Down on your luck
or, as they say, "financially embarrassed" ...
with little in the way of hope,
less palaver    -
drifting in & out of theme parks not unlike
El Paso, Prairie Junction
between jobs, causes and wives...

letting "it all hang out", in the jumble of the moranese
letting despair and the pig iron law of economics
have their say    -
shouting "moral support" in the face of the rocky
"well-wisher".

I read all the plots and each ends up as a grave...
once in a single afternoon I even gave up on
golddiggers
who, though just passing through meant dress rehearsal
for the bigger jive, "longterm"
and since when should "patching up and catching up"
make starry-eyed even that slip of a girl, commitment.

Sigh on, sad heart, for Love's eclipse
And Beauty's fairest queen,
Though 'tis not for my peasant lips
To soil her name between:
A king might lay his sceptre down,
But I am poor and nought,
The brow should wear a golden crown
That wears her in its thought.

The diamonds glancing in her hair,
Whose sudden beams surprise,
Might bid such humble hopes beware
The glancing of her eyes;
Yet looking once, I look'd too long,
And if my love is sin,
Death follows on the heels of wrong,
And kills the crime within.

Her dress seem'd wove of lily leaves,
It was so pure and fine,
O lofty wears, and lowly weaves, -
But hodden-gray is mine;
And homely hose must step apart,
Where garter'd princes stand,
But may he wear my love at heart

O, tomb of the past
Where buried hopes lie,
In my visions I see
Thy phantoms pass by!
A form, long departed,
    Before me appears;
A sweet voice, long silent,
    Again greets my ears.

Fond memory dwells
    On the things that have been;
And my eyes calmly gaze
    On a long vanished scene;
A scene such as memory
    Stores deep in the breast,
Which only appears
    In a season of rest.

Once more we wander,
    Her fair hand in mine;
Once more her promise,
    "I'll ever be thine";
Once more the parting,
    The shroud, and the pall,
The sods' hollow thump
    As they coffinward fall.

The reverie ends--
    All the fancies have flown;
And my sad, lonely heart,
    Now seems doubly alone;...

Unfolding gazes
throw over
the little reality
surly door.
The dumb
clatter
of ripples
shudder the better life.

I

"You look like a widower," she said
Through the folding-doors with a laugh from the bed,
As he sat by the fire in the outer room,
Reading late on a night of gloom,
And a cab-hack's wheeze, and the clap of its feet
In its breathless pace on the smooth wet street,
Were all that came to them now and then . . .
"You really do!" she quizzed again.

II

And the Spirits behind the curtains heard,
And also laughed, amused at her word,
And at her light-hearted view of him.
"Let's get him made so just for a whim!"
Said the Phantom Ironic. "'Twould serve her right
If we coaxed the Will to do it some night."
"O pray not!" pleaded the younger one,
The Sprite of the Pities. "She said it in fun!"

III

But so it befell, whatever the...

I wonder, can the night go by;
Can this shot arrow of travel fly
Shaft-golden with light, sheer into the sky
Of a dawned to-morrow,
Without ever sleep delivering us
From each other, or loosing the dolorous
Unfruitful sorrow!

What is it then that you can see
That at the window endlessly
You watch the red sparks whirl and flee
And the night look through?
Your presence peering lonelily there
Oppresses me so, I can hardly bear
To share the train with you.

You hurt my heart-beats' privacy;
I wish I could put you away from me;
I suffocate in this intimacy,
For all that I love you;
How I have longed for this night in the train,
Yet now every fibre of me cries in pain
To God to remove you.

But surely my soul's best dream is s...

O if love were had for asking,
In the markets of the town,
Hardly a lass would think to wear
A fine silken gown:
But love is had by grieving
By choosing and by leaving,
And there's no one now to ask me
If heavy lies my heart.

O if love were had for a deep wish
In the deadness of the night,
There'd be a truce to longing
Between the dusk and the light:
But love is had for sighing,
For living and for dying,
And there's no one now to ask me
If heavy lies my heart.

O if love were had for taking
Like honey from the hive,
The bees that made the tender stuff
Could hardly keep alive:
But love it is a wounded thing,
A tremor and a smart,
And there's no one left to kiss me now
Over my heavy heart.

Mother, don't hold me,
Mother, your caress hurts me,
See through my face,
How I glow and wane.
Give the last kiss.    Let me go.
Send a prayer after me.
That I broke your life,
Mother, forgive me.

'Tis gone, with old belief and dream
That round it clung, and tempting scheme
Released from fear and doubt;
And the bright landscape too must lie,
By this blank wall, from every eye,
Relentlessly shut out.

Bear witness ye who seldom passed
That opening, but a look ye cast
Upon the lake below,
What spirit-stirring power it gained
From faith which here was entertained,
Though reason might say no.

Blest is that ground, where, o'er the springs
Of history, Glory claps her wings,
Fame sheds the exulting tear;
Yet earth is wide, and many a nook
Unheard of is, like this, a book
For modest meanings dear.

It was in sooth a happy thought
That grafted, on so fair a spot,
So confident a token
Of coming good; the charm is fled,

Sweet spirit! if thy airy sleep
    Nor sees my tears not hears my sighs,
Then will I weep, in anguish weep,
    Till the last heart's drop fills mine eyes.

But if thy sainted soul can feel,
    And mingles in our misery;
Then, then my breaking heart I'll seal--
    Thou shalt not hear one sigh from me.

The beam of morn was on the stream,
    But sullen clouds the day deform;
Like thee was that young, orient beam,
    Like death, alas, that sullen storm!

Thou wert not formed for living here,
    So linked thy soul was with the sky;
Yet, ah, we held thee all so dear,
    We thought thou wert not formed to die.

Home! Home!
Man may roam
While the blood of life is brimming,
While the head's with glory swimming;
But, when Love and Life are over,
Bring him to the village clover,
Home! Home!

Home! Home!
Bring him home,
Where the songs of sad hearts shrive him,
Where remorse no more shall rive him,
Where the ever weeping willow
Moults to make its leaves his pillow,
Home! Home!

Home! Home!
He is home,
Where his song was ever sounding,
Where his blood was ever bounding,
Here, at last, he leaves his madness,
All his love and all his sadness,
Home! Home!

Beneath the trees with heedful step and slow
At night I go,
Fearful upon their whispering to break
Lest they awake
Out of those dreams of heavenly light that fill
Their branches still
With a soft murmur of memoried ecstasy.
There 'neath each tree
Nightlong a spirit watches, and I feel
His breath unseal
The fast-shut thoughts and longings of tired day,
That flutter away
Mothlike on luminous soft wings and frail
And moonlike pale.
There in the flowering chestnuts' bowering gloom
And limes' perfume
Wandering wavelike through the moondrawn night
That heaves toward light,
There hang I my dark thoughts and deeper prayers;
And as the airs
Of star-kissed dawn come stirring and o'er-creep
The ford of sleep,
Thy shape, great Love, grows sha...

Dawn, midnight, noonday? What are times to thee
Man's Grief art thou, that moanest with the light,
And starest dumb at evening, and at night
Dost wake and dream and slumber fitfully!
Thou art Distress, that cannot cry aloud.
That cannot weep, that cannot stoop to tear
One fold of all her garment, but with air
Supremely brooding waits the final shroud!

Dust, long ago, the princes of this place;
Forgot the civic losses which in thee
Great Angelo lamented; but thy face
Proclaims the master's immortality!
So sit thee, marble Grief! this very day
How burns the art when long the hand is clay!

As from our dream we died away
Far off I felt the outer things;
Your wind-blown tresses round me play,
Your bosom's gentle murmurings.

And far away our faces met
As on the verge of the vast spheres;
And in the night our cheeks were wet,
I could not say with dew or tears.

As one within the Mother's heart
In that hushed dream upon the height
We lived, and then we rose to part,
Because her ways are infinite.

With the man I love who loves me not,
I walked in the street-lamps' flare;
We watched the world go home that night
In a flood through Union Square.

I leaned to catch the words he said
That were light as a snowflake falling;
Ah well that he never leaned to hear
The words my heart was calling.

And on we walked and on we walked
Past the fiery lights of the picture shows
Where the girls with thirsty eyes go by
On the errand each man knows.

And on we walked and on we walked,
At the door at last we said good-bye;
I knew by his smile he had not heard
My heart's unuttered cry.

With the man I love who loves me not
I walked in the street-lamps' flare
But oh, the girls who can ask for love
In the lights of Union Square.

'Love is all
Unsatisfied
That cannot take the whole
Body and soul';
And that is what Jane said.

'Take the sour
If you take me
I can scoff and lour
And scold for an hour.'
"That's certainly the case,' said he.

'Naked I lay,
The grass my bed;
Naked and hidden away,
That black day';
And that is what Jane said.

'What can be shown?
What true love be?
All could be known or shown
If Time were but gone.'
'That's certainly the case,' said he.

When twilight dews are falling soft
    Upon the rosy sea, love,
I watch the star, whose beam so oft
    Has lighted me to thee, love.
And thou too, on that orb so dear,
    Dost often gaze at even,
And think, tho' lost for ever here,
    Thou'lt yet be mine in heaven.

There's not a garden walk I tread,
    There's not a flower I see, love,
But brings to mind some hope that's fled,
    Some joy that's gone with thee, Love.
And still I wish that hour was near,
    When, friends and foes forgiven,
The pains, the ills we've wept thro' here
    May turn to smiles in heaven.

Warm is the parlour atmosphere,
Serene the lamp's soft light;
The vivid embers, red and clear,
Proclaim a frosty night.
Books, varied, on the table lie,
Three children o'er them bend,
And all, with curious, eager eye,
The turning leaf attend.

Picture and tale alternately
Their simple hearts delight,
And interest deep, and tempered glee,
Illume their aspects bright.
The parents, from their fireside place,
Behold that pleasant scene,
And joy is on the mother's face,
Pride in the father's mien.

As Gilbert sees his blooming wife,
Beholds his children fair,
No thought has he of transient strife,
Or past, though piercing fear.
The voice of happy infancy
Lisps sweetly in his ear,
His wife, with pleased and peaceful eye,
...