Identity

The moon tonight dreams vacantly, as if
She were a beauty cushioned at her rest
Who strokes with wandering hand her lifting
Nipples, and the contour of her breasts;

Lying as if for love, glazed by the soft
Luxurious avalanche, dying in swoons,
She turns her eyes to visions-clouds aloft
Billowing hugely, blossoming in blue.

When sometimes from her stupefying calm
On to this earth she drops a furtive tear
Pale as an opal, iridescent, rare,

The poet, sleepless watchman, is the one
To take it up within his hollowed palm
And in his heart to hide it from the sun.

I

Come up, dear chosen morning, come,
Blessing the air with light,
And bid the sky repent of being dark:
Let all the spaces round the world be white,
And give the earth her green again.
Into new hours of beautiful delight,
Out of the shadow where she has lain,
Bring the earth awake for glee,
Shining with dews as fresh and clear
As my beloved's voice upon the air.
For now, O morning chosen of all days, on thee
A wondrous duty lies:
There was an evening that did loveliness foretell;
Thence upon thee, O chosen morn, it fell
To fashion into perfect destiny
The radiant prophecy.
For in an evening of young moon, that went
Filling the moist air with a rosy fire,
I and my beloved knew our love;
And knew that thou, O morning, wouldst arise

Now I make a leaf of Voices, for I have found nothing mightier than they are,
And I have found that no word spoken, but is beautiful, in its place.

O what is it in me that makes me tremble so at voices?
Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall follow,
As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps, anywhere around the globe.

All waits for the right voices;
Where is the practis'd and perfect organ? Where is the develop'd Soul?
For I see every word utter'd thence, has deeper, sweeter, new sounds, impossible on less terms.

I see brains and lips closed, tympans and temples unstruck,
Until that comes which has the quality to strike and to unclose,
Until that comes which has the quality to bring forth what lies slumbering, forever ready, in...

Give me to-night to hide me in the shade,
    That neither moon nor star
May see the secret place where I am laid,
    Nor watch me from afar.

Let not the dark its prying ghosts employ
    To peer on my retreat,
And see the fragments of my broken toy
    Lie scattered at my feet.

I fashioned it, that idol of my own,
    Of metal strange and bright;
I made my toy a god - I raised a throne
    To honour my delight.

This haunted byway of the grove was lit
    With lamps my hand had trimmed,
Before the altar in the midst of it
    I kept their flame undimmed.

My steps turned ever to the hidden shrine;
    Aware or unaware,
My soul dwelt only in that spot divine,
    And now a wreck lies there.

Give me to-night to w...

Giving myself permission to write    -
points from Ciudad Juarez
as well as the compass where
taboos complete bayonet-sized memories
a tadpole of doubt gleaned from
shallow Canadian upbringing
sojourning in the South.

A stranger came    -
his beard the Columbian hillcountry
mustachioed, the voice trailed off
whisper-thin, steeper than riverine jungles,
the Black Mamba or boomslang before
brief rictus of pain.

I am writing this
with an eye on fortune,
it's not the cantina is dry
just walls above this cot
squeeze the soul like a padre's blessing
between rosary beads
and the day is hot.

Extend a cigarette,
fumble another Spanish syllable
pretend houngans are hombres
Hidalgo just another green wine.

T...

I saw the sunset-colored sands,
The Nile like flowing fire between,
Where Rameses stares forth serene,
And Ammon's heavy temple stands.

I saw the rocks where long ago,
Above the sea that cries and breaks,
Swift Perseus with Medusa's snakes
Set free the maiden white like snow.

And many skies have covered me,
And many winds have blown me forth,
And I have loved the green, bright north,
And I have loved the cold, sweet sea.

But what to me are north and south,
And what the lure of many lands,
Since you have leaned to catch my hands
And lay a kiss upon my mouth.

A wan new garment of young green
Touched, as you turned your soft brown hair
And in me surged the strangest prayer
Ever in lover's heart hath been.

That I who saw your youth's bright page,
A rainbow change from robe to robe,
Might see you on this earthly globe,
Crowned with the silver crown of age.

Your dear hair powdered in strange guise,
Your dear face touched with colours pale:
And gazing through the mask and veil
The mirth of your immortal eyes.

We two in the fever, and fervour, and glow
    Of life's high tide have rejoiced together.
We have looked out over the glittering snow,
    And known we were dwelling in summer weather.
For the seasons are made by the heart, I hold,
    And not by the outdoor heat or cold.

We two in the shadows of pain and fear
    Have journeyed together in dim, dark places,
Where black-robed sorrow walked to and fro,
    And fear and trouble with phantom faces
Peered out upon us, and froze our blood,
    Though June's fair roses were all in bud.

We two have measured all depths, all heights;
    We have bathed in tears, we have sunned in laughter;
We have known all sorrow, and all delights,
    They never could keep us apart hereafter.
Wherever your spirit was sen...

Letter X. A Retrospect.


I.

    I walk again beside the roaring sea,
    And once again I harken to the speech
    Of waves exulting on the madden'd beach.
    A sound of awful joy it seems to me,
    A shuddering sound of God's eternity, -
    Telling of things beyond the sage's reach.


II.

    I walk alone. I see the bounding waves
    Curl'd into foam. I watch them as they leap
    Like wild sea-horses loosen'd from the deep.
    And well I know that they have seen the graves
    Of shipwreck'd sailors; for Disaster paves...

"Write me a rhyme of the present time".
    And the poet took his pen
And wrote such lines as the miser minds
    Hide in the hearts of men.

He grew enthused, as the poets used
    When their fingers kissed the strings
Of some sweet lyre, and caught the fire
    True inspiration brings,

And sang the song of a nation's wrong -
    Of the patriot's galling chain,
And the glad release that the angel, Peace,
    Has given him again.

He sang the lay of religion's sway,
    Where a hundred creeds clasp hands
And shout in glee such a symphony
    That the whole world understands.

He struck the key of monopoly,
    And sang of her swift decay,
And traveled the track of the railway back
    With a blithesome roundelay -

Indefinite space, which, by co-substance night,
In one black mystery two void mysteries blends;
The stray stars, whose innumerable light
Repeats one mystery till conjecture ends;
The stream of time, known by birth-bursting bubbles;
The gulf of silence, empty even of nought;
Thought's high-walled maze, which the outed owner troubles
Because the string's lost and the plan forgot:
When I think on this and that here I stand,
The thinker of these thoughts, emptily wise,
Holding up to my thinking my thing-hand
And looking at it with thought-alien eyes,
    The prayer of my wonder looketh past
    The universal darkness lone and vast.

As one who cons at evening o'er an album all alone,
And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known,
So I turn the leaves of fancy till, in shadowy design,
I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine.

The lamplight seems to glimmer with a flicker of surprise,
As I turn it low to rest me of the dazzle in my eyes,
And light my pipe in silence, save a sigh that seems to yoke
Its fate with my tobacco and to vanish with the smoke.

'Tis a fragrant retrospection - for the loving thoughts that start
Into being are like perfume from the blossom of the heart;
And to dream the old dreams over is a luxury divine -
When my truant fancy wanders with that old sweetheart of mine.

Though I hear, beneath my study, like a fluttering of wings,
The voices o...

So many were there talking that I heard
Nothing at first quite plain, as I sat down;
Until from this man's gibe and that keen word,
Another's chilly smile or peevish frown,
I caught their talk--but added none of mine.
They said how she still fumbled with her fate,
How she had banished visitants divine,
How long her sleep had been, her sloth how great,
How others had drawn near and passed her by,
While she luxuriously had dreamed, dreamed on,
She, she her own eternal enemy,
And wanting brain, brain, brain would be undone.
The glasses tinkled as they talked and laughed,
And if the door a moment hung ajar
The noises of the street, remotely soft,
Crept in as from a world sunken afar.
And still they talked, and then well pleased were pleased
To talk of other t...

    In days of old did law and rime
        A common pathway follow,
    For Themis in the mythic time
        Was sister of Apollo.

    The Hindu statutes tripped in feet
        As daintily as Dryads,
    And law in Wales to be complete
        Was versified in triads.

    The wise Alfonso of Castile
        Composed his code in metre
    Thereby to make its flavour feel
        A little bit the sweeter.

    But law and rime were found to be
        A trifle inconsistent,
    And now in statutes poetry
        Is wholly non-existent.

    Still here and there some advocate
        Before his fellows know it
    Has had bestowed on him by fate
        The laurel of the poet.

    Let him who has been honoured so...

    Is there a whim-inspired fool,
    Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,
    Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,
        Let him draw near;
    And owre this grassy heap sing dool,
        And drap a tear.

    Is there a bard of rustic song,
    Who, noteless, steals the crowds among,
    That weekly this area throng,
        O, pass not by!
    But with a frater-feeling strong,
        Here heave a sigh.

    Is there a man, whose judgment clear,
    Can others teach the course to steer,
    Yet runs, himself, life's mad career,
        Wild as the wave;
    Here pause, and, through the starting tear,
        Survey this grave.

    The poor inhabitant below
    Was quick to learn and wise to know,
    And keen...

Lonely wonder, delight past hoping!
Sky-line broken by stirring trees,
Grey rocks hither and shoreward sloping,
Silent bracken about my knees.

Dusky scrub where the sunlight splashes,
Glimmer of waters barely seen
Here the hope that was dust and ashes
Leaps and flashes in flames of green.

Through the boughs that are still before me,
Misty blue of the harbour hills;
Mighty Spirit of Earth who bore me,
Here the peace of thy love distils.

Fools have harried me; hell has driven,
Bidding me toil for its fading shows:
Back I spring to your arms, forgiven,
Back to the truth that a dreamer knows.

Gold and glory and fleeting pleasure
Pass in dust or as melting cloud:
You can dower with eternal treasure
Heart uplifted and head unbo...

Oft have I brooded on defeat and pain,
The pathos of the stupid, stumbling throng.
These I ignore to-day and only long
To pour my soul forth in one trumpet strain,
One clear, grief-shattering, triumphant song,
For all the victories of man's high endeavor,
Palm-bearing, laureled deeds that live forever,
The splendor clothing him whose will is strong.
Hast thou beheld the deep, glad eyes of one
Who has persisted and achieved?    Rejoice!
On naught diviner shines the all-seeing sun.
Salute him with free heart and choral voice,
'Midst flippant, feeble crowds of spectres wan,
The bold, significant, successful man.

    Mostly in a dull rotation
    We bear our loads and eat and drink and sleep.
    Feeling no tears, knowing no meditation,
    Too tired to think, too clogged with earth to weep.

    Dimly convinced, poor groping wretches,
    Like eyeless insects in a murky pond
    That out and out this city stretches,
    Away, away, and there is no beyond.

    No larger earth, no loftier heaven,
    No cleaner, gentler airs to breathe.    And yet,
    Even to us sometimes is given
    Visions of things we other times forget.

    Some day is done, its labour ended,
    And as we sit and brood at windows high,
    A steady wind from far descended,
    Blows off the filth that hid the deeper sky;

    There are the empty waiting spaces,
    We w...