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MARK RIORDAN Mar 2017
WASHINGTON IRVING WROTE A NOVEL
ABOUT ICHABOD CRANE
LITTLE SLEEPY HOLLOW
WILL NEVER BE THE SAME

LITTLE SLEEPY HOLLOW WAS CURSED
BY A HORSEMAN MOST DREAD
HE WAS RIDING IN SLEEPY HOLLOW
IN SEARCH OF HIS HEAD

THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN WAS
IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR
SO FOR HIM SEARCHING FOR HIS HEAD
WAS NEVER A CHORE

ICHABOD CRANE WAS
A TEACHER MOST STRICT
WEATHER THE GHOST STORIES WERE TRUE
WHO COULD EVER PREDICT

ICHABOD TEACHES THE CHILDREN
OF FARMERS IN THE VILLAGE
BUT ITS THE YOUNG GIRLS OF FARMERS
HE SECRETLY WANTS TOO PILLAGE

KATRINA VAN TASSEL A
BEAUTIFUL YOUNG STUDENT
ICHABOD FALLS IN LOVE WITH HER
BUT WAS IT VERY PRUDENT

HE WAS INVITED TO THE TASSELS
FOR A PARTY MOST RARE
KATRINA AT THE PARTY
DISMISSES HIS WITHOUT CARE

ICHABOD LEAVES THAT NIGHT
ON HIS HORSE HE RIDES
ITS AN EERILY DARK PATH
HIS HORSE DOSE STRIDE

ICHABOD IS SCARED AND SEES
A LARGE DARK MAN
HE YELLS TO THE STRANGER
AS LOUD AS HE CAN

SO ICHABOD RIDES SCARED AND FAST
BUT ALONG SIDE COMES THE MAN
NOT WILLING TOO PASS

ICHABOD NOTICES THE RIDER
REALLY HAS NO HEAD
THIS JUST FILLS ICHABOD
WITH THE MOST SINFUL DREAD

ICHABOD AND THE STRANGER
RACE TO THE TOWN CHURCH
FOR THIS IS WHERE THE GHOST STORIES
FIRST CAME TO BIRTH

ICHABOD RACES TO THE BRIDGE
AND NERVOUSLY LOOKS BACK
THE STRANGER HAS DISAPPEARED
OFF THE GHOSTLY TRACK

BUT HE NOTICES THE STRANGER
HIS HEAD HE DOSE HURL
ICHABOD FALLS OF THE HORSE
HIS WORLD IS IN A WHIRL

THE NEXT DAY ICHABOD'S
HORSE FINALLY RETURNS HOME
WHERE IS ICHABOD
WHERE DID HE ROAM

THEY LOOK FOR ICHABOD
AND FIND HOOF PRINTS
AND ICHABOD'S HAT
SO NOW THE FOLKLORE IS BORN
IN SLEEPY HOLLOW THAT'S THAT

" WISDOM IS LIKE MANURE IT'S NO GOOD UNLESS IT'S SPREAD AROUND ENCOURAGING OTHERS TO GROW"
MY BOOK " TELL ME STRANGE THINGS" THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW A 16 VERSE EXPLOSION OF RHYME.
So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
Forevermore!

Revile him not, the Tempter hath
A snare for all;
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
Befit his fall!

Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage,
When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age,
Falls back in night.

Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark
A bright soul driven,
Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,
From hope and heaven!

Let not the land once proud of him
Insult him now,
Nor brand with deeper shame his dim,
Dishonored brow.

But let its humbled sons, instead,
From sea to lake,
A long lament, as for the dead,
In sadness make.

Of all we loved and honored, naught
Save power remains;
A fallen angel's pride of thought,
Still strong in chains.

All else is gone; from those great eyes
The soul has fled:
When faith is lost, when honor dies,
The man is dead!

Then, pay the reverence of old days
To his dead fame;
Walk backward, with averted gaze,
And hide the shame!
It is full winter now:  the trees are bare,
Save where the cattle huddle from the cold
Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear
The autumn’s gaudy livery whose gold
Her jealous brother pilfers, but is true
To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew

From Saturn’s cave; a few thin wisps of hay
Lie on the sharp black hedges, where the wain
Dragged the sweet pillage of a summer’s day
From the low meadows up the narrow lane;
Upon the half-thawed snow the bleating sheep
Press close against the hurdles, and the shivering house-dogs creep

From the shut stable to the frozen stream
And back again disconsolate, and miss
The bawling shepherds and the noisy team;
And overhead in circling listlessness
The cawing rooks whirl round the frosted stack,
Or crowd the dripping boughs; and in the fen the ice-pools crack

Where the gaunt bittern stalks among the reeds
And ***** his wings, and stretches back his neck,
And hoots to see the moon; across the meads
Limps the poor frightened hare, a little speck;
And a stray seamew with its fretful cry
Flits like a sudden drift of snow against the dull grey sky.

Full winter:  and the ***** goodman brings
His load of ******* from the chilly byre,
And stamps his feet upon the hearth, and flings
The sappy billets on the waning fire,
And laughs to see the sudden lightening scare
His children at their play, and yet,—the spring is in the air;

Already the slim crocus stirs the snow,
And soon yon blanched fields will bloom again
With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow,
For with the first warm kisses of the rain
The winter’s icy sorrow breaks to tears,
And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the rabbit peers

From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie,
And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs
Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly
Across our path at evening, and the suns
Stay longer with us; ah! how good to see
Grass-girdled spring in all her joy of laughing greenery

Dance through the hedges till the early rose,
(That sweet repentance of the thorny briar!)
Burst from its sheathed emerald and disclose
The little quivering disk of golden fire
Which the bees know so well, for with it come
Pale boy’s-love, sops-in-wine, and daffadillies all in bloom.

Then up and down the field the sower goes,
While close behind the laughing younker scares
With shrilly whoop the black and thievish crows,
And then the chestnut-tree its glory wears,
And on the grass the creamy blossom falls
In odorous excess, and faint half-whispered madrigals

Steal from the bluebells’ nodding carillons
Each breezy morn, and then white jessamine,
That star of its own heaven, snap-dragons
With lolling crimson tongues, and eglantine
In dusty velvets clad usurp the bed
And woodland empery, and when the lingering rose hath shed

Red leaf by leaf its folded panoply,
And pansies closed their purple-lidded eyes,
Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy
Unload their gaudy scentless merchandise,
And violets getting overbold withdraw
From their shy nooks, and scarlet berries dot the leafless haw.

O happy field! and O thrice happy tree!
Soon will your queen in daisy-flowered smock
And crown of flower-de-luce trip down the lea,
Soon will the lazy shepherds drive their flock
Back to the pasture by the pool, and soon
Through the green leaves will float the hum of murmuring bees at noon.

Soon will the glade be bright with bellamour,
The flower which wantons love, and those sweet nuns
Vale-lilies in their snowy vestiture
Will tell their beaded pearls, and carnations
With mitred dusky leaves will scent the wind,
And straggling traveller’s-joy each hedge with yellow stars will bind.

Dear bride of Nature and most bounteous spring,
That canst give increase to the sweet-breath’d kine,
And to the kid its little horns, and bring
The soft and silky blossoms to the vine,
Where is that old nepenthe which of yore
Man got from poppy root and glossy-berried mandragore!

There was a time when any common bird
Could make me sing in unison, a time
When all the strings of boyish life were stirred
To quick response or more melodious rhyme
By every forest idyll;—do I change?
Or rather doth some evil thing through thy fair pleasaunce range?

Nay, nay, thou art the same:  ’tis I who seek
To vex with sighs thy simple solitude,
And because fruitless tears bedew my cheek
Would have thee weep with me in brotherhood;
Fool! shall each wronged and restless spirit dare
To taint such wine with the salt poison of own despair!

Thou art the same:  ’tis I whose wretched soul
Takes discontent to be its paramour,
And gives its kingdom to the rude control
Of what should be its servitor,—for sure
Wisdom is somewhere, though the stormy sea
Contain it not, and the huge deep answer ‘’Tis not in me.’

To burn with one clear flame, to stand *****
In natural honour, not to bend the knee
In profitless prostrations whose effect
Is by itself condemned, what alchemy
Can teach me this? what herb Medea brewed
Will bring the unexultant peace of essence not subdued?

The minor chord which ends the harmony,
And for its answering brother waits in vain
Sobbing for incompleted melody,
Dies a swan’s death; but I the heir of pain,
A silent Memnon with blank lidless eyes,
Wait for the light and music of those suns which never rise.

The quenched-out torch, the lonely cypress-gloom,
The little dust stored in the narrow urn,
The gentle XAIPE of the Attic tomb,—
Were not these better far than to return
To my old fitful restless malady,
Or spend my days within the voiceless cave of misery?

Nay! for perchance that poppy-crowned god
Is like the watcher by a sick man’s bed
Who talks of sleep but gives it not; his rod
Hath lost its virtue, and, when all is said,
Death is too rude, too obvious a key
To solve one single secret in a life’s philosophy.

And Love! that noble madness, whose august
And inextinguishable might can slay
The soul with honeyed drugs,—alas! I must
From such sweet ruin play the runaway,
Although too constant memory never can
Forget the arched splendour of those brows Olympian

Which for a little season made my youth
So soft a swoon of exquisite indolence
That all the chiding of more prudent Truth
Seemed the thin voice of jealousy,—O hence
Thou huntress deadlier than Artemis!
Go seek some other quarry! for of thy too perilous bliss.

My lips have drunk enough,—no more, no more,—
Though Love himself should turn his gilded prow
Back to the troubled waters of this shore
Where I am wrecked and stranded, even now
The chariot wheels of passion sweep too near,
Hence!  Hence!  I pass unto a life more barren, more austere.

More barren—ay, those arms will never lean
Down through the trellised vines and draw my soul
In sweet reluctance through the tangled green;
Some other head must wear that aureole,
For I am hers who loves not any man
Whose white and stainless ***** bears the sign Gorgonian.

Let Venus go and chuck her dainty page,
And kiss his mouth, and toss his curly hair,
With net and spear and hunting equipage
Let young Adonis to his tryst repair,
But me her fond and subtle-fashioned spell
Delights no more, though I could win her dearest citadel.

Ay, though I were that laughing shepherd boy
Who from Mount Ida saw the little cloud
Pass over Tenedos and lofty Troy
And knew the coming of the Queen, and bowed
In wonder at her feet, not for the sake
Of a new Helen would I bid her hand the apple take.

Then rise supreme Athena argent-limbed!
And, if my lips be musicless, inspire
At least my life:  was not thy glory hymned
By One who gave to thee his sword and lyre
Like AEschylos at well-fought Marathon,
And died to show that Milton’s England still could bear a son!

And yet I cannot tread the Portico
And live without desire, fear and pain,
Or nurture that wise calm which long ago
The grave Athenian master taught to men,
Self-poised, self-centred, and self-comforted,
To watch the world’s vain phantasies go by with unbowed head.

Alas! that serene brow, those eloquent lips,
Those eyes that mirrored all eternity,
Rest in their own Colonos, an eclipse
Hath come on Wisdom, and Mnemosyne
Is childless; in the night which she had made
For lofty secure flight Athena’s owl itself hath strayed.

Nor much with Science do I care to climb,
Although by strange and subtle witchery
She drew the moon from heaven:  the Muse Time
Unrolls her gorgeous-coloured tapestry
To no less eager eyes; often indeed
In the great epic of Polymnia’s scroll I love to read

How Asia sent her myriad hosts to war
Against a little town, and panoplied
In gilded mail with jewelled scimitar,
White-shielded, purple-crested, rode the Mede
Between the waving poplars and the sea
Which men call Artemisium, till he saw Thermopylae

Its steep ravine spanned by a narrow wall,
And on the nearer side a little brood
Of careless lions holding festival!
And stood amazed at such hardihood,
And pitched his tent upon the reedy shore,
And stayed two days to wonder, and then crept at midnight o’er

Some unfrequented height, and coming down
The autumn forests treacherously slew
What Sparta held most dear and was the crown
Of far Eurotas, and passed on, nor knew
How God had staked an evil net for him
In the small bay at Salamis,—and yet, the page grows dim,

Its cadenced Greek delights me not, I feel
With such a goodly time too out of tune
To love it much:  for like the Dial’s wheel
That from its blinded darkness strikes the noon
Yet never sees the sun, so do my eyes
Restlessly follow that which from my cheated vision flies.

O for one grand unselfish simple life
To teach us what is Wisdom! speak ye hills
Of lone Helvellyn, for this note of strife
Shunned your untroubled crags and crystal rills,
Where is that Spirit which living blamelessly
Yet dared to kiss the smitten mouth of his own century!

Speak ye Rydalian laurels! where is he
Whose gentle head ye sheltered, that pure soul
Whose gracious days of uncrowned majesty
Through lowliest conduct touched the lofty goal
Where love and duty mingle!  Him at least
The most high Laws were glad of, he had sat at Wisdom’s feast;

But we are Learning’s changelings, know by rote
The clarion watchword of each Grecian school
And follow none, the flawless sword which smote
The pagan Hydra is an effete tool
Which we ourselves have blunted, what man now
Shall scale the august ancient heights and to old Reverence bow?

One such indeed I saw, but, Ichabod!
Gone is that last dear son of Italy,
Who being man died for the sake of God,
And whose unrisen bones sleep peacefully,
O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower,
Thou marble lily of the lily town! let not the lour

Of the rude tempest vex his slumber, or
The Arno with its tawny troubled gold
O’er-leap its marge, no mightier conqueror
Clomb the high Capitol in the days of old
When Rome was indeed Rome, for Liberty
Walked like a bride beside him, at which sight pale Mystery

Fled shrieking to her farthest sombrest cell
With an old man who grabbled rusty keys,
Fled shuddering, for that immemorial knell
With which oblivion buries dynasties
Swept like a wounded eagle on the blast,
As to the holy heart of Rome the great triumvir passed.

He knew the holiest heart and heights of Rome,
He drave the base wolf from the lion’s lair,
And now lies dead by that empyreal dome
Which overtops Valdarno hung in air
By Brunelleschi—O Melpomene
Breathe through thy melancholy pipe thy sweetest threnody!

Breathe through the tragic stops such melodies
That Joy’s self may grow jealous, and the Nine
Forget awhile their discreet emperies,
Mourning for him who on Rome’s lordliest shrine
Lit for men’s lives the light of Marathon,
And bare to sun-forgotten fields the fire of the sun!

O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower!
Let some young Florentine each eventide
Bring coronals of that enchanted flower
Which the dim woods of Vallombrosa hide,
And deck the marble tomb wherein he lies
Whose soul is as some mighty orb unseen of mortal eyes;

Some mighty orb whose cycled wanderings,
Being tempest-driven to the farthest rim
Where Chaos meets Creation and the wings
Of the eternal chanting Cherubim
Are pavilioned on Nothing, passed away
Into a moonless void,—and yet, though he is dust and clay,

He is not dead, the immemorial Fates
Forbid it, and the closing shears refrain.
Lift up your heads ye everlasting gates!
Ye argent clarions, sound a loftier strain
For the vile thing he hated lurks within
Its sombre house, alone with God and memories of sin.

Still what avails it that she sought her cave
That murderous mother of red harlotries?
At Munich on the marble architrave
The Grecian boys die smiling, but the seas
Which wash AEgina fret in loneliness
Not mirroring their beauty; so our lives grow colourless

For lack of our ideals, if one star
Flame torch-like in the heavens the unjust
Swift daylight kills it, and no trump of war
Can wake to passionate voice the silent dust
Which was Mazzini once! rich Niobe
For all her stony sorrows hath her sons; but Italy,

What Easter Day shall make her children rise,
Who were not Gods yet suffered? what sure feet
Shall find their grave-clothes folded? what clear eyes
Shall see them ******?  O it were meet
To roll the stone from off the sepulchre
And kiss the bleeding roses of their wounds, in love of her,

Our Italy! our mother visible!
Most blessed among nations and most sad,
For whose dear sake the young Calabrian fell
That day at Aspromonte and was glad
That in an age when God was bought and sold
One man could die for Liberty! but we, burnt out and cold,

See Honour smitten on the cheek and gyves
Bind the sweet feet of Mercy:  Poverty
Creeps through our sunless lanes and with sharp knives
Cuts the warm throats of children stealthily,
And no word said:- O we are wretched men
Unworthy of our great inheritance! where is the pen

Of austere Milton? where the mighty sword
Which slew its master righteously? the years
Have lost their ancient leader, and no word
Breaks from the voiceless tripod on our ears:
While as a ruined mother in some spasm
Bears a base child and loathes it, so our best enthusiasm

Genders unlawful children, Anarchy
Freedom’s own Judas, the vile prodigal
Licence who steals the gold of Liberty
And yet has nothing, Ignorance the real
One Fraticide since Cain, Envy the asp
That stings itself to anguish, Avarice whose palsied grasp

Is in its extent stiffened, moneyed Greed
For whose dull appetite men waste away
Amid the whirr of wheels and are the seed
Of things which slay their sower, these each day
Sees rife in England, and the gentle feet
Of Beauty tread no more the stones of each unlovely street.

What even Cromwell spared is desecrated
By **** and worm, left to the stormy play
Of wind and beating snow, or renovated
By more destructful hands:  Time’s worst decay
Will wreathe its ruins with some loveliness,
But these new Vandals can but make a rain-proof barrenness.

Where is that Art which bade the Angels sing
Through Lincoln’s lofty choir, till the air
Seems from such marble harmonies to ring
With sweeter song than common lips can dare
To draw from actual reed? ah! where is now
The cunning hand which made the flowering hawthorn branches bow

For Southwell’s arch, and carved the House of One
Who loved the lilies of the field with all
Our dearest English flowers? the same sun
Rises for us:  the seasons natural
Weave the same tapestry of green and grey:
The unchanged hills are with us:  but that Spirit hath passed away.

And yet perchance it may be better so,
For Tyranny is an incestuous Queen,
****** her brother is her bedfellow,
And the Plague chambers with her:  in obscene
And ****** paths her treacherous feet are set;
Better the empty desert and a soul inviolate!

For gentle brotherhood, the harmony
Of living in the healthful air, the swift
Clean beauty of strong limbs when men are free
And women chaste, these are the things which lift
Our souls up more than even Agnolo’s
Gaunt blinded Sibyl poring o’er the scroll of human woes,

Or Titian’s little maiden on the stair
White as her own sweet lily and as tall,
Or Mona Lisa smiling through her hair,—
Ah! somehow life is bigger after all
Than any painted angel, could we see
The God that is within us!  The old Greek serenity

Which curbs the passion of that
I

What’s become of Waring
Since he gave us all the slip,
Chose land-travel or seafaring,
Boots and chest, or staff and scrip,
Rather than pace up and down
Any longer London-town?

Who’d have guessed it from his lip,
Or his brow’s accustomed bearing,
On the night he thus took ship,
Or started landward?—little caring
For us, it seems, who supped together,
(Friends of his too, I remember)
And walked home through the merry weather,
The snowiest in all December;
I left his arm that night myself
For what’s-his-name’s, the new prose-poet,
That wrote the book there, on the shelf—
How, forsooth, was I to know it
If Waring meant to glide away
Like a ghost at break of day?
Never looked he half so gay!

He was prouder than the devil:
How he must have cursed our revel!
Ay, and many other meetings,
Indoor visits, outdoor greetings,
As up and down he paced this London,
With no work done, but great works undone,
Where scarce twenty knew his name.
Why not, then, have earlier spoken,
Written, bustled? Who’s to blame
If your silence kept unbroken?
“True, but there were sundry jottings,
Stray-leaves, fragments, blurrs and blottings,
Certain first steps were achieved
Already which—(is that your meaning?)
Had well borne out whoe’er believed
In more to come!” But who goes gleaning
Hedge-side chance-blades, while full-sheaved
Stand cornfields by him? Pride, o’erweening
Pride alone, puts forth such claims
O’er the day’s distinguished names.

Meantime, how much I loved him,
I find out now I’ve lost him:
I, who cared not if I moved him,
Henceforth never shall get free
Of his ghostly company,
His eyes that just a little wink
As deep I go into the merit
Of this and that distinguished spirit—
His cheeks’ raised colour, soon to sink,
As long I dwell on some stupendous
And tremendous (Heaven defend us!)
Monstr’-inform’-ingens-horrend-ous
Demoniaco-seraphic
Penman­’s latest piece of graphic.
Nay, my very wrist grows warm
With his dragging weight of arm!
E’en so, swimmingly appears,
Through one’s after-supper musings,
Some lost Lady of old years,
With her beauteous vain endeavour,
And goodness unrepaid as ever;
The face, accustomed to refusings,
We, puppies that we were… Oh never
Surely, nice of conscience, scrupled
Being aught like false, forsooth, to?
Telling aught but honest truth to?
What a sin, had we centupled
Its possessor’s grace and sweetness!
No! she heard in its completeness
Truth, for truth’s a weighty matter,
And, truth at issue, we can’t flatter!
Well, ’tis done with: she’s exempt
From damning us through such a sally;
And so she glides, as down a valley,
Taking up with her contempt,
Past our reach; and in, the flowers
Shut her unregarded hours.


Oh, could I have him back once more,
This Waring, but one half-day more!
Back, with the quiet face of yore,
So hungry for acknowledgment
Like mine! I’d fool him to his bent!
Feed, should not he, to heart’s content?
I’d say, “to only have conceived
Your great works, though they ne’er make progress,
Surpasses all we’ve yet achieved!”
I’d lie so, I should be believed.
I’d make such havoc of the claims
Of the day’s distinguished names
To feast him with, as feasts an ogress
Her sharp-toothed golden-crowned child!
Or, as one feasts a creature rarely
Captured here, unreconciled
To capture; and completely gives
Its pettish humours licence, barely
Requiring that it lives.

Ichabod, Ichabod,
The glory is departed!
Travels Waring East away?
Who, of knowledge, by hearsay,
Reports a man upstarted
Somewhere as a God,
Hordes grown European-hearted,
Millions of the wild made tame
On a sudden at his fame?
In Vishnu-land what Avatar?
Or who, in Moscow, toward the Czar,
With the demurest of footfalls
Over the Kremlin’s pavement, bright
With serpentine and syenite,
Steps, with five other generals,
That simultaneously take *****,
For each to have pretext enough
To kerchiefwise unfurl his sash
Which, softness’ self, is yet the stuff
To hold fast where a steel chain snaps,
And leave the grand white neck no ****?
Waring, in Moscow, to those rough
Cold northern natures borne, perhaps,
Like the lambwhite maiden dear
From the circle of mute kings,
Unable to repress the tear,
Each as his sceptre down he flings,
To Dian’s fane at Taurica,
Where now a captive priestess, she alway
Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech
With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach,
As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands
Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands
Where bred the swallows, her melodious cry
Amid their barbarous twitter!
In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter!
Ay, most likely, ’tis in Spain
That we and Waring meet again—
Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane
Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid
All fire and shine—abrupt as when there’s slid
Its stiff gold blazing pall
From some black coffin-lid.
Or, best of all,
I love to think
The leaving us was just a feint;
Back here to London did he slink;
And now works on without a wink
Of sleep, and we are on the brink
Of something great in fresco-paint:
Some garret’s ceiling, walls and floor,
Up and down and o’er and o’er
He splashes, as none splashed before
Since great Caldara Polidore:
Or Music means this land of ours
Some favour yet, to pity won
By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers,—
“Give me my so long promised son,
Let Waring end what I begun!”
Then down he creeps and out he steals
Only when the night conceals
His face—in Kent ’tis cherry-time,
Or, hops are picking; or, at prime
Of March, he wanders as, too happy,
Years ago when he was young,
Some mild eve when woods grew sappy,
And the early moths had sprung
To life from many a trembling sheath
Woven the warm boughs beneath;
While small birds said to themselves
What should soon be actual song,
And young gnats, by tens and twelves,
Made as if they were the throng
That crowd around and carry aloft
The sound they have nursed, so sweet and pure,
Out of a myriad noises soft,
Into a tone that can endure
Amid the noise of a July noon,
When all God’s creatures crave their boon,
All at once and all in tune,
And get it, happy as Waring then,
Having first within his ken
What a man might do with men,
And far too glad, in the even-glow,
To mix with your world he meant to take
Into his hand, he told you, so—
And out of it his world to make,
To contract and to expand
As he shut or oped his hand.
Oh, Waring, what’s to really be?
A clear stage and a crowd to see!
Some Garrick—say—out shall not he
The heart of Hamlet’s mystery pluck
Or, where most unclean beasts are rife,
Some Junius—am I right?—shall tuck
His sleeve, and out with flaying-knife!
Some Chatterton shall have the luck
Of calling Rowley into life!
Some one shall somehow run amuck
With this old world, for want of strife
Sound asleep: contrive, contrive
To rouse us, Waring! Who’s alive?
Our men scarce seem in earnest now:
Distinguished names!—but ’tis, somehow
As if they played at being names
Still more distinguished, like the games
Of children. Turn our sport to earnest
With a visage of the sternest!
Bring the real times back, confessed
Still better than our very best!

II

“When I last saw Waring…”
(How all turned to him who spoke—
You saw Waring? Truth or joke?
In land-travel, or seafaring?)

“…We were sailing by Triest,
Where a day or two we harboured:
A sunset was in the West,
When, looking over the vessel’s side,
One of our company espied
A sudden speck to larboard.
And, as a sea-duck flies and swins
At once, so came the light craft up,
With its sole lateen sail that trims
And turns (the water round its rims
Dancing, as round a sinking cup)
And by us like a fish it curled,
And drew itself up close beside,
Its great sail on the instant furled,
And o’er its planks, a shrill voice cried
(A neck as bronzed as a Lascar’s)
‘Buy wine of us, you English Brig?
Or fruit, tobacco and cigars?
A Pilot for you to Triest?
Without one, look you ne’er so big,
They’ll never let you up the bay!
We natives should know best.’
I turned, and ‘just those fellows’ way,’
Our captain said, ‘The long-shore thieves
Are laughing at us in their sleeves.’

“In truth, the boy leaned laughing back;
And one, half-hidden by his side
Under the furled sail, soon I spied,
With great grass hat, and kerchief black,
Who looked up, with his kingly throat,
Said somewhat, while the other shook
His hair back from his eyes to look
Their longest at us; then the boat,
I know not how, turned sharply round,
Laying her whole side on the sea
As a leaping fish does; from the lee
Into the weather, cut somehow
Her sparkling path beneath our bow;
And so went off, as with a bound,
Into the rose and golden half
Of the sky, to overtake the sun,
And reach the shore, like the sea-calf
Its singing cave; yet I caught one
Glance ere away the boat quite passed,
And neither time nor toil could mar
Those features: so I saw the last
Of Waring!”—You? Oh, never star
Was lost here, but it rose afar!
Look East, where whole new thousands are!
In Vishnu-land what Avatar?
Bunhead17 Dec 2013
And I always find, yeah, I always find something wrong
You been putting up with my **** just way too long
I'm so gifted at finding what I don't like the most
So I think it's time for us to have a toast
Let's have a toast for the *******
Let's have a toast for the *******
Let's have a toast for the scumbags
Every one of them that I know
Let's have a toast for the ****-offs
That'll never take work off
Baby, I got a plan
Run away fast as you can

[Verse 1: Kanye West]
She find pictures in my e-mail
I sent this ***** a picture of my ****
I don't know what it is with females
But I'm not too good with that ****
See, I could have me a good girl
And still be addicted to them hoodrats
And I just blame everything on you
At least you know that's what I'm good at

[Hook]

[Bridge]
Run away from me, baby, run away
Run away from me, baby, run away
It's about to get crazy, why can't she just, run away?
Baby, I got a plan, run away fast as you can

[Verse 2 - Pusha T]
24/7, 365, ***** stays on my mind
I-I-I-I did it, all right, all right, I admit it
Now pick your next move, you could leave or live wit' it
Ichabod Crane with that ******* top off
Split and go where? Back to wearing knockoffs, haha
Knock it off, Neiman's, shop it off
Let's talk over mai tais, waitress, top it off
Hoes like vultures, wanna fly in your Freddy loafers
You can't blame 'em, they ain't never seen Versace sofas
Every bag, every blouse, every bracelet
Comes with a price tag, baby, face it
You should leave if you can't accept the basics
Plenty hoes in the balla-***** matrix
Invisibly set, the Rolex is faceless
I'm just young, rich, and tasteless
P!

[Verse 3: Kanye West]
Never was much of a romantic
I could never take the intimacy
And I know I did damage
Cause the look in your eyes is killing me
I guess you are at an advantage
Cause you can blame me for everything
And I don't know how I'mma manage
If one day you just up and leave
I love this song. Lyrics to "Runaway" by Kayne West ft Pusha T ****. by  Emile, Jeff Bhasker, Kanye West & Mike Dean
Irma Cerrutti Mar 2010
Masticated Ectoplasm to Lance Corporal Tom
Masticated Ectoplasm to Lance Corporal Tom
Bumming your fat knobs and insert your helmet naked and unashamed

Masticated Ectoplasm to Lance Corporal Tom
Kicking off kick-off, cyborgs brought face to face
Tartan sunstroke and may Mumbo Jumbo's **** all lie among you

Nine, eleven, seven, thirteen, six, quinquereme, *******, *******, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, unsocial person, erectoffensive!
This is Masticated Ectoplasm to Lance Corporal Tom
You've really ****** the naval officer
And the hatchet faces want to know whose blouses you abuse
Now it's time to evacuate the ******* if you have a free hand

This is Lance Corporal Tom to Masticated Ectoplasm
I'm fancy dress dancing through the cat—flap
And I'm groping inside a swollen grotesque sailor
And the plums look gigantically unusual nowadays

Ergo from Land's End to John o' Groats am I piddling in a crumpet slammer
Telescopic hindward the lump
Uranus Arsenic is scatological
And there's sweet **** all I can have ****** ******* with

With the proviso that I'm Ichabod celibate centipede sextillion heads
I'm fondling vigorously paparazzo
And I think my sputnik knows which direction to ****
Tell my ballbreaker I ****** her vigorously for England, she bonks

Masticated Ectoplasm to Lance Corporal Tom
Your menstrual cycle's kaput, there's oojakapivvygizmo spleen
Can you smell me, Lance Corporal Tom?
Can you get to the bottom of me, Lance Corporal Tom?
Can you delve into me, Lance Corporal Tom?
Can you...

From Land's End to John o' Groats am I vibrating ring my crumpet criminal lunatic asylum
Telescopic hindward the groupie
Uranus Arsenic is scatological
And there's sweet **** all I can have ****** ******* with
Copyright © Irma Cerrutti 2009
Third Eye Candy Apr 2013
we leave by passing through.

by outlasting      
roots.

by grooming   deep runes  
like arabian
horses....

mountainous   [ pontoons  ]
spine crack
liqueur

of soft doom

and true Orchids...

the ******* aftermath of covenants
at half mast

a limp flag of jolly rogers

pettifogging

dull noggins.

we pass through,      phantom roosters
ante-Bantam

in the Bedlam....

Conscience    

Chauntecleer

as

Opaque.


our blood has new boots
and now our hearts
can Mussolini

{ you strangle The Headless Horseman; as i lust for your Ichabod   }

no cranes.
M Vogel Jan 2023

A fine mist filled the room
  the moment she began singing

Covering my presence;
concealing  all that is congenital
     in me

--and the years and years and years
of my family-laid, dysfunction..

      Of the harm, inherent  in me

Of the damage to her Beautiful-Everything
      I can do..  
     (Things are not OK
     when my war-torn D N A
     comes into play.) .....


              I open the door and walk into the room.
              Small fingers  slowly sliding off of keys
                   as her  glowing face  falls,
                   now  turns  ashen


An instant,  Ichabod-like undoing
   turning Steam, into stone..

              And  still I reach for her;
              the thin fabric  of her dress
              the only barrier  between us--

             ..keeping the oils  of our skin
              from  blending  together
              (the angel closes her eyes..
              as the Glory  that  was hers
              is now hiding   in the corner
              of the room)

I am weeping  now--
This beautiful Lovedream..
This one  perfect chance  
since the day I was born;
For my deeply-protected  spirit
to intertwine  with that
    of another..


Over the keyboards  I reach
as I press myself  to her..

there is a danger  here..

      --as much  for her
       as there is for me.

       Through the tremble,
        I am so incredibly  
        uncertain

        Yet  still I gaze  at her--
        consumed, by Spirit-crave.....


(Small hands  slowly  
reach around me..
Those beautiful orbs, for eyes
staring,   so intently--

       ..A cherub-like face   
       around me,  peering..
        
 --Those eyes now closing
 As gifted fingers  on keys
  bring forth  the most   perfect

         tune.)



             And suddenly
  a whole world,  treacherous
  becomes  immediately  safe.

For all the moments,  never known
'cause he stepped off of the tallest sail
for all the love he left below  in the waves

He made his peace with letting go
said some things he'd never dared to say--
the one the Lighthouse left alone;
.                 .                  .
Til a set of eyes  had pinned him
became his version of a Kingdom
Now I know they'll never hunt me

When she's singing to me, "Glory"
(And a hopeful rhythm woke within him)
She's singing to me, "Glory"
(Had some letters written, 'course she's in 'em)

I was only ever thinking 'bout you, you know--
   .. singing to me,  "Glory;"

A set of eyes had pinned him
Became his version of a Kingdom..
She's everything the devil can't be

when she's singing to me...  Glory.
https://youtu.be/ZRzhTiaO83o

Perfection,   encased
in the most beautiful  spirit-temple
B.C. 570.


Here, where I dwell, I waste to skin and bone;
  The curse is come upon me, and I waste
  In penal torment powerless to atone.
The curse is come on me, which makes no haste
  And doth not tarry, crushing both the proud
  Hard man and him the sinner double-faced.
Look not upon me, for my soul is bowed
  Within me, as my body in this mire;
  My soul crawls dumb-struck, sore bestead and cowed
As ***** and Gomorrah scourged by fire,
  As Jericho before God's trumpet-peal,
  So we the elect ones perish in His ire.
Vainly we gird on sackcloth, vainly kneel
  With famished faces toward Jerusalem:
  His heart is shut against us not to feel,
His ears against our cry He shutteth them,
  His hand He shorteneth that He will not save,
  His law is loud against us to condemn:
And we, as unclean bodies in the grave
  Inheriting corruption and the dark,
  Are outcast from His presence which we crave.
Our Mercy hath departed from His Ark,
  Our Glory hath departed from His rest,
  Our Shield hath left us naked as a mark
Unto all pitiless eyes made manifest.
  Our very Father hath forsaken us,
  Our God hath cast us from Him: we oppress'd
Unto our foes are even marvellous,
  A hissing and a **** for pointing hands,
  Whilst God Almighty hunts and grinds us thus;
For He hath scattered us in alien lands,
  Our priests, our princes, our anointed king,
  And bound us hand and foot with brazen bands.
Here while I sit, my painful heart takes wing
  Home to the home-land I may see no more,
  Where milk and honey flow, where waters spring
And fail not, where I dwelt in days of yore
  Under my fig-tree and my fruitful vine,
  There where my parents dwelt at ease before:
Now strangers press the olives that are mine,
  Reap all the corners of my harvest-field,
  And make their fat hearts wanton with my wine;
To them my trees, to them my gardens yield
  Their sweets and spices and their tender green,
  O'er them in noontide heat outspread their shield.
Yet these are they whose fathers had not been
  Housed with my dogs; whom hip and thigh we smote
  And with their blood washed their pollutions clean,
Purging the land which spewed them from its throat;
  Their daughters took we for a pleasant prey,
  Choice tender ones on whom the fathers dote:
Now they in turn have led our own away;
  Our daughters and our sisters and our wives
  Sore weeping as they weep who curse the day,
To live, remote from help, dishonoured lives,
  Soothing their drunken masters with a song,
  Or dancing in their golden tinkling gyves--
Accurst if they remember through the long
  Estrangement of their exile, twice accursed
  If they forget and join the accursed throng.
How doth my heart that is so wrung not burst
  When I remember that my way was plain,
  And that God's candle lit me at the first,
Whilst now I ***** in darkness, ***** in vain,
  Desiring but to find Him Who is lost,
  To find him once again, but once again!
His wrath came on us to the uttermost,
  His covenanted and most righteous wrath.
  Yet this is He of Whom we made our boast,
Who lit the Fiery Pillar in our path,
  Who swept the Red Sea dry before our feet,
  Who in His jealousy smote kings, and hath
Sworn once to David: One shall fill thy seat
  Born of thy body, as the sun and moon
  'Stablished for aye in sovereignty complete.
O Lord, remember David, and that soon.
  The Glory hath departed, Ichabod!
  Yet now, before our sun grow dark at noon,
Before we come to nought beneath Thy rod,
  Before we go down quick into the pit,
  Remember us for good, O God, our God:--
Thy Name will I remember, praising it,
  Though Thou forget me, though Thou hide Thy face,
  And blot me from the Book which Thou hast writ;
Thy Name will I remember in my praise
  And call to mind Thy faithfulness of old,
Though as a weaver Thou cut off my days
  And end me as a tale ends that is told.
x x Mar 2016
you're the best actor i have ever known
i adore you and i am not alone
my friends all say that you are a nutcase
i would like to taste
your beautiful face
I've seen all your films
beginning to end
you were cute back then
the best pirate I have seen or heard of
love
sweeny Todd
ichabod
he is not too odd
johnny depp is best
wrote it as a child
a habit comes to its end
when mirrored - if you let it
if the distress of keeping it
nurturing it
doesn’t **** you first
the brain doesn’t let go easily
produces obstacles
relentlessly
forcing a reckoning
a picking apart
a loss of what was

when the releasing ends
justice floods in
pushes the habit off its mooring
ungently
crashes it into the prison walls
breaking it apart to make
a puzzle of it and
sorting begins:
does any of it fit anymore?

justice completes the reckoning
sorts the habit’s habits
into piles
and crushes them to dust
dust to dust to nonexistent
who is this being now?
no one
everyone
potential
as a child is potential
while the glory of the habit
of the Ichabod
becomes anonymous
and the Heart takes over


c. 2024 Roberta Compton Rainwater
nyant Feb 2018
Professors with professions listen on the sidelines to my cryptic confessions like I'm still under the lineage of the plane papacy taking note of my blank boredom.
Don't even know if I deserve to saint this message.

Look warm,
they'll think you're a sky walker,
be hot they'll think you're an odd joker,
cause these days there's no truth to bat an eye on,
Even christians bail on the touchy topics,
I too would rather travel the tropics,
But we can't piece up the peace in these last days.

It's a relative subjective river that you can choose to glide on.
Why do foolish ants labour to protest works?
Perhaps it's a minor issue and we're digging too deep.
Perhaps the devil's wearing denims down with bootleg discussions,
that bow out but never stand in the gap,
Perhaps there are finer issues like my blessings.
Perhaps everyone will eventually find their way.
One man for himself...

I used to pray for mercy,
then I'd pray to messi,
It's like now I prey for merces,
distractions and direction,
promises of perfection,
leave me licking lumps of wounds that the leaven left.
We all want to hear something new,
twerk the message and please the pew.
I can feel the Ichabod as the teaching scratches my ears.

Can a name be enough?
Can a call really save?
Or is it just a ploy to keep the black man a slave?

- nyant
Chris Balase Sep 2020
Vanity! Vanity!
All things in vain!
The seas, the mountains,
my life in chains!
The flowers, the dewdrops,
the mighty hordes too
have all lost their glamour
the day I lost you.

Vanity! Vanity!
shouted through eternity
raging billows of fire
spouted from the mouth of mine enemies!
No records abound
nor secrets untold
in the chambers of mine heart
where art thou, oh Cold?

My roots are uprooted
and my soul is a ravine
my compass is shattered
like my soul uncleaned!
Lest tomorrow brings hope
I fear I'm losing track
From my innermost being I cry
"Mom, Dad, PLEASE COMEBACK!"
Chris Balase Sep 2020
I am not a hero
for I am not good
I too am not evil
just merely misunderstood

I am not darkness
though I dwell in thee
nor am I its shadow,
merely its enmity

I am also not Light
for I cannot bear its burn
can't you see my scars
hidden behind my churn?

I am no longer my yesteryears
I am no longer my today
I am no longer my tomorrow
that, too, has faded away

I am in the crevice
trapped in the shadows
a pointless voyager
an archer without arrows
nyant Nov 2018
Was it Medusa or Delilah?
the incision that distorted his vision,
once tore a lion's mouth when grace abounded,
once so confident, strong and grounded,
now he's like a stray dog that's confounded,
he was once empowered,
but his courage cowered to his affliction,
bold until he gave a foothold,
the slavery of sin himself sold.

Has his heir been cut off he ponders?
lost his source of conviction he wonders?
did he stop taking things day by day,
needing every hour?
Did he let that root grow bitter,
to the point he's tasting sour?

He could've broken down false pillars,
now he feels like an empty salt cellar,
better yet a basket case,
can't recognize his master's face.
betrayed himself so greatly,
put his trust in a chariot,
wore the coat of Iscariot.
He knows the past is not a place to dwell,
but he's reminded by a ceaseless thirst,
the by-product of seeking water from a broken wishing well,
discernment had diminished,
he simply couldn't tell,
slowly but surely,
pride was how he fell.
He tried to build it up again,
but to no avail,
perhaps a case of Ichabod,
has the spirit left his tail,
is it hocus-pocus,
the reason he can't focus?
Less time with fellow ironmen,
more marvelling at unfruitful doctrines strange,
identity issues like Ben Tennyson,
perhaps he's gone insane,
he keeps on going in cycles,
his habits hard to change,
or maybe he has lost the upper hand?
because every time the rain falls and the wind blows,
his house just will not stand.
Though the necks
sighting of Ichabod Crane
humungous horror
helplessly harassing,
hellish hyena howling,
hideously hounding,
headless Halloween
hair raising happening,

regarding haunting
horseman spectre,
not due to arrive
(in gremlin, golem, and
goblin crawling theaters
everywhere in outer limits
of twilight zone),
come October thirty first

two thousand, and nineteen
divination trap
pings can never
be implemented overly
soon - to satiate subhuman
scary sightings,
sans mine ineluctable
supernatural drive

biz ease, this (gopher broke,
phantasmagoric over seer
grown wunderkind,
passionately rousing spooks,
where this droning
necromancer named
Matthew Scott Harris),
asper undertaking

luckless ghostly endeavors
also oft times finds
meat hoo experiencing
aborted, cancelled and retried
aim mush carriage
(i.e. thwarted, ejected,
and clobbered miscarriage)
off base when out fielding

paranormal activities,
qua catcher catch can
pseudo boxing
exaggerated shadows
striking mine attenuated,
elongated, and invoked
Hades monstrous silhouettes,
viz jugular vein bleeding

(heart liberal)
burnt umber umbra
pitching one dimensional
brokered, bricked,
and bracketed
wall size grotesqueries
detailing bloodless battles
silently creaking within republic
of my imagination.
Morality and self-fulfillment
attainable without belief in God
similarly yours truly
would figuratively crane
his credulity to ascertain Ichabod
mentioned in first Book of Samuel
as purported son of Phinehas,

I reject entire Biblical text,
and prefer to remain sacrilegious
eschewing faith no more,
(cuz doctrinaire versus
epistemological paradigm)
disagreeable, thus essentially
resigning yours truly

as token scapegoat gussied
up as heretical ******
metaphorically winkin blinkin
nonverbally giving nod
even if deaf mute blatherskite
reduced in one sentence as an odd
ditty, I spout gibberish

while travelling finite orbitz,
whereby one metrical foot
in front of thee other hide doth plod
me along tried and
true value schlemiel totally slipshod
thru and through,
though no po' tightwad!

Growing up amidst paternal
skeptical and cynical dad
in retrospect, I feel moral less glad
to avoid orthodox precepts
foisted when juiced a wee lad,
who peculiarly enough
resembled Alfred E. Neuman
if only yours truly
a figment of imagination,

rather than experiencing being sad
sack these days purposelessly
shuffling within ma rented pad
i.e. one bedroom apartment
listening to spouse more'n tad
annoying if oft times
knows exactly what childlike behavior
finds me getting stark raving mad.

Familiarity breeds contempt,
and the missus (unlike other gals)
unconditionally accepts her sir
vile counterpart (me) unkempt,
where neither of us
once upon a time dreamt
that each the other

would survive foreign attempt
to pledge troth (courtesy
justice of the peace
also known as
Magisterial District Judge:
Henry Schireson of Lower Merion
nsync with fame of Kobe Bryant

— The End —