Bartlett's Poems for Occasions

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Bartlett's Poems for Occasions Page 33

by Geoffrey O'Brien


  If purer for that, O Weed,

  Bitterer, too, are ye?

  HERMAN MELVILLE

  AMERICAN (1819-1891)

  Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth

  Say not the struggle nought availeth,

  The labour and the wounds are vain,

  The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

  And as things have been they remain.

  If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;

  It may be, in yon smoke concealed,

  Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,

  And, but for you, possess the field.

  For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,

  Seem here no painful inch to gain,

  Far back, through creeks and inlets making,

  Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

  And not by eastern windows only,

  When daylight comes, comes in the light,

  In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly,

  But westward, look, the land is bright.

  ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH

  ENGLISH (1819-1861)

  Sympathy

  I know what the caged bird feels, alas!

  When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;

  When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,

  And the river flows like a stream of glass;

  When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,

  And the faint perfume from its chalice steals —

  I know what the caged bird feels!

  I know why the caged bird beats his wing

  Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;

  For he must fly back to his perch and cling

  When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;

  And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars

  And they pulse again with a keener sting —

  I know why he beats his wing!

  I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,

  When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore, —

  When he beats his bars and he would be free;

  It is not a carol of joy or glee,

  But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,

  But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings —

  I know why the caged bird sings!

  PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

  AMERICAN (1872-1906)

  We Wear the Mask

  We wear the mask that grins and lies,

  It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes —

  This debt we pay to human guile;

  With torn and bleeding hearts we smile

  And mouth with myriad subtleties,

  Why should the world be over-wise,

  In counting all our tears and sighs?

  Nay, let them only see us, while

  We wear the mask.

  We smile, but oh great Christ, our cries

  To Thee from tortured souls arise.

  We sing, but oh the clay is vile

  Beneath our feet, and long the mile,

  But let the world dream otherwise,

  We wear the mask!

  PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

  AMERICAN (1872-1906)

  If We Must Die

  If we must die, let it not be like hogs

  Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

  While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

  Making their mock at our accursed lot.

  If we must die, O let us nobly die,

  So that our precious blood may not be shed

  In vain; then even the monsters we defy

  Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

  O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!

  Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,

  And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!

  What though before us lies the open grave?

  Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

  Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

  CLAUDE MCKAY

  AMERICAN (1890-1948)

  Musée des Beaux Arts

  About suffering they were never wrong,

  The Old Masters: how well they understood

  Its human position; how it takes place

  While someone else is eating or opening a window or just

  walking dully along;

  How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting

  For the miraculous birth, there always must be

  Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating

  On a pond at the edge of the wood:

  They never forgot

  That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course

  Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot

  Where the dogs go on with their doggy

  life and the torturer’s horse

  Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

  In Brueghel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away

  Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may

  Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,

  But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone

  As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green

  Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen

  Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,

  Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

  W. H. AUDEN

  ENGLISH (1907-1973)

  SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

  The Flower

  How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean

  Are thy returns! even as the flowers in spring,

  To which, besides their own demean,

  The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring,

  Grief melts away

  Like snow in May,

  As if there were no such cold thing.

  Who would have thought my shrivelled heart

  Could have recovered greenness? It was gone

  Quite underground; as flowers depart

  To see their mother-root, when they have blown;

  Where they together

  All the hard weather,

  Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

  These are thy wonders, Lord of power,

  Killing and quickening, bringing down to hell

  And up to heaven in an hour;

  Making a chiming of a passing-bell.

  We say amiss,

  This or that is.

  Thy word is all, if we could spell.

  O that I once past changing were,

  Fast in thy Paradise, where no flower can wither!

  Many a spring I shoot up fair,

  Offering at heaven, growing and groaning thither:

  Nor doth my flower

  Want a spring shower,

  My sins and I joining together.

  But while I grow in a straight line,

  Still upwards bent, as if heaven were mine own,

  Thy anger comes and I decline:

  What frost to that? what pole is not the zone,

  Where all things burn,

  When thou dost turn,

  And the least frown of thine is shown?

  And now in age I bud again,

  After so many deaths I live and write;

  I once more smell the dew and rain,

  And relish versing: O my only light,

  It cannot be

  That I am he

  On whom thy tempests fell all night.

  These are thy wonders, Lord of love,

  To make us see we are but flowers that glide;

  Which when we once can find and prove,

  Thou hast a garden for us, where to bide.

  Who would be more,

  Swelling through store,

  Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.

  GEORGE HERBERT

  ENGLISH (1593-1633)

  Love

  Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,

  Guilty of dust and sin.

  But quick-
eyed Love, observing me grow slack

  From my first entrance in,

  Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning

  If I lack’d anything.

  ‘A guest,’ I answer’d, ‘worthy to be here:’

  Love said, ‘You shall be he.’

  ‘I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,

  I cannot look on Thee.’

  Love took my hand and smiling did reply,

  ‘Who made the eyes but I?’

  ‘Truth, Lord; but I have marr’d them: let my shame

  Go where it doth deserve.’

  ‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘Who bore the blame?’

  ‘My dear, then I will serve.’

  ‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’

  So I did sit and eat.

  GEORGE HERBERT

  ENGLISH (1593-1633)

  And did those feet in ancient time

  And did those feet in ancient time

  Walk upon England’s mountains green?

  And was the holy Lamb of God

  On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

  And did the Countenance Divine

  Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

  And was Jerusalem builded here

  Among these dark Satanic Mills?

  Bring me my Bow of burning gold!

  Bring me my Arrows of desire!

  Bring me my Spear! O clouds unfold!

  Bring me my Chariot of fire!

  I will not cease from Mental Fight,

  Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand,

  Till we have built Jerusalem

  In England’s green and pleasant Land.

  WILLIAM BLAKE

  ENGLISH (1757-1827)

  Simple Gifts

  ’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,

  ’Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

  And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

  ’Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

  When true simplicity is gain’d,

  To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d,

  To turn, turn will be our delight

  ’Till by turning, turning we come round right.

  ANONYMOUS (SHAKER HYMN)

  AMERICAN (C. 1848)

  Sursum Corda

  Seek not the spirit, if it hide

  Inexorable to thy zeal:

  Baby, do not whine and chide:

  Art thou not also real?

  Why shouldst thou stoop to poor excuse?

  Turn on the accuser roundly; say,

  “Here am I, here will I remain

  For ever to myself soothfast;

  Go thou, sweet Heaven, or at thy pleasure stay!”

  Already Heaven with thee its lot has cast,

  For only it can absolutely deal.

  RALPH WALDO EMERSON

  AMERICAN (1803-1882)

  A Noiseless Patient Spider

  A noiseless patient spider,

  I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,

  Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

  It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,

  Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

  And you O my soul where you stand,

  Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,

  Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,

  Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,

  Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

  WALT WHITMAN

  AMERICAN (1819-1892)

  The Thread of Life

  1

  The irresponsive silence of the land,

  The irresponsive sounding of the sea,

  Speak both one message of one sense to me: —

  Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand

  Thou too aloof bound with the flawless band

  Of inner solitude; we bind not thee;

  But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free?

  What heart shall touch thy heart? what hand thy hand? —

  And I am sometimes proud and sometimes meek,

  And sometimes I remember days of old

  When fellowship seemed not so far to seek

  And all the world and I seemed much less cold,

  And at the rainbow’s foot lay surely gold,

  And hope felt strong and life itself not weak.

  2

  Thus am I mine own prison. Everything

  Around me free and sunny and at ease:

  Or if in shadow, in a shade of trees

  Which the sun kisses, where the gay birds sing

  And where all winds make various murmuring;

  Where bees are found, with honey for the bees;

  Where sounds are music, and where silences

  Are music of an unlike fashioning.

  Then gaze I at the merrymaking crew,

  And smile a moment and a moment sigh

  Thinking: Why can I not rejoice with you?

  But soon I put the foolish fancy by:

  I am not what I have nor what I do;

  But what I was I am, I am even I.

  3

  Therefore myself is that one only thing

  I hold to use or waste, to keep or give;

  My sole possession every day I live,

  And still mine own despite Time’s winnowing.

  Ever mine own, while moons and seasons bring

  From crudeness ripeness mellow and sanative;

  Ever mine own, till Death shall ply his sieve;

  And still mine own, when saints break grave and sing.

  And this myself as king unto my King

  I give, to Him Who gave Himself for me;

  Who gives Himself to me, and bids me sing

  A sweet new song of His redeemed set free;

  He bids me sing: O death, where is thy sting?

  And sing: O grave, where is thy victory?

  CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

  ENGLISH (1830-1894)

  Archaic Torso of Apollo

  We never knew his head and all the light

  that ripened in his fabled eyes. But

  his torso still glows like a candelabra,

  in which his gazing, turned down low,

  holds fast and shines. Otherwise the surge

  of the breast could not blind you, nor a smile

  run through the slight twist of the loins

  toward that center where procreation thrived.

  Otherwise this stone would stand deformed and curt

  under the shoulders’ invisible plunge

  and not glisten just like wild beasts’ fur;

  and not burst forth from all its contours

  like a star: for there is no place

  that does not see you. You must change your life.

  RAINER MARIA RILKE

  GERMAN (1875-1926)

  TRANSLATED BY EDWARD SNOW

  On a terribly clear day

  On a terribly clear day,

  A day that made you wish you’d worked very hard

  So you’d not work at all that day,

  I caught a glimpse, like a road through the trees,

  Of what might after all be the Big Secret,

  That Great Mystery crooked poets talk about.

  I saw that there is no Nature,

  That Nature does not exist,

  That there are mountains, valleys, plains,

  That there are trees, flowers, grasses,

  That there are rivers and stones,

  But that there’s no one great All these things belong to,

  That any really authentic unity

  Is a sickness of all our ideas.

  Nature is simply parts, nothing whole.

  Maybe this is the mystery they talk about.

  And this, without stopping, without thinking,

  Is just what I hit
on as being the truth

  That everyone goes around looking for in vain,

  And that only I, because I wasn’t looking for it, found.

  FERNANDO PESSOA (WRITING AS ALBERTO CAEIRO)

  PORTUGUESE (1888-1935)

  TRANSLATED BY EDWIN HONIG AND SUSAN M. BROWN

  Gratitude to the Unknown Instructors

  What they undertook to do

  They brought to pass;

  All things hang like a drop of dew

  Upon a blade of grass.

  WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

  IRISH (1865-1939)

  Phoenix

  Are you willing to be sponged out, erased, cancelled,

  made nothing?

  Are you willing to be made nothing?

  dipped into oblivion?

  If not, you will never really change.

  The phoenix renews her youth

  only when she is burnt, burnt alive, burnt down

  to hot and flocculent ash.

  Then the small stirring of a new small bub in the nest

  with strands of down like floating ash

  shows that she is renewing her youth like the eagle,

  immortal bird.

  D. H. LAWRENCE

  ENGLISH (1885-1930)

  Sunflower Sutra

  I walked on the banks of the tincan banana dock and sat down under the huge shade of a Southern Pacific locomotive to look at the sunset over the box house hills and cry.

  Jack Kerouac sat beside me on a busted rusty iron pole, companion, we thought the same thoughts of the soul, bleak and blue and sad-eyed, surrounded by the gnarled steel roots of trees of machinery.

  The oily water on the river mirrored by the red sky, sun sank on top of final Frisco peaks, no fish in that stream, no hermit in those mounts, just ourselves rheumy-eyed and hungover like old bums on the riverbank, tired and wily.

  Look at the Sunflower, he said, there was a dead gray shadow against the sky, big as a man, sitting dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust —

  — I rushed up enchanted—it was my first sunflower, memories of Blake—my visions—Harlem

  and Hells of the Eastern rivers, bridges clanking, Joes Greasy Sandwiches, dead baby carriages, black treadless tires forgotten and unretreaded, the poem of the riverbank, condoms & pots, steel knives, nothing stainless, only the dank muck and the razor sharp artifacts passing into the past —

  and the gray Sunflower poised against the sunset, crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye —

  corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face, soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sunrays obliterated on its hairy head like a dried wire spiderweb,

 

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