1

1 AMAZING grace! (how sweet the sound!)
2 That sav'd a wretch like me!
3 I once was lost, but now am found;
4 Was blind, but now I see.

2

5 'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
6 And grace my fears reliev'd;
7 How precious did that grace appear,
8 The hour I first believ'd!

3

9 Thro' many dangers, toils, and snares,
10 I have already come;
11 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
12 And grace will lead me home.

4

Here, where precipitate Spring with one light bound
Into hot Summer's lusty arms expires;
And where go forth at morn, at eve, at night,
Soft airs, that want the lute to play with them,
And softer sighs, that know not what they want;
Under a wall, beneath an orange-tree
Whose tallest flowers could tell the lowlier ones
Of sights in Fiesole right up above,
While I was gazing a few paces off
At what they seemed to show me with their nods,
Their frequent whispers and their pointing shoots,
A gentle maid came down the garden-steps

Every day I bear a burden, and I bear this calamity for a purpose:
I bear the discomfort of cold and December's snow in hope of spring.
Before the fattener-up of all who are lean, I drag this so emaciated body;
Though they expel me from two hundred cities, I bear it for the sake of the love of a prince;
Though my shop and house be laid waste, I bear it in fidelity to a tulip bed.
God's love is a very strong fortress; I carry my soul's baggage inside a fortress.

At that time I didn't understand
snow, the absence inside July,
water and what holds the water
in. Heard "It takes more than a forest

to make a tree" in no one's voice. By then
the word meridian was extinct, echo
without a face to place it, make it
stay. Birds' theories of heat

hunch humid air
flat. Sparrows, finches, wrens,
and chickadees, their bodies
move too quickly through it

and exhaust their element: drop
like Coke cans and smoked-down cigarettes
beside the berm. Natter of bees
above new garbage cans

I

Oh! weep for the hour,
When to Eveleen's bower,
The Lord of the Valley with false vows came;
The moon hid her light,
From the heavens that night,
And wept behind her clouds o'er the maiden's shame.

II

The clouds pass'd soon
From the chaste cold moon,
And heaven smiled again with her vestal flame;
But none will see the day,
When the clouds shall pass away,
Which that dark hour left upon Eveleen's fame.

III

YE learned sisters, which have oftentimes
Beene to me ayding, others to adorne,
Whom ye thought worthy of your gracefull rymes,
That even the greatest did not greatly scorne
To heare theyr names sung in your simple layes,
But joyed in theyr praise;
And when ye list your owne mishaps to mourne,
Which death, or love, or fortunes wreck did rayse,
Your string could soone to sadder tenor turne,
And teach the woods and waters to lament
Your dolefull dreriment:
Now lay those sorrowfull complaints aside;

UNDER THE BLESSING OF YOUR PSYCHE WINGS


Though I have found you llke a snow-drop pale,
On sunny days have found you weak and still,
Though I have often held your girlish head
Drooped on my shoulder, faint from little ill:—

Under the blessing of your Psyche-wings
I hide to-night like one small broken bird,
So soothed. I half-forget the world gone mad:—
And all the winds of war are now unheard.

My heaven-doubting pennons feel your hands
With touch most delicate so circling round,

He felt the entrance's green darkness
wrapped cooly round him like a silken cloak
that he was still accepting and arranging;
when at the opposite transparent end, far off,

through green sunlight, as through green window panes,
whitely a solitary shape
flared up, long remaining distant
and then finally, the downdriving light
boiling over it at every step,

bearing on itself a bright pulsation,
which in the blond ran shyly to the back.
But suddenly the shade was deep,
and nearby eyes lay gazing

Love equals people times the square of the speed
of light.
If we but knew the way to split
our atoms of isolation, paradise
might be regained. Pipes are frozen under
the slow snow now. We sleep together mostly
to save our scanty firewood. Maybe need
will mother love's invention.
Doing without
is how we learn to do. The blizzard brings
neighbors together laughing at the store
as tumid pewter clouds let fall the seeds
of oblivion and renewal.
Should any find
these tattered words in the mud of the spring thaw,

I was among multitudes of children
Dancing at the foot of a mountain.
A breeze blew out of the east and swept them as leaves,
Driving some up the slopes.... All was changed.
Here were flying lights, and mystic moons, and dream-music.
A cloud fell upon us. When it lifted all was changed.
I was now amid multitudes who were wrangling.
Then a figure in shimmering gold, and one with a trumpet,
And one with a sceptre stood before me.
They mocked me and danced a rigadoon and vanished....
All was changed again. Out of a bower of poppies