moon

EXULT MY MUSE! exult to see
Each envious, waspish, jealous thing,
Around its harmless venom fling,
And dart its powerless fangs at THEE!
Ne'er shalt THOU bend thy radiant wing,
To sweep the dark revengeful string;
Or meanly stoop, to steal a ray,
E'en from RINALDO'S glorious lay,
Tho' his transcendent Verse should twine
About thy heart, each bliss divine.

O MUSE ADOR'D, I woo thee now
From yon bright Heaven, to hear my vow;
From thy blest wing a plume I'll steal,

With musing mind I watch thee steal
Above those envious clouds that hid
Till now thy face; thou dost reveal
More than the glaring sunlight did;
So round me would I have thy light
In one broad sea of beauty lie,
And who, while thou dost rule the night,
For day would sigh,
Nor long for wings that he might flee
To find thy hidden face and ride the dark with thee?
And hence it was that ever forth
My fancy doated more and more

Bush and vale thou fill'st again

With thy misty ray,
And my spirit's heavy chain

Castest far away.

Thou dost o'er my fields extend

Thy sweet soothing eye,
Watching like a gentle friend,

O'er my destiny.

Vanish'd days of bliss and woe

Haunt me with their tone,
Joy and grief in turns I know,

As I stray alone.

Stream beloved, flow on! flow on!

Ne'er can I be gay!
Thus have sport and kisses gone,

Truth thus pass'd away.

Only a week ago, heaven bent so near
It bartered greetings with the jocund earth,
The sweet June day was lived with love and mirth,
A world of verdure laughed in summer cheer.
And when night came its charm was doubly dear;
Under that opulent moon joy knew no dearth;
All beautiful and gracious things had birth
In your eyes' cherishing light; for you were here.
Now all that glow of life is vanished; lorn
The world lies under the cold gleam of morn.
Withered and shrinking in the spectral blue

Thou go'st! I murmur--
Go! let me murmur.
Oh, worthy man,
Fly from this land!

Deadly marshes,
Steaming mists of October
Here interweave their currents,
Blending for ever.

Noisome insects
Here are engender'd;
Fatal darkness
Veils their malice.

The fiery-tongued serpent,
Hard by the sedgy bank,
Stretches his pamper'd body,
Caress'd by the sun's bright beams.

Tempt no gentle night-rambles
Under the moon's cold twilight!
Loathsome toads hold their meetings

People wish to be settled. Only as long as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.
-- Thoreau

My life has been
the instrument
for a mouth
I have never seen,
breathing wind
which comes
from I know not
where,
arranging and changing
my moods,
so as to make
an opening
for his voice.

Or hers.
Muse, White Goddess
mother with invisible
milk,
androgynous god
in whose grip
I struggle,
turning this way and that,

We both have our hands to give
Take mine I shall lead you afar

I have lived several times my face hasw changed
With every threshold I have crossed and every hand clasped Familial springtime was reborn
Keeping for itself and for me its perishable snow
Death and the betrothed
The future with five fingers clenched and letting go

My age always gave me
New reasons for living through others
For having the blood of man other's heart in mine

Oh the lucid fellow I was and that I am

MY lute, awake! perform the last
Labour that thou and I shall waste,
   And end that I have now begun;
For when this song is said and past,
   My lute, be still, for I have done.

As to be heard where ear is none,
As lead to grave in marble stone,
   My song may pierce her heart as soon:
Should we then sing, or sigh, or moan?
   No, no, my lute! for I have done.

The rocks do not so cruelly
Repulse the waves continually,
   As she my suit and affectiòn;
So that I am past remedy:

Dark horror, hear my call!
Stern Genius hear from thy retreat
On some old sepulchre's moss-cankered seat,
Beneath the Abbey's ivied wall
That trembles o'er its shade;
Where wrapt in midnight gloom, alone,
Thou lovest to lie and hear
The roar of waters near,
And listen to the deep dull groan
Of some perturbed sprite
Borne fitful on the heavy gales of night.

Or whether o'er some wide waste hill
Thou mark'st the traveller stray,
Bewilder'd on his lonely way,
When, loud and keen and chill,

Faint gleams the evening radiance thro' the sky,
The sober twilight dimly darkens round;
In short quick circles the shrill bat flits by,
And the slow vapour curls along the ground.

Now the pleas'd eye from yon lone cottage sees
On the green mead the smoke long-shadowing play;
The Red-breast on the blossom'd spray
Warbles wild her latest lay,
And sleeps along the dale the silent breeze.
Calm CONTEMPLATION,'tis thy favorite hour!
Come fill my bosom, tranquillizing Power.