If I grow bitterly,
Like a gnarled and stunted tree,
Bearing harshly of my youth
Puckered fruit that sears the mouth;
If I make of my drawn boughs
An Inshospitable House,
Out of which I nevery pry
Towards the water and the sky,
Under which I stand and hide
And hear the day go by outside;
It is that a wind to strong
Bent my back when I was young,
It is that I fear the rain
Lest it blister me again.
For Lucy, who called them "ghost houses."
Someone was always leaving
and never coming back.
The wooden houses wait like old wives
along this road; they are everywhere,
abandoned, leaning, turning gray.
Someone always traded
the lonely beauty
of hemlock and stony lakeshore
for survival, packed up his life
and drove off to the city.
In the yards the apple trees
keep hanging on, but the fruit
grows smaller year by year.
When we come this way again
Thou whose spell can raise the dead,
Bid the prophet's form appear.
'Samuel, raise thy buried head!
King, behold the phantom seer!'
Earth yawn'd; he stood the centre of a cloud:
Light changed its hue, retiring from his shroud.
Death stood all glassy in his fixed eye:
His hand was wither'd, and his veins were dry;
His foot, in bony whiteness, glitter'd there,
Shrunken and sinewless, and ghastly bare;
From lips that moved not and unbreathing frame,
Like cavern'd winds, the hollow acccents came.
FLAVIA.
The wretched FLAVIA on her couch reclin'd,
Thus breath'd the anguish of a wounded mind ;
A glass revers'd in her right hand she bore,
For now she shun'd the face she sought before.
'How am I chang'd ! alas ! how am I grown
'A frightful spectre, to myself unknown !
'Where's my Complexion ? where the radiant Bloom,
'That promis'd happiness for Years to come ?
'Then with what pleasure I this face survey'd !
'To look once more, my visits oft delay'd !
'Charm'd with the view, a fresher red would rise,
Safely through another week,
God has brought us on our way;
Let us now a blessing seek,
On th' approaching Sabbath-day:
Day of all the week the best,
Emblem of eternal rest.
Mercies multiply'd each hour
Through the week our praise demand
Guarded by Almighty pow'r,
Fed and guided by his hand:
Though ungrateful we have been,
Only made returns of sin.
While we pray for pard'ning grace,
Through the dear Redeemer's name,
Show thy reconciled face,
Samson, the strongest of the children of men, I sing; how he was foiled by woman's arts, by a false wife brought to the gates of death! O Truth! that shinest with propitious beams, turning our earthly night to heavenly day, from presence of the Almighty Father, thou visitest our darkling world with blessed feet, bringing good news of Sin and Death destroyed! O whiterobed Angel, guide my timorous hand to write as on a lofty rock with iron pen the words of truth, that all who pass may read.
The city is closing for the night.
Stores draw their blinds one by one,
and it's dark again, save for the dim
infrequent streetlight bending at the neck
like a weighted stem. Years have built
the city in layers: balustrades filled in
with brick, adobe reinforced with steel,
and the rounded arches smoothed
with white cement. Neighborhoods
have changed the burro trails
to streets, bare at night—
no pedestrians, no cars, no dogs.
With daylight, the houses turned galleries
MID April seemed like some November day,
When through the glassy waters, dull as lead,
Our boat, like shadowy barques that bear the dead,
Slipped down the long shores of the Spezian bay,
Rounded a point,—and San Terenzo lay
Before us, that gay village, yellow and red,
The roof that covered Shelley’s homeless head,—
His house, a place deserted, bleak and gray.
The waves broke on the doorstep; fishermen
Cast their long nets, and drew, and cast again.
Deep in the ilex woods we wandered free,
Sam Small had retired from the Army,
In the old Duke of Wellington's time,
So when present unpleasantness started,
He were what you might call... past his prime.
He'd lived for some years in retirement,
And knew nowt of war, if you please,
Till they blasted and bombed his allotment,
And shelled the best part of his peas.
'T were as if bugles called Sam to duty,
For his musket he started to search,
He found it at last in the Hen house,
Buff Orpingtons had it for perch.
Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest
He who has found our hid security,
Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,
And heard our word, 'Who is so safe as we?'
We have found safety with all things undying,
The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,
The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,
And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth.
We have built a house that is not for Time's throwing.
We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever.
