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In Absence

Sleep, dearest, sleep beside the murmuring sea;
Sleep, dearest, sleep, and bright dreams compass thee.
My sleepless thoughts a guard of love shall be
Around thy couch and bid thee dream of me.
Sleep, Bright Eyes, sleep.

Sleep, dearest, sleep, the slumber of the pure;
Sleep, dearest, sleep, in angels' care secure.
Evil itself thy beauty would allure
To cease from ill and make thy joyance sure.
Sleep, Bright Eyes, sleep.

Sleep, dearest, sleep; in slumber thou art mine;
Sleep, dearest, sleep; our souls still intertwine.

Whereabouts

Glove box rummages itself & dumps: fuzzy cough
droppings & stuck (menthol) among them a misdirectional
map intrigues me: say clotheslines’
fripperies hopping the breeze off the alley & garbage
lids clanging downhill to the sea: say there
in the sea floes
of penguins bobbing up to Argentine flamingos.
How hard is it to get lost? Listen to lost
useless horses whingeing for home & hames, a lost
grail stuffed with dirt deaf to human legends long
unstrung of sacred tune & lost,
children prodded along in the loops of war,

A Vision of Waters

Sitting within her secret vestibule
(Those windows clos'd through which the outward world
Admittance finds), this spirit saw pass by,
As on the sheeted surface of a wall,
In bright dissolving views, a lengthen'd train
Of scenes depicted in prismatic tints
By quick Imagination's vivid art;
Whereof a portion, reader, for thy sake
Shall here be told; the rest is gone from me,
Lost in oblivion's colourless abyss.

At first, a glimmering mist; then, purring soft
Within the secret chamber of mine ear,
A murmur as of distant ocean-waves.

Child-Play

As children play with toys,
So men with hopes and fancies:
The little ones with romp and noise
Build card-frail, gold romances;
Their elders through the perilous years
Build dreams—and wake to toil and tears.

But, old or young the same,
The glittering baubles please them;
And be it fame or game,
These make-believes release them
From iron circumstance, from drear
Realities that choke them here.

The Halfworld

Desperate young man
with haggard face
and flapping pants—

As best they can
under the street lights
the shadows are

wrapping you about—
in your fatigue
and isolation, in all

the beauty of your
commonplace against
the incestuous

and leaning stars—

The Dead Millionare

The gold that with the sunlight lies
In bursting heaps at dawn,
The silver spilling from the skies
At night to walk upon,
The diamonds gleaming in the dew
He never saw, he never knew.

He got some gold, dug from the mud,
Some silver, crushed from stones;
But the gold was red with dead men's blood,
The silver black with groans;
And when he died he moaned aloud
“They'll make no pocket in my shroud.”

The Steam Shovel

Beneath my window in a city street
A monster lairs, a creature huge and grim
And only half believed: the strength of him—
Steel-strung and fit to meet
The strength of earth—
Is mighty as men's dreams that conquer force.
Steam belches from him. He is the new birth
Of old Behemoth, late-sprung from the source
Whence Grendel sprang, and all the monster clan
Dead for an age, now born again of man.

The iron head,
Set on a monstrous jointed neck,
Glides here and there, lifts, settles on the red
Moist floor, with nose dropped in the dirt, at beck

Yankee Doodle's Expedition to Rhode Island

From Lewis, Monsieur Gérard came,
To Congress in this town, sir,
They bow'd to him, and he to them,
And then they all sat down, sir.

Begar, said Monsieur, one grand coup
You shall bientot behold, sir;
This was believ'd as gospel true,
And Jonathan felt bold, sir.

So Yankee Doodle did forget
The sound of British drum, sir,
How oft it made him quake and sweat,
In spite of Yankee rum, sir.

He took his wallet on his back,
His rifle on his shoulder,
And veow'd Rhode Island to attack
Before he was much older.
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