Nowel! nowel! nowel!
Nowel! nowel! nowel!

Out of your slepe arise and wake,
For God mankind nowe hath itake,
All of a maide without eny make,
Of all women she bereth the belle,
Nowel!

And thorwe a maide, faire and wis,
Now man is made of full grete pris:
Now angelis knelen to mannis servis;
And at this time all this befell,
Nowel!

Now man is brighter than the sonne;
Now man in Heven on hie shall wone;
Blessed be God, this game is begonne,
And his moder Emperesse of helle,
Nowel!

The Sailor's Grave at Clo-oose, V.I

Out of the winds' and the waves' riot,
Out of the loud foam,
He has put in to a great quiet
And a still home.

Here he may lie at ease and wonder
Why the old ship waits,
And hark for the surge and the strong thunder
Of the full Straits,

And look for the fishing fleet at morning,
Shadows like lost souls,
Slide through the fog where the seal's warning
Betrays the shoals,

And watch for the deep-sea liner climbing
Out of the bright West,
With a salmon-sky and her wake shining

Out of the western chaparral
Where the raw, new highways run,
He flashes swift as a rainbow flame
And races the morning sun.
He perks and preens with lifted crest,
He dances, heel and toe.
He will jig and flirt in the roadway dirt —
Then — off like a shot he'll go.

Out of the scabbard of the night,
By God's hand drawn,
Flashes his shining sword of light,
And lo, — the dawn!

Out of the mighty Yule log came
The crooning of the lithe wood-flame, —
A single bar of music fraught
With cheerful yet half pensive thought, —
A thought elusive: out of reach,
Yet trembling on the verge of speech.

Out of the heart there flew a little singing bird,
Past the dawn and the dew, where leaves of morning stirred,
And the heart, which followed on, said: " Though the bird be flown
Which sang in the dew and the dawn, the song is still my own. "

Over the foot-worn track, over the rock and thorn,
The tired heart looked back to the olive leaves of morn,
To the fair, lost fields again, and said: " I hear it! Oh, hark! " —
Though the bird were long since slain, though the song had died in the dark.

(mental sketch modified)

Out of the gray steel of imagination
akebi vines entwine the clouds,
wild rose bush, humus marsh
everywhere, everywhere, such designs of arrogance
(when more busily than noon woodwind music
amber fragments pour down)
how bitter, how blue is the anger!
At the bottom of the light in April's atmospheric strata,
spitting, gnashing, pacing back and forth,
I am Asura incarnate
(the landscape sways in my tears)

I

Out of the ghetto streets where a Jewboy
Dreamed pavement into pleasant bible-land,
Out of the Yiddish slums where childhood met
The friendly beard, the loutish Sabbath-goy,
Or followed, proud, the Torah-escorting band
Out of the jargoning city I regret
Rise memories, like sparrows rising from
The gutter-scattered oats,
Like sadness sweet of synagogal hum,
Like Hebrew violins
Sobbing delight upon their eastern notes.

II

Again they ring their little bells, those doors
Deemed by the tender-year'd, magnificent:

Out of the focal and foremost fire,
Out of the hospital walls as dire;
Smitten of grape-shot and gangrene,
(Eighteenth battle, and he sixteen!)
Specter! such as you seldom see,
Little Giffen, of Tennessee!

"Take him and welcome!" the surgeons said;
"Little the doctor can help the dead!"
So we took him; and brought him where
The balm was sweet in the summer air;
And we laid him down on a wholesome bed,--
Utter Lazarus, heel to head!

And we watched the war with abated breath,--
Skeleton Boy against skeleton Death.

Out of the earth, and out of the tree
Strength comes flowing into me;
Out of the brook comes quietude,
Down from the sky comes wisdom's food.

As oft as on the earth I've lain
I've died and come to life again
For only men who are brave and good
Can come out changeless from a wood.