—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth

The Waste Land garden,

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
BY  T. S. E LI OT     Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
FOR EZRA POUND Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
  IL MIGLIOR FABBRO Oed’ und leer das Meer.

              I. The Burial of the Dead   Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,

Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
  April is the cruellest month, breeding
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
Memory and desire, stirring
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Dull roots with spring rain.
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
Winter kept us warm, covering
The lady of situations.
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
A little life with dried tubers.
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
deutsch.
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
And when we were children, staying at the arch-
One must be so careful these days.
duke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
  Unreal City,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I had not thought death had undone so many.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
  What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying:
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no
“Stetson!
relief,
“You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
“That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
There is shadow under this red rock,
“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
“Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
And I will show you something different from either
“Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
“Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
“You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
frère!”
                             Frisch weht der Wind
                              Der Heimat zu
                              Mein Irisch Kind,
              II. A Game of Chess
                              Wo weilest du?
“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
“They called me the hyacinth girl.”
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured
stone,
In which sad light a carvéd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.
  “My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
“Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.
  “What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
“I never know what you are thinking. Think.”
  I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.
  “What is that noise?”
                          The wind under the door.
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”
                           Nothing again nothing.
“Do
“You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you
remember
“Nothing?”
       I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your
head?”   
          
                                                                           But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent
“What shall I do now? What shall I do?”
“I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
“With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
“What shall we ever do?”
   The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the
door.
  When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said—
I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He’ll want to know what you done with that money he
gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good
time,
And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a
straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said.
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young
George.)
The chemist said it would be all right, but I’ve never
been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I
said,
What you get married for if you don’t want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot
gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it
hot—
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May.
Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good
night, good night.
              III. The Fire Sermon
  The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are
departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are
departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to
ear.
A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter
They wash their feet in soda water
Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!
Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc’d.
Tereu
Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine
waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last
rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
“Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.”
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone, “On Margate Sands.
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand, I can connect
And puts a record on the gramophone. Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
“This music crept by me upon the waters” My people humble people who expect
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street. Nothing.”
O City city, I can sometimes hear                        la la
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline To Carthage then I came
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls Burning burning burning burning
Of Magnus Martyr hold O Lord Thou pluckest me out
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold. O Lord Thou pluckest

               The river sweats burning

               Oil and tar
               The barges drift
               With the turning tide               IV. Death by Water
               Red sails
               Wide Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
               To leeward, swing on the heavy spar. Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
               The barges wash And the profit and loss.
               Drifting logs                                    A current under sea
               Down Greenwich reach Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
               Past the Isle of Dogs. He passed the stages of his age and youth
                                 Weialala leia Entering the whirlpool.
                                 Wallala leialala                                    Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
               Elizabeth and Leicester Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as
               Beating oars you.
               The stern was formed
               A gilded shell
               Red and gold               V. What the Thunder Said
               The brisk swell
               Rippled both shores   After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
               Southwest wind After the frosty silence in the gardens
               Carried down stream After the agony in stony places
               The peal of bells The shouting and the crying
               White towers Prison and palace and reverberation
                                Weialala leia Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
                                Wallala leialala He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
“Trams and dusty trees. With a little patience
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees Here is no water but only rock
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.” Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
“My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart Which are mountains of rock without water
Under my feet. After the event If there were water we should stop and drink
He wept. He promised a ‘new start.’ Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
I made no comment. What should I resent?” Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
                                      If there were water
   And no rock
   If there were rock
   And also water
   And water
   A spring
   A pool among the rock
   If there were the sound of water only
   Not the cicada
   And dry grass singing
   But sound of water over a rock
   Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
   Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
   But there is no water
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?
What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal
A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and
exhausted wells.
In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands
 
                                    I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling
down
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam uti chelidon—O swallow swallow
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
                  Shantih     shantih     shantih
 And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken 

BY  RO BE RT FR OS T

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

 Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

We Real Cool
Gwendolyn Brooks - 1917-2000
The Red
 THE POOL PLAYERS.
Wheelbarrow 
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN BY  WI LL IA M CAR LO S WI LL IA MS
SHOVEL.
so much depends
We real cool. We upon
Left school. We
a red wheel
Lurk late. We barrow
Strike straight. We
 The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
glazed with rain
water Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you
beside the white meant
chickens to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my

Harlem last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
BY  LA NGSTO N H UGH ES The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

What happens to a dream deferred?
      Does it dry up
      like a raisin in the sun?
      Or fester like a sore—
      And then run?
      Does it stink like rotten meat?
      Or crust and sugar over—
      like a syrupy sweet?
      Maybe it just sags
      like a heavy load.
some realms I owned, two rivers, a
continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a
gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like
disaster.

Because I could not stop

One Art
BY  EL IZ AB ET H BI SH OP
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the
fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
for Death – (479) 
BY  EM IL Y DIC KI NS ON
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 –
 In the German tongue, in the Polish town   
We passed the School, where Children
Scraped flat by the roller
strove Of wars, wars, wars.
At Recess – in the Ring – But the name of the town is common.   
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – My Polack friend
We passed the Setting Sun –
Says there are a dozen or two.   
So I never could tell where you   
Or rather – He passed Us – Put your foot, your root,
The Dews drew quivering and Chill – I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle – It stuck in a barb wire snare.   
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
We paused before a House that seemed I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.   
A Swelling of the Ground –
And the language obscene
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground – An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.   
Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
I began to talk like a Jew.
Feels shorter than the Day I think I may well be a Jew.
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity – The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of
Vienna   
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck   
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.
Daddy I have always been scared of you,
BY  SY LV IA PL AT H With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.   
And your neat mustache
You do not do, you do not do    And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Any more, black shoe Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You——
In which I have lived like a foot   
For thirty years, poor and white,    Not God but a swastika
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. So black no sky could squeak through.   
Every woman adores a Fascist,   
Daddy, I have had to kill you.    The boot in the face, the brute   
You died before I had time—— Brute heart of a brute like you.
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,   
Ghastly statue with one gray toe    You stand at the blackboard, daddy,   
Big as a Frisco seal In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot   
And a head in the freakish Atlantic    But no less a devil for that, no not   
Where it pours bean green over blue    Any less the black man who
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.   
I used to pray to recover you. Bit my pretty red heart in two.
Ach, du. I was ten when they buried you.   
At twenty I tried to die        “10 April 1800—
And get back, back, back to you.        Blacks rebellious. Crew uneasy. Our
I thought even the bones would do.
linguist says   
But they pulled me out of the sack,           their moaning is a prayer for death,
And they stuck me together with glue.           ours and their own. Some try to starve
And then I knew what to do. themselves.   
I made a model of you,        Lost three this morning leaped with crazy
A man in black with a Meinkampf look laughter   
       to the waiting sharks, sang as they went
And a love of the rack and the screw.   
And I said I do, I do. under.”
So daddy, I’m finally through.
The black telephone’s off at the root,    Desire, Adventure, Tartar, Ann:
The voices just can’t worm through.
       Standing to America, bringing home   
If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two——
       black gold, black ivory, black seed.
The vampire who said he was you   
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.                Deep in the festering hold thy father
Daddy, you can lie back now. lies,   
               of his bones New England pews
There’s a stake in your fat black heart    are made,   
And the villagers never liked you.
               those are altar lights that were
They are dancing and stamping on you.   
They always knew it was you. his eyes.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.
Jesus    Saviour    Pilot    Me
Over    Life’s    Tempestuous    Sea

We pray that Thou wilt grant, O Lord,   

Middle Passage  safe passage to our vessels bringing   
Launch Audio in a New Window heathen souls unto Thy chastening.
BY  RO BE RT HAY DE N
Jesus    Saviour
I
       “8 bells. I cannot sleep, for I am sick
Jesús, Estrella, Esperanza, Mercy:        with fear, but writing eases fear a little
       since still my eyes can see these words
       Sails flashing to the wind like weapons, take shape   
       sharks following the moans the fever and        upon the page & so I write, as one
the dying;           would turn to exorcism. 4 days scudding,
       horror the corposant and compass rose.        but now the sea is calm again. Misfortune
       follows in our wake like sharks (our
Middle Passage: grinning   
               voyage through death        tutelary gods). Which one of us
                               to life upon these shores.        has killed an albatross? A plague among
       our blacks—Ophthalmia: blindness—&        “That when the Bo’s’n piped all hands,
we    the flames   
       have jettisoned the blind to no avail.        spreading from starboard already were
       It spreads, the terrifying sickness spreads. beyond   
       Its claws have scratched sight from the        control, the negroes howling and their
Capt.'s eyes    chains   
       & there is blindness in the fo’c’sle        entangled with the flames:
       & we must sail 3 weeks before we come
       to port.”        “That the burning blacks could not be
reached,   
               What port awaits us, Davy Jones’        that the Crew abandoned ship,
               or home? I’ve heard of slavers        leaving their shrieking negresses behind,
drifting, drifting,           that the Captain perished drunken with the
               playthings of wind and storm and wenches:
chance, their crews   
               gone blind, the jungle hatred        “Further Deponent sayeth not.”
               crawling up on deck.
Pilot    Oh    Pilot    Me
Thou    Who    Walked    On    Galilee

       “Deponent further sayeth The Bella J        II

       left the Guinea Coast
       with cargo of five hundred blacks and Aye, lad, and I have seen those factories,   
odd    Gambia, Rio Pongo, Calabar;
       for the barracoons of Florida: have watched the artful mongos baiting traps   
of war wherein the victor and the vanquished
       “That there was hardly room ’tween-decks
for half    Were caught as prizes for our barracoons.   
       the sweltering cattle stowed spoon-fashion Have seen the nigger kings whose vanity
there;    and greed turned wild black hides of
       that some went mad of thirst and tore their Fellatah,   
flesh    Mandingo, Ibo, Kru to gold for us.
       and sucked the blood:
And there was one—King Anthracite we
       “That Crew and Captain lusted with the named him—
comeliest    fetish face beneath French parasols
       of the savage girls kept naked in the of brass and orange velvet, impudent mouth
cabins;    whose cups were carven skulls of enemies:
       that there was one they called The Guinea
Rose    He’d honor us with drum and feast and conjo   
       and they cast lots and fought to lie with and palm-oil-glistening wenches deft in
her: love,   
and for tin crowns that shone with paste,   
red calico and German-silver trinkets
        whose hatred reaches through the swill
Would have the drums talk war and send    of dark   
his warriors to burn the sleeping villages           to strike you like a leper’s claw.
and kill the sick and old and lead the young   
in coffles to our factories.        You cannot stare that hatred down
       or chain the fear that stalks the watches
Twenty years a trader, twenty years,        and breathes on you its fetid scorching
for there was wealth aplenty to be harvested    breath;   
from those black fields, and I’d be trading        cannot kill the deep immortal human
still    wish,   
but for the fevers melting down my bones.        the timeless will.

               “But for the storm that flung up

       III barriers   
               of wind and wave, The Amistad,
Shuttles in the rocking loom of history,    señores,
the dark ships move, the dark ships move,                   would have reached the port of
their bright ironical names Príncipe in two,   
like jests of kindness on a murderer’s mouth;                   three days at most; but for the storm
plough through thrashing glister toward    we should   
fata morgana’s lucent melting shore,                   have been prepared for what befell.   
weave toward New World littorals that are                   Swift as the puma’s leap it came.
mirage and myth and actual shore. There was   
               that interval of moonless calm filled
Voyage through death, only   
                               voyage whose chartings are                with the water’s and the rigging’s
unlove. usual sounds,   
               then sudden movement, blows and
A charnel stench, effluvium of living death    snarling cries   
spreads outward from the hold,                and they had fallen on us with
where the living and the dead, the horribly machete   
dying,                   and marlinspike. It was as though the
lie interlocked, lie foul with blood and very   
excrement.                air, the night itself were striking us.   
               Exhausted by the rigors of the storm,
       Deep in the festering hold thy father                we were no match for them. Our men
lies,    went down   
       the corpse of mercy rots with him,                   before the murderous Africans. Our
       rats eat love’s rotten gelid eyes. loyal   
               Celestino ran from below with gun   
       But, oh, the living look at you                and lantern and I saw, before the
       with human eyes whose suffering cane-
accuses you,                   knife’s wounding flash, Cinquez,
               that surly brute who calls himself a                are rooted in the labor of your slaves
prince,                   should suffer the august John Quincy
               directing, urging on the ghastly work. Adams   
               He hacked the poor mulatto down,                to speak with so much passion of the
and then    right   
               he turned on me. The decks were                of chattel slaves to kill their lawful
slippery masters   
               when daylight finally came. It                and with his Roman rhetoric weave a
sickens me    hero’s   
               to think of what I saw, of how these                garland for Cinquez. I tell you that   
apes                   we are determined to return to Cuba
               threw overboard the butchered bodies                with our slaves and there see justice
of done. Cinquez—
               our men, true Christians all, like so                or let us say ‘the Prince’—Cinquez
much jetsam.    shall die.”
               Enough, enough. The rest is quickly
told:           The deep immortal human wish,   
               Cinquez was forced to spare the two        the timeless will:
of us   
               you see to steer the ship to Africa,                   Cinquez its deathless primaveral
               and we like phantoms doomed to image,   
rove the sea                   life that transfigures many lives.
               voyaged east by day and west by
night,           Voyage through death
               deceiving them, hoping for rescue,                                         to life upon these
               prisoners on our own vessel, till    shores.
               at length we drifted to the shores of
this   
               your land, America, where we were
freed   
               from our unspeakable misery. Now
we   
               demand, good sirs, the extradition
of   
               Cinquez and his accomplices to La   
               Havana. And it distresses us to
know   
               there are so many here who seem
inclined   
               to justify the mutiny of these
blacks.   
               We find it paradoxical indeed
               that you whose wealth, whose tree of
liberty   
 In which there are three blackbirds.   

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.   
It was a small part of the pantomime.   

IV
A man and a woman   
Are one.   
A man and a woman and a blackbird   
Are one.   

V
I do not know which to prefer,   
The beauty of inflections   
Or the beauty of innuendoes,   
The blackbird whistling   
Or just after.   

VI
Icicles filled the long window   
With barbaric glass.   
The shadow of the blackbird   
Crossed it, to and fro.   
The mood   
Traced in the shadow   
An indecipherable cause.   

Thirteen Ways of VII

O thin men of Haddam,   
Looking at a Blackbird Why do you imagine golden birds?   
BY  WA LL AC E S TE VE NS Do you not see how the blackbird   
Walks around the feet   
I Of the women about you?   
Among twenty snowy mountains,   
The only moving thing    VIII
Was the eye of the blackbird.    I know noble accents   
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;   
II But I know, too,   
I was of three minds,    That the blackbird is involved   
Like a tree   
In what I know.    Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
IX Pumping in my living room.
When the blackbird flew out of sight,   
It marked the edge    Just like moons and like suns,
Of one of many circles.    With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
X Still I'll rise.
At the sight of blackbirds   
Flying in a green light,    Did you want to see me broken?
Even the bawds of euphony    Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Would cry out sharply.    Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
XI
He rode over Connecticut    Does my haughtiness offend you?
In a glass coach.    Don't you take it awful hard
Once, a fear pierced him,    ’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
In that he mistook    Diggin’ in my own backyard.
The shadow of his equipage   
For blackbirds.    You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
XII You may kill me with your hatefulness,
The river is moving.    But still, like air, I’ll rise.
The blackbird must be flying.   
Does my sexiness upset you?
XIII Does it come as a surprise
It was evening all afternoon.    That I dance like I've got diamonds
It was snowing    At the meeting of my thighs?
And it was going to snow.   
The blackbird sat    Out of the huts of history’s shame
In the cedar-limbs. I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Still I Rise Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
BY  MA YA A NGE LO U
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
You may write me down in history Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
With your bitter, twisted lies, I rise
You may trod me in the very dirt Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
But still, like dust, I'll rise. I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
Does my sassiness upset you? I rise
I rise. Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of
day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is

right,
Because their words had forked no lightning
they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how

bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a
green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in

flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its
way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with

blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be
gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears,
I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Do not go gentle into that

good night Kubla Khan
BY  SA MU EL TAY LO R COL ER ID GE
Dylan Thomas - 1914-1953
 Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.    A damsel with a dulcimer
   In a vision once I saw:
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
   It was an Abyssinian maid
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
   And on her dulcimer she played,
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
   Singing of Mount Abora.
Through caverns measureless to man
   Could I revive within me
   Down to a sunless sea.
   Her symphony and song,
So twice five miles of fertile ground
   To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
With walls and towers were girdled round;
That with music loud and long,
And there were gardens bright with sinuous
I would build that dome in air,
rills,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing
And all who heard should see them there,
tree;
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
slanted
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil
seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were
breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
   The shadow of the dome of pleasure
   Floated midway on the waves;
   Where was heard the mingled measure Ozymandias 
   From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device, BY  PE RCY B YSS HE SH EL LE Y

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless
legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on
the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies,
whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold
command,
Tell that its sculptor well those
passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these
lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the
heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words
appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of
Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and
despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the
decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and
bare
The lone and level sands stretch far
away.”
The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner (text of 1834)  Higher and higher every day,
BY  SA MU EL TAY LO R COL ER ID GE
Argument
How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by
storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole;
and how from thence she made her course to the
tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of
the strange things that befell; and in what manner
the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own
Country.
PART I
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din.'
He holds him with his skinny hand,
'There was a ship,' quoth he.
'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!'
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.
He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The Mariner hath his will.
The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.
'The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the lighthouse top.
The Sun came up upon the left,
Out of the sea came he!
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.
Till over the mast at noon—'
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.
The bride hath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she;
Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.
The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.
And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.
With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.
And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.
And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
The ice was all between.
The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!
At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.
It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!
And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo!
In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white Moon-shine.'
'God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look'st thou so?'—With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.
PART II
The Sun now rose upon the right:
Out of the sea came he,
Still hid in mist, and on the left
Went down into the sea.
And the good south wind still blew behind,
But no sweet bird did follow,
Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariner's hollo!
And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work 'em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!
Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,
The glorious Sun uprist:
Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.
'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
'Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!
All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.
About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.
And some in dreams assurèd were
Of the Spirit that plagued us so;
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.
And every tongue, through utter drought,
Was withered at the root;
We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.
Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
PART III
There passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parched, and glazed each eye.
A weary time! a weary time!
How glazed each weary eye,
When looking westward, I beheld
A something in the sky.
At first it seemed a little speck,
And then it seemed a mist;
It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.
A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it neared and neared:
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged and tacked and veered.
With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could nor laugh nor wail;
Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A sail! a sail!
With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
Agape they heard me call:
Gramercy! they for joy did grin,
And all at once their breath drew in.
As they were drinking all.
See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
Hither to work us weal;
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel!
The western wave was all a-flame.
The day was well nigh done!
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright Sun;
When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the Sun.
And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,
(Heaven's Mother send us grace!)
As if through a dungeon-grate he peered
With broad and burning face.
Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears!
Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
Like restless gossameres?
Are those her ribs through which the Sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a DEATH? and are there two?
Is DEATH that woman's mate?
Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.
The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice;
'The game is done! I've won! I've won!'
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.
The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out;
At one stride comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.
We listened and looked sideways up!
Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
My life-blood seemed to sip!
The stars were dim, and thick the night,
The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white;
From the sails the dew did drip—
Till clomb above the eastern bar
The hornèd Moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip.
One after one, by the star-dogged Moon,
Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.
Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.
The souls did from their bodies fly,—
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul, it passed me by,
Like the whizz of my cross-bow!
PART IV
'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!
I fear thy skinny hand!
And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.
I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
And thy skinny hand, so brown.'—
Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!
This body dropt not down.
Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.
The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.
I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.
I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.
I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat;
For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky
Lay dead like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.
The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they:
The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed away.
An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man's eye!
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.
The moving Moon went up the sky,
And no where did abide:
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside—
Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost spread;
But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
The charmèd water burnt alway
A still and awful red.
Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.
Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.
O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.
The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.
PART V
Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.
The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,
I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, it rained.
My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank;
Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
And still my body drank.
I moved, and could not feel my limbs:
I was so light—almost
I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessed ghost.
And soon I heard a roaring wind:
It did not come anear;
But with its sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.
The upper air burst into life!
And a hundred fire-flags sheen,
To and fro they were hurried about!
And to and fro, and in and out,
The wan stars danced between.
And the coming wind did roar more loud,
And the sails did sigh like sedge,
And the rain poured down from one black cloud;
The Moon was at its edge.
The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
The Moon was at its side:
Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning fell with never a jag,
A river steep and wide.
The loud wind never reached the ship,
Yet now the ship moved on!
Beneath the lightning and the Moon
The dead men gave a groan.
They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.
The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;
Yet never a breeze up-blew;
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do;
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools—
We were a ghastly crew.
The body of my brother's son
Stood by me, knee to knee:
The body and I pulled at one rope,
But he said nought to me.
'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!'
Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!
'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
Which to their corses came again,
But a troop of spirits blest:
For when it dawned—they dropped their arms,
And clustered round the mast;
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
And from their bodies passed.
Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
Then darted to the Sun;
Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mixed, now one by one.
Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the sky-lark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning!
And now 'twas like all instruments,
Now like a lonely flute;
And now it is an angel's song,
That makes the heavens be mute.
It ceased; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.
Till noon we quietly sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe:
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath.
Under the keel nine fathom deep,
From the land of mist and snow,
The spirit slid: and it was he
That made the ship to go.
The sails at noon left off their tune,
And the ship stood still also.
The Sun, right up above the mast,
Had fixed her to the ocean:
But in a minute she 'gan stir,
With a short uneasy motion—
Backwards and forwards half her length
With a short uneasy motion.
Then like a pawing horse let go,
She made a sudden bound:
It flung the blood into my head,
And I fell down in a swound.
How long in that same fit I lay,
I have not to declare;
But ere my living life returned,
I heard and in my soul discerned
Two voices in the air.
'Is it he?' quoth one, 'Is this the man?
By him who died on cross,
With his cruel bow he laid full low
The harmless Albatross.
The spirit who bideth by himself
In the land of mist and snow,
He loved the bird that loved the man
Who shot him with his bow.'
The other was a softer voice,
As soft as honey-dew:
Quoth he, 'The man hath penance done,
And penance more will do.'
PART VI
First Voice
'But tell me, tell me! speak again,
Thy soft response renewing—
What makes that ship drive on so fast?
What is the ocean doing?'
Second Voice
Still as a slave before his lord,
The ocean hath no blast;
His great bright eye most silently
Up to the Moon is cast—
If he may know which way to go;
For she guides him smooth or grim.
See, brother, see! how graciously
She looketh down on him.'
First Voice
'But why drives on that ship so fast,
Without or wave or wind?'
Second Voice
'The air is cut away before,
And closes from behind.
Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!
Or we shall be belated:
For slow and slow that ship will go,
When the Mariner's trance is abated.'
I woke, and we were sailing on
As in a gentle weather:
'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high;
The dead men stood together.
All stood together on the deck,
For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
All fixed on me their stony eyes,
That in the Moon did glitter.
The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never passed away:
I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
Nor turn them up to pray.
And now this spell was snapt: once more
I viewed the ocean green,
And looked far forth, yet little saw
Of what had else been seen—
Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
But soon there breathed a wind on me,
Nor sound nor motion made:
Its path was not upon the sea,
In ripple or in shade.
It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek
Like a meadow-gale of spring—
It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming.
Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sailed softly too:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze—
On me alone it blew.
Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed
The light-house top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countree?
We drifted o'er the harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray—
O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway.
The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn!
And on the bay the moonlight lay,
And the shadow of the Moon.
The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,
That stands above the rock:
The moonlight steeped in silentness
The steady weathercock.
And the bay was white with silent light,
Till rising from the same,
Full many shapes, that shadows were,
In crimson colours came.
A little distance from the prow
Those crimson shadows were:
I turned my eyes upon the deck—
Oh, Christ! what saw I there!
Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
And, by the holy rood!
A man all light, a seraph-man,
On every corse there stood.
This seraph-band, each waved his hand:
It was a heavenly sight!
They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light;
This seraph-band, each waved his hand,
No voice did they impart—
No voice; but oh! the silence sank
Like music on my heart.
But soon I heard the dash of oars,
I heard the Pilot's cheer;
My head was turned perforce away
And I saw a boat appear.
The Pilot and the Pilot's boy,
I heard them coming fast:
Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy
The dead men could not blast.
I saw a third—I heard his voice:
It is the Hermit good!
He singeth loud his godly hymns
That he makes in the wood.
He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away
The Albatross's blood.
PART VII
This Hermit good lives in that wood
Which slopes down to the sea.
How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
He loves to talk with marineres
That come from a far countree.
He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve—
He hath a cushion plump:
It is the moss that wholly hides
The rotted old oak-stump.
The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk,
'Why, this is strange, I trow!
Where are those lights so many and fair,
That signal made but now?'
'Strange, by my faith!' the Hermit said—
'And they answered not our cheer!
The planks looked warped! and see those sails,
How thin they are and sere!
I never saw aught like to them,
Unless perchance it were
Brown skeletons of leaves that lag
My forest-brook along;
When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,
That eats the she-wolf's young.'
'Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look—
(The Pilot made reply)
I am a-feared'—'Push on, push on!'
Said the Hermit cheerily.
The boat came closer to the ship,
But I nor spake nor stirred;
The boat came close beneath the ship,
And straight a sound was heard.
Under the water it rumbled on,
Still louder and more dread:
It reached the ship, it split the bay;
The ship went down like lead.
Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which sky and ocean smote,
Like one that hath been seven days drowned
My body lay afloat;
But swift as dreams, myself I found
Within the Pilot's boat.
Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,
The boat spun round and round;
And all was still, save that the hill
Was telling of the sound.
I moved my lips—the Pilot shrieked
And fell down in a fit;
The holy Hermit raised his eyes,
And prayed where he did sit.
I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,
Who now doth crazy go,
Laughed loud and long, and all the while
His eyes went to and fro.
'Ha! ha!' quoth he, 'full plain I see,
The Devil knows how to row.'
And now, all in my own countree,
I stood on the firm land!
The Hermit stepped forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.
'O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!'
The Hermit crossed his brow.
'Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say—
What manner of man art thou?'
Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
With a woful agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale;
And then it left me free.
Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns:
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.
I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.
What loud uproar bursts from that door!
The wedding-guests are there:
But in the garden-bower the bride
And bride-maids singing are:
And hark the little vesper bell,
Which biddeth me to prayer!
O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea:
So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seemèd there to be.
O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
'Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!—

To walk together to the kirk,

And all together pray,
While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends
And youths and maidens gay!

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell

To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best

All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,

Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.
He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.
The Raven
BY  ED GAR AL LA N PO E
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I
pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of
forgotten lore—
    While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly
there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at
my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at
my chamber door—
            Only this and nothing more.”

    Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the

bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its
ghost upon the floor.
    Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I
had sought to borrow
    From my books surcease of sorrow—
sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the
angels name Lenore—
            Nameless here for evermore.
    And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of
each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors
never felt before;
    So that now, to still the beating of my
heart, I stood repeating
    “’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at
my chamber door—
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my
chamber door;—
            This it is and nothing more.”
    Presently my soul grew stronger;
hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your
forgiveness I implore;
    But the fact is I was napping, and so
gently you came rapping,
    And so faintly you came tapping, tapping
at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I
opened wide the door;—
            Darkness there and nothing more.
    Deep into that darkness peering, long I
stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever
dared to dream before;
    But the silence was unbroken, and the
stillness gave no token,
    And the only word there spoken was the
whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back
the word, “Lenore!”—
            Merely this and nothing more.
    Back into the chamber turning, all my
soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder
than before.
    “Surely,” said I, “surely that is
something at my window lattice;
      Let me see, then, what thereat is, and
this mystery explore—
Let my heart be still a moment and this
mystery explore;—
            ’Tis the wind and nothing more!”
    Open here I flung the shutter, when,
with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the
saintly days of yore;
    Not the least obeisance made he; not a
minute stopped or stayed he;
    But, with mien of lord or lady, perched
above my chamber door—
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my
chamber door—
            Perched, and sat, and nothing
more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy
into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the
countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven,
thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering
from the Nightly shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the
Night’s Plutonian shore!”
            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
    Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to
hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning—little
relevancy bore;
    For we cannot help agreeing that no
living human being
    Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird
above his chamber door—
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above
his chamber door,
            With such name as “Nevermore.”
    But the Raven, sitting lonely on the
placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one
word he did outpour.
    Nothing farther then he uttered—not a
feather then he fluttered—
    Till I scarcely more than muttered
“Other friends have flown before—
On the morrow he will leave me, as my
Hopes have flown before.”
            Then the bird said “Nevermore.”
    Startled at the stillness broken by reply
so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its
only stock and store
    Caught from some unhappy master whom
unmerciful Disaster
    Followed fast and followed faster till his
songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy
burden bore
            Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”
    But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy
into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front
of bird, and bust and door;
    Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook
myself to linking
    Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this
ominous bird of yore—
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and
ominous bird of yore
            Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”
    This I sat engaged in guessing, but no
syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned
into my bosom’s core;
    This and more I sat divining, with my
head at ease reclining
    On the cushion’s velvet lining that the
lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-
light gloating o’er,
            She shall press, ah, nevermore!
    Then, methought, the air grew denser,
perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled
on the tufted floor.
    “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent
thee—by these angels he hath sent thee
    Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy
memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget
this lost Lenore!”
            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
    “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—
prophet still, if bird or devil!—
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest
tossed thee here ashore,
    Desolate yet all undaunted, on this
desert land enchanted—
    On this home by Horror haunted—tell me
truly, I implore—
Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—
tell me, I implore!”
            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
    “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—
prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us—by
that God we both adore—
    Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within
the distant Aidenn,
    It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the
angels name Lenore—
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the
angels name Lenore.”
            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
    “Be that word our sign of parting, bird
or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
“Get thee back into the tempest and the
Night’s Plutonian shore!
    Leave no black plume as a token of that
lie thy soul hath spoken!
    Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the
bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take
thy form from off my door!”
            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
    And the Raven, never flitting, still is
sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my
chamber door;
    And his eyes have all the seeming of a
demon’s that is dreaming,
    And the lamp-light o’er him streaming
throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies
floating on the floor
            Shall be lifted—nevermore!
Mock Orange
BY  LO UI SE GL ÜCK
It is not the moon, I tell you.
It is these flowers
lighting the yard.
I hate them.
I hate them as I hate sex,
the man’s mouth
sealing my mouth, the man’s
paralyzing body—
and the cry that always escapes,
the low, humiliating
premise of union—
In my mind tonight
I hear the question and pursuing answer
fused in one sound
that mounts and mounts and then
is split into the old selves,
the tired antagonisms. Do you see?
We were made fools of.
And the scent of mock orange
drifts through the window.
How can I rest?
How can I be content
when there is still
that odor in the world?
We Wear the Mask
BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
       We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
       We wear the mask!
Poetry
Marianne Moore - 1887-1972
I too, dislike it: there are things that are
important beyond
      all this fiddle.
   Reading it, however, with a perfect
contempt for it, one
      discovers that there is in
   it after all, a place for the genuine.
      Hands that can grasp, eyes
      that can dilate, hair that can rise
         if it must, these things are important
not because a
high-sounding interpretation can be put
upon them but because
      they are
   useful; when they become so derivative as
to become
      unintelligible, the
   same thing may be said for all of us—that
we
      do not admire what
      we cannot understand. The bat,
         holding on upside down or in quest of
something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a

roll, a tireless
      wolf under
   a tree, the immovable critic twinkling his
skin like a horse
      that feels a flea, the base-
   ball fan, the statistician—case after case
      could be cited did
      one wish it; nor is it valid
         to discriminate against “business
documents and

school-books”; all these phenomena are

important. One must
      make a distinction
   however: when dragged into prominence
by half poets,
      the result is not poetry,
   nor till the autocrats among us can be
     “literalists of
      the imagination”—above
         insolence and triviality and can present
for inspection, imaginary gardens with real
toads in them,
      shall we have
   it. In the meantime, if you demand on the
one hand, in defiance of their opinion—
   the raw material of poetry in
      all its rawness, and
      that which is on the other hand,
         genuine, then you are interested in
poetry.
If—
Rudyard Kipling - 1865-1936
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;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
   Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
   And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your
master;
   If you can think—and not make thoughts your
aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same; Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
   Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, And when thy heart began to beat,
Or watch the things you gave your life to What dread hand? & what dread feet?
broken,
   And stoop and build ’em up with wornout
tools; What the hammer? what the chain, 
In what furnace was thy brain?
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
   And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, What the anvil? what dread grasp, 
And lose, and start again at your beginnings Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 
   And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
   To serve your turn long after they are gone, When the stars threw down their spears 
And so hold on when there is nothing in you And water'd heaven with their tears: 
   Except the Will which says to them: “Hold
on”; Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
If you can talk with crowds and keep your
virtue,
   Or walk with kings—nor lose the common Tyger Tyger burning bright, 
touch; In the forests of the night: 
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
   If all men count with you, but none too much; What immortal hand or eye,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
   Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

The Tyger 
BY  WI LL IAM B LA KE
Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 
In the forests of the night;  On Turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough,
What immortal hand or eye, 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.            Wi’ bickerin brattle!
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
To a Mouse
BY  ROB ER T B UR NS
November 1785.
Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee
          Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
          Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
          An’ fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;

What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave
          ’S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
          An’ never miss ’t!

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!

It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
          O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
          Baith snell an’ keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,

An’ weary Winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
          Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
          Out thro’ thy cell.

That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble

Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
          But house or hald,
To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,
          An’ cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,

In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
          Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, Power
          For promis’d joy! BY  AUD RE L OR DE

Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
          On prospects drear!
An’ forward tho’ I canna see,
          I guess an’ fear!
The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.
I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds
and a dead child dragging his shattered black
face off the edge of my sleep
blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders
is the only liquid for miles
and my stomach “Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they
churns at the imagined taste while are.”
my mouth splits into dry lips
without loyalty or reason
thirsting for the wetness of his blood
as it sinks into the whiteness
of the desert where I am lost
without imagery or magic
trying to make power out of hatred and destruction This Be The Verse
trying to heal my dying son with kisses
only the sun will bleach his bones quicker. BY  PH IL IP LA RK IN

A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens

stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood
and a voice said “Die you little motherfucker” and They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   
there are tapes to prove it. At his trial
    They may not mean to, but they do.   
this policeman said in his own defense
“I didn't notice the size nor nothing else They fill you with the faults they had
only the color”. And     And add some extra, just for you.
there are tapes to prove that, too.
But they were fucked up in their turn
Today that 37 year old white man
with 13 years of police forcing     By fools in old-style hats and coats,   
was set free Who half the time were soppy-stern
by eleven white men who said they were satisfied     And half at one another’s throats.
justice had been done
and one Black Woman who said
“They convinced me” meaning Man hands on misery to man.
they had dragged her 4'10'' black Woman's frame     It deepens like a coastal shelf.
over the hot coals Get out as early as you can,
of four centuries of white male approval
    And don’t have any kids yourself.
until she let go
the first real power she ever had
and lined her own womb with cement
to make a graveyard for our children.

I have not been able to touch the destruction

within me.
But unless I learn to use
the difference between poetry and rhetoric
In Flanders Fields
my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold
or lie limp and useless as an unconnected wire John McCrae - 1872-1918
and one day I will take my teenaged plug
and connect it to the nearest socket
raping an 85 year old white woman
who is somebody's mother In Flanders fields the poppies blow
and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed Between the crosses, row on row,
a greek chorus will be singing in 3/4 time     That mark our place; and in the sky
    The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
    Loved and were loved, and now we lie
        In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: 
To you from failing hands we throw
    The torch; be yours to hold it high. 
    If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
        In Flanders fields.
Jabberwocky
BY LEWIS CARROLL
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
      And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
      The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
      The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand;
      Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
      And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
      The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
      And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and
through
      The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
      He went galumphing back.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
      Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
      He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
      And the mome raths outgrabe.