When I too long have looked upon your face,
Wherein for me a brightness unobscured
Save by the mists of brightness has its place,
And terrible beauty not to be endured,
I turn away reluctant from your light,
And stand irresolute, a mind undone,
A silly, dazzled thing deprived of sight
From having looked too long upon the sun.
Then is my daily life a narrow room
In which a little while, uncertainly,
Surrounded by impenetrable gloom,
Among familiar things grown strange to me
Making my way, I pause, and feel, and hark,
Till I become accustomed to the dark.

No more of talk where God or Angel guest
With Man, as with his friend, familiar us’d,
To sit indulgent, and with him partake
Rural repast; permitting him the while
Venial discourse unblam’d. I now must change
Those notes to tragick; foul distrust, and breach
Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt,
And disobedience: on the part of Heaven
Now alienated, distance and distaste,
Anger and just rebuke, and judgement given,
That brought into this world a world of woe,
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery
Death’s harbinger: Sad talk!yet argument
Not less but more heroick than the wrath
Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued
Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous’d;
Or Neptune’s ire, or Juno’s, that so long
Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea’s son:                        

If answerable style I can obtain
Of my celestial patroness, who deigns
Her nightly visitation unimplor’d,
And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires
Easy my unpremeditated verse:
Since first this subject for heroick song
Pleas’d me long choosing, and beginning late;
Not sedulous by nature to indite
Wars, hitherto the only argument
Heroick deem’d chief mastery to dissect
With long and tedious havock fabled knights
In battles feign’d; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroick martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe races and games,
Or tilting furniture, imblazon’d shields,
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds,
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
At joust and tournament; then marshall’d feast
Serv’d up in hall with sewers and seneshals;
The skill of artifice or office mean,
Not that which justly gives heroick name
To person, or to poem.  Me, of these
Nor skill’d nor studious, higher argument
Remains; sufficient of itself to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing
Depress’d; and much they may, if all be mine,
Not hers, who brings it nightly to my ear.
The sun was sunk, and after him the star
Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring
Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter
“twixt day and night, and now from end to end
Night’s hemisphere had veil’d the horizon round:
When satan, who late fled before the threats
Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv’d
In meditated fraud and malice, bent
On Man’s destruction, maugre what might hap
Of heavier on himself, fearless returned
From compassing the earth; cautious of day,
Since Uriel, regent of the sun, descried
His entrance, and foreworned the Cherubim
That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven,
The space of seven continued nights he rode
With darkness; thrice the equinoctial line
He circled; four times crossed the car of night
From pole to pole, traversing each colure;
On the eighth returned; and, on the coast averse
From entrance or Cherubick watch, by stealth
Found unsuspected way.  There was a place,
Now not, though sin, not time, first wrought the change,
Where Tigris, at the foot of Paradise,
Into a gulf shot under ground, till part
Rose up a fountain by the tree of life:
In with the river sunk, and with it rose
Satan, involved in rising mist; then sought
Where to lie hid; sea he had searched, and land,
From Eden over Pontus and the pool
Maeotis, up beyond the river Ob;
Downward as far antarctick; and in length,
West from Orontes to the ocean barred
At Darien ; thence to the land where flows
Ganges and Indus: Thus the orb he roamed
With narrow search; and with inspection deep
Considered every creature, which of all
Most opportune might serve his wiles; and found
The Serpent subtlest beast of all the field.
Him after long debate, irresolute
Of thoughts revolved, his final sentence chose
Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom
To enter, and his dark suggestions hide
From sharpest sight: for, in the wily snake
Whatever sleights, none would suspicious mark,
As from his wit and native subtlety
Proceeding; which, in other beasts observed,
Doubt might beget of diabolick power
Active within, beyond the sense of brute.
Thus he resolved, but first from inward grief
His bursting passion into plaints thus poured.
More justly, seat worthier of Gods, as built
With second thoughts, reforming what was old!
O Earth, how like to Heaven, if not preferred
For what God, after better, worse would build?
Terrestrial Heaven, danced round by other Heavens
That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,
Light above light, for thee alone, as seems,
In thee concentring all their precious beams
Of sacred influence!  As God in Heaven
Is center, yet extends to all; so thou,
Centring, receivest from all those orbs: in thee,
Not in themselves, all their known virtue appears
Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth
Of creatures animate with gradual life
Of growth, sense, reason, all summed up in Man.
With what delight could I have walked thee round,
If I could joy in aught, sweet interchange
Of hill, and valley, rivers, woods, and plains,
Now land, now sea and shores with forest crowned,
Rocks, dens, and caves!  But I in none of these
Find place or refuge; and the more I see
Pleasures about me, so much more I feel
Torment within me, as from the hateful siege
Of contraries: all good to me becomes
Bane, and in Heaven much worse would be my state.
But neither here seek I, no nor in Heaven
To dwell, unless by mastering Heaven’s Supreme;
Nor hope to be myself less miserable
By what I seek, but others to make such
As I, though thereby worse to me redound:
For only in destroying I find ease
To my relentless thoughts; and, him destroyed,
Or won to what may work his utter loss,
For whom all this was made, all this will soon
Follow, as to him linked in weal or woe;
In woe then; that destruction wide may range:
To me shall be the glory sole among
The infernal Powers, in one day to have marred
What he, Almighty styled, six nights and days
Continued making; and who knows how long
Before had been contriving? though perhaps
Not longer than since I, in one night, freed
From servitude inglorious well nigh half
The angelick name, and thinner left the throng
Of his adorers: He, to be avenged,
And to repair his numbers thus impaired,
Whether such virtue spent of old now failed
More Angels to create, if they at least
Are his created, or, to spite us more,
Determined to advance into our room
A creature formed of earth, and him endow,
Exalted from so base original,
With heavenly spoils, our spoils: What he decreed,
He effected; Man he made, and for him built
Magnificent this world, and earth his seat,
Him lord pronounced; and, O indignity!
Subjected to his service angel-wings,
And flaming ministers to watch and tend
Their earthly charge: Of these the vigilance
I dread; and, to elude, thus wrapt in mist
Of midnight vapour glide obscure, and pry
In every bush and brake, where hap may find
The serpent sleeping; in whose mazy folds
To hide me, and the dark intent I bring.
O foul descent! that I, who erst contended
With Gods to sit the highest, am now constrained
Into a beast; and, mixed with ******* slime,
This essence to incarnate and imbrute,
That to the highth of Deity aspired!
But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to?  Who aspires, must down as low
As high he soared; obnoxious, first or last,
To basest things.  Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils:
Let it; I reck not, so it light well aimed,
Since higher I fall short, on him who next
Provokes my envy, this new favourite
Of Heaven, this man of clay, son of despite,
Whom, us the more to spite, his Maker raised
From dust: Spite then with spite is best repaid.
So saying, through each thicket dank or dry,
Like a black mist low-creeping, he held on
His midnight-search, where soonest he might find
The serpent; him fast-sleeping soon he found
In labyrinth of many a round self-rolled,
His head the midst, well stored with subtile wiles:
Not yet in horrid shade or dismal den,
Nor nocent yet; but, on the grassy herb,
Fearless unfeared he slept: in at his mouth
The Devil entered; and his brutal sense,
In heart or head, possessing, soon inspired
With act intelligential; but his sleep
Disturbed not, waiting close the approach of morn.
Now, when as sacred light began to dawn
In Eden on the humid flowers, that breathed
Their morning incense, when all things, that breathe,
From the Earth’s great altar send up silent praise
To the Creator, and his nostrils fill
With grateful smell, forth came the human pair,
And joined their vocal worship to the quire
Of creatures wanting voice; that done, partake
The season prime for sweetest scents and airs:
Then commune, how that day they best may ply
Their growing work: for much their work out-grew
The hands’ dispatch of two gardening so wide,
And Eve first to her husband thus began.
Adam, well may we labour still to dress
This garden, still to tend plant, herb, and flower,
Our pleasant task enjoined; but, till more hands
Aid us, the work under our labour grows,
Luxurious by restraint; what we by day
Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind,
One night or two with wanton growth derides
Tending to wild.  Thou therefore now advise,
Or bear what to my mind first thoughts present:
Let us divide our labours; thou, where choice
Leads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind
The woodbine round this arbour, or direct
The clasping ivy where to climb; while I,
In yonder spring of roses intermixed
With myrtle, find what to redress till noon:
For, while so near each other thus all day
Our task we choose, what wonder if so near
Looks intervene and smiles, or object new
Casual discourse draw on; which intermits
Our day’s work, brought to little, though begun
Early, and the hour of supper comes unearned?
To whom mild answer Adam thus returned.
Sole Eve, associate sole, to me beyond
Compare above all living creatures dear!
Well hast thou motioned, well thy thoughts employed,
How we might best fulfil the work which here
God hath assigned us; nor of me shalt pass
Unpraised: for nothing lovelier can be found
In woman, than to study houshold good,
And good works in her husband to promote.
Yet not so strictly hath our Lord imposed
Labour, as to debar us when we need
Refreshment, whether food, or talk between,
Food of the mind, or this sweet *******
Of looks and smiles; for smiles from reason flow,
To brute denied, and are of love the food;
Love, not the lowest end of human life.
For not to irksome toil, but to delight,
He made us, and delight to reason joined.
These paths and bowers doubt not but our joint hands
Will keep from wilderness with ease, as wide
As we need walk, till younger hands ere long
Assist us; But, if much converse perhaps
Thee satiate, to short absence I could yield:
For solitude sometimes is best society,
And short retirement urges sweet return.
But other doubt possesses me, lest harm
Befall thee severed from me; for thou knowest
What hath been warned us, what malicious foe
Envying our happiness, and of his own
Despairing, seeks to work us woe and shame
By sly assault; and somewhere nigh at hand
Watches, no doubt, with greedy hope to find
His wish and best advantage, us asunder;
Hopeless to circumvent us joined, where each
To other speedy aid might lend at need:
Whether his first design be to withdraw
Our fealty from God, or to disturb
Conjugal love, than which perhaps no bliss
Enjoyed by us excites his envy more;
Or this, or worse, leave not the faithful side
That gave thee being, still shades thee, and protects.
The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks,
Safest and seemliest by her husband stays,
Who guards her, or with her the worst endures.
To whom the ****** majesty of Eve,
As one who loves, and some unkindness meets,
With sweet austere composure thus replied.
Offspring of Heaven and Earth, and all Earth’s Lord!
That such an enemy we have, who seeks
Our ruin, both by thee informed I learn,
And from the parting Angel over-heard,
As in a shady nook I stood behind,
Just then returned at shut of evening flowers.
But, that thou shouldst my firmness therefore doubt
To God or thee, because we have a foe
May tempt it, I expected not to hear.
His violence thou fearest not, being such
As we, not capable of death or pain,
Can either not receive, or can repel.
His fraud is then thy fear; which plain infers
Thy equal fear, that my firm faith and love
Can by his fraud be shaken or seduced;
Thoughts, which how found they harbour in thy breast,
Adam, mis-thought of her to thee so dear?
To whom with healing words Adam replied.
Daughter of God and Man, immortal Eve!
For such thou art; from sin and blame entire:
Not diffident of thee do I dissuade
Thy absence from my sight, but to avoid
The attempt itself, intended by our foe.
For he who tempts, though in vain, at least asperses
The tempted with dishonour foul; supposed
Not incorruptible of faith, not proof
Against temptation: Thou thyself with scorn
And anger wouldst resent the offered wrong,
Though ineffectual found: misdeem not then,
If such affront I labour to avert
From thee alone, which on us both at once
The enemy, though bold, will hardly dare;
Or daring, first on me the assault shall light.
Nor thou his malice and false guile contemn;
Subtle he needs must be, who could ******
Angels; nor think superfluous other’s aid.
I, from the influence of thy looks, receive
Access in every virtue; in thy sight
More wise, more watchful, stronger, if need were
Of outward strength; while shame, thou looking on,
Shame to be overcome or over-reached,
Would utmost vigour raise, and raised unite.
Why shouldst not thou like sense within thee feel
When I am present, and thy trial choose
With me, best witness of thy virtue tried?
So spake domestick Adam in his care
And matrimonial love; but Eve, who thought
Less attributed to her faith sincere,
Thus her reply with accent sweet renewed.
If this be our condition, thus to dwell
In narrow circuit straitened by a foe,
Subtle or violent, we not endued
Single with like defence, wherever met;
How are we happy, still in fear of harm?
But harm precedes not sin: only our foe,
Tempting, affronts us with his foul esteem
Of our integrity: his foul esteem
Sticks no dishonour on our front, but turns
Foul on himself; then wherefore shunned or feared
By us? who rather double honour gain
From his surmise proved false; find peace within,
Favour from Heaven, our witness, from the event.
And what is faith, love, virtue, unassayed
Alone, without exteriour help sustained?
Let us not then suspect our happy state
Left so imperfect by the Maker wise,
As not secure to single or combined.
Frail is our happiness, if this be so,
And Eden were no Eden, thus exposed.
To whom thus Adam fervently replied.
O Woman, best are all things as the will
Of God ordained them: His creating hand
Nothing imperfect or deficient left
Of all that he created, much less Man,
Or aught that might his happy state secure,
Secure from outward force; within himself
The danger lies, yet lies within his power:
Against his will he can receive no harm.
But God left free the will; for what obeys
Reason, is free; and Reason he made right,
But bid her well be ware, and still *****;
Lest, by some fair-appearing good surprised,
She dictate false; and mis-inform the will
To do what God expressly hath forbid.
Not then mistrust, but tender love, enjoins,
That I should mind thee oft; and mind thou me.
Firm we subsist, yet possible to swerve;
Since Reason not impossibly may meet
Some specious object by the foe suborned,
And fall into deception unaware,
Not keeping strictest watch, as she was warned.
Seek not temptation then, which to avoid
Were better, and most likely if from me
Thou sever not: Trial will come unsought.
Wouldst thou approve thy constancy, approve
First thy obedience; the other who can know,
Not seeing thee attempted, who attest?
But, if thou think, trial unsought may find
Us both securer than thus warned thou seemest,
Go; for thy stay, not fre

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

Oh, I know not!
I see not, and master not!
Why t'is caprice - t'is tender whim, is unwilling
to unveil my soul, conquering it with
mounds and plates of rapturous
yet canonical attention. How I dread
such falsehood! Strong, strong falsehood!
What an inconsiderate urgency! A matter, matter of the heart -
as mighty as it probably is, of its own accord! How serious
t'is would be! I am suffrage; and akin to its vigour areth my laugh,
and joy - I would be hatred if none cameth to stop my pace;
my frosty haze; and t'is gruesome maze! Yes, I would but be,
in th' length of some furt'er days!
I shalt no more be of t'is delight, and clustered inside my gloom,
pressed to th' walls of dainty loom; from which I shalt never
be comely enough to be granted an escape.
How terrifying t'ose scenes areth, to me! A poet as I am,
unenviable is my littleness, and humility; to t'ose who glare with jealousy
at pangs of my laughter, and childlike demands - as how t'ey always
chastised during t'eir coincidental encounters. But I am blessed!
I am blessed by my words - and t'ese cheerful, yet unending poems -
as unlike t'em I am, ungrateful and vile beings, flocking to th' church
only for th' sake of brand-new dowry, and enforced blessings.
Murderers of peace! Sons and daughters of vice! But I am convinced
t'at virtue shalt forever tower over t'em; and in th' right time t'ey shalt
be pulled off t'eir horses, and unedifying pleasantry. And goodness
shalt t'en win! For truth never bears t'eir unfaithful boasts, just like
it hates t'eir dishonesty; which so insistingly frosts me
with atrocity within 'tis lungs, and so soon as doth it start to cling stronger -
abashed shalt I be! Incarcerated shalt be my front, and dutiful
countenance - in t'at gross conflagration with secular flatness,
hesitations, and worldly doubts, in which yon grotesque salutation, corroborating
'tis assailed countenance, gouty and drained by rightful mockery;
comes but to avenge my love, my wondrous love -
which yesterday was dazzling and dripping fast
but contentiously, like a ripe cherry. Like a small burst of wine
craved by scholarly epicures, t'is feeling but anonymously grips
my lips, trembles my heart, and distracts my limbs;
should I be to think of thee, I shan't but be away
from t'is nauseatedness, of regrets, again! My thee, my thee,
areth thou truly gazing at me from afar? With fascination in thy stares,
wilt thou bestow me such destiny I hath been so desirous of - my dear?
And with thy serene, bulbous eyes - t'at sea of blackness
basked in marred turmoil - ah, a sign but of peace after such fire! - wilt thou
mould thy mind, thy stony mind, like a black-painted rose,
to throw at my being, just one, voluntary glance?
I am but anxious, my love, how I shake all over
with unreturned passion like t'is, my blood is circling
in distorting, yet irrepressible agitation.
How I wish t'at thou could be here, and rendereth me safe, in solely
but thy arms, my love! And shalt thou be my giddy knight - I entreat!
In my unmothered dreams, and t'eir precocious brambles - on t'ose journeys
of loom, doth I fear not, for thou shalt be t'ere to mirthfully comfort me.
And off shalt I fly again, to greet th' thoughtful morning!
But ought I to leaveth my dreams now; for thou canst be here to celebrate
t'is snowy day, and lift me onto triumph! And how I wisheth to cast away
t'is imprisonment, how I longeth for but thee here - just thee, remember t'at,
o but hark to my swift whisper, t'at calls only for thy name, my love!
How aggravated, and corrupted my conscience wilt be -
within th' membranes of my brain; t'eir hardship is severed by thy unpresence.
My love, o my restrained - single love, t'is ode that lights my soul
shalt illuminate thine; and 'tis long words - threads woven along
an abstracted lullaby, and vanquished by silent accusations, from thy, thy mouth!
A well t'at is perilous in its standing - standing like a torch, unruptured
albeit neglected, innocent in 'tis acute forlornness. Poor misery!
Hark, hark, my love - how t'ose dames, irresolute in t'eir volatility, and
charms of miraculous beauty - but tumultous inside, entranced by fear
of losing which, as so graciously raved and ranted all over th' year!
Th' dreary years - which th' above phrase caused me to be well-reminded,
and duly recall how t'eir sickening remorse tossed me around; and decreed
my jests of dread, sickness, and disdain - surges, and waves of animosity
wert but all about me. But how they areth happening again! Amongst th' snow -
running about as t'ey art, t'ose heartless, indignant creatures -
blind to th' tenderness of nature, bland and untouched by its shrieks, and
flickering toil! How I wish to save it, but incapable as I am - a minuscule shadow
of early womanhood t'at I own, I choose to stay distant,
and pray for t'eir impossible atonement, somehow, before t'ey entereth
t'eir silent graves. How t'ose ghosts of malice areth in no way acquainted
with th' woes of th' churchyard, and th' grimness of death - I declare!
How unafraid t'ey are, sacrificing t'is coherent life for such courses
of abomination. Victories upon th' misery of others,
dances to mourning songs, how evil! But I wish for t'eir salvation,
for t'ey art unable to even salve t'eir poor selves. I shalt be fervent
in my generosity, for 'tis th' most rewarding part of humanity;
I shalt be but a faithful servant to my innocuous nature. I adoreth my nature
just the way 'tis, and I shalt build its madly-scarred way back; with tons
of brightness, care, and hearty bliss! Yes, my love, my bliss - which inhabits
th' entire space of my maturity and unmolested passion. Inapprehensible as it is,
I am but to win its grace, and t'erefore thee - just as I hath so ardently dreameth of -
as heretofore, and shalt thou but be saluted and fended for
by my, my sincere and unbinding, affection.

So spake the Son of God; and Satan stood
A while as mute, confounded what to say,
What to reply, confuted and convinced
Of his weak arguing and fallacious drift;
At length, collecting all his serpent wiles,
With soothing words renewed, him thus accosts:—
  “I see thou know’st what is of use to know,
What best to say canst say, to do canst do;
Thy actions to thy words accord; thy words
To thy large heart give utterance due; thy heart            
Contains of good, wise, just, the perfet shape.
Should kings and nations from thy mouth consult,
Thy counsel would be as the oracle
Urim and Thummim, those oraculous gems
On Aaron’s breast, or tongue of Seers old
Infallible; or, wert thou sought to deeds
That might require the array of war, thy skill
Of conduct would be such that all the world
Could not sustain thy prowess, or subsist
In battle, though against thy few in arms.                  
These godlike virtues wherefore dost thou hide?
Affecting private life, or more obscure
In savage wilderness, wherefore deprive
All Earth her wonder at thy acts, thyself
The fame and glory—glory, the reward
That sole excites to high attempts the flame
Of most erected spirits, most tempered pure
AEthereal, who all pleasures else despise,
All treasures and all gain esteem as dross,
And dignities and powers, all but the highest?              
Thy years are ripe, and over-ripe.  The son
Of Macedonian Philip had ere these
Won Asia, and the throne of Cyrus held
At his dispose; young Scipio had brought down
The Carthaginian pride; young Pompey quelled
The Pontic king, and in triumph had rode.
Yet years, and to ripe years judgment mature,
Quench not the thirst of glory, but augment.
Great Julius, whom now all the world admires,
The more he grew in years, the more inflamed                
With glory, wept that he had lived so long
Ingloroious.  But thou yet art not too late.”
  To whom our Saviour calmly thus replied:—
“Thou neither dost persuade me to seek wealth
For empire’s sake, nor empire to affect
For glory’s sake, by all thy argument.
For what is glory but the blaze of fame,
The people’s praise, if always praise unmixed?
And what the people but a herd confused,
A miscellaneous rabble, who extol                          
Things ******, and, well weighed, scarce worth the praise?
They praise and they admire they know not what,
And know not whom, but as one leads the other;
And what delight to be by such extolled,
To live upon their tongues, and be their talk?
Of whom to be dispraised were no small praise—
His lot who dares be singularly good.
The intelligent among them and the wise
Are few, and glory scarce of few is raised.
This is true glory and renown—when God,                    
Looking on the Earth, with approbation marks
The just man, and divulges him through Heaven
To all his Angels, who with true applause
Recount his praises.  Thus he did to Job,
When, to extend his fame through Heaven and Earth,
As thou to thy reproach may’st well remember,
He asked thee, ‘Hast thou seen my servant Job?’
Famous he was in Heaven; on Earth less known,
Where glory is false glory, attributed
To things not glorious, men not worthy of fame.            
They err who count it glorious to subdue
By conquest far and wide, to overrun
Large countries, and in field great battles win,
Great cities by assault.  What do these worthies
But rob and spoil, burn, slaughter, and enslave
Peaceable nations, neighbouring or remote,
Made captive, yet deserving freedom more
Than those their conquerors, who leave behind
Nothing but ruin wheresoe’er they rove,
And all the flourishing works of peace destroy;            
Then swell with pride, and must be titled Gods,
Great benefactors of mankind, Deliverers,
Worshipped with temple, priest, and sacrifice?
One is the son of Jove, of Mars the other;
Till conqueror Death discover them scarce men,
Rowling in brutish vices, and deformed,
Violent or shameful death their due reward.
But, if there be in glory aught of good;
It may be means far different be attained,
Without ambition, war, or violence—                        
By deeds of peace, by wisdom eminent,
By patience, temperance.  I mention still
Him whom thy wrongs, with saintly patience borne,
Made famous in a land and times obscure;
Who names not now with honour patient Job?
Poor Socrates, (who next more memorable?)
By what he taught and suffered for so doing,
For truth’s sake suffering death unjust, lives now
Equal in fame to proudest conquerors.
Yet, if for fame and glory aught be done,                  
Aught suffered—if young African for fame
His wasted country freed from Punic rage—
The deed becomes unpraised, the man at least,
And loses, though but verbal, his reward.
Shall I seek glory, then, as vain men seek,
Oft not deserved?  I seek not mine, but His
Who sent me, and thereby witness whence I am.”
  To whom the Tempter, murmuring, thus replied:—
“Think not so slight of glory, therein least
Resembling thy great Father.  He seeks glory,              
And for his glory all things made, all things
Orders and governs; nor content in Heaven,
By all his Angels glorified, requires
Glory from men, from all men, good or bad,
Wise or unwise, no difference, no exemption.
Above all sacrifice, or hallowed gift,
Glory he requires, and glory he receives,
Promiscuous from all nations, Jew, or Greek,
Or Barbarous, nor exception hath declared;
From us, his foes pronounced, glory he exacts.”            
  To whom our Saviour fervently replied:
“And reason; since his Word all things produced,
Though chiefly not for glory as prime end,
But to shew forth his goodness, and impart
His good communicable to every soul
Freely; of whom what could He less expect
Than glory and benediction—that is, thanks—
The slightest, easiest, readiest recompense
From them who could return him nothing else,
And, not returning that, would likeliest render            
Contempt instead, dishonour, obloquy?
Hard recompense, unsuitable return
For so much good, so much beneficience!
But why should man seek glory, who of his own
Hath nothing, and to whom nothing belongs
But condemnation, ignominy, and shame—
Who, for so many benefits received,
Turned recreant to God, ingrate and false,
And so of all true good himself despoiled;
Yet, sacrilegious, to himself would take                    
That which to God alone of right belongs?
Yet so much bounty is in God, such grace,
That who advances his glory, not their own,
Them he himself to glory will advance.”
  So spake the Son of God; and here again
Satan had not to answer, but stood struck
With guilt of his own sin—for he himself,
Insatiable of glory, had lost all;
Yet of another plea bethought him soon:—
  “Of glory, as thou wilt,” said he, “so deem;              
Worth or not worth the seeking, let it pass.
But to a Kingdom thou art born—ordained
To sit upon thy father David’s throne,
By mother’s side thy father, though thy right
Be now in powerful hands, that will not part
Easily from possession won with arms.
Judaea now and all the Promised Land,
Reduced a province under Roman yoke,
Obeys Tiberius, nor is always ruled
With temperate sway: oft have they violated                
The Temple, oft the Law, with foul affronts,
Abominations rather, as did once
Antiochus.  And think’st thou to regain
Thy right by sitting still, or thus retiring?
So did not Machabeus.  He indeed
Retired unto the Desert, but with arms;
And o’er a mighty king so oft prevailed
That by strong hand his family obtained,
Though priests, the crown, and David’s throne usurped,
With Modin and her suburbs once content.                    
If kingdom move thee not, let move thee zeal
And duty—zeal and duty are not slow,
But on Occasion’s forelock watchful wait:
They themselves rather are occasion best—
Zeal of thy Father’s house, duty to free
Thy country from her heathen servitude.
So shalt thou best fulfil, best verify,
The Prophets old, who sung thy endless reign—
The happier reign the sooner it begins.
Rein then; what canst thou better do the while?”            
  To whom our Saviour answer thus returned:—
“All things are best fulfilled in their due time;
And time there is for all things, Truth hath said.
If of my reign Prophetic Writ hath told
That it shall never end, so, when begin
The Father in his purpose hath decreed—
He in whose hand all times and seasons rowl.
What if he hath decreed that I shall first
Be tried in humble state, and things adverse,
By tribulations, injuries, insults,                        
Contempts, and scorns, and snares, and violence,
Suffering, abstaining, quietly expecting
Without distrust or doubt, that He may know
What I can suffer, how obey?  Who best
Can suffer best can do, best reign who first
Well hath obeyed—just trial ere I merit
My exaltation without change or end.
But what concerns it thee when I begin
My everlasting Kingdom?  Why art thou
Solicitous?  What moves thy inquisition?                    
Know’st thou not that my rising is thy fall,
And my promotion will be thy destruction?”
  To whom the Tempter, inly racked, replied:—
“Let that come when it comes.  All hope is lost
Of my reception into grace; what worse?
For where no hope is left is left no fear.
If there be worse, the expectation more
Of worse torments me than the feeling can.
I would be at the worst; worst is my port,
My harbour, and my ultimate repose,                        
The end I would attain, my final good.
My error was my error, and my crime
My crime; whatever, for itself condemned,
And will alike be punished, whether thou
Reign or reign not—though to that gentle brow
Willingly I could fly, and hope thy reign,
From that placid aspect and meek regard,
Rather than aggravate my evil state,
Would stand between me and thy Father’s ire
(Whose ire I dread more than the fire of Hell)              
A shelter and a kind of shading cool
Interposition, as a summer’s cloud.
If I, then, to the worst that can be haste,
Why move thy feet so slow to what is best?
Happiest, both to thyself and all the world,
That thou, who worthiest art, shouldst be their King!
Perhaps thou linger’st in deep thoughts detained
Of the enterprise so hazardous and high!
No wonder; for, though in thee be united
What of perfection can in Man be found,                    
Or human nature can receive, consider
Thy life hath yet been private, most part spent
At home, scarce viewed the Galilean towns,
And once a year Jerusalem, few days’
Short sojourn; and what thence couldst thou observe?
The world thou hast not seen, much less her glory,
Empires, and monarchs, and their radiant courts—
Best school of best experience, quickest in sight
In all things that to greatest actions lead.
The wisest, unexperienced, will be ever                    
Timorous, and loth, with novice modesty
(As he who, seeking *****, found a kingdom)
Irresolute, unhardy, unadventrous.
But I will bring thee where thou soon shalt quit
Those rudiments, and see before thine eyes
The monarchies of the Earth, their pomp and state—
Sufficient introduction to inform
Thee, of thyself so apt, in regal arts,
And regal mysteries; that thou may’st know
How best their opposition to withstand.”                    
  With that (such power was given him then), he took
The Son of God up to a mountain high.
It was a mountain at whose verdant feet
A spacious plain outstretched in circuit wide
Lay pleasant; from his side two rivers flowed,
The one winding, the other straight, and left between
Fair champaign, with less rivers interveined,
Then meeting joined their tribute to the sea.
Fertil of corn the glebe, of oil, and wine;
With herds the pasture thronged, with flocks the hills;    
Huge cities and high-towered, that well might seem
The seats of mightiest monarchs; and so large
The prospect was that here and there was room
For barren desert, fountainless and dry.
To this high mountain-top the Tempter brought
Our Saviour, and new train of words began:—
  “Well have we speeded, and o’er hill and dale,
Forest, and field, and flood, temples and towers,
Cut shorter many a league.  Here thou behold’st
Assyria, and her empire’s ancient bounds,                  
Araxes and the Caspian lake; thence on
As far as Indus east, Euphrates west,
And oft beyond; to south the Persian bay,
And, inaccessible, the Arabian drouth:
Here, Nineveh, of length within her wall
Several days’ journey, built by Ninus old,
Of that first golden monarchy the seat,
And seat of Salmanassar, whose success
Israel in long captivity still mourns;
There Babylon, the wonder of all tongues,                  
As ancient, but rebuilt by him who twice
Judah and all thy father David’s house
Led captive, and Jerusalem laid waste,
Till Cyrus set them free; Persepolis,
His city, there thou seest, and Bactra there;
Ecbatana her structure vast there shews,
And Hecatompylos her hunderd gates;
There Susa by Choaspes, amber stream,
The drink of none but kings; of later fame,
Built by Emathian or by Parthian hands,                    
The great Seleucia, Nisibis, and there
Artaxata, Teredon, Ctesiphon,
Turning with easy eye, thou may’st behold.
All these the Parthian (now some ages past
By great Arsaces led, who founded first
That empire) under his dominion holds,
From the luxurious kings of Antioch won.
And just in time thou com’st to have a view
Of his great power; for now the Parthian king
In Ctesiphon hath gathered all his host                    
Against the Scythian, whose incursions wild
Have wasted Sogdiana; to her aid
He marches now in haste.  See, though from far,
His thousands, in what martial e

O, why but I am like t'is! Hath I, since t'at last sober night,
as th' wan, dull clouds crept nearby, been bequeathing
tragic, credulous insecurity to myself. Like t'at frail moonbeam
disturbed by starless rain! And a turbulent voyage
didst I take, alongst my dreary sleep, into th' grounds
of scythed lands-full of horror, nightmarish leaps,
and dire-some terrors. Why didst I do so! I hath come, to comprehend
not, why t'is turbulence of brave grossness seemeth like nothing else
but perniciously irredeemable, as though I accidentally, or even
consecutively-inflicted it, without the wakeful knowingst
of my brains. Indecipherable! T'is vacant delirium of mockery, and its abysmal hearth
inside-set alight by invisible flames-torches of hell, and gruesome
shrugs of untimely malevolence. Insatiable deployment, indeed! How
miraculous it would be, should I be free from t'is inconvenience
in th' course of some upcoming days, but still, doth I hope so!
Waggish remarks, jests, and playful turns of ancient riddling-
areth but exchanged outside, with airs so snobbish, from t'ose
pampered youngeth dames, blind to t'eir silenced world's grievous
suffering, and laborous perspiration. How unfair t'eir fiendish hearts areth-
once and againeth-sneering at th' pure, stoical beds of t'ose airy rivers,
andth t'eir dim solitude, with t'ose rings of presumptuous laughter!
Spaciousness in its holy sphere, untouched by th' turmoil t'at lingers on it
surface, neither driven away nor shaken by ungratefulness. Toil
improperly apprehended! And insulted as it might become, tenderness
shalt it leave behind, insolence but be crafted along th' insidious rims
of its face. Marvelous in wild ways! Wild, devilish ways! And unwatched
by th' stomping blokes on its visage, shalt it rise, rise like an unforgiving
tidal wave, soulless in its aliveness, blighting and scratching
t'eir shoulders, with blades unmarred-dormant powers t'at ought not
to be ignored by seconds t'at feebly tick away. And t'eir ends
shalt 'ey meet, granted liberally by t'eir
deliberate neglect, and repulsive indulgence.

In th' nothingness of aggravation I am but naturally not a hard-hearted creature,
too of a stony appearance I possess not-intimate and even, t'at should be how
my being is paraphrased mercifully! With t'ose perpetual-and even limitless-
replenishing jewels of ardour, flawed only by harmless faults, I would consider myself treasured
by nature, o t'at precious creature whom hath so adorably vouchsafed t'is
spring-like life to me; warmth can I gratefully feel in t'is winter every day,
in my prayers, studies, and amongst t'ose invigorating fits
of my daily perambulations. How truthful, aye t'is confession is made! As I am
but a pious, sanctified child, ye' in spite of being a humaneth as I am, a snake is bound
to dwell within my *****, asleep in its quiet slumbers, unawakened so long
as I unbetray my redolent virtues.
But last night! How nigh my soul from t'at anxious burst of agitation,
melancholiness so undesired but abruptly avenged my silence. My indulgent
silence! Th' one frame of my unresting mind t'at I so fastidiously preserved!
Hatred encountered my countenance, and bifurcated my ******
dispositions; flew into anger then I-so sudden as gripped my soul was
by paths of hostility sent onto me-overwhelmed by t'is ineloquent treatment,
howled in despair, and agony was all I felt within my cheerless heart-
until everything amounted into a blurry shadow-insignificant as it was,
but th' fraud was still t'ere-stupefying desire, so ardent within th' leaves
of my conscience, to slaughter even th' most innocent skins-
'till no more breath t'ey shalt but gasp for. And triumph shalt I procure,
ascendancy shalt be painted onto my palms, and opulent pride shalt I be
endowed with, so unlike all t'is hateful remorse, and slithering chastisement!
Amongst t'ose seas of disillusionment; whilst frowning in desperation-combusting
all t'ose wretched spirits wert all I wasth but able to think of;
and all I conjectured wert proven worthy of my thoughts. Inevitable! Entrenched
was its root-t'is flourishing tiny devil on my inner self, as it is-'till th' morning but
retreated and vanquished t'is gust of little hell, which had decoyed me
and my lithe genuineness like a trivial shell.

O dear! My flawless prince, hath thou but thoroughly gone from me?
Still, a painting of thy kiss roam silently th' rooms of my heart. Now scanty
as to emptiness, roaring fussily as to loneliness, for thy being unhere!
Distorted hath been now its breaths-adored only by groans
of misery-like caprices t'at laid unwanted, abhorred by t'eir masters-
for t'eir yesterday's pricelessness, and valuable crowns! How ungrateful masters,
my dear! And how t'eir proceedings shalt recall
t'ose pristine shines, yes, my dear, (of my golden gems) t'at areth gone,
with unsounding returns t'at are unexplainable, and too unattainable-
and shalt remain dim be t'eir whereabouts, amongst t'ese winds
of fervent, but sultry days. O, come back, my love, come back to my arms,
and hate me not, for my threads are woven alongst thy charms-
ah, t'ose threads of life, of soulfulness, and unabashed mortality!
Clashes of feelings, emotions, and mutual usurpation
of endless infatuation. Chaste, and unimpure, passion! Yes, yes, my love-
t'at's how we ou't 'a be, next to t' fireside, lulling each ot'er to sleep,
and welcoming t'ose night dreams with hearts so dear, lullabies
so near to our ears, of t'at unwavering breaths of passion, and unchangeable
affection, for th' rest of our lives! Leave me not-once more, but stay hereth
with me, and make me forgive
and forget cheerethfully t'is seditious, thoughtless, but most of all
irresolute conflagration.

Silence, beautiful voice!
Be hard and still, for thou only troublest the mind,
And within such a joy I cannot rejoice,
a glory I shall not find.

Catch not my breath, o clamorous heart;
for thou art more horrendous than the horrendous,
and thy mourning over this heavy breath is far too hard,
but sounding alternately irresolute and pretentious.
Thou needst not be my ultimate, though doleful, present;
thou art wicked and frail as the serpent;
I shall let thy tongue be a thrall to my eye,
but vex thee greedily 'till thou benevolently saith goodbye.
I shall makest thee angry and giveth in to anger and lie
and let thee search about within my soul, and die.

Ah! Still, I shall listen to thee once more,
But move, I entreat; to the meadow and fall before
Thy feet on the meadow grass and adore
Bring my heart to thy heat but not make it sore
Not thine, which are neither courtly nor kind;
not mine, for thy youth still, makest me sweet and blind.
Oh, if only thou couldst be so sweet,
and thy smile all the worldliness I dreamt,
For it all wouldst no longer be stormy and pale,
or threatened be, to vanish amongst such winds or ghastly gales;
Ah, yon fairness wouldst be fair,
and scented as sweetly as thy hair.

Whom but thee, again, I should meet
Whenst at stormy nights sunset burneth
At the end of the head village street,
Whom I should meet behind the red ferns?
For I believest, in such boundlessness of fate
Fate that worlds cannot deny, and grudge cannot hate.
And, I believest indeed, my darling shall be there,
to touch he, shall my hand so sweet,
He bowest to me and utterest holy amends
To his future lover, but less than meekly hesitant; friend.

What if with his sunny hair
He connivest for me a snare
Who wouldst hath thought locks of gold so fair
Huddled and curved cozily by hands of care
Immersed in silver, tailored in gold
Even darker than toil, but sharper than words
Wouldst throw in my way pranks and deceit
As to his expectations I couldst not meet?
Wouldst he expect me to stand in the snow that couldst bite
and criest for and cursest him, in the middle of furious nights?

And what if with his sunny smile
Which he refineth with sweetness all the while
And with such an ostentatious remorse
That makest truthful delight even worse
He stealest my heart and makest me swear
So for any other I ought not to care
And my tears shall again be conceived in between
In the eternal mirror of revelling seasons, unseen
Knowing not what it hath done, or where it hath been
What if seas and clouds turnest just they are, so mean?

And imprisoned up and above
I shall hearest beloved Lord talk of the futility of love
And He shall oftentimes stop and mirthlessly laugh
Ruining the castles and puzzles and stories I dreamt of
If distances are not too far to walk to
I shall darest to cross my sphere and get over you
But sins hath perhaps forbidden my courteous intentions
As their meanness swayest me around with no destination-
ah, look at how their vile, grinning eyes temptest me!
They itchest my veins, they throttlest my knees;
and how uncivilly their ****** teeth hauntest me!
Indeedst, indeedst-they are far more horrendous than these living eyes canst see!

Perhaps his smile and tender tone
Were all that I imagined alone
Now that all spells hath grimly gone
Am I truly left on my own?
Ah, prone, prone is truly my soul
But I am distant here, lonely and cold
I am also strong but this solitude is too bold
I hath always been awake with truth, but this I cannot fold
And hovering dancing leaves are grotesquely thrown
About their echoing chambers opened wide
Until more rueful gravity has grown;
and hilarity fades wholly from my side

Once we came to the bench by the rouge church
And sat for hours by the wooden pillar alone
We sang along with the singing white birds
And those strangely blushing red thorns
'Till we fought everything burdened and curtly torn
As how the moon hurriedly cried 'till it found the morn
'Till suddenly, sweetly my heart beat stronger
And thicker, 'till I almost heard it no longer
But I realised, and fast mused and sighed
'No, it cannot stayest long, it cannot be pride.'

T'en we walked a mile-
Just a mile from the moors,
Circling about to find some exile
Away from noises and banging of doors.
We both pleaded, pleaded to our dear Lord
T'at genuine love our hearts couldst afford
But time grew envious and cut our walk short
As night approached and we suddenly had to resort.

And he too, he too was mad
And frowned and twitched that so made me sad
Endlessly alone he wouldst blame me and more fret
Sending myself down and brimmed with regrets
Like a parrot shuffling about its offspring's dying bed
My eyes grew warm and hurtful and red
Anger betrothed him to its indignant powers
Corrupted his cheers and drank away his laughters
I was furious, I cursed and kicked frantically at fate
How it grossly tainted and strained my tenuous date
For it was tenuous and I struggled to makest it strong;
but fate shamefully ripped it and all the triumph I'd woven, all along.

And losing him was indeedst everything,
nothing distracted me and kept my jostled self going.
I feelest lethargic even in my sleep,
I keepest falling from rocks in my dreams-ah, too leafy and steep!
I dreamest of suburbs that are rich with divine foliage,
I rejoicest in whose tranquil, though transient, merriment.
And as morn retreatest, I shall be again filled with rage,
I refusest to eat and enjoy even a slice of everyday's enjoyment.
I am now wholly conquered by worry; I was torn and lost in my own battlefield,
I hath no more guard that shall lift me upwards and grant me his shield.
Ah, I hath now been turned, to a whole nonentity;
at my wounds people shall turn away, with a foolish laugh and mock sorry.

O, love, and I am now vainly stuck in the night,
The night that refusest to leave my tired sight.
The night that keepest returning the dark
with no more hope of reflective sight,
and no more signs pertinent burning light,
and sick I'th become, of this jealous dread.
But am I really sick now? Utterly sick of this lonesome envy?
Ah, still I better refusest to know. My dreams are bad.
The shapes in there are far too inglorious and mad.
Just like those-ah! Do not let them harm me!
Where are my eyes? My very heart, my own blood,
and perhaps, my thorough sense of humanity?
One second back they were all still with me,
but they are all now ruined phantoms and shapes,
whenever I am fast asleep,
he turnest them out like obedient sheep
and handest them to the unseen to be *****.
He was neither sincere nor tactful,
and believed too heartly in his odious and ill-coloured soul.
Ah, but duly shall I even call this season harmful,
sorrows rule our hands, whilst distaste reign our men.
Disgrace ownest its peaks, within gratuitous handfuls,
men knowest not their lovers, speakest not of us as friends.
Ah, this is a bitter spring indeed, of anger and fear;
With thousands of evil tongues and evil ears,
For lovers are at war with their lovers,
and makest each others' eyes unseeing and blind.
Even God, our lovely God himself, is at war with his heavens,
for whose minds are lost, as real conscience shall never ever find.

Where is my love? Ah, perhaps staggering under the woods,
And I, who else, shall be with him,
Gathering woodland lilies,
Prosperously blooming under the trees.
Where is my heart? Ah, it is carried again within him,
as we layest about the green grass on our limbs,
with oiled lamps at our feet,
and tellest stories as our loving eyes lean closer and meet.

Ah, beauty! That is the picture in my mind,
not him, not him, that has sent me blind.
Still the image of him makes me sick,
his image that is as stony and greedy as a brick.

He has no feelings, he has no emotion,
he has no endurance and twists of natural passion.
He has all the strength and virility the world ever wanted,
but his mind remainst cold, his heart his own self once entered.
He is as unjust as a statue,
he knowest not wrong and right, nor false from true.
For whilst I tried to praise his being so comely,
he took all my remarks sedately,
he gazed at me with an arrogant face snarling,
and praised the gentleness of his own darling.

He is unthinking, savage, and unfeeling,
his face a human, his heart a brute.
He might be all the way comely and charming,
too pitiful he is inhuman and acts like a crude.
My fancy was sometimes real overbold,
for whenst I was to coo and hold, he was but to scream and scold.
Scorned, to be scorned by one that I not scorn,
whenst all this passion my shoulder had borne?
It is unfair and ignominiously hateful,
gross and unjust, horrid and spiteful.
A fool I am, to be unvexed with his pride!
And once, during repetitive daylight,
I past him, one day I was crossing his lands,
I did look at him not as a gentleman,
He was laughing at his own tediousness,
I dreaded him for that, but as I came home
later, I cried again, over his picture with madness.

Ah! How couldst I ever forget him,
whenst he is but the one I love?
No matter how strange this may seem,
he was the one I real dreamt of;
I want to love him not in a dream,
I want to touch him in his flesh.
I want to smell that scent of him,
and breathe onto his lap and his chest.
I want to sit in his oak-room,
and tellest him of stories of glad and gloom,
before the ocean-waves afar laid
next to quiet storms, amidst our private delight.
I want to have him selfishly!
Have him laugh endlessly with me,
and all the way love him madly;
with a heart so dearly but greedy.

What, if he fastened himself to this fool dame,
and bask in her infamous joy, and fame
Should I love him so well, if he
gave her heart to a thing so low?
Should I let him again smile at me
If we are bound to see each other tomorrow?
His smile, at times can be full of spite
Yet in spite of spite, he is all but comely and white;
I miss him, I miss him as just how I miss my dream,
He is, though marred, is just as sweet as I remember him,
I insist sorrow coming up to me,
To consolest and hearest here, my deepest plea
And ****** the most painful pain to he and she
And restore then, his innocent self to me.

I hearest no sound from where I am standing
But the rivulets and tiny drops of rain
Are starting to send moonlight to my whining
As I twitch and swirl and whirl about in the rain.
I watch people flock in and out the evening train;
their thoughts hidden, like all the mimicry in a quiet play.
Hearts full of glowing love, and at the same time, of disdain;
all pass by gates and bars and entrances with nothing serious to say.
Ah, perhaps I am the only one too melancholy,
for even at this busy hour think doth I, of such poetry.
Yet melancholy but real, for if I ever be dear to someone else,
then I decide that should I be, to myself, far dearer.
For I believe not tales another creature tells,
they can be lies, they can be unfairer.
Like a nutshell too hard for the very poor shell itself,
I do feel pity for him and his ignorant self.
Unlucky him, for I carest more for every puff of his breath,
no matter how eerie-and she, rejoices over
the bashful lapse, of his death.

My life hath crept so long on a broken wing
Through cells of madness, horror, and fear;
Fear that is brutal and insidious, though inviting
and lies that eyes cannot see nor ears hear;
My mood hath changed, at least at this time of year
As I'th stayed more about and dwelled mostly here
And my previous grief hath outgrown itself like a butterfly
Too I witnessed as It fluttered and flickered madly,
and at the very last moment, died silently 'midst its own fury;
All weeks long, I hath listened and learned tactfully more
Lessons that I hath never heard of, never before.

But still, hate I this severely clashing world;
too much torpor hath we all borne, and burning, virile hurt.
O down, down with laborious ambition and ******
Kiss this earth's silent layers and fold down our knees
Ah, darling, put down thy passion that makest thee Hell!
To all madness of thine thou should sayest, farewell-
Hesitate not, and leave thy curious, and agile state
Be honest and precise, be courteous and moderate.
Crush and demolish and burn all demonic hate
Thus instead cherish and welcome thy realistic fate.
Entertain thy love; with dozens and dozens of new, novelty!
Brush up thy pride, but leavest away, o, leavest away thy old vanity-
Ah, and profess thy love only to me, for it brings me delight
It returns my hope, and turns all my dissolutions to light.

And tease, tease me, and my frenetic, personal song
Though I but be a wounded thing-with a rancorous cry,
I am wretched and wretched, as thou hath hurt me all along
Sick, sick to the heart of this entire life, am I.
Many one hath preached my poor little heart down,
Neither any merriment is mine, 'mongst this serene county town.
My only friend is my oak-room bible, and its dear God
Who mockest frenetic riches rich at diamonds but poor at heart
With cries that rulest turning minds from each other apart;
and with wealth running away to selfishly savest their spoilt, cruel hearts-
o, how I am lucky-for I am destroyed, but not by my dear Lord;
I am healed and charmed by His generous frank words.

All seemest like a vague dream, but still a dear insight
For he, above all, taught me to see which one was right
I still miss him, and dearly hope that he canst somehow be my future poem
And together we shall fliest towards joy and escapest such unblessed doom;
His musical mouth is indeedst my song,
a song that I'th been singing intimately with, all along!
For this then shall I shall continue my pursuit,
with a grateful heart and so a considerate wit,
for I am sure now-that he is mine, and only mine,
and duly certain of these promising, though long, signs;
But now I feel my heart grow easier;
as it now embraces days in ways lovelier;
for I hath now awakened again, to a better mind,
so that everything is now to me just fine;
Still he bears all my love and intuitive goodwill,
yet how to waken my love, God knowest better still.

Alone, we both are,
Sitting patiently,
Waving white flags.

My mentality has reached capacity,
I’m looking for you, always.

An endless walk,
Is on my agenda.

I have the solution for us.

“Let’s just stand here for a moment and stare at the moon.”

J.
Ah, J.
A love I hath excitedly longed to find,
A love t'at previously had no name.
J.
A love too thrilling for my sights to feel,
and perhaps th' only love t'at couldst make me thrilled;
A love so genuine and benevolent,
A love so talented and intelligent.
Ah, J.
A love t'at just recently landed on my mind;
And made all my lyrical days far more splendid;
A love t'at briefed, and altered me more and more;
A love so chilly and important, with subt'leness like never before.
Ah, J.
My very, very own J.
Perhaps my future king, my precious, but at times villainous-darling.
Oh, J.
And perhaps I am just not as virtuous as I might be,
But t'is poem shall still be about thee;
For thou art-within my minds, still awkwardly th' best one,
With a pair of oceanic eyes too dear; and a civil charm so fine.
J.
J, o my love.
If only thou knew-how oceans sparkles within thy eyes,
And 'tis only in thy eyes, t'at any of t'ese complications might not become eerie,
And then t'is destiny is true, as well as how truth is our destiny;
So t'at any precarious delicacy is still faint-perhaps, but not a lie.
Oh, J.
A bubble of excitement t'at my heart feelest;
But if consented not, shall be the wound no blood couldst heal;
Ah, J, if the heavens' rainbow wert fallen, t'an thou'd be purer;
Born as a sin as us all humans, thou art cleaner to my heart still, and canst but love me much better.
Ah, J.
If only thou knew-how madness floweth and barketh and drinketh from our spheres,
But even th' devil cannot spill its curse on our strangled love;
At least until everything is deaf-and we duly cannot hear,
As skies descend onto th' sore earth; and our dumb sins are t' be sent above.

J.
How pivotal thou art to me-if only yon foliage couldst understand;
If only t'ose winds were not rivals, but one-or at least wanted to be friends.
Ah, J, even only thy words filled my comical ******* to th' brim;
And as far as heavens' angels canst hear, I am no more in love with him.
Ah, J.
'Tis cause my verses are seeking thy name, and his not;
I may create th' words, but thou deviseth my plots;
Ah, and him, the bulk of egotism, and whose frank misery;
Are but too disastrous to me, and in possession of too much agony.
Oh, J.
Thus thou art th' only one who remaineth solemn;
Th' one to remain ecstatic, and as less aggressive as calmness;
But of the broad thoughts I used to think of him, I feel shame;
He is just some unborn trepidation at night-though on fine mornings, he is tame.
Ah, J.
Let me disclose th' egress of thy journey, and tellest me now-is which towards mine?
Ah, thee, thou who art so bounty, and deliciously fine;
And t'ese thoughts of thee-are often tasty, and oft'times generous;
'Ven when thou'rt mad, and thy chanting is vigorously serious.
Ah, J.
Thee, a soul of painless blood;
Whose disgrace hath been buried;
Whose vanities hath been laid off;
Whose miracles hath been lavished on.
Ah, J.
Thou art one bright portrayal of my merit;
I fell'n love with thee in a single bit.
Thou bore my tears, and scorned away my guilt;
And in th' swaying summertime, thou wert my protective shield.
Thus my, my very own J.
My gale-like, and unutterably luscious poem;
About whom my thoughts are jolly, but mindful and insensible;
Ah, J, I wish I were more frail, paler, and gullible;
Ah, but if only being so couldst make me more compatible.
Oh, J.
And compatible, compatible with thee alone;
Fleshly be thine whenst all is borne on thy own;
Be thy only trusted companion, and thy eloquently verified wife;
Be thine, and thine in wifery only, throughout and for th' rest of thy life.
J.
All Let me then guess but the tranquility of thy thoughts-hath thou gone mad?
Behind us are rainbows, and thus thy songs should not be sad;
But even though they were sad, I wouldst lend thee my heart;
So t'at no summer sunshine couldst further tear us apart.
J.
Ah, J, why are th' blue skies far too impatient in thy eyes?
Just as how thy deep scent is febrile in my air;
Thy gushes of breath are thick in my young weather;
As buoyant as yon summer itself; as voluptuous as lingering daisies.
J.
And t'is ****** scream, within my heart, needs indeed-t' be fulfilled;
And its vulnerability t'ere always, to be killed;
Ah, J, t'ere is 'finitely no poem as beautiful as thee;
T'ere is no writing yet as such, as trivial and distant-as my eyes canst see.
J.
Ah, J, darling, and my very fine darling; is chastity to thee virtuous?
About which my soul is hungered-and t'ereby curious;
But if 'tis so, I shall be merry-and ever meekly laborious;
I shall make it tender, and maketh it a reliant gift, to thee.
J.
Ah, J, and thou came to me one aft'rnoon, with a sweet muteness;
For to thee, poems are far more pivotal to a young poetess;
Yes, and far prettier t'an a beastly bunch of words;
Whose curse is whose sweetness itself-and whose whole sweetness is curse.
J.
Ah, J, so shall I be thy pure lady t'en?
For purity is a curse-and related not within t'ese walls;
Walls of discomfort-irresolute and at certain times foreign still;
Walls t'at shun us-and be ours not, due to t'eir own reserved castigations.
J.
Oh, querida, my random rainbow-but still my dearest querida;
My poetry in th' morning, and th' baffling flute, for my evening sonata;
And as it is sounded, I shall be thy private lonely prelude;
But th' one who maketh thee singular, and nevertheless, handsomely proud.
Ah, J.
And thy perfect red lips are th' stillettos of the sun;
Critical but radiant-all too agonising in t'eir inevitable shape;
So t'at kissing might be just too much fun;
And from which, o my love, t'ere is no such a famous escape.

J.
Ah, J, thou knoweth not-I am asleep only within thy remembrance;
As how I am awake only in thy life, and partake of my justice, in thy glory.
Ah, J, but if satire were the only choice we had, shalt thou be with me?
Ah, my J, for be it so-I shall never regret anything, I shall never say sorry.

J.
Ah, wherefore art thou now, my love? I am now cursed. My dreams are mad.
I am now crawling out of whose realms; I wanteth but'a stay no more in my bed.
Ah, J, but in my dream thou wert too miles and miles away, and indolently anonymous;
I hatest sleep t'ereof, for t'ey piercest me so tiringly, with a harm they deemest as humorous.

J.
Ah, sweet darling, and in our dreams, t'ere is no strain, nor piety;
Even thou-in th' last one, despised my pyramids-and my chaste poetry;
Ah, querida, I am but afraid our loneliness shall be gone 'fore long;
For its temporariness is not sick, and canst work its way along, with a belief so strong.

J.
Ah, love, but t'is loveliness itself-is indeed tyrannous,
And its frigid poetry is randomly perilous,
As how th' daydreams it bringeth forth-which are luminous,
But as love is innocent, by one second canst all turn perilous!
J.
Ah, J, thus our story is brilliant, and in any volume real' magnificent,
With curves palatable, but with some greyness too fair-and too pleasant!
Ah, J, if passion dost exist, and thus maketh it all real;
And at once I shall understand thee; and listen only, to how we both feelest.

Ah, J.
My very, very own little J.
My dearest J.
The harbour of my ultimate love.
My most cordial, and serene spring of affection.
My most veritable nirvana, my vivid curiosity-and shades of frankness.
My dream at heart, and my sustainable ferocious haste.
Th' love in which my ever fear shall subside,
And be overwhelmed by its unfearing light.
J.
Oh, J, my glossy, exuberant darling.
And as more winds sway, and amongst the green grass outside,
I canst but feel thy eyes here watching;
Thy eyes t'at widely grinneth, and flirtest with my poetry itself;
Thy eyes t'at forever invitest, yet are all more daring than myself;
Ah, J, even though t'is love may be a secret scene,
But I hath felt, even vulnerably, not any provoking passion so keen-
For though they couldst my flowed veins hear,
They were still delicately unseen-with a serenity t'at was ne'er here.

1407

A Field of Stubble, lying sere
Beneath the second Sun—
Its Toils to Brindled People ******—
Its Triumphs—to the Bin—
Accosted by a timid Bird
Irresolute of Alms—
Is often seen—but seldom felt,
On our New England Farms—

Obscurity in The City

                                Roots in The Desolate

          Taken in by Wind

                Lone tone in Paradise

                                          Black shades in Red

                     Holding the drum's Roar

         Crooked grains in Glass

                              Shot down stars Glow

   Rug by the Roadside

              Crimson tide in Blue

                              Ghost windows without Paine

                  Tireless metal boxes perched

      Torpid tornadoes remain still

                      Structure floating motionless; inert

          Drifting, they lay, dead in one Place.

i stand here
in this room of cement
dreaming to be on the outside.

though, this dream is mercurial.

i can see the outside, through the one thing in the room.
a stained glass window.

it's colors clashing and colliding, to form the most beautiful picture
and suddenly,

my dream doesn't seem as important.

as the light shines through, the colors coat the room with warmth and beauty.

i've only one thing keeping me from my dream

something so fragile and so elegant, yet has the strongest hold on me.

i've only one thing keeping me from my dream

and yet,

i can't bring myself to destroy it.

I was recently told that writing makes the reader more empathetic. Not very often are first impressions based off the magical machinations of the inner mind; rather, these impressions are superficial and surface deep. So here I am placing pen to paper, gliding the still drying ink across the smooth college-ruled lines, hoping another portal is opened, hoping that maybe someone will look beyond the surface into my multi-faceted universe where my true self lies. But what if I'm not entirely sure what completely lies in that realm? The portal is dark, deep, and damp, and my pen lacks the source of light needed to peer through to the tunnel’s end. Every drip of ink to touch the moleskin deepens the portal further into the tunnel-like abyss, like the never-ending layers of an onion, or the timid, velvety petals of a rosebud that's anxious to open itself entirely, petal by petal, with each needle sharp thorn acting as its guardian. Writing to gain the reader’s empathy is a form of vulnerability, telling even your most uncomfortable truths. There’s more to me that I have yet to find, but with each drip of ink, I regret nothing. Pens don’t have erasers. Every stroke is permanent. Why should I desire the empathy of others? So take the odiferous onion, or the irresolute rosebud that I am, because although I’ve captured your attention in so few words, this writing won’t promise your empathy.

The page asked and wanted to know
where are my screeds, my verses of to and fro?
The page is not insistent, it doesn't  make demands
The blankness merely beckons you a clever use of  hands

The page ask's are you bashful, timid, scared, or irresolute?
Does my vast emptiness request your feelings be bared?
Oh that's it, isn't it, the heavy hand of truth is what I seek
Such a criterion for a page long is not for  the meek

You can be honest,  its all right with me
Hell I'm not perfect, I'm the remnant of a tree
You can  wax sonnets, or you can  wrap fish,
A blank page is a delight, the poet's ultimate wish

But when rhyming's  a necessity the words take different shape
They conform to the metered scheme of a phonetic gait
Then sound becomes  as important as the meaning of a word
And cadence takes a beating and flies off  like a bird



by: The reluctant rhyming of a laconic lexicon

Omar Ibn Elkhatab went to visit the blessing land
Where his successor was there

He was honest of this nation
This was the calling by the prophet

Ibn Elgrah was the little men
Who believed in the prophet

The prophet evaluated him
He was so strongest at his thought
He believed in God

He believed that he the only
Who control the all creatures
Who created everything
Who could hurt or get useful
Who made the sun rose

He believed that the prophet will get victory
And beat other opinion
He believed that infidels be at undermost

The believers who were hurt
Asked Mohamad to pray to his God
To get these atheists

They worshipped another god
They worshipped some statues
The begin of statues were from that person
Amro ibn lohie was the first Arabian who worshipped these statues
Who was so ranked an important person
All Arab heard and obeyed
They looked to him as a persuade

As he was so pious
He saw the humans at elsham land
"the blessing land"
Included Syria, Jordon and palatine

He saw them worshipped these statues
He asked,” Why?
They said,' as we asked them to down the rains
They rained "
He asked to give one of them
They gave "Hobal"
Hobal was the first statue
Was put at Mecca
The honor men were irresolute
They final worshipped

Afterword the statue increased
Mecca was filled with statues
Equal to the year's days
Two of them were famous

They called " Ellat and Elozza"
They were woman and man
They loved each other
Their love was so strong
They went to Kaaba
The holy home of the God
They take a chance when the mosque was empty

They entered Kaaba
They did the sin

The anger had prevailed
They converted into statues
Naked as they were born
For the ancient Arab's foolishness
They put one of them at elasafa
The mount where the umrah and hajj Muslims
Walked to it
And Marwa they walked to it
Doing as hager did

Hager was the wife of Abraham
The grandfather of the prophets
He married her
When she had pregnant
And got a child
, his old wife got jealous
So he was ordered to immigrate
He immigrated to the holy land
Mecca

She was so empty
The dessert was so the queen
When his family established
He leaved them
Hager called at
" where do you go?"
She was an old Egyptian princess
Of the elmenia governor
When hexoses occupied Egypt
They took her as a slave
She took a snake as a pet
No one could rap
She was so honorable
And the king of Egypt admired
So he gave her as a gift
Her wife loved her

So they became friends
The respected family had good character
They deal her as free as an honest
Sarah the old wife of Abraham
Advised him to marry
To get his dream child and get his happy
He married and got the child

Hager called at
" where do you go?"
She repeated three times
There were no answers
She asked, "Does your god order?"
He answered with yes
She said," so he will not lose us!"
He went

The food and water was finished
She went to the mount
She had to get food
She looked at right
And ran towards the mountain
It called "Elsafa"
She got over it
She looked towards the valley
Where did the holy home of God exist
She must still believe in God
That upper power prevents every worst
That gives goodness, luxury, blessing,
She learned everything from the prophet
He cultivated the faith in her heart
She gazed at her son
She ran towards him
As he cried a lot
She carried him and rocked
He became so calm
But after some silent
He cried again as the hungry bit him
She stood and ran towards the another amount
It is called
"elmarawa"
She got over it
Looked at the wide valley of the land
To find any one carrying food
Or even carrying water for the drink

She looked again towards the place of the holy home
And looked towards her son
Her heart called her
To get some aid to get him calm
She stood again
As her child cried
She ran towards the mount
Who is called
"Elsafa"
She did it seven times begins with mount
Elsafa
Ended with mount
Elmarwa
She prayed to her God
Every drop of her blood
Every atom, every part
Let the rain of happiness covering the world
Let the seed of love growing so full
And get green and good fruits

Let the day covering every seed
To make the feast appeared
Let the hearts praying one word
Thanks our God

She got up over the mount
Elmarwa
After she looked at the wide valley
After she found no help
After the mind of human thought
That he would fell in destroying
She looked towards the blessing point
Even the devils lied eggs of failure
After the crows got off every pigeons
After the injustice was the announcement of the world
The hope must overflow
She found her son got calm
She thought worst thing had come

Her heart flew her up
She moved with a blink at his leg
The great angel downed
He dug that land
The water flew up

She was so happy
Her kinder got calm
The angel must deal him with happy
She faired that the overflow of water
May destroy every point
No hager, your God is the highness
No Hager, no
Your God knows the fare
She said,"Zam, Zam"
It became zam zam
Muslims when do vesting the holy home
When they do Umrah or hajj
They walked between tow mounts
Elsafa and Marwa , as they get known
They also drank from zam zam
Blessing water


to be continued

Shards of the mirror that you smashed over a decade ago still lie fragmented in the fireplace,
Shining reflections of the present curse promised to be lifted seven years too late.

I lilt my head to the rivers flow, where a lullaby subdues itself and the riffles go. I am no good at harmonies, I wait until I'm fastening sleep, and I can unbutton the breeze, that our mid-October autumn brings. Some people think they know themselves, but I want to know you and nobody else. I carry a flame in my pocket, and pick rocks with you on the summit. Mountains melt and glaciers pass, there's so much life inside your laugh. You captured me at my weakest and helped me back into my best. We dance together on the two-track road, Fire Road 584, there were supposed to be agates, but the path was too rough to travel. There's not anywhere I wouldn't go with you. We can chop firewood at Grand Teton too, I will carry the hatchet if you will pull the wagon. We awake at 5:00pm on the reg, and share our nightmares with one another once we're out of bed. You feed my soul with your hugs, I return to you my very softest kiss. A base for us, a nighttime stark and chilled, only the sounds of elk drinking from our backyard rill. I want to smoke another, I light you another. There's no rhyme to hedge the fading warmth, bundled up under our coats and quilts, I wish the Summer was starting soon, so we'd never have to go back into the living room. Fires churn inside our guts, is it the cramps or each other's love- either way it fits my stomach like a Lepidopteric glove.

Pancakes and postcards soon, I forgot to buy stamps for you. You can't send a package, full of smiles and laughter. I told you I'm sure your skin was made for me, perfectly soft, and made of sateen. We ought to warm our hearts, and never be apart.

The jagged outlines of the snow-capped Tetons cast shadows on the Snake River down below,
The levees hold back the flow of the icy mountain runoff and the riverbanks behemoth sides swell up to the Rocky Mountains.
But all of man's efforts to control nature cannot dictate the love we have for each other,
Like the wild mustangs that gallop through the verdant fields that refuse to be broken by human hands.
We walk along the river banks collecting heart-shaped rocks to bestow upon each other,
These stones are not unlike the pebbles penguins give the ones they love.
We wade in our wellies panning for the gold that others forgot in their rush to find fortunate amongst the willows golden branches and sun-kissed skies.
Our frozen hands refuse to let go of the treasures that fill our pockets,
But our cache is penultimate to the paragon in my heart for you.
Every parallel universe pales in comparison to the one I share with you.

Everyday excursions amongst Sunday drivers posing as tourists.

We witness Darwin Awards in the lemmings' race to take selfies with grizzlies, placing children on bison because they forgot their glasses. And are convinced that equine photographs will warrant more likes on social media sites along with the video of a moose by the name of Dusty that charges their cameras to protect her offspring.

We have learned not feed the animals known as **** sapiens,
And instead we trek onwards toward Teton Pass where the wilderness returns on our serpentine drive amongst minerals that took millenniums to form. And pressures our world too often.

We lay upon our roof, the one atop our car, a cruiser we use to enjoy ourselves, while we cross the miles. Millions of things we speak about in order to inspire one another quite often. There is no order in this genus of foul-tempered and ill-willed human beings, there seems to only be our genius, and what we call as ours, while we stare upon the stars.

My twin flame, you called me that. Now I see exactly what you meant. And I feel so grateful, there's no room for hatred. The energy spewing across these pages, thermal currents rise as we share each day, and listen to so much music, we take our turns to do it, but never over do it.

I call myself a poet, because I have a magnifying glass I use to explain the world. I call you the artist, because your writing follows the lullaby of the music your voice throws.

Sometimes, I am sure I observe you sway like manes of wild horses, dusts of ancient visions, candle-flames or brightly orange and yellow lights. I wait to latch us into two and carry off to sleep with you, and snuggle into your sweet smells so redolent and sweetly held, until we stroll across the beat, your bass faintly brings.

May I encase all of us and all of time, while we eat pesto and then drift through awesome time, entwined together while our minds collude our brains to bring back items from the store, before we've even discussed what to buy for home.

When we gift each other greeting cards, I love to find the ones that sing their songs, and twitch in a paper-dance, that sells for too many dollars. Come go, come go with me, we get to live our own California dream. I have a taste for coffee if Teton County would allow it.

I hate ignorance, it's appalling and totally irresolute, especially the fat children fattened by America's foods. If we didn't pick our produce, we'd share diseases the CDC do not yet have names for, and instead we'd get to bleed out of our inner ears.

To be blind would be worse than deaf, because at least I wouldn't have to listen to the foolishness teacher's teach and give, to a generation of students who know more about capturing Pokémon with their handheld devices then how to get home without using their iPhones.

The mountains wait to **** a man, whose ego he believes can fill his pants, instead of feeding the mouths of babes. Until we see there's nothing, to profligate his future. And with a future outside of our peripheral visions, I only wish you and I had a better, safer place to live in. But corporations run this show, I hate to watch as America goes. So while some wonder, some wander and move, we can use our brains but that doesn't mean they will too.

This America is worse than Watergate.
And even I don't know if we'll live long enough to solve it. There's so much sad about it.

The skilful masters (of the Tao) in old times, with a subtle
and exquisite *******, comprehended its mysteries, and were deep
(also) so as to elude men’s knowledge. As they were thus beyond men’s
knowledge, I will make an effort to describe of what sort they
appeared to be.

Shrinking looked they like those who wade through a stream in
winter; irresolute like those who are afraid of all around them; grave
like a guest (in awe of his host); evanescent like ice that is melting
away; unpretentious like wood that has not been fashioned into
anything; vacant like a valley, and dull like muddy water.

Who can (make) the muddy water (clear)? Let it be still, and it
will gradually become clear. Who can secure the condition of rest?
Let movement go on, and the condition of rest will gradually arise.

They who preserve this method of the Tao do not wish to be full (of
themselves). It is through their not being full of themselves that
they can afford to seem worn and not appear new and complete.

it was autumn last year when we first met,
just one step away from each other
(so close yet so far)
cherry leaves crunching under my feet
blue skies and russet cobblestone
the smell of cinnamon hanging in the air
branches snapping in two like brittle bones
and my unlit cigarette dropping to the ground in surprise
as he fell
falling down down down to the ground
gravity gripping him like a soul-******* monster
and his fragile limbs stretching out
rustling paper flying out of his bag
in a spiral dance to a song i could not hear.
frail eighteen-year-old knees scraping against the pavement
lurid irises latching onto mine
as he fell
and my hands shoot out as if to catch him
like palms aching to touch delicate butterfly wings
and even then
i now realize
he was asking me to save him;
to stop him from falling.
but he was already one step away
(so close yet so far)




it was winter last year when friendship was forged.
pink blossoms giving way for achromatic snowflakes;
shaky familiarity giving way for a solid bond
amongst wordless run-ins and shy hello's
and sitting across each other over cups of hot chocolate
(so close yet so far)
we learned about each other
reaching out past thickly built walls
about pets and family and friends
(china dolls and nickels and handmaids);
and maybe we learned a little about falling in love too.
but he bristled at the mention of dreams
and i learned
that in his world of half-shattered glass and dead seas
dreams were distant stars
not meant to be picked out of the pitch black sky
and he insists they were not meant to be;
i wondered
if he meant to tell me that neither were we.
i told him i didn't understand,
asking myself if looking into his eyes
have always been this painful
but he shakes his head and steps away
(so close yet so far)




it was spring this year when i admitted
i wanted him closer;
that i was tired
of having to reach him through broken chords
of him being a chapter i had to read over and over
of having to chase after a firefly slowly losing its light
tired of him always being a step away
(so close yet so far)
i told him
i wanted to keep his dulcet smiles deep inside myself
caramel bites sweet against my tongue
to tread my hands through his hair
like floss that would melt if i don't hold on tight enough
to have him sing to me;
velvet tones echoing in the silence
jars of honey reserved just for me.
i wanted to run my fingers across his spine
like the ivory keys he spins melodies out of;
to tug him closer and closer and closer
until distance is no more
and there's nothing but lips against lips
skin against skin.
but things don't work that way, he says
my fingers flat against his waist
(we can't work out, he adds;
as if i hadn't heard)
it was a whispered lie against fabric
his body shaking
like a man deprived of a drug he so desperately needs
his eyes irresolute;
uncertainty crippling irises that used to shine
as bright as the northern lights
but he takes a step back anyway
(so close yet so far)




it was early summer this year when i lost him;
he had a girl hanging from his arm
and debonair friends waiting at his every word
(they might as well be valet de chambres)
and not once did he spare me a look
not even when he was only a step away
(so close yet so far)
that month flew by in yet another blur
empty beer bottles in my hands
flimsy cigarettes back between my fingers
broken promises embracing me like an old friend;
as if the forced laughter
did not distort the syrupy voice
that used to drawl in my ear;
as if the empty kisses and i love you's
echoing in my head
did not feel
like repeated slaps against my cheek
like repeated punches into my gut;
and as if his vacant words
did not paint his eyes colours
that i never wanted to see.
eyes that never looked at me;
as if i was a discarded toy.
as if i was the soul-******* monster
i had (tried) to save him from.
someone not worth being around
someone not worth being near
which justifies, i think,
why he always remained a step away
(so close yet so far)




it was late summer this year when i realized
that this is how it has always been;
that to wish and to hope
was to wait for a shooting star
in a world grazed by neither beauty nor light.
that even prior to our meeting,
he had always been a step away
(so close yet so far)
i was born in november, he in october
i was born on the 6th, he on the 7th
i was born in 1990, he in 1991.
even before we were born,
we were already a step apart
like binary stars only destined to orbit but never touch
like parallel lines never meant to ever intersect
never meant to do anything but run close to each other
as close as it can get
but never meeting
forever a step away
(so close yet so far)




it was autumn this year when he lost himself;
gone were the iridescent irises i fell in love with
gone were the caramel smiles i wanted to keep;
gone was the boy i once knew.
like a tree kissing its cherry leaves goodbye
a butterfly bidding farewell to its brittle wings
the ghost of a boy i lost to shattered dreams
in a shell of fragile ribs and untuned keys
even then, he never strayed closer
not to me
not any less than one step away
(so close yet so far)
and i wondered if this was cruel punishment
for something i had done
handcuffs locking around my limbs
as i await the executioner's axe;
because there is no pain
quite like watching the boy i love(d)
crumble into himself
broken and vulnerable
knowing i myself was helpless
merely a felon awaiting my capital punishment
with him always one step away
(so close yet so far)




it was winter this year when the world lost him;
the boy i'd loved
with the fragile limbs and glitter orbs
having destroyed himself
giving in to the promise of a world
better than his tattered own.
reduced to nothing but a lifeless sack of ivory bones
like the branches and cherry leaves
from when we first met;
now contained in a velvet coffin,
still a step away
(so close yet so far)
i ran my fingers against the coffin glass
like he did with piano keys he loved
as much as the stars;
the coffin made with chiffon velvet
like the voice
that used to flow like milk and honey
in the silence of the night;
and his funeral clothes
black like the starless skies
in the desolate cage he'd locked himself in;
a stark contrast to the pastels
that used to paint his irises colours
that render the rainbow dull if compared.
only it's all in my head now
because he is gone
and even now, he is still a step away
(so close yet so far)

under a canopy of white stars
my flesh kissing the warm tropical breeze
i, laying on a hilltop within the grass
enticed by memories of how love is
absorbed by thoughts of when love will flourish once again.
dreaming of becoming someone’s king.
a lover, a destroyer, a friend, a conqueror…
who has been conquered by a woman’s fierce crusade,
who is this invader?
why am i so anxious for her to incinerate all 5 of my senses?
i begged a greater being to let me die in her arms.
in her embrace i wish to find comfort and safety.
her tongue is a form of fire
her touch a form of ecstasy
her gaze resembled the radiance of a billion suns
a light that gives guidance and hope to my tired heart
i found myself irresolute to wake from this fantasy…

I     am     made      weak      and
       irresolute    by    these    floating
          cloud memories

when the right
wind   blows   in   my  direction
   it   brings   your   scent   with it
      
       and    my     mind    travels     a
       thousand     miles     into      the
       past  

to   be   alone   with   you
in   that   room   with    strange
air  

and   a   box   of  car crash
                                     treasures

The blindfold lifts
As I wake
From a charming dream
Adrift on a lonely path;
An irresolute stroll
As the illusion fades

Against the hike
The madman tumbles
Wings tied
Into an ocean
Faced with demons
Of his own creation

Slave in chains
Now I walk,
How I know not,
Down this road
Passing through this place:
The corpse of a familiar world
Exposed to the cold
Expecting a warm embrace
That never finds me

I greet these souls
Shadows from some past life
Familiar, yet far too strange
Still lost in their dreams

In vain, I scream
Crawling through the pain
With my eyes set
On a sun that lies
Fleeing from me
As I make my way forwards

Fight! Fight!
With all might mine
Burning the horizon
For a light
That may never shine.

Everyone has that one class where they don’t have any friends.
Too many people are talking.
Only every so often do we get to the point
or the need to point when everything around you
turns your spine to something even more benign.

Turning in ourselves to each to operate
and begin again stretch out begin anew touch ourselves passionately  
we make no mistake in choosing our goals. For most without
ourselves scribbling non-sense without reason of bureaucracy to
much favor irresolute makes no stake in having inhaling every state
come make me again for not for wants touches so much begins the
ways open run away from the days speaks open to harm may lay in a
daze non other may take the mask of will will no longer wait.

The cosmos how quiet you are today,
alas, you work in such mysterious ways.
Irresolute I wait outside your door,
I knock
I knock,
this other world cannot be ignored

The beguiling stars
aligned for me.
The sapphire sky
evoking the sea.
I pass along this trajectory,
floating,
floating ,
floating,
free.

golden piles,heaving trunks,she's a little mystery
so grow slowly magnificent leaf
the hearth sprouts a cough of giddy spit
(when the sun dies the earth drunk of quiet; the trees clamour
       for some moon blood) and the hounds are mouths foaming
all over the ambrosia flecks of open windows greeting summers breath

      she,s some fruit. grown supple flesh singing stinging beads of salty
liqueur. taste. lips gripping stunning liquid. in all my cuts. she's the paste.

                what a bounty; these eyes. seems where the stars lay. glittering
specks. irresolute laughter. the timid sister of a day gone by


                                       how make i for you
                                       an earth more perfect
                                       than this? i give my blood

Pervasive night fills these dreams,
Floods these eyes,
Unsaid and unseen.

No day escapes this lurking shadow.
No phrase can change its somber tune.
Though bright the morning sun she rises,
Night follows far too soon.

Record playing on repeat.
In my mind,
Begin the downbeat.

Beyond the depths there wait tomorrows.
Behind deception bides the truth.  
Among the stars we hang our wishes,
The crossroads they’ll illume.

Thorny pathways find my feet,
Heartbeat rise,
Excite my defeat

Abandoned and alone I wander
Can’t face to be irresolute.
The bitter boils up inside me
To squelch the hopeful few.

Trusting, fall into myself.
Hold this time.
Can’t say all I’ve felt.

Can longing raise a soul lain fallow?
A life that suddenly rings true.
Are dusks not meant to paint horizons,
And souls to sing the blues?

“Enough” could finish or begin
To my core
Let all of it in

Long shadows fill the paths behind me
The light ahead prepares their doom
I rise to meet my own reflection
And face the world, full bloom

The apple is gone.
It departed today in the wake
of Gonzalo’s sting.

The sting in the tail
of a hurricane that
should never have touched our shores.

And so the symbol
of tenacious life
no longer bears witness
to my own tenacity:
my own survival in an
irresolute world
now seeks another yardstick
on which to pin a shaky faith.

floating smoke in the summer air
drifting along then dissipates.
the pounding in a head,
vessels pulsing and constant movement.
fingers dancing across a keyboard, to
incorporate a checklist of knowings and
to-be-knowns -
the insecurities of new scenery
mile marker after mile marker
and you’re happy, but irresolute.

someone tripped over the cord again,
yanked it out and dragged it away

a moment, and a guarantee
let’s look and see, to be sure there’s something more
than a simple crank of a machine, grown
rusted and unmanageable over years
I’m tracing back,
looking for something
I think I missed it.
these fingers that hold my wrist
and suggest
“please, let me assist”
you know what’s best.

In the woods
During youthful days
A cabin stands irresolute
A great pond surrounds the yawning forest
Emphasized by a worn dock
Jutting into the glassy water

In the summer
Sailboats drift lazily
Along the surface
Driven
By gentle winds

But in the chill
Of bitter winter
The water freezes to icy blue
Cracks appear
As heavy feet touch the fragile slate

At night
The iridescent moon erupts
Bursting with quiet violence
Perforating gentle clouds
Transforming the water
Into diamonds

Everything
Is here
Within
Without
Hovering above the world
In flushed splendor
Lost in the wild
A love and a life

I told you I would write about us.
About that night
And I know you know which one
It was the “firsts” of many
First time seeing each other
In half a year
Second time in almost three
You looked different,  older
And I suppose you were
Did I to you
Surely I must have
If only the difference
Was my delirious outspoken state

I was with you but all I could think of was about
Me
What did you think of me?
Why did you come to see me?
Did you like the touch
Of my skin
In the same way I liked yours?
“ what are you thinking?”
I asked
But meant about me

Have I always been this self consumed?
Can I answer the same questions about you?
Your hands in mine
I can answer some

I like your distinctive yet
sedate aura
You were rare
  A secret
To the industrial world
Your hand in mine
Your touch was reticent
And yet  irresolute
If embracing were a race, you
Would have let me win
If I was a stride
You were a step
And two steps behind
It would’ve been
I wanted you
To run at my pace
But I was scared
So we stayed in place

I was in control
But I couldn’t take it there
I couldn’t give you my soul
Contrite I would say sorrowful words
For reasons I didn’t quite understand
Maybe it has to do with all the questions
I couldn’t answer that I asked you
As you held my hands

Questions that I would have you answer me
Or maybe I know I couldn’t concede
To everything you may want in me
Because deep down I think I know
This wasn’t meant to be

Then it hits
That thing
It goes by the name
Reality
Those steps taken forward
Can’t be retraced
And I’m glad
You weren’t running at my pace

This will have to end
I don’t know how or
Even if
It will ever begin again
So I say the words
“I’m sorry”
And you tell me I have no reason to be
But you don’t know what it is
Those words actually mean.

Feel like I'm falling somewhere
somewhat transcendental
needing to stop pretending
that what I feel
and see
and live
isn't
real.

I suppose that I wanted to write
something that may
have been something
magically enticing
that could
bring me
back to
you.

But I'm sick of these vicious ravings
tacked up on some kind
of failing travesty
crying out
for an
idea.

So what that I was looking for someone
to cling to in this raging sea
so what that I may have
been the exact opposite
of who and what
she and I
may have
desired.

I don't think that my absolute and unwelcome
need to write whatever comes to mind
is some kind of balm that may cure
whatever sinking, slithering thing
that ails me so, irresolute
and very sullen
but rather
is a mirror
unforgiving.

How this phrase grown out of a horror movie
and one thousand years of Alchemy
has become a byword between us
living as a hashtag and a symbol
in the world we now have here
our only complete interaction
contact in something
souls flung
carelessly
away.

Realizing that I'm not writing this to you or me
but rather all of us that have fought
in our own way to continue
believing in something
greater than ourselves
weak and yet
resilient as
firelight.

I have not the words to break through the walls
that I have built for myself out of
shame and a soul wounded
and so scarred as to
have torn your
happiness from
you.

But I still retain this deep suspicion that
what still lives within us all
is a burning and a knowing
something not for Truth
but for not needing
to feel so
****** lonely
so sickeningly
often.

And so I sit here behind by computer forged from
metal and silicon and greed, typing out love and rage
not really believing that what I say
will ever have any real impact
on the society that I have
come here, truly
to destroy.

So let's take a true gander at this wretch of a world
that we've created for ourselves, hoping
that all of this half-assed search
for real and absolute
freedom from oppression
is more
than
a
pipe-dream.

In Noah Webster’s lexicon of 1828
this word meant one who walks about
in an aimless mindless state.
(He did not of course mean to describe
our present head of state.
Still I didn’t make it up-
I don’t prevaricate!)
He seems irresolute to deal
with Isis’ militancy.
His only firm direction is
towards the Eighteenth tee.
In the chill of an autumn afternoon,
as the light begins to fade,
it appears his major goal in life
is the par shot he just made.
Now that his term is winding down
I get the strange impression
that all this golfing is prelude
to a planned change of profession.
He’ll join the tour, he’ll make the cut
He’ll finally have it all.
when the only lie concerning him
Is the lie of his golf ball.