The Giant Book of Poetry

by William H. Roetzheim, Editor

  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—