Overture To A Dance Of Locomotives (by William Carlos Williams)

Overture To A Dance Of Locomotives
by William Carlos Williams
[from Sour Grapes (1921)]

Men with picked voices chant the names
of cities in a huge gallery: promises
that pull through descending stairways
to a deep rumbling. 

                                 The rubbing feet
of those coming to be carried quicken a
grey pavement into soft light that rocks
to and fro, under the domed ceiling,
across and across from pale
earthcolored walls of bare limestone.

Covertly the hands of a great clock
go round and round! Were they to
move quickly and at once the whole
secret would be out and the shuffling
of all ants be done forever.

A leaning pyramid of sunlight, narrowing
out at a high window, moves by the clock:
disaccordant hands straining out from
a center: inevitable postures infinitely
repeated—
two—twofour—twoeight!
Porters in red hats run on narrow platforms.
This way ma’am! 
                                 —important not to take
the wrong train! 
                                 Lights from the concrete
ceiling hang crooked but— 
                                                 Poised horizontal
on glittering parallels the dingy cylinders
packed with a warm glow—inviting entry—
pull against the hour. But brakes can
hold a fixed posture till— 
                                                 The whistle!

Not twoeight. Not twofour. Two!

Gliding windows. Colored cooks sweating
in a small kitchen. Taillights—

In time: twofour!
In time: twoeight!

—rivers are tunneled: trestles
cross oozy swampland: wheels repeating
the same gesture remain relatively
stationary: rails forever parallel
return on themselves infinitely. 
                                                 The dance is sure. 
 

    

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Hannah Armstrong (by Edgar Lee Masters)

Hannah Armstrong
by Edgar Lee Masters
from Spoon River Anthology [1915]

I wrote him a letter asking him for old times’ sake
To discharge my sick boy from the army;
But maybe he couldn’t read it.
Then I went to town and had James Garber,
Who wrote beautifully, write him a letter.
But maybe that was lost in the mails.
So I traveled all the way to Washington.
I was more than an hour finding the White House.
And when I found it they turned me away,
Hiding their smiles. Then I thought:
“Oh, well, he ain’t the same as when I boarded him
And he and my husband worked together
And all of us called him Abe, there in Menard.”
As a last attempt I turned to a guard and said:
“Please say it’s old Aunt Hannah Armstrong
From Illinois, come to see him about her sick boy
In the army.”
Well, just in a moment they let me in!
And when he saw me he broke in a laugh,
And dropped his business as president,
And wrote in his own hand Doug’s discharge,
Talking the while of the early days,
And telling stories.


[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

Rutherford McDowell (by Edgar Lee Masters)

Rutherford McDowell
by Edgar Lee Masters
from Spoon River Anthology [1915]

They brought me ambrotypes
Of the old pioneers to enlarge.
And sometimes one sat for me–
Some one who was in being
When giant hands from the womb of the world
Tore the republic.
What was it in their eyes?–
For I could never fathom
That mystical pathos of drooped eyelids,
And the serene sorrow of their eyes.
It was like a pool of water,
Amid oak trees at the edge of a forest,
Where the leaves fall,
As you hear the crow of a cock
From a far–off farm house, seen near the hills
Where the third generation lives, and the strong men
And the strong women are gone and forgotten.
And these grand-children and great grand-children
Of the pioneers!
Truly did my camera record their faces, too,
With so much of the old strength gone,
And the old faith gone,
And the old mastery of life gone,
And the old courage gone,
Which labors and loves and suffers and sings
Under the sun!


[To read more Spoon River Anthology click here.]

The Fiddler of Dooney (by W.B. Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

The Fiddler of Dooney
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wind Among the Reeds (London: Elkin Mathews, 1899)

When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Mocharabuiee.

I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time,
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle
And the merry love to dance:

And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With “Here is the fiddler of Dooney!”
And dance like a wave of the sea. 

 
 

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To read more Yeats in the Online Library, please click here.

He Thinks of His Past Greatness When a Part of the Constellations of Heaven (by W.B. Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

He Thinks of His Past Greatness When
a Part of the Constellations of Heaven
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wind Among the Reeds (London: Elkin Mathews, 1899)

I have drunk ale from the Country of the Young
And weep because I know all things now:
I have been a hazel-tree and they hung
The Pilot Star and the Crooked Plough
Among my leaves in times out of mind:
I became a rush that horses tread:
I became a man, a hater of the wind,
Knowing one, out of all things, alone, that his head
Would not lie on the breast or his lips on the hair
Of the woman that he loves, until he dies.
O beast of the wilderness, bird of the air,
Must I endure your amorous cries? 

 
 
 

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To read more Yeats in the Online Library, please click here.

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven (by W.B. Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wind Among the Reeds (London: Elkin Mathews, 1899)

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. 
 
 

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To read more Yeats in the Online Library, please click here.

He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead (by W.B. Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wind Among the Reeds (London: Elkin Mathews, 1899)

Were you but lying cold and dead,
And lights were paling out of the West,
You would come hither, and bend your head,
And I would lay my head on your breast;
And you would murmur tender words,
Forgiving me, because you were dead:
Nor would you rise and hasten away,
Though you have the will of the wild birds,
But know your hair was bound and wound
About the stars and moon and sun:
O would, beloved, that you lay
Under the dock-leaves in the ground,
While lights were paling one by one. 
 
 
 
 

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To read more Yeats in the Online Library, please click here.

The Lover Pleads with the Elemental Powers (by W.B. Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

The Lover Pleads with the Elemental Powers
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wind Among the Reeds (London: Elkin Mathews, 1899)

The Powers whose name and shape no living creature knows
Have pulled the Immortal Rose;
And though the Seven Lights bowed in their dance and wept,
The Polar Dragon slept,
His heavy rings uncoiled from glimmering deep to deep:
When will he wake from sleep?

Great Powers of falling wave and wind and windy fire,
With your harmonious choir
Encircle her I love and sing her into peace,
That my old care may cease;
Unfold your flaming wings and cover out of sight
The nets of day and night.

Dim powers of drowsy thought, let her no longer be
Like the pale cup of the sea,
When winds have gathered and sun and moon burned dim
Above its cloudy rim;
But let a gentle silence wrought with music flow
Whither her footsteps go. 
 
 
 

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To read more Yeats in the Online Library, please click here.

The Lover Speaks to the Hearers of His Songs in Coming Days (by Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

The Lover Speaks to the Hearers of His Songs in Coming Days
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wind Among the Reeds (London: Elkin Mathews, 1899)

O women, kneeling by your altar-rails long hence,
When songs I wove for my beloved hide the prayer,
And smoke from this dead heart drifts through the violet air
And covers away the smoke of myrrh and frankincense;
Bend down and pray for all that sin I wove in song,
Till the Attorney for Lost Souls cry her sweet cry,
And.call to my beloved and me: ‘No longer fly
Amid the hovering, piteous, penitential throng.’ 

  
  

 
 

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To read more Yeats in the Online Library, please click here.

The Lover Pleads with His Friend for Old Friends (by W.B. Yeats)

Yeats [by George Charles Beresford, 1911]

The Lover Pleads with His Friend for Old Friends
by William Butler Yeats
from The Wind Among the Reeds (London: Elkin Mathews, 1899)

Though you are in your shining days,
Voices among the crowd
And new friends busy with your praise,
Be not unkind or proud,
But think of old friends the most:
Times bitter flood may rise,
Your beauty perish and be lost
For all eyes but these eyes.  
  

 
 

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To read more Yeats in the Online Library, please click here.