While Riding The 104 Broadway Bus:

There is too much pain
I cannot understand
I cannot pray

I cannot pray for all the little ones with bellies bloated by starvation in India;
for all the angry Africans striving to be separate in a world struggling for wholeness;
for all the young Chinese men and women taught that hatred and killing are good and compassion evil;
or even all the frightened people in my own city looking for truth in pot or aid.
Here I am

Thou dearest Object of my fondest Love,
What Words can speak the Misery I prove?
Doom'd as I am by my relentless Fate,
To bear the worst of dreaded Ills, your Hate.
Lov'd tho' thou wert, in every Action just,
Have I not wrong'd thee by unkind Distrust?
Believ'd thee false, when Love and Truth were thine,
And all the tender Joys of Friendship mine?
Wretch that I am, my fatal Crime I know,
And merit all the Anger you can show.
Do hate me, loath me, drive me from your Breast,
That Seat of Softness, Innocence, and Rest!

Each in his Proper gloom;
Each in his dark, just place.
The builders of their doom
Hide, each his awful face.

Not less than saints, are they
Heirs of Eternity:
Perfect, their dreadful way;
A deathless company.

Lost! lost! fallen and lost!
With fierce wrath ever fresh:
Each suffers in the ghost
The sorrows of the flesh.

O miracle of sin!
That makes itself an home,
So utter black within,
Thither Light cannot come!

O mighty house of hate!
Stablished and guarded so,
Love cannot pass the gate,

The proud AEgyptian Queen, her Roman guest,
(T'express her love in height of state, and pleasure)
With pearl dissolv'd in gold did feast,
Both food, and treasure.

And now (dear Lord!) thy lover, on the fair
And silver tables of thy feet, behold!
Pearl in her tears, and in her hair
Offers thee gold.

strephon: Prithee now, fond Fool, give o'er;
Since my Heart is gone before,
To what purpose shou'd I stay?
Love commands another way.

daphne: Perjur'd Swain, I knew the time
When Dissembling was your Crime.
In pity now employ that Art
Which first betray'd, to ease my Heart.

strephon: Women can with pleasure feign:
Men dissemble still with pain.
What advantage will it prove
If I lye, who cannot love?

daphne: Tell me then the reason why,
Love from Hearts in Love does fly?
Why the Bird will build a Nest,

O! what a thing is Love? who can define
Or liniament it out? Its strange to tell.
A Sparke of Spirit empearld pill like and fine
In't shugard pargings, crusted, and doth dwell
Within the heart, where thron'd, without Controle
It ruleth all the Inmates of the Soule.

It makes a poother in its Secret Sell
Mongst the affections: oh! it swells, its paind,
Like kirnells soked untill it breaks its Shell
Unless its object be obtained and gain'd.
Like Caskd wines jumbled breake the Caske, this Sparke

Come, let's adore the King of Love,
And King of Sufferings too;
For Love it was that brought Him down
And set Him here in woe.

Love drew Him from His Paradise,
Where flowers that fade not grow;
And planted Him in our poor dust,
Among us weeds below.

Here for a time this heavenly Plant
Fairly grew up and thrived;
Diffused its sweetness all about,
And all in sweetness lived.

But envious frosts and furious storms
So long, so fiercely chide;
This tender Flower at last bowed down,
And hung its head and died.

Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
Had a wife and couldn't keep her;
He put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well.

Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
Had another, and didn't love her;
Peter learned to read and spell,
And then he loved her very well.

Out of my door I step into
The country, all her scent and dew,
Nor travel there by a hard road,
Dusty and far from my abode.

The country washes to my door
Green miles on miles in soft uproar,
The thunder of the woods, and then
The backwash of green surf again.

Beyond the feverfew and stocks,
The guelder-rose and hollyhocks;
Outside my trellised porch a tree
Of lilac frames a sky for me.

A stretch of primrose and pale green
To hold the tender Hesper in;
Hesper that by the moon makes pale

1. Out amongst the flowers sweet, Lingers pretty Marguerite,
Sowing with her hands so white, Future blossoms, fair and bright.
And the sunbeams lovingly,
Kiss sweet Marguerite for me.
Kiss my little lady sweet,
Blue eyed gentle Marguerite!
2. When I say, " Oh Marguerite, All my heart is at your feet,
Turn it to a garden fair, See it blossom 'neath your care.
Till it yields for you alone,
Wond'rous fragrance all your own.
And its sweetest flowers shall grow,
For my Marguerite I know!