"And drink oblivion to our woes."
        Anna Matilda.


Talk no more of your Cheltenham and Harrowgate springs,
    'Tis from Lethe we now our potations must draw;
Yon Lethe's a cure for--all possible things,
    And the doctors have named it the Wellington Spa.

Other physical waters but cure you in part;
    One cobbles your gout--t'other mends your digestion--
Some settle your stomach, but this--bless your heart!--
    It will settle for ever your Catholic Question.

Unlike too the potions in fashion at present,
    This Wellington nostrum, restoring by stealth,
So purges the memory of all that's unpleasant,
    That patients forget themselves into rude health.
For instance, the inventor--...

Lord, keep us by thy word in hope,
And check the murder of Turk and Pope,
Who Jesus Christ, thine only Son,
Would fain from off thy throne cast down.

Proof of thy strength, Lord Christ, afford,
For thou of all the lords art Lord;
Thy own poor Christendom defend,
That it may praise thee without end.

God Holy Ghost, who Comfort art,
Give to thy folk on earth one heart;
Stand by us breathing our last breath;
Into life lead us out of death.

    These shell-queens, too,
    are blithely catpaws,
    shorn & musky acorns with
    indexed fingers erect
    at manicured attention.

    II
    ... Showboats with green faces far as swallows fly,
    a lilac in oasis ... scarlet bream
    ... blue ointment where the ocean is
    periwinkle patches,
    a robin's egg clarity pressed
    between blue-nosed tavern wall
    & bottles clinking.

    III
    See plush cords,
    the suede interior
    svelte & slinky
    an upholstery simonized
    with natural springs where
    bubbles encounter founts
    in apertures, the rich measure
    of open ground or mezzanine curtain
    slit along a riverine walk
    & jungle clearing.

    IV

I am so fair that wheresoe'er I wend
Men yearn with strange desire to kiss my face,
Stretch out their hands to touch me as I pass,
And women follow me from place to place.

A poet writing honey of his dear
Leaves the wet page, - ah! leaves it long to dry.
The bride forgets it is her marriage-morn,
The bridegroom too forgets as I go by.

Within the street where my strange feet shall stray
All markets hush and traffickers forget,
In my gold head forget their meaner gold,
The poor man grows unmindful of his debt.

Two lovers kissing in a secret place,
Should I draw nigh, - will never kiss again;
I come between the king and his desire,
And where I am all loving else is vain.

Lo! when I walk along the woodland way
Strange creatures leer at...

I hate the very noise of troublous man
Who did and does me all the harm he can.
Free from the world I would a prisoner be
And my own shadow all my company;
And lonely see the shooting stars appear,
Worlds rushing into judgment all the year.
O lead me onward to the loneliest shade,
The darkest place that quiet ever made,
Where kingcups grow most beauteous to behold
And shut up green and open into gold.
Farewell to poesy--and leave the will;
Take all the world away--and leave me still
The mirth and music of a woman's voice,
That bids the heart be happy and rejoice.

When I am all alone
Envy me most,
Then my thoughts flutter round me
In a glimmering host;

Some dressed in silver,
Some dressed in white,
Each like a taper
Blossoming light;

Most of them merry,
Some of them grave,
Each of them lithe
As willows that wave;

Some bearing violets,
Some bearing bay,
One with a burning rose
Hidden away.

When I am all alone
Envy me then,
For I have better friends
Than women and men.

Alas, whence came this change of lookes? If I
Haue chang'd desert, let mine owne conscience be
A still-felt plague to selfe-condemning mee;
Let woe gripe on my heart, shame loade mine eye:
But if all faith, like spotlesse Ermine, ly
Safe in my soule, which only doth to thee,
As his sole obiect of felicitie,
With wings of loue in aire of wonder flie,
O ease your hand, treate not so hard your slaue;
In iustice paines come not till faults do call:
Or if I needs, sweet Iudge, must torments haue,
Vse something else to chasten me withall
Then those blest eyes, where all my hopes do dwell:
No doome should make ones Heau'n become his Hell.

    Taken as metaphor ...
    Ophelia's funeral oration,
    derogatory snout
    of the Morning Glory
    breathing pollened fire
    overladen steps of the church.

    II
    Limestone rock
    caulking in grey
    limpid cracks ...
    doublet and hose
    then gold doubloons
    down sunlit honey
    where a smear of red lichen
    onto brown-yellow moss
    colonizes rock.

    III
    Poor Ophelia, dicing
    for a sedentary-free Hamlet,
    duty-free of fissures + frost.

    IV
    Elusiveness,
    water rushing over stone
    torrent of words
    (Ophelia receiving these),
    red hand of the berry
    swollen shut,
    prisoner in the dock
    bird of quarry, pit
    &am...

I cannot look upon thy grave,
Though there the rose is sweet:
Better to hear the long wave wash
These wastes about my feet!

Shall I take comfort? Dost thou live
A spirit, though afar,
With a deep hush about thee, like
The stillness round a star?

Oh, thou art cold! In that high sphere
Thou art a thing apart,
Losing in saner happiness
This madness of the heart.

And yet, at times, thou still shalt feel
A passing breath, a pain;
Disturb'd, as though a door in heaven
Had oped and closed again.

And thou shalt shiver, while the hymns,
The solemn hymns, shall cease;
A moment half remember me:
Then turn away to peace.

But oh, for evermore thy look,
Thy laugh, thy charm, thy tone,
Thy sweet and wayward earthlin...

Take hence the bowl;--tho' beaming
    Brightly as bowl e'er shone,
Oh, it but sets me dreaming
    Of happy days now gone.
There, in its clear reflection,
    As in a wizard's glass,
Lost hopes and dead affection,
    Like shades, before me pass.

Each cup I drain brings hither
    Some scene of bliss gone by;--
Bright lips too bright to wither,
    Warm hearts too warm to die.
Till, as the dream comes o'er me
    Of those long vanished years,
Alas, the wine before me
    Seems turning all to tears!

I'll lay me down on the green sward,
Mid yellowcups and speedwell blue,
And pay the world no more regard,
But be to Nature leal and true.
Who break the peace of hapless man
But they who Truth and Nature wrong?
I'll hear no more of evil's plan,
But live with Nature and her song.

Where Nature's lights and shades are green,
Where Nature's place is strewn with flowers.
Where strife and care are never seen,
There I'll retire to happy hours,
And stretch my body on the green,
And sleep among the flowers in bloom,
By eyes of malice seldom seen,
And dream upon the days to come.

I'll lay me by the forest green,
I'll lay me on the pleasant grass;
My life shall pass away unseen;
I'll be no more the man I was.
The tawny bee upon the flower,<...

Arming down along the stream,
Along the sparkling water,
And past the pool where lilies gleam,
There comes the squatter’s daughter.

Her eyes are kind; her lips are warm;
And like a flower her face is;
The habit shows her bonny form
As graceful as a Grace’s.

O I’ll be mad of love, I know;
My head she’ll surely addle;
O Cupid, Cupid; get your bow;
And shoot her from the saddle!

For, like a bird on breezes waft,
She quickly, quickly passes;
O Cupid, Cupid, draw your shaft;
And bring her to the grasses!

O she is worthy game for you;
And there is none to match her.
So, Cupid, send your arrow true;
And I’ll be there to catch her!

Oh! that I were a fairy sprite, to wander
In forest paths, o'erarched with oak and beech;
Where the sun's yellow light, in slanting rays,
Sleeps on the dewy moss: what time the breath
Of early morn stirs the white hawthorn boughs,
And fills the air with showers of snowy blossoms.
Or lie at sunset 'mid the purple heather,
Listening the silver music that rings out
From the pale mountain bells, swayed by the wind.
Or sit in rocky clefts above the sea,
While one by one the evening stars shine forth
Among the gathering clouds, that strew the heavens
Like floating purple wreaths of mournful nightshade!

That crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,

Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling She knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.

No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound,
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, "O sea-starved, hungry sea.'

I have not felt, o'er seas of sand,
The rocking of the desert bark;
Nor laved at Hebron's fount my hand,
By Hebron's palm-trees cool and dark;
Nor pitched my tent at even-fall,
On dust where Job of old has lain,
Nor dreamed beneath its canvas wall,
The dream of Jacob o'er again.

One vast world-page remains unread;
How shine the stars in Chaldea's sky,
How sounds the reverent pilgrim's tread,
How beats the heart with God so nigh
How round gray arch and column lone
The spirit of the old time broods,
And sighs in all the winds that moan
Along the sandy solitudes!

In thy tall cedars, Lebanon,
I have not heard the nations' cries,
Nor seen thy eagles stooping down
Where buried Tyre in ruin lies.
The Christian's prayer I have not said<...

    England, father and mother in one,
    Look on your stalwart son.
Sturdy and strong, with the valour of youth,
Where is another so lusty?
Coated and mailed, with the armour of truth,
Where is another so trusty?
Flesh of your flesh, and bone of your bone,
He is yours alone.

    England, father and mother in one,
    See the wealth of your son.
Forests primeval, and virginal sod,
Wheat-fields golden and splendid:
Riches of nature and opulent God
For the use of his children intended.
A courage that dares, and a hope that endures,
And a soul all yours.

    England, father and mother in one,
    Hear the cry of your son.
Little cares he for the glories of earth
Lying around and above him,
Yearning is he for the rights of his birt...

I heard a little child beneath the stars
Talk as he ran along
To some sweet riddle in his mind that seemed
A-tiptoe into song.

In his dark eyes lay a wild universe, -
Wild forests, peaks, and crests;
Angels and fairies, giants, wolves and he
Were that world's only guests.

Elsewhere was home and mother, his warm bed: -
Now, only God alone
Could, armed with all His power and wisdom, make
Earths richer than his own.

O Man! - thy dreams, thy passions, hopes, desires! -
He in his pity keep
A homely bed where love may lull a child's
Fond Universe asleep!

Fresh from the Hall of Bounty sprung, [1]
With glowing heart and ardent eye,
With song and rhyme upon my tongue,
And fairy visions dancing by,
The mid-day sun in all his pow'r
The backward valley painted gay;
Mine was a road without a flower,
Where one small streamlet cross'd the way.

[Footnote 1: On a sultry afternoon, late in the summer of 1802, Euston-Hall lay in my way to Thetford, which place I did not reach until the evening, on a visit to my sister: the lines lose much of their interest except they could be read on the spot, or at least at a coresponding season of the year.]

What was it rous'd my soul to love?
What made the simple brook so dear?
It glided like the weary dove,
And never brook seem'd half so clear.
Cool pass'd the current o'er my feet,
...