Black Bull of Aldgate, may thy horns rot from the sockets!
For, jingling threepence, porter's pay, in hungry pockets,
And thirty times at least beneath thy doorway stepping
I've waited for this lousy coach that runs to Epping.
Ill luck befall thee, that hast made me so splenetic,
Through all thy holes and closets up from tap to attic,
Through all thy boys and bootses, chambermaids, and waiters,
And yonder booking-office-clerk in fustian gaiters.
Black Bull of Aldgate! mayst thou more miscarry
Than ever hasty Clement's did with bloated Harry!

Black as a chimney is his face,
And ivory white his teeth,
And in his brass-bound cart he rides,
The chestnut blooms beneath.

" Sooeep, Sooeep! " he cries, and brightly peers
This way and that to see
With his two light-blue shining eyes
What custom there may be.

And once inside the house, he'll squat,
And drive his rods on high,
Till twirls his sudden sooty brush
Against the morning sky.

Then 'mid his bulging bags of soot,
With half the world asleep,
His small cart wheels him off again,

Black A, white E, red I, green U, blue O--vowels,
I'll tell, some day, your secret origins:
A, black hairy corset of dazzling flies
Who boom around cruel stenches,

Gulfs of darkness; E, candor of steam and of tents,
Lances of proud glaciers, white kings, Queen-Anne's-lace shivers;
I, deep reds, spit blood, laughter of beautiful lips
In anger or in drunkenness and penitence;

U, cycles, divine vibrations of dark green oceans,
Peacefulness of pastures dotted with animals, the peace of wrinkles
Which alchemy prints on studious foreheads;

The bitterness of days like these we know;
Much, much we know, yet cannot understand
What was our crime that such a searing brand
Not of our choosing, keeps us hated so.
Despair and disappointment only grow,
Whatever seeds are planted from our hand,
What though some roads wind through a gladsome land?
It is a gloomy path that we must go.

And yet we know relief will come some day
For these seared breasts; and lads as brave again
Will plant and find a fairer crop than ours.
It must be due our hearts, our minds, our powers;

Among our country's outlaws
There are some lusty names,
But many a voice would make a choice
Of Jesse Woodson James.

No wishy-washy man was he
Of milk and aqua pura .
He shook the ground for miles around
His native soil, Mizzoura.

" Allow me! " said his brother,
His helpful partner, Frank.
Then out they'd sail to rob the mail
Or polish off a bank.

The sheriffs found, unlike the hound,
His bite worse than his bark.
He shot as well as William Tell
Though apples weren't his mark.

A bit of East within a Chinese wall
Of magic, color, smell and sound —
Enclosed, and yet forever bound
Unto the west; an alien, bartering all
Its Asian mysteries in coin of trade;
Sharp, yet hidden as a sheathed blade.

A town of fantasy, pagoda hung;
Of flowered balconies with lanterns strung,
And slant eyes beckoning from balustrades.
A young town wrapped in dreams of dead decades;
A weaver making garment of the woof
Of commerce, wound with vision of Lao Tzu
The mystic; and the sad songs of Tu Fu;

AB ISHOP and Abold dragoon,
Both heroes in their way,
Did thus, of late, one afternoon;
Unto each other say; —
" Dear bishop, " quoth the brave huzzar,
" As nobody denies
" That you a wise logician are,
" And I am — otherwise,
" 'T is fit that in this question, we
" Stick each to his own art —
" That yours should be the sophistry,
" And mine the fighting part.
" My creed, I need not tell you, is
" Like that of Wellington,
" To whom no harlot comes amiss,
" Save her of Babylon;

I

In what place is one most free of bonds?
At Hua-yang, eighth of the Heavens.
The wind in the pines carries dew in all its clarity;
The moon, through the bearded lichen, is cleansed of mist.
Suddenly startled—a crane at the gemmy altar;
Humming in season—cicadas on the jeweled tree.
I long to post my thoughts from a thousand tricents:
“My only love is the spring at Phoenix Gate.”

II

The torrent-iris on the stone puts out purple floss;
The dark blue hills clumped in seclusion—the waters swollen full.

whoever has Cold Mountain's poems
is better off than reading sutras
paste them up on your screen
and read them from time to time

ever since I left home
I've developed an interest in yoga
contracting and stretching the four-limbed Whole
attending intently the six-sensed All
wearing rough clothes all year
eating coarse food morning and night
hard on the trail even now
I'm hoping to meet the Buddha