'Twer good what Meäster Collins spoke
O' spite to two poor spitevul vo'k,
When woone twold tother o' the two
“I be never the better vor zeèn o' you.”
If soul to soul, as Christians should,
Would always try to do zome good,
“How vew,” he cried, “would zee our feäce
A-brighten'd up wi' smiles o' greäce,
An' tell us, or could tell us true,
I be never the better vor zeèn o' you.”

A man mus' be in evil ceäse
To live 'ithin a land o' greäce,
Wi' nothèn that a soul can read
O' goodness in his word or deed;
To still a breast a-heav'd wi' sighs,

Well , you mid keep the town an' street,
Wi' grassless stwones to beät your veet,
An' zunless windows where your brows
Be never cooled by swaÿèn boughs;
An' let me end, as I begun,
My days in oben aïr an' zun,
Where zummer win's a-blowèn sweet,
Wi' blooth o' trees as white's a sheet;
Or swaÿèn boughs, a-bendèn low
Wi' rip'nèn apples in a row,
An' we a-risèn rathe do meet
The bright'nèn dawn wi' dewy veet,
An' leäve, at night, the vootless groves,
To rest 'ithin our thatchen oves
An' here our children still do bruise

In the seven-times taken and re-taken town
Peace! The mind stops; sense argues against sense.
The August sun is ghostly in the street
As if the Silence of a thousand years
Were its familiar. All is as it was
At the instant of the shattering: flat-thrown walls;
Dislocated rafters; lintels blown awry
And toppling over; what were windows, mere
Gapings on mounds of dust and shapelessness;
Charred posts caught in a bramble of twisted iron;
Wires sagging tangled across the street; the black
Skeleton of a vine, wrenched from the old house

Where is the land that fathered, nourished, poured
The sap of a strong race into your veins,
Land of wide tilth, of farms and granaries stored,
Of old towers chiming over peaceful plains?

It is become a vision, barred away
Like light in cloud, a memory and belief
On those lost plains the Glory of yesterday
Builds her dark towers for the bells of Grief.

It is become a splendour-circled name
For all the world; a torch against the skies
Burns on that blood-spot, the unpardoned shame
Of them that conquered: but your homeless eyes

this postcard has the Christmas
spirit with its Lutheran
steeple between the hills
its cow fence its fir tree
and a dirt farm in Thuringia

bright star,
unto you is born
this day a grub

Ah ! Meäster Collins overtook
Our knot o' vo'k a-stannèn still,
Last Zunday, up on Ivy Hill,
To zee how strong the corn did look
An' he staÿ'd back awhile an' spoke
A vew kind words to all the vo'k,
Vor good or joke, an' wi' a smile
Begun a-plaÿèn wi' a chile.

The zull, wi' iron zide awry,
Had long a-vurrow'd up the vield;
The heavy roller had a-wheel'd
It smooth vor showers vrom the sky;
The bird-bwoy's cry, a-risèn sh'ill,
An' clacker, had a-left the hill,
All bright but still, vor time alwone
To speed the work that we'd a-done.

Would'st thou this monster, that we name the world,
Who round the envied tree of blissful fruit
Lies like a dragon curled
In jealous watch, our venture to dispute;
Would'st thou that she were smoothly negligent,
By any pleader bent,
A tender judge, to tears and pity prone,
She that on love defeated builds her throne,
The spoiler strong, sanguine with our despairs,
She that the traitor in us holds in fee,
Rich with our woes, with our fears cruel, she
Whose easy wisdom the sad heart ensnares?

Rather rejoice that this immortal foe

There's no living with you
when you pass yourself off as an interpreter.
For whom is this game played?

Are you less entitled to imagination
than the poet?


Django on a borrowed string,
I'll vote for that!

There is a hegemony
of mother
where the cucumber is real
but between my house
and yours
null turns into Titania
and a star
is not literal.

Thou lofty mirror, Truth, let me be shown
Such as I am, in body and in mind;
Hair plainly red, retreating now behind;
Of stature tall, head bent and looking prone;
A meagre body on two stilts of bone;
Fair skin, blue eyes, good air, nose well defined,
Mouth handsome, teeth such as are rare to find,
And paler in the face than king on throne.

Now harsh and bitter, pleasant now and mild;
A quickly roused yet no malignant foe;
My heart, and mind, and self, never in tune;
Sad for the most part, then in such a flow