time

I think that the bitterest sorrow or pain
Of love unrequited, or cold death’s woe,
Is sweet, compared to that hour when we know
That some grand passion is on the wane.

When we see that the glory, and glow, and grace
Which lent a splendour to night and day,
Are surely fading, and showing grey
And dull groundwork of the commonplace.

When fond expressions on dull ears fall,
When the hands clasp calmly without one thrill,
When we cannot muster by force of will
The old emotions that came at call.

SURPRISED by joy--impatient as the Wind
   I turned to share the transport--O! with whom
   But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recall'd thee to my mind--
   But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
   Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss?--That thought's return
   Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,

267

Did we disobey Him?
Just one time!
Charged us to forget Him—
But we couldn't learn!

Were Himself—such a Dunce—
What would we—do?
Love the dull lad—best—
Oh, wouldn't you?

I

'Twas a new feeling - something more
Than we had dared to own before,
Which then we hid not;
We saw it in each other's eye,
And wished, in every half-breathed sigh,
To speak, but did not.

II

She felt my lips' impassioned touch -
'Twas the first time I dared so much,
And yet she chid not;
But whispered o'er my burning brow,
'Oh, do you doubt I love you now?'
Sweet soul! I did not.

III

for David Lehman


I woke up this morning feeling
incredibly Gorky. So I made an appointment
to see my Doctorow. He said my Hemingways
looked a little swollen and sent me to
get an M.R. James and a complete Shakespeare.
By that time, I began feeling a slight Trilling
in my Dickinsons and some minor Kipling
in my left Auden. The entire experience
was extremely Dickey.

I was referred to an H.D., who asked
about my cummings. She detected traces
of Plath in my Sextons and suggested

They deliver the edicts of God

without delay

And are exempt from apprehension

from detention

And with their God-given

Petasus, Caduceus, and Talaria

ferry like bolts of lightning

unhindered between the tribunals

of Space & Time


The Messenger-Spirit

in human flesh

is assigned a dependable,

self-reliant, versatile,

thoroughly poet existence

upon its sojourn in life


It does not knock

Alone! Alone! No beacon, far or near!
   No chart, no compass, and no anchor stay!
   Like melting fog the mirage melts away
In all-surrounding darkness, void and clear.
Drifting, I spread vain hands, and vainly peer
   And vainly call for pilot, -- weep and pray;
   Beyond these limits not the faintest ray
Shows distant coast whereto the lost may steer.

O what is life, if we must hold it thus
   As wind-blown sparks hold momentary fire?
   What are these gifts without the larger boon?

o

They float before my soul, the fair designs
Which I would body forth to life and power,
Like clouds that with their wavering hues and lines
Portray majestic building--dome and tower,
Bright spire, that through the rainbow and the shower
Points to the unchanging stars; and high arcade,
Far-sweeping to some glorious altar made
For holiest rites.
Meanwhile the waning hour
Melts from me, and by fervent dreams overwrought
I sink. O friend! O linked with each high thought!

Behold an Indian isle, reposed
Upon the deep’s enamoured breast,
Even like a royal bride, be-rosed
With passion in her happy rest.
Or, when the morn is there disclosed,
Or eve is robing in the west,
The deep, as by that isle embossed
With central gauds of sumless cost,
And else outspread in circuit—wide
And round as heaven from side to side—
Might figure to a fancy bold
A wide vast shield of fretted gold,
Dropped by some conquer’d elder god,
When on his track, where’er he trod,

How cool and fair this cellar where
My throne a dusky cask is;
To do no thing but just to sing
And drown the time my task is.
The cooper he's
Resolved to please,
And, answering to my winking,
He fills me up
Cup after cup
For drinking, drinking, drinking.

Begrudge me not
This cosy spot
In which I am reclining--
Why, who would burst
With envious thirst,
When he can live by wining.
A roseate hue seems to imbue