379

Rehearsal to Ourselves
Of a Withdrawn Delight—
Affords a Bliss like Murder—
Omnipotent—Acute—

We will not drop the Dirk—
Because We love the Wound
The Dirk Commemorate—Itself
Remind Us that we died.

We shall have our little day.
Take my hand and travel still
Round and round the little way,
Up and down the little hill.

It is good to love again;
Scan the renovated skies,
Dip and drive the idling pen,
Sweetly tint the paling lies.

Trace the dripping, pierced heart,
Speak the fair, insistent verse,
Vow to God, and slip apart,
Little better, Little worse.

Would we need not know before
How shall end this prettiness;
One of us must love the more,
One of us shall love the less.

Thus it is, and so it goes;

Know ye not that lovely river?
Know ye not that smiling river?
Whose gentle flood,
By cliff and wood,
With wildering sound goes winding ever.
Oh! often yet with feeling strong,
On that dear stream my mem'ry ponders,
And still I prize its murm'ring song,
For by my childhood's home it wanders.
Know ye not that lovely river?
Know ye not that smiling river?
Whose gentle flood,
By cliff and wood,
There's music in each wind that blows
Within our native valley breathing;
There's beauty in each flower that grows

One grand boulevard with trees
with one grand cafe in sun
with strong black coffee in very small cups.

One not necessarily very beautiful
man or woman who loves you.

One fine day.


Submitted by Britton

Yea, why I love thee let my heart repeat:
I look upon thy face and then divine
How men could die for beauty, such as thine,
Deeming it sweet
To lay my life and manhood at thy feet,
And for a word, a glance,
Do deeds of old romance.


II


Yea, why I love thee let my heart unfold:
I look into thy heart and then I know
The wondrous poetry of the long-ago,
The Age of Gold,
That speaks strange music, that is old, so old,
Yet young, as when 't was born,
With all the youth of morn.


III

Reason says, “ I will beguile him with the tongue.”; Love says,
“Be silent. I will beguile him with the soul.”
The soul says to the heart, “Go, do not laugh at me and yourself.
What is there that is not his, that I may beguile him
thereby?”
He is not sorrowful and anxious and seeking oblivion that I
may beguile him with wine and a heavy measure.
The arrow of his glance needs not a bow that I should beguile
the shaft of his gaze with a bow.
He is not prisoner of the world, fettered to this world of earth,

Reason has moons, but moons not hers,
Lie mirror'd on the sea,
Confounding her astronomers,
But O! delighting me.
. . . . .
BABYLON - where I go dreaming
When I weary of to-day,
Weary of a world grown grey.
. . . . .
GOD loves an idle rainbow,
No less than labouring seas.

little dark girl with
kind eyes
when it comes time to
use the knife
I won't flinch and
I won't blame
you,
as I drive along the shore alone
as the palms wave,
the ugly heavy palms,
as the living does not arrive
as the dead do not leave,
I won't blame you,
instead
I will remember the kisses
our lips raw with love
and how you gave me
everything you had
and how I
offered you what was left of
me,
and I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window

Youth, you say. What of it?
I could say I was as fair
and handsome as a hero.
But I was always plain. I hated
and loved much as a young man.
Once, I had a preference for women,
to hate and love them ceaselessly
rather than avoidable young men.
That came gradually with my riving.
But who’s to say the ungainly
pursuit of young ephebes
wasn’t as daft and ardent
as the chase after hetaerae.
Much time was wasted in the hunt,
much in bewailing its necessity,
the rest in eating, drinking and sleeping.
I never gave a hoot for what

Rasul, even though you are infamous for your love of tulip lips,
be happy, for seldom do the lovers complain of thy in-attention.

Love was the task to which Rasul applied himself with abandon.
Love, and beloved, a total world, with neither time nor space for the mundane.