A soft answer turneth
away wrath: but grievous
words stir up anger.
2 The tongue of the wise useth
knowledge aright: but the mouth
of fools poureth out foolishness.
3 The eyes of the Lord are
in every place beholding the evil
and the good.
4 A wholesome tongue is a tree
if life: but perverseness therein is
a breach in the spirit.
5 A fool despiseth his father's
instruction: but he the regardeth
reproof is prudent.
6 In the house of the righteous
is much treasure: but in the
revenues of the wicked is trouble.
7 The lips of the wise disperse
knowledge: but the heart of the
foolish doeth not so.
8 The sacrifice of the wicked
is an abomination to the Lord: but
the prayer of the upright is his delight.
9 The way of the wicked is an
abomination unto the Lord: but
he loveth him that followeth
after righteousness.
10 Correction is grievous unto
him that forsaketh the way: and
he that hateth reproof shall die.
11 Hell and destruction are
before the Lord: how much more
then the hearts of the children of
men?
12 A scorner loveth not one
that reproveth him: neither will he
go unto the wise.
13 A merry heart maketh a
cheerful countenance: but by
sorrow of the heart the spirit is
broken.
14 The heart of them that hath
understanding seeketh knowledge:
but the mouth of fools
feedeth on foolishness.
15 All the days of the afflicted
are evil: but he that is of a merry
heart hath a continual feast.
16 Better is little with the fear
of the Lord than great treasure
and trouble therewith.
17 Better is a dinner of herbs
where love is, than a stalled ox
and hatred therewith.
18 A wrathful man stirreth up
strife: but he that is slow to anger
appeaseth strife.
19 The way of the slothful man
is as an hedge of thorns: but the
way of the righteous is made
plain.
20 A wise son maketh a glad
father: but a foolish man
despiseth his mother.
21 Folly is joy to him that is
destitute of wisdom: but a man of
understanding walketh uprightly.
22 Without counsel purposes
are disappointed: but in the
multitude of counsellors they are
established.
23 A man hath joy by the
answer of his mouth: and a word
spoken in due season, how good
is it!
24 The way of life is above to
the wise, that he may depart from
hell beneath.
25 The Lord will destroy the
house of the proud: but he will
establish the border of the
widow.
26 The thoughts of the wicked
are an abomination to the Lord:
but the words of the pure are
pleasant words.
27 He that is greedy of gain
troubleth his own house; but he
that hateth gifts shall live.
28 The heart of the righteous
studieth to answer: but the
mouth of the wicked poureth out
evil things.
29 The Lord is far from the
wicked: but he heareth the
prayer of the righteous.
30 The light of the eyes rejoiceth
the heart: and a good report
maketh the bones fat.
31 The ear that heareth the
reproof of life abideth among the
wise.
32 He that refuseth instruction
despiseth his own soul: but he
that heareth reproof getteth
understanding.
33 The fear of the Lord is the
instruction of wisdom; and before
honour is humility.

If from the public way you turn your steps
Up the tumultuous brook of Green-head Ghyll,
You will suppose that with an upright path
Your feet must struggle; in such bold ascent
The pastoral mountains front you, face to face.
But, courage! for around that boisterous brook
The mountains have all opened out themselves,
And made a hidden valley of their own.
No habitation can be seen; but they
Who journey thither find themselves alone
With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites
That overhead are sailing in the sky.
It is in truth an utter solitude;
Nor should I have made mention of this Dell
But for one object which you might pass by,
Might see and notice not. Beside the brook
Appears a straggling heap of unhewn stones!
And to that simple object appertains
A story—unenriched with strange events,
Yet not unfit, I deem, for the fireside,
Or for the summer shade. It was the first
Of those domestic tales that spake to me
Of Shepherds, dwellers in the valleys, men
Whom I already loved;—not verily
For their own sakes, but for the fields and hills
Where was their occupation and abode.
And hence this Tale, while I was yet a Boy
Careless of books, yet having felt the power
Of Nature, by the gentle agency
Of natural objects, led me on to feel
For passions that were not my own, and think
(At random and imperfectly indeed)
On man, the heart of man, and human life.
Therefore, although it be a history
Homely and rude, I will relate the same
For the delight of a few natural hearts;
And, with yet fonder feeling, for the sake
Of youthful Poets, who among these hills
Will be my second self when I am gone.

     Upon the forest-side in Grasmere Vale
There dwelt a Shepherd, Michael was his name;
An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb.
His ****** frame had been from youth to age
Of an unusual strength: his mind was keen,
Intense, and frugal, apt for all affairs,
And in his shepherd’s calling he was prompt
And watchful more than ordinary men.
Hence had he learned the meaning of all winds,
Of blasts of every tone; and oftentimes,
When others heeded not, he heard the South
Make subterraneous music, like the noise
Of bagpipers on distant Highland hills.
The Shepherd, at such warning, of his flock
Bethought him, and he to himself would say,
“The winds are now devising work for me!”
And, truly, at all times, the storm, that drives
The traveller to a shelter, summoned him
Up to the mountains: he had been alone
Amid the heart of many thousand mists,
That came to him, and left him, on the heights.
So lived he till his eightieth year was past.
And grossly that man errs, who should suppose
That the green valleys, and the streams and rocks,
Were things indifferent to the Shepherd’s thoughts.
Fields, where with cheerful spirits he had breathed
The common air; hills, which with vigorous step
He had so often climbed; which had impressed
So many incidents upon his mind
Of hardship, skill or courage, joy or fear;
Which, like a book, preserved the memory
Of the dumb animals, whom he had saved,
Had fed or sheltered, linking to such acts
The certainty of honourable gain;
Those fields, those hills—what could they less? had laid
Strong hold on his affections, were to him
A pleasurable feeling of blind love,
The pleasure which there is in life itself .

     His days had not been passed in singleness.
His Helpmate was a comely matron, old—
Though younger than himself full twenty years.
She was a woman of a stirring life,
Whose heart was in her house: two wheels she had
Of antique form; this large, for spinning wool;
That small, for flax; and, if one wheel had rest,
It was because the other was at work.
The Pair had but one inmate in their house,
An only Child, who had been born to them
When Michael, telling o’er his years, began
To deem that he was old,—in shepherd’s phrase,
With one foot in the grave. This only Son,
With two brave sheep-dogs tried in many a storm,
The one of an inestimable worth,
Made all their household. I may truly say,
That they were as a proverb in the vale
For endless industry. When day was gone,
And from their occupations out of doors
The Son and Father were come home, even then,
Their labour did not cease; unless when all
Turned to the cleanly supper-board, and there,
Each with a mess of pottage and skimmed milk,
Sat round the basket piled with oaten cakes,
And their plain home-made cheese. Yet when the meal
Was ended, Luke (for so the Son was named)
And his old Father both betook themselves
To such convenient work as might employ
Their hands by the fireside; perhaps to card
Wool for the Housewife’s spindle, or repair
Some injury done to sickle, flail, or scythe,
Or other implement of house or field.

     Down from the ceiling, by the chimney’s edge,
That in our ancient uncouth country style
With huge and black projection overbrowed
Large space beneath, as duly as the light
Of day grew dim the Housewife hung a lamp,
An aged utensil, which had performed
Service beyond all others of its kind.
Early at evening did it burn—and late,
Surviving comrade of uncounted hours,
Which, going by from year to year, had found,
And left the couple neither gay perhaps
Nor cheerful, yet with objects and with hopes,
Living a life of eager industry.
And now, when Luke had reached his eighteenth year,
There by the light of this old lamp they sate,
Father and Son, while far into the night
The Housewife plied her own peculiar work,
Making the cottage through the silent hours
Murmur as with the sound of summer flies.
This light was famous in its neighbourhood,
And was a public symbol of the life
That thrifty Pair had lived. For, as it chanced,
Their cottage on a plot of rising ground
Stood single, with large prospect, north and south,
High into Easedale, up to Dunmail-Raise,
And westward to the village near the lake;
And from this constant light, so regular
And so far seen, the House itself, by all
Who dwelt within the limits of the vale,
Both old and young, was named The Evening Star.

     Thus living on through such a length of years,
The Shepherd, if he loved himself, must needs
Have loved his Helpmate; but to Michael’s heart
This son of his old age was yet more dear—
Less from instinctive tenderness, the same
Fond spirit that blindly works in the blood of all—
Than that a child, more than all other gifts
That earth can offer to declining man,
Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts,
And stirrings of inquietude, when they
By tendency of nature needs must fail.
Exceeding was the love he bare to him,
His heart and his heart’s joy! For oftentimes
Old Michael, while he was a babe in arms,
Had done him female service, not alone
For pastime and delight, as is the use
Of fathers, but with patient mind enforced
To acts of tenderness; and he had rocked
His cradle, as with a woman’s gentle hand.

     And, in a later time, ere yet the Boy
Had put on boy’s attire, did Michael love,
Albeit of a stern unbending mind,
To have the Young-one in his sight, when he
Wrought in the field, or on his shepherd’s stool
Sate with a fettered sheep before him stretched
Under the large old oak, that near his door
Stood single, and, from matchless depth of shade,
Chosen for the Shearer’s covert from the sun,
Thence in our rustic dialect was called
The Clipping Tree, a name which yet it bears.
There, while they two were sitting in the shade,
With others round them, earnest all and blithe,
Would Michael exercise his heart with looks
Of fond correction and reproof bestowed
Upon the Child, if he disturbed the sheep
By catching at their legs, or with his shouts
Scared them, while they lay still beneath the shears.

     And when by Heaven’s good grace the boy grew up
A healthy Lad, and carried in his cheek
Two steady roses that were five years old;
Then Michael from a winter coppice cut
With his own hand a sapling, which he hooped
With iron, making it throughout in all
Due requisites a perfect shepherd’s staff,
And gave it to the Boy; wherewith equipt
He as a watchman oftentimes was placed
At gate or gap, to stem or turn the flock;
And, to his office prematurely called,
There stood the urchin, as you will divine,
Something between a hindrance and a help,
And for this cause not always, I believe,
Receiving from his Father hire of praise;
Though nought was left undone which staff, or voice,
Or looks, or threatening gestures, could perform.

     But soon as Luke, full ten years old, could stand
Against the mountain blasts; and to the heights,
Not fearing toil, nor length of weary ways,
He with his Father daily went, and they
Were as companions, why should I relate
That objects which the Shepherd loved before
Were dearer now? that from the Boy there came
Feelings and emanations—things which were
Light to the sun and music to the wind;
And that the old Man’s heart seemed born again?

     Thus in his Father’s sight the Boy grew up:
And now, when he had reached his eighteenth year,
He was his comfort and his daily hope.

     While in this sort the simple household lived
From day to day, to Michael’s ear there came
Distressful tidings. Long before the time
Of which I speak, the Shepherd had been bound
In surety for his brother’s son, a man
Of an industrious life, and ample means;
But unforeseen misfortunes suddenly
Had prest upon him; and old Michael now
Was summoned to discharge the forfeiture,
A grievous penalty, but little less
Than half his substance. This unlooked-for claim
At the first hearing, for a moment took
More hope out of his life than he supposed
That any old man ever could have lost.
As soon as he had armed himself with strength
To look his trouble in the face, it seemed
The Shepherd’s sole resource to sell at once
A portion of his patrimonial fields.
Such was his first resolve; he thought again,
And his heart failed him. “Isabel,” said he,
Two evenings after he had heard the news,
“I have been toiling more than seventy years,
And in the open sunshine of God’s love
Have we all lived; yet, if these fields of ours
Should pass into a stranger’s hand, I think
That I could not lie quiet in my grave.
Our lot is a hard lot; the sun himself
Has scarcely been more diligent than I;
And I have lived to be a fool at last
To my own family. An evil man
That was, and made an evil choice, if he
Were false to us; and, if he were not false,
There are ten thousand to whom loss like this
Had been no sorrow. I forgive him;—but
’Twere better to be dumb than to talk thus.

     “When I began, my purpose was to speak
Of remedies and of a cheerful hope.
Our Luke shall leave us, Isabel; the land
Shall not go from us, and it shall be free;
He shall possess it, free as is the wind
That passes over it. We have, thou know’st,
Another kinsman—he will be our friend
In this distress. He is a prosperous man,
Thriving in trade and Luke to him shall go,
And with his kinsman’s help and his own thrift
He quickly will repair this loss, and then
He may return to us. If here he stay,
What can be done? Where every one is poor,
What can be gained?”

                                          At this the old Man paused,
And Isabel sat silent, for her mind
Was busy, looking back into past times.
There’s Richard Bateman, thought she to herself,
He was a parish-boy—at the church-door
They made a gathering for him, shillings, pence,
And halfpennies, wherewith the neighbours bought
A basket, which they filled with pedlar’s wares;
And, with this basket on his arm, the lad
Went up to London, found a master there,
Who, out of many, chose the trusty boy
To go and overlook his merchandise
Beyond the seas; where he grew wondrous rich,
And left estates and monies to the poor,
And, at his birth-place, built a chapel floored
With marble, which he sent from foreign lands.
These thoughts, and many others of like sort,
Passed quickly through the mind of Isabel,
And her face brightened. The old Man was glad,
And thus resumed:—”Well, Isabel! this scheme
These two days has been meat and drink to me.
Far more than we have lost is left us yet.
—We have enough—I wish indeed that I
Were younger;—but this hope is a good hope.
Make ready Luke’s best garments, of the best
Buy for him more, and let us send him forth
To-morrow, or the next day, or to-night:
—If he could go, the boy should go to-night.”

     Here Michael ceased, and to the fields went forth
With a light heart. The Housewife for five days
Was restless morn and night, and all day long
Wrought on with her best fingers to prepare.
Things needful for the journey of her Son.
But Isabel was glad when Sunday came
To stop her in her work: for, when she lay
By Michael’s side, she through the last two nights
Heard him, how he was troubled in his sleep:
And when they rose at morning she could see
That all his hopes were gone. That day at noon
She said to Luke, while they two by themselves
Were sitting at the door, “Thou must not go:
We have no other Child but thee to lose,
None to remember—do not go away,
For if thou leave thy Father he will die.”
The Youth made answer with a jocund voice;
And Isabel, when she had told her fears,
Recovered heart. That evening her best fare
Did she bring forth, and all together sat
Like happy people round a Christmas fire.

     With daylight Isabel resumed her work;
And all the ensuing week the house appeared
As cheerful as a grove in Spring: at length
The expected letter from their kinsman came,
With kind assurances that he would do
His utmost for the welfare of the Boy;
To which requests were added, that forthwith
He might be sent to him. Ten times or more
The letter was read over, Isabel
Went forth to show it to the neighbours round;
Nor was there at that time on English land
A prouder heart than Luke’s. When Isabel
Had to her house returned, the old man said,
“He shall depart to-morrow.” To this word
The Housewife answered, talking much of things
Which, if at such short notice he should go,
Would surely be forgotten. But at length
She gave consent, and Michael was at ease.

     Near the tumultuous brook of Green-head Ghyll,
In that deep valley, Michael had designed
To build a Sheep-fold; and, before he heard
The tidings of his melancholy loss,
For this same purpose he had gathered up
A heap of stones, which by the streamlet’s edge
Lay thrown together, ready for the work.
With Luke that evening thitherward he walked:
And soon as they had reached the place he stopped,
And thus the old Man spake to him:—”My Son,
To-morrow thou wilt leave me: with full heart
I look upon thee, for thou art the same
That wert a promise to me ere thy birth,
And all thy life hast been my daily joy.
I will relate to thee some little part
Of our two histories; ’twill do thee good
When thou art from me, even if I should touch
On things thou canst not know of.—After thou
First cam’st into the world—as oft befalls
To new-born infants—thou didst sleep away
Two days, and blessings from thy Father’s tongue
Then fell upon thee. Day by day passed on,
And still I loved thee with increasing love.
Never to living ear came sweeter sounds
Than when I heard thee by our own fireside
First uttering, without words, a natural tune;
While thou, a feeding babe, didst in thy joy
Sing at thy Mother’s breast. Month followed month,
And in the open fields my life was passed,
And on the mountains; else I think that thou
Hadst been brought up upon thy Father’s knees.
But we were playmates, Luke: among these hills,
As well thou knowest, in us the old and young
Have played together, nor with me didst thou
Lack any pleasure which a boy can know.”
Luke had a manly heart; but at these words
He sobbed aloud. The old Man grasped his hand,
And said, “Nay, do not take it so—I see
That these are things of which I need not speak.
—Even to the utmost I have been to thee
A kind and a good Father: and herein
I but repay a gift which I myself
Received at others’ hands; for, though now old
Beyond the common life of man, I still
Remember them who loved me in my youth.
Both of them sleep together: h

Such a violent world we live in
Hard to know just what to do
For example both my mom and dad
Have slapped and spanked me too
But nowadays some choose a path
That may seem rather odd
To discipline with words instead
Of reaching for a rod

"The rod and reproof give wisdom ..."
What does the Bible mean?
In carrying out that principle
Some have gone to the extreme
The rod of discipline should be
To train towards peace and love
True discipline's tree yields peaceful fruit
The Wisdom from above

The rod of discipline is like
The rod of a caring shepherd
Who wields his rod in a loving way
For the sheep by him are treasured
The best example is God Himself
Before whom we sin each day
Does he beat us with a rod of pain?
No, His Word shows us the way

It's true at times He scourges
Some of those that He holds dear
Even then 'tis done in a loving way
Leaving naught for us to fear
Yes, nowadays some choose a path
That may seem rather odd
To discipline with words instead,
Like the discipline from God






© 2023 Mark Toney

THE PROLOGUE. 1

Experience, though none authority                  authoritative texts
Were in this world, is right enough for me
To speak of woe that is in marriage:
For, lordings, since I twelve year was of age,
(Thanked be God that is etern on live),              lives eternally
Husbands at the church door have I had five,2
For I so often have y-wedded be,
And all were worthy men in their degree.
But me was told, not longe time gone is
That sithen* Christe went never but ones                          since
To wedding, in the Cane of Galilee,                               Cana
That by that ilk example taught he me,                            same
That I not wedded shoulde be but once.
Lo, hearken eke a sharp word for the *****,                   occasion
Beside a welle Jesus, God and man,
Spake in reproof of the Samaritan:
"Thou hast y-had five husbandes," said he;
"And thilke man, that now hath wedded thee,                       that
Is not thine husband:" 3 thus said he certain;
What that he meant thereby, I cannot sayn.
But that I aske, why the fifthe man
Was not husband to the Samaritan?
How many might she have in marriage?
Yet heard I never tellen *in mine age                      in my life
Upon this number definitioun.
Men may divine, and glosen* up and down;                        comment
But well I wot, express without a lie,
God bade us for to wax and multiply;
That gentle text can I well understand.
Eke well I wot, he said, that mine husband
Should leave father and mother, and take to me;
But of no number mention made he,
Of bigamy or of octogamy;
Why then should men speak of it villainy?     as if it were a disgrace

Lo here, the wise king Dan Solomon,                           Lord 4
I trow that he had wives more than one;
As would to God it lawful were to me
To be refreshed half so oft as he!
What gift of God had he for all his wives?     special favour, licence
No man hath such, that in this world alive is.
God wot, this noble king, *as to my wit,              as I understand
The first night had many a merry fit
With each of them, so well was him on live.         so well he lived
Blessed be God that I have wedded five!
Welcome the sixth whenever that he shall.
For since I will not keep me chaste in all,
When mine husband is from the world y-gone,
Some Christian man shall wedde me anon.
For then th' apostle saith that I am free
To wed, a' God's half, where it liketh me.             on God's part
He saith, that to be wedded is no sin;
Better is to be wedded than to brin.                              burn
What recketh* me though folk say villainy                 care *evil
Of shrewed* Lamech, and his bigamy?                     impious, wicked
I wot well Abraham was a holy man,
And Jacob eke, as far as ev'r I can.                              know
And each of them had wives more than two;
And many another holy man also.
Where can ye see, *in any manner age,                   in any period
That highe God defended* marriage                           forbade 5
By word express? I pray you tell it me;
Or where commanded he virginity?
I wot as well as you, it is no dread,                            doubt
Th' apostle, when he spake of maidenhead,
He said, that precept thereof had he none:
Men may counsel a woman to be one,                              a maid
But counseling is no commandement;
He put it in our owen judgement.
For, hadde God commanded maidenhead,
Then had he ****** wedding out of dread;           condemned *doubt
And certes, if there were no seed y-sow,                          sown
Virginity then whereof should it grow?
Paul durste not commanden, at the least,
A thing of which his Master gave no hest.                      command
The dart* is set up for virginity;                             goal 6
Catch whoso may, who runneth best let see.
But this word is not ta'en of every wight,
But there as* God will give it of his might.             except where
I wot well that th' apostle was a maid,
But natheless, although he wrote and said,
He would that every wight were such as he,
All is but counsel to virginity.
And, since to be a wife he gave me leave
Of indulgence, so is it no repreve                   *scandal, reproach
To wedde me, if that my make should die,                 mate, husband
Without exception of bigamy;                          charge, reproach
All were it* good no woman for to touch            though it might be
(He meant as in his bed or in his couch),
For peril is both fire and tow t'assemble
Ye know what this example may resemble.
This is all and some, he held virginity
More profit than wedding in frailty:
(Frailty clepe I, but if that he and she           frailty I call it,
Would lead their lives all in chastity),                         unless
I grant it well, I have of none envy
Who maidenhead prefer to bigamy;
It liketh them t' be clean in body and ghost;                     *soul
Of mine estate I will not make a boast.                      condition

For, well ye know, a lord in his household
Hath not every vessel all of gold; 7
Some are of tree, and do their lord service.
God calleth folk to him in sundry wise,
And each one hath of God a proper gift,
Some this, some that, as liketh him to shift.      appoint, distribute
Virginity is great perfection,
And continence eke with devotion:
But Christ, that of perfection is the well,                   fountain
Bade not every wight he should go sell
All that he had, and give it to the poor,
And in such wise follow him and his lore:                     doctrine
He spake to them that would live perfectly, --
And, lordings, by your leave, that am not I;
I will bestow the flower of mine age
In th' acts and in the fruits of marriage.
Tell me also, to what conclusion                          end, purpose
Were members made of generation,
And of so perfect wise a wight y-wrought?                        being
Trust me right well, they were not made for nought.
Glose whoso will, and say both up and down,
That they were made for the purgatioun
Of *****, and of other thinges smale,
And eke to know a female from a male:
And for none other cause? say ye no?
Experience wot well it is not so.
So that the clerkes be not with me wroth,                     scholars
I say this, that they were made for both,
That is to say, *for office, and for ease                 for duty and
Of engendrure, there we God not displease.                 for pleasure
Why should men elles in their bookes set,
That man shall yield unto his wife her debt?
Now wherewith should he make his payement,
If he us'd not his silly instrument?
Then were they made upon a creature
To purge *****, and eke for engendrure.
But I say not that every wight is hold,                        obliged
That hath such harness* as I to you told,                     equipment
To go and use them in engendrure;
Then should men take of chastity no cure.                         care
Christ was a maid, and shapen as a man,                      fashioned
And many a saint, since that this world began,
Yet ever liv'd in perfect chastity.
I will not vie with no virginity.                              contend
Let them with bread of pured wheat be fed,                    purified
And let us wives eat our barley bread.
And yet with barley bread, Mark tell us can,8
Our Lord Jesus refreshed many a man.
In such estate as God hath *cleped us,                    called us to
I'll persevere, I am not precious,                         over-dainty
In wifehood I will use mine instrument
As freely as my Maker hath it sent.
If I be dangerous God give me sorrow;            sparing of my favours
Mine husband shall it have, both eve and morrow,
When that him list come forth and pay his debt.
A husband will I have, I *will no let,         will bear no hindrance
Which shall be both my debtor and my thrall,                     *slave
And have his tribulation withal
Upon his flesh, while that I am his wife.
I have the power during all my life
Upon his proper body, and not he;
Right thus th' apostle told it unto me,
And bade our husbands for to love us well;
All this sentence me liketh every deal.                           whit

Up start the Pardoner, and that anon;
"Now, Dame," quoth he, "by God and by Saint John,
Ye are a noble preacher in this case.
I was about to wed a wife, alas!
What? should I bie it on my flesh so dear?                  suffer for
Yet had I lever wed no wife this year."                         rather
"Abide," quoth she; "my tale is not begun             wait in patience
Nay, thou shalt drinken of another tun
Ere that I go, shall savour worse than ale.
And when that I have told thee forth my tale
Of tribulation in marriage,
Of which I am expert in all mine age,
(This is to say, myself hath been the whip),
Then mayest thou choose whether thou wilt sip
Of *thilke tunne, that I now shall broach.                   that tun
Beware of it, ere thou too nigh approach,
For I shall tell examples more than ten:
Whoso will not beware by other men,
By him shall other men corrected be:
These same wordes writeth Ptolemy;
Read in his Almagest, and take it there."
"Dame, I would pray you, if your will it were,"
Saide this Pardoner, "as ye began,
Tell forth your tale, and spare for no man,
And teach us younge men of your practique."
"Gladly," quoth she, "since that it may you like.
But that I pray to all this company,
If that I speak after my fantasy,
To take nought agrief* what I may say;                         to heart
For mine intent is only for to play.

Now, Sirs, then will I tell you forth my tale.
As ever may I drinke wine or ale
I shall say sooth; the husbands that I had
Three of them were good, and two were bad
The three were goode men, and rich, and old
Unnethes mighte they the statute hold      they could with difficulty
In which that they were bounden unto me.                   obey the law
Yet wot well what I mean of this, pardie.                       *by God
As God me help, I laugh when tha

If from the public way you turn your steps
Up the tumultuous brook of Green-head Gill,
You will suppose that with an upright path
Your feet must struggle; in such bold ascent
The pastoral Mountains front you, face to face.
But, courage! for beside that boisterous Brook
The mountains have all open'd out themselves,
And made a hidden valley of their own.

No habitation there is seen; but such
As journey thither find themselves alone
With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites
That overhead are sailing in the sky.
It is in truth an utter solitude,
Nor should I have made mention of this Dell
But for one object which you might pass by,
Might see and notice not. Beside the brook
There is a straggling heap of unhewn stones!
And to that place a story appertains,
Which, though it be ungarnish'd with events,
Is not unfit, I deem, for the fire-side,
Or for the summer shade. It was the first,
The earliest of those tales that spake to me
Of Shepherds, dwellers in the vallies, men
Whom I already lov'd, not verily
For their own sakes, but for the fields and hills
Where was their occupation and abode.

And hence this Tale, while I was yet a boy
Careless of books, yet having felt the power
Of Nature, by the gentle agency
Of natural objects led me on to feel
For passions that were not my own, and think
At random and imperfectly indeed
On man; the heart of man and human life.
Therefore, although it be a history
Homely and rude, I will relate the same
For the delight of a few natural hearts,
And with yet fonder feeling, for the sake
Of youthful Poets, who among these Hills
Will be my second self when I am gone.


Upon the Forest-side in Grasmere Vale
There dwelt a Shepherd, Michael was his name.
An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb.
His ****** frame had been from youth to age
Of an unusual strength: his mind was keen
Intense and frugal, apt for all affairs,
And in his Shepherd's calling he was prompt
And watchful more than ordinary men.

Hence he had learn'd the meaning of all winds,
Of blasts of every tone, and often-times
When others heeded not, He heard the South
Make subterraneous music, like the noise
Of Bagpipers on distant Highland hills;
The Shepherd, at such warning, of his flock
Bethought him, and he to himself would say
The winds are now devising work for me!

And truly at all times the storm, that drives
The Traveller to a shelter, summon'd him
Up to the mountains: he had been alone
Amid the heart of many thousand mists
That came to him and left him on the heights.
So liv'd he till his eightieth year was pass'd.

And grossly that man errs, who should suppose
That the green Valleys, and the Streams and Rocks
Were things indifferent to the Shepherd's thoughts.
Fields, where with chearful spirits he had breath'd
The common air; the hills, which he so oft
Had climb'd with vigorous steps; which had impress'd
So many incidents upon his mind
Of hardship, skill or courage, joy or fear;
Which like a book preserv'd the memory
Of the dumb animals, whom he had sav'd,
Had fed or shelter'd, linking to such acts,
So grateful in themselves, the certainty
Of honorable gains; these fields, these hills
Which were his living Being, even more
Than his own Blood--what could they less? had laid
Strong hold on his affections, were to him
A pleasurable feeling of blind love,
The pleasure which there is in life itself.

He had not passed his days in singleness.
He had a Wife, a comely Matron, old
Though younger than himself full twenty years.
She was a woman of a stirring life
Whose heart was in her house: two wheels she had
Of antique form, this large for spinning wool,
That small for flax, and if one wheel had rest,
It was because the other was at work.
The Pair had but one Inmate in their house,
An only Child, who had been born to them
When Michael telling o'er his years began
To deem that he was old, in Shepherd's phrase,
With one foot in the grave. This only son,
With two brave sheep dogs tried in many a storm.

The one of an inestimable worth,
Made all their Household. I may truly say,
That they were as a proverb in the vale
For endless industry. When day was gone,
And from their occupations out of doors
The Son and Father were come home, even then,
Their labour did not cease, unless when all
Turn'd to their cleanly supper-board, and there
Each with a mess of pottage and skimm'd milk,
Sate round their basket pil'd with oaten cakes,
And their plain home-made cheese. Yet when their meal
Was ended, LUKE (for so the Son was nam'd)
And his old Father, both betook themselves
To such convenient work, as might employ
Their hands by the fire-side; perhaps to card
Wool for the House-wife's spindle, or repair
Some injury done to sickle, flail, or scythe,
Or other implement of house or field.

Down from the cicling by the chimney's edge,
Which in our ancient uncouth country style
Did with a huge projection overbrow
Large space beneath, as duly as the light
Of day grew dim, the House-wife hung a lamp;
An aged utensil, which had perform'd
Service beyond all others of its kind.

Early at evening did it burn and late,
Surviving Comrade of uncounted Hours
Which going by from year to year had found
And left the Couple neither gay perhaps
Nor chearful, yet with objects and with hopes
Living a life of eager industry.

And now, when LUKE was in his eighteenth year,
There by the light of this old lamp they sate,
Father and Son, while late into the night
The House-wife plied her own peculiar work,
Making the cottage thro' the silent hours
Murmur as with the sound of summer flies.

Not with a waste of words, but for the sake
Of pleasure, which I know that I shall give
To many living now, I of this Lamp
Speak thus minutely: for there are no few
Whose memories will bear witness to my tale,
The Light was famous in its neighbourhood,
And was a public Symbol of the life,
The thrifty Pair had liv'd. For, as it chanc'd,
Their Cottage on a plot of rising ground
Stood single, with large prospect North and South,
High into Easedale, up to Dunmal-Raise,
And Westward to the village near the Lake.
And from this constant light so regular
And so far seen, the House itself by all
Who dwelt within the limits of the vale,
Both old and young, was nam'd The Evening Star.

Thus living on through such a length of years,
The Shepherd, if he lov'd himself, must needs
Have lov'd his Help-mate; but to Michael's heart
This Son of his old age was yet more dear--
Effect which might perhaps have been produc'd
By that instinctive tenderness, the same
Blind Spirit, which is in the blood of all,
Or that a child, more than all other gifts,
Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts,
And stirrings of inquietude, when they
By tendency of nature needs must fail.

From such, and other causes, to the thoughts
Of the old Man his only Son was now
The dearest object that he knew on earth.
Exceeding was the love he bare to him,
His Heart and his Heart's joy! For oftentimes
Old Michael, while he was a babe in arms,
Had done him female service, not alone
For dalliance and delight, as is the use
Of Fathers, but with patient mind enforc'd
To acts of tenderness; and he had rock'd
His cradle with a woman's gentle hand.

And in a later time, ere yet the Boy
Had put on Boy's attire, did Michael love,
Albeit of a stern unbending mind,
To have the young one in his sight, when he
Had work by his own door, or when he sate
With sheep before him on his Shepherd's stool,
Beneath that large old Oak, which near their door
Stood, and from it's enormous breadth of shade
Chosen for the Shearer's covert from the sun,
Thence in our rustic dialect was call'd
The CLIPPING TREE, *[1] a name which yet it bears.

There, while they two were sitting in the shade,
With others round them, earnest all and blithe,
Would Michael exercise his heart with looks
Of fond correction and reproof bestow'd
Upon the child, if he dislurb'd the sheep
By catching at their legs, or with his shouts
Scar'd them, while they lay still beneath the shears.

And when by Heaven's good grace the Boy grew up
A healthy Lad, and carried in his cheek
Two steady roses that were five years old,
Then Michael from a winter coppice cut
With his own hand a sapling, which he hoop'd
With iron, making it throughout in all
Due requisites a perfect Shepherd's Staff,
And gave it to the Boy; wherewith equipp'd
He as a Watchman oftentimes was plac'd
At gate or gap, to stem or turn the flock,
And to his office prematurely call'd
There stood the urchin, as you will divine,
Something between a hindrance and a help,
And for this cause not always, I believe,
Receiving from his Father hire of praise.

While this good household thus were living on
From day to day, to Michael's ear there came
Distressful tidings. Long before, the time
Of which I speak, the Shepherd had been bound
In surety for his Brother's Son, a man
Of an industrious life, and ample means,
But unforeseen misfortunes suddenly
Had press'd upon him, and old Michael now
Was summon'd to discharge the forfeiture,
A grievous penalty, but little less
Than half his substance. This un-look'd-for claim
At the first hearing, for a moment took
More hope out of his life than he supposed
That any old man ever could have lost.

As soon as he had gather'd so much strength
That he could look his trouble in the face,
It seem'd that his sole refuge was to sell
A portion of his patrimonial fields.
Such was his first resolve; he thought again,
And his heart fail'd him. "Isabel," said he,
Two evenings after he had heard the news,
"I have been toiling more than seventy years,
And in the open sun-shine of God's love
Have we all liv'd, yet if these fields of ours
Should pass into a Stranger's hand, I think
That I could not lie quiet in my grave."

"Our lot is a hard lot; the Sun itself
Has scarcely been more diligent than I,
And I have liv'd to be a fool at last
To my own family. An evil Man
That was, and made an evil choice, if he
Were false to us; and if he were not false,
There are ten thousand to whom loss like this
Had been no sorrow. I forgive him--but
'Twere better to be dumb than to talk thus.
When I began, my purpose was to speak
Of remedies and of a chearful hope."

"Our Luke shall leave us, Isabel; the land
Shall not go from us, and it shall be free,
He shall possess it, free as is the wind
That passes over it. We have, thou knowest,
Another Kinsman, he will be our friend
In this distress. He is a prosperous man,
Thriving in trade, and Luke to him shall go,
And with his Kinsman's help and his own thrift,
He quickly will repair this loss, and then
May come again to us. If here he stay,
What can be done? Where every one is poor
What can be gain'd?" At this, the old man paus'd,
And Isabel sate silent, for her mind
Was busy, looking back into past times.

There's Richard Bateman, thought she to herself,
He was a parish-boy--at the church-door
They made a gathering for him, shillings, pence,
And halfpennies, wherewith the Neighbours bought
A Basket, which they fill'd with Pedlar's wares,
And with this Basket on his arm, the Lad
Went up to London, found a Master there,
Who out of many chose the trusty Boy
To go and overlook his merchandise
Beyond the seas, where he grew wond'rous rich,
And left estates and monies to the poor,
And at his birth-place built a Chapel, floor'd
With Marble, which he sent from foreign lands.
These thoughts, and many others of like sort,
Pass'd quickly thro' the mind of Isabel,
And her face brighten'd. The Old Man was glad.

And thus resum'd. "Well I Isabel, this scheme
These two days has been meat and drink to me.
Far more than we have lost is left us yet.
--We have enough--I wish indeed that I
Were younger, but this hope is a good hope.
--Make ready Luke's best garments, of the best
Buy for him more, and let us send him forth
To-morrow, or the next day, or to-night:
--If he could go, the Boy should go to-night."
Here Michael ceas'd, and to the fields went forth
With a light heart. The House-wife for five days
Was restless morn and night, and all day long
Wrought on with her best fingers to prepare
Things needful for the journey of her Son.

But Isabel was glad when Sunday came
To stop her in her work; for, when she lay
By Michael's side, she for the two last nights
Heard him, how he was troubled in his sleep:
And when they rose at morning she could see
That all his hopes were gone. That day at noon
She said to Luke, while they two by themselves
Were sitting at the door, "Thou must not go,
We have no other Child but thee to lose,
None to remember--do not go away,
For if thou leave thy Father he will die."
The Lad made answer with a jocund voice,
And Isabel, when she had told her fears,
Recover'd heart. That evening her best fare
Did she bring forth, and all together sate
Like happy people round a Christmas fire.

Next morning Isabel resum'd her work,
And all the ensuing week the house appear'd
As cheerful as a grove in Spring: at length
The expected letter from their Kinsman came,
With kind assurances that he would do
His utmost for the welfare of the Boy,
To which requests were added that forthwith
He might be sent to him. Ten times or more
The letter was read over; Isabel
Went forth to shew it to the neighbours round:
Nor was there at that time on English Land
A prouder heart than Luke's. When Isabel
Had to her house return'd, the Old Man said,
"He shall depart to-morrow." To this word
The House--wife answered, talking much of things
Which, if at such, short notice he should go,
Would surely be forgotten. But at length
She gave consent, and Michael was at ease.

Near the tumultuous brook of Green-head Gill,
In that deep Valley, Michael had design'd
To build a Sheep-fold, and, before he heard
The tidings of his melancholy loss,
For this same purpose he had gathered up
A heap of stones, which close to the brook side
Lay thrown together, ready for the work.
With Luke that evening thitherward he walk'd;
And soon as they had reach'd the place he stopp'd,
And thus the Old Man spake to him. "My Son,
To-morrow thou wilt leave me; with full heart
I look upon thee, for thou art the same
That wert a promise to me ere thy birth,
And all thy life hast been my daily joy.
I will relate to thee some little part
Of our two histories; 'twill do thee good
When thou art from me, even if I should speak
Of things thou caust not know of.--After thou
First cam'st into the world, as it befalls
To new-born infants, thou didst sleep away
Two days, and blessings from thy Father's tongue
Then fell upon thee. Day by day pass'd on,
And still I lov'd thee with encreasing love."

Never to living ear came sweeter sounds
Than when I heard thee by our own fire-side
First uttering without words a natural tune,
When thou, a feeding babe, didst in thy joy
Sing at thy Mother's breast. Month follow'd month,
And in the open fields my life was pass'd
And in the mountains, else I think that thou
Hadst been brought up upon thy father's knees.
--But we were playmates, Luke; among these hills,
As well thou know'st, in us the old and young
Have play'd together, nor with me didst thou
Lack any pleasure which a boy can know.

Luke had a manly heart; but at these words
He sobb'd aloud; the Old Man grasp'd his hand,
And said, "Nay do not take it so--I see
That these are things of which I need not speak.
--Even to the utmost I have been to thee
A kind and a good Father: and herein
I but repay a gift which I myself
Receiv'd at others' hands, for, though now old
Beyond the common life of man, I still
Remember them who lov'd me in my youth."

Both of them sleep together: here they liv'd
As all their Forefathers had done, and when
At length their time was come, they were not loth
To give their bodies to the family mold.
I wish'd that thou should'st live the life they liv'd.
But 'tis a long time to look back, my Son,
And see so little gain from sixty years.
These fields were burthen'd when they came to me;
'Till I was forty years of age, not more
Than half of my inheritance was mine.

"I toil'd and toil'd; God bless'd me in my work,
And 'till these three weeks past the land was free.
--It looks as if it never could endure
Another Master. Heaven forgive me, Luke,
If I judge ill for thee, but it seems good
That thou should'st go." At this the Old Man paus'd,
Then, pointing to the Stones near which they stood,
Thus, after a short silence, he resum'd:
"This was a work for us, and now, my Son,
It is a wo

The stars still shone last night, and tasted pretty like my last sonnet;
And I still loved thee; and imagined thee 'fore I retreated to bed.
Ah, but thou know not-thou wert envied by t'at squeaking trivial moon;
It seduced and befriended thee; but took away thy sickly love too soon.
Ah, t'at moon which was burnt by jealousy, and still perhaps is,
Took away thy love-which, if only willing to grow; couldst be dearer than his.
But too thy love, which hath-since the very outset, been mostly repulsive and arduous;
And loving thee was but altogether too customary, and at gullible times, odious.
Ah, but how I was too innocent-far too innocent, was I!
Why didst I stupidly keepeth loving thee-whose soul was but too sore, and intense-with lies?
And at t'is very moment, every purse of stale dejection leapt away from me;
Within t'eir private grounds of madness; but evaporating accusations.
Ah, so t'at thou desired me not-and thus art deserving not of me;
But why didst I resist not still-thy awkwardness, and glittering sensations?
Oh, I feeleth uncivil now-for I should hath been too mad not at the moon;
For taking away thy petty threads, and curdling winds, out of me-too soon.
And for robbing my gusts, and winds, and pale storms of bewitching-yet baffling, affection;
But in fact thrusting me no more, into the realms of death; and t'eir vain alteration.
Ah, thee, so how I couldst once have awaited thee, I never knoweth;
For perhaps I shall be consumed, and consequently greeteth immediate death; within the fatal blushes of tomorrow.
But still-nothing of me shall ever objecteth to t'is tale of blue horror, and chooseth to remain;
And I shall distracteth thee not; and bindeth my path into t'at one of thy feet-all over again.
Once more, I shall be dimmed by my mirthlessness and catastrophes and sorrow;
Yet thankfully I canst becometh glad, for all my due virtues, and philanthropic woes.

I shall be wholly pale, and unspeaking all over me-just like someone dead;
And out of my mouth wouldst emergeth just tears-and perhaps little useless, dusty starlings;
I shall hath no more pools or fits or even filths of healthy blood, nor breath;
I shall remembereth not, the enormous fondness, and overpowering passions; for our future little darlings.
For my love used to be chilly, but warm-like t'ose intuitive layers behind the sky;
But thou insisted on keeping silent and uncharmed-a frightfulness of sight; I never knew why.
Now t'at I hath returned everything-and every single terseness to my heart;
I shall no more wanteth thee to pierce me, and breaketh my gathered pride, and toil, apart.
For I am no more of a loving soul, and my whole fate is bottomless and tragic;
I canst only be a lover for thee, whenst I am endorsed; whenst I feeleth poetic.
I shall drowneth myself deep into the very whinings of my misery;
I shall curseth but then lift myself again-into the airs of my own poetry.
For the airs of whom might only be the sources of love I hath,
For t'is real world of thine, containeth nothing for me but wrath;
Ah, and those skies still screameth towards me, for angering whose ****** foliage;
Whenst t'ose lilies and grapes of my soul are but mercifully asleep on my part.
I wanteth to be mad; but not any careless want now I feeleth-of cherishing such rage;
For I believeth not in ferocity; but forgiveness alone-which rudely shineth on me, but easeth my painful heart.
I hath ceased to believe in my own hand; now furnished with discomfort;
But still I hath to fade away, and thus cut t'is supposedly long story short.
I hath been burned by thee, and flown wistfully into thy Hell;
But so wisheth me all goodness; and that I shall surviveth well.
And just now-at t'is very moment of gloom; I entreateth t'at thou returneth to her, and fasteneth yon adored golden ring;
For it bringst thee gladness, which is to me still sadly too dear, everything.

Ah! Look! Look still-at t'ose streaks of blueness-which are still within my poetry on thee;
But I shall removeth them, and blesseth them with deadness; so that thou shalt once more be young, and free.
For what doth thee want from me-aside from unguarded liberty, and unintimate-yet wondrous, freedom?
For thou might as well never thinketh of me during thy escape;
And forever considereth me but an insipid flying parachute-to thy wide stardom;
Which deserveth not one single stare; as thou journeyeth upon whose dutiful circular shape.
And a maidservant; a wretched ale *****-within thy inglorious kingdom;
Which serveth but soft butter and cakes, to her-thy beloved, as she peacefully completeth her poem.
The poem she shall forceth to buy from me-with a few stones of emerald;
To which I shall sternly refuseth-and on which my hands receiveth t'ose climactic bruises.
For she, in her reproof-shall hit me thereof, a t'ousand times; and a harlot me, she shall calleth;
And storm away within t'at frock of endless purpleness; and a staggering laugh on her cheeks.
And I-I shall be thy anonymous poet, whose phrases thou at times acquireth, at nighttime-but never read;
A bedroom bard, in whose poetry thou shalt not findeth pleasures, and to which thou shalt never sit.
A jolly wish thou shalt never, in thy lifetime, cometh anyhow-to comprehend-nor appreciate;
But should I still continueth my futility; for poetry is my only diligent haven, and mate.
In which I shall never be bound to doubteth, much less hesitateth;
For in poetry t'ere only is brilliance; and embrace in its workings of fate.
And sadly, a servant as I am-on her vanity should I needst to forever wait, and flourish;
To whom my importance, either dire profoundness-is no more t'an a tasty evening dish.
And my presence by thee is perhaps something she cannot relish;
I know not how thou couldst fall for a dame-so disregarded and coquettish!
To whom all the world is but hers; and everything else is thus virtual;
So t'at hypocrisy is accepted, as how glory is thus defined as refusal.
But sometimes I cometh to regret thy befallen line of glory, and untoward destiny;
I shall, like ever, upon which remembrance, desireth to save thee, and bringst thee safely, to eternity.
But even t'is thought of thee shall maketh me twitch with burning disgust;
For I hath gradually lost my affection for thee; either any passion t'at canst tumultously last.
And shall I never giveth myself up to any further fatigue-nor let thy future charms drag me away;
For I hath spent my abundant time on thy poetry-and all t'ose useless nights and days;
As thou shalt regard me not-for my whole cautiousness, nor dear perseverance-and patience;
Thou shalt, like ever, stay exuberant, but thinketh me a profound distress-a wild and furious, impediment.
Thou hath denied me but my most exciting-and courteous nights;
And upon which-I shall announce not; any sighs of willingness-to maketh thee again right;
nor to helpeth thee see, and obediently capture, thy very own eager light.

And when thy idiocy shall bringst thee the most secure-yet most amatory of disgrace, turn to me not;
I hath refused any of thine, and wisheth to, perfunctorily-kisseth thee away from my lot,
I shall writeth no more on thy eloquence-for thou hath not any,
As nothing hath thou shown; nothing but falsehood-hath thou performed, to me.
Thou hath given none of those which is to me but virulent-and vital;
Thou art not eternal like I hath expected-nor thy bitter soul is immortal.
Thou art mortal-and when in thy deft last seconds returneth death;
Thou, in remorse, shalt forever be spurned by thy own deceit, and dizzily-spinning breath,
And after which, there shall indeed be no more seconds of thine-ah, truly no more;
Thou shalt be all gone and ended, just like hath thou once ended mine-one moment before.
All t'at was once unfair shall turneth just, and accordingly, fair;
For God Himself is fair-and only to the honest offereth His chairs;
But the limbs of Heaven shall not be pictured, nor endowed in thee;
To thee shall be opened the gate of fires, as how thou hath impetuously incarnated in me.
No matter how beautiful they might be-still thy bliss shall flawlessly be gone,
Thou shalt be tortured and left to thy own disclosure, and mock discourses-all alone.
For no mortality shall be ensured foreverness-much less undead togetherness;
As how such a tale of thy dull, and perhaps-incomprehensible worldliness.
By t'at time thou shalt hath grown mature, but sadly 'tis all too late;
For thou hath mocked, and chastised away brutally-all the truthful, dearest workings of fate.
And neither shalt thou be able to enjoy-the merriments of even yon most distant poetry;
For unable shalt thou be-to devour any more astonishment; at least those of glory.
And thus the clear songs of my soul shall not be any of thy desired company;
Thy shall liveth and surviveth thy very own abuse; for I shall wisheth not to be with thee;
For as thou said, to life thou, by her being, art the frequented life itself;
Thus thou needst no more soul; nor being bound to another physical self;
And t'is shall be the enjoyment thou hath so indolently, yet factually pursued-in Hell;
I hope thou shalt be safe and free from hunger-and t'at she, after all, shall attendeth to thee well.

And who said t'at joys are forbidden, and adamantly perilous?
For t'ose which are perilous are still the one lamented over earth;
For in t'ose divine delights nothing shall be too stressful, nor by any means-studious;
For virtues are pure, and the walls of our future delights are brighter t'an yon grey hearth;
And be my soul happy, for I hath not been blind; nor hath I misunderstood;
I hath always been useful-by my writing, and my sickened womanhood;
Though I hath never possessed-and perhaps shall never own, any truthful promise, nor marriage bliss;
Still I longeth selfishly to hear stories-of eternal dainty happiness, for the dainty secret peace.
Ah, thee, for after thee-there shall perhaps no being to be written on-in yon garden;
A thought t'at filleth me not with peace, but shaketh my whole entity with a new burden.
Oh, my thee, who hath left me so heartlessly, but the one whom I hath never regarded as my enemy-
The one I hath loved so politely, tenderly, and all the way charmingly.
Ah! Ah! Ah! But why, my love, why didst thou turn t'is pretty love so ugly?
I demandeth not any kind purity, nor any insincere pious beauty,
But couldst thou heareth not t'is heart-which had longed for the one of thine-so subserviently and purely?
For I am certainly the one most passionately-and indeed devotedly-loving thee,
For I am adorable only so long as thou sleepeth, and breatheth, beside me,
For I am admired only by the west winds of thy laugh, and the east winds of thy poetry!
Ah, but why-why hath thou stormed away so mercilessly like t'is;
And leaving me alone to the misery of this world, and my indefinite past tears?
Ah, thee, as how prohibited by the laws of my secret heaven,
Thus I shall painteth thee no more in my poesies, nor any related pattern;
There, in t'is holy dusk's name, shall be spoiled only by the waves of God's upcoming winters,
In the shapes of rain, and its grotesque, ye' tenacious-and horrifying eternal thunders.
And thus t'ese lovesick pains shall be blurred into nothingness-and existeth no more,
But so shall thy image-shall withereth away, and reeketh of death, like never before.
For I shall never be good enough to afford thee any vintage love-not even tragedy,
For in thy minds I am but a piece of disfigured silver; with a heart of unmerited, and immature glory;
Ah, pitiful, pitiful me! For my whole life hath been black and dark with loneliness' solitary ritual,
And so shall it always be-until I catch death about; so grey and white behind t'ose unknown halls.
And shall perhaps no-one, but the earth itself-mourneth over my fading of breath,
They shall cheereth more-upon knowing t'at I am resting eternally now, in the hands of death.
And no more comical beat shall be detected, likewise, within my poet's wise chest;
For everything hath gone to t'eir own abode, to t'eir unbending rest.
But I indeed shall be great-and like an angel, be given a provisionary wing;
By t'is poetry on thee-the last words of mouth I speaketh; the final sonata I singeth.

Thus thou art wicked, wicked, wicked-and shall forever be wicked;
Thou art human, but at heart inhuman-and blessed indeed, with no charming mortal aura;
Thou wert once enriched indeed-by my blood, but thy soul itself is demented;
And halved by its own wronged purity, thou thus art like a villainous persona;
Thou art still charmed but made unseeing, and chiefly-invisible;
Unfortunately thou loathe scrutiny, and any sort of mad poetry;
Knowing not that poetry is forever harmless, and on the whole-irresistible;
And its tiny soul is on its own forgiving, estimable, and irredeemable.
Ah, thee, whose soul hath but such a great appeal;
But inanely strained by thy greed-which is like a harm, but to thee an infallible, faithful devil.
Thou art forever a son of night, yet a corpse of morn;
For darkness thriveth and conquereth thy soul-and not reality;
Just like her heart which is tainted with tantrum, and scorn;
Unsweet in her glory, and thy being-but strangely too strong to resist-to thee.
Ah, and so t'at from my human realms thou dwelleth immorally too far;
As art thou unjust-for t'is imagination of thine hath left nothing, but a wealth of scars;
I used to recklessly idoliseth thee, and findeth in thy impure soul-the purest idyll;
But still thou listened not; and rejected to understandeth not, what I wouldst inside, feel.
After all, though t'ese disclaimers, and against prayers-hath I designated for thee;
On my virtues-shall I still loyally supplicate; t'at thou be forgiven, and be permitted-to yon veritable, eternity.

I am a poet.
I am an artist.
A lover of words, a shaper of thoughts, a master of feelings;
A player of emotions, a speaker of charms, a thinker of minds.
A giver of taste-and at times, a succulent creator of madness.
Madness outside such lines of timid regularity;
The rules of the common, and the inane believers of sanity.
For to me, sanity is as easy as insanity itself-
On which my life feedeth, and boldly moveth on;
And without insanity, t'ere shan't be either joy-or ecstasy;
As how ecstasy itself, in my mind, is defined by averted uneasiness,
And t'at easiness, reader, is not by any means part of;
And forever detached from, the haunting deities of contemporaneity.
Thus easily, artistry consumeth and spilleth my blood-and my whole entity;
Words floweth in my lungs, mastereth my mind, shapeth my own breath.
And sometimes, I breathest within those words themselves;
And declareth my purity within which, feeleth rejection at whose loss;
Like a princess storming about hysterically at the failure of her roses.
Ah! Poetry! The second lover of my life; the delicacy of my veins.
And I loveth, I doth love-sacredly, intensely, and expressively, all of which;
I loveth poetry as I desire my own breath, and how I loveth the muchness of my fellow nature;
Whose crazes sometimes surroundeth us like our dear lake nearby;
With its souls roaming about with water, t'at chokes and gurgles-
As stray winds collapseth around and strikest a war with which.
And most of the year-I am a star, to my own skies;
But by whose side a moon, to my rainless nights;
On the whole, I am an umbrella to my soul;
So t'at it groweth bitter not, even when t'ere is no imminent rain;
And be its savior, when all is unsaved, and everything else writhest in pain.

Thus I loveth poetry as well as I loveth my dreams;
I am a painter of such scenic phrases, whose miracles bloometh
Next to thunderstorms, and yon subsequent spirited moonbeam.
And t'eir fate is awesome and elegant within my hands;
They oft' sleep placidly against my thumbs;
Asking me, with soft-and decorous breath;
To be stroked by my enigmatic fingers;
And to calm t'eir underestimated literariness, by such ungodly beings, out t'ere.
Ah, poor-poor creatures-what a fiend wouldst but do t'is to aggravate 'em!
As above all, I feeleth but extremely eager about miracles themselves;
and duly witness, my reader-t'at t'is very eagerness shall never be corrupted;
Just as how I am a pure enthusiast of love;
And in my enthusiasm, I shareth love of both men and nature;
And dark sorrows and tears t'at oft' shadowest t'eir decent composures.
When I thirstest for touches, I simply writest 'em down;
When I am hungry for caresses, I tendeth to think them out;
I detailest everything auspiciously, until my surprised conscience cannot help but feeling tired;
But still, the love of thee, poetry, shall outwit me, and despise me deeply-
Should I find not the root, within myself, to challenge and accomplish it, accordingly.
I shall be my own jealousy, and my own failure;
Who to whose private breath feeleth even unsure.
I shall feel scarce, and altogether empty;
I shall have no more essence to be admired;
For everything shall wither within me, and leave me to no energy;
And with my conscience betrayed, I shall face my demise with a heart so despaired.
Ah, my poetry is but my everything!
'Tis my undying wave; and the casual, though perhaps unnatural;
the brother of my own soul, on whose shoulders I placeth my longings;
And on whose mouths I lieth my long-lost kisses!
Ah, how I loveth poetry hideously, but awesomely, thereof!
I loveth poetry greatly-within and outside of my own roof;
And I carest not for others' mock idyll, and adamant reproof;
For I loveth poetry as how as I respectest, and idoliseth love itself;
And when I idoliseth affection, perhaps I shall grow, briefly, into a normal human being-
A real, real human being with curdling weights of unpoetic feelings;
I shall whisper into my ears every intractable falsehood, but the customary normalcy-of creation;
And brash, brash emptiness whom my creative brains canst no longer bear!
Ah, dearest, loveliest poetry, but shall I love him?
Ah-the one whose sighs and shortcomings oft' startlest my dreams;
The one whom I oft' pictureth, and craftest like an insolent statue-
Within my morning colours, and about my petulant midnight hue?
Or, poetry, and tellest me, tellest me-whether needst I to love him more-
The one whose vice was my past-but now wishes to be my virtue,
And t'is time an amiably sober virtue-with eyes so blue and sparkling smiles so true?
Ah, poetry, tellest me, tellest me here-without delay!
In my oneness, thou shalt be my triumph, and everlasting astonishment;
Worthy of my praise and established tightness of endorsement;
But in any doubleness of my life-thou shalt be my saviour, and prompt avidity-
When all but strugglest against their trances, or even falleth silent.
Ah, poetry, thou art the symbol of my virtue thyself;
And thy little soul is my tongue;
A midnight read I hath been composing dearly all along;
My morn play, anecdote, and yet my most captivating song.

I thirstest for thee regularly, and longeth for thee every single day;
I am dead when I hath not words, nor any glittering odes in my mouth to say.
Thou art my immensity, in which everything is gullible, but truth;
And all remarks are bright-though with multiple souls, and roots;
Ah, poetry, in every summer, thou art the adored timeless foliage;
With humorous beauty, and a most intensive sacrifice no other trees canst take!
O poetry, and thy absence-I shall be dead like those others;
I shall be robbed, I shall be like a walking ghost;
I hath no more cores, nor cheers-within me, and shall wander about aimlessly, and feel lost;
Everything shall be blackened, and seen with malicious degrees of absurdity;
I shall be like those who, as days pass, bloometh with no advanced profusion,
And entertaineth their sad souls with no abundant intention!
How precarious, and notorious-shall I look, indeed!
For I shall hath no gravity-nor any sense of, or taste-for glory;
My mind shall be its own corpse, and look but grey;
Grey as if paled seriously by the passage of time;
Grey as if turned mercilessly so-by nothing sublime;
Ah, but in truth-grey over its stolen life, over its stolen breath!
I shall become such greyness, o poetry, over the loss of thee;
And treadeth around like them, whose minds are blocked-by monetary thickness;
A desire for meaningless muchness, and pretentious satire exchanged '**** 'emselves;
I shall be like 'em-who are blind to even t'eir own brutal longings!
Ah, t'ose, whose paths are threatened by avid seriousness;
And adverse tides of ambition, and incomprehensible austerity;
Ah, for to me glory is not eternal, glory is not superb;
For eternity is what matterest most, and t'at relieth not within any absence of serenity.
Ah, but sadly they realiseth, realiseth it not!
For they are never alive themselves, nor prone-to any living realisation;
And termed only by the solemnity of desire, wealthiness, and hovering accusations;
For they breathe within their private-ye' voluptuous, malice, and unabashed prejudice,
For they hath no comprehension; as they hath not even the most barren bliss!
And I wantest not to be any of them, for being such is entirely gruesome;
And I shall die of loneliness, I shall die of feasting on no mindly outcome;
For nothing more shall be fragrant within my torpid soul;
And hath courage not shall I, to fight against any fishy and foul.
My fate is tranquil, and 'tis, indeed-to be a poet;
A poet whenst society is mute, I shall speak out loud;
And whenst humanity is asleep, I wake 't with my shouts;
Ah, poetry! Thy ****** little soul is but everything to me;
And even in my future wifery, I shall still care for, and recur to thee;
And I shall devote myself to thee, and cherish thee more;
Thou hath captured me with love; and such a love is, indeed, like never before.

But too I loveth him still, as every day rises-
When the sun reappeareth, and hazy clouds are again woken so they canst praise the skies.
I loveth him, as sunrays alight our country suburbs;
With a love so wondrous; a love but at times-too ardent and superb.
Ah, and thus tellest me-tellest me once more!
To whose heart shall I benignly succumb, and trust my maidenhood?
To whose soul shall I courteously bow, and be tied-at th' end of my womanhood?
Ah, poetry, I am but now clueless, and thoroughly speechless-about my own love!
Ah, dearest-t'is time but be friendly to me, and award to me a clue!
Lendeth to me thy very genial comprehension, and merit;
Openeth my heart with thy grace, and unmistakable wit!
Drowneth me once more into thy reveries of dreams;
And finally, just finally-burstest my eyes now open, maketh me with clarity see him!

Ah, poetry, t'ose rainbows of thine-are definitely too remarkable;
As how t'ose red lips of thine adore me, and termeth me kindly, as reliable;
And thus I shall rely all my reality on thy very shoulder;
Bless me with the holiness confidentiality, and untamed ****** intelligence;
Maketh me enliven my words with love, and the healthiest, and loveliest, of allegiance.
Bless me with the flavoured showers of thy heart;
So everything foreign canst but be comely-and familiar;
And from whose verdure, and growth-I shall ne'er be apart!
And as t'is happens, holdest my hand tightly-and clutchest at my heart dearly;
Keepest me but safe here, and reachest my breath, securely!
Ah, poetry-be with me, be with me always!
Maketh me even lovelier, and loyal-to my religion;
In my daily taste-and hastes, and all these supreme oddities and evenness of life;
Maketh me but thoughtful, cheerful, and naive;
And in silence maketh me stay civil-but for my years to come;
and similarly helpeth my devotion, taste, and creativity, remain alive.

Ah, poetry, thus I shall be awake in both thy daylight, and slumbers;
And as thou shineth, I knoweth that my dreams shall never fade away;
Once more, I might have gone mad, but still-all the way better;
And whenst I am once more conscious; thou shalt be my darling;
who firmly and genuinely beggeth me t' keep writing, and in the end, beggeth me t' stay.
Leave me not, even whenst days grew dark-and lighted were only my abyss;
Invite my joy, and devour every bit of it-as one thou should neither ignore, or miss.

O, but needst I to listen to t'ese wishes, benign as t'ey are, but wild and inevitable-yet inaudible as dreams. Burnt by sophisticated passion, and whirring hells of torpid astonishment as my being at t'is moment, but smooth and glowing tenderly with affection-as thy love still I long for, woven so secretly ye' neatly alongst th' tangled paths of my mind! Yes, and its layers-turbulent patches of skin, yellow skin, crafted passionately by whose Creator, and imbued with unconquerable infatuation just like 'tis now. But no breathing soul canst I bestow it on-this overarching destiny, healthy and red as t'ose garden plums-impatient in t'eir wait for the shiny May summer-aside from thee, as 'tis but always thee, Kozarev! Uninvited as I am, by any other'ness' t'at might as well enrich my love story, as enough I feel, about t'at unrelenting history! Thou art th' sole man, th' only justified heart whom I adoreth, and want, so selfishly, to marry! As ripe as t'eir lips might be-but stifling, and immature in constitution, thinkable only when juxtaposed merrily with t'ose squirming nymphets about yon schoolyard; corrupted not as a newborn fern-with thighs carefully fastened to greedy-looking material, basked in immaculate sunlight, and so fresh to human sight, when all t'ese circumstances art but chaste no more, but beg, beg our hearts, and implore our worrying souls, to stay.

O Kozarev! Startled wasth I, to enter into thy proceedings, yester! Like an imbecile now my whole countenance-and its entire, ****** constitution-ah, but depleted, harmfully depleted, by laughter. What a raft of cynical conflagration! How grimly sadistic, ye' poetic in some ways! And t'ese remarks, and praises of love-begin but to dwelleth upon me all over again. Distracted is my firmness-by thy invincible power, guileless as thou hath always been, seeming not to hath heard my volatile heartbeat; and how doth I uttereth t'ose chuckles to my own mirrors upon flinging back into my bedchamber whenst our exchanges areth over. But indignant art thou not to my reddish blushes-which, like t'ose thorns of morning roses-enliven my soul up from within, after t'eir bleak winter!-and blanch darkly all my griefs away. In a thousand years and I shalt still miss thee, just like t'is, but 'tis just now t'at futility seemeth no more capable of wooing my calamity-and indulge it so adversely t'at it shalt turn towards me! Yes, how thou hath, with holiness, touched and entrapped my amorous passion, my love! In t'ese dreams-flourishing dreams, just like th' greenish pond and its superficial foliage outside, I but walk by thy moonlight and be blessed in thy fascination. Mighty and balmy shalt be th' sky overhead, hanging aloft with its mild arrogance, smelling like roofs of restrained rain-musty and soaking with glittering reproof; and wan abomination. But pure! Purity is but its sanctity, and protected by miraculous heavens, dwindling about like whitewashed statues being shoved around by a deadly lagoon of children-unknowing of what tomorrow shalt baffle us on, with faces of steel-like jubilance. And th' trees! Tropical wands be t'eir refuge-but horrifying as t'eir remorse-ah, in which souls shalt be brought about whirls of contemptuous winds, enslaved and stupefied all th' time-by mounds and havens of gruesome cruelty. But no care doth I fix on yon mortification-as thou art t'ere with me, Kozarev! Strolls shalt we take-t'ose encompassed by purplish and cheerful verdure, who admire us from t'eir gold-like stems afar-and into each other's cleavages shalt we retreat, by th' means of stories-yes, my love, stories of glee, pleasure, and yet-uneasiness, in order t'at t'ey shalt be wounded away and superseded by joy. Our love, rings of love, t'at is to come as immediate as nature might permit, and shalt allow us to admit-as yester hath unfolded, by bracing my feet for bouncing outside, across t'ese carpeted tiles-into th' very vicinity of thy chamber. Ah, thy handsome face! As white as pearls-yet frail as th' bulbous chirping snow. May I console 'em, my love, by my hands proffered-in th' most honourable marriage I desireth to come? But look, look afar, how t'ose stars-in t'is merciless universe, whispereth to one another, and talk gaily between t'eir wicked souls, of plans on bewildering our love-our bonds of vivid, mature fragrant compliments! How t'eir jealousy is mockery, and a swelling threat to us. And th' moon t'at is combing the hair, again, of t'at vicious ethereal princess-with a snooty swish of anot'er black hair-which is but a sea of anguished torment to me, should she descend the steps of her own ***** maidenhood-and carry herself off into our earth. Hark, how she doth it! How heathen, and indecent! But canst thou hear that-Kozarev? Canst thou be knowing of her shamelessness-and her counterfeit jewels? And her claws, her foster claws-ah, sharp as bullets, and notorious as her own evil heart! Luxury t'at is fake, ye' miserably auspicious! How I loathe her! Boil doth my temper at her genteel sight-and hostile auras, with t'at pair of necklaces t'at wasth born from falsehood, and ah! concealed deceit by portraits of clever contentment. How should thou hath seen her lips twitch over and over again, upon her setting t'at blackening imbecile gaze on me-me, who albeit from th' same brethren, but far from her flawless marches and stately refinement. And a creature, just a minuscule part of th' others, t'at she deems unworthy ye' deserving of torture! Silver and gold is she exclusively acquainted with, whenst torches in my garden art not even set alight. But look! How thou proudly saunter forward to welcome her, and salute her unforgiving cordiality with th' marks of thy lips, on her hand! And how t'is view scythes my chest, my heart, and tears it open just like th' blade of a sneaky knife shalt do. I am dying, dying from t'is tampered heart! And t'ese candles of my heart t'at hath been heartlessly watered-look how t'ey art brimming with sweat in cold demise. O Kozarev! Hath I been too late to seek thy love? Thy hands, my faultless prince, art but th' only mercy I canst pray for! Hath nature been so unfair as to savour all my dreams, ah, and even t'is single longing-and bequeath onto me a tragic life of undesired ghostlike mimes-in th' wholeness of my future? Thou art th' lost charm of t'at wholeness, my love, and should be I bereft of thee again, I shalt but be robbed of my entirety-and pride, womanly pride t'at I sadly out'ta hath. Ah, Kozarev, in thy movements doth I find bliss-a creaking blow to my wood-like stillness, and a cure for my sickly contrivances. I came here for thee, and always didst! Canst thou hear t'at-and satisfy this fierce longing with just a second of thy soundless touch? Lights flicker, and smile in t'eir subsequent death-but t'is is a token of subservient passion. And I shalt not give up like 'em-as t'is life greets us once only, before transporting us into regions of th' unknown-yes, it doth, my love, wherein eerieness is still questioned and overtly unfathomed. Ah, and before death I long to have you-Kozarev, and sit as we shalt-side by side, charmed by our generous yet moronic affection, until th' earth doth make us part, and shalt then we retreat into our most dimmed apertures.

Thou art my blissful paradise, Kozarev! Thy presence but bringst out my well of solemn cheers and proud, sun-like congeniality. And in t'is warm, gentle spring I shalt write but merely on thy vivacity! O imagination-blame, and curse her as thou might do, is in fact, my key, to my newborn triumph and infallible victory; th' marks of glimmering satisfaction-and visible restoration of my sin, my soul. T'is is because I believe, strongly, with all th' forlorn might of my heart, t'at sincerity shalt forever tower over every tweak of malevolent innocence and repressed wishes for destruction. 'Tis, Kozarev, is th' voice emanating towards me from within; and bracing t'ese lips, and *****, for facing her-t'at accursed rival of mine, with bravery and independence I hath never been brought to acknowledge. Ah, petrified as my customs let me be, conviction shalt stay within my hands; and t'at shadow-o, picture of our old days together, on th' veranda-yes, decorated with lights of our love, spur me on. Thy love is born as, and devoted to mine, my love! Crafted, shaped, and designated for me only-and to be mine, only mine-for evermore. We art but a chain of perfect concord, as God hath so sweetly decreed! And I shalt doth nothing else as remarkable as determine to retrieve it-with all th' charms and intellect t'at I possess-and my words as sugar sweet, as well as th' leaves of grace and my becoming, comely wit.

(Composed at Clevedon, Somersetshire)

My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined
Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o’ergrown
With white-flower’d Jasmin, and the broad-leav’d Myrtle,
(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)
And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,
Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve
Serenely brilliant (such should Wisdom be)
Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents
******’d from yon bean-field! and the world so hushed!
The stilly murmur of the distant Sea
Tells us of silence.
                             And that simplest Lute,
Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark!
How by the desultory breeze caress’d,
Like some coy maid  half yielding to her lover,
It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings
Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink and rise,
Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,
Where Melodies round honey-dripping flowers,
Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untam’d wing!
O! the one Life within us and abroad,
Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where—
Methinks, it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world so fill’d;
Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
Is Music slumbering on her instrument.

   And thus, my Love! as on the midway *****
Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
Whilst through my half-clos’d eye-lids I behold
The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main.
And tranquil muse upon tranquillity;
Full many a thought uncall’d and undetain’d,
And many idle flitting phantasies,
Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
As wild and various as the random gales
That swell and flutter on this subject Lute!
   And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic Harps diversely fram’d,
That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of all?

   But thy more serious eye a mild reproof
Darts, O belovéd Woman! nor such thoughts
Dim and unhallow’d dost thou not reject,
And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
Meek Daughter in the family of Christ!
Well hast thou said and holily disprais’d
These shapings of the unregenerate mind;
Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break
On vain Philosophy’s aye-babbling spring.
For never guiltless may I speak of him,
The Incomprehensible! save when with awe
I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels;
Who with his saving mercies healéd me,
A sinful and most miserable man,
Wilder’d and dark, and gave me to possess
Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honour’d Maid!

When the incendiaries lit the sky
A face smiled its divine calligraphy:
It was Helen crowned with Troy's debris.

Her unmatchable mouth in the roof
Of blood moved in speech like the home of love,
Hanging its moon of reproof:

'My kiss blots history out.
My landslide legend has forgotten
A thousand thousand bones rotting;

'Under the guilty sea
The ships lie; but accuracy
Has been seduced by me.'

Her smile sailed indiscriminately
Among the squadrons of death majestically
And was reflected on the sea.

'The armless Venus carried Pompei's tears
Better than the raided years
Or the cold dances of chameleon stars.'

Then faded. But the rain
Like lovers' seeds that fall in vain,
Warned me of my sin.

I am the master of my own mind
I beset my tears, I conquer my sadness
I am devoted to this world
To this very world in which I dwell
and to which my soul is admitted
Sometimes I hear my words
Fly around and again
within t'ese violent shades
about my head: as I walk by curious moonlight,
sunbeams, in 'ose solitary moods and emblems
of t'is silent quiet of th' night.
How can I be so lonely-and bathed in distress-
in t'is lovely yet calamitous winter?
How can I be so destitute and untouchable-
unlovable-unaffectionate, indeed!-without my very own
admired thee?
My soul is dejected; condemned and cursed
by th' entirety of destiny-oh, how I am accustomed to
t'is pain, and its inflamed tongue, burning mercilessly
in t'ose succulent perambulations throughout
th' volatile streets-yes, upon and across th' bridge-
what a vile remembrance, where but t'is poem
is my only vivid 'muchness'-and consolation. If only a wren
could be deemed my messenger, let her but decoy t'is
dubious fate-and bring me to slip into her arms-
thin and steep but with a fond predilection for my desires-
with consideration for our feelings-and carry within her wings
a letter from these longings, beneath
the cradling hands of the moon-yes, t'at hectic,
vivacious moon-who is lurking behind me
like a moronic shadow. Its chaotic abode-aye,
chaotic as it once was, is now unamused-and plastered
into th' surly noon, it is despaired-utterly despaired,
and deprived of love-look at how t'at wealth of serene eyes
swim around thirst, in such unwonted lullabies, and its
famished shrine! What a dejected old
sanctuary it must be-infamous and credulous to oddity, but again
fuels my anger on, amidst th' moonbeam t'at is now gone.
But I still can't find thee, querida.

Tell me, then, how shalt I spend t'is azure night without thee?
Without thee, querida, my soul is but solemn and vain;
as though I've lost my brain-and my shell's 'bout to drain-
yes, 'tis t'at no delight, but worries-in me.
And no shield is to protect t'at,
as thou, my love, art in a dream, but far, far away.
I am only consoled by t'ese remnants, o, of my infatuation-
of t'is incarcerated, forbidden love-for thee!
My very thee, who should be curling up comfortably-
like a childish moist in my arms-
in my simpering abyss, and therefore sends it into
flickers, and doesth it die-hence, forces its dread, and stubbornness
to obey! O thee, th' fixated spirit to my wondrous imagination-
and th' anxious bits of my sublime inspiration-truthfully, indeed!
How in this quieted recluse
I long for but one piece of shine-yes, just
one piece of which-to be my guiding star,
and the torch of my robbed path.
My stolen state-and luminous gravity, as dim as the mocked
aspiration, is but never to shower again-
t'at earth with smiling rain-and th'  invigorating soil 'neath
my feet-upon which I trample in deadly haste.
But my hands are scanty-and my heart is dry; that is
but admiringly undeniable;
I am indulged by my own fear, abhorrence,
and dangerous imagination. I am but without my lover-
o, thee, o my solitary prince, doth thou heareth of my
wail? I scream and scream in t'is unforgiving agony,
but thou hath not been here, lost in th' middle of nowhere
like an unnamed being-but belonging to some other's
charms, I know! But still I crave for thee-just thy eyes,
yes-those dripping blackness whose temptation is like
a cave, an invitation to deep, deeper soliloquy down its
poisonous hole. How I am shrinking into this dream again-
a wild, wild dream of seclusion, which I look upon
in frustrated reproof; thou art the symbol of its daintiness-
and thorns of delicacy-but t'at someone else! Some other
dame whose heart dearly belongs to thee-and o, how enviable t'is
object of endurance might be. How deserving of my remorse-unwilling
as my being might be, to give it. Still , out of even the shallowest comprehension-
when the sun glows over me, I will long for but thee-over the morning dews
of the river, far from insanity, will I stand there anew,
and in freshness glint at thy stateliness
in unpardonable profusion.

On t'is very still do I sit, with t'at grumpy book in my lap-
words carved nearly are as picturesque as th' beautiful heaven.
I hope but thou could heareth me-thou whose voice is like a
hint of lavender-painted in th' ballads of my heart forever.
My song, my song! Undergone a faithful revision-
towards a masculine spring of reason,
and demands a sudden but mature completion.
How I still sing for thee!
Like a bee who chases a loveless but unbending sunflower,
sipping all its empowering delight-that is but how I shall wait for thee-
in t'is passion and strong conviction for truth-
that thou wilt embrace me, as thy own queen of ardour
beneath t'is forthcoming spring, o, my knight-
and all t'is love, and love indeed-as th' very endlessness
of thy splendor.

What am I
A product of what has been
A member of the future to be
A traveler on a desolate street

For what has remained
Stays still inside
Dominant in its home
Awake in my mind

Shattering ever still
As the florescent lights hung above
Alone in my heart ache
As time aggressively slips by this desolate son  

Peering through the door
Hoping for a glimpse
Of what strikes by my view
Is surely to be missed

For happiness is a fleeting view which takes hold
So it is tragic as you feel the agonizing departure of your soul
And for what cannot be heard is that which is understood  
For what I have felt for a short season is that of my reproof

What I have missed the most has only brought me pain
As I sit alone in the darkness my hands begin to shake
For I have grown old in my youth and not as graciously as I'd hoped
My thoughts feed my own torment like a hand around my throat

For all that I was
In this world of lies
Another product rejection
And an endless defile

Though I wish, it is in vain
And that of nothing new
Crushed under the weight
Of this iridescent blue

This strange egg you've incubated
has sprouted skinny chicken legs.

It follows you around clucking at
every throaty word you nasty-utter.

Pointing and pecking at your guilt
borne by some years ago sin which
all others hatch from and you keep feeding,
Remorseful grains of misdeed shell grit
to harden its anxious green shell.

With no law outside itself the taint faint
heartbeat of your reproof I hear beating
like fear's unglued false eyelashes

You soft swaddle it with empty gestures.
It gestates in every grimace of piety.

I watch it govern your vocation of drab
and undramatic mastery of feathered illusion.

I want to tear shreds in your black satin cape,
To avalanche your fears into frosty exile.
Burn them screaming in the blinding white of
anemic unconscious,
the blacking out.

Hang a trophy **** of your winged demon
taxidermied with glass eyes above my bed.

My compass needle has lost your polarity
there's just a crude representation of pain

I will plant this seed you gave me, in Lethe;
The River of Forgetfulness on its grey shore.

A watery landscape without vanishing point.
Where a white heron will weep tears of sorrow,
like a human to feed hope's tender shoots.

I

I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading - books and histories,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way - the children's eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.

                    II

I dream of a Ledaean body, bent
Above a sinking fire,  a tale that she
Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event
That changed some childish day to tragedy -
Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent
Into a sphere from youthful sympathy,
Or else, to alter Plato's parable,
Into the yolk and white of the one shell.

                    III

And thinking of that fit of grief or rage
I look upon one child or t'other there
And wonder if she stood so at that age -
For even daughters of the swan can share
Something of every paddler's heritage -
And had that colour upon cheek or hair,
And thereupon my heart is driven wild:
She stands before me as a living child.

                    IV

Her present image floats into the mind -
Did Quattrocento finger fashion it
Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind
And took a mess of shadows for its meat?
And I though never of Ledaean kind
Had pretty plumage once - enough of that,
Better to smile on all that smile, and show
There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.

                    V

What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap
Honey of generation had betrayed,
And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape
As recollection or the drug decide,
Would think her Son, did she but see that shape
With sixty or more winters on its head,
A compensation for the pang of his birth,
Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?

                    VI

Plato thought nature but a spume that plays
Upon a ghostly paradigm of things;
Solider Aristotle played the taws
Upon the bottom of a king of kings;
World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras
Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings
What a star sang and careless Muses heard:
Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.

                    VII

Both nuns and mothers worship images,
But those the candles light are not as those
That animate a mother's reveries,
But keep a marble or a bronze repose.
And yet they too break hearts - O presences
That passion, piety or affection knows,
And that all heavenly glory symbolise -
O self-born mockers of man's enterprise;

                    VIII

Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

“But if any old Lady, Knight, Priest, or Physician,
   Should condemn me for printing a second edition;
   If good Madam Squintum my work should abuse,
   May I venture to give her a smack of my muse?”

   Anstey’s ‘New Bath Guide’, p.69.


Candour compels me, BECHER! to commend
The verse, which blends the censor with the friend;
Your strong yet just reproof extorts applause
From me, the heedless and imprudent cause;
For this wild error, which pervades my strain,
I sue for pardon,—must I sue in vain?
The wise sometimes from Wisdom’s ways depart;
Can youth then hush the dictates of the heart?
Precepts of prudence curb, but can’t controul,
The fierce emotions of the flowing soul.
When Love’s delirium haunts the glowing mind,
Limping Decorum lingers far behind;
Vainly the dotard mends her prudish pace,
Outstript and vanquish’d in the mental chase.
The young, the old, have worn the chains of love;
Let those, they ne’er confined, my lay reprove;
Let those, whose souls contemn the pleasing power,
Their censures on the hapless victim shower.
Oh! how I hate the nerveless, frigid song,
The ceaseless echo of the rhyming throng,
Whose labour’d lines, in chilling numbers flow,
To paint a pang the author ne’er can know!
The artless Helicon, I boast, is youth;—
My Lyre, the Heart—my Muse, the simple Truth.
Far be’t from me the “******’s mind” to “taint:”
Seduction’s dread is here no slight restraint:
The maid whose ****** breast is void of guile,
Whose wishes dimple in a modest smile,
Whose downcast eye disdains the wanton leer,
Firm in her virtue’s strength, yet not severe;
She, whom a conscious grace shall thus refine,
Will ne’er be “tainted” by a strain of mine.
But, for the nymph whose premature desires
Torment her ***** with unholy fires,
No net to snare her willing heart is spread;
She would have fallen, though she ne’er had read.
For me, I fain would please the chosen few,
Whose souls, to feeling and to nature true,
Will spare the childish verse, and not destroy
The light effusions of a heedless boy.
I seek not glory from the senseless crowd;
Of fancied laurels, I shall ne’er be proud;
Their warmest plaudits I would scarcely prize,
Their sneers or censures, I alike despise.

In ancient times long long ago,
when Ptolemy looked up into the firmament-
with wonder and amaze, to see the heavens glowing there-
he little knew of how the Gods did sport and play!
When Cassiopeia ope'd her ***** and let forth her music in the heavens, with joy the stars did dance and planets in their fundament  strove to eclipse each other vying with all their might to illuminate-the heavens more bright with their ethereal light and splendor.
Andromeda began to dance, then Sirius  and Betelgeuse,
Virgo too with Capricorn- Herculese and Aquila-Regulus with Ursa minor, all the planets danced but one,
and that with angry stance, refused to join the dance,  
Mars with red countenance stood aloof feigning reproof,  
 Look carefully, and you will see,
the stars still dance for you and me.

Take the dead Christ to my chamber,
The Christ I brought from Rome;
Over all the tossing ocean,
He has reached his western home;
Bear him as in procession,
And lay him solemnly
Where, through weary night and morning,
He shall bear me company.

The name I bear is other
Than that I bore by birth,
And I've given life to children
Who'll grow and dwell on earth;
But the time comes swiftly towards me
(Nor do I bid it stay),
When the dead Christ will be more to me
Than all I hold to-day.

Lay the dead Christ beside me,
Oh, press him on my heart,
I would hold him long and painfully
Till the weary tears should start;
Till the divine contagion
Heal me of self and sin,
And the cold weight press wholly down
The pulse that chokes within.

Reproof and frost, they fret me,
Towards the free, the sunny lands,
From the chaos of existence
I stretch these feeble hands;
And, penitential, kneeling,
Pray God would not be wroth,
Who gave not the strength of feeling,
And strength of labor both.

Thou'rt but a wooden carving,
Defaced of worms, and old;
Yet more to me thou couldst not be
Wert thou all wrapt in gold,
Like the gem-bedizened baby
Which, at the Twelth-day noon,
They show from the Ara Coeli's steps,
To a merry dancing tune.

I ask of thee no wonders,
No changing white or red;
I dream not thou art living,
I love and prize thee dead.
That salutary deadness
I seek, through want and pain,
From which God's own high power can bid
Our virtue rise again.

Another heady day blooms and gathers pace
Spring dawns at 5 a.m. with a gargle and spit in the dark

Big rain drops and falls
Soft blood red wet cherry stones of bath salts
Splayed across my ageing face
Autumn showers then walks

The spiderweb of ragged birdsong feathers and
Threads through the branches
Of just November trees
Autumnal hymnal
Singing through the dying darkness, whispering
Don’t capture the light

And walking jogs thought
Factoring rebuke as Information unwanted  
Proof then reproof
The tarmac fields of youth
Tilled by broken hands with
Broken men mending pipes and wires
Time leaves a presage- a butterfly mark
Autumn leaves their signals sending winter’s mark
Beauty colours death

"WHAT have I earned for all that work,' I said,
'For all that I have done at my own charge?
The daily spite of this unmannerly town,
Where who has served the most is most defaned,
The reputation of his lifetime lost
Between the night and morning.  I might have lived,
And you know well how great the longing has been,
Where every day my footfall Should have lit
In the green shadow of Ferrara wall;
Or climbed among the images of the past --
The unperturbed and courtly images --
Evening and morning, the steep street of Urbino
To where the Duchess and her people talked
The stately midnight through until they stood
In their great window looking at the dawn;
I might have had no friend that could not mix
Courtesy and passion into one like those
That saw the wicks grow yellow in the dawn;
I might have used the one substantial right
My trade allows:  chosen my company,
And chosen what scenery had pleased me best.
Thereon my phoenix answered in reproof,
"The drunkards, pilferers of public funds,
All the dishonest crowd I had driven away,
When my luck changed and they dared meet my face,
Crawled from obscurity, and set upon me
Those I had served and some that I had fed;
Yet never have I, now nor any time,
Complained of the people.'
All I could reply
Was:  "You, that have not lived in thought but deed,
Can have the purity of a natural force,
But I, whose virtues are the definitions
Of the analytic mind, can neither close
The eye of the mind nor keep my tongue from speech.'
And yet, because my heart leaped at her words,
I was abashed, and now they come to mind
After nine years, I sink my head abashed.

Tomes of advice
Let alive, in the room of cares
Vehemence, instinct, attuned sighs
Where the powers that be, continue until fared

Are we the ears of purpose?
Set in sides and meandering light
The skill of another, to share the insight of us
Should we enable a dance, of redoubt for might?

My door of adding, as avarice is...
The truth in long glances, with method to move
Thought, the biding hope of when is, bliss
The turn of completeness, the coping hour we have of use?

Lose me in the fold...
The tooth I invoke, is a creation of voice and tone, to total
A resolve of guidance, of kind come for wishes to hold
The grace of unity, if not unique sense, before legend falls

To reproof...
Time in its steady march to liberty, the devotion of fashion
Though a tarter end to hindsight, may be aloof
We confirm the date of simple alacrity, a host of could lasting...

Be the love, of a lifetime...
Of causes redeemed by a curious share
In the superiority of life, to know a callous friendship worth trying
And the impress of duress, driven to cares we ne'er guarantee...?

Unless the cold turn of truth, is towards waiting love
Done distress, marveling need, the common remark of persuasion
In the name of urges, we attest to passions, we grant another covenant
The decision of a soul to keep, knowing a handheld in something besides here's intrusion

All
A day's lot in the careful wishes we seek, for a nary come dwell
Rhapsody, in a courage's stance, the times to live and know a call
To harmony, the burden of thee, assumes patience is ours to tell...

He wears, with me, the charms of love,
exchanging gentle whispers in storms
of fascinated, trembling union.

He shares with me blue velvet nights
of careful and unmeasurable bliss,
and titivates modest morning rebirths.

He cares for me, reproof us not, we make
no show of virtue, or counterfeit innocency,
but partage, in comfort, this open honesty.

If ever were to be modeled here on earth,
one aspect is universal,
any exploration as
to what can be true and what seems thinkable,
has previously had expectation set
to recognize
and expand, as realizable,
in application, skeleton key-ish,
old lock tech common
in empty old buildings
- archer of life lessonings pings -
- -ng all points on the spectrum
and adding perceived Disneyifications
of storied locks, those knowledge
unlocks, always,
as truth frees,
never cursing ought but ignorance,
that such storied locks unlock I- in stages,
we barely remember
our bare first snow
of memories
with others possibly needing
my attention,
to any certain detail, tool, wrench
or spanner time seams leaking
from old skins, tied to tighten
around just right, eh,
weather whether or no,
old soul, so sure you lost your will to win,
then, another breath forces its way in.

--------------

Watching fluffed flakes
of Southern California snow, witnessed
by some, in El Niño years past, just as big as a
little paper doily under a piece of truck stop pie.

At Descanso, and also at Gorman, top of Cajon Pass.

Top of the winding six-percenter
called the grape vine, down
into Bakersfield,
across primeval subsurface saline swamp,
until a while ago, after internal combustion
and electric pumps and radio dispatch police.

Earth, earth, can you hear me now,
how is one old man expecting
to establish a true reason
to believe the cultural corrective aspect
at once, before, as now, all began
occuring because the right hand and left are inhibited,
by not inconsequential inhibitory circuits, inhibiting
unreasonable single mind superiority, internal tyrany
we are under oath to oppose,
as truth in form and function, redeemed words
effectual and fervent reproof of instructions,
taking the Mickey out of Yanks, touting
dis-Disneyification,
relieves
a form of tyranny commonly capable
of ruling a soul committed
to aliegiance and confirmation rituals early enough.

---------------

This then be a future fantasy.
Snowed in, in a Southern California
spring blizzard, blocking the hinterlands.

I sit behind my Tesla wall,
and welcome the test, was it worth it,
what price can one put on winter warmth?

How guilty should I feel for having won,
upon acceptance of the form Jesus was in,

when his word assured me I might rest assured.

Truth known makes free, form is not function.

-----------------

Historicity, I think they call,
mental time travel when you experience
life in a world lit only by fire.

Wonder if, then we think of praying men,
professional preachers of the impending

rapture, which belies all we know of gravity.
Miraculous, no less than the flying white horse,

or the horde of righteous dead coming on, behind.

And even then, there is resistant hate of brothers,
essential to trouble the minds of the greedy rich
and powerful, who constituted this world order,

this very one we live under, or within, in spirit
and in the truth the internet lets prove reproof.

----------------

Enough. We fact check, team spirit.
What can we honestly say we all know?

Six thousand years of written retellings
and retellings, and savage adversarial
herds of prophecy guided god-minded
meek as Moses Phineas knew, true
a certain variety
of the species,
with no regard
for breeding, gravitates to rhetoric
in tune with the pain perceived as needing
rebellion arrousing need --
engage disbelief, let it flow,
out the left ear is fine,
feel
relief, mindlessness
of this hard problem,
what are we about
to do, these days as we pray
with science included in grace,
due to the odds demanding,
a definite bias on Earth, to living,
like grace cheats death into agging
us into freeform ideas for hearts
to conceive as worthy
of cognosis fervency,
as at Eureka instants in prayer.

Truth, none may gainsay truth,
any may and certainly do, lie about what
Truth is behind a universal direct object, set

in the form a free spirit may hold,

not any form smoke cannot pass through,
but the form believers
accept as ours after,
spirit wise, as living words,
death, or out of body reproof
of imagination, a weform, a we,
the shock alone, makes a body think,
woe, this ain't hell but that really hurt,
bang. Same, no worse, and one last time,

I respond , "the Oxycontin is not working",
and time expands, and expands again,
and interest in worth of reason,

appears to judge my plea.
Believe me, death is not scarey, after
finishing a mortal experience in such
a time as this,

freedom from fear of death, is so freeing.
Coherence in mindtimespace is coincidental.

In my realm, any tale worth telling tells itself, backwards…
this is part three under reproof inspection,

we have tools some of us imagined,
perhaps with prodding from what prodded
Heinlein, his version of the Sixties, seen from his fifties;
differs in tech to stretch the realm of possible,

Artist's intuition that women's intuition was a thing
by 1961, the year of the twist,
if I recall Junior High, and who doesn't, eh, as seen on TV.

We were there.
There were those books, You were there at the battle for Bataan

We were there books, 36, a kind of boomer canon
in the southwest, some of us had grands who rode those trails.

But the one I imagine I remembered reading,
We were there at the battle for Bataan,

that can be imagined as a ghost from the cemetery
in Kingman, Arizona, on the actual road
alluded to in rites of passage,
all roads lead
from the middle of nowhere, there's no destination known.

Up on the point,
overlooking my green valley,
if I am an honest man, and I believe I am,
sharp as a tack,
tacky as a fly strip in a butcher shop,

sticky in that ai ai ai madja look gleam meme,
flash of white,
no light, brigh'ness reflected from raven's wings, sure
that is what Castaneda saw, no wu wu needed,

once the plant impresses your kindness,
adsorb absorb soak seep, sniff
wonder, if we may imagine
and we do not, we are as the being who may read and does not.
Or the reader who may write and wishes to be

known for the worth of the lines in threaded time through
changing times, drastic fantastic changes in time
thinking medium
thick syrupy, thicker, honey, honey, how could such excess be?

the proverb, pre installed, tic
Hast thou found honey?
Eat so much as is sufficient for thee.
see
prophecy saying the child shall shall, not will, shall
eat milk and honey until it can, not may, can
sense the fine-ness of the line
the veil, between useful for imaginary things,
how fine the film discerned, imagine that
scratched
with this
so fine a line, that nothing is a thought, with nullness
nought, not infinite, pre-
punctuality, never ceases to happen and now remains, ever.

Thus heav'nward all things tend. For all were once
Perfect, and all must be at length restor'd.
So God has greatly purpos'd; who would else
In his dishonour'd works himself endure
Dishonour, and be wrong'd without redress.
Haste then, and wheel away a shatter'd world,
Ye slow-revolving seasons! We would see
(A sight to which our eyes are strangers yet)
A world that does not dread and hate his laws,
And suffer for its crime: would learn how fair
The creature is that God pronounces good,
How pleasant in itself what pleases him.
Here ev'ry drop of honey hides a sting;
Worms wind themselves into our sweetest flow'rs,
And ev'n the joy, that haply some poor heart
Derives from heav'n, pure as the fountain is,
Is sully'd in the stream; taking a taint
From touch of human lips, at best impure.
Oh for a world in principle as chaste
As this is gross and selfish! over which
Custom and prejudice shall bear no sway,
That govern all things here, should'ring aside
The meek and modest truth, and forcing her
To seek a refuge from the tongue of strife
In nooks obscure, far from the ways of men;
Where violence shall never lift the sword,
Nor cunning justify the proud man's wrong,
Leaving the poor no remedy but tears;
Where he that fills an office shall esteem
The occasion it presents of doing good
More than the perquisite; where law shall speak
Seldom, and never but as wisdom prompts,
And equity; not jealous more to guard
A worthless form, than to decide aright;
Where fashion shall not sanctify abuse,
Nor smooth good-breeding (supplemental grace)
With lean performance ape the work of love....


He is the happy man, whose life ev'n now
Shows somewhat of that happier life to come:
Who, doom'd to an obscure but tranquil state,
Is pleas'd with it, and, were he free to choose,
Would make his fate his choice; whom peace, the fruit
Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith,
Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one
Content indeed to sojourn while he must
Below the skies, but having there his home.
The world o'eriooks him in her busy search
Of objects more illustrious in her view;
And occupied as earnestly as she,
Though more sublimely, he o'erlooks the world.
She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not;
He seeks not hers, for he has prov'd them vain.
He cannot skim the ground like summer birds
Pursuing gilded flies, and such he deems
Her honours, her emoluments, her joys.
Therefore in contemplation is his bliss,
Whose pow'r is such, that whom she lifts from earth
She makes familiar with a heav'n unseen,
And shows him glories yet to be reveal'd....


So life glides smoothly and by stealth away,
More golden than that age of fabled gold
Renown'd in ancient song; not vex'd with care
Or stain'd with guilt, beneficent, approv'd
Of God and man, and peaceful in its end.
So glide my life away! and so at last
My share of duties decently fulfill'd,
May some disease, not tardy to perform
Its destin'd office, yet with gentle stroke,
Dismiss me weary to a safe retreat,
Beneath a turf that I have often trod.
It shall not grieve me, then, that once, when call'd
To dress a sofa with the flow'rs of verse,
I play'd awhile, obedient to the fair,
With that light task; but soon, to please her more,
Whom flow'rs alone I knew would little please,
Let fall th' unfinish'd wreath, and rov'd for fruit;
Rov'd far, and gather'd much: some harsh, 'tis true,
Pick'd from the thorns and briars of reproof,
But wholesome, well digested; grateful some
To palates that can taste immortal truth,
Insipid else, and sure to be despis'd.
But all is in his hand whose praise I seek.
In vain the poet sings, and the world hears,
If he regard not, though divine the theme.
'Tis not in artful measures, in the chime
And idle tinkling of a minstrel's lyre,
To charm his ear whose eye is on the heart;
Whose frown can disappoint the proudest strain,
Whose approbation--prosper ev'n mine.

Thus heav'nward all things tend. For all were once
Perfect, and all must be at length restor'd.
So God has greatly purpos'd; who would else
In his dishonour'd works himself endure
Dishonour, and be wrong'd without redress.
Haste then, and wheel away a shatter'd world,
Ye slow-revolving seasons! We would see
(A sight to which our eyes are strangers yet)
A world that does not dread and hate his laws,
And suffer for its crime: would learn how fair
The creature is that God pronounces good,
How pleasant in itself what pleases him.
Here ev'ry drop of honey hides a sting;
Worms wind themselves into our sweetest flow'rs,
And ev'n the joy, that haply some poor heart
Derives from heav'n, pure as the fountain is,
Is sully'd in the stream; taking a taint
From touch of human lips, at best impure.
Oh for a world in principle as chaste
As this is gross and selfish! over which
Custom and prejudice shall bear no sway,
That govern all things here, should'ring aside
The meek and modest truth, and forcing her
To seek a refuge from the tongue of strife
In nooks obscure, far from the ways of men;
Where violence shall never lift the sword,
Nor cunning justify the proud man's wrong,
Leaving the poor no remedy but tears;
Where he that fills an office shall esteem
The occasion it presents of doing good
More than the perquisite; where law shall speak
Seldom, and never but as wisdom prompts,
And equity; not jealous more to guard
A worthless form, than to decide aright;
Where fashion shall not sanctify abuse,
Nor smooth good-breeding (supplemental grace)

...

He is the happy man, whose life ev'n now
Shows somewhat of that happier life to come:
Who, doom'd to an obscure but tranquil state,
Is pleas'd with it, and, were he free to choose,
Would make his fate his choice; whom peace, the fruit
Of virtue, and whom virtue, fruit of faith,
Prepare for happiness; bespeak him one
Content indeed to sojourn while he must
Below the skies, but having there his home.
The world o'eriooks him in her busy search
Of objects more illustrious in her view;
And occupied as earnestly as she,
Though more sublimely, he o'erlooks the world.
She scorns his pleasures, for she knows them not;
He seeks not hers, for he has prov'd them vain.
He cannot skim the ground like summer birds
Pursuing gilded flies, and such he deems
Her honours, her emoluments, her joys.
Therefore in contemplation is his bliss,
Whose pow'r is such, that whom she lifts from earth
She makes familiar with a heav'n unseen,
And shows him glories yet to be reveal'd.

...

So life glides smoothly and by stealth away,
More golden than that age of fabled gold
Renown'd in ancient song; not vex'd with care
Or stain'd with guilt, beneficent, approv'd
Of God and man, and peaceful in its end.
So glide my life away! and so at last
My share of duties decently fulfill'd,
May some disease, not tardy to perform
Its destin'd office, yet with gentle stroke,
Dismiss me weary to a safe retreat,
Beneath a turf that I have often trod.
It shall not grieve me, then, that once, when call'd
To dress a sofa with the flow'rs of verse,
With that light task; but soon, to please her more,
Whom flow'rs alone I knew would little please,
Let fall th' unfinish'd wreath, and rov'd for fruit;
Rov'd far, and gather'd much: some harsh, 'tis true,
Pick'd from the thorns and briars of reproof,
But wholesome, well digested; grateful some
To palates that can taste immortal truth,
Insipid else, and sure to be despis'd.
But all is in his hand whose praise I seek.
In vain the poet sings, and the world hears,
If he regard not, though divine the theme.
'Tis not in artful measures, in the chime
And idle tinkling of a minstrel's lyre,
To charm his ear whose eye is on the heart;
Whose frown can disappoint the proudest strain,
Whose approbation--prosper ev'n mine.

Who is this who lies in my bed,
That I don't even know?
Who's so messed up within his head,
With nowhere else to go?

Feeding me breakfast poisoned with dreams,
And singing me hope to sleep?
Who then lies awake concocting schemes,
For with my soul to keep?

A master and a villain he be,
Behind an angel's eyes.
Yet he's the fool...it is not me,
I see through his disguise.

You see perception blessed me thrice,
And now I am full aware.
Fool me once, fool me twice,
But again? You best beware!

For I can also lace the truth,
To cut you down to size;
Use your deceit as my reproof,
And justify the lies.

But use my pillow - I'll play the role,
And take my portion double.
Before I snip your twisted soul,
"My pleasure..it's no trouble."

THIS poem is number 800
Of poems I've "published" on various sites.
You might golf, play tennis or paint;
Of me they merely say, "He writes."

Eight hundred poems are a lot
Of poems if you are keeping score.
But bear in mind that poets out there
Have written hundreds or thousands more.

Writing can become a passion--
Something that grasps your innermost being,
That vibrantly exposes your heart
When you try to express what you're seeing.

My approach is sometimes light-hearted
And playful if I am in the mood;
And yet I can be quite serious
And muse on something or ponder or brood.

I often write poems that tell a story.
Call them unsophisticated
If you wish, but frankly I say
Sophistication is overrated.

After observing the world around me,
I sit down and roll up my sleeves
To write, often focusing on
Some of my most annoying pet peeves,

Hypocrisy being ONE of them.
Oh, the slimy hypocrites ooze
Flagrant chicanery, fraud, and pretense,
And every day they're in the news.

Some say, "Leave no turn unstoned."
No, wait: I mean "stone unturned."
And no, you can't please everybody;
That's an important lesson I've learned.

If you've read all 800 poems,
I've taken up a lot of your time.
I hope you've found the journey worthwhile--
This journey through my verses in rhyme.

But if poetry's NOT your thing,
Do not worry; I understand.
You'll receive no criticism,
No reproof, no reprimand.

Therefore, if you've read this far,
Celebrate along with me
This little challenge. Raise your glass
And drink a toast to poetry!

-by Bob B (12-27-18)

as I nearly slept, I nearly
rolled over in my bed, did not,
folded my hands, slumbered on
dreamlessly imagining signals hmmms
Massive
low
notes, accepted as receptible
by my phone with no reply request
acknowledge
accusatory story…, here, I see, okeh

Each sapien sapience, from the womb,
to final dust, despite the mounds of mud,

and opera, werks, shunning sweat,
rear up any child in the way one wishes
that child to grow, see, noble king
one must see those things one wishes
were true,
then rule,
be the head of state itself, the wedom
of all the subjective class, objects
deemed worthless but by thy
grrrace, grunting there is a hell. there is, there is
as it is said Christians must believe,
having as one prays, even now,
those needs, cast off all care,
imagine all debts, all paid,
no offering to prove it
needed, only be
left to see your own way, open eyes, a bitter taste,
aftertaste of wisdom, used as in a spirtual duel,
with a passle of powerful fools, unaware
of the rules, anointed, by truth, dare
prove all things, challenge
the persuader, offer bitter herbs with salt.
Salivate conditioned reflex,
some day all your enemies
feel your own self made up form of love,
and that loving burns their evil minds,
to useful illuminosity, before
catch, grip. holf if, see
ante-cipitates, make each look up,
pledge the believers every day,
good
to go,
so in time, as stages pass,
one knows, this is what my hand
has found to do.

In your service dear reader, thus far,
in our momentary now reality,
between our shared unreal pasts,
in the bubble of we, the people of earth,
attempting to buy the world a coke,
since a certain series of orange acid
during February and March, 1970-
- Chicago. Kesey and Wolfe
- fine weather, for a few days in March

ping vid mind adapts, yes, we re
member seeing something so close
to that exact day at that exact spot,
and the weather
was way worse.

but then I he(a)rd the songs of Mao,
being mys-tried, re sung once more as if
each line was free of debt to Lao Tze
no wei, no secret sacrosanction.
dedeMao, now.
b'n ice geeye ai ai - feel the power
lust right, the drill
will to…
w8
Impulse to cut and run, see a message,
make it stick to the bumper of your cat. Cat.
Tell the world what you are
catalogical,
sorted by did you not wish you knew
rearview, how much of that
do you know,
do you know once, we remember

I did, feel a signal, listen,
think I speak mammoth, listen

in fact, we all did, at the time,
we project that as impossible to prove\
reproof of construe-ition is the way of life
instruction in right use, upgrade scales
praxis co-knowing our each selfish in a
we as a wedom, awesome
by the way life lingers
on topological math,
see,
below the actual band width
of light, white
in the middle see the bones
of the bits, those are from stars,
photons ping touch /percepticons
see-ing
opposition in the future, met today,
hey hey hey
tell me what I say,
that ain't no way to pray,
I done said to each, ever lasting
misconcieved grand spirit of a movement
when the guts of goodnessakesknowswhat
is clogged in curses,
generational debt,
the ruler mind set,
to rob the rich, I was led,
daily I watched the Adventures
of Robin Hood, while I only saw Dragnet
once each week,
ethics of each occur in all boomers, as a wedom,
the first generation born after 1945,
sorted by standardized Dewey measures
of progress. toward becoming
community minded boys and girls,
destined to bring tomorrow by conforming
to the systematized sorting, grading on math
and language arts, then history and science,
then juris prudence for civilians, duty,
- team player drills daily, 40 minutes,
- extracurricular activity choices, weighed

current deception opens green receptors
for signals
to me sent, presently as a gift,
from the queen
of the south.

We assume the idea of gifts, tributes
to k'ki'kn'no'ings, legendary models,
magi conquerors who kept the roads free
of theives and babblers
of goodness only, used as sacramental
kindness made sacred,
bidding you have a mighty fine day.

- is that the Power Farm?
- Circa 1989, HyperCard, crazy easy coding.
- But not so easy as now, finally, harmony,
- knowledge was never what divided
- truth from multitudes of witnesses,
- globally aware more mass shooting than days
- to share with former saints in 2023, so far…
All ye
Religious spirits, little impulsive crossing, muttering
thankyou to the unknown god, higher power, el ultimo.

You know, Wisdom herself, given her due, trueee baby,
too true, knowledge is power, wisdom is might,
stand up, right, perpindicular to the true balance,
prepared, made ready to use thoughts abound,
and turn you around
on a low pressure gyre, rolling up Tornado Alley,
as you imagine it all connects.

It's that hard rain, the poets called,
a seeing from the old'ns,
son, ya got a good eye,

never hesitate to wink, and think, I can see,
should I ever need to give up an eye
for my life's comfortable ends, in mind, my
days of rest --ha, these, after a spectacular

reexamination of metaphors filled with crud,
as seen in plastic sacks of potatoes,
left to sprout and rot, in the dark,
not the slightest snakey lick
of seeing with infra-red, in your head, augmental
conjoining
click… serious speed of recognition instant
cognosis,
we both know, like in a Romcom, how- to movie,
shaping mindsets to put on while in rut.

Historically Christian Nationalist Roots, Cowboy way,
circa the informational slots we slipped by, ran away,

one bought a carnival, one bought charisma seeking,
one bought a vision
through the future to right now. Eh.

How oft must one reset such knowns as nouns,
and names of action words, love, fear, hate, lie, die

Did your mindset bid you challenge

Since 2016, I have my word, I swore, with fervor,
once more eternal hostility
to any form
of tyranny {outside-will control} ever imposed
upon the mind
of mankind, wombed or un, however we be
physically, there is none of that in Christ,
believe your rules of rights use.
Examine the faith that being apes,
who could signal names of things, Adamkind,
pre functional womb model.

He could name things, he could not make babies.
Adamkind, warrior breeds from olden days,
such as fight to entertain the mob in waiting,
fans for flames, founders kenning use
of passionate inflamation to provoke
good works, in the mind of the mob,

vicarious sons of deceiving reasons, come
to call my use of faith proves nothing real.

There are made men using God's name, in vain,
eh, it never works, but it is their religious duty
to think kingly, eh,
too ghuckingoodforoneself, we, Trumpians.
We believe,
we never imagine a war we can't make.

Or a set of actual conspiratorial winds,
with names, familiar spirits, returning winds,
infested with Saharan dust, where once were lush
gardens, back when Greenland was green,
or, so I heard/

Bham harumpharump feel the answer,
pick up the combover, so cool, no care, unaware,

- exposed to the expert in this warfare,
- symbolic marvelous armour,
- for pulling down strongholds, castles,
- silicon solid state preservation cast away
- war in the spirit with historical daemons,
- meeting the neo-Manicheans, word for word…
Ai ai, sir, yessir.
We won a mindtimespace precedent mind state writ,
with the entire child of Arpanet, my second wit,
ready writer motto,
use knowledge right, criticize your story,
sift solidity through cellular security,
finest flakes of self assurance, shine
on
and on as
knowns evil or good.. only the priest can call
foul or fair, there,
excuse you, lawyer
for the defense that there is no vicarage, no live
embodiment
of the intercessor between,
truth's way through life,
and the common dominion
of a certainty,
Your MOTHER IS
BY GOD, ALL CURSES, SHE's

the reason
for your father's rage, generational curses,
daddy wounds,
mommy deprivation, post partum. chaos

love, assuage
woe, soorry, Jesus. But, as has been widely
reported the business
of religion,
by exposing truth
pays a visible wage, shiny smile,
U joint versify,

if we may,
play in the code of life, past any inkling fear
of death,
ducks
in order, will and testament cleared,
read already, ready
to oppose, I suppose, am I.
Logically a state of mind, at the moment.

I callt the efficacy of faith
to call all the outs in.

So we see them on TV, they everywhere,
other people,
OH GOD, why must there be
other people,
oh, my, we may agree,
this answers that,
reasoning, by active faith,
usualized, made common sense.
Why would any sane lover of truth god,
create a forever for enemies of lies?
Belief in spirits opposing truth,
metaphors abound, Kriegspiel on coke,
the real thing, viewers imagine,
watching all the nobles
become naked, and as ugly as any among us.
We see the chins and hairlines in horses,
yet neglect to notice, mustang
herd management, as traits
adjust to new standards,
wild life reset to order.
We realize the riddle,
is the reason, we feel foolish and know it,
U knew, not me, forethought,
morphically resonating
peace, as on a gong
gone
normative,
adjustment bureau wise
sinner's bound in a doctrine
- cut to the gist, there is no sting in death.
- and teaching children to fear death is abuse
- of right authority granted parents
- of loved children, chosen ones, olden days.
Legendary warrior mind, allowed, only if
initiation allows exposure

the daysman lack-
no, look crosswise,'
stripes, whistle, dude
-see, there, the excuse, Job ttalked back.
And Yah, he say, you know, you got that right.
Heysus hisself, look at me he say, I'll go,

become the logical conclusion,
to a story where there was a flaw,
and time threatened to run out, but
the hero, ready to become the tool
to answer a malignant liar with his religion.
Job said to Yah,
you do not know how it feels to put on
a carnal  mind, set by God in Atom's right
to be first
to say this is that…
and one thing leads to another
- you feel the power without knowing
Mysteriously, you,
suddenly seem shy, thinking
how can I say what this is,
you have no right
to say a name Adam did not
say first, we say ****, you say poo,
******* artistic instinkty ways to say, not what
goes in,
corrupts, but what comes out sure can,
that's
gnosishit trustatistical fact according
to science
scent, pre
yours it stinks to, Jesus said.
Brush y'teeth, with Pepsodent to night, be
brite
- visible
knowledge is all good see, so we say we say
good riddle. fit for a king
prone to seek an interpreter of signs and sigils.

A trained cadre of bright boys, as runners,
or senders,
senders using drum and fife, to lead,
trumpet to send, and banners,
to rally round on our side,
whose sigil is that? Do we aid or raid
the edges, scavenge strategy
from the dead.
Live to tell, as I the lone survivor,
I who slew the king at his request, please
believe me
I never steer you to wrong.

Letters flow qwerty wise,
let it happen in the fingers fit to the task,

take a little walk, listen
to a story, sit a while and wish the
enemy were here to enjoy the ease,
beyond the bliss of ignoring,
past the weight worth standing under,
to the home imagined right in time
to finish in December, 2021, one thing
done.

Search any phrase of life, and find answers
to unasked questions, regard-iding lying done
id est as when it is, totally Scriptural moral- wise
right in such a time as once

when some liars who held fast to prophesy
hired the guy who rode the wild ***,
which cognosisadictattenti sorts say
the darnedest things, strecht
stitch in time
Art of Linking Letters, Art Linkletter,
as regular a lunchtime mind flush with a chuckle
and nod at the secrets children can
claim to publicly believe, but ….

the link was to the stay-at-home mom,
not her peer's latch-key kids in allegiance prep,
who get home each day,
for a solo home run heads up on,

who did what on the news, since last night.
Wait, when did Kid Parrett buy the farm,
for more lasting fame than many
in the game, of vicarious triggerers of revenge
reaction, action ready
wha, wham
I a,am sh…za'am is a real rebbiwort, glaubtgut
Jesus
do u read Seuss, still, a quest, mark, take,
leave, ask best bet, take
chance…
look away. Beulah land,
then Beulah see, wise black nanny guide from non-
nodded off, witty, pretty sweety Mary
poppin' clap off pop
stand and deliver, let it be
sistarepistol packin' mama, whoa
Sister,
I did not think to ask, have you been this far? Before?

It may hurt to tell ourselves the truth
To seek out our imperfections
And mark them not for reproof
But for the chance to self-improve
It may sting to hear the facts
May cause our spirits to crack
But we can build our foundations back
And be better for the truth
Cause we are never better for its' lack

no one this day shall say they stood aloof
when the new rose first came into fresh flower
and none dared crush the bloom beneath a hoof

we would have faced a certain harsh reproof
no long before but all changed in an hour
no one this day shall say they stood aloof

nor that the entire fabric warp and woof
had stayed the same new blossom in each bower
and none dared crush the bloom beneath a hoof

for fear of learning just how great the goof
would harm the doer dread would them devour
no one this day shall say they stood aloof

the acts are real we see that there's no spoof
of change or meaning the old world we scour
and none dared crush the bloom beneath a hoof

today we saw the crowds from every roof
acclaim as honour took the seat of power
no one this day shall say they stood aloof
and none dared crush the bloom beneath a hoof

Poetry that pulls ...
Me to the soils of the earth
Awakening my soul
Giving life, giving birth

Poetry you feel...
I can't see it, but it's real
An invisible emotional force
Raw and filled with discourse

A core of deadly silence
That holds..
Holds forever..
To my heartstrings
To my violence

Forced to observe ..
Never to surrender..

The center of the poet's being
Filled with fire, magma, depth and gleam
A depth that no other force can deter
It grips, aches, symbolizes ...stirs

We know it is there
We know it is true
The core inside the core
Is the core inside of you

Poetry that holds vast ...
Shapes our futures, shapes our pasts ...
This is the strength of verse
To engage, to immerse

In such a way that reality crumbles...
Thus it keeps us rare, keeps us humble

Providing sanity...

                                        ..truth?

This is the prevailing darkness, the revelations, the reproof.

Pull me to myself. Keep me close to my identity.

Don't    let     me    slip    away . . . . . .

A reproof of scarlet riviera  
darken its seance that acclaim unforetold entrance
of lactose hence virtual lecture,
edifice with preponderance in guidance if hesitation
ready hinders them entertained by inordinate *** and
whether garish is gruesome for glutenesque and
intricately hard to maintain as their distraction is subliminal
that pain is debilitating and overwhelming in modern lifestyle.

You are gathered with your friends
to play a board game
called "What Next"
Four people total, Including you.

First, the person with brown hair
and blue eyes to your right,
filled with HATrEd,
withdraws a card and
deciphers its MYstery:

"You are lost
at sea on a wooden
catamaran. There are others
with you. The phone that shows
where to turn is broken.
How will you unMASK
the land?"

The pitiful one across
from you whispers
the answer: "Unlock
the old, rusted telescope."

It is the pitiful
one's turn, who reads
with self-reproof, "You are on
an island. The boy child
with a broken glass face,
exposing the fire
in HIS head, looks
at you accusingly.
How do you extinguish
the volcano?"

Raising a hand in ANGER
is the disdainful person
with brown hair, who yells,
"Punish the boy child!
His SCARS will never heal!"
The loving soul in red
smiles and says: "Wrong,
you silly creature.
You solve the MYthical puzzle
by joining the flesh
on the boy child's FACE."

It is now THE loving
one's turn to select
a card (the ticket?), done
with a GENTLE flick of the
delicate wrist. One singing
VOICE chimed, "Spoiled farmer
makes you confine the
bamboozled man that names
your strengths. He
SUGGESTS
THAT
the befuddled
has already been put away.
How can you possibly
solve the Conundrum?"

You must answer. Relax!
I order you! Find the solution!
The patriarch has ordered it!
Or else you MUST walk through
a curtain of falling bullets
showering down.
It is the only ESCAPE
back to the beginning.

Kerry Herrmann