Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower
Of beauty is thy earthly dower!
Twice seven consenting years have shed
Their utmost bounty on thy head:
And these grey rocks; that household lawn;
Those trees, a veil just half withdrawn;
This fall of water that doth make
A murmur near the silent lake;
This little bay; a quiet road
That holds in shelter thy Abode
In truth together do ye seem
Like something fashioned in a dream;
Such Forms as from their covert peep
Brighter than fireflies upon the Uji River
Are your words in the dark, Beloved.
There is health in thy gray wing,
Health of nature’ s furnishing.
Say, thou modern-winged antique,
Was thy mistress ever sick?
In each heaving of thy wing
Thou dost health and leisure bring,
Thou dost waive disease and pain
And resume new life again.
Wee, sleekit, cowran, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
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 wonder what the Greeks kept in these comicstrip canisters.
Plums, milletseed, incense, henna, oregano.
Speak to me, trove. Tell me you contained dried smoked tongue once.
Or a sorcerer or a cosmetologist’ s powders and unguents.
And when John Keats looked at you in a collection of pots
it was poetry at first sight: quotable beautiful
teleological concatenations of thoughts.
Don’ t believe our outlines, forget them
and begin from your own words.
As if you are the first to write poetry
or the last poet.
If you read our work, let it not be an extension of our airs,
but to correct our errs
in the book of agony.
Don’ t ask anyone: Who am I?
You know who your mother is.
As for your father, be your own.
Truth is white, write over it
with a crow’ s ink.
Truth is black, write over it
with a mirage’ s light.
If you want to duel with a falcon
soar with the falcon.
When Love with unconfinèd wings
Hovers within my Gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the Grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fettered to her eye,
The Gods that wanton in the Air,
Know no such Liberty.
The night reduced to a siren, a sigh:
Beautiful boy on the treadmill
Glimpsed sweating through sweating glass —
My new moon.
Sylvia’ s moon: a smiling skull
Snagged in witchy branches; fossil
Brushed free of blackest earth.
My last moon: an orange ball at rest, for an instant,
On the grey lake.
Wish list: dining set and dresser,
Boombox, thin black tie, boy-
Friend à la Madonna’ s “True Blue”
La la la la la la la
Your moon (tonight): a clouded X-ray.
I stand at a corner and stare up,
O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stain’d
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou may’st rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.
To baffle time, whose tooth has never rest,
And make the counted line, from page to page,
Compact, fulfilled of what is apt and best,
And vibrant with the keynote of the age,
This is my aim; and even aims are things;
They give men value who have won no place.
We pass for what we would be, by some grace,
And our ambitions make us seem like kings.
But never yet has destiny's clear star
For aimless feet shed light upon the way.
So have I hope, since purpose sees no bar,
To write immortally some lyric day,
