The Giant Book of Poetry
Page 22
tells that our globe, this quivering crystal world,
is slowly dying. What if, seconds hence,
when I am very old, yon shimmering dome
come drawing down and down, till all things end?”
Then with a wizen smirk he proudly felt
no other mote of God had ever gained
such giant grasp of universal truth.
One was a transcendental monad; thin
and long and slim in the mind; and thus he mused:
“Oh, vast, unfathomable monad-souls!
Made in the image”—a hoarse frog croaks
from the pool—
“Hark! ’twas some god, voicing his glorious thought
in thunder music! Yea, we hear their voice,
and we may guess their minds from ours, their work.
Some taste they have like ours, some tendency
to wriggle about, and munch a trace of scum.”
He floated up on a pin-point bubble of gas
that burst, pricked by the air, and he was gone.
One was a barren-minded monad, called
a positivist; and he knew positively:
“There is no world beyond this certain drop.
prove me another! Let the dreamers dream
of their faint dreams, and noises from without,
and higher and lower; life is life enough.”
Then swaggering half a hair’s breadth, hungrily
he seized upon an atom of bug, and fed.
One was a tattered monad, called a poet;
and with shrill voice ecstatic thus he sang:
“Oh, the little female monad’s lips!
Oh, the little female monad’s eyes:
Ah, the little, little, female, female monad!”
The last was a strong-minded monadess,
who dashed amid the infusoria,
danced high and low, and wildly spun and dove
till the dizzy others held their breath to see.
But while they led their wondrous little lives
aeonian moments had gone wheeling by.
The burning drop had shrunk with fearful speed;
a glistening film—’twas gone; the leaf was dry.
The little ghost of an inaudible squeak
was lost to the frog that goggled from his stone;
who, at the huge, slow tread of a thoughtful ox
coming to drink, stirred sideways fatly, plunged,
launched backward twice, and all the pool was still.
William Ernest Henley (1849 – 1903)
Invictus1
Out of the night that covers me,
black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
for my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
i have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
my head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
looms but the Horror of the shade,
and yet the menace of the years
finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
how charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Eugene Field (1850 – 1895)
Little Boy Blue1
The little toy dog is covered with dust,
but sturdy and stanch he stands;
and the little toy soldier is red with rust,
and his musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
and the soldier was passing fair;
and that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
kissed them and put them there.
“Now, don’t you go till I come,” he said,
“and don’t you make any noise!”
So, toddling off to his trundle-bed,
he dreamt of the pretty toys;
and, as he was dreaming, an angel song
awakened our Little Boy Blue—-
oh! the years are many, the years are long,
but the little toy friends are true!
Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
each in the same old place—-
awaiting the touch of a little hand,
the smile of a little face;
and they wonder, as waiting the long years through
in the dust of that little chair,
what has become of our Little Boy Blue,
since he kissed them and put them there.
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod1
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
sailed off in a wooden shoe
sailed on a river of crystal light,
into a sea of dew.
“Where are you going, and what do you wish?”
the old moon asked the three.
“We have come to fish for the herring fish
that live in this beautiful sea;
nets of silver and gold have we!”
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
and Nod.
The old moon laughed and sang a song
as they rocked in the wooden shoe,
and the wind that sped them all night long
ruffled the waves of dew.
The little stars were the herring fish
that lived in the beautiful sea
“Now cast your nets wherever you wish
never afeard are we”;
so cried the stars to the fisherman three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
and Nod.
All night long their nets they threw
to the stars in the twinkling foam
then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
bringing the fishermen home;
‘Twas all so pretty a sail it seemed
as if it could not be,
and some folks thought ’twas a dream they’d dreamed
of sailing that beautiful sea
but I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
and Nod.
Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
and Nod is a little head,
and the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
is a wee one’s trundle-bed.
So shut your eyes while mother sings
of wonderful sights that be,
and you shall see the beautiful things
as you rock in the misty sea,
where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
and Nod.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 – 1894)
Requiem1
Under the wide and starry sky
dig the grave and let me lie:
glad did I live and gladly die,
and I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
here he lies where he longed to be;
home is the sailor, home from sea,
and the hunter home from the hill.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 – 1919)
Solitude2
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it’s mirth,
but has trouble enough of it’s own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
but shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you;
grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
but they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
but alo
ne you must drink life’s gall.
Feast, and your halls are crowded;
fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
but no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
for a long and lordly train,
but one by one we must all file on
through the narrow aisles of pain.
A.E. Housman (1859 – 1936)
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now1
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
is hung with bloom along the bough,
and stands about the woodland ride
wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
twenty will not come again,
and take from seventy springs a score,
it only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
fifty springs are little room,
about the woodlands I will go
to see the cherry hung with snow.
Terence, This is Stupid Stuff1
“Terence, this is stupid stuff:
you eat your victuals fast enough;
there can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear,
to see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
it gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
it sleeps well, the horned head:
we poor lads, ’tis our turn now
to hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship ’tis to rhyme
your friends to death before their time
moping melancholy mad:
come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.”
Why, if ’tis dancing you would be,
there’s brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
livelier liQuor than the Muse,
and malt does more than Milton can
to justify God’s ways to man.
Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink
for fellows whom it hurts to think:
look into the pewter pot
to see the world as the world’s not.
And faith, ’tis pleasant till ’tis past:
the mischief is that ’twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
and left my necktie God knows where,
and carried half way home, or near,
pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
then the world seemed none so bad,
and I myself a sterling lad;
and down in lovely muck I’ve lain,
happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
heigho, the tale was all a lie;
the world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
and nothing now remained to do
but begin the game anew.
Therefore, since the world has still
much good, but much less good than ill,
and while the sun and moon endure
luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure,
I’d face it as a wise man would,
and train for ill and not for good.
‘Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
is not so brisk a brew as ale:
out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the snack is sour,
the better for the embittered hour;
it should do good to heart and head
when your soul is in my soul’s stead;
and I will friend you, if I may,
in the dark and cloudy day.
There was a king reigned in the East:
there, when kings will sit to feast,
they get their fill before they think
with poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all that springs to birth
from the many-venomed earth;
first a little, thence to more,
he sampled all her killing store;
and easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
and stared aghast to watch him eat;
they poured strychnine in his cup
and shook to see him drink it up:
they shook, they stared as white’s their shirt:
them it was their poison hurt.
—I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.
They say my Verse is Sad: No Wonder1
They say my verse is sad: no wonder.
Its narrow measure spans
rue for eternity, and sorrow
not mine, but man’s.
This is for all ill-treated fellows
unborn and unbegot,
for them to read when they’re in trouble
and I am not.
To an Athlete Dying Young2
The time you won your town the race
we chaired you through the market-place;
man and boy stood cheering by,
and home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
shoulder high— we bring you home,
and set you at your threshold down,
townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
from fields where glory does not stay
and early though the laurel grows
it withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
cannot see the record cut,
and silence sounds no worse than cheers
after earth has stopped the ears:
now you will not swell the rout
of lads that wore their honors out,
runners whom renown outran
and the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
the fleet foot on the sill of shade,
and hold to the low lintel up
the still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
and find unwithered on its curls
the garland briefer than a girl’s.
James B Naylor (1860 – 1902)
Authorship1
“King David and King Solomon
led merry, merry lives,
with many, many lady friends
and many, many wives;
but when old age crept over them,
with many, many qualms,
King Solomon wrote the Proverbs
and King David wrote the Psalms.”
Charles Perkins Stetson (1860 – 1935)
An Obstacle1
I was climbing up a mountain-path
with many things to do,
important business of my own,
and other people’s too,
when I ran against a Prejudice
that quite cut off the view.
My work was such as could not wait,
my path quite clearly showed,
my strength and time were limited,
I carried quite a load;
and there that hulking Prejudice
sat all across the road.
So I spoke to him politely,
for he was huge and high,
and begged that he would move a bit
and let me travel by.
He smiled, but as for moving!—
he didn’t even try.
And then I reasoned quietly
with that colossal mule:
my time was short—no other path—
the mountain winds were cool.
I argued like a Solomon;
he sat there like a foo
l.
Then I flew into a passion,
I danced and howled and swore.
I pelted and belabored him
till I was stiff and sore;
he got mad as I did—
but sat there as before.
And then I begged him on my knees;
I might be kneeling still
if so I hoped to move that mass
of obdurate ill-will—
as well invite the monument
to vacate Bunker Hill!
So I sat before him helpless,
in an ecstasy of woe—
the mountain mists were rising fast,
the sun was sinking slow—
when a sudden inspiration came,
as sudden winds do blow.
I took my hat, I took my stick,
my load I settled fair,
I approached that awful incubus
with an absent minded air—
and I walked directly through him,
as if he wasn’t there!
Black Elk (1863 – 1950)
Everything the Power of the World Does is done in a circle1
As spoken to John G. Neihardt
Everything the power of the world does,
is done in a circle.
The sky is round
and I have heard that the earth
is round like a ball,
and so are all the stars.
The wind in its greatest power whirls.
Birds make their nests in circles;
for theirs is the same religion as ours.
The sun comes forth and
goes down again in a circle.
The moon does the same
and both are round.
Even the seasons form a great circle
in their changing
and always come back
to where they were.
The life of a man is a circle,
from childhood to childhood.
and so it is with everything
where power moves.
Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1930)
If1
If you can keep your head when all about you
are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
but make allowance for their doubting too;