I begged her in a lonely spot
to come and meet me at nightfall;
she came, mad creature—we are all
more or less crazy, are we not?
She was quite pretty still, my wife,
though she was very tired, and I,
I loved her too much, that is why
I said to her, ‘Come, quit this life.’
No one can grasp my thoughts aright;
did any of these sodden swine
ever conceive a shroud of wine
on his most strangely morbid night?
Dull and insensible above
iron machines, that stupid crew,
summer or winter, never knew
the agonies of real love.
So now I am without a care!
Dead-drunk this evening I shall be,
then fearlessly, remorselessly
shall lie out in the open air
And sleep there like a homeless cur;
some cart may rumble with a load
of stones or mud along the road
and crush my head—I shall not stir.
Some heavy dray incontinent
may come and cut me clean in two;
I laugh at thought o’t as I do
at Devil, God, and Sacrament.
The Pit1
Translated by Wilfrid Thorley
Great Pascal had his pit always in sight.
All is abysmal—deed, desire, or dream
or speech! Full often over me doth scream
the wind of Fear and blows my hair upright.
By the lone strand, thro’ silence, depth and height,
and shoreless space that doth with terrors teem …
on my black nights God’s finger like a beam
traces his swarming torments infinite.
Sleep is a monstrous hole that I do dread,
full of vague horror, leading none knows where;
all windows open on infinity,
so that my dizzy spirit in despair
longs for the torpor of the unfeeling dead.
Ah! from Time’s menace never to win free!
The Vampire1
Translated by George Dillon
Thou who abruptly as a knife
didst come into my heart; thou who,
a demon horde into my life,
didst enter, wildly dancing, through
the doorways of my sense unlatched
to make my spirit thy domain—
harlot to whom I am attached
as convicts to the ball and chain,
as gamblers to the wheel’s bright spell,
as drunkards to their raging thirst,
as corpses to their worms—accurst
be thou! Oh, be thou damned to hell!
I have entreated the swift sword
to strike, that I at once be freed;
the poisoned phial I have implored
to plot with me a ruthless deed.
Alas! the phial and the blade
do cry aloud and laugh at me:
“Thou art not worthy of our aid;
thou art not worthy to be free.
“Though one of us should be the tool
to save thee from thy wretched fate,
thy kisses would resuscitate
the body of thy vampire, fool!”
Coventry Patmore (1823 – 1896)
The Toys1
My little Son, who look’d from thoughtful eyes
and moved and spoke in Quiet grown-up wise,
having my law the seventh time disobey’d,
I struck him, and dismiss’d
with hard words and unkiss’d,
—his Mother, who was patient, being dead.
Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep,
I visited his bed,
but found him slumbering deep,
with darken’d eyelids, and their lashes yet
from his late sobbing wet.
And I, with moan,
kissing away his tears, left others of my own;
for, on a table drawn beside his head,
he had put, within his reach,
a box of counters and a red-vein’d stone,
a piece of glass abraded by the beach,
and six or seven shells,
a bottle with bluebells,
and two French copper coins,
ranged there with careful art,
to comfort his sad heart.
So when that night I pray’d
to God, I wept, and said:
ah, when at last we lie with tranced breath,
not vexing Thee in death,
and Thou rememberest of what toys
we made our joys,
how weakly understood
thy great commanded good,
then, fatherly not less
than I whom Thou hast molded from the clay,
thou’lt leave Thy wrath, and say,
‘I will be sorry for their childishness.’
Richard Henry Stoddard (1805 – 1923)
The Jar1
Day and night my thoughts incline
to the blandishments of wine:
jars were made to drain, I think,
wine, I know, was made to drink.
When I die, (the day be far!)
should the potters make a jar
out of this poor clay of mine,
let the jar be filled with wine!
Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)
A deed knocks first at thought2
A deed knocks first at thought,
and then it knocks at will.
That is the manufacturing spot,
and will at home and well.
It then goes out an act,
or is entombed so still
that only to the ear of God
its doom is audible.
A narrow fellow in the grass1
A narrow fellow in the grass
occasionally rides;
you may have met him,—did you not,
his notice sudden is.
The grass divides as with a comb,
a spotted shaft is seen;
and then it closes at your feet
and opens further on.
He likes a boggy acre,
a floor too cool for corn.
yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,
have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
unbraiding in the sun,—
when, stooping to secure it,
it wrinkled, and was gone.
Several of nature’s people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
of cordiality;
but never met this fellow,
attended or alone,
without a tighter breathing,
and zero at the bone.
A word is dead1
A word is dead
when it is said,
some say.
I say it just
begins to live
that day.
After great pain a formal feeling comes2
After great pain, a formal feeling comes—
the Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs—
the stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
and Yesterday, or Centuries before?
The Feet, mechanical, go round—
of Ground, or Air, or Ought—
a Wooden way
regardless grown,
a Quartz contentment, like a stone—
This is the Hour of Lead—
remembered, if outlived,
as Freezing persons, recollect the Snow—
first—Chill—then Stupor—then the letting go—
Apparently with no surprise3
Apparently with no surprise
to any happy Flower
the Frost beheads it at its play—
in accidental power—
The blonde Assassin passe
s on—
The Sun proceeds unmoved
to measure off another Day
for an Approving God.
Because I could not stop for death1
Because I could not stop for Death—
he kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
and Immortality.
We slowly drove—He knew no haste
and I had put away
my labor and my leisure too,
for His Civility—
We passed the School, where Children played
Their lessons scarcely done
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—
Or rather—He passed us—
The Dews drew quivering and chill—
for only Gossamer, my Gown—
my Tippet—only Tulle—
We paused before a House that seemed
a Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
the Cornice—but a mound—
Since then—’tis Centuries—but each
feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
were toward Eternity—
Hope is the thing with feathers1
“Hope” is the thing with feathers—
that perches in the soul—
and sings the tune without the words—
and never stops—at all—
and sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
and sore must be the storm—
that could abash the little Bird
that kept so many warm—
I’ve heard it in the chillest land—
and on the strangest Sea—
yet, never, in Extremity,
it asked a crumb—of Me.
I felt a funeral in my brain1
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
and Mourners to and fro
kept treading—treading—till it seemed
that Sense was breaking through—
And when they all were seated,
a Service, like a Drum—
kept beating—beating—till I thought
my Mind was going numb—
And then I heard them lift a Box
and creak across my Soul
with those same Boots of Lead, again,
then Space—began to toll,
As all the Heavens were a Bell,
and Being, but an Ear,
and I, and Silence, some strange Race
wrecked, solitary, here—
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
and I dropped down, and down—
and hit a World, at every plunge,
and Finished knowing—then—
I had been hungry all the years2
I had been hungry, all the Years—
my Noon had Come—to dine—
I trembling drew the Table near—
and touched the Curious Wine—
‘Twas this on Tables I had seen—
when turning, hungry, Home
I looked in Windows, for the Wealth
I could not hope—for Mine—
I did not know the ample Bread—
‘Twas so unlike the Crumb
the Birds and I, had often shared
in Nature’s—Dining Room—
The Plenty hurt me—’twas so new—
myself felt ill—and odd—
as Berry—of a Mountain Bush—
transplanted—to a Road—
Nor was I hungry—so I found
that Hunger—was a way
of Persons outside Windows—
the Entering—takes away—
I heard a fly buzz when I died1
I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—
the Stillness in the Room
was like the Stillness in the Air—
between the Heaves of Storm—
The Eyes around—had wrung them dry—
and Breaths were gathering firm
for that last Onset—when the King
be witnessed—in the Room—
I willed my Keepsakes—Signed away
what portions of me be
assignable—and then it was
there interposed a Fly—
with Blue—uncertain stumbling Buzz—
between the light—and me—
and then the Windows failed—and then
I could not see to see—
I like to see it lap the miles1
I like to see it lap the miles,
and lick the valleys up,
and stop to feed itself at tank;
and then, prodigious, step
around a pile of mountains,
and, supercilious, peer
in shanties by the sides of roads;
and then a quarry pare
to fit its sides, and crawl between,
complaining all the while
in horrid, hooting stanza;
then chase itself down hill
and neigh like Boanerges;
then, punctual as a star,
stop—docile and omnipotent—
at its own stable door.
I taste a liQuor never brewed1
I taste a liQuor never brewed—
from Tankards scooped in Pearl—
not all the Vats upon the Rhine
yield such an Alcohol!
Inebriate of Air—am I—
and Debauchee of Dew—
reeling—thro endless summer days—
from inns of Molten Blue—
When “Landlords” turn the drunken Bee
out of the Foxglove’s door—
when Butterflies—renounce their “drams”—
I shall but drink the more!
Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats—
and Saints—to windows run—
to see the little Tippler
leaning against the—Sun—
I’m nobody! Who are you?1
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—too?
Then there’s a pair of us?
Don’t tell! they’d advertise—you know!
How dreary—to be—Somebody!
How public—like a Frog—
to tell one’s name—the livelong June—
to an admiring Bog!
I’ve Known a Heaven, Like a Tent2
I’ve known a Heaven like a tent
to wrap its shining yards,
pluck up its stakes and disappear
without the sound of boards
or rip of nail, or carpenter,
but just the miles of stare
that signalize a show’s retreat
in North America.
No trace, no figment of the thing
that dazzled yesterday,
no ring, no marvel;
men and feats
dissolved as utterly
as birds’ far navigation
discloses just a hue;
a plash of oars—a gaiety,
then swallowed up to view.
My life closed twice before its close1
My life closed twice before its close—
it yet remains to see
if Immortality unveil
a third event to me
so huge, so hopeless to conceive
as these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
and all we need of hell.
The Last Night2
The last night that she lived,
it was a common night,
except the dying; this to us
made nature different.
We noticed smallest things,—
things overlooked before,
by this great light upon our minds
italicized, as ’t were.
That others could exist
while she must finish quite,
a jealousy for her arose
/> so nearly infinite.
We waited while she passed;
it was a narrow time,
too jostled were our souls to speak,
at length the notice came.
She mentioned, and forgot;
then lightly as a reed
bent to the water, shivered scarce,
consented, and was dead.
And we, we placed the hair,
and drew the head erect;
and then an awful leisure was,
our faith to regulate.
The Props Assist the House1
The Props assist the House
until the House is built
and then the Props withdraw
and adequate, erect,
the House support itself
and cease to recollect
the Auger and the Carpenter—
Just such a retrospect
hath the perfected Life—
a past of Plank and Nail
and slowness—then the Scaffolds drop
affirming it a Soul.
The way I read a letter’s this2
The Way I read a Letter’s—this—
‘tis first—I lock the Door—
and push it with my fingers—next—
for transport it be sure—
and then I go the furthest off
to counteract a knock—
then draw my little Letter forth
and slowly pick the lock—
then—glancing narrow, at the Wall—
and narrow at the floor
for firm Conviction of a Mouse
not exorcised before—
Peruse how infinite I am
to no one that You—know—
and sigh for lack of Heaven—but not
the Heaven God bestow—
There came a wind like a bugle1
There came a Wind like a Bugle—
The Giant Book of Poetry Page 18