A Lover's Complaint
FROM off a hill whose concave womb reworded
A plaintful story from a sistering vale,
My spirits to attend this double voice accorded,
And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale;
Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,
Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,
Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.
Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
Which fortified her visage from the sun,
A Red Palm
You're in this dream of cotton plants.
You raise a hoe, swing, and the first weeds
Fall with a sigh. You take another step,
Chop, and the sigh comes again,
Until you yourself are breathing that way
With each step, a sigh that will follow you into town.
That's hours later. The sun is a red blister
Coming up in your palm. Your back is strong,
Young, not yet the broken chair
Out Of Feelings
desert sucks upper water to store in the deep
trees, plants, herbs and grasses are about to die
sunshine reflects on mirages there
mirages elude and mislead the travelers,
travelers fall in danger
laughters and howlings heard of monsters;
trees distribute all the productions, yet stand still
to shadow the tired travelers in mid summer
and for creepers or parasites do not fall
Yes Yes
when God created love he didn't help most
when God created dogs He didn't help dogs
when God created plants that was average
when God created hate we had a standard utility
when God created me He created me
when God created the monkey He was asleep
when He created the giraffe He was drunk
when He created narcotics He was high
and when He created suicide He was low
Love Lies Sleeping
Earliest morning, switching all the tracks
that cross the sky from cinder star to star,
coupling the ends of streets
to trains of light.
now draw us into daylight in our beds;
and clear away what presses on the brain:
put out the neon shapes
that float and swell and glare
A Farewell
FAREWELL, thou little Nook of mountain-ground,
Thou rocky corner in the lowest stair
Of that magnificent temple which doth bound
One side of our whole vale with grandeur rare;
Sweet garden-orchard, eminently fair,
The loveliest spot that man hath ever found,
Farewell!--we leave thee to Heaven's peaceful care,
Thee, and the Cottage which thou dost surround.
Our boat is safely anchored by the shore,
Less Time
Less time than it takes to say it, less tears than it takes to die; I've taken account of everything,
there you have it. I've made a census of the stones, they are as numerous as my fingers and some
others; I've distributed some pamphlets to the plants, but not all were willing to accept them. I've
kept company with music for a second only and now I no longer know what to think of suicide, for
if I ever want to part from myself, the exit is on this side and, I add mischievously, the entrance, the
Fruit Of The Flower
My father is a quiet man
With sober, steady ways;
For simile, a folded fan;
His nights are like his days.
My mother's life is puritan,
No hint of cavalier,
A pool so calm you're sure it can
Have little depth to fear.
And yet my father's eyes can boast
Alastor: Or, The Spirit Of Solitude
Earth, Ocean, Air, belovèd brotherhood!
If our great Mother has imbued my soul
With aught of natural piety to feel
Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;
If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even,
With sunset and its gorgeous ministers,
And solemn midnight's tingling silentness;
If Autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood,
And Winter robing with pure snow and crowns
Of starry ice the gray grass and bare boughs;
The Schoolboy
I love to rise in a summer morn
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the skylark sings with me.
O! what sweet company!
But to go to school on a summer morn,
O! it drives all joy away;
Under a cruel eye outworn,
The little ones spend the day
Aurora Leigh (Excerpts)
[Book 1]
I am like,
They tell me, my dear father. Broader brows
Howbeit, upon a slenderer undergrowth
Of delicate features, -- paler, near as grave ;
But then my mother's smile breaks up the whole,
And makes it better sometimes than itself.
So, nine full years, our days were hid with God
Among his mountains : I was just thirteen,
Still growing like the plants from unseen roots
Eloisa To Abelard
In these deep solitudes and awful cells,
Where heav'nly-pensive contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing melancholy reigns;
What means this tumult in a vestal's veins?
Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat?
Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?
Yet, yet I love!--From Abelard it came,
And Eloisa yet must kiss the name.
Dear fatal name! rest ever unreveal'd,
Living By The Hungry Sea
My house is near a sea
The sea is my neighbour
I understand the sea
But the sea does not understand me,
At the time of tide it embraces me
My property
But at ebb most of the times it takes away
My cattle, precious thing
Giving me nothing
Orpheus
Orpheus with his lute made trees
And the mountain tops that freeze
Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.
Every thing that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads and then lay by.
A Sudden Downpour
Rain beats down on the window pane
As the flood gates of Heaven suddenly open
It is pouring out in torrential flow
Like a Reservoir, all at once, broken
It has come down as a welcome respite
To fan away the humid sweltering heat
It falls in drops and flows in rivulets
Washing the dust of summer drought
Meditation
Coming out of home I see some land and much water all around
Full with wonderful animals, plants, myriad of natural objects
Some I can name and some I can't, some near and some are so far
Some open, some covered, some sweet again some are so bitter,
First day, I see and think of the beauty remembering my sweet heart
I become romantic one reciting some romantic poems, singing a song
Run through the countryside playing hide and seek, hunting wildlife
Earn a speed leaving all behind, treading all innocent to go fast,
Always For The First Time
Always for the first time
Hardly do I know you by sight
You return at some hour of the night to a house at an angle to my window
A wholly imaginary house
It is there that from one second to the next
In the inviolate darkness
I anticipate once more the fascinating rift occurring
The one and only rift
In the facade and in my heart
The closer I come to you
No Life Span For Love And Dreams
We're aware
We're aware that between us there's
A haze of ignorance
Our steps but tread the path of our search
But can't see their goal
Much more exquisite and radiant
Than my poems is your inner self
And my eye-glasses are getting thicker every day
Do you know
Why poems and stories become wordless
As I Sat Alone By Blue Ontario's Shores
AS I sat alone, by blue Ontario's shore,
As I mused of these mighty days, and of peace return'd, and the dead
that return no more,
A Phantom, gigantic, superb, with stern visage, accosted me;
Chant me the poem, it said, that comes from the soul of America-
chant me the carol of victory;
And strike up the marches of Libertad- marches more powerful yet;
And sing me before you go, the song of the throes of Democracy.
(Democracy- the destin'd conqueror- yet treacherous lip-smiles
December Night
The cold slope is standing in darkness
But the south of the trees is dry to the touch
The heavy limbs climb into the moonlight bearing feathers
I came to watch these
White plants older at night
The oldest
Come first to the ruins
And I hear magpies kept awake by the moon