Classic Poem

Always, wherever there is beauty, any streak
Or strip of colour on a cloud or in a creek;
Always, no matter where it is, no matter: any strip
Or streak of water or the green glint in a chip
Of rock; a tentative sunrise tinted thin
Cobweb glitter pricked out with a pin;
Noises that put a cool knife through the blood:
Partridge wings drumming in a wood;
A soft wind nibbling deftly at the rain —
All things like these that go out edged with pain
Because of a blind light staggering through the heart —
Always these come and break us and depart.

So that I never know when I say, — Peace
Is with my spirit; I care no longer; cease
To care, — — I never know but then and there
These things and things like these will make me care.
I have grown so tired seeing the rain-soaked streets,
Wet shoes forever trampling newspaper sheets
Maudlin with rain and flattening to the knees —
Oh I have grown so tired of seeing these!
What are you, Life? Are you simply the stale
Smell of water stagnant in a pail?
Can you be broken like broken rain? Or are
You fixed like the frosty metal of a star?
If I could lay my finger on you, cry, — Here
Life, this is you: a bleak and whimsical smear
Down the moist windows of the world! — If I
Could only nail you down in some keen cry!

I did not think I could endure so much
At your hands: leave the sharp desirable touch
Of women and one woman's mouth that went
Shivery on my mouth; give up the scent
Of skin as delicate as wild white grapes;
The agitated breath; hair that escapes
In tawny whispers; and the eyes that shook
Blue fire; give up every word and look;
The little throaty laugh, the golden bird
Poised in a look and beating in a word.

Life like a leopard stepping, like a paw
Perpetually suspended, like a claw
Hooked in the groaning spirit, what remorse
Assails your nostrils, curves you from your course?
When in your stealthy legend was the truce
Free from the plunging shadow of your shoes?
The sinister velvet and the sultry kiss
I know, and the contemptible armistice
I hardly have forgotten; but I cling
Savagely to my own reckoning:
There have been moments much too vigilant
Even for you; your lungs will never pant
Or purr against those intervals: I have stood
Watch on a hill of stars and under the hood
Of a death's-head moth-moon and have kicked the dew
To splintered silver and have laughed at you.
. . . . .

Night tapped at my temples, at my skin
Night was a needle, a piercing discipline;
The moon a tinkle of ice in a cool blue glass;
Under my soles I could feel the barred worm pass
Hooped in a lustre of rings; earth like a bowl
Cracked with a warm black steam that rose and stole
Chattering into the blood until it hummed;
But my heart was a heavy empty thing, a thumbed
Paper, an abandoned place as black
As a blowing yard behind a railroad track
Where the moon babbles like an idiot
And arc lamps cough a difficult colour and not
A footstep echoes and only a cold ghost comes
Punctually mumbling reminiscent gums.

Yet it was Lazarus April nevertheless,
Called forth, bound hand and foot, to feverishness;
Uncoiling the spiced cloth where death-sweat clings,
Pale spring again after a thousand springs!
No question about its being April again;
The old sweet pallor, the old sweet smell of rain,
Dark dripping noises, bruised earth — God how sweet,
How sweet! But in my heart the deadened beat
Of ghosts on stone. . . . What can I do to work
Clear of that mortmain? Hamlet's feeble dirk?
Or the Moor's pillow and poison? Words, words
Kicking under my heart! As well lime birds
In scarlet wool! No, not that way, not that;
But take the buffet and go sprawling flat
Floored by the dead hand's shadow; draw the knife
Fiercely into the texture of my life;
Make friends; touch hair and eyes; solicit deep
Delight and an opaque impartial sleep!