English

I drink champagne early in the morning
instead of leaving my house
with an M16 and nowhere to go.

I'm dying twice as fast
as any other American
between eighteen and thirty-five.
This disturbs me,
but I try not to show it in public.
Each morning I open my eyes is a miracle.
The blessing of opening them
is temporary on any given day.
I could be taken out.
I could go off.
I could forget to be careful.
Even my brothers, hunted, hunt me.
I am the only one who values my life
and sometimes I don't give a damn.

When the sunbeams of joy gild the morn of our days,
And the soft heart is warm'd both with hope and with praise,
New pleasures, new prospects, still burst on the view,
And the phantom of bliss in our walks we pursue:
What tho' tangl'd in brakes, or withheld by the thorn,
Such sorrows of youth are but pearls of the morn;
As they “gem the light leaf” in the fervour of day,
The warmth of the season dissolves them away.

In the noon-tide of life, though not robb'd of their fire,
The warm wishes abate, and the spirits retire;

Methuselah ate what he found on his plate,
And never, as people do now,
Did he note the amount of the calory count;
He ate it because it was chow.
He wasn't disturbed as at dinner he sat,
Devouring a roast or a pie,
To think it was lacking in granular fat
Or a couple of vitamins shy.
He cheerfully chewed each species of food,
Unmindful of troubles or fears
Lest his health might be hurt
By some fancy dessert;
And he lived over nine hundred years.

Thou art mine, thou hast given thy word;
Close, close in my arms thou art clinging;
Alone for my ear thou art singing
A song which no stranger hath heard:
But afar from me yet, like a bird,
Thy soul, in some region unstirred,
On its mystical circuit is winging.

Thou art mine, I have made thee mine own;
Henceforth we are mingled forever:
But in vain, all in vain, I endeavor—
Though round thee my garlands are thrown,
And thou yieldest thy lips and thy zone—
To master the spell that alone

Lie down, you are horizontal.
Stand up, you are not.
I wanted my fate to be human.
Like a perfume
that does not choose the direction it travels,
that cannot be straight or crooked, kept out or kept.
Yes, No, Or
—a day, a life, slips through them,
taking off the third skin,
taking off the fourth.
And the logic of shoes becomes at last simple,
an animal question, scuffing.
Old shoes, old roads—
the questions keep being new ones.
Like two negative numbers multiplied by rain
into oranges and olives.

I DO not ask it thee! That is not love
Which waits to be entreated. Love is free
As God's own life, and of itself doth move.
Should I say, Love me? Rather let me prove
Myself to be love-worthy: then let be!

And yet what wretched shams our sad eyes see!—
“I love my Love because my Love loves me;”—
Oh, pitiful! Hast thou no gauge above
Another's thought by which to rate thine own?
No worthier trust, no surer corner-stone
To build thy temple of sweet hopes upon?
God help thee at thy need and give thee strength

O love, thy hair! thy locks of night and musk!
The very wind therein doth lose his way,
While in the perfumed darkness he would stray;
And my heart, too, is lost in scented dusk.

Thy crescent brows irradiate the night;
Love, of thy lips and tresses give thou me—
Thy breast is like a restless, heaving sea;
Thine eyes are stars of sorrow and delight.

Yet grieve not that I grieve, Soul of the Sea—
What is my heart that thou shouldst comfort it
With wine or song, with smile or dance or wit?

Each warring nation importunes Thy throne
With fervent prayer, storming th' inviolate gates;
Lo! at the shrine the suppliant priest awaits
Thy favor to his country—his alone.
Only to Thee the victor is foreknown:
Yet though the prayer from Emperors, Kings and States
Rises like incense, the unheeding Fates,
Austere, weave on with obdurate hearts of stone.
Still o'er the battle Death's gray wings descend,
Awful with scarlet, and our cherished dreams
Of Peace dissolve … We pause in numbed suspense:

Pardon me, all ye birds that float at ease,
That I begrudged your fleet aërial joys;
And thou, poor Partlet! and ye little bees,
That hum and hover with a pleasant noise
About your homes of honey! 'twas a spirt
Of spleen—a peevish murmur of disease,
And not a measured curse to do you hurt:
And thou! who for a moment did'st displease,
Commission'd to rebuke my pride, and spring
Thy tiny pennons on me unaware;
Thy smart and sudden lesson was the thing
I needed.—Thou art gone I know not where!

When Nature scattered roses 'round
To please the eye of man,
She rested while she stood aloof
Her handiwork to scan.
She was by no means satisfied—
A flower was lacking yet;
And so she came to earth again
And brought the violet.

That's why, dear one, thy friends rejoice
And render thanks to-day;
Our souls are glad, our hearts are light—
We laugh, we sing, we play.
For Nature, bless her smiling face,
Our need did not forget,
But gave us what has pleased us most—
Our precious violet!