grief

Description of Peru, and of its Productions--Virtues of the People;
and of their Monarch, ATALIBA --His love for ALZIRA --Their Nup-
tials celebrated--Character of ZORAI , her Father--Descent of the
Genius of Peru--Prediction of the Fall of that Empire.


Where the Pacific deep in silence laves
The western shore, with slow, and languid waves,
There, lost PERUVlA ! bloom'd thy cultur'd bowers,
Thy vallies fragrant with perennial flowers;
There, far above, the Pine unbending rose,
Along the pathway of thy mountain snows;

Character of ZAMOR , a bard--His passion for ACILOE , daughter of the Cazique who rules the valley--The Peruvian tribe prepare to defend themselves--A battle--The PERUVIANS are vanquished--ACILOE'S father is made a prisoner, and ZAMOR is supposed to have fallen in the engagement--ALPHONSO becomes enamoured of ACILOE --Offers to marry her--She rejects him--In revenge he puts her father to the torture--She appears to consent, in order to save him--Meets ZAMOR in a wood--LAS CASAS joins them--Leads the two lovers to ALPHONSO , and obtains their freedom--ZAMOR conducts ACILOE and her father to

Some say
it was a pear
Eve ate.
Why else the shape
of the womb,
or of the cello
Whose single song is grief
for the parent tree?
Why else the fruit itself
tawny and sweet
which your lover
over breakfast
lets go your pear-
shaped breast
to reach for?

PEACE! what do tears avail?
She lies all dumb and pale,
And from her eye
The spirit of lovely life is fading,
And she must die!
Why looks the lover wroth? the friend upbraiding?
Reply, reply!

Hath she not dwelt too long
’Midst pain, and grief, and wrong?
Then, why not die?
Why suffer again her doom of sorrow,
And hopeless lie?
Why nurse the trembling dream until to-morrow?
Reply, reply!

Death! Take her to thine arms,
In all her stainless charms,

There was a time when it was counted high
To be a patriot--whether by the zeal
Of peaceful labour for the country's weal,
Or by the courage in her cause to die:

FOR KING AND COUNTRY was a rallying cry
That turned men's hearts to fire, their nerves to steel;
Not to unheeding ears did it appeal,
A pulpit formula, a platform lie.

Only a fool will wantonly desire
That war should come, outpouring blood and fire,
And bringing grief and hunger in her train.
And yet, if there be found no other way,

I shall tread, another year,
Ways I walked with Grief,
Past the dry, ungarnered ear
And the brittle leaf.

I shall stand, a year apart,
Wondering, and shy,
Thinking, "Here she broke her heart;
Here she pled to die."

I shall hear the pheasants call,
And the raucous geese;
Down these ways, another Fall,
I shall walk with Peace.

But the pretty path I trod
Hand-in-hand with Love-
Underfoot, the nascent sod,
Brave young boughs above,

It is the summer bears ruled, the last summer
of pure breathlessness
when I moved unaware, taken in
by the netted branches of raspberries, held
in trance by the sweet air
of the orchards. My grandfather
died at home one night in early July
as expected, and the white clouds drifted like snow
on the face of the black lake.
Grandmother swept her porch clean, every morning
pushed grief under the railings like wisps
of an old bird's nest. Together
we watched the she-bear heave both bins

Now, in twilight, on the palace steps
the king asks forgiveness of his lady.

He is not
duplicitous; he has tried to be
true to the moment; is there another way of being
true to the self?

The lady
hides her face, somewhat
assisted by the shadows. She weeps
for her past; when one has a secret life,

one's tears are never explained.

Yet gladly would the king bear
the grief of his lady: his
is the generous heart,
in pain as in joy.

Do you know

Visionary underneath his pain,
he lies there, staring blankly at my mother,
cancer spread from his liver to his brain.
She tries to tell him all the latest news,
mentions I’m in flight, and that my brother
and sisters are beside his bed. They smother
him with their grief. My brother offers booze.
But papa calls out to his long dead father,
points to his own bare feet with his cane,
and asks them to take off his heavy shoes.

Down by the slipralls stands our cow
Chewing, chewing, chewing,
She does not care what folks out there
In the great, big world are doing.
She sees the small cloud-shadows pass
And green grass shining under.
If she does think, what does she think
About it all, I wonder?

She sees the swallows skimming by
Above the sweet young clover,
The light reeds swaying in the wind
And tall trees bending over.
Far down the track she hears the crack
of bullock-whips, and raving