time

Windows pampered like princes always see
what on occasion deigns to trouble us:
the city that, time and again, where a shimmer
of sky strikes a feeling of floodtide,

takes shape without once choosing to be.
Each new morning must first show her the opals
she wore yesterday, and pull rows
of reflections out of the canal
and remind her of the other times:
only then does she concede and settle in

like a nymph who received great Zeus.
The dangling earrings ring out at her ear;

This is a place on the way after the distances
can no longer be kept straight here in this dark corner
of the barn a mound of wheels has convened along
raveling courses to stop in a single moment
and lie down as still as the chariots of the Pharaohs
some in pairs that rolled as one over the same roads
to the end and never touched each other until they
arrived here some that broke by themselves and were left
until they could be repaired some that went only
to occasions before my time and some that have spun

O never harm the dreaming world,
the world of green, the world of leaves,
but let its million palms unfold
the adoration of the trees.

It is a love in darkness wrought
obedient to the unseen sun,
longer than memory, a thought
deeper than the graves of time.

The turning spindles of the cells
weave a slow forest over space,
the dance of love, creation,
out of time moves not a leaf,
and out of summer, not a shade.

two smiles meet towards
the child-wheel of my zeal
the bloody baggage of creatures
made flesh in physical legends-lives

the nimble stags storms cloud over
rain falls under the scissors of
the dark hairdresser-furiously
swimming under the clashing arpeggios

in the machine's sap grass
grows around with sharp eyes
here the share of our caresses
dead and departed with the waves

gives itself up to the judgment of time
parted by the meridian of hairs
non strikes in our hands

The poem, even a short time after being written,
seems no miracle; unwritten, it seems
something beyond the capacity of the gods.

*

Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of
haste. It's what everything else isn't.

*

You can't make poetry simply by avoiding clichés.

*

There's a point where plainness is no longer a virtue,
when it becomes excessively bald, wrenched.

*

You must believe: a poem is a holy thing -- a good poem,
that is.

All the flowers of the spring
Meet to perfume our burying;
These have but their growing prime,
And man does flourish but his time:
Survey our progress from our birth;
We are set, we grow, we turn to earth.
Courts adieu, and all delights,
All bewitching appetites!
Sweetest breath and clearest eye,
Like perfumes, go out and die;
And consequently this is done
As shadows wait upon the sun.
Vain ambition of kings
Who seek by trophies and dead things
To leave a living name behind,

John Alexander Frere, John,
When we were first acquent,
You lectured us as Freshmen
In the holy term of Lent;
But now you’re gettin’ bald, John,
Your end is drawing near,
And I think we’d better say "Goodbye,
John Alexander Frere."

John Alexander Frere, John,
How swiftly Time has flown!
The weeks that you refused us
Are now no more your own;
Tho’ Time was in your hand, John,
You lingered out the year,
That Grace might more abound unto
John Alexander Frere.

It lieth low near merry England's heart
Like a long-buried sin; and Englishmen
Forget that in its death their sires had part.
And, like a sin, Time lays it bare again
To tell of races wronged,
And ancient glories suddenly overcast,
And treasures flung to fire and rabble wrath.
If thou hast ever longed
To lift the gloomy curtain of Time Past,
And spy the secret things that Hades hath,
Here through this riven ground take such a view.
The dust, that fell unnoted as a dew,

604

Unto my Books—so good to turn—
Far ends of tired Days—
It half endears the Abstinence—
And Pain—is missed—in Praise—

As Flavors—cheer Retarded Guests
With Banquettings to be—
So Spices—stimulate the time
Till my small Library—

It may be Wilderness—without—
Far feet of failing Men—
But Holiday—excludes the night—
And it is Bells—within—

I thank these Kinsmen of the Shelf—
Their Countenances Kid
Enamor—in Prospective—
And satisfy—obtained—

295

Unto like Story—Trouble has enticed me—
How Kinsmen fell—
Brothers and Sister—who preferred the Glory—
And their young will
Bent to the Scaffold, or in Dungeons—chanted—
Till God's full time—
When they let go the ignominy—smiling—
And Shame went still—

Unto guessed Crests, my moaning fancy, leads me,
Worn fair
By Heads rejected—in the lower country—
Of honors there—
Such spirit makes her perpetual mention,
That I—grown bold—
Step martial—at my Crucifixion—