Far are the shades of Arabia,
Where the Princes ride at noon,
'Mid the verdurous vales and thickets,
Under the ghost of the moon;
And so dark is that vaulted purple
Flowers in the forest rise
And toss into blossom 'gainst the phantom stars
Pale in the noonday skies.

Sweet is the music of Arabia
In my heart, when out of dreams
I still in the thin clear mirk of dawn
Descry her gliding streams;
Hear her strange lutes on the green banks
Ring loud with the grief and delight
Of the dim-silked, dark-haired Musicians

Glinting golden through the trees,
Apples of Hesperides!
Through the moon-pierced warp of night
Shoot pale shafts of yellow light,
Swaying to the kissing breeze
Swings the treasure, golden-gleaming,
Apples of Hesperides!

Far and lofty yet they glimmer,
Apples of Hesperides!
Blinded by their radiant shimmer,
Pushing forward just for these;
Dew-besprinkled, bramble-marred,
Poor duped mortal, travel-scarred,
Always thinking soon to seize
And possess the golden-glistening
Apples of Hesperides!

Look, the eucalyptus, the Atlas pine,
the yellowing ash, all the trees
are gone, and I was older than
all of them. I am older than the moon,
than the stars that fill my plate,
than the unseen planets that huddle
together here at the end of a year
no one wanted. A year more than a year,
in which the sparrows learned
to fly backwards into eternity.
Their brothers and sisters saw this
and refuse to build nests. Before
the week is over they will all
have gone, and the chorus of love
that filled my yard and spilled

Here lieth one who did most truly prove,
That he could never die while he could move,
So hung his destiny never to rot
While he might still jogg on, and keep his trot,
Made of sphear-metal, never to decay
Untill his revolution was at stay.
Time numbers motion, yet (without a crime
'Gainst old truth) motion number'd out his time:
And like an Engin mov'd with wheel and waight,
His principles being ceast, he ended strait.
Rest that gives all men life, gave him his death,
And too much breathing put him out of breath;

Drunk, I kissed the moon
where it stretched on the floor.
I'd removed happiness from a green bottle,
both sipped and gulped
just as a river changes its mind,
mostly there was a flood in my mouth

because I wanted to love the toaster
as soon as possible, and the toothbrush
with multi-level brissels
created by dental science, and the walls
holding pictures in front of their faces
to veil the boredom of living

fifty years without once
turning the other way. I wanted
the halo a cheap beaujolais paints

Tis a moon-tinted primrose, with a well
Of trembling dew; in its soft atmosphere,
A tiny whirlwind of sweet smells, doth swell
A lady bird; and when no sound is near
That elfin hermit fans the fairy bell
With glazen wings, (mirrors on which appear
Atoms of colours that flizz by unseen
And struts about his darling flower with pride.
But, if some buzzing gnat with pettish spleen
Come whining by, the insect ‘gins to hide
And folds its flimsy drapery between
His speckled buckler and soft silken side.

Yestreen I had a pint o' wine,
A place where body saw na;
Yestreen lay on this breast o' mine
The gowden locks of Anna.

The hungry Jew in wilderness
Rejoicing o'er his manna
Was naething to my hiney bliss
Upon the lips of Anna.

Ye Monarchs take the East and West
Frae Indus to Savannah:
Gie me within my straining grasp
The melting form of Anna!

There I'll despise Imperial charms,
An empress or sultana,
While dying raptures in her arms,
I give an' take wi' Anna!

The pale discrowned stacks of maize,
   Like spectres in the sun,
Stand shivering nigh Avonaise,
   Where all is dead and gone.

The sere leaves make a music vain,
   With melancholy chords;
Like cries from some old battle-plain,
   Like clash of phantom swords.

But when the maize was lush and green
   With musical green waves,
She went, its plumed ranks between,
   Unto the hill of graves.

The falcon soars
The town's gates are even higher

Angelica's their doorkeeper
She's wound the sun round her head
She's tied the moon round her waist

She's hung herself with stars.

And Thou art One--One with th' eternal hills,
And with the flaming stars, and with the moon,
Translucent, cold. The sentinel of noon
That clothes the sky in robes of light and fills
The earth with warmth, the flowering fields, the rills,
The waving trees, the south wind's elfin rune,
Are One with Thee. All nature is in tune
With Thee, O Father, God--and if one wills
To humbly walk the fragrant, leaf-strewn path
And kneel in reverence 'neath the vaulted sky,
Hearing the hymnals of the waving trees