rain

Over the terminal,
        the arms and chest
                of the god

brightened by snow.
        Formerly mercury,
                formerly silver,

surface yellowed
        by atmospheric sulphurs
                acid exhalations,

and now the shining
        thing's descendant.
                Obscure passages,

dim apertures:
        these clouded windows
                show a few faces

or some empty car's
        filmstrip of lit flames

OF bodies chang'd to various forms, I sing:
Ye Gods, from whom these miracles did spring,
Inspire my numbers with coelestial heat;
'Till I my long laborious work compleat:
And add perpetual tenour to my rhimes,
Deduc'd from Nature's birth, to Caesar's times.
The Creation of Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
the World And Heav'n's high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of Nature; if a face:

Consider the chalice: both what I seek
And where I find, believing Savior's blood
Was laced with meter and rhyme - my antique
Sacrament. Whittle toothpicks from my rood,
Store them safe in baggies. Probe stigmata -
These wounds were borne to suffer scrutiny.
Dissect and splice fourteen strands of data;
Affect the modern state of entropy
In Faith and matter.
Break it down, around.
Explain cumulonimbus from a God -
Shaped cloud, ignoring iambs in the sound
Of thunder. Drown out cadence as you plod

You say love is this, love is that:
Poplar tassels, willow tendrils
the wind and the rain comb,
tinkle and drip, tinkle and drip--
branches drifting apart. Hagh!
Love has not even visited this country.

Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece,
Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease.
But one such death remain'd to come;
The last poetic voice is dumb--
We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb.

When Byron's eyes were shut in death,
We bow'd our head and held our breath.
He taught us little; but our soul
Had felt him like the thunder's roll.
With shivering heart the strife we saw
Of passion with eternal law;
And yet with reverential awe
We watch'd the fount of fiery life
Which served for that Titanic strife.

DEAD, with their eyes to the foe,
Dead, with the foe at their feet;
Under the sky laid low
Truly their slumber is sweet,
Though the wind from the Camp of the
Slain Men blow,
And the rain on the wilderness beat.

Dead, for they chose to die
When that wild race was run;
Dead, for they would not fly,
Deeming their work undone,
Nor cared to look on the face of the sky,
Nor loved the light of the sun.

Honor we give them and tears,

I had come to the house, in a cave of trees,
Facing a sheer sky.
Everything moved, -- a bell hung ready to strike,
Sun and reflection wheeled by.

When the bare eyes were before me
And the hissing hair,
Held up at a window, seen through a door.
The stiff bald eyes, the serpents on the forehead
Formed in the air.

This is a dead scene forever now.
Nothing will ever stir.
The end will never brighten it more than this,
Nor the rain blur.

Maud Muller on a summer's day
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.

Singing, she wrought, and her merry gleee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.

But when she glanced to the far-off town
White from its hill-slope looking down,

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast,-

A wish that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.

In London City I evade
For charming Burlington Arcade -
For thee in youth I met a maid
By name of Mazie,
Who lost no time in telling me
The Ritz put up a topping tea,
But having only shillings three
My smile was hazy.

:Instead," said I, "it might be sport
To take a bus to Hampton Court,"
(Her manner, I remarked, was short,)
But she assented.
We climbed on top, and all the way

New York: You take a train that rips through versts.
It feels as if the trains were running over your ears.

For many hours the train flies along the banks
of the Hudson about two feet from the water. At the stops,
passengers run out, buy up bunches of celery,
and run back in, chewing the stalks as they go.

Bridges leap over the train with increasing frequency.

At each stop an additional story grows
onto the roofs. Finally houses with squares
and dots of windows rise up. No matter how far