I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail,
And a few lilies blow.
And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.
Night opens wide the burning Macrocosm,-
And heaven's hierarchies come into view
Lo, the spirit sings, and the elements dance
Interwoven with snaky locks of starlight.
And the Microcosm grows distinct in the deep night:
We hear the roar of elements spinning inside us,-
And behold our own hierarchical assemblage
From close stars to dim-eyed spots of light.
There is a milky way in the soul as in the heavens;
There is a multitude in both of these creations:
The same word is stamped in both of these books -
If you were twenty-seven
and had done time for beating
our ex-wife and had
no dreams you remembered
in the morning, you might
lie on your bed and listen
to a mad canary sing
and think it all right to be
there every Saturday
ignoring your neighbors, the streets,
the signs that said join,
and the need to be helping.
You might build, as he did,
a network of golden ladders
so that the bird could roam
on all levels of the room;
you might paint the ceiling blue,
One day in March, my little girl and I had lunch together.
We looked outside, across the lawn, and talked about the weather.
The wind was strong; the cedar trees were in its billows dancing.
The clouds were moving swiftly by; the scene was quite entrancing.
'Look, daddy, 'Maureen said to me, 'how hard the wind is blowing!
I betcha on a colder day, that blowing would be snowing!
And what is it keeps yonder rocks from leaving where they're staying,
He comes, O bliss!
Fly swiftly, you winds,
You odorous breezes,
And tell him how long
I've waited for this!
O happy that night,
When sunk on your breast,
Your kisses fast falling,
And drunken with love,
My troth I did plight.
Again my sweet friend
Embrace me close.
Yes, heaven does bless us,
And now you have won
My love without end.
Haunted? Ay, in a social way
By a body of ghosts in dread array;
But no conventional spectres they -
Appalling, grim, and tricky:
I quail at mine as I'd never quail
At a fine traditional spectre pale,
With a turnip head and a ghostly wail,
And a splash of blood on the dickey!
Mine are horrible, social ghosts, -
Speeches and women and guests and hosts,
Weddings and morning calls and toasts,
In every bad variety:
Ghosts who hover about the grave
Of all that's manly, free, and brave:
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
CA' the yowes to the knowes,
Ca' them where the heather grows,
Ca' them where the burnie rows,
My bonnie dearie.
Hark! the mavis' evening sang
Sounding Clouden's woods amang,
Then a-faulding let us gang,
My bonnie dearie.
We'll gae down by Clouden side,
Through the hazels spreading wide,
O'er the waves that sweetly glide
To the moon sae clearly.
Yonder Clouden's silent towers,
Where at moonshine midnight hours
O'er the dewy bending flowers
Holy Lord God! I love Thy truth,
Nor dare Thy least commandment slight;
Yet pierced by sin the serpent's tooth,
I mourn the anguish of the bite.
But though the poison lurks within,
Hope bids me still with patience wait;
Till death shall set me free from sin,
Free from the only thing I hate.
Had I a throne above the rest,
Where angels and archangels dwell,
One sin, unslain, within my breast,
Would make that heaven as dark as hell.
The prisoner sent to breathe fresh air,
Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus 'gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chalic'd flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes;
With everything that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise:
Arise, arise!
