O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out they bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
a man.
i think it is a man.
sits down with wood.
i think he's holding wood.
he carves.
he is making a world
he says
as his fingers cut citizens
trees and things
which he perceives to be a world
but someone says that is
only a poem.
he laughs.
i think he is laughing.
i have found what you are like
the rain,
(Who feathers frightened fields
with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields
easily the pale club of the wind
and swirled justly souls of flower strike
the air in utterable coolness
deeds of green thrilling light
with thinned
newfragile yellows
lurch and press
--in the woods
which
stutter
and
sing
And the coolness of your smile is
stirringofbirds between my arms; but
i should rather than anything
have (almost when hugeness will shut
quietly) almost,
your kiss
Batter my heart, three person'd God; for, you
As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow mee, and bend
Your force, to breake, blowe, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped towne, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end,
Reason your viceroy in mee, mee should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue,
Yet dearely I love you, and would be lov'd faine,
But am betroth'd unto your enemie,
Divorce mee, untie, or breake that knot again,
Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I
Except you enthrall mee, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish mee.
What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands
What waters lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog
What images return
O my daughter.
Those who sharpen the tooth of the dog, meaning
Death
Those who glitter with the glory of the humming-bird, meaning
Death
Those who sit in the eye of contentment, meaning
Death
Those who suffer the ecstasy of the animals, meaning
Death
Are become unsubstantial, reduced by a wind,
A breath of pine, and the woodsong fog
By this grace dissolved in place
What is this face, less clear and clearer
The pulse in the arm, less strong and stronger-
Given or lent? more distant than stars and nearer than the eye
Whispers and small laughter between leaves and hurrying feet
Under sleep, where all the waters meet.
Bowsprit cracked with ice and paint cracked with heat.
I made this, I have forgotten
And remember.
The rigging weak and the canvas rotten
Between one June and another September.
Made this unknowing, half conscious, unknown, my own
The garboard strake leaks, the seams need calking.
This form, this face, this life
Living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me
Resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken,
The awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.
What seas what shores what granite islands towards my timbers
And woodthrush calling through the fog
My daughter.
A smile fell in the grass.
Irretrievable!
And how will your night dances
Lose themselves. In mathematics?
Such pure leaps and spirals---
Surely they travel
The world forever, I shall not entirely
Sit emptied of beauties, the gift
Of your small breath, the drenched grass
Smell of your sleeps, lilies, lilies.
Their flesh bears no relation.
Cold folds of ego, the calla,
And the tiger, embellishing itself---
Spots, and a spread of hot petals.
The comets
Have such a space to cross,
Such coldness, forgetfulness.
So your gestures flake off---
Warm and human, then their pink light
Bleeding and peeling
Through the black amnesias of heaven.
Why am I given
These lamps, these planets
Falling like blessings, like flakes
Six-sided, white
On my eyes, my lips, my hair
Touching and melting.
Nowhere.
When over the flowery, sharp pasture's
edge, unseen, the salt ocean
lifts its form--chicory and daisies
tied, released, seem hardly flowers alone
but color and the movement--or the shape
perhaps--of restlessness, whereas
the sea is circled and sways
peacefully upon its plantlike stem