English Poems

Lately, too much disturbed, you stay trailing in me
and I believe you. How could I not feel
you were misspent, there by books stacked clean on glass,
or outside the snow arriving as I am still arriving.
If the explanations amount to something, I will tell you.
It is enough, you say, that surfaces grow so distant.
Maybe you darken, already too much changed,
maybe in your house you would be content where
no incident emerges, but for smoke or glass or air,
such things held simply to be voiceless.

And if all those who meet or even
hear of you become witness to what you are —

a white country of blight beneath the last snows of
spring. Could we remain quiet on earth

and bear it, the war we make inside
what is — it’ s a long time to be here, to be still,

to feel the rot inside now — bone-scrap, char, sheets of stars
at the edge of a field where we are once again

taken from ourselves. Could we remain here,
witness to grief, one last bright dire call-and-reply,

As naught gives way to aught
and oxhide gives way to chain mail
and byrnie gives way to battle-ax
and Cavalier gives way to Roundhead
and Cromwell Road gives way to the Connaught
and I Am Curious (Yellow) gives way to I Am Curious (Blue)
and barrelhouse gives way to Frank’ N’ Stein
and a pint of Shelley plain to a pint of India Pale Ale
I give way to you.

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me,
Whispering, I love you, before long I die,
I have travell’ d a long way merely to look on you to touch you,
For I could not die till I once look’ d on you,
For I fear’ d I might afterward lose you.

Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight?
Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?
List to the yarn, as my grandmother’ s father the sailor told it to me.

Our foe was no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,)
His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be;
Along the lower’ d eve he came horribly raking us.

We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touch’ d,
My captain lash’ d fast with his own hands.

A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown,
A route through a heavy wood with muffled steps in the darkness,
Our army foil’ d with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating,
Till after midnight glimmer upon us the lights of a dim-lighted building,
We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighted building,
’ Tis a large old church at the crossing roads, now an impromptu hospital
Entering but for a minute I see a sight beyond all the pictures and poems ever made,

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’ d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’ d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’ d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

Beat! beat! drums! — blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows — through doors — burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,
Into the school where the scholar is studying,
Leave not the bridegroom quiet — no happiness must he have now with his bride,
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain,
So fierce you whirr and pound you drums — so shrill you bugles blow.

Come up from the fields father, here’ s a letter from our Pete,
And come to the front door mother, here’ s a letter from thy dear son.

Lo, ’ tis autumn,
Lo, where the trees, deeper green, yellower and redder,
Cool and sweeten Ohio’ s villages with leaves fluttering in the moderate wind,
Where apples ripe in the orchards hang and grapes on the trellis’ d vines,
(Smell you the smell of the grapes on the vines?
Smell you the buckwheat where the bees were lately buzzing?)

Gliding o'er all, through all,
Through Nature, Time, and Space,
As a ship on the waters advancing,
The voyage of the soul — not life alone,
Death, many deaths I'll sing.