It is autumn but early. No crow cries from the dry woods.
The house droops like an eyelid over the leprous hill.
In the bald barnyard one horse, a collection of angles
Cuts at the flies with a spectral tail. A blind man’ s
Sentence, the road goes on. Lifts as the slope lifts it.
Comes now one who has been conquered
By all he sees. And asks what — would have what —
Poor fool, frail, this man, mistake, my hero?
I love all beauteous things,
I seek and adore them;
God hath no better praise,
And man in his hasty days
Is honoured for them.
I too will something make
And joy in the making;
Altho’ to-morrow it seem
Like the empty words of a dream
Remembered on waking.
Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee,
With promise of strength and manhood full and fair!
Though cold and stark and bare,
The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee.
Thy mother’ s treasure wert thou; — alas! no longer
To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be
Thy father’ s pride; — ah, he
Must gather his faith together, and his strength make stronger.
Love not too much. But how,
When thou hast made me such,
And dost thy gifts bestow,
How can I love too much?
Though I must fear to lose,
And drown my joy in care,
With all its thorns I choose
The path of love and prayer.
Would that you were alive today, Catullus!
Truth ’ tis, there is a filthy skunk amongst us,
A rank musk-idiot, the filthiest skunk,
Of no least sorry use on earth, but only
Fit in fancy to justify the outlay
Of your most horrible vocabulary.
My Muse, all innocent as Eve in Eden,
Would yet wear any skins of old pollution
Rather than celebrate the name detested.
Ev’ n now might he rejoice at our attention,
Guess'd he this little ode were aiming at him.
O! were you but alive again, Catullus!
Forbear, bold youth, all’ s Heaven here,
And what you do aver,
To others, courtship may appear,
’ Tis sacriledge to her.
She is a publick deity,
And were’ t not very odd
She should depose her self to be
A pretty household god?
First make the sun in private shine,
And bid the world adieu,
That so he may his beams confine
In complement to you.
Nature, which is the vast creation’ s soul,
That steady curious agent in the whole,
The art of Heaven, the order of this frame,
Is only number in another name.
For as some king conqu’ ring what was his own,
Hath choice of several titles to his crown;
So harmony on this score now, that then,
Yet still is all that takes and governs men.
Beauty is but composure, and we find
Content is but the concord of the mind,
Friendship the unison of well-turned hearts,
Honor the chorus of the noblest parts,
’ Tis now since I began to die
Four months, yet still I gasping live;
Wrapp’ d up in sorrow do I lie,
Hoping, yet doubting a reprieve.
Adam from Paradise expell’ d
Just such a wretched being held.
’ Tis not thy love I fear to lose,
That will in spite of absence hold;
But ’ tis the benefit and use
Is lost, as in imprison’ d gold:
Which though the sum be ne’ er so great,
Enriches nothing but conceit.
Lots of contemporaries —
but “me” is not my contemporary.
My birth without “me”
was a blemished offering on the collection plate.
A moment of flesh, imprisoned in flesh.
And when to the tip of this tongue of flesh
some word comes, it kills itself.
If saved from killing itself,
it descends to the paper, where a murder happens.
Gunshot —
if it strikes me in Hanoi
it strikes again in Prague.
A little smoke floats up,
and my “me” dies like an eighth-month child.
Will my “me” one day be my contemporary?
A gust roused the waves,
leaves blew into the water,
the waves were ash-gray,
the sky tin-gray,
ash-gray the autumn.
It was good for my heart:
there my feelings were ash-gray,
the sky tin-gray,
ash-gray the autumn.
The breath of wind brought cooler air,
the waves of mourning brought separation:
autumn and autumn
befriend each other.
