Identity

    I saw Bear
    shopping with Santa Claus
    at the North of 7 Plaza
    only he wasn't wearing a bib -
    only a cotton-wool imitation synthetic
    polystyrene white fluffy instead.

    I saw the Bear
    gracing a wall at the
    Old Trout Lake Hotel
    (part-time job),
    looking self-satisfied,
    smug back of the Mosque Lake Road
    but a self-starter, no less,
    lacking the wherewithal, nonetheless,
    to be a serious shit-disturber
    accolades & kudos aside, still
    circus Work is hard &
    good dancing difficult to come by,
    poor dish of custard, sticky stuffed bastard.

    yet the pay-off begins
    when Bear gets home
    with only grubs in the bank
    and maggots to show
  ...

    High state and honours to others impart,
        But give me your heart:
    That treasure, that treasure alone,
        I beg for my own.

    So gentle a love, so fervent a fire,
        My soul does inspire;
    That treasure, that treasure alone,
        I beg for my own.
    Your love let me crave;
            Give me in possessing
        So matchless a blessing;
    That empire is all I would have.
            Love's my petition,
                All my ambition;
            If e'er you discover
            So faithful a lover,
            So real a flame,
            I'll die, I'll die,
            So give up my game.

One thing in all things have I seen:
    One thought has haunted earth and air;
Clangour and silence both have been
    Its palace chambers.    Everywhere

I saw the mystic vision flow,
    And live in men, and woods, and streams,
Until I could no longer know
    The dream of life from my own dreams.

Sometimes it rose like fire in me,
    Within the depths of my own mind,
And spreading to infinity,
    It took the voices of the wind.

It scrawled the human mystery,
    Dim heraldry--on light and air;
Wavering along the starry sea,
    I saw the flying vision there.

Each fire that in God's temple lit
    Burns fierce before the inner shrine,
Dimmed as my fire grew near to it,
    And darkened at the light of mine.

Why should I keep holiday
When other men have none?
Why but because, when these are gay,
I sit and mourn alone?

And why, when mirth unseals all tongues,
Should mine alone be dumb?
Ah! late I spoke to silent throngs,
And now their hour is come.

I, a princess, king-descended, decked with jewels, gilded, drest,
Would rather be a peasant with her baby at her breast,
For all I shine so like the sun, and am purple like the west.

Two and two my guards behind, two and two before,
Two and two on either hand, they guard me evermore;
Me, poor dove, that must not coo - eagle that must not soar.

All my fountains cast up perfumes, all my gardens grow
Scented woods and foreign spices, with all flowers in blow
That are costly, out of season as the seasons go.

All my walls are lost in mirrors, whereupon I trace
Self to right hand, self to left hand, self in every place,
Self-same solitary figure, self-same seeking face.

Then I have an ivory chair high to sit upon,
Almost like my father's chair, which is an ...

The Season speaks this year of life
Confusing words of strife,
Suggesting weeds instead of fruits and flowers
In all Earth's bowers.
With heart of Jael, face of Ruth,
She goes her way uncouth
Through hills and fields, where fog and sunset seem
Wild smoke and steam.
Around her, spotted as a leopard skin,
She draws her cloak of whin,
And through the dark hills sweeps dusk's last red glare
Wild on her hair.
Her hands drip leaves, like blood, and burn
With frost; her moony urn
She lifts, where Death, 'mid driving stress and storm,
Rears his gaunt form.
And all night long she seems to say
"Come forth, my Winds, and slay!
And everywhere is heard the wailing cry
Of dreams that die.

Till death have broken
Sweet life’s love-token,
Till all be spoken
That shall be said,
What dost thou praying,
O soul, and playing
With song and saying,
Things flown and fled?
For this we know not
That fresh springs flow not
And fresh griefs grow not
When men are dead;
When strange years cover
Lover and lover,
And joys are over
And tears are shed.

If one day’s sorrow
Mar the day’s morrow
If man’s life borrow
And man’s death pay
If souls once taken,
If lives once shaken,
Arise, awaken,
By night, by day
Why with strong crying
And years of sighing,
Living and dying,
Fast ye and pray?
For all your weeping,
Waking and sleeping,
Death comes to reaping
And takes away.

Though t...

Yes, sad one of Sion,[1] if closely resembling,
    In shame and in sorrow, thy withered-up heart--
If drinking deep, deep, of the same "cup of trembling"
    Could make us thy children, our parent thou art,

Like thee doth our nation lie conquered and broken,
    And fallen from her head is the once royal crown;
In her streets, in her halls, Desolation hath spoken,
    And "while it is day yet, her sun hath gone down."[2]

Like thine doth her exile, mid dreams of returning,
    Die far from the home it were life to behold;
Like thine do her sons, in the day of their mourning,
    Remember the bright things that blest them of old.

Ah, well may we call her, like thee "the Forsaken,"[3]
    Her boldest are vanquished, her proude...

Summer's last sun nigh unto setting shines
Through yon columnar pines,
And on the deepening shadows of the lawn
Its golden lines are drawn.

Dreaming of long gone summer days like this,
Feeling the wind's soft kiss,
Grateful and glad that failing ear and sight
Have still their old delight,

I sit alone, and watch the warm, sweet day
Lapse tenderly away;
And, wistful, with a feeling of forecast,
I ask, "Is this the last?

"Will nevermore for me the seasons run
Their round, and will the sun
Of ardent summers yet to come forget
For me to rise and set?"

Thou shouldst be here, or I should be with thee
Wherever thou mayst be,
Lips mute, hands clasped, in silences of speech
Each answering unto each.

For this still hour, ...

Why weep ye in your innocent toil at all?
Sweet little hands, why halt and tremble so?
Full many a wrong note falls, but let it fall!
Each note to me is like a golden glow;
Each broken cadence like a morning call;
Nay, clear and smooth I would not have you go,
Soft little hands, upon the curtained threshold set
Of this long life of labour, and unrestful fret.

Soft sunlight flickers on the checkered green:
Warm winds are stirring round my dreaming seat:
Among the yellow pumpkin blooms, that lean
Their crumpled rims beneath the heavy heat,
The stripèd bees in lazy labour glean
From bell to bell with golden-feathered feet;
Yet even here the voices of hard life go by;
Outside, the city strains with its eternal cry.

Here, as I sit - the sunlight on my f...

    The leaves lie hidden as spades about their home.
    Brief movement of a kitten, then silence
    till the car's engine drones.
    Close by, a pioneer cemetery sits near a secondary wood.

    Queer is the effect of sun on a tinted roof;
    bluebells with poppies,
    cowslip and tiny brook
    back of
    fields redden and
    given to wheat.

    A house is a machine
    processing the water of living
    a replenished cistern,
    birds paying a call, a minor animal
    brushing past
    an ivy-railed fence.

My dear young friend, whose shining wit
    Sets all the room a-blaze,
Don't think yourself a "happy dog,"
    For all your merry ways;
But learn to wear a sober phiz,
    Be stupid, if you can,
It's such a very serious thing
    To be a funny man!

You're at an evening party, with
    A group of pleasant folks, -
You venture quietly to crack
    The least of little jokes, -
A lady doesn't catch the point,
    And begs you to explain -
Alas for one that drops a jest
    And takes it up again!

You're talking deep philosophy
    With very special force,
To edify a clergyman
    With suitable discourse, -
You think you've got him - when he calls
    A friend across the way,
And begs you'll say that funny thing
    You...

    Thou of an independent mind,
    With soul resolv'd, with soul resign'd;
    Prepar'd Power's proudest frown to brave,
    Who wilt not be, nor have a slave;
    Virtue alone who dost revere,
    Thy own reproach alone dost fear,
    Approach this shrine, and worship here.

From the dust, and the drought, and the heat,
I am borne on the pinions of leave,
From the things that are bad to repeat
To the things that are good to receive.

From the glare of the day at its height
On a land that was blinding to see,
From the wearisome hiss of the night,
By a turn of the wheel I am free.

I have passed to the heart of the Hills,
For a season of halcyon hours,
'Mid the music of murmurous rills,
And the delicate odours of flowers;

And I walk in an exquisite shade,
Where the fern-tasselled boughs interlace;
And the verdurous fringe of the glade
Is a marvel of fairylike grace;

And with never an aim or a plan
I can wander in uttermost ease,
Where the only reminders of Man
Are the monkeys aloft in the trees;<...

PART SECOND

We left our Hero in a trance,
Beneath the alders, near the river;
The Ass is by the river-side,
And, where the feeble breezes glide,
Upon the stream the moonbeams quiver.

A happy respite! but at length
He feels the glimmering of the moon;
Wakes with glazed eve. and feebly signing
To sink, perhaps, where he is lying,
Into a second swoon!

He lifts his head, he sees his staff;
He touches 'tis to him a treasure!
Faint recollection seems to tell
That he is yet where mortals dwell
A thought received with languid pleasure!

His head upon his elbow propped,
Becoming less and less perplexed,
Sky-ward he looks to rock and wood
And then upon the glassy flood
His wandering eye is fixed.

Thought he, that is ...

Vauvenargues says that in public gardens there are alleys haunted principally by thwarted ambition, by unfortunate inventors, by aborted glories and broken hearts, and by all those tumultuous and contracted souls in whom the last sighs of the storm mutter yet again, and who thus betake themselves far from the insolent and joyous eyes of the well-to-do. These shadowy retreats are the rendezvous of life's cripples. To such places above all others do the poet and philosopher direct their avid conjectures. They find there an unfailing pasturage, for if there is one place they disdain to visit it is, as I have already hinted, the place of the joy of the rich. A turmoil in the void has no attractions for them. On the contrary they feel themselves irresistibly drawn towards all that' is feeble, ruined, sorrowing, and bereft.
An experienced ...

[Supposed to be chanted to some rude instrument at a modern fireplace]


    Chant we the story now
    Tho' in a house we sleep;
    Tho' by a hearth of coals
    Vigil to-night we keep.
    Chant we the story now,
    Of the vague love we knew
    When I from out the sea
    Rose to the feet of you.

    Bird from the cliffs you came,
    Flew thro' the snow to me,
    Facing the icy blast
    There by the icy sea.
    How did I reach your feet?
    Why should I - at the end
    Hold out half-frozen hands
    Dumbly to you my friend?
    Ne'er had I woman seen,
    Ne'er had I seen a flame.
    There you piled fagots on,
    Heat rose - the blast to tame.
    There by the cave-door dark,
    Comforting me you crie...

O bitter sprig! Confession sprig!
In the bouquet I give you place also - I bind you in,
Proceeding no further till, humbled publicly,
I give fair warning, once for all.

I own that I have been sly, thievish, mean, a prevaricator, greedy, derelict,
And I own that I remain so yet.

What foul thought but I think it - or have in me the stuff out of which it is thought?
What in darkness in bed at night, alone or with a companion?