Apart from you, the
World is as unimportant
As it never was.

Your body grammar
Spells out a better portent
Than your language does.

Landscape, you apart,
Looks utterly transparent;
Still you stay opaque,

Indispensable
To me as air, apparent
With each breath I take.

No comparison
Seems too hackneyed to explain
What these portents mean:

Parted lips remain
Apart as flowers or shutters
Open to the sun;

Compulsive digits
Dial again and again the
Ghost in your machine.

I

Farewell to Winnipeg, the snow-bright city
Set in the prairie distance without bound
Profound and fathomless, encompassed round
By the wind-haunted country and wide winter.

Farewell to Winnipeg, the sun-bright city
Lapped in light summer leaves by turning waters,
Lost in a level land of endless acres,
Found in the endless memories of my heart.

As the pale face of some remembered darling
Calm under floods and bound about the brows
With dream-refracted light no daytime knows
Moves the mute soul to desperate hope and fearing,

I remember dancing in July on the banks of the Hudson in the City,
the way some of us, innocent then, reported the rumors
we had heard I remember you, a doctor, discussing your work
on the wards of San Francisco and the way we worried about
our friends and the way you stood in the elevator
pushing an i.v. stand, not really speaking—the calls
at night and the endless plans to move from the city and the fevers
you had and the pills by your bed and the vigil I kept until
you died. I remember the party for your birthday, the way

“Adieu, nous n'irons plus aux champs.”
—C
HARLES
G
ARNIER

Farewell to fields and butterflies
And levities of Yester-year!
For we espy, and hold more dear,
The Wicket of our Destinies.

Whereby we enter, once for all,
A Garden which such Fruit doth yield
As, tasted once, no more afield
We fare where Youth holds carnival.

Farewell, fair Fields, none found amiss
When laughter was a frequent noise
And golden-hearted girls and boys

Farewell, thou thing, time-past so known, so dear
To me as blood to life and spirit; near,
Nay, thou more near than kindred, friend, man, wife,
Male to the female, soul to body, life
To quick action, or the warm soft side
Of the resigning yet resisting bride.
The kiss of virgins first-fruits of the bed;
Soft speech, smooth touch, the lips, the maidenhead;
These and a thousand sweets could never be
So near or dear as thou wast once to me.

O thou, the drink of gods and angels! Wine
That scatterest spirit and lust; whose purest shine

Going towards Spain.

Farewell, thou fertile soil,
that Brutus first out found,
When he, poor soul, was driven clean
from out his country ground;
That northward lay'st thy lusty sides
amid the raging seas,
Whose wealthy land doth foster up
thy people all in ease,
While others scrape and cark abroad,

Farewell, the bell upon a ram's neck hung,
Farewell, the rustic song by shepherd sung;
Farewell, the hungry falcon's cat-like note,
As down the glade he stoops for mouse or stoat;
Farewell, the fearful lapwing's chiding quest,
When Rover ranges near, too near, her nest;
Farewell, the jetty raven's scornful scoff,
Who, proud, to prouder man cries out "off, off',
So fancy forms his ill-betiding croak;
And thou, farewell, that from the hollow oak,
The bird of wisdom cleped, does send around
Thy man-like halloos hunters to confound.

Farewell, O Prince; farewell, O sorely tried!
You dreamed a dream and you have paid the cost:
To save a people leaders must be lost,
By foe and followers be crucified.
Yet 'tis your body only that has died,
The noblest soul in Judah is not dust
But fire that works in every vein and must
Reshape our life, rekindling Israel's pride.
So we behold the captain of our strife
Triumphant in the moment of eclipse;
Death has but fixed him in immortal life,
His flag upheld, his trumpet at his lips,
And while we, weeping, rend our garment's hem,

Farewell now, poesy's secret cell, thy ordered grace,
Hendre Fechan, farewell.
Ye books which of song's mysteries tell,
Songs radiant fair, to you farewell.

A house was mine wherein secure my life to lead,
That should till death endure,
Food, drink, and fire, provision sure—
God's grace did all my needs procure.

In place of Hendre's hampering business vain, in place
Of this world's moil and pain,
A Homestead new I shall attain
In Heaven, nor earthward turn again.

Ode

Farewell , my Sweete, untill I come,
Improved in Merritt, for thy sake,
With Characters of honour Home,
Such, as thou canst not then but take.

To Loyaltie my Love must bow,
My Honour too calls to the feild,
Where, for a Ladyes buske, I now
Must keene, and sturdy Iron weild.

Yet, when I rush into those Armes,
Where Death, and Danger do combine,
I shall lesse subject be to Harmes,