Death

I have been lonely all my days on earth,
    Living a life within my secret soul,
With mine own springs of sorrow and of mirth,
            Beyond the world's control.

Though sometimes with vain longing I have sought
    To walk the paths where other mortals tread,
To wear the clothes for other mortals wrought,
            And eat the selfsame bread--

Yet have I ever found, when thus I strove
    To mould my life upon the common plan,
That I was furthest from all truth and love,
            And least a living man.

Truth frowned upon my poor hypocrisy,
    Life left my soul, and dwelt but in my sense;
No man could love me, for all men could see
            The hollow vain pretence.

Their clothes sat on me with outlandish air,
    Up...

What could be dafter
Than John Skelton's laughter?
What sound more tenderly
Than his pretty poetry?
So where to rank old Skelton?
He was no monstrous Milton,
Nor wrote no "Paradise Lost,"
So wondered at by most,
Phrased so disdainfully,
Composed so painfully.
He struck what Milton missed,
Milling an English grist
With homely turn and twist.
He was English through and through,
Not Greek, nor French, nor Jew,
Though well their tongues he knew,
The living and the dead:
Learned Erasmus said,
Hie 'unum Britannicarum
Lumen et decus literarum.
But oh, Colin Clout!
How his pen flies about,
Twiddling and turning,
Scorching and burning,
Thrusting and thrumming!
How it hurries with humming,
Leaping and running,

Out of the grey northwest, where many a day gone by
Ye tugged and howled in your tempestuous grot,
And evermore the huge frost giants lie,
Your wizard guards in vigilance unforgot,
Out of the grey northwest, for now the bonds are riven,
On wide white wings your thongless flight is driven,
That lulls but resteth not.

And all the grey day long, and all the dense wild night
Ye wheel and hurry with the sheeted snow,
By cedared waste and many a pine-dark height,
Across white rivers frozen fast below;
Over the lonely forests, where the flowers yet sleeping
Turn in their narrow beds with dreams of weeping
In some remembered woe;

Across the unfenced wide marsh levels, where the dry
Brown ferns sigh out, and last year's sedges scold
In some drear language, ...

In his dim chapel day by day
The organist was wont to play,
And please himself with fluted reveries;
And all the spirit's joy and strife,
The longing of a tender life,
Took sound and form upon the ivory keys;
And though he seldom spoke a word,
The simple hearts that loved him heard
His glowing soul in these.

One day as he was wrapped, a sound
Of feet stole near; he turned and found
A little maid that stood beside him there.
She started, and in shrinking-wise
Besought him with her liquid eyes
And little features, very sweet and spare.
"You love the music, child," he said,
And laid his hand upon her head,
And smoothed her matted hair.

She answered, "At the door one day
I sat and heard the organ play;
I did not dare to come inside ...

I thank you, MR. PRESIDENT, you've kindly broke the ice;
Virtue should always be the first, - I 'm only SECOND VICE -
(A vice is something with a screw that's made to hold its jaw
Till some old file has played away upon an ancient saw).

Sweet brothers by the Mother's side, the babes of days gone by,
All nurslings of her Juno breasts whose milk is never dry,
We come again, like half-grown boys, and gather at her beck
About her knees, and on her lap, and clinging round her neck.

We find her at her stately door, and in her ancient chair,
Dressed in the robes of red and green she always loved to wear.
Her eye has all its radiant youth, her cheek its morning flame;
We drop our roses as we go, hers flourish still the same.

We have been playing many an hour, and far aw...

Hail to thee, mountain beloved, with thy glittering purple-dyed summit!
Hail to thee also, fair sun, looking so lovingly on!
Thee, too, I hail, thou smiling plain, and ye murmuring lindens,
Ay, and the chorus so glad, cradled on yonder high boughs;
Thee, too, peaceably azure, in infinite measure extending
Round the dusky-hued mount, over the forest so green,
Round about me, who now from my chamber's confinement escaping,
And from vain frivolous talk, gladly seek refuge with thee.
Through me to quicken me runs the balsamic stream of thy breezes,
While the energetical light freshens the gaze as it thirsts.
Bright o'er the blooming meadow the changeable colors are gleaming,
But the strife, full of charms, in its own grace melts away
Freely the plain receives me, with carpet far away...

Tim Turpin he was gravel blind,
And ne'er had seen the skies:
For Mature, when his head was made,
Forgot to dot his eyes.

So, like a Christmas pedagogue,
Poor Tim was forc'd to do -
Look out for pupils, for he had
A vacancy for two.

There's some have specs to help their sight
Of objects dim and small:
But Tim had specks within his eyes,
And could not see at all.

Now Tim he woo'd a servant-maid,
And took her to his arms;
For he, like Pyramus, had cast
A wall-eye on her charms.

By day she led him up and down
Where'er he wished to jog,
A happy wife, altho' she led
The life of any dog.

But just when Tim had liv'd a month
In honey with his wife,
A surgeon ope'd his Milton eyes,
Like oysters, wi...

I wish I’d never gone to board
In that house where I met
The touring lady from abroad,
Who mocks my nightmares yet.
I wish, I wish that she had saved
Her news of what she’d seen,
That Dan O’Connor is clean shaved
And parts his hair between.

The ladies down at Manly now,
And widows understood,
No more deplore their marriage vow
Or hopeless widowhood.
For Dan O’Connor is the same
As though he’d never been,
Since Daniel shaved that shave of shame,
And combed his hair between.

No more, Oh Bards, in Danyel tones
He’ll voice our several fames,
And nevermore he’ll mix our bones
As once he mixed our names.
Let Southern minstrels dree their weird
And lay their sad harps down,
For Dan O’Connor’s shorn of beard
And cracked a...

How many buds in this warm light
    Have burst out laughing into leaves!
And shall a day like this be gone
    Before I seek the wood that holds
The richest music known?

Too many times have nightingales
    Wasted their passion on my sleep,
And brought repentance soon:
    But this one night I'll seek the woods,
The nightingale, and moon.

I

Phantasmal fears,
And the flap of the flame,
And the throb of the clock,
And a loosened slate,
And the blind night's drone,
Which tiredly the spectral pines intone!

II

And the blood in my ears
Strumming always the same,
And the gable-cock
With its fitful grate,
And myself, alone.

III

The twelfth hour nears
Hand-hid, as in shame;
I undo the lock,
And listen, and wait
For the Young Unknown.

IV

In the dark there careers -
As if Death astride came
To numb all with his knock -
A horse at mad rate
Over rut and stone.

V

No figure appears,
No call of my name,
No sound but "Tic-toc"
Without check. Past the gate
It clatters - is gone.

...

    In the old air
    by his rocker,
    a silent trapeze of thought
    suspends an aging man.

    Each movement as of the katydid
    droning -
    a monologue with the past;
    a buzz escaping across
    still, warm air.
    Elsewhere, cicadas whittle about the octogenarian heat.

    Nestled quietly, a supine stare erodes both time & place
    unto bearded grey -
    nuances clasped
    in a breathless chat with death.

There stands on yonder high mountain

A castle built of yore,
Where once lurked horse and horseman

In rear of gate and of door.

Now door and gate are in ashes,

And all around is so still;
And over the fallen ruins

I clamber just as I will.

Below once lay a cellar,

With costly wines well stor'd;
No more the glad maid with her pitcher

Descends there to draw from the hoard.

No longer the goblet she places

Before the guests at the feast;
The flask at the meal so hallow'd

No longer she fills for the priest.

No more for the eager squire

The draught in the passage is pour'd;
No more for the flying present

Receives she the flying reward.

For all the roof and th...

'Tis not the beam of her bright blue eye,
Nor the smile of her lip of rosy dye,
Nor the dark brown wreaths of her glossy hair,
Nor her changing cheek, so rich and rare.
Oh! these are the sweets of a fairy dream,
The changing hues of an April sky.
They fade like dew in the morning beam,
Or the passing zephyr's odour'd sigh.

'Tis a dearer spell that bids me kneel,
'Tis the heart to love, and the soul to feel:
'Tis the mind of light, and the spirit free,
And the bosom that heaves alone for me.
Oh! these are the sweets that kindly stay
From youth's gay morning to age's night;
When beauty's rainbow tints decay,
Love's torch still burns with a holy light.

Soon will the bloom of the fairest fade,
And love will droop in the cheerless shade,
Or if...

Death held our Lord in prison
For sin that did undo us;
But he hath up arisen
And brought our life back to us.
Therefore must we gladsome be,
Praise our God, and thankful be,
And sing out halleluja! Halleluja!

No man yet Death overcame--
All sons of men were helpless;
Sin for this was all to blame,
For no one yet was guiltless.
So Death came that early hour,
Over us took up the power,
Us held in's kingdom captive. Halleluja!

Jesus Christ, God's only Son,
Into our place descending,
Away with all our sins hath done,
And therewith from Death rending
Right and might, made him a jape,
Left him nothing but Death's shape:
His ancient sting--he has lost it: Halleluja!

That was a right wondrous strife
When Death in Life's...

        Oh the elements varied - the exquisite plan -
        That are used in constructing the lovely young man!
        His face he has easily made to possess
        The expression of nothing within to express;
        His hair is oiled glossily back of his ears,
        Atop of his head an equator appears;
        His scanty mustache has symmetrical bends,
        Is groomed with precision, and waxed at both ends;
        His darling complexion, bewitching to see,
        Is powdered the same as a lady's might be.
        And this is the dear whom the newspapers rude
        Have scornfully treated, and christened the    -    - .

        The mental equipment I'll tell, if I can,
        That Nature has given the lovely young man:
        A set of emotions cons...

A prologue? Well, of course the ladies know, -
I have my doubts. No matter, - here we go!
What is a Prologue? Let our Tutor teach:
Pro means beforehand; logos stands for speech.
'T is like the harper's prelude on the strings,
The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings;
Prologues in metre are to other pros
As worsted stockings are to engine-hose.
"The world's a stage," - as Shakespeare said, one day;
The stage a world - was what he meant to say.
The outside world's a blunder, that is clear;
The real world that Nature meant is here.
Here every foundling finds its lost mamma;
Each rogue, repentant, melts his stern papa;
Misers relent, the spendthrift's debts are paid,
The cheats are taken in the traps they laid;
One after one the troubles all are past
Till the...

Merrymind, Merrymind, whither art thou roaming?
Merrymind, Merrymind, nay, art thou sleeping yet?
Oh, to us, sweet minstrel dear, wilt thou not be homing?
Or we shall forget.

Vale of toil so waste and drear, hear him now advancing,
Playing on the golden strings, the midnight maiden’s boon;
Breaks the sunshine on the hills, the princess falls to dancing
In a bridal noon!

Oh, the joyfulness and kissing of that fiddle’s flowings,
Giving rest and happiness, and laughter delicate!
Fling out from this iron world to his merry bowings,
Oh, be not too late!

Lancelot, Lancelot, ride with song and gleaming
Robin, wind in greenwood shaw thy dreaming silvery horn,
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down thy hair a-beaming,
Yellow as the corn!

Pride, begone, th...

A linnet who had lost her way
Sang on a blackened bough in Hell,
Till all the ghosts remembered well
The trees, the wind, the golden day.

At last they knew that they had died
When they heard music in that land,
And someone there stole forth a hand
To draw a brother to his side.