green

To me the sky looks bluer,
And the green grass greener still,
And earth's flowers seem more lovely
As they bloom on heath and hill.
There's a beauty breathing round me
Like a newborn Eden now,
And forgotten are the furrows
Grief has graven on my brow.
There is gladness in the sunshine,
As its gold light gilds the trees,
And I hear a voice of music
Singing to me in the breeze.
There is in my heart a lightness
That seemeth not of me,
For today I've burst from bondage,

What scene would I want to be enveloped in
more than this one,
an ordinary night at the kitchen table,
floral wallpaper pressing in,
white cabinets full of glass,
the telephone silent,
a pen tilted back in my hand?

It gives me time to think
about all that is going on outside--
leaves gathering in corners,
lichen greening the high grey rocks,
while over the dunes the world sails on,
huge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake.

But beyond this table
there is nothing that I need,

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting
for someone to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!

There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,

I am a parcel of vain strivings tied
By a chance bond together,
Dangling this way and that, their links
Were made so loose and wide,
Methinks,
For milder weather.

A bunch of violets without their roots,
And sorrel intermixed,
Encircled by a wisp of straw
Once coiled about their shoots,
The law
By which I'm fixed.

A nosegay which Time clutched from out
Those fair Elysian fields,
With weeds and broken stems, in haste,
Doth make the rabble rout
That waste
The day he yields.

Christ inviting, and the church answering the invitation.

SS 2:14-17.

[Hark! the Redeemer from on high
Sweetly invites his fav'rites nigh;
From caves of darkness and of doubt,
He gently speaks, and calls us out.

"My dove, who hidest in the rock,
Thine heart almost with sorrow broke,
Lift up thy face, forget thy fear,
And let thy voice delight mine ear.

"Thy voice to me sounds ever sweet;
My graces in thy count'nance meet;
Though the vain world thy face despise,

Characters of Christ; borrowed from inanimate things in Scripture.

Go, worship at Immanuel's feet,
See in his face what wonders meet!
Earth is too narrow to express
His worth, his glory, or his grace.

[The whole creation can afford
But some faint shadows of my Lord;
Nature, to make his beauties known,
Must mingle colors not her own.]

[Is he compared to wine or bread?
Dear Lord, our souls would thus be fed
That flesh, that dying blood of thine,
Is bread of life, is heav'nly wine.]

To you, troop so fleet,
That with winged wandering feet,
Through the wide world pass,
And with soft murmuring
Toss the green shades of spring
In woods and grass,
Lily and violet
I give, and blossoms wet,
Roses and dew;
This branch of blushing roses,
Whose fresh bud uncloses,
Wind-flowers too.
Ah, winnow with sweet breath,
Winnow the holt and heath,
Round this retreat;
Where all the golden morn
We fan the gold o’ the corn,
In the sun’s heat.

Write it. Write. In ordinary ink
on ordinary paper: they were given no food,
they all died of hunger. "All. How many?
It's a big meadow. How much grass
for each one?" Write: I don't know.
History counts its skeletons in round numbers.
A thousand and one remains a thousand,
as though the one had never existed:
an imaginary embryo, an empty cradle,
an ABC never read,
air that laughs, cries, grows,
emptiness running down steps toward the garden,
nobody's place in the line.

O Pride of the days in prime of the months
Now trebled in great renown,
When before the ark of our holy cause
Fell Dagon down-
Dagon foredoomed, who, armed and targed,
Never his impious heart enlarged
Beyond that hour; God walled his power,
And there the last invader charged.

He charged, and in that charge condensed
His all of hate and all of fire;
He sought to blast us in his scorn,
And wither us in his ire.
Before him went the shriek of shells-
Aerial screamings, taunts and yells;