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

O happiness, I know not what far seas,
Blue hills and deep, thy sunny realms surround,
That thus in Music's wistful harmonies
And concert of sweet sound
A rumor steals, from some uncertain shore,
Of lovely things outworn or gladness yet in store:


Whether thy beams be pitiful and come,
Across the sundering of vanished years,
From childhood and the happy fields of home,
Like eyes instinct with tears
Felt through green brakes of hedge and apple-bough
Round haunts delightful once, desert and silent now;

The BALLYSHANNON foundered off the coast of Cariboo,
And down in fathoms many went the captain and the crew;
Down went the owners - greedy men whom hope of gain allured:
Oh, dry the starting tear, for they were heavily insured.

Besides the captain and the mate, the owners and the crew,
The passengers were also drowned excepting only two:
Young PETER GRAY, who tasted teas for BAKER, CROOP, AND CO.,
And SOMERS, who from Eastern shores imported indigo.

These passengers, by reason of their clinging to a mast,

Especially when the October wind
With frosty fingers punishes my hair,
Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire
And cast a shadow crab upon the land,
By the sea's side, hearing the noise of birds,
Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks,
My busy heart who shudders as she talks
Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words.

Shut, too, in a tower of words, I mark
On the horizon walking like the trees
The wordy shapes of women, and the rows
Of the star-gestured children in the park.
Some let me make you of the vowelled beeches,

The lights from the parlour and kitchen shone out
Through the blinds and the windows and bars;
And high overhead and all moving about,
There were thousands of millions of stars.
There ne'er were such thousands of leaves on a tree,
Nor of people in church or the Park,
As the crowds of the stars that looked down upon me,
And that glittered and winked in the dark.
II
The Dog, and the Plough, and the Hunter, and all,
And the star of the sailor, and Mars,
These shown in the sky, and the pail by the wall

and green plaid shorts goes strolling
through Juneau Park at eight o’clock
with only a hooded yellow windbreaker
for protection, trawling the bushes after work

while tugboats crawl the dark freshwater
outlook. Mist coming in not even from a sea, rain
later in the evening from Lake Michigan, a promise
like wait till your father gets home. The air

is full of fog and botched seductions, reluctance
of early summer to arrive. It’s fifty-five degrees
in June, the bodies can barely be made out
leaning on picnic tables under trees or

A dash of yellow sand,
Wind-scattered and sun-tanned;
Some waves that curl and cream along the margin of the strand;
And, creeping close to these
Long shores that lounge at ease,
Old Erie rocks and ripples to a fresh sou'-western breeze.

A sky of blue and grey;
Some stormy clouds that play
At scurrying up with ragged edge, then laughing blow away,
Just leaving in their trail
Some snatches of a gale;
To whistling summer winds we lift a single daring sail.

O! wind so sweet and swift,
O! danger-freighted gift

Era.m cosselhatz, senhor,
vos c'avetz saber e sen:
una domna.m det s'amor,
c'ai amada lonjamen;
mas eras sai de vertat
qu'ilh a autr'amic privat,
ni anc de nul companho
companha tan greus no.m fo.

D'una re sui en error
e.n estau en pensamen:
que m'alonje ma dolor,
s'eu aquest plai li cossen,
e s'aissi.l dic mon pessat,
vei mon damnatge doblat.
Cal que.n fassa o cal que no,
re no posc far de mo pro.

E s'eu l'am a dezonor,
esquerns er a tota gen;
e tenran m'en li pluzor
per cornut e per sofren.

Hark, hearer, hear what I do; lend a thought now, make believe
We are leafwhelmed somewhere with the hood
Of some branchy bunchy bushybowered wood,
Southern dene or Lancashire clough or Devon cleave,
That leans along the loins of hills, where a candycoloured, where a gluegold-brown
Marbled river, boisterously beautiful, between
Roots and rocks is danced and dandled, all in froth and waterblowballs, down.
We are there, when we hear a shout
That the hanging honeysuck, the dogeared hazels in the cover
Makes dither, makes hover

Our Ulla lay one morning and slept,
A hand beneath her ear;
Her key alone the taverner kept
Or through its hole might peer.
Outside in the tavern, sir,
All was nocturnally quiet;
Beer was none, nor, I'll aver,
Scarce water to supply it.
On tip-toes
He comes and goes
About her bedside, brothers;
Lifts a bit
Of coverlet,
And whispers with the others.
Ulla quivers,
Snores and shivers,
O'er her head the blanket piles;
Snuggles under,
With a thunder;
Turns about and smiles.