It had better been hidden
But the Poets inform:
We are chattel and liege
Of an undying Worm.
Were you, Will, disheartened,
When all Stratford’ s gentry
Left their Queen and took service
In his low-lying country?
How many white cities
And grey fleets on the storm
Have proud-builded, hard-battled,
For this undying Worm?
Know you fair, on what you look;
Divinest love lies in this book,
Expecting fire from your eyes,
To kindle this his sacrifice.
When your hands untie these strings,
Think you’ have an angel by th’ wings.
One that gladly will be nigh,
To wait upon each morning sigh.
To flutter in the balmy air
Of your well-perfumed prayer.
These white plumes of his he’ ll lend you,
Which every day to heaven will send you,
To take acquaintance of the sphere,
And all the smooth-fac’ d kindred there.
I walk’ d the other day, to spend my hour,
Into a field,
Where I sometimes had seen the soil to yield
A gallant flow’ r;
But winter now had ruffled all the bow’ r
And curious store
I knew there heretofore.
BODY
Farewell! I go to sleep; but when
The day-star springs, I’ ll wake again.
SOUL
Go, sleep in peace; and when thou liest
Unnumber’ d in thy dust, when all this frame
Is but one dram, and what thou now descriest
In sev’ ral parts shall want a name,
Then may his peace be with thee, and each dust
Writ in his book, who ne’ er betray’ d man’ s trust!
Whatever ’ tis, whose beauty here below
Attracts thee thus and makes thee stream and flow,
And wind and curl, and wink and smile,
Shifting thy gate and guile;
Though thy close commerce nought at all imbars
My present search, for eagles eye not stars,
And still the lesser by the best
And highest good is blest;
With what deep murmurs through time’ s silent stealth
Doth thy transparent, cool, and wat’ ry wealth
Here flowing fall,
And chide, and call,
As if his liquid, loose retinue stay’ d
Ling’ ring, and were of this steep place afraid;
The common pass
Where, clear as glass,
All must descend
Not to an end,
But quicken’ d by this deep and rocky grave,
New York! At first I was bewildered by your beauty,
Those huge, long-legged, golden girls.
So shy, at first, before your blue metallic eyes and icy smile,
So shy. And full of despair at the end of skyscraper streets
Raising my owl eyes at the eclipse of the sun.
Your light is sulphurous against the pale towers
Whose heads strike lightning into the sky,
Skyscrapers defying storms with their steel shoulders
And weathered skin of stone.
But two weeks on the naked sidewalks of Manhattan —
At the end of the third week the fever
Argument
It’ s now all about money
about which poetry rarely reaches
transcendence. But love must still fester
even under that. Everyone I know
frets if poetry can still matter,
but what about love? It’ s all become
too much for them, and they’ re all
on the soma. It makes sense
with these pills when the someone
they thought they loved for years
by never thinking about it says,
“I don’ t love you anymore,
but let’ s stay friends in that mellow
woebegone way poetry now
sings without singing.” Of course,
My pa he didn’ t go to town
Last evening after tea,
But got a book and settled down
As comfy as could be.
I’ ll tell you I was offul glad
To have my pa about
To answer all the things I had
Been tryin’ to find out.
