d as with a sword.         60
Now atheist blind, whose brutish mind
  A God could never see,
Dost thou perceive, dost now believe
  That Christ thy judge shalt be?

Stout courages, (whose hardiness         65
  Could death and hell outface,)
Are you as bold now you behold
  Your judge draw near apace?
They cry, “no, no: alas! and wo!
  Our courage is all gone:         70
Our hardiness (fool hardiness)
  Hath us undone, undone.”

No heart so bold, but now grows cold
  And almost dead with fear:
No eye so dry, but now can cry,         75
  And pour out many a tear.
Earth’s potentates and powerful states,
  Captains and men of might,
Are quite abash’d, their courage dash’d
  At this most dreadful sight.         80

Mean men lament, great men do rent
  Their robes, and tear their hair:
They do not spare their flesh to tear
  Through horrible despair.
All kindreds wail: all hearts do fail:         85
  Horror the world doth fill
With weeping eyes, and loud outcries,
  Yet knows not *******.

Some hide themselves in caves and delves
  In places under ground:         90
Some rashly leap into the deep,
  To ’scape by being drown’d:
Some to the rocks (O senseless blocks!)
  And woody mountains run,
That there they might this fearful sight,         95
  And dreaded presence shun.

In vain do they to mountains say,
  Fall on us and us hide
From judge’s ire, more hot than fire,
  For who may it abide?         100
No hiding place can from his face,
  Sinners at all conceal,
Whose flaming eye hid things doth spy,
  And darkest things reveal.

Then were brought in, and charg’d with sin.         105
  Another company,
Who by petition obtain’d permission,
  To make apology:
They argued, “We were misled,
  As is well known to thee,         110
By their example, that had more ample
  Abilities than we:

Such as profess’d they did detest
  And hate each wicked way:
Whose seeming grace whilst we did trace,         115
  Our souls were led astray.
When men of parts, learning and arts.
  Professing piety,
Did thus and thus, it seem’d to us
  We might take liberty.         120

The judge replies, “I gave you eyes,
  And light to see your way,
Which had you lov’d, and well improv’d,
  You had not gone astray.
My word was pure, the rule was sure,         125
  Why did you it forsake,
Or thereon trample, and men’s example,
  Your directory make?

This you well knew, that God is true,
  And that most men are liars,         130
In word professing holiness,
  In deed thereof deniers.
O simple fools! that having rules
  Your lives to regulate,
Would them refuse, and rather choose         135
  Vile men to imitate.”

“But Lord,” say they, “we went astray,
  And did more wickedly,
By means of those whom thou hast chose
  Salvation heirs to be.”         140
To whom the judge; “what you allege,
  Doth nothing help the case;
But makes appear how vile you were,
  And rendereth you more base.

You understood that what was good         145
  Was to be followed,
And that you ought that which was naught
  To have relinquished.
Contrary ways, it was your guise,
  Only to imitate         150
Good men’s defects, and their neglects
  That were regenerate.

But to express their holiness,
  Or imitate their grace,
You little car’d, nor once prepar’d         155
  Your hearts to seek my face.
They did repent, and truly rent
  Their hearts for all known sin:
You did offend, but not amend,
  To follow them therein.”         160

“We had thy word,” say some, “O Lord,
  But wiser men than we
Could never yet interpret it,
  But always disagree.
How could we fools be led by rules,         165
  So far beyond our ken,
Which to explain did so much pain,
  And puzzle wisest men.”

“Was all my word abstruse and hard?”
  The judge then answered:         170
“It did contain much truth so plain,
  You might have run and read.
But what was hard you never car’d
  To know nor studied.
And things that were most plain and clear         175
  You never practised.

The mystery of piety
  God unto babes reveals;
When to the wise he it denies,
  And from the world conceals.         180
If to fulfil God’s holy will
  Had seemed good to you
You would have sought light as you ought,
  And done the good you knew.”

Then at the bar arraigned are         185
  An impudenter sort,
Who to evade the guilt that’s laid
  Upon them thus retort;
“How could we cease thus to transgress?
  How could we hell avoid,         190
Whom God’s decree shut out from thee,
  And sign’d to be destroy’d?

Whom God ordains to endless pains,
  By law unalterable,
Repentance true, obedience new,         195
  To save such are unable:
Sorrow for sin, no good can win,
  To such as are rejected:
Nor can they grieve, nor yet believe,
  That never were elected.         200

Of man’s fall’n race who can true grace
  Or holiness obtain?
Who can convert or change his heart,
  If God withhold the same?
Had we applied ourselves and tried         205
  As much as who did most
God’s love to gain, our busy pain
  And labor had been lost.

Christ readily makes this reply;
  “I **** you not because         210
You are rejected or not elected,
  But you have broke my laws:
It is but vain your wits to strain
  The end and means to sever:
Men fondly seek to part or break         215
  What God hath link’d together.

Whom God will save such will he have
  The means of life to use:
Whom he ’ll pass by, shall choose to die,
  And ways of life refuse.         220
He that foresees, and foredecrees,
  In wisdom order’d has,
That man’s free will electing ill,
  Shall bring his will to pass.

High God’s decree, as it is free,         225
  So doth it none compel
Against their will to good or ill,
  It forceth none to hell.
They have their wish whose souls perish
  With torments in hell fire,         230
Who rather chose their souls to lose,
  Than leave a loose desire.

Then to the bar, all they drew near
  Who died in infancy,
And never had or good or bad         235
  Effected personally,
But from the womb unto the tomb
  Were straightway carried,
(Or at the last ere they transgress’d)
  Who thus began to plead:         240

“If for our own transgression,
  Or disobedience,
We here did stand at thy left hand,
  Just were the recompense:
But Adam’s guilt our souls hath spilt,         245
  His fault is charged on us;
And that alone hath overthrown,
  And utterly undone us.

Not we, but he ate of the tree,
  Whose fruit was interdicted:         250
Yet on us all of his sad fall,
  The punishment ’s inflicted.
How could we sin that had not been,
  Or how is his sin our
Without consent, which to prevent,         255
  We never had a power?

O great Creator, why was our nature
  Depraved and forlorn?
Why so defil’d, and made so vild
  Whilst we were yet unborn?         260
If it be just and needs we must
  Transgressors reckon’d be,
Thy mercy, Lord, to us afford,
  Which sinners hath set free.

Behold we see Adam set free,         265
  And sav’d from his trespass,
Whose sinful fall hath split us all,
  And brought us to this pass.
Canst thou deny us once to try,
  Or grace to us to tender,         270
When he finds grace before thy face,
  That was the chief offender?”

Then answered the judge most dread,
  “God doth such doom forbid,
That men should die eternally         275
  For what they never did.
But what you call old Adam’s fall,
  And only his trespass,
You call amiss to call it his,
  Both his and yours it was.         280

He was design’d of all mankind
  To be a public head,
A common root, whence all should shoot,
  And stood in all their stead.
He stood and fell, did ill or well,         285
  Not for himself alone,
But for you all, who now his fall
  And trespass would disown.

If he had stood, then all his brood
  Had been established         290
In God’s true love never to move,
  Nor once awry to tread:
Then all his race, my Father’s grace,
  Should have enjoy’d for ever,
And wicked sprites by subtle sleights         295
  Could then have harmed never.

Would you have griev’d to have receiv’d
  Through Adam so much good,
And had been your for evermore,
  If he at first had stood?         300
Would you have said, ‘we ne’er obey’d,
  Nor did thy laws regard;
It ill befits with benefits,
  Us, Lord, so to reward.’

Since then to share in his welfare,         305
  You could have been content,
You may with reason share in his treason,
  And in the punishment.
Hence you were born in state forlorn,
  With nature so deprav’d:         310
Death was your due, because that you
  Had thus yourselves behav’d.

You think, ‘if we had been as he,
  Whom God did so betrust,
We to our cost would ne’er have lost         315
  All for a paltry lust.’
Had you been made in Adam’s stead,
  You would like things have wrought,
And so into the selfsame wo,
  Yourselves and yours have brought.         320

I may deny you once to try,
  Or grace to you to tender,
Though he finds grace before my face,
  Who was the chief offender:
Else should my grace cease to be grace;         325
  For it should not be free,
If to release whom I should please,
  I have no liberty.

If upon one what’s due to none
  I frankly shall bestow,         330
And on the rest shall not think best,
  Compassion’s skirts to throw,
Whom injure I? will you envy,
  And grudge at others’ weal?
Or me accuse, who do refuse         335
  Yourselves to help and heal.

Am I alone for what’s my own,
  No master or no Lord?
O if I am, how can you claim
  What I to some afford?         340
Will you demand grace at my hand,
  And challenge what is mine?
Will you teach me whom to set free,
  And thus my grace confine?

You sinners are, and such a share         345
  As sinners may expect,
Such you shall have; for I do save
  None but my own elect.
Yet to compare your sin with their
  Who liv’d a longer time,         350
I do confess yours is much less,
  Though every sin’s a crime.

A crime it is, therefore in bliss
  You may not hope to dwell
But unto you I shall allow         355
  The easiest room in hell.”
The glorious king thus answering,
  They cease, and plead no longer:
Their consciences must needs confess
  His reasons are the stronger.         360

Thus all men’s pleas the judge with ease
  Doth answer and confute.
Until that all, both great and small,
  Are silenced and mute.
Vain hopes are crop’d, all mouths are stop’d,         365
  Sinners have nought to say,
But that ’tis just, and equal most
  They should be ****’d for aye.

Now what remains, but that to pains
  And everlasting smart,         370
Christ should condemn the sons of men,
  Which is their just desert;
Oh rueful plights of sinful wights!
  Oh wretches all forlorn:
’T had happy been they ne’er had seen         375
  The sun, or not been born.

The saints behold with courage bold,
  And thankful wonderment,
To see all those that were their foes
  Thus sent to punishment:         380
Then do they sing unto their king
  A song of endless praise:
They praise his name and do proclaim
  That just are all his ways.

Thus with great joy and melody         385
  To heaven they all ascend,
Him there to praise with sweetest lays,
  And hymns that never end.
Where with long rest they shall be blest,
  And nought shall them annoy:         390
Where they shall see as seen they be,
  And whom they love enjoy.

Danger Within

lover the excusing plain text reunion
project course can operation finale
share for each log full strain log full plain
over  the truth,

cling to the other we have to do
the evening news
to late to snooze
billows of merchant  sweat from my breath

excuse me...
excuse me...
dig in the holler to capture their smell
one road leaves to Hell

sugar & spice
everything quite nice
prepare the...........king moist
shelter lies dormant amidst its great shell

there lurks dare
in what not to wear
a circle in their sky
the smile of the cross a by

tears from my pillow damps the plain
love..a pure love,
console me beneath the after glow
the news is bought to you plain