hope

Whom does this stately Navy bring?
O! ‘tis Great Britain's Glorious King,
Convey him then, ye Winds and Seas,
Swift as Desire and calm as Peace.
In your Respect let him survey
What all his other Subjects pay;
And prophesie to them again
The splendid smoothness of his Reign.
Charles and his mighty hopes you bear:
A greater now then Cæsar's here;
Whose Veins a richer Purple boast
Then ever Hero's yet engrost;
Sprung from a Father so august,
He triumphs in his very dust.

How in all wonder Columbus got over,
That is a marvel to me, I protest,
Cabot, and Raleigh too, that well-read rover,
Frobisher, Dampier, Drake and the rest.
Bad enough all the same,
For them that after came,
But, in great Heaven's name,
How he should ever think
That on the other brink
Of this huge waste terra firma should be,
Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me.

How a man ever should hope to get thither,
E'e'n if he knew of there being another side;

The next word that I would unto thee say,
Is how thou mayst attain without delay,

Those blessed graces, and that holiness
Thou dost with so much godly zeal express

Thy love to, and thy longing to enjoy,
That sins and weakness might thee less annoy.

Know, then, as I have hinted heretofore,
And shall now speak unto a little more,

All graces in the person of the Son
Are by the Father hid, and therefore none

Can them obtain but they who with him close;
All others graceless are but only those;

-- for Jane kenyon


It is a day after many days of storms.
Having been washed and washed, the air glitters;
small heaped cumuli blow across the sky; a shower
visible against the firs douses the crocuses.
We knew it would happen one day this week.
Now, when I learn you have died, I go
to the open door and look across at New Hampshire
and see that there, too, the sun is bright
and clouds are making their shadowy ways along the horizon;
and I think: How could it not have been today?

How are Thy servants blest, O Lord!
How sure is their defense!
Eternal wisdom is their guide,
Their help Omnipotence.

In foreign realms, and lands remote,
Supported by Thy care,
Through burning climes they pass unhurt,
And breathe in tainted air.

When by the dreadful tempest borne
High on the broken wave,
They know Thou art not slow to her,
Nor impotent to save.

The storm is laid, the winds retire,
Obedient to Thy will,
The sea, that roars at Thy command,

DEDICATED TO LUCY BATES

(Being a reminiscence of certain private theatricals.)


Oh, cabaret dancer, I know a dancer,
Whose eyes have not looked on the feasts that are vain.
I know a dancer, I know a dancer,
Whose soul has no bond with the beasts of the plain:
Judith the dancer, Judith the dancer,
With foot like the snow, and with step like the rain.

Oh, thrice-painted dancer, vaudeville dancer,
Sad in your spangles, with soul all astrain,

Hope is a tattered flag and a dream of time.
Hope is a heartspun word, the rainbow, the shadblow in white
The evening star inviolable over the coal mines,
The shimmer of northern lights across a bitter winter night,
The blue hills beyond the smoke of the steel works,
The birds who go on singing to their mates in peace, war, peace,
The ten-cent crocus bulb blooming in a used-car salesroom,
The horseshoe over the door, the luckpiece in the pocket,
The kiss and the comforting laugh and resolve—

It's a jazz affair, drum crashes and coronet razzes.
The trombone pony neighs and the tuba jackass snorts.
The banjo tickles and titters too awful.
The chippies talk about the funnies in the papers.
The cartoonists weep in their beer.
Shop riveters talk with their feet
To the feet of floozies under the tables.
A quartet of white hopes mourn with interspersed snickers:
"I got the blues.
I got the blues.
I got the blues."
And . . . as we said earlier:
The cartoonists weep in their beer.

I pray you not, Leuconoë, to pore
With unpermitted eyes on what may be
Appointed by the gods for you and me,
Nor on Chaldean figures any more.
’T were infinitely better to implore
The present only:—whether Jove decree
More winters yet to come, or whether he
Make even this, whose hard, wave-eaten shore

Shatters the Tuscan seas to-day, the last—
Be wise withal, and rack your wine, nor fill
Your bosom with large hopes; for while I sing,
The envious close of time is narrowing;—

Power's a cheat, success but trying,
Even pleasure bears a sting;
Still ’tis useless, useless sighing,
Rather list to Hope replying—
“The flowers must come again with spring;
And in the trampled way we re going
Streams of comfort yet are flowing—
Hark! I hear them murmuring.”
Fame’s a liar in the nation!
Love hath oft a wayward wing;
Still, hence seek not for occasion
To impugn Hope’s sweet persuasion—
“The flowers will come again with spring;