O King of the starry sky,
Lest Thou from me withdraw Thy light—
Whether my house be dark or bright,
My door shall close on none tonight.

God that madest Earth and Heaven,
Darkness and light!
Who the day for toil hast given,
For rest the night!
May thine angel guards defend us,
Slumber sweet thy mercy send us,
Holy dreams and hopes attend us,
This livelong night!

Sleepless
in the cold dark,
I look
through the closed dim
door be-
fore me, which be-
comes an
abyss into
which my
memories have
fallen
past laughter or
horror,
passion or hard
work—my
memories of
our past
laughter, horror,
passion,
hard work. An ache
of be-
ing. An ache of
being,
over love. An
ache of
being over
love. Like
projections on
the screen
of the heavy
window
curtains, flashing
lights of
a slow-scraping
after-
midnight snowplow
for a
moment pulse in
this room.

Something has to give.
We stand above it all.
Below, the buildings' tall
but tiny narrative.

The water's always near,
you say. And so are you,
for now. It has to do.
There's little left to fear.

A wind so cold, one might
forget that winter's gone.
The city lights are on
for us, to us, tonight.











From Poetry Magazine, Vol. 185, no. 4, Jan. 2005. Used with permission.

O fare you well, my brudder, fare you well by de grace of God,
For I'se gwinen home;
I'se gwinen home, my Lord I'se gwinen home.
Massa Jesus gib me a little broom,
For to sweep my heart clean;
Sweep 'em clean by de grace of God,
An' glory in my soul.

If this most wretched and infernal anguish,
Wherein so long your absence makes me languish,
My vital spirits spending,
Do not work out my ending;
Nor yet your long expected safe returning,
To heav'nly joy my hellish torments turning,
With joy so overfill me,
As presently it kill me:
I will conclude, hows'ever schools deceive a man,
No joy, nor sorrow, can of life bereave a man.

Oh , Muther, Muther, sure ye'll mind the madness av it all!
Ye'll mind I had no shmile for him, no eye for him at all!
Och, Muther, I was mad wid love for laughin' Kindree Tim;
I'd given up me sobbin' lips and all me heart to him!
And Shamus was a dour man;
And och, he seemed a sour man;
“And yon,” says I, when first I sent him on his way again,
Wid all his sad and patient eyes so clouded up wid pain,
“Faith, yon's a cold man,
And yon's an old man,
And I'm for warrm and laughin' ways, and I'm for lovin' Tim!”

What do we call them? Idle, airy things
Broken by stir or sigh,
Or else sweet slumber's golden, gauzy wings
That into heaven can fly.

What may we call them? Miracles of might.
For such they are to us
When the grave bursts and yields us for a night
Some risen Lazarus.

And if no trace or memory of death
Cling to the throbbing form,
And in a dream we feel the very breath
Coming so fast and warm,—

Then all is real; we know life's waking thrill
While precious things are told;
Ay, such a dream is even stranger still

One night when I was walking
Down by the riverside,
Gazing all around me,
When an Irish girl I spied.
Red and rosy were her cheeks,
Lovely coal black was her hair,
Costly were those lovely robes
This Irish girl did wear.

Her shoes were black,
Her stockings white,
All sprinkled with dew;
She wrung her hands and tore her hair,
Crying: ‘Alas, what shall I do?
I'm going home, I'm going home,
I am going home,’ said she.
‘Oh would you go a-roving
To slight your own Polly?

‘The very last time I saw my love
He seemed to be in pain,

‘Where shall I gang, my ain true love?
Where shall I gang to hide me?
For weel ye ken i yere father's bowr
It wad be death to find me.’

‘O go you to yon tavern-house,
An there count owre your lawin,
An, if I be a woman true,
I 'll meet you in the dawin.’

O he 's gone to yon tavern-house,
An ay he counted his lawin,
An ay he drank to her guid health
Was to meet him in the dawin.

O he 's gone to yon tavern-house,
An counted owre his lawin,
When in there cam three armed men,
To meet him in the dawin.