But some good Triton-god had ruth, and bare
The boy’s drowned body back to Grecian land,
And mermaids combed his dank and dripping hair
And smoothed his brow, and loosed his clenching hand;
Some brought sweet spices from far Araby,
And others bade the halcyon sing her softest lullaby.

And when he neared his old Athenian home,
A mighty billow rose up suddenly
Upon whose oily back the clotted foam
Lay diapered in some strange fantasy,
And clasping him unto its glassy breast
Swept landward, like a white-maned steed upon a venturous quest!

Now where Colonos leans unto the sea
There lies a long and level stretch of lawn;
The rabbit knows it, and the mountain bee
For it deserts Hymettus, and the Faun
Is not afraid, for never through the day
Comes a cry ruder than the shout of shepherd lads at play.

But often from the thorny labyrinth
And tangled branches of the circling wood
The stealthy hunter sees young Hyacinth
Hurling the polished disk, and draws his hood
Over his guilty gaze, and creeps away,
Nor dares to wind his horn, or—else at the first break of day

The Dryads come and throw the leathern ball
Along the reedy shore, and circumvent
Some goat-eared Pan to be their seneschal
For fear of bold Poseidon’s ravishment,
And loose their girdles, with shy timorous eyes,
Lest from the surf his azure arms and purple beard should rise.

On this side and on that a rocky cave,
Hung with the yellow-belled laburnum, stands
Smooth is the beach, save where some ebbing wave
Leaves its faint outline etched upon the sands,
As though it feared to be too soon forgot
By the green rush, its playfellow,—and yet, it is a spot

So small, that the inconstant butterfly
Could steal the hoarded money from each flower
Ere it was noon, and still not satisfy
Its over-greedy love,—within an hour
A sailor boy, were he but rude enow
To land and pluck a garland for his galley’s painted prow,

Would almost leave the little meadow bare,
For it knows nothing of great pageantry,
Only a few narcissi here and there
Stand separate in sweet austerity,
Dotting the unmown grass with silver stars,
And here and there a daffodil waves tiny scimitars.

Hither the billow brought him, and was glad
Of such dear servitude, and where the land
Was ****** of all waters laid the lad
Upon the golden margent of the strand,
And like a lingering lover oft returned
To kiss those pallid limbs which once with intense fire burned,

Ere the wet seas had quenched that holocaust,
That self-fed flame, that passionate lustihead,
Ere grisly death with chill and nipping frost
Had withered up those lilies white and red
Which, while the boy would through the forest range,
Answered each other in a sweet antiphonal counter-change.

And when at dawn the wood-nymphs, hand-in-hand,
Threaded the bosky dell, their satyr spied
The boy’s pale body stretched upon the sand,
And feared Poseidon’s treachery, and cried,
And like bright sunbeams flitting through a glade
Each startled Dryad sought some safe and leafy ambuscade.

Save one white girl, who deemed it would not be
So dread a thing to feel a sea-god’s arms
Crushing her ******* in amorous tyranny,
And longed to listen to those subtle charms
Insidious lovers weave when they would win
Some fenced fortress, and stole back again, nor thought it sin

To yield her treasure unto one so fair,
And lay beside him, thirsty with love’s drouth,
Called him soft names, played with his tangled hair,
And with hot lips made havoc of his mouth
Afraid he might not wake, and then afraid
Lest he might wake too soon, fled back, and then, fond renegade,

Returned to fresh assault, and all day long
Sat at his side, and laughed at her new toy,
And held his hand, and sang her sweetest song,
Then frowned to see how froward was the boy
Who would not with her maidenhood entwine,
Nor knew that three days since his eyes had looked on Proserpine;

Nor knew what sacrilege his lips had done,
But said, ‘He will awake, I know him well,
He will awake at evening when the sun
Hangs his red shield on Corinth’s citadel;
This sleep is but a cruel treachery
To make me love him more, and in some cavern of the sea

Deeper than ever falls the fisher’s line
Already a huge Triton blows his horn,
And weaves a garland from the crystalline
And drifting ocean-tendrils to adorn
The emerald pillars of our bridal bed,
For sphered in foaming silver, and with coral crowned head,

We two will sit upon a throne of pearl,
And a blue wave will be our canopy,
And at our feet the water-snakes will curl
In all their amethystine panoply
Of diamonded mail, and we will mark
The mullets swimming by the mast of some storm-foundered bark,

Vermilion-finned with eyes of bossy gold
Like flakes of crimson light, and the great deep
His glassy-portaled chamber will unfold,
And we will see the painted dolphins sleep
Cradled by murmuring halcyons on the rocks
Where Proteus in quaint suit of green pastures his monstrous
flocks.

And tremulous opal-hued anemones
Will wave their purple fringes where we tread
Upon the mirrored floor, and argosies
Of fishes flecked with tawny scales will thread
The drifting cordage of the shattered wreck,
And honey-coloured amber beads our twining limbs will deck.’

But when that baffled Lord of War the Sun
With gaudy pennon flying passed away
Into his brazen House, and one by one
The little yellow stars began to stray
Across the field of heaven, ah! then indeed
She feared his lips upon her lips would never care to feed,

And cried, ‘Awake, already the pale moon
Washes the trees with silver, and the wave
Creeps grey and chilly up this sandy dune,
The croaking frogs are out, and from the cave
The nightjar shrieks, the fluttering bats repass,
And the brown stoat with hollow flanks creeps through the dusky
grass.

Nay, though thou art a god, be not so coy,
For in yon stream there is a little reed
That often whispers how a lovely boy
Lay with her once upon a grassy mead,
Who when his cruel pleasure he had done
Spread wings of rustling gold and soared aloft into the sun.

Be not so coy, the laurel trembles still
With great Apollo’s kisses, and the fir
Whose clustering sisters fringe the seaward hill
Hath many a tale of that bold ravisher
Whom men call Boreas, and I have seen
The mocking eyes of Hermes through the poplar’s silvery sheen.

Even the jealous Naiads call me fair,
And every morn a young and ruddy swain
Woos me with apples and with locks of hair,
And seeks to soothe my virginal disdain
By all the gifts the gentle wood-nymphs love;
But yesterday he brought to me an iris-plumaged dove

With little crimson feet, which with its store
Of seven spotted eggs the cruel lad
Had stolen from the lofty sycamore
At daybreak, when her amorous comrade had
Flown off in search of berried juniper
Which most they love; the fretful wasp, that earliest vintager

Of the blue grapes, hath not persistency
So constant as this simple shepherd-boy
For my poor lips, his joyous purity
And laughing sunny eyes might well decoy
A Dryad from her oath to Artemis;
For very beautiful is he, his mouth was made to kiss;

His argent forehead, like a rising moon
Over the dusky hills of meeting brows,
Is crescent shaped, the hot and Tyrian noon
Leads from the myrtle-grove no goodlier spouse
For Cytheraea, the first silky down
Fringes his blushing cheeks, and his young limbs are strong and
brown;

And he is rich, and fat and fleecy herds
Of bleating sheep upon his meadows lie,
And many an earthen bowl of yellow curds
Is in his homestead for the thievish fly
To swim and drown in, the pink clover mead
Keeps its sweet store for him, and he can pipe on oaten reed.

And yet I love him not; it was for thee
I kept my love; I knew that thou would’st come
To rid me of this pallid chastity,
Thou fairest flower of the flowerless foam
Of all the wide AEgean, brightest star
Of ocean’s azure heavens where the mirrored planets are!

I knew that thou would’st come, for when at first
The dry wood burgeoned, and the sap of spring
Swelled in my green and tender bark or burst
To myriad multitudinous blossoming
Which mocked the midnight with its mimic moons
That did not dread the dawn, and first the thrushes’ rapturous
tunes

Startled the squirrel from its granary,
And cuckoo flowers fringed the narrow lane,
Through my young leaves a sensuous ecstasy
Crept like new wine, and every mossy vein
Throbbed with the fitful pulse of amorous blood,
And the wild winds of passion shook my slim stem’s maidenhood.

The trooping fawns at evening came and laid
Their cool black noses on my lowest boughs,
And on my topmost branch the blackbird made
A little nest of grasses for his spouse,
And now and then a twittering wren would light
On a thin twig which hardly bare the weight of such delight.

I was the Attic shepherd’s trysting place,
Beneath my shadow Amaryllis lay,
And round my trunk would laughing Daphnis chase
The timorous girl, till tired out with play
She felt his hot breath stir her tangled hair,
And turned, and looked, and fled no more from such delightful
snare.

Then come away unto my ambuscade
Where clustering woodbine weaves a canopy
For amorous pleasaunce, and the rustling shade
Of Paphian myrtles seems to sanctify
The dearest rites of love; there in the cool
And green recesses of its farthest depth there is pool,

The ouzel’s haunt, the wild bee’s pasturage,
For round its rim great creamy lilies float
Through their flat leaves in verdant anchorage,
Each cup a white-sailed golden-laden boat
Steered by a dragon-fly,—be not afraid
To leave this wan and wave-kissed shore, surely the place was made

For lovers such as we; the Cyprian Queen,
One arm around her boyish paramour,
Strays often there at eve, and I have seen
The moon strip off her misty vestiture
For young Endymion’s eyes; be not afraid,
The panther feet of Dian never tread that secret glade.

Nay if thou will’st, back to the beating brine,
Back to the boisterous billow let us go,
And walk all day beneath the hyaline
Huge vault of Neptune’s watery portico,
And watch the purple monsters of the deep
Sport in ungainly play, and from his lair keen Xiphias leap.

For if my mistress find me lying here
She will not ruth or gentle pity show,
But lay her boar-spear down, and with austere
Relentless fingers string the cornel bow,
And draw the feathered notch against her breast,
And loose the arched cord; aye, even now upon the quest

I hear her hurrying feet,—awake, awake,
Thou laggard in love’s battle! once at least
Let me drink deep of passion’s wine, and slake
My parched being with the nectarous feast
Which even gods affect!  O come, Love, come,
Still we have time to reach the cavern of thine azure home.’

Scarce had she spoken when the shuddering trees
Shook, and the leaves divided, and the air
Grew conscious of a god, and the grey seas
Crawled backward, and a long and dismal blare
Blew from some tasselled horn, a sleuth-hound bayed,
And like a flame a barbed reed flew whizzing down the glade.

And where the little flowers of her breast
Just brake into their milky blossoming,
This murderous paramour, this unbidden guest,
Pierced and struck deep in horrid chambering,
And ploughed a ****** furrow with its dart,
And dug a long red road, and cleft with winged death her heart.

Sobbing her life out with a bitter cry
On the boy’s body fell the Dryad maid,
Sobbing for incomplete virginity,
And raptures unenjoyed, and pleasures dead,
And all the pain of things unsatisfied,
And the bright drops of crimson youth crept down her throbbing
side.

Ah! pitiful it was to hear her moan,
And very pitiful to see her die
Ere she had yielded up her sweets, or known
The joy of passion, that dread mystery
Which not to know is not to live at all,
And yet to know is to be held in death’s most deadly thrall.

But as it hapt the Queen of Cythere,
Who with Adonis all night long had lain
Within some shepherd’s hut in Arcady,
On team of silver doves and gilded wain
Was journeying Paphos-ward, high up afar
From mortal ken between the mountains and the morning star,

And when low down she spied the hapless pair,
And heard the Oread’s faint despairing cry,
Whose cadence seemed to play upon the air
As though it were a viol, hastily
She bade her pigeons fold each straining plume,
And dropt to earth, and reached the strand, and saw their dolorous
doom.

For as a gardener turning back his head
To catch the last notes of the linnet, mows
With careless scythe too near some flower bed,
And cuts the thorny pillar of the rose,
And with the flower’s loosened loneliness
Strews the brown mould; or as some shepherd lad in wantonness

Driving his little flock along the mead
Treads down two daffodils, which side by aide
Have lured the lady-bird with yellow brede
And made the gaudy moth forget its pride,
Treads down their brimming golden chalices
Under light feet which were not made for such rude ravages;

Or as a schoolboy tired of his book
Flings himself down upon the reedy grass
And plucks two water-lilies from the brook,
And for a time forgets the hour glass,
Then wearies of their sweets, and goes his way,
And lets the hot sun **** them, even go these lovers lay.

And Venus cried, ‘It is dread Artemis
Whose bitter hand hath wrought this cruelty,
Or else that mightier maid whose care it is
To guard her strong and stainless majesty
Upon the hill Athenian,—alas!
That they who loved so well unloved into Death’s house should
pass.’

So with soft hands she laid the boy and girl
In the great golden waggon tenderly
(Her white throat whiter than a moony pearl
Just threaded with a blue vein’s tapestry
Had not yet ceased to throb, and still her breast
Swayed like a wind-stirred lily in ambiguous unrest)

And then each pigeon spread its milky van,
The bright car soared into the dawning sky,
And like a cloud the aerial caravan
Passed over the AEgean silently,
Till the faint air was troubled with the song
From the wan mouths that call on bleeding Thammuz all night long.

But when the doves had reached their wonted goal
Where the wide stair of orbed marble dips
Its snows into the sea, her fluttering soul
Just shook the trembling petals of her lips
And passed into the void, and Venus knew
That one fair maid the less would walk amid her retinue,

And bade her servants carve a cedar chest
With all the wonder of this history,
Within whose scented womb their limbs should rest
Where olive-trees make tender the blue sky
On the low hills of Paphos, and the Faun
Pipes in the noonday, and the nightingale sings on till dawn.

Nor failed they to obey her hest, and ere
The morning bee had stung the daffodil
With tiny fretful spear, or from its lair
The waking stag had leapt across the rill
And roused the ouzel, or the lizard crept
Athwart the sunny rock, beneath the grass their bodies slept.

And when day brake, within that silver shrine
Fed by the flames of cressets tremulous,
Queen Venus knelt and prayed to Proserpine
That she whose beauty made Death amorous
Should beg a guerdon from her pallid Lord,
And let Desire pass across dread Charon’s icy ford.

Outside the miner's shack Joshua trees stand silent vigil,
expecting his imminent return, or perhaps his ghost.
Horn silver, weathered by rainwater from volcanic rock,
no longer strews fallow ground to lure the miner back.

In lieu, small succulents feed tortoise and jackrabbit,
replace the metal which only men could value.
Nevada gains a confluence of life in the exchange,
dry-lake flora and fauna bartered for chlorargyrite.

Barren mountains surround this desolation,
where nothing more than fungi lie in vapid dissipation
before the relentless punishment of the sun,
a lattice-work of valleys dissecting their *****.

I ventured here to purge my body of poisons,
exhale the vapors and biles of city living,
to rid the alien presence in my mitochondria,
and let it go the way of Silver State.

On winter nights beside the nursery fire
We read the fairy tale, while glowing coals
Builded its pictures. There before our eyes
We saw the vaulted hall of traceried stone
Uprear itself, the distant ceiling hung
With pendent stalactites like frozen vines;
And all along the walls at intervals,
Curled upwards into pillars, roses climbed,
And ramped and were confined, and clustered leaves
Divided where there peered a laughing face.
The foliage seemed to rustle in the wind,
A silent murmur, carved in still, gray stone.
High pointed windows pierced the southern wall
Whence proud escutcheons flung prismatic fires
To stain the tessellated marble floor
With pools of red, and quivering green, and blue;
And in the shade beyond the further door,
Its sober squares of black and white were hid
Beneath a restless, shuffling, wide-eyed mob
Of lackeys and retainers come to view
The Christening.
A sudden blare of trumpets, and the throng
About the entrance parted as the guests
Filed singly in with rare and precious gifts.
Our eager fancies noted all they brought,
The glorious, unattainable delights!
But always there was one unbidden guest
Who cursed the child and left it bitterness.


The fire falls asunder, all is changed,
I am no more a child, and what I see
Is not a fairy tale, but life, my life.
The gifts are there, the many pleasant things:
Health, wealth, long-settled friendships, with a name
Which honors all who bear it, and the power
Of making words obedient. This is much;
But overshadowing all is still the curse,
That never shall I be fulfilled by love!
Along the parching highroad of the world
No other soul shall bear mine company.
Always shall I be teased with semblances,
With cruel impostures, which I trust awhile
Then dash to pieces, as a careless boy
Flings a kaleidoscope, which shattering
Strews all the ground about with coloured shards.
So I behold my visions on the ground
No longer radiant, an ignoble heap
Of broken, dusty glass. And so, unlit,
Even by hope or faith, my dragging steps
Force me forever through the passing days.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
****** her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The ****’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening-care;
No children run to lisp their sire’s return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke:
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If Memory o’er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle, and fretted vault,
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn, or animated bust,
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour’s voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre;

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of Time, did ne’er unroll;
Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood.

Th’ applause of list’ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation’s eyes,

Their lot forbad: nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the Gates of Mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse’s flame.

Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev’n these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th’ unlettered Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e’er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing ling’ring look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev’n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Ev’n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of th’ unhonoured dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate,—

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say
“Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn;

“There at the foot of yonder nodding beech,
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noon-tide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

“Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Mutt’ring his wayward fancies would he rove;
Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.

“One morn I missed him from the customed hill,
Along the heath, and near his fav’rite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he:

“The next, with dirges due in sad array
Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne,—
Approach and read, for thou can’st read, the lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.”

                THE EPITAPH

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth
A Youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown:
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery (all he had) a tear,
He gained from Heaven (’twas all he wished) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose,)
The ***** of his Father and his God.

266

This—is the land—the Sunset washes—
These—are the Banks of the Yellow Sea—
Where it rose—or whither it rushes—
These—are the Western Mystery!

Night after Night
Her purple traffic
Strews the landing with Opal Bales—
Merchantmen—poise upon Horizons—
Dip—and vanish like Orioles!

I
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

       II
Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measures destined for her soul.

       III
Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.
He moved among us, as a muttering king,
Magnificent, would move among his hinds,
Until our blood, commingling, virginal,
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star.
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

       IV
She says, "I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?-"
There is not any haunt of prophesy,
Nor any old chimera of the grave,
Neither the golden underground, nor isle
Melodious, where spirits gat them home,
Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm
Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured
As April's green endures; or will endure
Like her remembrance of awakened birds,
Or her desire for June and evening, tipped
By the consummation of the swallow's wings.

       V
She says, "But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss.-"
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths,
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness,
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

       VI
Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set the pear upon those river banks
Alas, that they should wear our colors there,
The silken weavings of our afternoons,
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning ***** we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

       VII
Supple and turbulent, a ring of men
Shall chant in **** on a summer morn
Their boisterous devotion to the sun,
Not as a god, but as a god might be,
Naked among them, like a savage source.
Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,
Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,
The windy lake wherein their lord delights,
The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,
That choir among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

       VIII
She hears, upon that water without sound,
A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirits lingering.
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.-"
We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

What do my memories taste like? There lies on my tongue—
An atomic bomb:
a purported speck, with no chicken pox skin situated upon such.
I spat it out; I wobbled on and on, stomping the microscopic intensity into the sludge.
No one sees; how pleasant…

My shoe’s underside slit it— a paper cut broiled to the infinitude degree—
Preposterous conundrum! Slam!
I fulminate! I screech, the needy baby I am!
My guttural heave strews in the wind:
deformed limbs on the newer generations, an abysmal thread.

Supposedly bland, but then: a guzzling bleed from you and I gushes on and on; but oh, was it needed!
Listen to my writhing! Soak in my curdling roaring!

I am the mafia mastermind, but I plead to guilt!
The vandalism cannot be grated, but I will
revamp, spot clean, and hunt for a vaccine.
I cannot cure a scored scar, but rest assured:
I will endeavor to solidify the clot.

Our footsteps echo through ancient halls,
                where here is everywhere
        and every time is now.

Caesar’s twin-edged conquests are our own
                as is Brutus’s fickle knife
        and Marc Anthony’s cunning speech.

Plague steals across our Europe
                like a remorseless highwayman -
        rosies all ringed and falling down.

We wait in Wien's Kärntnertor theater
                for Schiller’s An die Freude    
        to shine anew in Beethoven’s score

and are ushered in at Menlo Park
                where Edison's tungsten faintly glows.
        Tomorrow will bring sun to the night.

There's Jonas Salk at his microscope.
                One more test will crack the code
        to banish polio's scourge.

But nature’s caprice strews logs on our roads.
                We are dashed by a Tsunami’s rage.
        Katrina’s torrents have swallowed our homes.

Prides of warriors wade rivers of blood  
                and Darfur bullets tear into our chests.
        Nuclear Toys ‘R Us shelves are fully stocked.

We are the heirs of each triumph and treachery.
                We grasp the keys to tomorrow.
        What have we done? What must we do?

A lonely god
sits and waits
for dust
to rise like
   smoke.
A weaver threads
his loom of life
with spun gold:
a glorious
   display --
a sower strews
his seeds by hand;
mother earth lets them
   take root.
The phoenix rises
from the ash,
   all aflame
and feathers red.
And still the
lonely god does wait
for breath to take
and keep him
   company.

Adam and Eve

Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths, ...
--from Wallace Stevens' "Sunday Morning"

In Eden fair did Adam and Eve
live in perfect harmony.

"No plant or animal devoureth we,
only ripe fruit as falls from the tree."

By bright-green lily-pads in sphagnum bogs
the herons waded gracefully,
bullfrogs croaked their deep, clear calls;
bluebells, delicate yellow buttercups
were rampant; larks sang in the mulberries.

"No pain or hunger knew we there,
only the sameness of Eden fair."

Even the bounty, the beauty, the civility,
the rich perfection, stretching out like the wall
of the great oval garden, day after day,
year after year to eternity,
grew tiresome.

"No shame in our nakedness knew we ...
nor lust, nor desire, nor carnality."

It's the exogamous, the unfamiliar,
which stirs in us the deepest passion,
the basso continuo of mortality
which gives to desire its piquancy
--of which they knew nothing in deathless Eden.

"We wanted to look outside the wall.
We didn't mean from God's grace to fall."

Their lack of control, their disrespect
invited tragedy....
But to deny what one feels,
to deny what one is
is to risk even greater calamity....

"God expelled us from the Garden.
Now we'll know death and all that's human."

Discord ... despair.... Are you better off?
Coaxing grain from the cracked, parched earth?
Maybe you paid too much for your freedom?...
Maybe you wish you were back in the Garden?...

"There be good inside the Garden;
there be good outside....
There is no perfect Eden."

This morning, I dream of a birch tree bench
upon which she strews jars of sea glass,
filled with blues and greens or something inbetween.

Sunlight shifting like prismarine snakeskin,
shed where sky meets eye, dyes the white wood underneath
in bisecting lines that ripple and breathe.

Thumbing at sea glass, I see her smile, circa redress,
in a pile of polaroids passed over the wood by
hands neither she nor I possess.

And then I see me, my head leaned into hers,
two gray trees grown too free. Hairs tangle and end
centimeters from the edge of the bed.

We look
together.
That’s when I cry.

Beneath two trees planted too close,
below silver halide wiping blue and green from her eyes,
in black ink that's yet to dry, she leaves a note
that I can’t read
because
this is a dream
and we were the lie.

Part I: The Elegy of the ******

O we all hail from the pits of ashes, coals, and tar
And crawled out from the crater, of that northern cold star

All ye heart’s wish is to stand in the pope’s grand pulpit
All souls unknowingly swindled, ye vainly submit!

Then, if apes be to humans and humans be to gods;
Unto stones we spit out our apostasies and sobs

We strip our skins to this detestable madness,
From darkness once lurked, we go back with ill fondness

So we adorn ourselves with profane golden idols
On our hands, feet, and neck; to cover our vile souls

And ye stab thine own neighbor, to fulfill thine own ploys
Thou hath betrayed thyself, for that thirty silver coins

As a putrefied heart turn to a hardened stone,
So it breaks into dust, as gusts of shame strews it alone

Woe to me! How do I redeem my lost poor soul?
If the wroth Maker hath already taken my toll

what could she say for me to lose you ... ?
i'm in a war against keep
fighting an army of loose truth
& if you win, who loses ?
& if you lose, do I approve blue ?
it isn't sane for me to choose clues
over an ocean of proved truth

what do I lose if I lose you ?
all of my come-trues
have become you
& if you lose me, do you lose ?
I'm not this someone to hold onto
we can expand views if you choose to
open a window or your mouth
either will do
not to confuse strews with don't do's
I am through with all this proving
I'm a wanter wanting all of you
ensuing all this sousing

A house of cards since torn apart
And spirits broke before restarting.
A crow, whose ****** circles fast
Smells decay now from afar.

The marrow picked, and bleed, once tasted,
Fills the guts of those who've stuffed.
And fumbled in a greasy til
And still want more.
Insatiable. Craven.

Now rats who race to break the bones
Do hurry and scurry to survey these heaps,
All corners kept
quietly
questioning Questioning,
Festering, Venturing
these treacherous tendencies.

What once caused irk
now drives berserk
in shadows lurk acquiescent clerks.
Whose duteous work,
Cloyed wolves 'mongst herds,
venerate without exertion.

Can't *** the plants to break enchantment.
Now rubble strews the once green pastures,
Serpentine, exiled from gardens,
This concrete tomb, once womb of Gaea.

How barren plains once bloomed; need rain.
Her balding dusty broken frame
Now chokes with hate for beast with brain
Who slash deep wounds in soft terrain
Contempt, with only glutenous gain.
They reign.

When morose cloud mourns
why it showers heavy rains
it sheds tears of melancholy
to me why it hurts and pains

when the uncle sun is furious
why it excretes red fireballs
its heat scorches all creators
every one prays for rainfalls

when stars glimmer in darkness
why their smile is so ecstatic
avid children behold them fervently
since naughty smile is so fantastic

when aunt moon shines at night
why it strews hue of its moonlight
cosmos is enthusiastic to shower
and enjoys an amazing delight

when the flowers bloom in valley
why they tempt with its fragrance
all creatures dance enthusiastically
and adore its eternal perseverance

when bumble-bee kisses a flower
it falls in love and gathers honey
then jocular bumble-bee flies away
but their love story is so funny

when nature has blessed us all
with so beautiful and catchy gifts
why it happens that human life
takes so many turns and twists

(By Kishan Negi)

"Where did you go ? " he asked
"In your album", she replied. " you're the collector , aren't you?
" you collect everything:
Sunsets, clouds, melting snow
Falling stars, shadows,
fireflies in jars
butterflies in nets
feelings,
hurts, regrets
loves
lovers ........
You throw a hook and cut a slice out of them, for keepsake
and render them useless,
like clipped nails....

and then you preserve them
mummified and exalted like they were never when alive
each sentiment, pickled in the brine of your words
each encounter , framed and hung in the museum of "could haves"

But I,
I am the soil.
I can never collect!
I only renew.
I drizzle rain of tears and draw minerals out of my darkest depths
I soak in everything that the cosmos strews at me
I shed the leaves of expectations at each fall
and let my pain rot to fertilize my womb
I nurture and protect hope,
so that it grows, blossoms, gives fruit.

I many not have anything to show
for what I've been through,
like you....
but the birds come back to sing
in me. "

Arshia
21.4.16

Siesta, angelic music
strews holy words in my ears

draws them on the front and the back
in relief in the auricles. Am I dozing

or has someone awakened
the flowers? I lie so comfortably

in the sun, safe in the green
field, my face blushes blue

from the royal chalice between my legs
the flowers just laugh and sing

The work is done, yes I doze
of holiness

Roses sing their colours
loud with joy.
as she walks around the garden,
St Therese strews her promise,
"to send roses from heaven"

Assembled by Ryan P. Kinney
From works by Gabriella Ercolani, Dr. Benjamin Anthony, Heather Munn, Vicki Acquah, Tanya Pilumeli
Additional original content by Ryan P. Kinney

Bewildered is the conscience of a dancer
whose unified self wishes to remain true
to a lover,
to family,
a social circle.
Yet a facet of the face must make love
to the masses;
each hungry audience that idolizes the mask,
she slowly exposes.

Then he saw the little movements where her belly was and now were taut muscles barely holding back guts and little faces with eyes shut snakes tiny tongues clicking, tails wrapping around

Atlantic waves
Soothing
Tsunami crashes; my mental health strews memory about like road sand.

A child asks for two dollars
To help me from his heart-
My maintenance software
Opens to error messages-
"Man pushes glasses up
On his nose-incidentally";

Resistance subdued
Take her then
Junk in the corner
She's worthless to me

This is no kindness in this man.
He is gluttony incarnate.
Consumption just to flaunt his aristocracy to the peasant.

You enter the world empty-handed and you will leave it empty-handed.

She has a quite pride in self
as Autumn strews her path with gold
these trees bestow bronzed silver wealth
on these who are the wealth of worlds.

One can see in her prideful strides
this proclamation " I am woman!"
a sisterhood the whole world wide
reaching back to their birth of man.

And so it was across the veldt
ten times ten thousand years ago
those yesterdays the claimed and owned
a vastly gleaming womb of gold.

They walked their way to Bethlehem
gave lowly birthing for a king
a thousand years with each small step
I see them all here, still, walking.

We've composed a myriad hymns
to sing their praises, for their dance,
we never met I never knew
but they all kissed me, with her glance.

Once a Christmas

The sun was blood red looked like a big wound
on the flank of an elephant shot by poachers.
Dripped blood on white, wholly cloud which slowly
turns red as the bandage of a fatally shot soldier
who slowly dies of his wounds?
His eyes turned into a mirror of the cold sky.
In the air is torn into puffs of powder an ambulance
comes to an abrupt halt, a man on the ***** floor
surrounded by presents for his family, his eyes
reflects the absurdity of a Yule decorated supermarket.
His wife will get a voucher.
As I drive home, a bag of night opens and strews its
soothing darkness over the land, but nearby
an anguished elephant has its tusks sawn off by a dentist.

Cold weather front

A few good days fooled us the cold weather returned we thought it was
early spring. I worried if my almond tree had its buds been damaged
and will not bloom and strews petals on the lane,
the illusion of frost, the princes in the tower saw in the fairy tale.
The fire in the grate is exuding warmth the dog no one owns snoozes in a chair,
no, the heart to throw it out
I’m not a tree hugger, but give trees a friendly slap
a sucker for the down and out bought a chicken for a Roma women
begging outside, the guard said, “you must not feed
them” like they should be vermin.
I love my almond tree reminded me of my mother when she was old,
so sweet her face in her frailty.