English

It is I who travel in the winds,
It is I who whisper in the breeze,
I shake the trees,
I shake the earth,
I trouble the waters on every land.

Weep you no more, sad fountains;
What need you flow so fast?
Look how the snowy mountains
Heaven's sun doth gently waste.
But my sun's heavenly eyes
View not your weeping,
That now lies sleeping
Softly, now softly lies
Sleeping.

Sleep is a reconciling,
A rest that peace begets.
Doth not the sun rise smiling
When fair at ev'n he sets?
Rest you then, rest, sad, eyes,
Melt not in weeping,
While she lies sleeping
Softly now softly lies

I have some sympathy for that cat
who paces, paces his pismire-
pavemented dungeon—three short strides,
then blink and turn,
then blink and turn—much marvelled at:
“Mama, how come he walks like that?”

“He wants t'get out, Richie, he sees
d'monkey.” But the sign belies
any specified hunger: BORN AND RAISED
IN CAPTIVITY.
Captivity. He walks because
his heart is hunting.

Those soft paws,
although they never fell thereon,
measure the breadth of Africa;
that throat and belly are athirst

The fire of freedom burns,
Her flame shall reach the heaven;
Heap up the sacred urns,
And life for life be given!

Woman of nerve and thought,
Bring in the urn your power!
By you is manhood taught
To meet the supreme hour.

Come with your sunlit life,
Maiden of gentle eye!
Bring to the gloom of strife
Light by which heroes die.

Give, rich men, proud and free,
Your children's costliest gem!
For Liberty shall be
Your heritage to them.

O friend with heavy urn,

Never a care as she lies asleep,
Dear little lassie with red-brown hair;
Angels of Light a sweet vigil keep,
Keep for the little one slumbering there.
Never a dream as she lies so still,
Never a dream but of Fairyland,
Fairyland and the flowers that fill
Her bed, and the lilies within her hand.

Never a tear as she lies at rest,
Now or ever or evermore;
Never a sorrow to bruise her breast,
Ever the gladness of fairylore.
Never the rough way to bruise her feet,
Never or ever a discord sound,

The rooks are building on the trees;
They build there every spring:
‘Caw, caw,’ is all they say,
For none of them can sing.

They're up before the break of day,
And up till late at night;
For they must labour busily
As long as it is light.

And many a crooked stick they bring,
And many a slender twig,
And many a tuft of moss, until
Their nests are round and big.

‘Caw, caw.’ Oh, what a noise
They make in rainy weather!
Good children always speak by turns,
But rooks all talk together.

Gray-Cowled wind of the east!
Grimly you chant your psalter,
The sea your wild high-priest
And the seething rocks your altar
On which, in fierce confusion
While sad stars hide their eyes,
You fling your dread profusion
Of human sacrifice.

And then, by hill and prairie
As one who strives for rest,
As seeking sanctuary,
Unhailed, unloved, unblest,
You still cry on, entraining
Your clouds of spectral hosts—
Shivering and complaining,
Eerie wind of the ghosts!

That intercourse with thee I have in dreams
But serves to whet my anguish to be reft,
Not of thy sight which visits me in gleams,
But of my consciousness of thy sweet theft.

Thou wert the thief of me, and I, the thiev'd,
Felt such great riches viewing thee in act
To rob me daily, nothing less I griev'd
Than being accessory to thy fact

Now by a forced decree love to the lover
Is render'd back, iThath no further use
Than stare reproach at him who gave it over,
And lookt to gain by so much he did lose.

–after the Pulitzer Prize-winning
1968 photo taken by Nick Ut
of a Viet Cong guerilla being executed
by South Vietnam’s national police chief
This is not
how death is made
permanent. Not
the camera’s flash,
the irony of sunlight
on gunmetal,
but the hand gripping the pistol
(a yellow hand)
and the face squinting
behind the barrel
(a yellow face).
Like all captured life
this one fails
to reveal the picture.
Like where the bullet
entered his skull,
the phantom of a rose

The stately state that wise men count their good:
The chiefest bliss that lulls asleep desire
Is not descent from kings and princely blood,
Ne stately Crown ambition doth require,
For birth by fortune is abased down,
And perils are comprised within a Crown.

The Sceptre and the glittering pomp of mace,
The head impaled with honour and renown,
The Kingly throne, the seat and regal place,
Are toys that fade when angry fortune frown.
Content is far from such delights as those,
Whom woe and danger do envy as foes.