home

The landscape sleeps in mist from morn till noon;
And, if the sun looks through, 'tis with a face
Beamless and pale and round, as if the moon,
When done the journey of her nightly race,
Had found him sleeping, and supplied his place.
For days the shepherds in the fields may be,
Nor mark a patch of sky - blindfold they trace,
The plains, that seem without a bush or tree,
Whistling aloud by guess, to flocks they cannot see.

The timid hare seems half its fears to lose,
Crouching and sleeping 'neath its grassy lair,

November days in Ireland
The skies are dull and grey,
But Oh! The clear strong flame of love,
That burns by night and day.
As swift and bright the whispered prayers fly to the Heavens O'erhead,
From faithful hearts in Ireland, remembering their dead.

No primroses or cowslips now,
But cold November rain,
No hawthorns in the hedges,
Till Spring comes round again,
But roses bloom in chapels lone and cabins far apart
Dear rosaries of remembrance said to Mary's loving heart.

There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.

And there are corpses,
feet made of cold and sticky clay,
death is inside the bones,
like a barking where there are no dogs,
coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,

after Rene Char

Let's agree that the night is a blank canvas, a station
break, a bridge of a song.

Let's agree further that activities at night—movies,
campfires, reading by a lamp—are all
basically an homage to the day.

I have come to regard these two statements as
contradictory. Let me explain.

First, set aside that one could see a movie, torch a fire,
and read with the sun blazing over us.

The in-between aspect of night need not spark a flurry of

All right. Try this,
Then. Every body
I know and care for,
And every body
Else is going
To die in a loneliness
I can't imagine and a pain
I don't know. We had
To go on living. We
Untangled the net, we slit
The body of this fish
Open from the hinge of the tail
To a place beneath the chin
I wish I could sing of.
I would just as soon we let
The living go on living.
An old poet whom we believe in
Said the same thing, and so
We paused among the dark cattails and prayed

Down by the beautiful Lakes of Killarney,
Off times I have met my own dear Barney,
In the sweet summer time of the year,
In the silvery moonlight so clear,
I've rambled with my sweetheart Barney,
Along the green banks of the Lakes of Killarney.

The Lakes of Killarney are most lovely to be seen
In the summer season when nature's face is green,
Especially in the beautiful silvery moonlight,
When its waters do shine like silver bright;
Such was the time when me and my Barney

Do not travel over vast distances.
Stay home and contemplate your neighbor,
the old woman who roams up and down the street.
She can never remember who you are
or who she is, for that matter.
This way, you will protect
your precarious sense of self.

Ruin your appetite before dinner.
This will ensure that you'll never feel hunger.
Play the same tune over and over,
driving everyone else crazy.
This protects you from unpredictability.

Find large articles of clothing
and wrap them around the trees,

No rose that in a garden ever grew,
In Homer's or in Omar's or in mine,
Though buried under centuries of fine
Dead dust of roses, shut from sun and dew
Forever, and forever lost from view,
But must again in fragrance rich as wine
The grey aisles of the air incarnadine
When the old summers surge into a new.
Thus when I swear, "I love with all my heart,"
'Tis with the heart of Lilith that I swear,
'Tis with the love of Lesbia and Lucrece;
And thus as well my love must lose some part

A stranger lies ill, in a distant city,
With no - - letters from home!
The glances that meet him, in lieu of pity,
Are querring, "Why does he roam?"
"Oh, heed my request," says he, "else 'twere better
I slept in this gold-dusted loam;
Dismiss the physician, and bring a letter--
A flock of kind letters from home."

"Oh, heed my request," says he, "else 'twer better I
I slept in this gold-dusted loam;
Dismiss the physician, and bring a letter--
A flock of kind letters from home."

I have lain in the sun
I have toil'd as I might,
I have thought as I would,
And now it is night.

My bed full of sleep,
My heart full of content
For friends that I met
The way that I went.

I welcome fatigue
While frenzy and care
Like thin summer clouds
Go melting in air.

To dream as I may
And awake when I will
With the song of the birds
And the sun on the hill.

Or death - were it death -
To what would I wake
Who loved in my home