The blind men add the figures, draw the maps.
—The deaf men blow the bugles, beat the drums.
And peace becomes a wavering perhaps,
—And war a tidal wave that goes and comes.

The legless men march forward to success.
—The armless men cry: “Victory within reach!”
And life becomes a length of more or less,
—With sure uncertainty for all and each.

The men without a heart dispense relief,
—The mindless men devise a master plan.
The perfect government ensues, in brief,
—The Commonwealth of Man without the man.

Be careful what
You say or do
When you visit the animals
At the Zoo.

Don't make fun
Of the Camel's hump
He's very proud
Of his noble bump.

Don't laugh too much
At the Chimpanzee
He thinks he's as wise
As you or me.

And the Penguins
Strutting round the lake
Can understand
Remarks you make.

Treat them as well
As they do you,
And you'll always be welcome

Back in Black Mountain
a child will smack your face
Back in Black Mountain
a child will smack your face
Babies crying for liquor
and all the birds sing base

Black Mountain people
are bad as they can be
Black Mountain people
are bad as they can be
They uses gun powder
just to sweeten their tea

On the Black Mountain
can't keep a man in jail
On the Black Mountain
can't keep a man in jail
If the jury finds them guilty
the judge'll go their bail

Had a man in Black Mountain
sweetest man in town
Had a man in Black Mountain

Army, Navy,
Medicine, Law,
Church, Nobility,
Nothing at all.

Am I emptied, Lord, of self?
Search this sinful heart of mine;
Bring the hidden secrets out
To the view of love divine.

Probe my motives, thoughts, and plans,
Attitudes, and loves, and will;
Until I see, as Thou dost see,
Self poured out, so Thou canst fill.

Fill with love—thus Thou canst bless
Others through this house of clay
Yielded, fruitful, in Thy will,
Following in Thy perfect way.

The acacia is drooping
Rafah's gates are sealed by wax
and locked by curfew
The girl's job:
Carry bread and bandages
to a wounded fighter
who'd come home past midnight
She had to cross a street
watched by foreign eyes,
tracked by gunsights,
by the wayward wind.

The acacia tree is drooping,
the door of a house in Rafah
opens like a wound
She leaps into the courtyard's lap
A second leap:
a palm tree embraces her
on terror's pavement
Another leap:
a patrol
Another leap:
a flashlight
“Halt! Who goes there?”
Five guns

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;-- then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

The hoar-frost crumbles in the sun,
The crisping steam of a train
Melts in the air, while two black birds
Sweep past the window again.

Along the vacant road a red
Telegram-bicycle approaches; I wait
In a thaw of anxiety, for the boy
To leap down at our gate.

He has passed us by; but is it
Relief that starts in my breast?
Or a deeper bruise of knowing that still
She has no rest.

How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species—

Presentable, eminently presentable—
shall I make you a present of him?

Isn't he handsome? isn't he healthy? Isn't he a fine specimen?
doesn't he look the fresh clean englishman, outside?
Isn't it god's own image? tramping his thirty miles a day
after partridges, or a little rubber ball?
wouldn't you like to be like that, well off, and quite the thing?

Oh, but wait!
Let him meet a new emotion, let him be faced with another man's need,

‘O waly, waly up yon bank!
And waly, waly down yon brae!
And waly, waly by yon burn-bank,
Where me and my lord wont to gae!

‘A gentleman of good account,
A friend of mine, came to visit me,
And Blackly whispered in my lord's ears
He was too long in chamber with me.

‘When my father came to hear 't,
I wot an angry man was he;
He sent five score of his soldiers bright
To take me safe to my own countrie.

‘Up in the mornin when I arose,
My bonnie palace for to lea,
And when I came to my lord's door,