Behold this little Bane -
The Boon of all alive -
As common as it is unknown
The name of it is Love -
To lack of it is Woe -
To own of it is Wound -
Not elsewhere - if in Paradise
It's Tantamount be found.
With Pinions of Disdain
The soul can farther fly
Than any feather specified
in - Ornithology -
It wafts this sordid Flesh
Beyond it's dull - control
And during it's electric gale -
The body is - a soul -
instructing by itself -
How little work it be -
To put off filaments like this
for immortality.
As every flower fades and as all youth
Departs, so life at every stage,
So every virtue, so our grasp of truth,
Blooms in its day and may not last forever.
Since life may summon us at every age
Be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavor,
Be ready bravely and without remorse
To find new light that old ties cannot give.
In all beginnings dwells a magic force
For guarding us and helping us to live.
Serenely let us move to distant places
And let no sentiments of home detain us.
The Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain us
But lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces.
If we accept a home of our own making,
Familiar habit makes for indolence.
We must prepare for parting and leave-taking
Or else remain the slave of permanence.
Even the hour of our death may send
Us speeding on to fresh and newer spaces,
And life may summon us to newer races.
So be it, heart: bid farewell without end.
Poets to come! Orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for,
but you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known,
Arouse! For you must justify me.
I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness,
I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you
And then averts his face,
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,
Expecting the main things from you.
Demons and Wonders
Winds and Tides
Yet in the distance the sea has withdrawn
Demons and Wonders
Winds and Tides
And you
Like a seaweed the wind gently caresses
In the sands of your bed you're
moving dreaming
Demons and Wonders
Winds and Tides
Yet in the distance the sea has withdrawn
But in your half-opened eyes
Two small waves staid
Demons and Wonders
Winds and Tides
Two small waves to drown myself.
I never saw a Moor -
I never saw the Sea -
Yet know I how the Heather looks
And what a Billow be -
I never spoke with God
Nor visited in Heaven -
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the Checks were given.
Endow the Living - with the Tears -
You squander on the Dead,
And They were Men and Women - now,
Around Your Fireside -
Instead of Passive Creatures,
Denied the Cherishing
Till They - the Cherishing deny -
With Death's Etherial Scorn.
The bull does not know you, nor the fig tree,
nor the horses, nor the ants in your own house.
The child and the afternoon do not know you
because you have died for ever.
The back of the stone does not know you,
nor the black stain in which you crumble.
Your silent memory does not know you
because you have died for ever.
The autumn will come with small white snails,
misty grapes and with clustered hills,
but no one will look into your eyes
because you have died for ever.
Because you have died for ever,
like all the death of the Earth,
like all the dead who are forgotten
in a heap of lifeless dogs.
Nobody knows you. No. But I sing of you.
For posterity I sing of your profile and grace.
Of the signal maturity of your understanding.
Of your appetite for death and the taste of its mouth.
Of the sadness of your once valient gaiety.
It will be a long time, if ever, before there is born
an Andalusian so true, so rich in adventure.
I sing of his elegance with words that groan,
and I remember a sad breeze through the olive trees.
We do not play on Graves -
Because there is'nt Room -
Besides - it isn't even - it slants
And People come -
And put a Flower on it -
And hang their faces so -
We're fearing that their Hearts will drop -
And crush our pretty play -
And so we move as far
As Enemies - away -
Just looking round to see how far
It is - Occasionally.
Tie the Strings to my Life, My Lord,
Then, I am ready to go!
Just a look at the Horses -
Rapid! That will do!
Put me in on the firmest side -
So I shall never fall -
For we must ride to the Judgment -
And it's partly, down Hill -
But never I mind the steepest -
And never I mind the Sea -
Held fast in Everlasting Race -
By my own Choice, and Thee -
Goodbye to the Life I used to live -
And the World I used to know -
And kiss the Hills, for me, just once -
Now - I am ready to go!