DayPoems: A Seven-Century Poetry Slam
93,142 lines of verse * www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor
PEACE, Shepherd, peace! What boots it singing on?
Since long ago grace-giving Phoebus died,
And all the train that loved the stream-bright side
Of the poetic mount with him are gone
Beyond the shores of Styx and Acheron,
In unexplored realms of night to hide.
The clouds that strew their shadows far and wide
Are all of Heaven that visits Helicon.
Yet here, where never muse or god did haunt,
Still may some nameless power of Nature stray,
Pleased with the reedy stream's continual chant
And purple pomp of these broad fields in May.
The shepherds meet him where he herds the kine,
And careless pass him by whose is the gift divine.
Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan
I raise the glass to my lips --
Bourgogne Passe-Tout-Grains --
and let the ruby elixir
fill my mouth. From the sixth floor
window of our hotel I see
forty or fifty men lined up
a block or so away,
standing in the cold October drizzle
at the Mission for the evening meal.
I hold the wine in my mouth
for a long, long time
before I swallow.
I CAME into the City and none knew me;
None came forth, none shouted 'He is here!
Not a hand with laurel would bestrew me,
All the way by which I drew anear--
Night my banner, and my herald Fear.
But I knew where one so long had waited
In the low room at the stairway's height,
Trembling lest my foot should be belated,
Singing, sighing for the long hours' flight
Towards the moment of our dear delight.
I came into the City when you hail'd me
Saviour, and again your chosen Lord:--
Not one guessing what it was that fail'd me,
While along the way as they adored
Thousands, thousands, shouted in accord.
But through all the joy I knew--I only--
How the hostel of my heart lay bare and cold,
Silent of its music, and how lonely!
Never, though you crown me with your gold,
Shall I find that little chamber as of old!
So hath he fallen, the Endymion of the air,
And so lies down in slumber lapped for aye.
Diana, passing, found his youth too fair,
His soul too fleet and willing to obey.
She swung her golden moon before his eyes --
Dreaming, he rose to follow -- and ran -- and was away.
His foot was winged as the mounting sun.
Earth he disdained -- the dusty ways of men
Not yet had learned. His spirit longed to run
With the bright clouds, his brothers, to answer when
The airs were fleetest and could give him hand
Into the starry fields beyond our plodding ken.
All wittingly that glorious way he chose,
And loved the peril when it was most bright.
He tried anew the long-forbidden snows
And like an eagle topped the dropping height
Of Nagenhorn, and still toward Italy
Past peak and cliff pressed on, in glad, unerring flight.
Oh, when the bird lies low with golden wing
Bruised past healing by some bitter chance,
Still must its tireless spirit mount and sing
Of meadows green with morning, of the dance
On windy trees, the darting flight away,
And of that last, most blue, triumphant downward glance.
So murmuring of the snow: "THE SNOW, AND MORE,
O GOD, MORE SNOW!" on that last field he lay.
Despair and wonder spent their passionate store
In his great heart, through heaven gone astray,
And early lost. Too far the golden moon
Had swung upon that bright, that long, untraversed way.
Now to lie ended on the murmuring plain --
Ah, this for his bold heart was not the loss,
But that those windy fields he ne'er again
Might try, nor fleet and shimmering mountains cross,
Unfollowed, by a path none other knew:
His bitter woe had here its deep and piteous cause.
Dear toils of youth unfinished! And songs unwritten, left
By young and passionate hearts! O melodies
Unheard, whereof we ever stand bereft!
Clear-singing Schubert, boyish Keats -- with these
He roams henceforth, one with the starry band,
Still paying to fairy call and far command
His spirit heed, still winged with golden prophecies.
About me leagues of houses lie,
Above me, grim and straight and high,
They climb; the terraces lean up
Like long grey reefs against the sky.
Packed tier on tier the people dwell;
Each narrow, hollow wall is full;
And in that hive of honeycomb,
Remote and high, I have one cell.
And when I turn into my street
I hear in murmurous retreat
A tide of noises flowing out --
The city ebbing from my feet!
And lo! two long straight walls between,
There dwells a little park serene,
Where blackened trees and railings hem
A little handkerchief of green!
Yet I can see across the roof
The sun, the stars and . . . God! For proof --
Between the twisting chimney-pots
A pointing finger, old, aloof!
The traffic that the city rends
Within my quiet haven ends
In a deep murmur, or across
My pool a gentle ripple sends.
A chime upon the silence drab
Paints music; hooting motors stab
The pleasant peace; and, far and faint,
The jangling lyric of the cab!
And when I wander, proud and free,
Through my domain, unceasingly
The endless pageant of the shops
Marches along the street with me.
About me ever blossoming
Like rich parterres the hoardings fling
An opulence of hue, and make
Within my garden endless Spring.
The droning tram-cars spitting light:
And like great bees in drunken flight
Burly and laden deep with bloom,
The 'busses lumbering home at night!
Sometimes an afternoon will fling
New meaning on each sombre thing,
And low upon the level roofs
The sultry sun lies smouldering.
Sometimes the fog -- that faery girl --
Her veil of wonder will unfurl,
And crescent gaunt and looming flat
Are sudden mysteries of pearl!
New miracles the wet streets show;
On stems of flame the gas-lamps glow.
I walk upon the wave and see
Another London drowned below!
And when night comes strange jewels strew
The winding streets I wander through:
Like pearls upon a woman's throat
The street-lamps' swerving avenue!
In every face that passes mine
Unfathomed epics I divine:
Each figure on the pavement is
A vial of untasted wine!
Through lands enchanted wandering,
To all a splendour seems to cling.
Lo! from a window-beacon high
Hope still the Night is questioning!
And so, ere sleep, I lie and mark
Romance's stealthy footsteps. Hark!
The rhythm of the horse's hoof
Bears some new drama through the dark!
So in this tall and narrow street
I lie as in Death's lone retreat
And hear, loud in the pulse of Life,
Eternity upon me beat!
Of old, on her terrace at evening
...not here...in some long-gone kingdom
O, folded close to her breast!...
--our gaze dwelt wide on the blackness
(was it trees? or a shadowy passion
the pain of an old-world longing
that it sobb'd, that it swell'd, that it shrank?)
--the gloom of the forest
blurr'd soft on the skirt of the night-skies
that shut in our lonely world.
...not here...in some long-gone world...
close-lock'd in that passionate arm-clasp
no word did we utter, we stirr'd not:
the silence of Death, or of Love...
only, round and over us
that tearless infinite yearning
and the Night with her spread wings rustling
folding us with the stars.
...not here...in some long-gone kingdom
of old, on her terrace at evening
O, folded close to her heart!...
LIFE! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when, or how, or where we met,
I own to me 's a secret yet.
But this I know, when thou art fled,
Where'er they lay these limbs, this head,
No clod so valueless shall be
As all that then remains of me.
O whither, whither dost thou fly?
Where bend unseen thy trackless course?
And in this strange divorce,
Ah, tell where I must seek this compound I?
To the vast ocean of empyreal flame
From whence thy essence came
Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed
From matter's base encumbering weed?
Or dost thou, hid from sight,
Wait, like some spell-bound knight,
Through blank oblivious years th' appointed hour
To break thy trance and reassume thy power?
Yet canst thou without thought or feeling be?
O say, what art thou, when no more thou'rt thee?
Life! we have been long together,
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
'Tis hard to part when friends are dear;
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;--
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;
Say not Good-night, but in some brighter clime
Bid me Good-morning!
O SLEEP, my babe, hear not the rippling wave,
Nor feel the breeze that round thee ling'ring strays
To drink thy balmy breath,
And sigh one long farewell.
Soon shall it mourn above thy wat'ry bed,
And whisper to me, on the wave-beat shore,
Deep murm'ring in reproach,
Thy sad untimely fate.
Ere those dear eyes had open'd on the light,
In vain to plead, thy coming life was sold,
O waken'd but to sleep,
Whence it can wake no more!
A thousand and a thousand silken leaves
The tufted beech unfolds in early spring,
All clad in tenderest green,
All of the self-same shape:
A thousand infant faces, soft and sweet,
Each year sends forth, yet every mother views
Her last not least beloved
Like its dear self alone.
No musing mind hath ever yet foreshaped
The face to-morrow's sun shall first reveal,
No heart hath e'er conceived
What love that face will bring.
O sleep, my babe, nor heed how mourns the gale
To part with thy soft locks and fragrant breath,
As when it deeply sighs
O'er autumn's latest bloom.
Little park that I pass through,
I carry off a piece of you
Every morning hurrying down
To my work-day in the town;
Carry you for country there
To make the city ways more fair.
I take your trees,
And your breeze,
Your greenness,
Your cleanness,
Some of your shade, some of your sky,
Some of your calm as I go by;
Your flowers to trim
The pavements grim;
Your space for room in the jostled street
And grass for carpet to my feet.
Your fountains take and sweet bird calls
To sing me from my office walls.
All that I can see
I carry off with me.
But you never miss my theft,
So much treasure you have left.
As I find you, fresh at morning,
So I find you, home returning --
Nothing lacking from your grace.
All your riches wait in place
For me to borrow
On the morrow.
Do you hear this praise of you,
Little park that I pass through?
I
Others endure Man's rule: he therefore deems
I shall endure it -- I, the unconquered Air!
Imagines this triumphant strength may bear
His paltry sway! yea, ignorantly dreams,
Because proud Rhea now his vassal seems,
And Neptune him obeys in billowy lair,
That he a more sublime assault may dare,
Where blown by tempest wild the vulture screams!
Presumptuous, he mounts: I toss his bones
Back from the height supernal he has braved:
Ay, as his vessel nears my perilous zones,
I blow the cockle-shell away like chaff
And give him to the Sea he has enslaved.
He founders in its depths; and then I laugh!
II
Impregnable I held myself, secure
Against intrusion. Who can measure Man?
How should I guess his mortal will outran
Defeat so far that danger could allure
For its own sake? -- that he would all endure,
All sacrifice, all suffer, rather than
Forego the daring dreams Olympian
That prophesy to him of victory sure?
Ah, tameless courage! -- dominating power
That, all attempting, in a deathless hour
Made earth-born Titans godlike, in revolt! --
Fear is the fire that melts Icarian wings:
Who fears nor Fate, nor Time, nor what Time brings,
May drive Apollo's steeds, or wield the thunderbolt!
HAPPY those early days, when I
Shin'd in my Angel-infancy!
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy aught
But a white celestial thought:
When yet I had not walk'd above
A mile or two from my first Love,
And looking back--at that short space--
Could see a glimpse of His bright face:
When on some gilded cloud, or flow'r,
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity:
Before I taught my tongue to wound
My Conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispense
A several sin to ev'ry sense,
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
O how I long to travel back,
And tread again that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plain
Where first I left my glorious train;
From whence th' enlightned spirit sees
That shady City of Palm-trees.
But ah! my soul with too much stay
Is drunk, and staggers in the way!
Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would move;
And when this dust falls to the urn,
In that state I came, return.
I sit on a bench in the dead of fall,
Among the shadows I feel so small,
The clouds and sky a crimson hue,
As I sit on this bench and think of you,
The autumn breeze chills to the bone,
And I reminisce of days long gone,
The sounds of children playing in the park,
Start to cease as the sky grows dark,
Everyone goes home to the one they love,
And I gaze at the stars in the sky above,
And so brings to end another day,
I gather my books and go on my way,
Copyright 2001 by S. Barnes. All rights reserved.