Sapphics (by E.E. Cummings)

Sapphics
by e.e. cummings
[published in The Harvard Monthly, January 1916]

When my life his pillar has raised to heaven,
When my soul has bleeded and builded wonders,
When my love of earth has begot fair poems,
    Let me not linger.

Ere my day be troubled of coming darkness,
While the huge whole sky is elate with glory,
Let me rise, and making my salutation,
    Stride into sunset.



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The Dream (by George Gordon, Lord Byron)

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The Dream
by George Gordon, Lord Byron
[July 1816]

     I
Our life is twofold: Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality.
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off our waking toils,
They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity;
They pass like spirits of the past,–they speak
Like Sibyls of the future: they have power–
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;
They make us what we were not–what they will,
And shake us with the vision that’s gone by,
The dread of vanish’d shadows–Are they so?
Is not the past all shadow?–What are they?
Creations of the mind?–The mind can make
Substance, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dream’d
Perchance in sleep–for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

     II
I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity, the last
As ’twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men
Scatter’d at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs;–the hill
Was crown’d with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fix’d,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing–the one on all that was beneath
Fair as herself–but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beautiful:
And both were young–yet not alike in youth.
As the sweet moon on the horizon’s verge,
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him: he had look’d
Upon it till it could not pass away;
He had no breath, no being, but in hers;
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his sight,
For his eye follow’d hers, and saw with hers,
Which colour’d all his objects;–he had ceased
To live within himself; she was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all: upon a tone,
A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,
And his cheek change tempestuously–his heart
Unknowing of its cause of agony.
But she in these fond feelings had no share:
Her sighs were not for him; to her he was
Even as a brother–but no more; ’twas much,
For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestow’d on him;
Herself the solitary scion left
Of a time-honour’d race.–It was a name
Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not–and why?
Time taught him a deep answer–when she loved
Another; even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood
Looking afar if yet her lover’s steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.

     III
A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
There was an ancient mansion, and before
Its walls there was a steed caparison’d;
Within an antique Oratory stood
The Boy of whom I spake;–he was alone,
And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon
He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced
Words which I could not guess of; then he lean’d
His bow’d head on his hands and shook, as ’twere
With a convulsion–then rose again,
And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear
What he had written, but he shed no tears.
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
Into a kind of quiet: as he paused,
The Lady of his love re-entered there;
She was serene and smiling then, and yet
She knew she was by him beloved,–she knew,
For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart
Was darken’d with her shadow, and she saw
That he was wretched, but she saw not all.
He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp
He took her hand; a moment o’er his face
A tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced, and then it faded, as it came;
He dropp’d the hand he held, and with slow steps
Retired, but not as bidding her adieu,
For they did part with mutual smiles; he pass’d
From out the massy gate of that old Hall,
And mounting on his steed he went his way;
And ne’er repass’d that hoary threshold more.

     IV
A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds
Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his Soul drank their sunbeams: he was girt
With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer.
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couch’d among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruined walls that had survived the names
Of those who rear’d them; by his sleeping side
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds
Were fasten’d near a fountain; and a man,
Clad in a flowing garb, did watch the while,
While many of his tribe slumbered around:
And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in heaven.

     V
A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love was wed with One
Who did not love her better:–in her home,
A thousand leagues from his,–her native home,
She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy,
Daughters and sons of Beauty,–but behold!
Upon her face there was a tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye,
As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.
What could her grief be?–she had all she loved,
And he who had so loved her was not there
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,
Or ill-repress’d affliction, her pure thoughts.
What could her grief be?–she had loved him not,
Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved,
Nor could he be a part of that which prey’d
Upon her mind–a spectre of the past.

     VI
A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was return’d.–I saw him stand
Before an Altar–with a gentle bride;
Her face was fair, but was not that which made
The Starlight of his Boyhood;–as he stood
Even at the altar, o’er his brow there came
The selfsame aspect and the quivering shock
That in the antique Oratory shook
His bosom in its solitude; and then–
As in that hour–a moment o’er his face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced–and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reel’d around him; he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have been–
But the old mansion, and the accustom’d hall,
And the remember’d chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her
who was his destiny,–came back
And thrust themselves between him and the light;
What business had they there at such a time?

     VII
A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love;–Oh! she was changed
As by the sickness of the soul; her mind
Had wander’d from its dwelling, and her eyes,
They had not their own lustre, but the look
Which is not of the earth; she was become
The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts
Were combinations of disjointed things;
And forms impalpable and unperceived
Of others’ sight familiar were to hers.
And this the world calls frenzy; but the wise
Have a far deeper madness, and the glance
Of melancholy is a fearful gift;
What is it but the telescope of truth?
Which strips the distance of its fantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real!

     VIII
A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was alone as heretofore,
The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation, compass’d round
With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mix’d
In all which was served up to him, until,
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,
He fed on poisons, and they had no power,
But were a kind of nutriment; he lived
Through that which had been death to many men,
And made him friends of mountains; with the stars
And the quick Spirit of the Universe
He held his dialogues; and they did teach
To him the magic of their mysteries;
To him the book of Night was open’d wide,
And voices from the deep abyss reveal’d
A marvel and a secret.–Be it so.

     IX
My dream was past; it had no further change.
It was of a strange order, that the doom
Of these two creatures should be thus traced out
Almost like a reality–the one
To end in madness–both in misery.



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Granta (by George Gordon, Lord Byron)

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Granta
by George Gordon, Lord Byron
[from Hours of Idleness, published in April 1807]

A Medley

Oh! could Le Sage’s demon’s gift
   Be realized at my desire,
This night my trembling form he’d lift
   To place it on St. Mary’s spire.

Then would, unroof’d, old Granta’s halls
   Pedantic inmates full display;
Fellows who dream on lawn or stalls,
   The price of venal votes to pay.

Then would I view each rival wight,
   Petty and Palmeerston survey;
Who canvass there with all their might,
   Against the next elective day.

Lo! candidates and voters lie
   All lull’d in sleep, a goodly number;
A race renown’d for piety,
   Whose conscience won’t disturb their slumber.

Lord H—, indeed, may not demur:
   Fellows are sage, reflecting men:
They know preferment can occur
   But very seldom,—now and then.

They know the Chancellor has got
   Some pretty livings in disposal:
Each hopes that one may be his lot,
   And therefore smiles on his proposal.

Now from the soporific scene
   I’ll turn mine eye, as night grows later,
To view, unheeded and unseen,
   The studious sons of Alma Mater.

There, in apartments small and damp,
   The candidate for college prizes
Sits poring by the midnight lamp;
   Goes late to bed, yet early rises.

He surely well deserves to gain them,
   With all the honours of his college,
Who, striving hardly to obtain them,
   Thus seeks unprofitable knowledge:

Who sacrifices hours of rest
   To scan precisely metres Attic;
Or agitates his anxious breast
   In solving problems mathematic:

Who reads false quantities in Seale,
   Or puzzles o’er the deep triangle;
Deprived of many a wholesome meal;
   In barbarous Latin doom’d to wrangle:

Renouncing every pleasing page
   From authors of historic use;
Preferring to the letter’d sage
   The square of the hypothenuse.

Still, harmless are these occupations,
   That hurt none but the hapless student,
Compared with other recreations,
   Which bring together the imprudent;

Whose daring revels shock the sight,
   When vice and infamy combine,
When drunkenness and dice invite,
   As every sense is steep’d in wine.

Not so the methodistic crew,
   Who plans of reformation lay:
In humble attitude they sue,
   And for the sins of others pray:

Forgetting that their pride of spirit,
   Their exultation in their trial
Detracts most largely from the merit
   Of all their boasted self-denial.

’Tis morn:—from these I turn my sight.
   What scene is this which meets the eye?
A numerous crowd, array’d in white,
   Across the green in numbers fly.

Loud rings in air the chapel bell;
   ’Tis hush’d:—what sounds are these I hear?
The organ’s soft celestial swell
   Rolls deeply on the list’ning ear.

To this is join’d the sacred song,
   The royal minstrel’s hallow’d strain;
Though he who hears the music long
   Will never wish to hear again.

Our choir would be scarcely excused,
   Even as a band of raw beginners;
All mercy now must be refused
   To such a set of croaking sinners.

If David, when his toils were ended,
   Had heard these blockheads sing before him,
To us his psalms had ne’er descended,—
   In furious mood he would have tore ’em.

The luckless Israelites, when taken
   By some inhuman tyrant’s order,
Were ask’d to sing, by joy forsaken
   On Babylonian river’s border.

Oh! had they sung in notes like these,
   Inspired by stratagem or fear,
They might have set their hearts at ease
   The devil a soul had stay’d to hear.

But if I scribble longer now
   The deuce a soul will stay to read;
My pen is blunt, my ink is low;
   ’Tis almost time to stop, indeed.

Therefore, farewell old Granta’s spires!
   No more like Cleofas, I fly;
No more thy theme my muse inspires;
   The reader’s tired, and so am I.



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No, I Shall Not Say (by Conrad Aiken)

No, I Shall Not Say
by Conrad Aiken
from The House of Dust [1917]

No, I shall not say why it is that I love you–
Why do you ask me, save for vanity?
Surely you would not have me, like a mirror,
Say ‘yes,–your hair curls darkly back from the temples,
Your mouth has a humorous, tremulous, half-shy sweetness,
Your eyes are April grey . . . with jonquils in them’?
No, if I tell at all, I shall tell in silence.
I’ll say–my childhood broke through chords of music
–Or were they chords of sun?–wherein fell shadows,
Or silences; I rose through seas of sunlight;
Or sometimes found a darkness stooped above me
With wings of death, and a face of cold clear beauty.
I lay in the warm sweet grass on a blue May morning,
My chin in a dandelion, my hands in clover,
And drowsed there like a bee . . . blue days behind me
Stretched like a chain of deep blue pools of magic,
Enchanted, silent, timeless . . . days before me
Murmured of blue-sea mornings, noons of gold,
Green evenings streaked with lilac, bee-starred nights.
Confused soft clouds of music fled above me.
Sharp shafts of music dazzled my eyes and pierced me.
I ran and turned and spun and danced in the sunlight,
Shrank, sometimes, from the freezing silence of Number,
Or crept once more to the warm white cave of sleep.

No, I shall not say ‘this is why I praise you–
Because you say such wise things, or such foolish!’
You would not have me plead what you know better?
Let me instead be silent, only thinking–:
My childhood lives in me–or half-lives, rather–
And, if I close my eyes cool chords of logic
Flow up to me, long chords of wind and sunlight.
Shadows of intricate vines on sunlit walls,
Deep bells beating, with aeons of blue between them,
Grass blades leagues apart with worlds between them,
Walls rushing up to heaven with stars upon them.
I lay in my bed and through the tall night window
Saw the green lightning lancing among the clouds,
And heard the harsh rain claw at the panes and roof.
How should I know–how should I now remember–
What half-dreamed God’s wing curved above me?
What wings like swords? What eyes with the dread night in them?

This I shall say.–I lay by the hot white sand-dunes.
Small yellow flowers, sapless and squat and spiny,
Stared at the sky. And silently there above me,
Day after day, beyond all dreams or knowledge,
Presences swept, and over us streamed their shadows,
Swift and blue, or dark. What did they mean?
What sinister threat of power? What hint of weakness?
Prelude to what gigantic music, or subtle?
Only, I know these things leaned over me,
Brooded upon me, paused, went flowing softly,
Glided and passed. I loved, I desired, I hated,
I struggled, I yielded and loved, was warmed to blossom.
You, when your eyes have evening sunlight in them,
Set these dunes before me, these salt bright flowers,
These presences. I drowse, they stream above me,
I struggle, I yield and love, I am become that child.
You are the window (if I could tell I’d tell you)
Through which I see a clear far world of sunlight.
You are the silence (if you could hear you’d hear me)
In which I remember a thin still whisper of singing.
It is not you I laugh for, you I touch!
My hands, that touch you, suddenly touch a cobweb,
Coldly silvered, heavily silvered with dewdrops,
And clover, heavy with rain, in cold green grass.




* * * * *


      

Palimpsest: The Deceitful Portrait (by Conrad Aiken)

Palimpsest: The Deceitful Portrait
by Conrad Aiken
from The House of Dust [1917]

Well, as you say, we live for small horizons:
We move in crowds, we flow and talk together,
Seeing so many eyes and hands and faces,
So many mouths, and all with secret meanings,–
Yet know so little of them; only seeing
The small bright circle of our consciousness,
Beyond which lies the dark. Some few we know–
Or think we know. Once, on a sun-bright morning,
I walked in a certain hallway, trying to find
A certain door: I found one, tried it, opened,
And there in a spacious chamber, brightly lighted,
A hundred men played music, loudly, swiftly,
While one tall woman sent her voice above them
In powerful incantation . . . Closing then the door
I heard it die behind me, fade to whisper,–
And walked in a quiet hallway as before.
Just such a glimpse, as through that opened door,
Is all we know of those we call our friends.
We hear a sudden music, see a playing
Of ordered thoughts–and all again is silence.
The music, we suppose, (as in ourselves)
Goes on forever there, behind shut doors,–
As it continues after our departure,
So, we divine, it played before we came.
What do you know of me, or I of you?
Little enough . . . We set these doors ajar
Only for chosen movements of the music:
This passage, (so I think–yet this is guesswork)
Will please him,–it is in a strain he fancies,–
More brilliant, though, than his; and while he likes it
He will be piqued . . . He looks at me bewildered
And thinks (to judge from self–this too is guesswork)
The music strangely subtle, deep in meaning,
Perplexed with implications; he suspects me
Of hidden riches, unexpected wisdom.
Or else I let him hear a lyric passage,–
Simple and clear; and all the while he listens
I make pretence to think my doors are closed.
This too bewilders him. He eyes me sidelong
Wondering ‘Is he such a fool as this?
Or only mocking?’–There I let it end.
Sometimes, of course, and when we least suspect it–
When we pursue our thoughts with too much passion,
Talking with too great zeal–our doors fly open
Without intention; and the hungry watcher
Stares at the feast, carries away our secrets,
And laughs . . . but this, for many counts, is seldom.
And for the most part we vouchsafe our friends,
Our lovers too, only such few clear notes
As we shall deem them likely to admire:
‘Praise me for this’ we say, or ‘laugh at this,’
Or ‘marvel at my candor’ . . . all the while
Withholding what’s most precious to ourselves,–
Some sinister depth of lust or fear or hatred,
The sombre note that gives the chord its power;
Or a white loveliness–if such we know–
Too much like fire to speak of without shame.

Well, this being so, and we who know it being
So curious about those well-locked houses,
The minds of those we know,–to enter softly,
And steal from floor to floor up shadowy stairways,
From room to quiet room, from wall to wall,
Breathing deliberately the very air,
Pressing our hands and nerves against warm darkness
To learn what ghosts are there,–
Suppose for once I set my doors wide open
And bid you in . . . Suppose I try to tell you
The secrets of this house, and how I live here;
Suppose I tell you who I am, in fact,
Deceiving you–as far as I may know it–
Only so much as I deceive myself.
If you are clever you already see me
As one who moves forever in a cloud
Of warm bright vanity: a luminous cloud
Which falls on all things with a quivering magic,
Changing such outlines as a light may change,
Brightening what lies dark to me, concealing
Those things that will not change . . . I walk sustained
In a world of things that flatter me: a sky
Just as I would have had it; trees and grass
Just as I would have shaped and colored them;
Pigeons and clouds and sun and whirling shadows,
And stars that brightening climb through mist at nightfall,–
In some deep way I am aware these praise me:
Where they are beautiful, or hint of beauty,
They point, somehow, to me. This water says,–
Shimmering at the sky, or undulating
In broken gleaming parodies of clouds,
Rippled in blue, or sending from cool depths
To meet the falling leaf the leaf’s clear image,–
This water says, there is some secret in you
Akin to my clear beauty, silently responsive
To all that circles you. This bare tree says,–
Austere and stark and leafless, split with frost,
Resonant in the wind, with rigid branches
Flung out against the sky,–this tall tree says,
There is some cold austerity in you,
A frozen strength, with long roots gnarled on rocks,
Fertile and deep; you bide your time, are patient,
Serene in silence, bare to outward seeming,
Concealing what reserves of power and beauty!
What teeming Aprils!–chorus of leaves on leaves!
These houses say, such walls in walls as ours,
Such streets of walls, solid and smooth of surface,
Such hills and cities of walls, walls upon walls;
Motionless in the sun, or dark with rain;
Walls pierced with windows, where the light may enter;
Walls windowless where darkness is desired;
Towers and labyrinths and domes and chambers,–
Amazing deep recesses, dark on dark,–
All these are like the walls which shape your spirit:
You move, are warm, within them, laugh within them,
Proud of their depth and strength; or sally from them,
To blow your Roland’s horn againstt the world. .
This deep cool room, with shadowed walls and ceiling,
Tranquil and cloistral, fragrant of my mind,
This cool room says,–just such a room have you,
It waits you always at the tops of stairways,
Withdrawn, remote, familiar to your uses,
Where you may cease pretence and be yourself.
And this embroidery, hanging on this wall,
Hung there forever,–these so soundless glidings
Of dragons golden-scaled, sheer birds of azure,
Coilings of leaves in pale vermilion, griffins
Drawing their rainbow wings through involutions
Of mauve chrysanthemums and lotus flowers,–
This goblin wood where someone cries enchantment,–
This says, just such an involuted beauty
Of thought and coiling thought, dream linked with dream,
Image to image gliding, wreathing fires,
Soundlessly cries enchantment in your mind:
You need but sit and close your eyes a moment
To see these deep designs unfold themselves.

And so, all things discern me, name me, praise me–
I walk in a world of silent voices, praising;
And in this world you see me like a wraith
Blown softly here and there, on silent winds.
‘Praise me’–I say; and look, not in a glass,
But in your eyes, to see my image there–
Or in your mind; you smile, I am contented;
You look at me, with interest unfeigned,
And listen–I am pleased; or else, alone,
I watch thin bubbles veering brightly upward
From unknown depths,–my silver thoughts ascending;
Saying now this, now that, hinting of all things,–
Dreams, and desires, half-wishes, half-regrets,
Faint ghosts of memory, strange recognitions,–
But all with one deep meaning: this is I,
This is the glistening secret holy I,
This silver-wingèd wonder, insubstantial,
This singing ghost . . . And hearing, I am warmed.

You see me moving, then, as one who moves
Forever at the centre of his circle:
A circle filled with light. And into it
Come bulging shapes from darkness, loom gigantic,
Or huddle in dark again . . . A clock ticks clearly,
A gas-jet steadily whirs, light streams across me;
Two church bells, with alternate beat, strike nine;
And through these things my pe
ncil pushes softly
To weave grey webs of lines on this clear page.
Snow falls and melts; the eaves make liquid music;
Black wheel-tracks line the snow-touched street; I turn
And look one instant at the half-dark gardens,
Where skeleton elm-trees reach with frozen gesture
Above unsteady lamps,–the black boughs lifted
Against a luminous snow-filled grey-gold sky.
‘Beauty!’ I cry . . . My feet move on, and take me
Between dark walls, with orange squares for windows.
Beauty; beheld like someone half-forgotten,
Remembered, with slow pang, as one neglected.
Well, I am frustrate; life has beaten me,
The thing I strongly seized has turned to darkness,
And darkness takes my heart . . . These skeleton elm-trees–
Leaning against that grey-gold snow filled sky–
Beauty! they say, and at the edge of darkness
Extend vain arms in a frozen gesture of protest.
Voices are raised, a door is slammed. The lovers,
Murmuring in an adjacent room, grow silent,
The eaves make liquid music. Hours have passed,
And nothing changes, and everything is changed.
Exultation is dead, Beauty is harlot,–
And walks the streets: the thing I strongly seized,
Has turned to darkness, and darkness takes my heart.

If you could solve this darkness you would have me.
This causeless melancholy that comes with rain,
Or on such days as this when large wet snowflakes
Drop heavily, with rain . . . whence rises this?
Well, so-and-so, this morning when I saw him,
Seemed much preoccupied, and would not smile;
And you, I saw too much; and you, too little;
And the word I chose for you, the golden word,
The word that should have struck so deep in purpose,
And set so many doors of wish wide open,
You let it fall, and would not stoop for it,
And smiled at me, and would not let me guess
Whether you saw it fall . . . These things, together,
With other things, still slighter, wove to music,
And this in time drew up dark memories;
And there I stand. This music breaks and bleeds me,
Turning all frustrate dreams to chords and discords,
Faces and griefs, and words, and sunlit evenings,
And chains self-forged that will not break nor lengthen,
And cries that none can answer, few will hear.
Have these things meaning? Or would you see more clearly
If I should say ‘My second wife grows tedious,
Or, like gay tulip, keeps no perfumed secret’?
Or ‘one day dies eventless as another,
Leaving the seeker still unsatisfied,
And more convinced life yields no satisfaction’?
Or ‘seek too hard, the eyes at length grows sightless,
And beauty shines in vain’?–

                                        These things you ask for,
These you shall have . . . So, talking with my first wife,
At the dark end of evening, when she leaned
And smiled at me, with blue eyes weaving webs
Of finest fire, revolving me in scarlet,–
Calling to mind remote and small successions
Of countless other evenings ending so,–
I smiled, and met her kiss, and wished her dead;
Dead of a sudden sickness, or by my hands
Savagely killed; I saw her in her coffin,
I saw her coffin borne downstairs with trouble,
I saw myself alone there, palely watching,
Wearing a masque of grief so deeply acted
That grief itself possessed me. Time would pass,
And I should meet this girl,–my second wife–
And drop the masque of grief for one of passion.
Forward we move to meet, half hesitating,
We drown in each others’ eyes, we laugh, we talk,
Looking now here, now there, faintly pretending
We do not hear the powerful pulsing prelude
Roaring beneath our words . . . The time approaches.
We lean unbalanced. The mute last glance between us,
Profoundly searching, opening, asking, yielding,
Is steadily met: our two lives draw together . . .
. . . ‘What are you thinking of?’ . . . My first wife’s voice
Scattered these ghosts. ‘Oh nothing–nothing much–
Just wondering where we’d be two years from now,
And what we might be doing . . . ‘ And then remorse
Turned sharply in my mind to sudden pity,
And pity to acted passion. And one more evening
Drew to the usual end of sleep and silence.

And, as it is with this, so too with all things.
The pages of our lives are blurred palimpsest:
New lines are wreathed on old lines half-erased,
And those on older still; and so forever.
The old shines through the new, and colors it.
What’s new? What’s old? All things have double meanings,–
All things recur. I write a line, delighted,
(Or touch a woman’s hand, or plumb a doctrine)
Only to find the same thing, known before,–
Only to know the same thing comes to-morrow.
This curious riddled dream I dreamed last night,–
Six years ago I dreamed it just as now;
The same man stooped to me; we rose from bondage,
And broke the accustomed order of our days,
And struck for the morning world, and light, and freedom.
What does it mean? Why is this hint repeated?
What darkness does it spring from, seek to end?

You see me, then, pass up and down these stairways,
Now through a beam of light, and now through shadow,–
Pursuing silent ends. No rest there is,–
No more for me than you. I move here always,
From quiet room to room, from wall to wall,
Searching and plotting, weaving a web of will.
This is my house, and now, perhaps, you know me.
Yet I confess, for all my best intentions,
Once more I have deceived you . . . I withhold
The one thing precious, the one dark thing that guides me;
And I have spread two snares for you, of lies.



* * * * *


   

Sonnet 50 – How heavy do I journey on the way (by William Shakespeare)

L.

How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek, my weary travel’s end,
Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,
‘Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!’
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider loved not speed, being made from thee.
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
Which heavily he answers with a groan,
More sharp to me than spurring to his side;
      For that same groan doth put this in my mind,
      My grief lies onward and my joy behind.


-*-

     

Sonnet 49 – Against that time, if ever that time come (by Shakespeare)

IL.

Against that time, if ever that time come,
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
Called to that audit by advised respects;
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass
And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,
When love, converted from the thing it was,
Shall reasons find of settled gravity–
Against that time do I ensconce me here
Within the knowledge of mine own desart,
And this my hand, against my self uprear,
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part.
      To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,
      Since why to love I can allege no cause.



-*-

     

Sonnet XLVIII – How careful was I when I took my way (by Shakespeare)

XLVIII.

How careful was I when I took my way,
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,
That to my use it might unusèd stay
From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!
But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,
Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,
Thou best of dearest and mine only care,
Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.
Thee have I not locked up in any chest,
Save where thou art not–though I feel thou art–
Within the gentle closure of my breast,
From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part;
      And even thence thou wilt be stol’n I fear,
      For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.


-*-

     

Sonnet XLVII – Betwixt mine eye and heart a league (by Shakespeare)

XLVII.

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
And each doth good turns now unto the other.
When that mine eye is famished for a look,
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,
With my love’s picture then my eye doth feast
And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
Another time mine eye is my heart’s guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part.
So, either by thy picture or my love,
Thyself away, are present still with me;
For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
And I am still with them and they with thee;
      Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
      Awakes my heart, to heart’s and eye’s delight.



-*-

     

Virtue (by William Carlos Williams)

Virtue
by William Carlos Williams
[from Al Que Quiere! (1917)]

Now? Why—
whirl-pools of
orange and purple flame
feather twists of chrome
on a green ground
funneling down upon
the steaming phallus-head
of the mad sun himself—
blackened crimson!
                   Now ?
Why—
it is the smile of her
the smell of her
the vulgar inviting mouth of her!
It is—Oh, nothing new
nothing that lasts
an eternity, nothing worth
putting out to interest,
nothing—
but the fixing of an eye
concretely upon emptiness!

Come! here are—
cross-eyed men, a boy
with a patch, men walking
in their shirts, men in hats
dark men, a pale man
with little black moustaches
and a dirty whlte coat,
fat men with pudgy faces,
thin faces, crooked faces
slit eyes, grey eyes, black eyes
old men with dirty beards,
men in vests with
gold watch chains. Come!

* * *