by John Greenleaf Whittier  (1807 – 1892)

“As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not only by the Divine Light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood fire: and as the celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same.”

        COR. AGRIPPA,
           Occult Philosophy, Book I. chap. v.

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow; and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.”

                                       EMERSON

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east; we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, —
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd’s-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold’s pole of birch,
The **** his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro,
Crossed and recrossed the wingàd snow:
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature’s geometric signs,
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below, —
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden-wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant spendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa’s leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted: “Boys, a path!”
Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy
Count such a summons less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low,
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness through.
And, where the drift was deepest, made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp’s supernal powers.
We reached the barn with merry din,
And roused the prisoned brutes within.
The old horse ****** his long head out,
And grave with wonder gazed about;
The **** his ***** greeting said,
And forth his speckled harem led;
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,
And mild reproach of hunger looked;
The hornëd patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt’s Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.

All day the gusty north-wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before;
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.
No church-bell lent its Christian tone
To the savage air, no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.
A solitude made more intense
By dreary-voicëd elements,
The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind,
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.
Beyond the circle of our hearth
No welcome sound of toil or mirth
Unbound the spell, and testified
Of human life and thought outside.
We minded that the sharpest ear
The buried brooklet could not hear,
The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to us companionship,
And, in our lonely life, had grown
To have an almost human tone.

As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank,
We piled, with care, our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back, —
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art

The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.
The crane and pendent trammels showed,
The Turks’ heads on the andirons glowed;
While childish fancy, prompt to tell
The meaning of the miracle,
Whispered the old rhyme: “Under the tree,
When fire outdoors burns merrily,
There the witches are making tea.”

The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood
Transfigured in the silver flood,
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the sombre green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light,
Which only seemed where’er it fell
To make the coldness visible.

Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north-wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost-line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed;
The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat’s dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger’s seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons’ straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October’s wood.

What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north-wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could quench our hearth-fire’s ruddy glow.
O Time and Change! — with hair as gray
As was my sire’s that winter day,
How strange it seems, with so much gone
Of life and love, to still live on!
Ah, brother! only I and thou
Are left of all that circle now, —
The dear home faces whereupon
That fitful firelight paled and shone.
Henceforward, listen as we will,
The voices of that hearth are still;
Look where we may, the wide earth o’er,
Those lighted faces smile no more.

We tread the paths their feet have worn,
We sit beneath their orchard trees,
We hear, like them, the hum of bees
And rustle of the bladed corn;
We turn the pages that they read,
Their written words we linger o’er,
But in the sun they cast no shade,
No voice is heard, no sign is made,
No step is on the conscious floor!
Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust,
(Since He who knows our need is just,)
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress-trees!
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marbles play!
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,
That Life is ever lord of Death,
And Love can never lose its own!

We sped the time with stories old,
Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told,
Or stammered from our school-book lore
“The Chief of Gambia’s golden shore.”
How often since, when all the land
Was clay in Slavery’s shaping hand,
As if a far-blown trumpet stirred
Dame Mercy Warren’s rousing word:
“Does not the voice of reason cry,
Claim the first right which Nature gave,
From the red scourge of ******* to fly,
Nor deign to live a burdened slave!”
Our father rode again his ride
On Memphremagog’s wooded side;
Sat down again to moose and samp
In trapper’s hut and Indian camp;
Lived o’er the old idyllic ease
Beneath St. François’ hemlock-trees;
Again for him the moonlight shone
On Norman cap and bodiced zone;
Again he heard the violin play
Which led the village dance away.
And mingled in its merry whirl
The grandam and the laughing girl.
Or, nearer home, our steps he led
Where Salisbury’s level marshes spread
Mile-wide as flies the laden bee;
Where merry mowers, hale and strong,
Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along
The low green prairies of the sea.
We shared the fishing off Boar’s Head,
And round the rocky Isles of Shoals
The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals;
The chowder on the sand-beach made,
Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot,
With spoons of clam-shell from the ***.
We heard the tales of witchcraft old,
And dream and sign and marvel told
To sleepy listeners as they lay
Stretched idly on the salted hay,
Adrift along the winding shores,
When favoring breezes deigned to blow
The square sail of the gundelow
And idle lay the useless oars.

Our mother, while she turned her wheel
Or run the new-knit stocking-heel,
Told how the Indian hordes came down
At midnight on Concheco town,
And how her own great-uncle bore
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.
Recalling, in her fitting phrase,
So rich and picturesque and free
(The common unrhymed poetry
Of simple life and country ways,)
The story of her early days, —
She made us welcome to her home;
Old hearths grew wide to give us room;
We stole with her a frightened look
At the gray wizard’s conjuring-book,
The fame whereof went far and wide
Through all the simple country side;
We heard the hawks at twilight play,
The boat-horn on Piscataqua,
The loon’s weird laughter far away;
We fished her little trout-brook, knew
What flowers in wood and meadow grew,
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down,
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay,
The ducks’ black squadron anchored lay,
And heard the wild-geese calling loud
Beneath the gray November cloud.
Then, haply, with a look more grave,
And soberer tone, some tale she gave
From painful Sewel’s ancient tome,
Beloved in every Quaker home,
Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom,
Or Chalkley’s Journal, old and quaint, —
Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint! —
Who, when the dreary calms prevailed,
And water-**** and bread-cask failed,
And cruel, hungry eyes pursued
His portly presence mad for food,
With dark hints muttered under breath
Of casting lots for life or death,

Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies,
To be himself the sacrifice.
Then, suddenly, as if to save
The good man from his living grave,
A ripple on the water grew,
A school of porpoise flashed in view.
“Take, eat,” he said, “and be content;
These fishes in my stead are sent
By Him who gave the tangled ram
To spare the child of Abraham.”
Our uncle, innocent of books,
Was rich in lore of fields and brooks,
The ancient teachers never dumb
Of Nature’s unhoused lyceum.
In moons and tides and weather wise,
He read the clouds as prophecies,
And foul or fair could well divine,
By many an occult hint and sign,
Holding the cunning-warded keys
To all the woodcraft mysteries;
Himself to Nature’s heart so near
v That all her voices in his ear
Of beast or bird had meanings clear,
Like Apollonius of old,
Who knew the tales the sparrows told,
Or Hermes, who interpreted
What the sage cranes of Nilus said;
A simple, guileless, childlike man,
Content to live where life began;
Strong only on his native grounds,
The little world of sights and sounds
Whose girdle was the parish bounds,
Whereof his fondly partial pride
The common features magnified,
As Surrey hills to mountains grew
In White of Selborne’s loving view, —
He told how teal and loon he shot,
And how the eagle’s eggs he got,
The feats on pond and river done,
The prodigies of rod and gun;
Till, warming with the tales he told,
Forgotten was the outside cold,
The bitter wind unheeded blew,
From ripening corn the pigeons flew,
The partridge drummed i’ the wood, the mink
Went fishing down the river-brink.
In fields with bean or clover gay,
The woodchuck, like a hermit gray,
Peered from the doorway of his cell;
The muskrat plied the mason’s trade,
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid;
And from the shagbark overhead
The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell.

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer
And voice in dreams I see and hear, —
The sweetest woman ever Fate
Perverse denied a household mate,
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less
Found peace in love’s unselfishness,
And welcome wheresoe’er she went,
A calm and gracious element,
Whose presence seemed the sweet income
And womanly atmosphere of home, —
Called up her girlhood memories,
The huskings and the apple-bees,
The sleigh-rides and the summer sails,
Weaving through all the poor details
And homespun warp of circumstance
A golden woof-thread of romance.
For well she kept her genial mood
And simple faith of maidenhood;
Before her still a cloud-land lay,
The mirage loomed across her way;
The morning dew, that dries so soon
With others, glistened at her noon;
Through years of toil and soil and care,
From glossy tress to thin gray hair,
All unprofaned she held apart
The ****** fancies of the heart.
Be shame to him of woman born
Who hath for such but thought of scorn.
There, too, our elder sister plied
Her evening task the stand beside;
A full, rich nature, free to trust,
Truthful and almost sternly just,
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a fact,
Keeping with many a light disguise
The secret of self-sacrifice.

O heart sore-tried! thou hast the best
That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest,
Rest from all bitter thoughts and things!
How many a poor one’s blessing went
With thee beneath the low green tent
Whose curtain never outward swings!

As one who held herself a part
Of all she saw, and let her heart
Against the household ***** lean,
Upon the motley-braided mat
Our youngest and our dearest sat,
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes,
Now bathed in the unfading green
And holy peace of Paradise.
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill,
Or from the shade of saintly palms,
Or silver reach of river calms,
Do those large eyes behold me still?
With me one little year ago: —
The chill weight of the winter snow
For months upon her grave has lain;
And now, when summer south-winds blow
And brier and harebell bloom again,
I tread the pleasant paths we trod,
I see the violet-sprinkled sod
Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak
The hillside flowers she loved to seek,
Yet following me where’er I went
With dark eyes full of love’s content.
The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills
The air with sweetness; all the hills
Stretch green to June’s unclouded sky;
But still I wait with ear and eye
For something gone which should be nigh,
A loss in all familiar things,
In flower that blooms, and bird that sings.
And yet, dear heart! remembering thee,
Am I not richer than of old?
Safe in thy immortality,
What change can reach the wealth I hold?
What chance can mar the pearl and gold
Thy love hath left in trust with me?
And while in life’s late afternoon,
Where cool and long the shadows grow,
I walk to meet the night that soon
Shall shape and shadow overflow,
I cannot feel that thou art far,
Since near at need the angels are;
And when the sunset gates unbar,
Shall I not see thee waiting stand,
And, white against the evening star,
The welcome of thy beckoning hand?

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,
The master of the district school
Held at the fire his favored place,
Its warm glow lit a laughing face
Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared
The uncertain prophecy of beard.
He teased the mitten-blinded cat,
Played cross-pins on my uncle’s hat,
Sang songs, and told us what befalls
In classic Dartmouth’s college halls.
Born the wild Northern hills among,
From whence his yeoman father wrung
By patient toil subsistence scant,
Not competence and yet not want,
He early gained the power to pay
His cheerful, self-reliant way;
Could doff at ease his scholar’s gown
To peddle wares from town to town;
Or through the long vacation’s reach
In lonely lowland districts teach,
Where all the droll experience found
At stranger hearths in boarding round,
The moonlit skater’s keen delight,
The sleigh-drive through the frosty night,
The rustic party, with its rough
Accompaniment of blind-man’s-buff,
And whirling-plate, and forfeits paid,
His winter task a pastime made.
Happy the snow-locked homes wherein
He tuned his merry violin,

Or played the athlete in the barn,
Or held the good dame’s winding-yarn,
Or mirth-provoking versions told
Of classic legends rare and old,
Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome
Had all the commonplace of home,
And little seemed at best the odds
‘Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods;
Where Pindus-born Arachthus took
The guise of any grist-mill brook,
And dread Olympus at his will
Became a huckleberry hill.

A careless boy that night he seemed;
But at his desk he had the look
And air of one who wisely schemed,
And hostage from the future took
In trainëd thought and lore of book.
Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he
Shall Freedom’s young apostles be,
Who, following in War’s ****** trail,
Shall every lingering wrong assail;
All chains from limb and spirit strike,
Uplift the black and white alike;
Scatter before their swift advance
The darkness and the ignorance,
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth,
Which nurtured Treason’s monstrous growth,
Made ****** pastime, and the hell
Of prison-torture possible;
The cruel lie of caste refute,
Old forms remould, and substitute
For Slavery’s lash the freeman’s will,
For blind routine, wise-handed skill;
A school-house plant on every hill,
Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence
The quick wires of intelligence;
Till North and South together brought
Shall own the same electric thought,
In peace a common flag salute,
And, side by side in labor’s free
And unresentful rivalry,
Harvest the fields wherein they fought.

Another guest that winter night
Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light.
Unmarked by time, and yet not young,
The honeyed music of her tongue
And words of meekness scarcely told
A nature passionate and bold,

Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide,
Its milder features dwarfed beside
Her unbent will’s majestic pride.
She sat among us, at the best,
A not unfeared, half-welcome guest,
Rebuking with her cultured phrase
Our homeliness of words and ways.
A certain pard-like, treacherous grace
Swayed the lithe limbs and drooped the lash,
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash;
And under low brows, black with night,
Rayed out at times a dangerous light;
The sharp heat-lightnings of her face
Presaging ill to him whom Fate
Condemned to share her love or hate.
A woman tropical, intense
In thought and act, in soul and sense,
She blended in a like degree
The ***** and the devotee,
Revealing with each freak or feint
The temper of Petruchio’s Kate,
The raptures of Siena’s saint.
Her tapering hand and rounded wrist
Had facile power to form a fist;
The warm, dark languish of her eyes
Was never safe from wrath’s surprise.
Brows saintly calm and lips devout
Knew every change of scowl and pout;
And the sweet voice had notes more high
And shrill for social battle-cry.

Since then what old cathedral town
Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown,
What convent-gate has held its lock
Against the challenge of her knock!
Through Smyrna’s plague-hushed thoroughfares,
Up sea-set Malta’s rocky stairs,
Gray olive slopes of hills that hem
Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem,
Or startling on her desert throne
The crazy Queen of Lebanon
With claims fantastic as her own,
Her tireless feet have held their way;
And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray,
She watches under Eastern skies,
With hope each day renewed and fresh,
The Lord’s quick coming in the flesh,
Whereof she dreams and prophesies!
Where’er her troubled path may be,
The Lord’s sweet pity with her go!
The outward wayward life we see,
The hidden springs we may not know.
Nor is it given us to discern
What threads the fatal sisters spun,
Through what ancestral years has run
The sorrow with the woman born,
What forged her cruel chain of moods,
What set her feet in solitudes,
And held the love within her mute,
What mingled madness in the blood,
A life-long discord and annoy,
Water of tears with oil of joy,
And hid within the folded bud
Perversities of flower and fruit.
It is not ours to separate
The tangled skein of will and fate,
To show what metes and bounds should stand
Upon the soul’s debatable land,
And between choice and Providence
Divide the circle of events;
But He who knows our frame is just,
Merciful and compassionate,
And full of sweet assurances
And hope for all the language is,
That He remembereth we are dust!

At last the great logs, crumbling low,
Sent out a dull and duller glow,
The bull’s-eye watch that hung in view,
Ticking its weary circuit through,
Pointed with mutely warning sign
Its black hand to the hour of nine.
That sign the pleasant circle broke:
My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke,
Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray,
And laid it tenderly away;
Then roused himself to safely cover
The dull red brands with ashes over.
And while, with care, our mother laid
The work aside, her steps she stayed
One moment, seeking to express
Her grateful sense of happiness
For food and shelter, warmth and health,
And love’s contentment more than wealth,
With simple wishes (not the weak,
Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek,
But such as warm the generous heart,
O’er-prompt to do with Heaven its part)
That none might lack, that bitter night,
For bread and clothing, warmth and light.

Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.
Of merry voices high and clear;
And saw the teamsters drawing near
To break the drifted highways out.
Down the long hillside treading slow
We saw the half-buried oxen go,
Shaking the snow from heads uptost,
Their straining nostrils white with frost.
Before our door the straggling train
Drew up, an added team to gain.
The elders threshed their hands a-cold,
Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes
From lip to lip; the younger folks
Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled,
Then toiled again the cavalcade
O’er windy hill, through clogged ravine,
And woodland paths that wound between
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed.
From every barn a team afoot,
At every house a new recruit,
Where, drawn by Nature’s subtlest law,
Haply the watchful young men saw
Sweet doorway pictures of the curls
And curious eyes of merry girls,
Lifting their hands in mock defence
Against the snow-ball’s compliments,
And reading in each missive tost
The charm with Eden never lost.
We heard once more the sleigh-bells’ sound;
And, following where the teamsters led,
The wise old Doctor went his round,
Just pausing at our door to say,
In the brief autocratic way
Of one who, prompt at Duty’s call,
Was free to urge her claim on all,
That some poor neighbor sick abed
At night our mother’s aid would need.
For, one in generous thought and deed,
What mattered in the sufferer’s sight
The Quaker matron’s inward light,
The Doctor’s mail of Calvin’s creed?
All hearts confess the saints elect
Who, twain in faith, in love agree,
And melt not in an acid sect
The Christian pearl of charity!

So days went on: a week had passed
Since the great world was heard from last.
The Almanac we studied o’er,
Read and reread our little store
Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score;
One harmless novel, mostly hid
From younger eyes, a book forbid,
And poetry, (or good or bad,
A single book was all we had,)
Where Ellwood’s meek, drab-skirted Muse,
A stranger to the heathen Nine,
Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine,
The wars of David and the Jews.
At last the floundering carrier bore
The village paper to our door.
Lo! broadening outward as we read,
To warmer zones the horizon spread
In panoramic length unrolled
We saw the marvels that it told.
Before us passed the painted Creeks,
A   nd daft McGregor on his raids
In Costa Rica’s everglades.
And up Taygetos winding slow
Rode Ypsilanti’s Mainote Greeks,
A Turk’s head at each saddle-bow!
Welcome to us its week-old news,
Its corner for the rustic Muse,
Its monthly gauge of snow and rain,
Its record, mingling in a breath
The wedding bell and dirge of death:
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale,
The latest culprit sent to jail;
Its hue and cry of stolen and lost,
Its vendue sales and goods at cost,
And traffic calling loud for gain.
We felt the stir of hall and street,
The pulse of life that round us beat;
The chill embargo of the snow
Was melted in the genial glow;
Wide swung again our ice-locked door,
And all the world was ours once more!

Clasp, Angel of the backword look
And folded wings of ashen gray
And voice of echoes far away,
The brazen covers of thy book;
The weird palimpsest old and vast,
Wherein thou hid’st the spectral past;
Where, closely mingling, pale and glow
The characters of joy and woe;
The monographs of outlived years,
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears,
Green hills of life that ***** to death,
And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees
Shade off to mournful cypresses
With the white amaranths underneath.
Even while I look, I can but heed
The restless sands’ incessant fall,
Importunate hours that hours succeed,
Each clamorous with its own sharp need,
And duty keeping pace with all.
Shut down and clasp with heavy lids;
I hear again the voice that bids
The dreamer leave his dream midway
For larger hopes and graver fears:
Life greatens in these later years,
The century’s aloe flowers to-day!

Yet, haply, in some lull of life,
Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,
The worldling’s eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends — the few
Who yet remain — shall pause to view
These Flemish pictures of old days;
Sit with me by the homestead hearth,
And stretch the hands of memory forth
To warm them at the wood-fire’s blaze!
And thanks untraced to lips unknown
Shall greet me like the odors blown
From unseen meadows newly mown,
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;
The traveller owns the grateful sense
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare
The benediction of the air.

Written in  1865

Nay but you, who do not love her,
  Is she not pure gold, my mistress?
Holds earth aught—speak truth—above her?
  Aught like this tress, see, and this tress,
And this last fairest tress of all,
So fair, see, ere I let it fall?
Because, you spend your lives in praising;
  To praise, you search the wide world over:
Then why not witness, calmly gazing,
  If earth holds aught—speak truth—above her?
Above this tress, and this, I touch
But cannot praise, I love so much!

By glance upon the emerald dale
a laird rides 'pon the crest
Grasping in his calloused hand
a Faerie Maiden's tress.

One tress for infinity,
two cut for grace divine.
Three tresses for the Trinity,
and four for wealth of time.
Five beats of a Sparrow's wing,
Gets six maidens pon your perch.
Seven for good luck in life,
Eight for endless mirth.

The pompous laird rode proudly on,
Unwary of a Siren's song.
She led him to the river's edge,
And scalped him come the breaking dawn.

her dress flies round her face and I have been born in this way
that my rages there die

it has been foretold by secret ladybugs whirring 
whom I lend to my beloved when I kiss her to soothe her 
that my rages there die

I have taken fingers from 'round the rising angel away
and her dress flies round her face and I have been borne in this way

donkey in the barn who dreams of gold,  O wind upon his beloved's ears
where ruby thighs of folded flesh and blood of wars comes Spring

odd and beautiful flowers are sprung

braids of mud embrace the skin of those who bray on the knee of their masters
where rivers of blood the Buddha swims pink fizz and whirling bone
such tears sublime is leadgun simple clowned and winged socratic
godself poison mimicry of war's shred and burr let the hearts and minds fall droplet to ground
let the war dead drink their own rain
oval is the yawn of the sun and burly shadows weep sockets
where new flowers shall grow odd and beautiful pollen 
shall spring

children dream of trapeze birds laughing grinning rising falling at last into the ground 
how they learn that splendor and love is  ironic ascension 

odd and beautiful flowers 
thunderous rivers of blood the Bluebird sings the echoes
let the Bluebird sing of death no less than the crack of birth from egg
are sprung
oddly flowers beautiful
I pick a ***, for her, of goblin flowers,
       where sunbeam ponies she so loved high whinny.
     may the fat bees strum and wild ponies make love,
and baby birds grow big in kind hands of powerful trees
     may the meadow where she lies
pray through all, who need, there be pollen of eyes that hear
 
pale flower godmath raiment lay me rise me
let the Bluebird sing of death
I am mighty upon the breast my true dreams press
but when she weeps at my inconsolable rages
an angel I wish would swim bursts into me naked 
here is a rain from my thoughts where she walks 
with her cello and my bow
Limber seas and mountain dew blood of many tenderly writhe
viscous streams the dove in heaven tells sadly in sleep bends down the  brow each new soldier child 

pale flower godmath raiment lay me rise me
let the Bluebird sing of death
let the sun crack where the dead man peels my flesh from my hands trying to say goodbye 
let the wardead lift up their mouths their oval grins let them drink their own rain

the plaster dreams of dreary kings 
fall not round my hips and the whine of whips are far beyond the cello of lovely nights
her ******* and her thighs have forsaken the numberless dismal rains
upon these fluffy newborn children we lay our heads like down upon the duck in the dusk
upon soft pillows Buddha madly drumming Jesus spinning rain
the ducklings race and the pond seeks no moon nor sun
where lovers' beloveds swim

oingo boingo holes in hands of Jesus and Buddha rivet the godsun of baby bird eyes 
it has been foretold by secret ladybugs whirring 
whom I lend to my beloved when I kiss her to soothe her 
that my rages there die

for upon the last day that I live I shall see the true sky
upon the opened eye of the pastel lids of a new bird born dying

let me raise my veins and tendons 
from my fingers shall grasp the mother birds a math of upswoop 
let there be terrible storms of beauty let the donkey in barn who dreams of gold find love
a daisy sun and upon this I try forevermore to ascend when I kiss my beloved
there shall be terrible storms of beauty 

I have taken fingers from 'round the rising angel away
and her dress flies round her face and I have been born in this way
but there upon the mountain where a once fiery stormy river raged in dawns restless pounding
tumorous thoughts of old men whose young bodies give birth to themselves
abortion of souls by songs of flags' lie they shimmering
upon the upraised red streaked fingers of hybrid monster theories
vultures and the rats grow fat with existentialist jacking
brays ***** across their yellowed rivers  

their tears are hidden to them the way simple men come with axes
when the automatic weapons run dry melting
each rising atomic thing shall escape alone and search for its brethren
each hyena must dance naked in rain the last day
on a highway no child's cry can cease

let the sun crack where the dead man peels my flesh from my hands
trying to say goodbye and let them lift their mouths up and drink their rain
my love's ******* and thighs have forsaken the numberless dismal rains
upon our fluffy newborn child we lay our heads down upon
soft pillows 

take the glowing wafting breads of autumn and winter shall lay down no more
let me drink from the socket of the tender pastel ****** of death
where the baby wren dreams long after it has fallen and risen again 

where battlefields leave wisdom come Spring in odd and beautiful flowers

meadows arise with great fury my flesh and mountains and valleys cease their separation
there are many daisies and bumble bee songs in the heart of each unborn child
each young girl touches when she watches the ponies and the daffodils sway

giant head of death ambitious reminiscence
a red mud land of untold photon castles that tremble in the night
where the owlet gathers its fat body like goblets of scotch in the night
rancorous blackberry swaying tress of my true love's ******* 
where fingers of god the costume of moon is dew

I have taken fingers from 'round the rising angel away
and her dress flies round her face and I have been born in this way
where Buddha slides the eggplant curve and night falls, deep, into the ground
where battlefields leave wisdom come Spring through odd and beautiful flowers

where oingo boingo turtle eyes beam from the holes of Jesus
lay me mighty at my own feet


and her dress flies round her face and I have been born in this way
rancorous blackberry swaying tress of my true love's ******* 
where fingers of god the costume of moon is dew where Buddha slides the eggplant curve
night falls deep into the ground
oddly flowers beautiful


I pick a ***, for her, of goblin flowers,
       where sunbeam ponies she so loved high whinny.
My garden yet is filled with merry powers.
I pick a ***, for her, of goblin flowers.
May Jesus hold her, run with her, play with her.
Last night I heard my puppy's eyes dying fly.
I pick a ***, for her, of goblin flowers,
       where sunbeam ponies she so loved high whinny.
 








.

ENDYMION.

A Poetic Romance.

"THE STRETCHED METRE OF AN AN ANTIQUE SONG."
INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS CHATTERTON.

Book I

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

  Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast,
They alway must be with us, or we die.

  Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own vallies: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end.
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and ****.

  Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread
A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed
So plenteously all ****-hidden roots
Into o'er-hanging boughs, and precious fruits.
And it had gloomy shades, sequestered deep,
Where no man went; and if from shepherd's keep
A lamb strayed far a-down those inmost glens,
Never again saw he the happy pens
Whither his brethren, bleating with content,
Over the hills at every nightfall went.
Among the shepherds, 'twas believed ever,
That not one fleecy lamb which thus did sever
From the white flock, but pass'd unworried
By angry wolf, or pard with prying head,
Until it came to some unfooted plains
Where fed the herds of Pan: ay great his gains
Who thus one lamb did lose. Paths there were many,
Winding through palmy fern, and rushes fenny,
And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly
To a wide lawn, whence one could only see
Stems thronging all around between the swell
Of turf and slanting branches: who could tell
The freshness of the space of heaven above,
Edg'd round with dark tree tops? through which a dove
Would often beat its wings, and often too
A little cloud would move across the blue.

  Full in the middle of this pleasantness
There stood a marble altar, with a tress
Of flowers budded newly; and the dew
Had taken fairy phantasies to strew
Daisies upon the sacred sward last eve,
And so the dawned light in pomp receive.
For 'twas the morn: Apollo's upward fire
Made every eastern cloud a silvery pyre
Of brightness so unsullied, that therein
A melancholy spirit well might win
Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine
Into the winds: rain-scented eglantine
Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun;
The lark was lost in him; cold springs had run
To warm their chilliest bubbles in the grass;
Man's voice was on the mountains; and the mass
Of nature's lives and wonders puls'd tenfold,
To feel this sun-rise and its glories old.

  Now while the silent workings of the dawn
Were busiest, into that self-same lawn
All suddenly, with joyful cries, there sped
A troop of little children garlanded;
Who gathering round the altar, seemed to pry
Earnestly round as wishing to espy
Some folk of holiday: nor had they waited
For many moments, ere their ears were sated
With a faint breath of music, which ev'n then
Fill'd out its voice, and died away again.
Within a little space again it gave
Its airy swellings, with a gentle wave,
To light-hung leaves, in smoothest echoes breaking
Through copse-clad vallies,--ere their death, oer-taking
The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea.

  And now, as deep into the wood as we
Might mark a lynx's eye, there glimmered light
Fair faces and a rush of garments white,
Plainer and plainer shewing, till at last
Into the widest alley they all past,
Making directly for the woodland altar.
O kindly muse! let not my weak tongue faulter
In telling of this goodly company,
Of their old piety, and of their glee:
But let a portion of ethereal dew
Fall on my head, and presently unmew
My soul; that I may dare, in wayfaring,
To stammer where old Chaucer used to sing.

  Leading the way, young damsels danced along,
Bearing the burden of a shepherd song;
Each having a white wicker over brimm'd
With April's tender younglings: next, well trimm'd,
A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks
As may be read of in Arcadian books;
Such as sat listening round Apollo's pipe,
When the great deity, for earth too ripe,
Let his divinity o'er-flowing die
In music, through the vales of Thessaly:
Some idly trailed their sheep-hooks on the ground,
And some kept up a shrilly mellow sound
With ebon-tipped flutes: close after these,
Now coming from beneath the forest trees,
A venerable priest full soberly,
Begirt with ministring looks: alway his eye
Stedfast upon the matted turf he kept,
And after him his sacred vestments swept.
From his right hand there swung a vase, milk-white,
Of mingled wine, out-sparkling generous light;
And in his left he held a basket full
Of all sweet herbs that searching eye could cull:
Wild thyme, and valley-lilies whiter still
Than Leda's love, and cresses from the rill.
His aged head, crowned with beechen wreath,
Seem'd like a poll of ivy in the teeth
Of winter ****. Then came another crowd
Of shepherds, lifting in due time aloud
Their share of the ditty. After them appear'd,
Up-followed by a multitude that rear'd
Their voices to the clouds, a fair wrought car,
Easily rolling so as scarce to mar
The freedom of three steeds of dapple brown:
Who stood therein did seem of great renown
Among the throng. His youth was fully blown,
Shewing like Ganymede to manhood grown;
And, for those simple times, his garments were
A chieftain king's: beneath his breast, half bare,
Was hung a silver bugle, and between
His nervy knees there lay a boar-spear keen.
A smile was on his countenance; he seem'd,
To common lookers on, like one who dream'd
Of idleness in groves Elysian:
But there were some who feelingly could scan
A lurking trouble in his nether lip,
And see that oftentimes the reins would slip
Through his forgotten hands: then would they sigh,
And think of yellow leaves, of owlets cry,
Of logs piled solemnly.--Ah, well-a-day,
Why should our young Endymion pine away!

  Soon the assembly, in a circle rang'd,
Stood silent round the shrine: each look was chang'd
To sudden veneration: women meek
Beckon'd their sons to silence; while each cheek
Of ****** bloom paled gently for slight fear.
Endymion too, without a forest peer,
Stood, wan, and pale, and with an awed face,
Among his brothers of the mountain chase.
In midst of all, the venerable priest
Eyed them with joy from greatest to the least,
And, after lifting up his aged hands,
Thus spake he: "Men of Latmos! shepherd bands!
Whose care it is to guard a thousand flocks:
Whether descended from beneath the rocks
That overtop your mountains; whether come
From vallies where the pipe is never dumb;
Or from your swelling downs, where sweet air stirs
Blue hare-bells lightly, and where prickly furze
Buds lavish gold; or ye, whose precious charge
Nibble their fill at ocean's very marge,
Whose mellow reeds are touch'd with sounds forlorn
By the dim echoes of old Triton's horn:
Mothers and wives! who day by day prepare
The scrip, with needments, for the mountain air;
And all ye gentle girls who foster up
Udderless lambs, and in a little cup
Will put choice honey for a favoured youth:
Yea, every one attend! for in good truth
Our vows are wanting to our great god Pan.
Are not our lowing heifers sleeker than
Night-swollen mushrooms? Are not our wide plains
Speckled with countless fleeces? Have not rains
Green'd over April's lap? No howling sad
Sickens our fearful ewes; and we have had
Great bounty from Endymion our lord.
The earth is glad: the merry lark has pour'd
His early song against yon breezy sky,
That spreads so clear o'er our solemnity."

  Thus ending, on the shrine he heap'd a spire
Of teeming sweets, enkindling sacred fire;
Anon he stain'd the thick and spongy sod
With wine, in honour of the shepherd-god.
Now while the earth was drinking it, and while
Bay leaves were crackling in the fragrant pile,
And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright
'Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy light
Spread greyly eastward, thus a chorus sang:

  "O THOU, whose mighty palace roof doth hang
From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth
Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death
Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress
Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken;
And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken
The dreary melody of bedded reeds--
In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds
The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth;
Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth
Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx--do thou now,
By thy love's milky brow!
By all the trembling mazes that she ran,
Hear us, great Pan!

  "O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles
Passion their voices cooingly '**** myrtles,
What time thou wanderest at eventide
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side
Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom
Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom
Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow girted bees
Their golden honeycombs; our village leas
Their fairest-blossom'd beans and poppied corn;
The chuckling linnet its five young unborn,
To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries
Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies
Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year
All its completions--be quickly near,
By every wind that nods the mountain pine,
O forester divine!

  "Thou, to whom every fawn and satyr flies
For willing service; whether to surprise
The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit;
Or upward ragged precipices flit
To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw;
Or by mysterious enticement draw
Bewildered shepherds to their path again;
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
And gather up all fancifullest shells
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping;
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,
The while they pelt each other on the crown
With silvery oak apples, and fir cones brown--
By all the echoes that about thee ring,
Hear us, O satyr king!

  "O Hearkener to the loud clapping shears,
While ever and anon to his shorn peers
A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn,
When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn
Anger our huntsman: Breather round our farms,
To keep off mildews, and all weather harms:
Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds,
That come a swooning over hollow grounds,
And wither drearily on barren moors:
Dread opener of the mysterious doors
Leading to universal knowledge--see,
Great son of Dryope,
The many that are come to pay their vows
With leaves about their brows!

  Be still the unimaginable lodge
For solitary thinkings; such as dodge
Conception to the very bourne of heaven,
Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven,
That spreading in this dull and clodded earth
Gives it a touch ethereal--a new birth:
Be still a symbol of immensity;
A firmament reflected in a sea;
An element filling the space between;
An unknown--but no more: we humbly screen
With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending,
And giving out a shout most heaven rending,
Conjure thee to receive our humble Paean,
Upon thy Mount Lycean!

  Even while they brought the burden to a close,
A shout from the whole multitude arose,
That lingered in the air like dying rolls
Of abrupt thunder, when Ionian shoals
Of dolphins bob their noses through the brine.
Meantime, on shady levels, mossy fine,
Young companies nimbly began dancing
To the swift treble pipe, and humming string.
Aye, those fair living forms swam heavenly
To tunes forgotten--out of memory:
Fair creatures! whose young children's children bred
Thermopylæ its heroes--not yet dead,
But in old marbles ever beautiful.
High genitors, unconscious did they cull
Time's sweet first-fruits--they danc'd to weariness,
And then in quiet circles did they press
The hillock turf, and caught the latter end
Of some strange history, potent to send
A young mind from its ****** tenement.
Or they might watch the quoit-pitchers, intent
On either side; pitying the sad death
Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath
Of Zephyr slew him,--Zephyr penitent,
Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament,
Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain.
The archers too, upon a wider plain,
Beside the feathery whizzing of the shaft,
And the dull twanging bowstring, and the raft
Branch down sweeping from a tall ash top,
Call'd up a thousand thoughts to envelope
Those who would watch. Perhaps, the trembling knee
And frantic gape of lonely Niobe,
Poor, lonely Niobe! when her lovely young
Were dead and gone, and her caressing tongue
Lay a lost thing upon her paly lip,
And very, very deadliness did nip
Her motherly cheeks. Arous'd from this sad mood
By one, who at a distance loud halloo'd,
Uplifting his strong bow into the air,
Many might after brighter visions stare:
After the Argonauts, in blind amaze
Tossing about on Neptune's restless ways,
Until, from the horizon's vaulted side,
There shot a golden splendour far and wide,
Spangling those million poutings of the brine
With quivering ore: 'twas even an awful shine
From the exaltation of Apollo's bow;
A heavenly beacon in their dreary woe.
Who thus were ripe for high contemplating,
Might turn their steps towards the sober ring
Where sat Endymion and the aged priest
'**** shepherds gone in eld, whose looks increas'd
The silvery setting of their mortal star.
There they discours'd upon the fragile bar
That keeps us from our homes ethereal;
And what our duties there: to nightly call
Vesper, the beauty-crest of summer weather;
To summon all the downiest clouds together
For the sun's purple couch; to emulate
In ministring the potent rule of fate
With speed of fire-tailed exhalations;
To tint her pallid cheek with bloom, who cons
Sweet poesy by moonlight: besides these,
A world of other unguess'd offices.
Anon they wander'd, by divine converse,
Into Elysium; vieing to rehearse
Each one his own anticipated bliss.
One felt heart-certain that he could not miss
His quick gone love, among fair blossom'd boughs,
Where every zephyr-sigh pouts and endows
Her lips with music for the welcoming.
Another wish'd, mid that eternal spring,
To meet his rosy child, with feathery sails,
Sweeping, eye-earnestly, through almond vales:
Who, suddenly, should stoop through the smooth wind,
And with the balmiest leaves his temples bind;
And, ever after, through those regions be
His messenger, his little

the silent tress hold memories
of winters sweet melodies

search high and low
and in every fox hole
where oh where.. can she be?..

oh feet that quickly flee
who then holds your stories
or keeps you... in times keep

but the trees and stones
that stay beside roads
you gave a glance to safely keep
but in every time
of past and new
they pass by you
without speaking speak
beginning , end ...old and new
oh what stories you doth keep

Ah, a gorgeous lake!
Smell the tress, taste the water,
***** television!

She walks in beauty, like the night
     Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
     Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
     Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
     Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
     Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
     How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
     So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
     But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
     A heart whose love is innocent!

O all the spirits of love that wander by
Along the love-sown fallowfield of sleep
My lady lies apparent; and the deep
Calls to the deep; and no man sees but I.
The bliss so long afar, at length so nigh,
Rests there attained. Methinks proud Love must weep
When Fate’s control doth from his harvest reap
The sacred hour for which the years did sigh.

First touched, the hand now warm around my neck
Taught memory long to mock desire: and lo!
Across my breast the abandoned hair doth flow,
Where one shorn tress long stirred the longing ache:
And next the heart that trembled for its sake
Lies the queen-heart in sovereign overthrow.

A shaft from the golden sun,
reclined peacefully in my lap.
The amber gleam reflected back,
and gently baked the solemn land.
An ardent whisper furnished the woods
with a viridescent scent that woke up the woods.
Silver songs of sleek streams,
chased the lullabies away;
gently.
Ancient tress cuddled the wind,
their leaves clapped in sheer bliss
The broken winged white eyed bulbul,
warbled hymns to lift the curse.
Scarlet tainted vintage letters resting in the rustic mailbox,
await your tender touch; while they chant for a past long gone.
But lily livered clouds,
they have turned your courage into a yellow illusion.
So now defy the toxic words and the errors you made,
A different person inside your skin, long ago, burned our hearts on the hateful flames.

you
       *deserve
                     better

than what you've been accepting.
than all that you have chased.
than every.single.tear
                                       that has fallen out of
place

when you realize that every lie,
was never worth your time
you can sell your watches
                                                         ­                       you have too many, anyways

one day, you will look into the sky
it won't be dark,
you will walk outside
the light you see-- will not be from the moon,
the shadows that surround you-- will not be those of demons
pulling you to down to Hades:
your blanket will not be misery
                              but
you won't simply wake up, alleviated by fate
you will have to fight
wars against yourself-- the worst kind imaginable
         you
are up against the odds of giants
not even a troll-- would attempt to cross the bridges that you must build
                     but you can do it
you must learn to live with a shield in your hand
                                                            ­         and a bow on your back
                          and  eventually
one day,
you will look into the sky
it will be white and pure
you will walk outside
the light you see-- will be that of the sun's glow
the shadows of the tress will dance in your presence
persuading you to climb their swaying branches
lifting you towards the high heavens
flowers will float into your hair
                          yet slowly           someone     will approach
carrying a diamond-laced, gold ring, inside a crafted, red-silk box
in awe, you will notice his glowing amber eyes
                                                            ­                       then his face
you will see, is painted with delicate metallics             alluring metallics
but you won't be swayed, for there is fire in his eyes
slowly you will reach towards the box
                                                             ­      you've spotted the disguise
with the shield you have gathered; bow is in hand
untamed-- you are savage
unfazed by the lures of man
ferocious-- savage
he is not what you desire, rather lust
          but you will walk across the bridge you've built--
                                                                ­                based upon trust
away you will go, from all that harms
as you come to see the light
not a soul will tempt you away
for
       you  
                  are
                              **s­avage

WHILOM, as olde stories tellen us,                            formerly
There was a duke that highte* Theseus.                   was called
Of Athens he was lord and governor,
And in his time such a conqueror
That greater was there none under the sun.
Full many a riche country had he won.
What with his wisdom and his chivalry,
He conquer'd all the regne of Feminie,
That whilom was y-cleped Scythia;
And weddede the Queen Hippolyta
And brought her home with him to his country
With muchel glory and great solemnity,                           great
And eke her younge sister Emily,
And thus with vict'ry and with melody
Let I this worthy Duke to Athens ride,
And all his host, in armes him beside.

And certes, if it n'ere too long to hear,                     were not
I would have told you fully the mannere,
How wonnen was the regne of Feminie,                            won
By Theseus, and by his chivalry;
And of the greate battle for the *****
Betwixt Athenes and the Amazons;
And how assieged was Hippolyta,
The faire hardy queen of Scythia;
And of the feast that was at her wedding
And of the tempest at her homecoming.
But all these things I must as now forbear.
I have, God wot, a large field to ear                       plough;
And weake be the oxen in my plough;
The remnant of my tale is long enow.
I will not *letten eke none of this rout.                hinder any of
Let every fellow tell his tale about,                      this company
And let see now who shall the supper win.
There as I left, I will again begin.                where I left off

This Duke, of whom I make mentioun,
When he was come almost unto the town,
In all his weal, and in his moste pride,
He was ware, as he cast his eye aside,
Where that there kneeled in the highe way
A company of ladies, tway and tway,
Each after other, clad in clothes black:
But such a cry and such a woe they make,
That in this world n'is creature living,
That hearde such another waimenting                      lamenting
And of this crying would they never stenten,                    desist
Till they the reines of his bridle henten.                       *seize
"What folk be ye that at mine homecoming
Perturben so my feaste with crying?"
Quoth Theseus; "Have ye so great envy
Of mine honour, that thus complain and cry?
Or who hath you misboden, or offended?                         wronged
Do telle me, if it may be amended;
And why that ye be clad thus all in black?"

The oldest lady of them all then spake,
When she had swooned, with a deadly cheer,                 countenance
That it was ruthe for to see or hear.                             pity
She saide; "Lord, to whom fortune hath given
Vict'ry, and as a conqueror to liven,
Nought grieveth us your glory and your honour;
But we beseechen mercy and succour.
Have mercy on our woe and our distress;
Some drop of pity, through thy gentleness,
Upon us wretched women let now fall.
For certes, lord, there is none of us all
That hath not been a duchess or a queen;
Now be we caitives, as it is well seen:                       captives
Thanked be Fortune, and her false wheel,
That *none estate ensureth to be wele.       assures no continuance of
And certes, lord, t'abiden your presence              prosperous estate
Here in this temple of the goddess Clemence
We have been waiting all this fortenight:
Now help us, lord, since it lies in thy might.

"I, wretched wight, that weep and waile thus,
Was whilom wife to king Capaneus,
That starf* at Thebes, cursed be that day:                     died
And alle we that be in this array,
And maken all this lamentatioun,
We losten all our husbands at that town,
While that the siege thereabouten lay.
And yet the olde Creon, wellaway!
That lord is now of Thebes the city,
Fulfilled of ire and of iniquity,
He for despite, and for his tyranny,
To do the deade bodies villainy,                                insult
Of all our lorde's, which that been y-slaw,                       *slain
Hath all the bodies on an heap y-draw,
And will not suffer them by none assent
Neither to be y-buried, nor y-brent,                             burnt
But maketh houndes eat them in despite."
And with that word, withoute more respite
They fallen groff, and cryden piteously;                    grovelling
"Have on us wretched women some mercy,
And let our sorrow sinken in thine heart."

This gentle Duke down from his courser start
With hearte piteous, when he heard them speak.
Him thoughte that his heart would all to-break,
When he saw them so piteous and so mate                         abased
That whilom weren of so great estate.
And in his armes he them all up hent,                     raised, took
And them comforted in full good intent,
And swore his oath, as he was true knight,
He woulde do *so farforthly his might        as far as his power went
Upon the tyrant Creon them to wreak,                            avenge
That all the people of Greece shoulde speak,
How Creon was of Theseus y-served,
As he that had his death full well deserved.
And right anon withoute more abode                               *delay
His banner he display'd, and forth he rode
To Thebes-ward, and all his, host beside:
No ner Athenes would he go nor ride,                            nearer
Nor take his ease fully half a day,
But onward on his way that night he lay:
And sent anon Hippolyta the queen,
And Emily her younge sister sheen                       bright, lovely
Unto the town of Athens for to dwell:
And forth he rit; there is no more to tell.                       rode

The red statue of Mars with spear and targe                     shield
So shineth in his white banner large
That all the fieldes glitter up and down:
And by his banner borne is his pennon
Of gold full rich, in which there was y-beat                   stamped
The Minotaur which that he slew in Crete
Thus rit this Duke, thus rit this conqueror
And in his host of chivalry the flower,
Till that he came to Thebes, and alight
Fair in a field, there as he thought to fight.
But shortly for to speaken of this thing,
With Creon, which that was of Thebes king,
He fought, and slew him manly as a knight
In plain bataille, and put his folk to flight:
And by assault he won the city after,
And rent adown both wall, and spar, and rafter;
And to the ladies he restored again
The bodies of their husbands that were slain,
To do obsequies, as was then the guise.                         custom

But it were all too long for to devise                        describe
The greate clamour, and the waimenting,                      lamenting
Which that the ladies made at the brenning                     burning
Of the bodies, and the great honour
That Theseus the noble conqueror
Did to the ladies, when they from him went:
But shortly for to tell is mine intent.
When that this worthy Duke, this Theseus,
Had Creon slain, and wonnen Thebes thus,
Still in the field he took all night his rest,
And did with all the country as him lest.                      pleased
To ransack in the tas of bodies dead,                             heap
Them for to strip of *harness and of *****,           armour *clothes
The pillers* did their business and cure,                 pillagers
After the battle and discomfiture.
And so befell, that in the tas they found,
Through girt with many a grievous ****** wound,
Two younge knightes *ligging by and by             lying side by side
Both in one armes, wrought full richely:             the same armour
Of whiche two, Arcita hight that one,
And he that other highte Palamon.
Not fully quick, nor fully dead they were,                       *alive
But by their coat-armour, and by their gear,
The heralds knew them well in special,
As those that weren of the blood royal
Of Thebes, and *of sistren two y-born.            born of two sisters
Out of the tas the pillers have them torn,
And have them carried soft unto the tent
Of Theseus, and he full soon them sent
To Athens, for to dwellen in prison
Perpetually, he n'olde no ranson.               would take no ransom
And when this worthy Duke had thus y-done,
He took his host, and home he rit anon
With laurel crowned as a conquerour;
And there he lived in joy and in honour
Term of his life; what needeth wordes mo'?
And in a tower, in anguish and in woe,
Dwellen this Palamon, and eke Arcite,
For evermore, there may no gold them quite                    set free

Thus passed year by year, and day by day,
Till it fell ones in a morn of May
That Emily, that fairer was to seen
Than is the lily upon his stalke green,
And fresher than the May with flowers new
(For with the rose colour strove her hue;
I n'ot* which was the finer of them two),                      know not
Ere it was day, as she was wont to do,
She was arisen, and all ready dight,                           dressed
For May will have no sluggardy a-night;
The season pricketh every gentle heart,
And maketh him out of his sleep to start,
And saith, "Arise, and do thine observance."

This maketh Emily have remembrance
To do honour to May, and for to rise.
Y-clothed was she fresh for to devise;
Her yellow hair was braided in a tress,
Behind her back, a yarde long I guess.
And in the garden at *the sun uprist                           sunrise
She walketh up and down where as her list.
She gathereth flowers, party white and red,                    mingled
To make a sotel garland for her head,            subtle, well-arranged
And as an angel heavenly she sung.
The greate tower, that was so thick and strong,
Which of the castle was the chief dungeon
(Where as these knightes weren in prison,
Of which I tolde you, and telle shall),
Was even joinant to the garden wall,                         adjoining
There as this Emily had her playing.

Bright was the sun, and clear that morrowning,
And Palamon, this woful prisoner,
As was his wont, by leave of his gaoler,
Was ris'n, and roamed in a chamber on high,
In which he all the noble city sigh,                               saw
And eke the garden, full of branches green,
There as this fresh Emelia the sheen
Was in her walk, and roamed up and down.
This sorrowful prisoner, this Palamon
Went in his chamber roaming to and fro,
And to himself complaining of his woe:
That he was born, full oft he said, Alas!
And so befell, by aventure or cas,                              chance
That through a window thick of many a bar
Of iron great, and square as any spar,
He cast his eyes upon Emelia,
And therewithal he blent and crie

i like angry poetry
the kind that churns
in your gut,
with razors for teeth
and gums bleeding.
i like the violent sound
of verbs clashing
on a decaying page,
like the shot of a gun
on a quiet day.
i like the poetry that stays,
that lies in waiting
like a dog in a cage,
words that creep like
voided birds into the
wired tress of my brain,
that pay their rent
like drunken travelers
and trash the place.
i like angry poetry
the kind that sears it's
screams to my lips,
which spirit echoes and
moans for eager,
****** eyes.
words that hit like *****,
giving their reader
a killer hangover.
i like angry poetry,
the kind that leave you
with a smoky exit.

you were there on his last night
and was there on the night
we stumbled upon
an unfamiliar house
the creatures were making
a peculiar sound
it was the strange place we inhabited
for as long as we could be brave

you were with me when i lost a limb
you saw grief and tropical storms
right through my eyes
you heard words come out
of my mouth, they were all
in past tense and shaky

the best four years a teenager could have
i have spent them with you
i gave you my trust, my blood
and our promises
you met the 3am version of myself
which i believed that is ours
only to keep

i could not fathom the grief
of losing a limb
nor the grief
of seeing our strange house
collapse right in front of me
but the concrete was made of trust

you contended that you were here
to extend succor, immediate aid
to a grieving soul, to your friend
you came in crowds extending
sympathy as how i've seen it
little did i know that succor
meant pulling the trigger

when the tectonic plates
and the seismic waves
bends the buildings
and crumbles to the ground

when the tropical storm
named after me
pull the tress from its roots
floods the households
and all the different routes

or when your 3am uncertainties
scare you, and you would howl
and howl and howl
but who will you run to?

handpicked blueberries in yogurt,
tea on the porch, Ellen,
in desperation to plant a raspberry bush.

jogging through a grasshopper field
holding in screams at the small green chirps
shooting up around my ankles.

grimy trails of sweat, the daddy longlegs
crawling out from under my thigh
the dirt at home under my nails.

nickel-bright stars above
the trees, a cool tress rising,
buzzing in the porch light of
bugs going for our jugulars,
still tight and smooth.

fire-breathing scalderer,
honey-gathered heavy,
your bow lip is

wild thy raven tress,
make turbulent seas,
ravenous claws

gently in the heat,
go floating, our
flesh embers!

Tied down to my mistakes

A worn path never re-grows it seeds

My emotions like wild flowers

Skirt along the edge in light

Gently swaying in summer breeze

I watch the clouds pass by

A moment captured, then released

I run, across green green grass

Down different roads past carvings on tress

Mend broken bridges

That led us to golden beaches and start again.

But your eyes hold me to this path

Your heart guides me through this pain

And I can only follow the trail

Of your memories for so long

And time will let me stumble on my own

To find a clearer path to travel,

To find a life without you.

FAR-OFF, most secret, and inviolate Rose,
Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those
Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre,
Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir
And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep
Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep
Men have named beauty.  Thy great leaves enfold
The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold
Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes
Saw the pierced Hands and Rood of elder rise
In Druid vapour and make the torches dim;
Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him
Who met Fand walking among flaming dew
By a grey shore where the wind never blew,
And lost the world and Emer for a kiss;
And him who drove the gods out of their liss,
And till a hundred moms had flowered red
Feasted, and wept the barrows of his dead;
And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown
And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown
Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods:
And him who sold tillage, and house, and goods,
And sought through lands and islands numberless
years,
Until he found, with laughter and with tears,
A woman of so shining loveliness
That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,
A little stolen tress.  I, too, await
The hour of thy great wind of love and hate.
When shall the stars be blown about the sky,
Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?
Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows,
Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?

Around his shaking fingers he wound that single, silver tress
that cord of silken silver that her beloved face once caressed

He could feel its softness around those quivering fingers
as, upon the coffins satin lining, her scent still lingered

He wept, recalling the dark nights when for her warmth he longed
seeing her face amongst those of the mourners who thronged

And knew, as his tears fell, that that single silver tress of hair
it would bind him to the one who lay forever sleeping there

At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An ****** vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin moulders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies
(Her casement open to the skies)
Irene, with her Destinies!

Oh, lady bright! can it be right—
This window open to the night!
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice-drop—
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out,
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully—so fearfully—
Above the closed and fringed lid
’Neath which thy slumb’ring soul lies hid,
That, o’er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come o’er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
And this all-solemn silentness!

The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
For ever with unopened eye,
While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
As it is lasting, so be deep;
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold—
Some vault that oft hath flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o’er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals—
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood many an idle stone—
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne’er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.

deep with kissing easy trees Spring
wells like blood between the imminent
corpse of day where pennyeyed kittens
and ladybugs mingle with the deliberate
breath of the earth a flower meagerly strives
fragile homely limp and flush Spring languishes
an instant collected warmly into the salient brush
of ******* tingling abruptly pricking a loose cotton
with marble hard ******* round rosey cheecked apple
blossoms in Spring hang briefly like youth without youth
Spring i draw your quivering uglywonderful mouth to my
mouth and creep into your winsome shrill maw my blood

with a soft flair sweet,
   sublime in dress,
that chains my heart around.
     feet that gracious are abounded
tressed, liked begs from cries
        a blissful wishful sigh,
immortal
           in mind's eye.
'tis unfair to leave me
unblessed.
        from your magnificence,
or i will seek.
           you
ever ,
           to be
again.

On December the tenth day
When it was night, down I lay
Right there as I was wont to do
And fell asleep wondrous soon,
As he that weary was as who
On pilgrimage went miles two
To the shrine of Saint Leonard,
To make easy what was hard.
But as I slept, I dreamed I was
Within a temple made of glass
In which there were more images
Of gold, tiered in sundry stages,
And more rich tabernacles,
And with more gemmed pinnacles,
And more curious portraiture,
And intricate kinds of figure
Of craftsmanship than ever I saw.
For certainly, I knew no more
Of where I was, but plain to see
Venus owned most certainly
That temple, for in portraiture
I at once saw her figure
Naked, floating in the sea.
And also on her head, indeed,
Her rose garland white and red,
And her comb to comb her head,
Her doves, and her blind son
Lord Cupid, and then Vulcan,
Whose face was swarthy brown.
And as I roamed up and down,
I saw that on a wall there was
Thus written on a piece of brass:
‘I will now sing, if that I can,
The arms, and also the man
Who first, pursuing destiny,
Fugitive from Troy’s country,
To Italy, with pain, did come,
To the shores of Lavinium.’
And then begin the tale at once,
That I shall tell to you each one.
First I saw the destruction
Of Troy, through the Greek Sinon,
Who with his false forswearing
And his outward show and lying,
Had the horse brought into Troy
By which the Trojans lost their joy,
And after this was engraved, alas,
How Ilium assailed was
And won, and King Priam slain,
And Polytes his son, for certain,
Cruelly by Lord Pyrrhus.
And next to this, I saw how Venus
When that she saw the castle’s end,
Down from the heavens did descend
And urged her son Aeneas to flee;
And how he fled, and how that he
Escaped from all the cruelties,
And took his father Anchises
And bore him on his back away,
Crying, ‘Alas!’ and ‘Well-away!’
That same Anchises, in his hand,
Bore the gods of the land,
Those that were not burnt wholly.
And I saw next, in this company,
How Creusa, Lord Aeneas’ wife,
Whom he loved as he did his life,
And their young son Julus,
Also called Ascanius,
Fled too, and fearful did appear,
That it was a pity them to hear;
And through a forest as they went,
At a place where the way bent,
How Creusa was lost, alas,
And died, I know not how it was:
How he sought her and how her ghost
Urged him to flee the Greek host,
And said he must go to Italy,
Without fail, it was his destiny;
That it was a pity thus to hear,
When her spirit did appear,
The words that to him she said:
Let him protect their son she prayed.
There saw I graven too how he,
His father also, and company,
In his fleet took sail swiftly
Towards the land of Italy,
As directly as they could go.
There I saw you, cruel Juno,
That is Lord Jupiter’s wife,
Who did hate, all their life,
All those of Trojan blood,
Run and shout, as if gone mad,
To ******, the god of winds,
To blow about, all their kinds,
So fierce, that he might drench
Lord and lady, groom and *****,
Of all the Trojan nation
Without hope of salvation.
There saw I such a tempest rise
That every heart might hear the cries
Of those but painted on the wall.
There saw I graven there withal,
Venus, how you, my lady dear,
Weeping with great loss of cheer,
Prayed to Jupiter on high
To save and keep the fleet alive
Of the Trojan Aeneas,
Since that he her son was.
There saw I Jove Venus kiss,
And grant that the tempest cease.
Then saw I how the tempest went,
And how painfully Aeneas bent
His secret course, to reach the bay
In the country of Carthage;
And on the morrow, how that he
And a knight called Achates
Met with Venus on that day,
Going in her bright array
As if she was a huntress,
The breeze blowing every tress;
How Aeneas did complain,
When he saw her, of his pain,
And how his ships shattered were,
Or else lost, he knew not where;
How she comforted him so
And bade him to Carthage go,
And there he should his folk find
That on the sea were left behind.
And, swiftly through this to pace,
She made Aeneas know such grace
Of Dido, queen of that country,
That, briefly to tell it, she
Became his love and let him do
All that belongs to marriage true.
Why should I use more constraint,
Or seek my words to paint,
In speaking of love? It shall not be;
I know no such facility.
And then to tell the manner
Of how they met each other,
Were a process long to tell,
And over-long on it to dwell.
There was graved how Aeneas
Told Dido everything that was
Involved in his escape by sea.
And after graved was how she
Made of him swiftly, at a word,
Her life, her love, her joy, her lord,
And did him all the reverence
Eased him of all the expense
That any woman could so do,
Believing everything was true
He swore to her, and thereby deemed
That he was good, for such he seemed.
Alas, what harm wreaks appearance
When it hides a false existence!
For he to her a traitor was,
Wherefore she slew herself, alas!
Lo, how a woman goes amiss
In loving him that unknown is,
For, by Christ, lo, thus it fares:
All is not gold that glitters there.
For, as I hope to keep my head,
There may under charm instead
Be hidden many a rotten vice;
Therefore let none be so nice
As to judge a love by how he appear
Or by speech, or by friendly manner;
For this shall every woman find:
That some men are of that kind
That show outwardly their fairest,
Till they have got what they miss.
And then they will reasons find
Swearing how she is unkind,
Or false, or secret lover has.
All this say I of Aeneas
And Dido, so soon obsessed,
Who loved too swiftly her guest;
Therefore I will quote a proverb,
That ‘he who fully knows the herb
May safely set it to his eye’;
Certainly, that is no lie.
But let us speak of Aeneas,
How he betrayed her, alas,
And left her full unkindly.
So when she saw all utterly
That he would fail in loyalty
And go from her to Italy,
She began to wring her hands so.
‘Alas,’ quoth she, ‘here is my woe!
Alas, is every man untrue,
Who every year desires a new,
If his love should so long endure,
Or else three, peradventure?
As thus: from one love he’d win fame
In magnifying of his name,
Another’s for friendship, says he;
And yet there shall a third love be,
Who shall be taken for pleasure,
Lo, or his own profit’s measure.’
In such words she did complain,
Dido, in her great pain
As I dreamed it, for certain,
No other author do I claim.
‘Alas!’ quoth she, ‘my sweet heart,
Have pity on my sorrow’s smart,
And slay me not! Go not away!
O woeful Dido, well-away!’
Quoth she to herself so.
‘O Aeneas, what will you do?
O, now neither love nor bond
You swore me with your right hand,
Nor my cruel death,’ quoth she,
‘May hold you here still with me!
O, on my death have pity!
Truly, my dear heart, truly,
You know full well that never yet,
Insofar as I had wit,
Have I wronged you in thought or deed.
Oh, are you men so skilled indeed
At speeches, yet never a grain of truth?
Alas, that ever showed ruth
Any woman for any man!
Now I see how to tell it, and can,
We wretched women have no art;
For, certainly, for the most part
Thus are we served every one.
However sorely you men groan,
As soon as we have you received
Certain we are to be deceived;
For, though your love last a season,
Wait upon the conclusion,
And look what you determine,
And for the most part decide on.
O, well-away that I was born!
For through you my name is gone
And all my actions told and sung,
Through all this land, on every tongue.
O wicked Fame, of all amiss
Nothing’s so swift, lo, as she is!
O, all will be known that exists
Though it be hidden by the mist.
And though I might live forever,
What I’ve done I’ll save never
From it always being said, alas,
I was dishonoured by Aeneas
And thus I shall judged be:
‘Lo, what she has done, now she
Will do again, assuredly’;
Thus people say all privately.
But what’s done cannot be undone.
And all her complaint, all her moan,
Avails her surely not a straw.
And when she then truly saw
That he unto his ships was gone,
She to her chamber went anon,
And called on her sister Anna,
And began to complain to her,
And said that she the cause was
That made her first love him, alas,
And had counselled her thereto.
But yet, when this was spoken too,
She stabbed herself to the heart,
And died of the wound’s art.
But of the manner of how she died,
And all the words said and replied,
Whoso to know that does purpose,
Read Virgil in the Aeneid, thus,
Or Heroides of Ovid try
To read what she wrote ere she died;
And were it not too long to indite,
By God, here I would it write.
But, well-away, the harm, the ruth
That has occurred through such untruth,
As men may oft in books read,
And see it everyday in deed,
That mere thinking of it pains.
Lo, Demophon, Duke of Athens,
How he forswore himself full falsely
And betrayed Phyllis wickedly,
The daughter of the King of Thrace,
And falsely failed of time and place;
And when she knew his falsity,
She hung herself by the neck indeed,
For he had proved of such untruth,
Lo, was this not woe and ruth?
And lo, how false and reckless see
Was Achilles to Briseis,
And Paris to Oenone;
And Jason to Hypsipyle;
And Jason later to Medea;
And Hercules to Deianira;
For he left her for Iole,
Which led to his death, I see.
How false, also, was Theseus,
Who, as the story tells it us,
Betrayed poor Ariadne;
The devil keep his soul company!
For had he laughed, had he loured,
He would have been quite devoured,
If Ariadne had not chanced to be!
And because she on him took pity,
She from death helped him escape,
And he played her full false a jape;
For after this, in a little while,
He left her sleeping on an isle,
Deserted, lonely, far in the sea,
And stole away, and let her be,
Yet took her sister Phaedra though
With him, and on board ship did go.
And yet he had sworn to her
By all that ever he might swear,
That if she helped to save his life,
He would take her to be his wife,
For she desired nothing else,
In truth, as the book so tells.
Yet, to excuse Aeneas
Partly for his great trespass,
The book says, truly, Mercury,
Bade him go into Italy,
And leave Africa’s renown
And Dido and her fair town.
Then saw I graved how to Italy
Lord Aeneas sailed all swiftly,
And how a tempest then began
And how he lost his steersman,
The steering-oar did suddenly
Drag him overboard in his sleep.
And also I saw how the Sibyl
And Aeneas, beside an isle,
Went to Hell, for to see
His father, noble Anchises.
How he there found Palinurus
And Dido, and Deiphebus;
And all the punishments of Hell
He saw, which are long to tell.
The which whoever wants to know,
He’ll find in verses, many a row,
In Virgil or in Claudian
Or Dante, who best tell it can.
Then I saw graved the entry
That Aeneas made to Italy,
And with Latinus his treaty,
And all the battles that he
Was in himself, and his knights,
Before he had won his rights;
And how he took Turnus’ life
And won Lavinia as his wife,
And all the omens wonderful
Of the gods celestial;
How despite Juno, Aeneas,
For all her tricks, brought to pass
The end of his adventure
Protected thus by Jupiter
At the request of Venus,
Whom I pray to ever save us
And make for us our sorrows light.
When I had seen all this sight
In the noble temple thus,
‘Oh Lord,’ thought I, ‘who made us,
I never yet saw such nobleness
In statuary, nor such richness
As I see graven in this church;
I know not who made these works,
Nor where I am, nor in what country.
But now I will go out and see,
At the small gate there, if I can
Find anywhere a living man
Who can tell me where I am.’
When I out of the door ran,
I looked around me eagerly;
There I saw naught but a large field,
As far as I could see,
Without town or house or tree,
Or bush or grass or ploughed land;
For all the field was only sand,
As fine-ground as with the eye
In Libyan desert’s seen to lie;
Nor any manner of creature
That is formed by Nature
Saw I, to advise me, in this,
‘O Christ,’ I thought, ‘who art in bliss,
From phantoms and from illusion
Save me!’ and with devotion
My eyes to the heavens I cast.
Then was I aware, at the last,
That, close to the sun, as high
As I might discern with my eye,
Me thought I saw an eagle soar,
Though its size seemed more
Than any eagle I had seen.
Yet, sure as death, all its sheen
Was of gold, it shone so bright
That never men saw such a sight,
Unless the heavens above had won,
All new of gold, another sun;
So shone the eagle’s feathers bright,
And downward it started to alight.

I am a little prince
Living on a planet
Far too small for you to see
Here is a million stars
But a single flower
To spend all the sunsets with.

Bussinessmen and Tippler's words
They sound as I'm left by birds
With a friend to
Forever last.
And if I could make you mine
You say there's one last goodbye
For you and me
To get past.

What if I didn't care
Would the tress out-grow me?
And sheeps eat my little rose?
Being old is to count
Everything that matters
Grown-ups they're all too weird.

A lamplighter lights the fire
A man lives by his desire
A prince has tamed a fox
'cause his heart is enough.

But now I have to leave
To my little planet
I think someone there needs me.

She sits by darkened hearth
No warmth now issues forth
Her tattered clothes look more like rags than a dress
But still she carries on
Even when hope is gone
For a princess is a princess nonetheless

If dancing at the ball
Or scrubbing floor and wall
In scullery or in carriage for a ride
Hanging linen out to dry
Or set on throne most high
None of that can ever change what is inside

For it’s not silken gown
Not scepter, sword, or crown
Nor poise to rule court with great ability
Look closer and you’ll find
A heart that’s good and kind
Are the signs of grace and true nobility

Of palaces she dreams
White horses matched in teams
With jewels agleam and in its place each tress
Though life may be unjust
She is regal in the dust
For a princess is a princess nonetheless

it is difficult to write in a hammock
not to find the words
the words are children hiding
desperate to be sought

fickle wind jostles
ecstatic chimes
traffic sounds like the ocean
if you listen

and that smell
fresh rain,
grass
a barbecue ignited

this hammock holds my heart
it is my lotus
supporting me so that I may be
in the world, yet not of it

floating higher and higher—
glimpse her now before she is
but a speck in the sky

swaying, yet somehow perfectly still
tress rustle
leaves spackling the air, don't miss a spot
fill in the cracks

a raindrop kisses my lip
Welcome Home I've Missed You
if it weren't for the chill in my back
I'd stay here forever

no one wants the hammock
on this dreary afternoon—
lavender ice clouds
carved out with silver streaks, axel lift

you see, hammocks are not just
for sunny days
in fact, you won't learn a **** thing
from a hammock
on a sunny day

their secrets aren't safe
in the sun

If it's to be
It's up to me

Everything in me wants to flee
To the top of the tress
Where I can live and be free

Connect with nature
Be a baker, teacher or a Sergeant major
Rule the kingdom
With baby Lincoln and a trio of fearsome pilgrims

Swing from branch to beach
The sand, the water and the sea
Is this where I'm meant to be
Siting under a coconut tree drinking Chablis

Sunning with sea creatures
Feeling like a cheater
The heat and the sun
Making this a home run

Knowing it's where I'm meant to be
Me and all my heart is set free

There was a child went forth everyday;
And the first object she look’d upon, that object she became;
And that object became part of her for the day, or a certain part of
The day, or for many stretching cycles of years.

The dew laden grass became part of this child
And the fresh daisies and lightly scented lilacs and
the song of the morning sparrow,
And the crisp air, the mud puddles and the tall, tall tress that rained water droplets, when the wind passed,
And the magic world within the reeds, waiting for a curious someone to discover all the twists and turns and available hiding spaces.
And the yellow skunk cabbage and weeping willows, with their gracious locks—all became part of her

The golden grassy haze became part of her,
And the anthills poking up from the red Earth,
And the shaded creek, loosely singing.
And the freshly picked strawberries, dirtying any white shirt.
And the content busker sharing his music and stuttering his words, in a most peculiar manner,
And the passing grandmother walking hand in hand with her granddaughter
And the Jamaican man kissing his pipe and the funny odor that followed
And the old Italians bantering about soccer outside small cafes and coffee shops, that dotted the street like lanterns on a string
And all the changes of city and country, wherever she went

Her own parents,
He that had father’d her, and she that had conceiv’d her in her womb, and birth’d her,
They gave this child more of themselves than that;
They gave her afterward every day—they became part of her.

Her mother’s care-free ringlets, falling past her breast, her open hands and thin arms hidden behind an over sized shirt, the strength in her voice,
And the youthful, naive nature woven into her giggles.
The father, klutzy and drunk, the sudden change from a hearty laugh to an unsettling yell, the large hands and the lost feeling that showed through the anger. The confusing elixir of love and hate.
The landing in the stairwell, the black dial phone, the old tarnished green oven, the stapled on carpet, the Rug rats pillow cases and the laughter so good it hurt.
Never ending love—the difference in words and the actual inner emotion felt--wondering if dreams are reality--and if perhaps the real world and all its conundrums is a carefully devised skit.  
Who decides a mirage is an illusion, is it the same inhabitants who crowd the streets?
Do the rushing people, passed from one generation to the next, think the same thoughts, do they laugh at themselves or the passed on jokes that follow their age group, and are the sparks of people just mirages themselves?
Men and women crowding fast in the streets—if they are not flashes and specks, what are they?
The bakery windows, row in row, the fake cake in the window, the names of the streets and the differing decals hanging from car's indoor mirrors.
People being within the cars zooming by on the highway, the jingle of the Popsicle truck and the sticky hands following. The feeling of trying to wipe away the stickiness on tall grass, walking across the peeling yellow paint of the highway divider, left to the side of some lonesome road---the wooden train set and the carefully maneuvered tracks,

the orange morning sun, the rising steam from plants and houses, the comforting sleepiness cast over the whole town, settling upon rooftops and curling into closed arms, The mid-day beaming street, seen from the city bus window,
The fresh ocean and the old ferry boat, the smell of oatmeal and scrambled eggs and over buttered white toast. The balance between the clouds and sky, sharing the space, the dry feeling gathering around the eyes, the white waves forming from the ferry boats side, the gentle rocking from side to side,
The cold feeling the window casts as the face, leaning against it, gently surrenders sleep to the lulling gesture—knowing the world is round by glimpsing upon the horizons edge, the thought of explorers who sailed the same sea only years and years ago.
The innocence beaming down from the heavens and leaving speckles of white on the ocean’s surface, the cluster of yellow beaked seagulls greeting the arriving boats, the distinct fragrance of the earth and sea joining together, the salty barnacles and shore mud, the leaning  grass with  crusty sand clinging to its base.
These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will go forth every day.

YES, DELIA loves! My fondest vows are blest ;
Farewel the memory of her past disdain ;
One kind relenting glance has heal'd my breast,
And balanc'd in a moment years of pain.

O'er her soft cheek consenting blushes move,
And with kind stealth her secret soul betray ;

Blushes, which usher in the morn of love,
Sure as the red'ning east foretells the day.

Her tender smiles shall pay me with delight
For many a bitter pang of jealous fear ;
For many an anxious day, and sleepless night,
For many a stifled sigh, and silent tear.

DELIA shall come, and bless my lone retreat ;
She does not scorn the shepherd's lowly life ;
She will not blush to leave the splendid seat,
And own the title of a poor man's wife.

The simple knot shall bind her gather'd hair,
The russet garment clasp her lovely breast :
DELIA shall mix amongst the rural fair,
By charms alone distinguish'd from the rest.

And meek Simplicity, neglected maid,
Shall bid my fair in native graces shine :
She, only she, shall lend her modest aid,
Chaste, sober priestess, at sweet beauty's shrine !

How sweet to muse by murmuring springs reclin'd ;
Or loitering careless in the shady grove,
Indulge the gentlest feelings of the mind,
And pity those who live to aught but love !

When DELIA's hand unlocks her shining hair,
And o'er her shoulder spreads the flowing gold,
Base were the man who one bright tress would spare
For all the ore of India's coarser mold.

By her dear side with what content I'd toil,
Patient of any labour in her sight ;
Guide the slow plough, or turn the stubborn soil,
Till the last, ling'ring beam of doubtful light.

But softer tasks divide my DELIA's hours ;
To watch the firstlings at their harmless play ;
With welcome shade to screen the languid flowers,
That sicken in the summer's parching ray.

Oft will she stoop amidst her evening walk,
With tender hand each bruised plant to rear ;
To bind the drooping lily's broken stalk,
And nurse the blossoms of the infant year.

When beating rains forbid our feet to roam,
We'll shelter'd sit, and turn the storied page ;
There see what passions shake the lofty dome
With mad ambition or ungovern'd rage :

What headlong ruin oft involves the great ;
What conscious terrors guilty bosoms prove ;
What strange and sudden turns of adverse fate
Tear the sad ****** from her plighted love.

DELIA shall read, and drop a gentle tear ;
Then cast her eyes around the low-roof'd cot,
And own the fates have dealt more kindly here,
That blest with only love our little lot.

For love has sworn (I heard the awful vow)
The wav'ring heart shall never be his care,
That stoops at any baser shrine to bow :
And what he cannot rule, he scorns to share.

My heart in DELIA is so fully blest,
It has not room to lodge another joy ;
My peace all leans upon that gentle breast,
And only there misfortune can annoy.

Our silent hours shall steal unmark'd away
In one long tender calm of rural peace ;
And measure many a fair unblemish'd day
Of chearful leisure and poetic ease.

The proud unfeeling world their lot shall scorn
Who 'midst inglorious shades can poorly dwell :
Yet if some youth, for gentler passions born,
Shall chance to wander near our lowly cell,

His feeling breast with purer flames shall glow ;
And leaving pomp, and state, and cares behind,
Shall own the world has little to bestow
Where two fond hearts in equal love are join'd.

FASTEN your hair with a golden pin,
And bind up every wandering tress;
I bade my heart build these poor rhymes:
It worked at them, day out, day in,
Building a sorrowful loveliness
Out of the battles of old times.
You need but lift a pearl-pale hand,
And bind up your long hair and sigh;
And all men's hearts must burn and beat;
And candle-like foam on the dim sand,
And stars climbing the dew-dropping sky,
Live but to light your passing feet.

The other day my sister lamented that she did not look like one of those white, blonde, blue-eyed beauties on television.
This struck me for a number of reasons mainly for the fact that we are Indian girls who are neither white, blonde nor blue-eyed and it is physically impossible for us to be like that because it's coded into our genes.
Why then did my sister want to be so much like these beauties that she could never look like.
Why then did my sister want to change herself so much, change they very coding in her genes, change the very fabric of her body?
I was not able to respond to her at the time but this is my response to her.
Society's standards of beauty were created by entrepreneurs looking to make a quick buck.
They market such celebrities as beautiful and, through subliminal messages tell you that if you do not look like them, you are ugly and not worthy.
And it is so easy for them to do this because of the Westernisation of cultures all over the world.
Go to any supermarket and the first things yo will see under the beauty section are bleaching and whitening creams.
It is true that these white, blonde, blue-eyed beauties are stunning, gorgeous.
But why should their beauty mean that you aren't beautiful?
You are the culmination of years of evolution,
the stars have been planning your arrival.
Look at yourself in the mirror,
Stare into the dark brown irises of your eyes and understand that they are like pools of chocolate, understand that they are the colour of the bark of the tress understand that they are beautiful.
Caress your brown hair, run your fingers through it, you are beautiful.
Look at your caramel-coloured skin, don't you just love the colour? It's deep and sweet and beautiful.
Your body, the vessel of your soul in beautiful and every step you take is magical and your voice sounds like a bow playing perfectly on a violin and your laugh ringing out sounds like wind chimes in a light breeze.
Don't you understand?
You are a ******* masterpiece.
Don't treat yourself any less.

red fruit bats
with
their
six-foot wingspan
migrate to central Africa
to
mate
then
gorge themselves
on
sweet succulent mangoes
where
fruit bats
hang upside down
bending the branches
breaking the leaves
in
the
jungle islands of
the
mango trees

"I know where the timid fawn abides
  In the depths of the shaded dell,
Where the leaves are broad and the thicket hides,
With its many stems and its tangled sides,
  From the eye of the hunter well.

"I know where the young May violet grows,
  In its lone and lowly nook,
On the mossy bank, where the larch-tree throws
Its broad dark boughs, in solemn repose,
  Far over the silent brook.

"And that timid fawn starts not with fear
  When I steal to her secret bower;
And that young May violet to me is dear,
And I visit the silent streamlet near,
  To look on the lovely flower."

Thus Maquon sings as he lightly walks
  To the hunting-ground on the hills;
'Tis a song of his maid of the woods and rocks,
With her bright black eyes and long black locks,
  And voice like the music of rills.

He goes to the chase--but evil eyes
  Are at watch in the thicker shades;
For she was lovely that smiled on his sighs,
And he bore, from a hundred lovers, his prize,
  The flower of the forest maids.

The boughs in the morning wind are stirred,
  And the woods their song renew,
With the early carol of many a bird,
And the quickened tune of the streamlet heard
  Where the hazels trickle with dew.

And Maquon has promised his dark-haired maid,
  Ere eve shall redden the sky,
A good red deer from the forest shade,
That bounds with the herd through grove and glade,
  At her cabin-door shall lie.

The hollow woods, in the setting sun,
  Ring shrill with the fire-bird's lay;
And Maquon's sylvan labours are done,
And his shafts are spent, but the spoil they won
  He bears on his homeward way.

He stops near his bower--his eye perceives
  Strange traces along the ground--
At once to the earth his burden he heaves,
He breaks through the veil of boughs and leaves,
  And gains its door with a bound.

But the vines are torn on its walls that leant,
  And all from the young shrubs there
By struggling hands have the leaves been rent,
And there hangs on the sassafras, broken and bent,
  One tress of the well-known hair.

But where is she who, at this calm hour,
  Ever watched his coming to see?
She is not at the door, nor yet in the bower;
He calls--but he only hears on the flower
  The hum of the laden bee.

It is not a time for idle grief,
  Nor a time for tears to flow;
The horror that freezes his limbs is brief--
He grasps his war-axe and bow, and a sheaf
  Of darts made sharp for the foe.

And he looks for the print of the ruffian's feet,
  Where he bore the maiden away;
And he darts on the fatal path more fleet
Than the blast that hurries the vapour and sleet
  O'er the wild November day.

'Twas early summer when Maquon's bride
  Was stolen away from his door;
But at length the maples in crimson are dyed,
And the grape is black on the cabin side,--
  And she smiles at his hearth once more.

But far in the pine-grove, dark and cold,
  Where the yellow leaf falls not,
Nor the autumn shines in scarlet and gold,
There lies a hillock of fresh dark mould,
  In the deepest gloom of the spot.

And the Indian girls, that pass that way,
  Point out the ravisher's grave;
"And how soon to the bower she loved," they say,
"Returned the maid that was borne away
  From Maquon, the fond and the brave."