How simple the pleasures of those childhood days,
Simple but filled with exquisite satisfactions.
The iridescent labyrinth of the spider,
Its tethered tensor nest of polygons
Puffed by the breeze to a little bellying sail --
Merely observing this gave infinite pleasure.
The sound of rain. The gentle graphite veil
Of rain that makes of the world a steel engraving,
Full of soft fadings and faint distances.
The self-congratulations of a fly,
Rubbing its hands. The brown bicameral brain
Of a walnut. The smell of wax. The feel

When the creation was new and all the stars shone in their first
splendor, the gods held their assembly in the sky and sang
`Oh, the picture of perfection! the joy unalloyed!'

But one cried of a sudden
---`It seems that somewhere there is a break in the chain of light
and one of the stars has been lost.'

The golden string of their harp snapped,
their song stopped, and they cried in dismay
---`Yes, that lost star was the best,
she was the glory of all heavens!'

From that day the search is unceasing for her,

A Mermaid’s not a human thing,
An’ courtin’ such is folly;
Of flesh an’ blood I’d rather sing,
What ain’t so melancholy.
Oh, Berta! Loo! Jaunita! Sue!
Here’s good luck to me and you—
Sing rally! ri-a-rally!
The seas is deep; the seas is wide;
But this I’ll prove whate’er betide,
I’m bully in the alley!
I’m bull-ee in our al-lee!

The Hooghli gal’er face is brown;
The Hilo gal is lazy;
The gal that lives by ’Obart town
She’d drive a dead man crazy;

Like a dry fish flung inland far from shore,
There lived a sailor, warped and ocean-browned,
Who told of an old vessel, harbor-drowned,
And out of mind a century before,
Where divers, on descending to explore
A legend that had lived its way around
The world of ships, in the dark hulk had found
Anchors, which had been seized and seen no more.

Improving a dry leiure to invest
Their misadventure with a manifest
Analogy that he may read who runs,
The sailor made it old as ocean grass--

“ARE you ready for your steeplechase, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorree?
Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Baree.
You’re booked to ride your capping race to-day at Coulterlee,
You’re booked to ride Vindictive, for all the world to see,
To keep him straight, and keep him first, and win the run for me.”
Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Baree.

She clasp’d her newborn baby, poor Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorrèe,
Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Barum, Baree.
“I cannot ride Vindictive, as any man might see,

Lord, what a Beloved is mine! I have a sweet quarry; I possess
in my breast a hundred meadows from his reed.
When in anger the messenger comes and repairs towards me,
he says, “Whither are you fleeing? I have business with you.”
Last night I asked the new moon concerning my Moon. The
moon said, “I am running in his wake, my foot is in his dust.”
When the sun arose I said,” How yellow of face you are!” The
sun said, “Out of shame for his countenance I have a face of
gold.”
“Water, you are prostrate, you are running on your head and

Lord, let me live, that more and more
Your wonder world I may adore;
With every dawn to grow and grow
Alive to graciousness aglow;
And every eve in beauty see
Reason for rhapsody.
II
Lord, let me bide, that I may prove
The buoyant brightness of my love
For sapphire sea and lyric sky
And buttercup and butterfly;
And glory in the golden thought
Of rapture You have wrought.
III
Lord, let me linger, just for this,--
To win to utterness of bliss;

"The World is not something to
look at, it is something to be in."
Mark Rudman

I look and look.
Looking's a way of being: one becomes,
sometimes, a pair of eyes walking.
Walking wherever looking takes one.

The eyes
dig and burrow into the world.
They touch
fanfare, howl, madrigal, clamor.
World and the past of it,
not only
visible present, solid and shadow
that looks at one looking.

And language? Rhythms
of echo and interruption?
That's
a way of breathing.

breathing to sustain

God of my life, to Thee I call,
Afflicted at Thy feet I fall;
When the great water-floods prevail,
Leave not my trembling heart to fail!

Friend of the friendless and the faint,
Where should I lodge my deep complaint,
Where but with Thee, whose open door
Invites the helpless and the poor!

Did ever mourner plead with Thee,
And Thou refuse the mourner's plea?
Does not the word still fix'd remain,
That none shall seek Thy face in vain?

That were a grief I could not bear,
Didst Thou not hear and answer prayer:

Until I can look into my self
And find the real
Identity of my inner self,
I will not blame anyone
For my misfortune

Although the world
It is making me to do so
Still I will not blame
Anyone for my misfortune
Before I look in my inner self…