English 131 Terms

Whitman II: Crossing the Brooklyn Ferry

1 Flood-tide below me! I see you face to face! Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also face to face. Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious you are to me! On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose, And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose. 2 The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the day, The simple, compact, well-join'd scheme, myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated yet part of the scheme, The similitudes of the past and those of the future, The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings, on the walk in the street and the passage over the river, The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away, The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them, The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others. Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore, Others will watch the run of the flood-tide, Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east, Others will see the islands large and small; Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high, A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them, Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide. 3 It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not, I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence, Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt, Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd, Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh'd, Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood yet was hurried, Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the thick-stemm'd pipes of steamboats, I look'd. I too many and many a time cross'd the river of old, Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies, Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left the rest in strong shadow, Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the south, Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water, Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams, Look'd at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my head in the sunlit water, Look'd on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward, Look'd on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet, Look'd toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving, Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me, Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at anchor, The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars, The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine pennants, The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-houses, The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels, The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset, The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome crests and glistening, The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the granite storehouses by the docks, On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank'd on each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter, On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and glaringly into the night, Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow light over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets. 4 These and all else were to me the same as they are to you, I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river, The men and women I saw were all near to me, Others the same—others who look back on me because I look'd forward to them, (The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.) 5 What is it then between us? What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us? Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not, I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine, I too walk'd the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the waters around it, I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me, In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me, In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me, I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution, I too had receiv'd identity by my body, That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I should be of my body. 6 It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall, The dark threw its patches down upon me also, The best I had done seem'd to me blank and suspicious, My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre? Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil, I am he who knew what it was to be evil, I too knitted the old knot of contrariety, Blabb'd, blush'd, resented, lied, stole, grudg'd, Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak, Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant, The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me, The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting, Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting, Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest, Was call'd by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me approaching or passing, Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me as I sat, Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet never told them a word, Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, sleeping, Play'd the part that still looks back on the actor or actress, The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like, Or as small as we like, or both great and small. 7 Closer yet I approach you, What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you—I laid in my stores in advance, I consider'd long and seriously of you before you were born. Who was to know what should come home to me? Who knows but I am enjoying this? Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me? 8 Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than mast-hemm'd Manhattan? River and sunset and scallop-edg'd waves of flood-tide? The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the twilight, and the belated lighter? What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I approach? What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my face? Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you? We understand then do we not? What I promis'd without mentioning it, have you not accepted? What the study could not teach—what the preaching could not accomplish is accomplish'd, is it not? 9 Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide! Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg'd waves! Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me! Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers! Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn! Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers! Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution! Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public assembly! Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my nighest name! Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress! Play the old role, the role that is great or small according as one makes it! Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you; Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current; Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air; Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you! Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one's head, in the sunlit water! Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail'd schooners, sloops, lighters! Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower'd at sunset! Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses! Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are, You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul, About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung out divinest aromas, Thrive, cities—bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers, Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual, Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting. You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers, We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward, Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us, We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you permanently within us, We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also, You furnish your parts toward eternity, Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.

Ginsberg, Kral Majales

And the Communists have nothing to offer but fat cheeks and eyeglasses andlying policemenand the Capitalists proffer Napalm and money in green suitcases to theNaked,and the Communists create heavy industry but the heart is also heavyand the beautiful engineers are all dead, the secret technicians conspire fortheir own glamourin the Future, in the Future, but now drink vodka and lament the SecurityForces,and the Capitalists drink gin and whiskey on airplanes but let Indian brownmillions starveand when Communist and Capitalist ******** tangle the Just man is arrestedor robbed or has his head cut off,but not like Kabir, and the cigarette cough of the Just man above the cloudsin the bright sunshine is a salute to the health of the blue sky.For I was arrested thrice in Prague, once for singing drunk on Narodnistreet,once knocked down on the midnight pavement by a mustached agent whoscreamed out BOUZERANT,once for losing my notebooks of unusual sex politics dream opinions,and I was sent from Havana by planes by detectives in green uniform,and I was sent from Prague by plane by detectives in Czechoslovakianbusiness suits,Cardplayers out of Cezanne, the two strange dolls that entered Joseph K'sroom at mornalso entered mine and ate at my table, and examined my scribbles,and followed me night and morn from the houses of the lovers to the cafes ofCentrum -And I am the King of May, which is the power of sexual youth,and I am the King of May, which is long hair of Adam and Beard of myown bodyand I am the King of May, which is Kral Majales in the Czechoslovakiantongue,and I am the King of May, which is old Human poesy, and 100,000 peoplechose my name,and I am the King of May, and in a few minutes I will land at LondonAirport,and I am the King of May, naturally, for I am of Slavic parentage and aBuddhist Jewwho whorships the Sacred Heart of Christ the blue body of Krishna thestraight back of Ramthe beads of Chango the Nigerian singing Shiva Shiva in a manner whichI have invented,and the King of May is a middleeuropean honor, mine in the XX centurydespite space ships and the Time Machine, because I have heard the voice of Blakein a visionand repeat that voice. And I am the King of May that sleeps with teenagerslaughing.And I am the King of May, that I may be expelled from my Kingdom withHonor, as of old,To show the difference between Caesar's Kingdom and the Kingdom of theMay of Man -and I am the King of May because I touched my finger to my foreheadsalutinga luminous heavy girl trembling hands who said 'one moment Mr. Ginsberg'before a fat young Plainclothesman stepped between our bodies - I wasgoing to England -and I am the King of May, in a giant jetplane touching Albion's airfieldtrembling in fearas the plane roars to a landing on the gray concrete, shakes & expels air,and rolls slowly to a stop under the clouds with part of blue heaven stillvisible.And tho' I am the King of May, the Marxists have beat me upon the street,kept me up all night in Police Station, followed me thru SpringtimePrague, detained me in secret and deported me from our kingdom byairplane.This I have written this poem on a jet seat in mid Heaven.

Anne Bradstreet: A Dialogue between Old England and New

New England. Alas, dear Mother, fairest Queen and best, With honour, wealth, and peace happy and blest, What ails thee hang thy head, and cross thine arms, And sit i' the dust to sigh these sad alarms? What deluge of new woes thus over-whelm The glories of thy ever famous Realm? What means this wailing tone, this mournful guise? Ah, tell thy Daughter; she may sympathize. Old England. Art ignorant indeed of these my woes, Or must my forced tongue these griefs disclose, And must my self dissect my tatter'd state, Which Amazed Christendom stands wondering at? And thou a child, a Limb, and dost not feel My weak'ned fainting body now to reel? This physic-purging-potion I have taken Will bring Consumption or an Ague quaking, Unless some Cordial thou fetch from high, Which present help may ease my malady. If I decease, dost think thou shalt survive? Or by my wasting state dost think to thrive? Then weigh our case, if 't be not justly sad. Let me lament alone, while thou art glad. New England. And thus, alas, your state you much deplore In general terms, but will not say wherefore. What Medicine shall I seek to cure this woe, If th' wound's so dangerous, I may not know? But you, perhaps, would have me guess it out. What, hath some Hengist like that Saxon stout By fraud and force usurp'd thy flow'ring crown, Or by tempestuous Wars thy fields trod down? Or hath Canutus, that brave valiant Dane, The regal peaceful Sceptre from thee ta'en? Or is 't a Norman whose victorious hand With English blood bedews thy conquered Land? Or is 't intestine Wars that thus offend? Do Maud and Stephen for the Crown contend? Do Barons rise and side against their King, And call in Foreign aid to help the thing? Must Edward be depos'd? Or is 't the hour That second Richard must be clapp'd i' th' Tower? Or is it the fatal jar, again begun, That from the red, white pricking Roses sprung? Must Richmond's aid the Nobles now implore To come and break the tushes of the Boar? If none of these, dear Mother, what's your woe? Pray, do not fear Spain's bragging Armado. Doth your Ally, fair France, conspire your wrack, Or doth the Scots play false behind your back? Doth Holland quit you ill for all your love? Whence is this storm, from Earth or Heaven above? Is 't drought, is 't Famine, or is 't Pestilence? Dost feel the smart, or fear the consequence? Your humble Child entreats you shew your grief. Though Arms nor Purse she hath for your relief— Such is her poverty,—yet shall be found A suppliant for your help, as she is bound. Old England. I must confess some of those Sores you name My beauteous Body at this present maim, But foreign Foe nor feigned friend I fear, For they have work enough, thou knowest, elsewhere. Nor is it Alcie's son and Henry's Daughter Whose proud contention cause this slaughter; Nor Nobles siding to make John no King, French Louis unjustly to the Crown to bring; No Edward, Richard, to lose rule and life, Nor no Lancastrians to renew old strife; No Crook-backt Tyrant now usurps the Seat, Whose tearing tusks did wound, and kill, and threat. No Duke of York nor Earl of March to soil Their hands in Kindred's blood whom they did foil; No need of Tudor Roses to unite: None knows which is the Red or which the White. Spain's braving Fleet a second time is sunk. France knows how of my fury she hath drunk By Edward third and Henry fifth of fame; Her Lilies in my Arms avouch the same. My Sister Scotland hurts me now no more, Though she hath been injurious heretofore. What Holland is, I am in some suspense, But trust not much unto his Excellence. For wants, sure some I feel, but more I fear; And for the Pestilence, who knows how near? Famine and Plague, two sisters of the Sword, Destruction to a Land doth soon afford. They're for my punishments ordain'd on high, Unless thy tears prevent it speedily. But yet I answer not what you demand To shew the grievance of my troubled Land. Before I tell the effect I'll shew the cause, Which are my sins—the breach of sacred Laws: Idolatry, supplanter of a Nation, With foolish superstitious adoration, Are lik'd and countenanc'd by men of might, The Gospel is trod down and hath no right. Church Offices are sold and bought for gain That Pope had hope to find Rome here again. For Oaths and Blasphemies did ever ear From Beelzebub himself such language hear? What scorning of the Saints of the most high! What injuries did daily on them lie! What false reports, what nick-names did they take, Not for their own, but for their Master's sake! And thou, poor soul, wast jeer'd among the rest; Thy flying for the Truth I made a jest. For Sabbath-breaking and for Drunkenness Did ever Land profaneness more express? From crying bloods yet cleansed am not I, Martyrs and others dying causelessly. How many Princely heads on blocks laid down For nought but title to a fading Crown! 'Mongst all the cruelties which I have done, Oh, Edward's Babes, and Clarence's hapless Son, O Jane, why didst thou die in flow'ring prime?— Because of Royal Stem, that was thy crime. For Bribery, Adultery, for Thefts, and Lies Where is the Nation I can't paralyze? With Usury, Extortion, and Oppression, These be the Hydras of my stout transgression; These be the bitter fountains, heads, and roots Whence flow'd the source, the sprigs, the boughs, and fruits. Of more than thou canst hear or I relate, That with high hand I still did perpetrate, For these were threat'ned the woeful day I mocked the Preachers, put it fair away. The Sermons yet upon record do stand That cried destruction to my wicked Land. These Prophets' mouths (all the while) was stopt, Unworthily, some backs whipt, and ears crept; Their reverent cheeks bear the glorious marks Of stinking, stigmatizing Romish Clerks; Some lost their livings, some in prison pent, Some grossly fined, from friends to exile went: Their silent tongues to heaven did vengeance cry, Who heard their cause, and wrongs judg'd righteously, And will repay it sevenfold in my lap. This is fore-runner of my after-clap. Nor took I warning by my neighbors' falls. I saw sad Germany's dismantled walls, I saw her people famish'd, Nobles slain, Her fruitful land a barren heath remain. I saw (unmov'd) her Armies foil'd and fled, Wives forc'd, babes toss'd, her houses calcined. I saw strong Rochelle yield'd to her foe, Thousands of starved Christians there also. I saw poor Ireland bleeding out her last, Such cruelty as all reports have past. Mine heart obdurate stood not yet aghast. Now sip I of that cup, and just 't may be The bottom dregs reserved are for me. New England. To all you've said, sad mother, I assent. Your fearful sins great cause there 's to lament. My guilty hands (in part) hold up with you, A sharer in your punishment's my due. But all you say amounts to this effect, Not what you feel, but what you do expect. Pray, in plain terms, what is your present grief? Then let's join heads and hands for your relief. Old England. Well, to the matter, then. There's grown of late 'Twixt King and Peers a question of state: Which is the chief, the law, or else the King? One saith, it's he; the other, no such thing. My better part in Court of Parliament To ease my groaning land shew their intent To crush the proud, and right to each man deal, To help the Church, and stay the Common-Weal. So many obstacles comes in their way As puts me to a stand what I should say. Old customs, new Prerogatives stood on. Had they not held law fast, all had been gone, Which by their prudence stood them in such stead They took high Strafford lower by the head, And to their Laud be 't spoke they held 'n th' Tower All England's metropolitan that hour. This done, an Act they would have passed fain No prelate should his Bishopric retain. Here tugg'd they hard indeed, for all men saw This must be done by Gospel, not by law. Next the Militia they urged sore. This was denied, I need not say wherefore. The King, displeased, at York himself absents. They humbly beg return, shew their intents. The writing, printing, posting to and fro, Shews all was done; I'll therefore let it go. But now I come to speak of my disaster. Contention's grown 'twixt Subjects and their Master, They worded it so long they fell to blows, That thousands lay on heaps. Here bleeds my woes. I that no wars so many years have known Am now destroy'd and slaughter'd by mine own. But could the field alone this strife decide, One battle, two, or three I might abide, But these may be beginnings of more woe— Who knows, the worst, the best may overthrow! Religion, Gospel, here lies at the stake, Pray now, dear child, for sacred Zion's sake, Oh, pity me in this sad perturbation, My plundered Towns, my houses' devastation, My ravisht virgins, and my young men slain, My wealthy trading fallen, my dearth of grain. The seedtime's come, but Ploughman hath no hope Because he knows not who shall inn his crop. The poor they want their pay, their children bread, Their woful mothers' tears unpitied. If any pity in thy heart remain, Or any child-like love thou dost retain, For my relief now use thy utmost skill, And recompense me good for all my ill. New England. Dear mother, cease complaints, and wipe your eyes, Shake off your dust, cheer up, and now arise. You are my mother, nurse, I once your flesh, Your sunken bowels gladly would refresh. Your griefs I pity much but should do wrong, To weep for that we both have pray'd for long, To see these latter days of hop'd-for good, That Right may have its right, though 't be with blood. After dark Popery the day did clear; But now the Sun in's brightness shall appear. Blest be the Nobles of thy Noble Land With (ventur'd lives) for truth's defence that stand. Blest be thy Commons, who for Common good And thy infringed Laws have boldly stood. Blest be thy Counties, who do aid thee still With hearts and states to testify their will. Blest be thy Preachers, who do cheer thee on. Oh, cry: the sword of God and Gideon! And shall I not on them wish Mero's curse That help thee not with prayers, arms, and purse? And for my self, let miseries abound If mindless of thy state I e'er be found. These are the days the Church's foes to crush, To root out Prelates, head, tail, branch, and rush. Let's bring Baal's vestments out, to make a fire, Their Mitres, Surplices, and all their tire, Copes, Rochets, Croziers, and such trash, And let their names consume, but let the flash Light Christendom, and all the world to see We hate Rome's *****, with all her trumpery. Go on, brave Essex, shew whose son thou art, Not false to King, nor Country in thy heart, But those that hurt his people and his Crown, By force expel, destroy, and tread them down. Let Gaols be fill'd with th' remnant of that pack, And sturdy Tyburn loaded till it crack. And ye brave Nobles, chase away all fear, And to this blessed Cause closely adhere. O mother, can you weep and have such Peers? When they are gone, then drown your self in tears, If now you weep so much, that then no more The briny Ocean will o'erflow your shore. These, these are they (I trust) with Charles our king, Out of all mists such glorious days will bring That dazzled eyes, beholding, much shall wonder At that thy settled Peace, thy wealth, and splendour, Thy Church and Weal establish'd in such manner That all shall joy that thou display'dst thy banner, And discipline erected so, I trust, That nursing Kings shall come and lick thy dust. Then Justice shall in all thy Courts take place Without respect of persons or of case. Then bribes shall cease, and suits shall not stick long, Patience and purse of Clients for to wrong. Then High Commissions shall fall to decay, And Pursuivants and Catchpoles want their pay. So shall thy happy Nation ever flourish, When truth and righteousness they thus shall nourish. When thus in Peace, thine Armies brave send out To sack proud Rome, and all her vassals rout. There let thy name, thy fame, and valour shine, As did thine Ancestors' in Palestine, And let her spoils full pay with int'rest be Of what unjustly once she poll'd from thee. Of all the woes thou canst let her be sped, Execute to th' full the vengeance threatened. Bring forth the beast that rul'd the world with's beck, And tear his flesh, and set your feet on's neck, And make his filthy den so desolate To th' 'stonishment of all that knew his state. This done, with brandish'd swords to Turkey go,— (For then what is it but English blades dare do?) And lay her waste, for so's the sacred doom, And do to Gog as thou hast done to Rome. Oh Abraham's seed, lift up your heads on high, For sure the day of your redemption's nigh. The scales shall fall from your long blinded eyes, And him you shall adore who now despise. Then fullness of the Nations in shall flow, And Jew and Gentile to one worship go. Then follows days of happiness and rest. Whose lot doth fall to live therein is blest. No Canaanite shall then be found 'n th' land, And holiness on horses' bells shall stand. If this make way thereto, then sigh no more, But if at all thou didst not see 't before. Farewell, dear mother; Parliament, prevail, And in a while you'll tell another tale.

Dickinson

dashes, 4-3

Toomer, Bona and Paul

interracial couple bona and paul

Stevens, The Auroras of Autumn

This is where the serpent lives, the bodiless.His head is air. Beneath his tip at nightEyes open and fix on us in every sky.Or is this another wriggling out of the egg,Another image at the end of the cave,Another bodiless for the body's slough?This is where the serpent lives. This is his nest,These fields, these hills, these tinted distances,And the pines above and along and beside the sea.This is form gulping after formlessness,Skin flashing to wished-for disappearancesAnd the serpent body flashing without the skin.This is the height emerging and its baseThese lights may finally attain a poleIn the midmost midnight and find the serpent there,In another nest, the master of the mazeOf body and air and forms and images,Relentlessly in possession of happiness.This is his poison: that we should disbelieveEven that. His meditations in the ferns,When he moved so slightly to make sure of sun,Made us no less as sure. We saw in his head,Black beaded on the rock, the flecked animal,The moving grass, the Indian in his glade.IIFarewell to an idea . . . A cabin stands,Deserted, on a beach. It is white,As by a custom or according toAn ancestral theme or as a consequenceOf an infinite course. The flowers against the wallAre white, a little dried, a kind of markReminding, trying to remind, of a whiteThat was different, something else, last yearOr before, not the white of an aging afternoon,Whether fresher or duller, whether of winter cloudOr of winter sky, from horizon to horizon.The wind is blowing the sand across the floor.Here, being visible is being white,Is being of the solid of white, the accomplishmentOf an extremist in an exercise . . .The season changes. A cold wind chills the beach.The long lines of it grow longer, emptier,A darkness gathers though it does not fallAnd the whiteness grows less vivid on the wall.The man who is walking turns blankly on the sand.He observes how the north is always enlarging the change,With its frigid brilliances, its blue-red sweepsAnd gusts of great enkindlings, its polar green,The color of ice and fire and solitude.IIIFarewell to an idea . . . The mother's face,The purpose of the poem, fills the room.They are together, here, and it is warm,With none of the prescience of oncoming dreams.It is evening. The house is evening, half dissolved.Only the half they can never possess remains,Still-starred. It is the mother they possess,Who gives transparence to their present peace.She makes that gentler that can gentle be.And yet she too is dissolved, she is destroyed.She gives transparence. But she has grown old.The necklace is a carving not a kiss.The soft hands are a motion not a touch.The house will crumble and the books will burn.They are at ease in a shelter of the mindAnd the house is of the mind and they and time,Together, all together. Boreal nightWill look like frost as it approaches themAnd to the mother as she falls asleepAnd as they say good-night, good-night. UpstairsThe windows will be lighted, not the rooms.A wind will spread its windy grandeurs roundAnd knock like a rifle-butt against the door.The wind will command them with invincible sound.IVFarewell to an idea . . . The cancellings,The negations are never final. The father sitsIn space, wherever he sits, of bleak regard,As one that is strong in the bushes of his eyes.He says no to no and yes to yes. He says yesTo no; and in saying yes he says farewell.He measures the velocities of change.He leaps from heaven to heaven more rapidlyThan bad angels leap from heaven to hell in flames.But now he sits in quiet and green-a-day.He assumes the great speeds of space and flutters themFrom cloud to cloudless, cloudless to keen clearIn flights of eye and ear, the highest eyeAnd the lowest ear, the deep ear that discerns,At evening, things that attend it until it hearsThe supernatural preludes of its own,At the moment when the angelic eye definesIts actors approaching, in company, in their masks.Master O master seated by the fireAnd yet in space and motionless and yetOf motion the ever-brightening origin,Profound, and yet the king and yet the crown,Look at this present throne. What company,In masks, can choir it with the naked wind?VThe mother invites humanity to her houseAnd table. The father fetches tellers of talesAnd musicians who mute much, muse much, on the tales.The father fetches negresses to dance,Among the children, like curious ripenessesOf pattern in the dance's ripening.For these the musicians make insidious tones,Clawing the sing-song of their instruments.The children laugh and jangle a tinny time.The father fetches pageants out of air,Scenes of the theatre, vistas and blocks of woodsAnd curtains like a naive pretence of sleep.Among these the musicians strike the instinctive poem.The father fetches his unherded herds,Of barbarous tongue, slavered and panting halvesOf breath, obedient to his trumpet's touch.This then is Chatillon or as you please.We stand in the tumult of a festival.What festival? This loud, disordered mooch?These hospitaliers? These brute-like guests?These musicians dubbing at a tragedy,A-dub, a-dub, which is made up of this:That there are no lines to speak? There is no play.Or, the persons act one merely by being here.VIIt is a theatre floating through the clouds,Itself a cloud, although of misted rockAnd mountains running like water, wave on wave,Through waves of light. It is of cloud transformedTo cloud transformed again, idly, the wayA season changes color to no end,Except the lavishing of itself in change,As light changes yellow into gold and goldTo its opal elements and fire's delight,Splashed wide-wise because it likes magnificenceAnd the solemn pleasures of magnificent spaceThe cloud drifts idly through half-thought-of forms.The theatre is filled with flying birds,Wild wedges, as of a volcano's smoke, palm-eyedAnd vanishing, a web in a corridorOr massive portico. A capitol,It may be, is emerging or has justCollapsed. The denouement has to be postponed . . .This is nothing until in a single man contained,Nothing until this named thing nameless isAnd is destroyed. He opens the door of his houseOn flames. The scholar of one candle seesAn Arctic effulgence flaring on the frameOf everything he is. And he feels afraid.VIIIs there an imagination that sits enthronedAs grim as it is benevolent, the justAnd the unjust, which in the midst of summer stopsTo imagine winter? When the leaves are dead,Does it take its place in the north and enfold itself,Goat-leaper, crystalled and luminous, sittingIn highest night? And do these heavens adornAnd proclaim it, the white creator of black, jettedBy extinguishings, even of planets as may be,Even of earth, even of sight, in snow,Except as needed by way of majesty,In the sky, as crown and diamond cabala?It leaps through us, through all our heavens leaps,Extinguishing our planets, one by one,Leaving, of where we were and looked, of whereWe knew each other and of each other thought,A shivering residue, chilled and foregone,Except for that crown and mystical cabala.But it dare not leap by chance in its own dark.It must change from destiny to slight caprice.And thus its jetted tragedy, its steleAnd shape and mournful making move to findWhat must unmake it and, at last, what can,Say, a flippant communication under the moon.VIIIThere may be always a time of innocence.There is never a place. Or if there is no time,If it is not a thing of time, nor of place,Existing in the idea of it, alone,In the sense against calamity, it is notLess real. For the oldest and coldest philosopher,There is or may be a time of innocenceAs pure principle. Its nature is its end,That it should be, and yet not be, a thingThat pinches the pity of the pitiful man,Like a book at evening beautiful but untrue,Like a book on rising beautiful and true.It is like a thing of ether that existsAlmost as predicate. But it exists,It exists, it is visible, it is, it is.So, then, these lights are not a spell of light,A saying out of a cloud, but innocence.An innocence of the earth and no false signOr symbol of malice. That we partake thereof,Lie down like children in this holiness,As if, awake, we lay in the quiet of sleep,As if the innocent mother sang in the darkOf the room and on an accordion, half-heard,Created the time and place in which we breathed . . .IXAnd of each other thought—in the idiomOf the work, in the idiom of an innocent earth,Not of the enigma of the guilty dream.We were as Danes in Denmark all day longAnd knew each other well, hale-hearted landsmen,For whom the outlandish was another dayOf the week, queerer than Sunday. We thought alikeAnd that made brothers of us in a homeIn which we fed on being brothers, fedAnd fattened as on a decorous honeycomb.This drama that we live—We lay sticky with sleep.This sense of the activity of fate—The rendezvous, when she came alone,By her coming became a freedom of the two,An isolation which only the two could share.Shall we be found hanging in the trees next spring?Of what disaster in this the imminence:Bare limbs, bare trees and a wind as sharp as salt?The stars are putting on their glittering belts.They throw around their shoulders cloaks that flashLike a great shadow's last embellishment.It may come tomorrow in the simplest word,Almost as part of innocence, almost,Almost as the tenderest and the truest part.XAn unhappy people in a happy world—Read, rabbi, the phases of this difference.An unhappy people in an unhappy world—Here are too many mirrors for misery.A happy people in an unhappy world—It cannot be. There's nothing there to rollOn the expressive tongue, the finding fang.A happy people in a happy world—Buffo! A ball, an opera, a bar.Turn back to where we were when we began:An unhappy people in a happy world.Now, solemnize the secretive syllables.Read to the congregation, for todayAnd for tomorrow, this extremity,This contrivance of the spectre of the spheres,Contriving balance to contrive a whole,The vital, the never-failing genius,Fulfilling his meditations, great and small.In these unhappy he meditates a whole,The full of fortune and the full of fate,As if he lived all lives, that he might know,In hall harridan, not hushful paradise,To a haggling of wind and weather, by these lightsLike a blaze of summer straw, in winter's nick.

Phyllis Wheatley: On Being Brought from Africa to America

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understand That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too: Once I redemption neither sought nor knew. Some view our sable race with scornful eye, "Their colour is a diabolic die." Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain, May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train

Toomer, Cane, Nullo

A spray of pine-needles, Dipped in western horizon gold,Fell onto a path.Dry moulds of cow-hoofs.In the forest.Rabbits knew not of their falling,Nor did the forest catch aflame.

Stein; Rooms from Tender Buttons

Act so that there is no use in a centre. A wide action is not a width. A preparation is given to the ones preparing. They do not eat who mention silver and sweet. There was an occupation.A whole centre and a border make hanging a way of dressing. This which is not why there is a voice is the remains of an offering. There was no rental.So the tune which is there has a little piece to play. And the exercise is all there is of a fast. The tender and true that makes no width to hew is the time that there is question to adopt.To begin the placing there is no wagon. There is no change lighter. It was done. And then the spreading, that was not accomplishing that needed standing and yet the time was not so difficult as they were not all in place. They had no change. They were not respected. They were that, they did it so much in the matter and this showed that that settlement was not condensed. It was spread there. Any change was in the ends of the centre. A heap was heavy. There was no change.Burnt and behind and lifting a temporary stone and lifting more than a drawer.The instance of there being more is an instance of more. The shadow is not shining in the way there is a black line. The truth has come. There is a disturbance. Trusting to a baker's boy meant that there would be very much exchanging and anyway what is the use of a covering to a door. There is a use, they are double.If the centre has the place then there is distribution. That is natural. There is a contradiction and naturally returning there comes to be both sides and the centre. That can be seen from the description.The author of all that is in there behind the door and that is entering in the morning. Explaining darkening and expecting relating is all of a piece. The stove is bigger. It was of a shape that made no audience bigger if the opening is assumed why should there not be kneeling. Any force which is bestowed on a floor shows rubbing. This is so nice and sweet and yet there comes the change, there comes the time to press more air. This does not mean the same as disappearance.A little lingering lion and a Chinese chair, all the handsome cheese which is stone, all of it and a choice, a choice of a blotter. If it is difficult to do it one way there is no place of similar trouble. None. The whole arrangement is established. The end of which is that there is a suggestion, a suggestion that there can be a different whiteness to a wall. This was thought.A page to a corner means that the shame is no greater when the table is longer. A glass is of any height, it is higher, it is simpler and if it were placed there would not be any doubt.Something that is an erection is that which stands and feeds and silences a tin which is swelling. This makes no diversion that is to say what can please exaltation, that which is cooking.A shine is that which when covered changes permission. An enclosure blends with the same that is to say there is blending. A blend is that which holds no mice and this is not because of a floor it is because of nothing, it is not in a vision.A fact is that when the place was replaced all was left that was stored and all was retained that would not satisfy more than another. The question is this, is it possible to suggest more to replace that thing. This question and this perfect denial does make the time change all the time.The sister was not a mister. Was this a surprise. It was. The conclusion came when there was no arrangement. All the time that there was a question there was a decision. Replacing a casual acquaintance with an ordinary daughter does not make a son.It happened in a way that the time was perfect and there was a growth of a whole dividing time so that where formerly there was no mistake there was no mistake now. For instance before when there was a separation there was waiting, now when there is separation there is the division between intending and departing. This made no more mixture than there would be if there had been no change.A little sign of an entrance is the one that made it alike. If it were smaller it was not alike and it was so much smaller that a table was bigger. A table was much bigger, very much bigger. Changing that made nothing bigger, it did not make anything bigger littler, it did not hinder wood from not being used as leather. And this was so charming. Harmony is so essential. Is there pleasure when there is a passage, there is when every room is open. Every room is open when there are not four, there were there and surely there were four, there were two together. There is no resemblance.A single speed, the reception of table linen, all the wonder of six little spoons, there is no exercise.The time came when there was a birthday. Every day was no excitement and a birthday was added, it was added on Monday, this made the memory clear, this which was a speech showed the chair in the middle where there was copper.Alike and a snail, this means Chinamen, it does there is no doubt that to be right is more than perfect there is no doubt and glass is confusing it confuses the substance which was of a color. Then came the time for discrimination, it came then and it was never mentioned it was so triumphant, it showed the whole head than had a hole and should have a hole it showed the resemblance between silver.Startling a starving husband is not disagreeable. The reason that nothing is hidden is that there is no suggestion of silence. No song is sad. A lesson is of consequence.Blind and weak and organised and worried and betrothed and resumed and also asked to a fast and always asked to consider and never startled and not at all bloated, this which is no rarer than frequently is not so astonishing when hair brushing is added. There is quiet, there certainly is.No eye-glasses are rotten, no window is useless and yet if air will not come in there is a speech ready, there always is and there is no dimness, not a bit of it.All along the tendency to deplore the absence of more has not been authorised. It comes to mean that with burning there is that pleasant state of stupefication. Then there is a way of earning a living. Who is a man.A silence is not indicated by any motion, less is indicated by a motion, more is not indicated it is enthralled. So sullen and so low, so much resignation, so much refusal and so much place for a lower and an upper, so much and yet more silence, why is not sleeping a feat why is it not and when is there some discharge when. There never is.If comparing a piece that is a size that is recognised as not a size but a piece, comparing a piece with what is not recognised but what is used as it is held by holding, comparing these two comes to be repeated. Suppose they are put together, suppose that there is an interruption, supposing that beginning again they are not changed as to position, suppose all this and suppose that any five two of whom are not separating suppose that the five are not consumed. Is there an exchange, is there a resemblance to the sky which is admitted to be there and the stars which can be seen. Is there. That was a question. There was no certainty. Fitting a failing meant that any two were indifferent and yet they were all connecting that, they were all connecting that consideration. This did not determine rejoining a letter. This did not make letters smaller. It did.The stamp that is not only torn but also fitting is not any symbol. It suggests nothing. A sack that has no opening suggests more and the loss is not commensurate. The season gliding and the torn hangings receiving mending all this shows an example, it shows the force of sacrifice and likeness and disaster and a reason.The time when there is not the question is only seen when there is a shower. Any little thing is water.There was a whole collection made. A damp cloth, an oyster, a single mirror, a manikin, a student, a silent star, a single spark, a little movement and the bed is made. This shows the disorder, it does, it shows more likeness than anything else, it shows the single mind that directs an apple. All the coats have a different shape, that does not mean that they differ in color, it means a union between use and exercise and a horse.A plain hill, one is not that which is not white and red and green, a plain hill makes no sunshine, it shows that without a disturber. So the shape is there and the color and the outline and the miserable centre. It is not very likely that there is a centre, a hill is a hill and no hill is contained in a pink tender descender.A can containing a curtain is a solid sentimental usage. The trouble in both eyes does not come from the same symmetrical carpet, it comes from there being no more disturbance than in little paper. This does show the teeth, it shows color.A measure is that which put up so that it shows the length has a steel construction. Tidiness is not delicacy, it does not destroy the whole piece, certainly not it has been measured and nothing has been cut off and even if that has been lost there is a name, no name is signed and left over, not any space is fitted so that moving about is plentiful. Why is there so much resignation in a package, why is there rain, all the same the chance has come, there is no bell to ring.A package and a filter and even a funnel, all this together makes a scene and supposing the question arises is hair curly, is it dark and dusty, supposing that question arises, is brushing necessary, is it, the whole special suddenness commences then, there is no delusion.A cape is a cover, a cape is not a cover in summer, a cape is a cover and the regulation is that there is no such weather. A cape is not always a cover, a cape is not a cover when there is another, there is always something in that thing in establishing a disposition to put wetting where it will not do more harm. There is always that disposition and in a way there is some use in not mentioning changing and in establishing the temperature, there is some use in it as establishing all that lives dimmer freer and there is no dinner in the middle of anything. There is no such thing.Why is a pale white not paler than blue, why is a connection made by a stove, why is the example which is mentioned not shown to be the same, why is there no adjustment between the place and the separate attention. Why is there a choice in gamboling. Why is there no necessary dull stable, why is there a single piece of any color, why is there that sensible silence. Why is there the resistance in a mixture, why is there no poster, why is there that in the window, why is there no suggester, why is there no window, why is there no oyster closer. Why is there a circular diminisher, why is there a bather, why is there no scraper, why is there a dinner, why is there a bell ringer, why is there a duster, why is there a section of a similar resemblance, why is there that scissor.South, south which is a wind is not rain, does silence choke speech or does it not.Lying in a conundrum, lying so makes the springs restless, lying so is a reduction, not lying so is arrangeable.Releasing the oldest auction that is the pleasing some still renewing.Giving it away, not giving it away, is there any difference. Giving it away. Not giving it away.Almost very likely there is no seduction, almost very likely there is no stream, certainly very likely the height is penetrated, certainly certainly the target is cleaned. Come to sit, come to refuse, come to surround, come slowly and age is not lessening. The time which showed that was when there was no eclipse. All the time that resenting was removal all that time there was breadth. No breath is shadowed, no breath is painstaking and yet certainly what could be the use of paper, paper shows no disorder, it shows no desertion.Why is there a difference between one window and another, why is there a difference, because the curtain is shorter. There is no distaste in beefsteak or in plums or in gallons of milk water, there is no defiance in original piling up over a roof, there is no daylight in the evening, there is none there empty.A tribune, a tribune does not mean paper, it means nothing more than cake, it means more sugar, it shows the state of lengthening any nose. The last spice is that which shows the whole evening spent in that sleep, it shows so that walking is an alleviation, and yet this astonishes everybody the distance is so sprightly. In all the time there are three days, those are not passed uselessly. Any little thing is a change that is if nothing is wasted in that cellar. All the rest of the chairs are established.A success, a success is alright when there are there rooms and no vacancies, a success is alright when there is a package, success is alright anyway and any curtain is wholesale. A curtain diminishes and an ample space shows varnish.One taste one tack, one taste one bottle, one taste one fish, one taste one barometer. This shows no distinguishing sign when there is a store.Any smile is stern and any coat is a sample. Is there any use in changing more doors than there are committees. This question is so often asked that squares show that they are blotters. It is so very agreeable to hear a voice and to see all the signs of that expression.Cadences, real cadences, real cadences and a quiet color. Careful and curved, cake and sober, all accounts and mixture, a guess at anything is righteous, should there be a call there would be a voice.A line in life, a single line and a stairway, a rigid cook, no cook and no equator, all the same there is higher than that another evasion. Did that mean shame, it meant memory. Looking into a place that was hanging and was visible looking into this place and seeing a chair did that mean relief, it did, it certainly did not cause constipation and yet there is a melody that has white for a tune when there is straw color. This shows no face.Star-light, what is star-light, star-light is a little light that is not always mentioned with the sun, it is mentioned with the moon and the sun, it is mixed up with the rest of the time.Why is the name changed. The name is changed because in the little space there is a tree, in some space there are no trees, in every space there is a hint of more, all this causes the decision.Why is there education, there is education because the two tables which are folding are not tied together with a ribbon, string is used and string being used there is a necessity for another one and another one not being used to hearing shows no ordinary use of any evening and yet there is no disgrace in looking, none at all. This came to separate when there was simple selection of an entire pre-occupation.A curtain, a curtain which is fastened discloses mourning, this does not mean sparrows or elocution or even a whole preparation, it means that there are ears and very often much more altogether.Climate, climate is not southern, a little glass, a bright winter, a strange supper an elastic tumbler, all this shows that the back is furnished and red which is red is a dark color. An example of this is fifteen years and a separation of regret.China is not down when there are plates, lights are not ponderous and incalculable.Currents, currents are not in the air and on the floor and in the door and behind it first. Currents do not show it plainer. This which is mastered has so thin a space to build it all that there is plenty of room and yet is it quarreling, it is not and the insistence is marked. A change is in a current and there is no habitable exercise.A religion, almost a religion, any religion, a quintal in religion, a relying and a surface and a service in indecision and a creature and a question and a syllable in answer and more counting and no quarrel and a single scientific statement and no darkness and no question and an earned administration and a single set of sisters and an outline and no blisters and the section seeing yellow and the centre having spelling and no solitude and no quaintness and yet solid quite so solid and the single surface centred and the question in the placard and the singularity, is there a singularity, and the singularity, why is there a question and the singularity why is the surface outrageous, why is it beautiful why is it not when there is no doubt, why is anything vacant, why is not disturbing a centre no virtue, why is it when it is and why is it when it is and there is no doubt, there is no doubt that the singularity shows.A climate, a single climate, all the time there is a single climate, any time there is a doubt, any time there is music that is to question more and more and there is no politeness, there is hardly any ordeal and certainly there is no tablecloth.This is a sound and obligingness more obligingness leads to a harmony in hesitation.A lake a single lake which is a pond and a little water any water which is an ant and no burning, not any burning, all this is sudden.A canister that is the remains of furniture and a looking-glass and a bed-room and a larger size, all the stand is shouted and what is ancient is practical. Should the resemblance be so that any little cover is copied, should it be so that yards are measured, should it be so and there be a sin, should it be so then certainly a room is big enough when it is so empty and the corners are gathered together.The change is mercenary that settles whitening the coloring and serving dishes where there is metal and making yellow any yellow every color in a shade which is expressed in a tray. This is a monster and awkward quite awkward and the little design which is flowered which is not strange and yet has visible writing, this is not shown all the time but at once, after that it rests where it is and where it is in place. No change is not needed. That does show design.Excellent, more excellence is borrowing and slanting very slanting is light and secret and a recitation and emigration. Certainly shoals are shallow and nonsense more nonsense is sullen. Very little cake is water, very little cake has that escape.Sugar any sugar, anger every anger, lover sermon lover, centre no distractor, all order is in a measure.Left over to be a lamp light, left over in victory, left over in saving, all this and negligence and bent wood and more even much more is not so exact as a pen and a turtle and even, certainly, and even a piece of the same experience as more.To consider a lecture, to consider it well is so anxious and so much a charity and really supposing there is grain and if a stubble every stubble is urgent, will there not be a chance of legality. The sound is sickened and the price is purchased and golden what is golden, a clergyman, a single tax, a currency and an inner chamber.Checking an emigration, checking it by smiling and certainly by the same satisfactory stretch of hands that have more use for it than nothing, and mildly not mildly a correction, not mildly even a circumstance and a sweetness and a serenity. Powder, that has no color, if it did have would it be white.A whole soldier any whole soldier has no more detail than any case of measles.A bridge a very small bridge in a location and thunder, any thunder, this is the capture of reversible sizing and more indeed more can be cautious. This which makes monotony careless makes it likely that there is an exchange in principle and more than that, change in organization.This cloud does change with the movements of the moon and the narrow the quite narrow suggestion of the building. It does and then when it is settled and no sounds differ then comes the moment when cheerfulness is so assured that there is an occasion.A plain lap, any plain lap shows that sign, it shows that there is not so much extension as there would be if there were more choice in everything. And why complain of more, why complain of very much more. Why complain at all when it is all arranged that as there is no more opportunity and no more appeal and not even any more clinching that certainly now some time has come.A window has another spelling, it has "f" all together, it lacks no more then and this is rain, this may even be something else, at any rate there is no dedication in splendor. There is a turn of the stranger.Catholic to be turned is to venture on youth and a section of debate, it even means that no class where each one over fifty is regular is so stationary that there are invitations.A curving example makes righteous finger-nails. This is the only object in secretion and speech.To being the same four are no more than were taller. The rest had a big chair and a surveyance a cold accumulation of nausea, and even more than that, they had a disappointment.Nothing aiming is a flower, if flowers are abundant then they are lilac, if they are not they are white in the centre.Dance a clean dream and an extravagant turn up, secure the steady rights and translate more than translate the authority, show the choice and make no more mistakes than yesterday.This means clearness, it means a regular notion of exercise, it means more than that, it means liking counting, it means more than that, it does not mean exchanging a line.Why is there more craving than there is in a mountain. This does not seem strange to one, it does not seem strange to an echo and more surely is in there not being a habit. Why is there so much useless suffering. Why is there.Any wet weather means an open window, what is attaching eating, anything that is violent and cooking and shows weather is the same in the end and why is there more use in something than in all that.The cases are made and books, back books are used to secure tears and church. They are even used to exchange black slippers. They can not be mended with wax. They show no need of any such occasion.A willow and no window, a wide place stranger, a wideness makes an active center.The sight of no pussy cat is so different that a tobacco zone is white and cream.A lilac, all a lilac and no mention of butter, not even bread and butter, no butter and no occasion, not even a silent resemblance, not more care than just enough haughty.A safe weight is that which when it pleases is hanging. A safer weight is one more naughty in a spectacle. The best game is that which is shiny and scratching. Please a pease and a cracker and a wretched use of summer.Surprise, the only surprise has no occasion. It is an ingredient and the section the whole section is one season.A pecking which is petting and no worse than in the same morning is not the only way to be continuous often.A light in the moon the only light is on Sunday. What was the sensible decision. The sensible decision was that notwithstanding many declarations and more music, not even notwithstanding the choice and a torch and a collection, notwithstanding the celebrating hat and a vacation and even more noise than cutting, notwithstanding Europe and Asia and being overbearing, not even notwithstanding an elephant and a strict occasion, not even withstanding more cultivation and some seasoning, not even with drowning and with the ocean being encircling, not even with more likeness and any cloud, not even with terrific sacrifice of pedestrianism and a special resolution, not even more likely to be pleasing. The care with which the rain is wrong and the green is wrong and the white is wrong, the care with which there is a chair and plenty of breathing. The care with which there is incredible justice and likeness, all this makes a magnificent asparagus, and also a fountain.

Ginsberg; America

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing. America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956. I can't stand my own mind. America when will we end the human war? Go **** yourself with your atom bomb. I don't feel good don't bother me. I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind. America when will you be angelic? When will you take off your clothes? When will you look at yourself through the grave? When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites? America why are your libraries full of tears? America when will you send your eggs to India? I'm sick of your insane demands. When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks? America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world. Your machinery is too much for me. You made me want to be a saint. There must be some other way to settle this argument. Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister. Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke? I'm trying to come to the point. I refuse to give up my obsession. America stop pushing I know what I'm doing. America the plum blossoms are falling. I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for murder. America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies. America I used to be a communist when I was a kid I'm not sorry. I smoke marijuana every chance I get. I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet. When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid. My mind is made up there's going to be trouble. You should have seen me reading Marx. My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right. I won't say the Lord's Prayer. I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations. America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over from Russia. I'm addressing you. Are you going to let your emotional life be run by Time Magazine? I'm obsessed by Time Magazine. I read it every week. Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore. I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library. It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me. It occurs to me that I am America. I am talking to myself again. Asia is rising against me. I haven't got a chinaman's chance. I'd better consider my national resources. My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable private literature that jetplanes 1400 miles an hour and twentyfive-thousand mental institutions. I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underprivileged who live in my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns. I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go. My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic. America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood? I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his automobiles more so they're all different sexes. America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe America free Tom Mooney America save the Spanish Loyalists America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die America I am the Scottsboro boys. America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother Bloor the Silk-strikers' Ewig-Weibliche made me cry I once saw the Yiddish orator Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have been a spy. America you don't really want to go to war. America its them bad Russians. Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians. The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take our cars from out our garages. Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader's Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations. That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read. Him need big black ******s. Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help. America this is quite serious. America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set. America is this correct? I'd better get right down to the job. It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway. America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

Toomer, Cane, Becky

Becky was a white woman

Toomer, Cane, Carma

Carma is another woman

Mckay: The Easter Flower

Far from this foreign Easter damp and chilly My soul steals to a pear-shaped plot of ground,Where gleamed the lilac-tinted Easter lily Soft-scented in the air for yards around; Alone, without a hint of guardian leaf! Just like a fragile bell of silver rime,It burst the tomb for freedom sweet and brief In the young pregnant year at Eastertime; And many thought it was a sacred sign, And some called it the resurrection flower;And I, a pagan, worshiped at its shrine, Yielding my heart unto its perfumed power.

Ashbery: Into the Dusk-Charged Air

Far from the Rappahannock, the silent Danube moves along toward the sea. The brown and green Nile rolls slowly Like the Niagara's welling descent. Tractors stood on the green banks of the Loire Near where it joined the Cher. The St. Lawrence prods among black stones And mud. But the Arno is all stones. Wind ruffles the Hudson's Surface. The Irawaddy is overflowing. But the yellowish, gray Tiber Is contained within steep banks. The Isar Flows too fast to swim in, the Jordan's water Courses over the flat land. The Allegheny and its boats Were dark blue. The Moskowa is Gray boats. The Amstel flows slowly. Leaves fall into the Connecticut as it passes Underneath. The Liffey is full of sewage, Like the Seine, but unlike The brownish-yellow Dordogne. Mountains hem in the Colorado And the Oder is very deep, almost As deep as the Congo is wide. The plain banks of the Neva are Gray. The dark Saône flows silently. And the Volga is long and wide As it flows across the brownish land. The Ebro Is blue, and slow. The Shannon flows Swiftly between its banks. The Mississippi Is one of the world's longest rivers, like the Amazon. It has the Missouri for a tributary. The Harlem flows amid factories And buildings. The Nelson is in Canada, Flowing. Through hard banks the Dubawnt Forces its way. People walk near the Trent. The landscape around the Mohawk stretches away; The Rubicon is merely a brook. In winter the Main Surges; the Rhine sings its eternal song. The Rhône slogs along through whitish banks And the Rio Grande spins tales of the past. The Loir bursts its frozen shackles But the Moldau's wet mud ensnares it. The East catches the light. Near the Escaut the noise of factories echoes And the sinuous Humboldt gurgles wildly. The Po too flows, and the many-colored Thames. Into the Atlantic Ocean Pours the Garonne. Few ships navigate On the Housatonic, but quite a few can be seen On the Elbe. For centuries The Afton has flowed. If the Rio Negro Could abandon its song, and the Magdalena The jungle flowers, the Tagus Would still flow serenely, and the Ohio Abrade its slate banks. The tan Euphrates would Sidle silently across the world. The Yukon Was choked with ice, but the Susquehanna still pushed Bravely along. The Dee caught the day's last flares Like the Pilcomayo's carrion rose. The Peace offered eternal fragrance Perhaps, but the Mackenzie churned livid mud Like tan chalk-marks. Near where The Brahmaputra slapped swollen dikes And the Pechora? The São Francisco Skulks amid gray, rubbery nettles. The Liard's Reflexes are slow, and the Arkansas erodes Anthracite hummocks. The Paraná stinks. The Ottawa is light emerald green Among grays. Better that the Indus fade In steaming sands! Let the Brazos Freeze solid! And the Wabash turn to a leaden Cinder of ice! The Marañón is too tepid, we must Find a way to freeze it hard. The Ural Is freezing slowly in the blasts. The black Yonne Congeals nicely. And the Petit-Morin Curls up on the solid earth. The Inn Does not remember better times, and the Merrimack's Galvanized. The Ganges is liquid snow by now; The Vyatka's ice-gray. The once-molten Tennessee's Curdled. The Japurá is a pack of ice. Gelid The Columbia's gray loam banks. The Don's merely A giant icicle. The Niger freezes, slowly. The interminable Lena plods on But the Purus' mercurial waters are icy, grim With cold. The Loing is choked with fragments of ice. The Weser is frozen, like liquid air. And so is the Kama. And the beige, thickly flowing Tocantins. The rivers bask in the cold. The stern Uruguay chafes its banks, A mass of ice. The Hooghly is solid Ice. The Adour is silent, motionless. The lovely Tigris is nothing but scratchy ice Like the Yellowstone, with its osier-clustered banks. The Mekong is beginning to thaw out a little And the Donets gurgles beneath the Huge blocks of ice. The Manzanares gushes free. The Illinois darts through the sunny air again. But the Dnieper is still ice-bound. Somewhere The Salado propels its floes, but the Roosevelt's Frozen. The Oka is frozen solider Than the Somme. The Minho slumbers In winter, nor does the Snake Remember August. Hilarious, the Canadian Is solid ice. The Madeira slavers Across the thawing fields, and the Plata laughs. The Dvina soaks up the snow. The Sava's Temperature is above freezing. The Avon Carols noiselessly. The Drôme presses Grass banks; the Adige's frozen Surface is like gray pebbles. Birds circle the Ticino. In winter The Var was dark blue, unfrozen. The Thwaite, cold, is choked with sandy ice; The Ardèche glistens feebly through the freezing rain.

Toomer, Cane, Portrait in Georgia

Hair—braided chestnut, coiled like a lyncher's rope, Eyes—fagots, Lips—old scars, or the first red blisters, Breath—the last sweet scent of cane, And her slim body, white as the ash of black flesh after flame.

Anne Bradstreet: Verses upon the Burning of our House, July 10th, 1666

Here Follows Some Verses Upon the Burning of Our house, July 10th. 1666. Copied Out of a Loose Paper. In silent night when rest I took, For sorrow near I did not look, I wakened was with thund'ring noise And piteous shrieks of dreadful voice. That fearful sound of "fire" and "fire," Let no man know is my Desire. I, starting up, the light did spy, And to my God my heart did cry To straighten me in my Distress And not to leave me succourless. Then, coming out, behold a space The flame consume my dwelling place. And when I could no longer look, I blest His name that gave and took, That laid my goods now in the dust. Yea, so it was, and so 'twas just. It was his own, it was not mine, Far be it that I should repine; He might of all justly bereft But yet sufficient for us left. When by the ruins oft I past My sorrowing eyes aside did cast And here and there the places spy Where oft I sate and long did lie. Here stood that trunk, and there that chest, There lay that store I counted best. My pleasant things in ashes lie And them behold no more shall I. Under thy roof no guest shall sit, Nor at thy Table eat a bit. No pleasant talk shall 'ere be told Nor things recounted done of old. No Candle e'er shall shine in Thee, Nor bridegroom's voice e'er heard shall be. In silence ever shalt thou lie, Adieu, Adieu, all's vanity. Then straight I 'gin my heart to chide, And did thy wealth on earth abide? Didst fix thy hope on mould'ring dust? The arm of flesh didst make thy trust? Raise up thy thoughts above the sky That dunghill mists away may fly. Thou hast a house on high erect Frameed by that mighty Architect, With glory richly furnished, Stands permanent though this be fled. It's purchased and paid for too By Him who hath enough to do. A price so vast as is unknown, Yet by His gift is made thine own; There's wealth enough, I need no more, Farewell, my pelf, farewell, my store. The world no longer let me love, My hope and treasure lies above.

Stevens; Sunday Morning

I Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. She dreams a little, and she feels the dark Encroachment of that old catastrophe, As a calm darkens among water-lights. The pungent oranges and bright, green wings Seem things in some procession of the dead, Winding across wide water, without sound. The day is like wide water, without sound, Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet Over the seas, to silent Palestine, Dominion of the blood and sepulchre. II Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams? Shall she not find in comforts of the sun, In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else In any balm or beauty of the earth, Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven? Divinity must live within herself: Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow; Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued Elations when the forest blooms; gusty Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights; All pleasures and all pains, remembering The bough of summer and the winter branch. These are the measures destined for her soul. III Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth. No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind. He moved among us, as a muttering king, Magnificent, would move among his hinds, Until our blood, commingling, virginal, With heaven, brought such requital to desire The very hinds discerned it, in a star. Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be The blood of paradise? And shall the earth Seem all of paradise that we shall know? The sky will be much friendlier then than now, A part of labor and a part of pain, And next in glory to enduring love, Not this dividing and indifferent blue. IV She says, "I am content when wakened birds, Before they fly, test the reality Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings; But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields Return no more, where, then, is paradise?" There is not any haunt of prophecy, Nor any old chimera of the grave, Neither the golden underground, nor isle Melodious, where spirits gat them home, Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured As April's green endures; or will endure Like her remembrance of awakened birds, Or her desire for June and evening, tipped By the consummation of the swallow's wings. V She says, "But in contentment I still feel The need of some imperishable bliss." Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. Although she strews the leaves Of sure obliteration on our paths, The path sick sorrow took, the many paths Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love Whispered a little out of tenderness, She makes the willow shiver in the sun For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet. She causes boys to pile new plums and pears On disregarded plate. The maidens taste And stray impassioned in the littering leaves. VI Is there no change of death in paradise? Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth, With rivers like our own that seek for seas They never find, the same receding shores That never touch with inarticulate pang? Why set the pear upon those river-banks Or spice the shores with odors of the plum? Alas, that they should wear our colors there, The silken weavings of our afternoons, And pick the strings of our insipid lutes! Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, Within whose burning bosom we devise Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly. VII Supple and turbulent, a ring of men Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn Their boisterous devotion to the sun, Not as a god, but as a god might be, Naked among them, like a savage source. Their chant shall be a chant of paradise, Out of their blood, returning to the sky; And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice, The windy lake wherein their lord delights, The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills, That choir among themselves long afterward. They shall know well the heavenly fellowship Of men that perish and of summer morn. And whence they came and whither they shall go The dew upon their feet shall manifest. VIII She hears, upon that water without sound, A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine Is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay." We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

T.S Eliot: The Waste Land

I. The Burial of the Dead April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch. And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke's, My cousin's, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter. What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust. Frisch weht der Wind Der Heimat zu Mein Irisch Kind, Wo weilest du? "You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; "They called me the hyacinth girl." —Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden, Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence. Oed' und leer das Meer. Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, Had a bad cold, nevertheless Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she, Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor, (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, The lady of situations. Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel, And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card, Which is blank, is something he carries on his back, Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring. Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone, Tell her I bring the horoscope myself: One must be so careful these days. Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. Flowed up the hill and down King William Street, To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine. There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: "Stetson! "You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! "That corpse you planted last year in your garden, "Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? "Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed? "Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men, "Or with his nails he'll dig it up again! "You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!" II. A Game of Chess The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne, Glowed on the marble, where the glass Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines From which a golden Cupidon peeped out (Another hid his eyes behind his wing) Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra Reflecting light upon the table as The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it, From satin cases poured in rich profusion; In vials of ivory and coloured glass Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes, Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air That freshened from the window, these ascended In fattening the prolonged candle-flames, Flung their smoke into the laquearia, Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling. Huge sea-wood fed with copper Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone, In which sad light a carvéd dolphin swam. Above the antique mantel was displayed As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale Filled all the desert with inviolable voice And still she cried, and still the world pursues, "Jug Jug" to dirty ears. And other withered stumps of time Were told upon the walls; staring forms Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed. Footsteps shuffled on the stair. Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair Spread out in fiery points Glowed into words, then would be savagely still. "My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me. "Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak. "What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? "I never know what you are thinking. Think." I think we are in rats' alley Where the dead men lost their bones. "What is that noise?" The wind under the door. "What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?" Nothing again nothing. "Do "You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember "Nothing?" I remember Those are pearls that were his eyes. "Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?" But O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag— It's so elegant So intelligent "What shall I do now? What shall I do?" "I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street "With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow? "What shall we ever do?" The hot water at ten. And if it rains, a closed car at four. And we shall play a game of chess, Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door. When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said— I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself, HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart. He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there. You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set, He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you. And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert, He's been in the army four years, he wants a good time, And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said. Oh is there, she said. Something o' that, I said. Then I'll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look. HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME If you don't like it you can get on with it, I said. Others can pick and choose if you can't. But if Albert makes off, it won't be for lack of telling. You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique. (And her only thirty-one.) I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face, It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said. (She's had five already, and nearly died of young George.) The chemist said it would be all right, but I've never been the same. You are a proper fool, I said. Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is, I said, What you get married for if you don't want children? HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon, And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot— HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight. Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight. Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night. III. The Fire Sermon The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; Departed, have left no addresses. By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . . Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. But at my back in a cold blast I hear The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear. A rat crept softly through the vegetation Dragging its slimy belly on the bank While I was fishing in the dull canal On a winter evening round behind the gashouse Musing upon the king my brother's wreck And on the king my father's death before him. White bodies naked on the low damp ground And bones cast in a little low dry garret, Rattled by the rat's foot only, year to year. But at my back from time to time I hear The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring. O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter And on her daughter They wash their feet in soda water Et O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole! Twit twit twit Jug jug jug jug jug jug So rudely forc'd. Tereu Unreal City Under the brown fog of a winter noon Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants C.i.f. London: documents at sight, Asked me in demotic French To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel Followed by a weekend at the Metropole. At the violet hour, when the eyes and back Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits Like a taxi throbbing waiting, I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives, Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea, The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights Her stove, and lays out food in tins. Out of the window perilously spread Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays, On the divan are piled (at night her bed) Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays. I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest— I too awaited the expected guest. He, the young man carbuncular, arrives, A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare, One of the low on whom assurance sits As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire. The time is now propitious, as he guesses, The meal is ended, she is bored and tired, Endeavours to engage her in caresses Which still are unreproved, if undesired. Flushed and decided, he assaults at once; Exploring hands encounter no defence; His vanity requires no response, And makes a welcome of indifference. (And I Tiresias have foresuffered all Enacted on this same divan or bed; I who have sat by Thebes below the wall And walked among the lowest of the dead.) Bestows one final patronising kiss, And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . . She turns and looks a moment in the glass, Hardly aware of her departed lover; Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass: "Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over." When lovely woman stoops to folly and Paces about her room again, alone, She smoothes her hair with automatic hand, And puts a record on the gramophone. "This music crept by me upon the waters" And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street. O City city, I can sometimes hear Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, The pleasant whining of a mandoline And a clatter and a chatter from within Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls Of Magnus Martyr hold Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold. The river sweats Oil and tar The barges drift With the turning tide Red sails Wide To leeward, swing on the heavy spar. The barges wash Drifting logs Down Greenwich reach Past the Isle of Dogs. Weialala leia Wallala leialala Elizabeth and Leicester Beating oars The stern was formed A gilded shell Red and gold The brisk swell Rippled both shores Southwest wind Carried down stream The peal of bells White towers Weialala leia Wallala leialala "Trams and dusty trees. Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe." "My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart Under my feet. After the event He wept. He promised a 'new start.' I made no comment. What should I resent?" "On Margate Sands. I can connect Nothing with nothing. The broken fingernails of dirty hands. My people humble people who expect Nothing." la la To Carthage then I came Burning burning burning burning O Lord Thou pluckest me out O Lord Thou pluckest burning IV. Death by Water Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell And the profit and loss. A current under sea Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell He passed the stages of his age and youth Entering the whirlpool. Gentile or Jew O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you. V. What the Thunder Said After the torchlight red on sweaty faces After the frosty silence in the gardens After the agony in stony places The shouting and the crying Prison and palace and reverberation Of thunder of spring over distant mountains He who was living is now dead We who were living are now dying With a little patience Here is no water but only rock Rock and no water and the sandy road The road winding above among the mountains Which are mountains of rock without water If there were water we should stop and drink Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand If there were only water amongst the rock Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit There is not even silence in the mountains But dry sterile thunder without rain There is not even solitude in the mountains But red sullen faces sneer and snarl From doors of mudcracked houses If there were water And no rock If there were rock And also water And water A spring A pool among the rock If there were the sound of water only Not the cicada And dry grass singing But sound of water over a rock Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop But there is no water Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count, there are only you and I together But when I look ahead up the white road There is always another one walking beside you Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded I do not know whether a man or a woman —But who is that on the other side of you? What is that sound high in the air Murmur of maternal lamentation Who are those hooded hordes swarming Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth Ringed by the flat horizon only What is the city over the mountains Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air Falling towers Jerusalem Athens Alexandria Vienna London Unreal A woman drew her long black hair out tight And fiddled whisper music on those strings And bats with baby faces in the violet light Whistled, and beat their wings And crawled head downward down a blackened wall And upside down in air were towers Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells. In this decayed hole among the mountains In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home. It has no windows, and the door swings, Dry bones can harm no one. Only a cock stood on the rooftree Co co rico co co rico In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust Bringing rain Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves Waited for rain, while the black clouds Gathered far distant, over Himavant. The jungle crouched, humped in silence. Then spoke the thunder DA Datta: what have we given? My friend, blood shaking my heart The awful daring of a moment's surrender Which an age of prudence can never retract By this, and this only, we have existed Which is not to be found in our obituaries Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor In our empty rooms DA Dayadhvam: I have heard the key Turn in the door once and turn once only We think of the key, each in his prison Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus DA Damyata: The boat responded Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar The sea was calm, your heart would have responded Gaily, when invited, beating obedient To controlling hands I sat upon the shore Fishing, with the arid plain behind me Shall I at least set my lands in order? London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina Quando fiam uti chelidon—O swallow swallow Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie These fragments I have shored against my ruins Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe. Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. Shantih shantih shantih

T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question ... Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be time To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair — (They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!") My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin — (They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!") Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) Is it perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin? Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ... I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet — and here's no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it towards some overwhelming question, To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"— If one, settling a pillow by her head Should say: "That is not what I meant at all; That is not it, at all." And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— And this, and so much more?— It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: "That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all." No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old ... I grow old ... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Ashbery: The Grapevine

Of who we and all they areYou all now know. But you knowAfter they began to find us out we grewBefore they died thinking us the causes Of their acts. Now we'll not knowThe truth of some still at the piano, thoughThey often date from us, causingThese changes we think we are. We don't care Though, so tall up thereIn young air. But things get darker as we moveTo ask them: Whom must we get to knowTo die, so you live and we know?

Phyllis Wheatley: On Imagination

Thy various works, imperial queen, we see, How bright their forms! how deck'd with pomp by thee! Thy wond'rous acts in beauteous order stand, And all attest how potent is thine hand. From Helicon's refulgent heights attend, Ye sacred choir, and my attempts befriend: To tell her glories with a faithful tongue, Ye blooming graces, triumph in my song. Now here, now there, the roving Fancy flies, Till some lov'd object strikes her wand'ring eyes, Whose silken fetters all the senses bind, And soft captivity involves the mind. Imagination! who can sing thy force? Or who describe the swiftness of thy course? Soaring through air to find the bright abode, Th' empyreal palace of the thund'ring God, We on thy pinions can surpass the wind, And leave the rolling universe behind: From star to star the mental optics rove, Measure the skies, and range the realms above. There in one view we grasp the mighty whole, Or with new worlds amaze th' unbounded soul. Though Winter frowns to Fancy's raptur'd eyes The fields may flourish, and gay scenes arise; The frozen deeps may break their iron bands, And bid their waters murmur o'er the sands. Fair Flora may resume her fragrant reign, And with her flow'ry riches deck the plain; Sylvanus may diffuse his honours round, And all the forest may with leaves be crown'd: Show'rs may descend, and dews their gems disclose, And nectar sparkle on the blooming rose. Such is thy pow'r, nor are thine orders vain, O thou the leader of the mental train: In full perfection all thy works are wrought, And thine the sceptre o'er the realms of thought. Before thy throne the subject-passions bow, Of subject-passions sov'reign ruler thou; At thy command joy rushes on the heart, And through the glowing veins the spirits dart. Fancy might now her silken pinions try To rise from earth, and sweep th' expanse on high: From Tithon's bed now might Aurora rise, Her cheeks all glowing with celestial dies, While a pure stream of light o'erflows the skies. The monarch of the day I might behold, And all the mountains tipt with radiant gold, But I reluctant leave the pleasing views, Which Fancy dresses to delight the Muse; Winter austere forbids me to aspire, And northern tempests damp the rising fire; They chill the tides of Fancy's flowing sea, Cease then, my song, cease the unequal lay.

O'Hara: Ode to Joy

We shall have everything we want and there'll be no more dyingon the pretty plains or in the supper clubsfor our symbol we'll acknowledge vulgar materialistic laughterover an insatiable sexual appetiteand the streets will be filled with racing formsand the photographs of murderers and narcissists and movie starswill swell from the walls and books alive in steaming roomsto press against our burning flesh not once but interminablyas water flows down hill into the full-lipped basinand the adder dives for the ultimate ostrich eggand the feather cushion preens beneath a reclining monoliththat's sweating with post-exertion visibility and sweetnessnear the grave of loveNo more dying — We shall see the grave of love as a lovely sight and temporarynear the elm that spells the lovers' names in rootsand there'll be no more music but the ears in lips and no more witbut tongues in ears and no more drums but ears to thighsas evening signals nudities unknown to ancestors' imaginationsand the imagination itself will stagger like a tired paramour of ivoryunder the sculptural necessities of lust that never falterslike a six-mile runner from Sweden or Liberia covered with goldas lava flows up and over the far-down somnolent city's abdicationand the hermit always wanting to be lone is lone at lastand the weight of external heat crushes the heat-hating Puritanwhose self-defeating vice becomes a proper sepulcher at lastthat love may live — Buildings will go up into the dizzy air as love itself goes inand up the reeling life that it has chosen for once or allwhile in the sky a feeling of intemperate fondness will excite the birdsto swoop and veer like flies crawling across absorbed limbsthat weep a pearly perspiration on the sheets of brief attentionand the hairs dry out that summon anxious declaration of the organsas they rise like buildings to the needs of temporary neighborspouring hunger through the heart to feed desire in intravenous wayslike the ways of gods with humans in the innocent combination of lightand flesh or as the legends ride their heroes through the dark to foundgreat cities where all life is possible to maintain as long as timewhich wants us to remain for cocktails in a bar and after dinnerlets us live with itNo more dying

anne bradstreet: By Night when Others Soundly Slept

1 By night when others soundly slept And hath at once both ease and Rest, My waking eyes were open kept And so to lie I found it best. 2 I sought him whom my Soul did Love, With tears I sought him earnestly. He bow'd his ear down from Above. In vain I did not seek or cry. 3 My hungry Soul he fill'd with Good; He in his Bottle put my tears, My smarting wounds washt in his blood, And banisht thence my Doubts and fears. 4 What to my Saviour shall I give Who freely hath done this for me? I'll serve him here whilst I shall live And Loue him to Eternity.

Mckay: America

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness, And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth, Stealing my breath of life, I will confess I love this cultured hell that tests my youth. Her vigor flows like tides into my blood, Giving me strength erect against her hate, Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood. Yet, as a rebel fronts a king in state, I stand within her walls with not a shred Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer. Darkly I gaze into the days ahead, And see her might and granite wonders there, Beneath the touch of Time's unerring hand, Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.

Ashbery: The Instruction Manual

As I sit looking out of a window of the building I wish I did not have to write the instruction manual on the uses of a new metal. I look down into the street and see people, each walking with an inner peace, And envy them—they are so far away from me! Not one of them has to worry about getting out this manual on schedule. And, as my way is, I begin to dream, resting my elbows on the desk and leaning out of the window a little, Of dim Guadalajara! City of rose-colored flowers! City I wanted most to see, and most did not see, in Mexico! But I fancy I see, under the press of having to write the instruction manual, Your public square, city, with its elaborate little bandstand! The band is playing Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov. Around stand the flower girls, handing out rose- and lemon-colored flowers, Each attractive in her rose-and-blue striped dress (Oh! such shades of rose and blue), And nearby is the little white booth where women in green serve you green and yellow fruit. The couples are parading; everyone is in a holiday mood. First, leading the parade, is a dapper fellow Clothed in deep blue. On his head sits a white hat And he wears a mustache, which has been trimmed for the occasion. His dear one, his wife, is young and pretty; her shawl is rose, pink, and white. Her slippers are patent leather, in the American fashion, And she carries a fan, for she is modest, and does not want the crowd to see her face too often. But everybody is so busy with his wife or loved one I doubt they would notice the mustachioed man's wife. Here come the boys! They are skipping and throwing little things on the sidewalk Which is made of gray tile. One of them, a little older, has a toothpick in his teeth. He is silenter than the rest, and affects not to notice the pretty young girls in white. But his friends notice them, and shout their jeers at the laughing girls. Yet soon all this will cease, with the deepening of their years, And love bring each to the parade grounds for another reason. But I have lost sight of the young fellow with the toothpick. Wait—there he is—on the other side of the bandstand, Secluded from his friends, in earnest talk with a young girl Of fourteen or fifteen. I try to hear what they are saying But it seems they are just mumbling something—shy words of love, probably. She is slightly taller than he, and looks quietly down into his sincere eyes. She is wearing white. The breeze ruffles her long fine black hair against her olive cheek. Obviously she is in love. The boy, the young boy with the toothpick, he is in love too; His eyes show it. Turning from this couple, I see there is an intermission in the concert. The paraders are resting and sipping drinks through straws (The drinks are dispensed from a large glass crock by a lady in dark blue), And the musicians mingle among them, in their creamy white uniforms, and talk About the weather, perhaps, or how their kids are doing at school. Let us take this opportunity to tiptoe into one of the side streets. Here you may see one of those white houses with green trim That are so popular here. Look—I told you! It is cool and dim inside, but the patio is sunny. An old woman in gray sits there, fanning herself with a palm leaf fan. She welcomes us to her patio, and offers us a cooling drink. "My son is in Mexico City," she says. "He would welcome you too If he were here. But his job is with a bank there. Look, here is a photograph of him." And a dark-skinned lad with pearly teeth grins out at us from the worn leather frame. We thank her for her hospitality, for it is getting late And we must catch a view of the city, before we leave, from a good high place. That church tower will do—the faded pink one, there against the fierce blue of the sky. Slowly we enter. The caretaker, an old man dressed in brown and gray, asks us how long we have been in the city, and how we like it here. His daughter is scrubbing the steps—she nods to us as we pass into the tower. Soon we have reached the top, and the whole network of the city extends before us. There is the rich quarter, with its houses of pink and white, and its crumbling, leafy terraces. There is the poorer quarter, its homes a deep blue. There is the market, where men are selling hats and swatting flies And there is the public library, painted several shades of pale green and beige. Look! There is the square we just came from, with the promenaders. There are fewer of them, now that the heat of the day has increased, But the young boy and girl still lurk in the shadows of the bandstand. And there is the home of the little old lady— She is still sitting in the patio, fanning herself. How limited, but how complete withal, has been our experience of Guadalajara! We have seen young love, married love, and the love of an aged mother for her son. We have heard the music, tasted the drinks, and looked at colored houses. What more is there to do, except stay? And that we cannot do. And as a last breeze freshens the top of the weathered old tower, I turn my gaze Back to the instruction manual which has made me dream of Guadalajara.

Ashbery: Self Portrait in a convex Mirror

As Parmigianino did it, the right handBigger than the head, thrust at the viewerAnd swerving easily away, as though to protectWhat it advertises. A few leaded panes, old beams,Fur, pleated muslin, a coral ring run togetherIn a movement supporting the face, which swimsToward and away like the handExcept that it is in repose. It is what isSequestered. Vasari says, "Francesco one day set himselfTo take his own portrait, looking at himself from that purposeIn a convex mirror, such as is used by barbers . . .He accordingly caused a ball of wood to be madeBy a turner, and having divided it in half andBrought it to the size of the mirror, he set himselfWith great art to copy all that he saw in the glass,"Chiefly his reflection, of which the portraitIs the reflection, of which the portraitIs the reflection once removed.The glass chose to reflect only what he sawWhich was enough for his purpose: his imageGlazed, embalmed, projected at a 180-degree angle.The time of day or the density of the lightAdhering to the face keeps itLively and intact in a recurring waveOf arrival. The soul establishes itself.But how far can it swim out through the eyesAnd still return safely to its nest? The surfaceOf the mirror being convex, the distance increasesSignificantly; that is, enough to make the pointThat the soul is a captive, treated humanely, keptIn suspension, unable to advance much fartherThan your look as it intercepts the picture.Pope Clement and his court were "stupefied"By it, according to Vasari, and promised a commissionThat never materialized. The soul has to stay where it is,Even though restless, hearing raindrops at the pane,The sighing of autumn leaves thrashed by the wind,Longing to be free, outside, but it must stayPosing in this place. It must moveAs little as possible. This is what the portrait says.But there is in that gaze a combinationOf tenderness, amusement and regret, so powerfulIn its restraint that one cannot look for long.The secret is too plain. The pity of it smarts,Makes hot tears spurt: that the soul is not a soul,Has no secret, is small, and it fitsIts hollow perfectly: its room, our moment of attention.That is the tune but there are no words.The words are only speculation(From the Latin speculum, mirror):They seek and cannot find the meaning of the music.We see only postures of the dream,Riders of the motion that swings the faceInto view under evening skies, with noFalse disarray as proof of authenticity.But it is life englobed.One would like to stick one's handOut of the globe, but its dimension,What carries it, will not allow it.No doubt it is this, not the reflexTo hide something, which makes the hand loom largeAs it retreats slightly. There is no wayTo build it flat like a section of wall:It must join the segment of a circle,Roving back to the body of which it seemsSo unlikely a part, to fence in and shore up the faceOn which the effort of this condition readsLike a pinpoint of a smile, a sparkOr star one is not sure of having seenAs darkness resumes. A perverse light whoseImperative of subtlety dooms in advance itsConceit to light up: unimportant but meant.Francesco, your hand is big enoughTo wreck the sphere, and too big,One would think, to weave delicate meshesThat only argue its further detention.(Big, but not coarse, merely on another scale,Like a dozing whale on the sea bottomIn relation to the tiny, self-important shipOn the surface.) But your eyes proclaimThat everything is surface. The surface is what's thereAnd nothing can exist except what's there.There are no recesses in the room, only alcoves,And the window doesn't matter much, or thatSliver of window or mirror on the right, evenAs a gauge of the weather, which in French isLe temps, the word for time, and whichFollows a course wherein changes are merelyFeatures of the whole. The whole is stable withinInstability, a globe like ours, restingOn a pedestal of vacuum, a ping-pong ballSecure on its jet of water.And just as there are no words for the surface, that is,No words to say what it really is, that it is notSuperficial but a visible core, then there isNo way out of the problem of pathos vs. experience.You will stay on, restive, serene inYour gesture which is neither embrace nor warningBut which holds something of both in pureAffirmation that doesn't affirm anything.The balloon pops, the attentionTurns dully away. CloudsIn the puddle stir up into sawtoothed fragments.I think of the friendsWho came to see me, of what yesterdayWas like. A peculiar slantOf memory that intrudes on the dreaming modelIn the silence of the studio as he considersLifting the pencil to the self-portrait.How many people came and stayed a certain time,Uttered light or dark speech that became part of youLike light behind windblown fog and sand,Filtered and influenced by it, until no partRemains that is surely you. Those voices in the duskHave told you all and still the tale goes onIn the form of memories deposited in irregularClumps of crystals. Whose curved hand controls,Francesco, the turning seasons and the thoughtsThat peel off and fly away at breathless speedsLike the last stubborn leaves rippedFrom wet branches? I see in this only the chaosOf your round mirror which organizes everythingAround the polestar of your eyes which are empty,Know nothing, dream but reveal nothing.I feel the carousel starting slowlyAnd going faster and faster: desk, papers, books,Photographs of friends, the window and the treesMerging in one neutral band that surroundsMe on all sides, everywhere I look.And I cannot explain the action of leveling,Why it should all boil down to oneUniform substance, a magma of interiors.My guide in these matters is your self,Firm, oblique, accepting everything with the sameWraith of a smile, and as time speeds up so that it is soonMuch later, I can know only the straight way out,The distance between us. Long agoThe strewn evidence meant something,The small accidents and pleasuresOf the day as it moved gracelessly on,A housewife doing chores. Impossible nowTo restore those properties in the silver blur that isThe record of what you accomplished by sitting down"With great art to copy all that you saw in the glass"So as to perfect and rule out the extraneousForever. In the circle of your intentions certain sparsRemain that perpetuate the enchantment of self with self:Eyebeams, muslin, coral. It doesn't matterBecause these are things as they are todayBefore one's shadow ever grewOut of the field into thoughts of tomorrow.Tomorrow is easy, but today is uncharted,Desolate, reluctant as any landscapeTo yield what are laws of perspectiveAfter all only to the painter's deepMistrust, a weak instrument thoughNecessary. Of course some thingsAre possible, it knows, but it doesn't knowWhich ones. Some day we will tryTo do as many things as are possibleAnd perhaps we shall succeed at a handfulOf them, but this will not have anythingTo do with what is promised today, ourLandscape sweeping out from us to disappearOn the horizon. Today enough of a cover burnishesTo keep the supposition of promises togetherIn one piece of surface, letting one rambleBack home from them so that theseEven stronger possibilities can remainWhole without being tested. ActuallyThe skin of the bubble-chamber's as tough asReptile eggs; everything gets "programmed" thereIn due course: more keeps getting includedWithout adding to the sum, and just as oneGets accustomed to a noise thatKept one awake but now no longer does,So the room contains this flow like an hourglassWithout varying in climate or quality(Except perhaps to brighten bleakly and almostInvisibly, in a focus sharpening toward death--moreOf this later). What should be the vacuum of a dreamBecomes continually replete as the source of dreamsIs being tapped so that this one dreamMay wax, flourish like a cabbage rose,Defying sumptuary laws, leaving usTo awake and try to begin living in whatHas now become a slum. Sydney Freedberg in hisParmigianino says of it: "Realism in this portraitNo longer produces and objective truth, but a bizarria . . . .However its distortion does not createA feeling of disharmony . . . . The forms retainA strong measure of ideal beauty," becauseFed by our dreams, so inconsequential until one dayWe notice the hole they left. Now their importanceIf not their meaning is plain. They were to nourishA dream which includes them all, as they areFinally reversed in the accumulating mirror.They seemed strange because we couldn't actually see them.And we realize this only at a point where they lapseLike a wave breaking on a rock, giving upIts shape in a gesture which expresses that shape.The forms retain a strong measure of ideal beautyAs they forage in secret on our idea of distortion.Why be unhappy with this arrangement, sinceDreams prolong us as they are absorbed?Something like living occurs, a movementOut of the dream into its codification.As I start to forget itIt presents its stereotype againBut it is an unfamiliar stereotype, the faceRiding at anchor, issued from hazards, soonTo accost others, "rather angel than man" (Vasari).Perhaps an angel looks like everythingWe have forgotten, I mean forgottenThings that don't seem familiar whenWe meet them again, lost beyond telling,Which were ours once. This would be the pointOf invading the privacy of this man who"Dabbled in alchemy, but whose wishHere was not to examine the subtleties of artIn a detached, scientific spirit: he wished through themTo impart the sense of novelty and amazement to the spectator"(Freedberg). Later portraits such as the Uffizi"Gentleman," the Borghese "Young Prelate" andThe Naples "Antea" issue from ManneristTensions, but here, as Freedberg points out,The surprise, the tension are in the conceptRather than its realization.The consonance of the High RenaissanceIs present, though distorted by the mirror.What is novel is the extreme care in renderingThe velleities of the rounded reflecting surface(It is the first mirror portrait),So that you could be fooled for a momentBefore you realize the reflectionIsn't yours. You feel then like one of thoseHoffmann characters who have been deprivedOf a reflection, except that the whole of meIs seen to be supplanted by the strictOtherness of the painter in hisOther room. We have surprised himAt work, but no, he has surprised usAs he works. The picture is almost finished,The surprise almost over, as when one looks out,Startled by a snowfall which even now isEnding in specks and sparkles of snow.It happened while you were inside, asleep,And there is no reason why you should haveBeen awake for it, except that the dayIs ending and it will be hard for youTo get to sleep tonight, at least until late.The shadow of the city injects its ownUrgency: Rome where FrancescoWas at work during the Sack: his inventionsAmazed the soldiers who burst in on him;They decided to spare his life, but he left soon after;Vienna where the painting is today, whereI saw it with Pierre in the summer of 1959; New YorkWhere I am now, which is a logarithmOf other cities. Our landscapeIs alive with filiations, shuttlings;Business is carried on by look, gesture,Hearsay. It is another life to the city,The backing of the looking glass of theUnidentified but precisely sketched studio. It wantsTo siphon off the life of the studio, deflateIts mapped space to enactments, island it.That operation has been temporarily stalledBut something new is on the way, a new preciosityIn the wind. Can you stand it,Francesco? Are you strong enough for it?This wind brings what it knows not, isSelf--propelled, blind, has no notionOf itself. It is inertia that onceAcknowledged saps all activity, secret or public:Whispers of the word that can't be understoodBut can be felt, a chill, a blightMoving outward along the capes and peninsulasOf your nervures and so to the archipelagoesAnd to the bathed, aired secrecy of the open sea.This is its negative side. Its positive side isMaking you notice life and the stressesThat only seemed to go away, but now,As this new mode questions, are seen to beHastening out of style. If they are to become classicsThey must decide which side they are on.Their reticence has underminedThe urban scenery, made its ambiguitiesLook willful and tired, the games of an old man.What we need now is this unlikelyChallenger pounding on the gates of an amazedCastle. Your argument, Francesco,Had begun to grow stale as no answerOr answers were forthcoming. If it dissolves nowInto dust, that only means its time had comeSome time ago, but look now, and listen:It may be that another life is stocked thereIn recesses no one knew of; that it,Not we, are the change; that we are in fact itIf we could get back to it, relive some of the wayIt looked, turn our faces to the globe as it setsAnd still be coming out all right:Nerves normal, breath normal. Since it is a metaphorMade to include us, we are a part of it andCan live in it as in fact we have done,Only leaving our minds bare for questioningWe now see will not take place at randomBut in an orderly way that means to menaceNobody--the normal way things are done,Like the concentric growing up of daysAround a life: correctly, if you think about it.A breeze like the turning of a pageBrings back your face: the momentTakes such a big bite out of the hazeOf pleasant intuition it comes after.The locking into place is "death itself,"As Berg said of a phrase in Mahler's Ninth;Or, to quote Imogen in Cymbeline, "There cannotBe a pinch in death more sharp than this," for,Though only exercise or tactic, it carriesThe momentum of a conviction that had been building.Mere forgetfulness cannot remove itNor wishing bring it back, as long as it remainsThe white precipitate of its dreamIn the climate of sighs flung across our world,A cloth over a birdcage. But it is certain thatWhat is beautiful seems so only in relation to a specificLife, experienced or not, channeled into some formSteeped in the nostalgia of a collective past.The light sinks today with an enthusiasmI have known elsewhere, and known whyIt seemed meaningful, that others felt this wayYears ago. I go on consultingThis mirror that is no longer mineFor as much brisk vacancy as is to beMy portion this time. And the vase is always fullBecause there is only just so much roomAnd it accommodates everything. The sampleOne sees is not to be taken asMerely that, but as everything as itMay be imagined outside time--not as a gestureBut as all, in the refined, assimilable state.But what is this universe the porch ofAs it veers in and out, back and forth,Refusing to surround us and still the onlyThing we can see? Love onceTipped the scales but now is shadowed, invisible,Though mysteriously present, around somewhere.But we know it cannot be sandwichedBetween two adjacent moments, that its windingsLead nowhere except to further tributariesAnd that these empty themselves into a vagueSense of something that can never be knownEven though it seems likely that each of usKnows what it is and is capable ofCommunicating it to the other. But the lookSome wear as a sign makes one want toPush forward ignoring the apparentNaÏveté of the attempt, not caringThat no one is listening, since the lightHas been lit once and for all in their eyesAnd is present, unimpaired, a permanent anomaly,Awake and silent. On the surface of itThere seems no special reason why that lightShould be focused by love, or whyThe city falling with its beautiful suburbsInto space always less clear, less defined,Should read as the support of its progress,The easel upon which the drama unfoldedTo its own satisfaction and to the endOf our dreaming, as we had never imaginedIt would end, in worn daylight with the paintedPromise showing through as a gage, a bond.This nondescript, never-to-be defined daytime isThe secret of where it takes placeAnd we can no longer return to the variousConflicting statements gathered, lapses of memoryOf the principal witnesses. All we knowIs that we are a little early, thatToday has that special, lapidaryTodayness that the sunlight reproducesFaithfully in casting twig-shadows on blitheSidewalks. No previous day would have been like this.I used to think they were all alike,That the present always looked the same to everybodyBut this confusion drains away as oneIs always cresting into one's present.Yet the "poetic," straw-colored spaceOf the long corridor that leads back to the painting,Its darkening opposite--is thisSome figment of "art," not to be imaginedAs real, let alone special? Hasn't it too its lairIn the present we are always escaping fromAnd falling back into, as the waterwheel of daysPursues its uneventful, even serene course?I think it is trying to say it is todayAnd we must get out of it even as the publicIs pushing through the museum now so as toBe out by closing time. You can't live there.The gray glaze of the past attacks all know-how:Secrets of wash and finish that took a lifetimeTo learn and are reduced to the status ofBlack-and-white illustrations in a book where colorplatesAre rare. That is, all timeReduces to no special time. No oneAlludes to the change; to do so mightInvolve calling attention to oneselfWhich would augment the dread of not getting outBefore having seen the whole collection(Except for the sculptures in the basement:They are where they belong).Our time gets to be veiled, compromisedBy the portrait's will to endure. It hints atOur own, which we were hoping to keep hidden.We don't need paintings orDoggerel written by mature poets whenThe explosion is so precise, so fine.Is there any point even in acknowledgingThe existence of all that? Does itExist? Certainly the leisure toIndulge stately pastimes doesn't,Any more. Today has no margins, the event arrivesFlush with its edges, is of the same substance,Indistinguishable. "Play" is something else;It exists, in a society specificallyOrganized as a demonstration of itself.There is no other way, and those assholesWho would confuse everything with their mirror gamesWhich seem to multiply stakes and possibilities, orAt least confuse issues by means of an investingAura that would corrode the architectureOf the whole in a haze of suppressed mockery,Are beside the point. They are out of the game,Which doesn't exist until they are out of it.It seems like a very hostile universeBut as the principle of each individual thing isHostile to, exists at the expense of all the othersAs philosophers have often pointed out, at leastThis thing, the mute, undivided present,Has the justification of logic, whichIn this instance isn't a bad thingOr wouldn't be, if the way of tellingDidn't somehow intrude, twisting the end resultInto a caricature of itself. This alwaysHappens, as in the game whereA whispered phrase passed around the roomEnds up as something completely different.It is the principle that makes works of art so unlikeWhat the artist intended. Often he findsHe has omitted the thing he started out to sayIn the first place. Seduced by flowers,Explicit pleasures, he blames himself (thoughSecretly satisfied with the result), imaginingHe had a say in the matter and exercisedAn option of which he was hardly conscious,Unaware that necessity circumvents such resolutions.So as to create something newFor itself, that there is no other way,That the history of creation proceeds according toStringent laws, and that thingsDo get done in this way, but never the thingsWe set out to accomplish and wanted so desperatelyTo see come into being. ParmigianinoMust have realized this as he worked at hisLife-obstructing task. One is forced to readThe perfectly plausible accomplishment of a purposeInto the smooth, perhaps even bland (but soEnigmatic) finish. Is there anythingTo be serious about beyond this othernessThat gets included in the most ordinaryForms of daily activity, changing everythingSlightly and profoundly, and tearing the matterOf creation, any creation, not just artistic creationOut of our hands, to install it on some monstrous, nearPeak, too close to ignore, too farFor one to intervene? This otherness, this"Not-being-us" is all there is to look atIn the mirror, though no one can sayHow it came to be this way. A shipFlying unknown colors has entered the harbor.You are allowing extraneous mattersTo break up your day, cloud the focusOf the crystal ball. Its scene drifts awayLike vapor scattered on the wind. The fertileThought-associations that until now cameSo easily, appear no more, or rarely. TheirColorings are less intense, washed outBy autumn rains and winds, spoiled, muddied,Given back to you because they are worthless.Yet we are such creatures of habit that theirImplications are still around en permanence, confusingIssues. To be serious only about sexIs perhaps one way, but the sands are hissingAs they approach the beginning of the big slideInto what happened. This pastIs now here: the painter'sReflected face, in which we linger, receivingDreams and inspirations on an unassignedFrequency, but the hues have turned metallic,The curves and edges are not so rich. Each personHas one big theory to explain the universeBut it doesn't tell the whole storyAnd in the end it is what is outside himThat matters, to him and especially to usWho have been given no help whateverIn decoding our own man-size quotient and must relyOn second-hand knowledge. Yet I knowThat no one else's taste is going to beAny help, and might as well be ignored.Once it seemed so perfect--gloss on the fineFreckled skin, lips moistened as though about to partReleasing speech, and the familiar lookOf clothes and furniture that one forgets.This could have been our paradise: exoticRefuge within an exhausted world, but that wasn'tIn the cards, because it couldn't have beenThe point. Aping naturalness may be the first stepToward achieving an inner calmBut it is the first step only, and oftenRemains a frozen gesture of welcome etchedOn the air materializing behind it,A convention. And we have reallyNo time for these, except to use themFor kindling. The sooner they are burnt upThe better for the roles we have to play.Therefore I beseech you, withdraw that hand,Offer it no longer as shield or greeting,The shield of a greeting, Francesco:There is room for one bullet in the chamber:Our looking through the wrong endOf the telescope as you fall back at a speedFaster than that of light to flatten ultimatelyAmong the features of the room, an invitationNever mailed, the "it was all a dream"Syndrome, though the "all" tells terselyEnough how it wasn't. Its existenceWas real, though troubled, and the acheOf this waking dream can never drown outThe diagram still sketched on the wind,Chosen, meant for me and materializedIn the disguising radiance of my room.We have seen the city; it is the gibbousMirrored eye of an insect. All things happenOn its balcony and are resumed within,But the action is the cold, syrupy flowOf a pageant. One feels too confined,Sifting the April sunlight for clues,In the mere stillness of the ease of itsParameter. The hand holds no chalkAnd each part of the whole falls offAnd cannot know it knew, exceptHere and there, in cold pocketsOf remembrance, whispers out of time.

Notley: At Night the states

At night the states I forget them or I wish I was there in that one under the Stars. It smells like June in this night so sweet like air. I may have decided that the States are not that tired Or I have thought so. I have thought that. At night the states And the world not that tired of everyone Maybe. Honey, I think that to say is in light. Or whoever. We will never replace you. We will never re- place You. But in like a dream the floor is no longer discursive To me it doesn't please me by being the vistas out my window, do you know what Of course (not) I mean? I have no dreams of wake- fulness. In wakefulness. And so to begin. (my love.) At night the states talk. My initial continuing contr- diction my love for you & that for me deep down in the Purple Plant the oldest dust of it is sweetest but states no longer how I would feel. Shirt that shirt has been in your arms And I have that shirt is how I feel At night the states will you continue in this as- sociation of matters, my Dearest? down the street from where the public plaque reminds that of private loving the consequential chain trail is matters At night the states that it doesn't matter that I don't say them, remember them at the end of this claustro- phobic the dance, I wish I could see I wish I could dance her. At this night the states say them out there. That I am, am them indefinitely so and so wishful passive historic fated and matter- simple, matter-simple, an eyeful. I wish but I don't and little melody. Sorry that these little things don't happen any more. The states have drained their magicks for I have not seen them. Best not to tell. But you you would always remain, I trust, as I will always be alone. At night the states whistle. Anyone can live. I can. I am not doing any- thing doing this. I discover I love as I figure. Wed- nesday I wanted to say something in particular. I have been where. I have seen it. The God can. The people do some more. At night the states I let go of, have let, don't let Some, and some, in Florida, doing. What takes you so long? I am still with you in that part of the park, and vice will continue, but I'll have a cleaning Maine. Who loses these names loses. I can't bring it up yet, keeping my opinions to herself. Everybody in any room is a smuggler. I walked fiery and talked in the stars of the automatic weapons and partly for you Which you. You know. At night the states have told it already. Have told it. I know it. But more that they don't know, I know it too. At night the states whom I do stand before in judgment, I think that they will find me fair, not that they care in fact nor do I, right now though indeed I am they and we say that not that I've erred nor lost my way though perhaps they did (did they) and now he is dead but you you are not. Yet I am this one, lost again? lost & found by one- self Who are you to dare sing to me? At night the states accompany me while I sit here or drums there are always drums what for so I won't lose my way the name of a personality, say, not California I am not sad for you though I could be I remember climbing up a hill under tall trees getting home. I was going to say that the air was fair (I was always saying something like that) but that's not it now, and that that's not it isn't it either At night the states dare sing to me they who seem tawdry any more I've not thought I loved them, only you it's you whom I love the states are not good to me as I am to them though perhaps I am not when I think of your being so beautiful but is that your beauty or could it be theirs I'm having such a hard time remembering any of their names your being beautiful belongs to nothing I don't believe they should praise you but I seem to believe they should somehow let you go At night the states and when you go down to Washington witness how perfectly anything in particular sheets of thoughts what a waste of sheets at night. I remember something about an up-to-date theory of time. I have my own white rose for I have done something well but I'm not clear what it is. Weathered, perhaps but that's never done. What's done is perfection. At night the states ride the train to Baltimore we will try to acknowledge what was but that's not the real mirror is it? nor is it empty, or only my eyes are Ride the car home from Washington no they are not. Ride the subway home from Pennsylvania Station. The states are blind eyes stony smooth shut in moon- light. My French is the shape of this book that means I. At night the states the 14 pieces. I couldn't just walk on by. Why aren't they beautiful enough in a way that does not beg to wring something from a dry (wet) something Call my name At night the states making life, not explaining anything but all the popular songs say call my name oh call my name, and if I call it out myself to you, call mine out instead as our poets do will you still walk on by? I have loved you for so long. You died and on the wind they sang your name to me but you said nothing. Yet you said once before and there it is, there, but it is so still. Oh being alone I call out my name and once you did and do still in a way you do call out your name to these states whose way is to walk on by that's why I write too much At night the states whoever you love that's who you love the difference between chaos and star I believe and in that difference they believed in some funny way but that wasn't what I I believed that out of this fatigue would be born a light, what is fatigue there is a man whose face changes continually but I will never, something I will never with regard to it or never regard I will regard yours tomorrow I will wear purple will I and call my name At night the states you who are alive, you who are dead when I love you alone all night and that is what I do until I could never write from your being enough I don't want that trick of making it be coaxed from the words not tonight I want it coaxed from myself but being not that. But I'd feel more comfortable about it being words if it were if that's what it were for these are the States where what words are true are words Not myself. Montana, Illinois. Escondido.

Toomer, Cane, Evening Song

Full moon rising on the waters of my heart, Lakes and moon and fires, Cloine tires,Holding her lips apart. Promises of slumber leaving shore to charm the moon, Miracle made vesper-keeps, Cloine sleeps, And I'll be sleeping soon. Cloine, curled like the sleepy waters where the moon-waves start, Radiant, resplendently she gleams, Cloine dreams, Lips pressed against my heart.

Toomer, Cane, Face

Hair— silver-gray, like streams of stars, Brows— recurved canoes quivered by the ripples blown by pain, Her eyes— mist of tears condensing on the flesh below And her channeled muscles are cluster grapes of sorrow purple in the evening sun nearly ripe for worms.

Stevens

IIn that November off Tehuantepec,The slopping of the sea grew still one nightAnd in the morning summer hued the deckAnd made one think of rosy chocolateAnd gilt umbrellas. Paradisal greenGave suavity to the perplexed machineOf ocean, which like limpid water lay.Who, then, in that ambrosial latitudeOut of the light evolved the morning blooms,Who, then, evolved the sea-blooms from the cloudsDiffusing balm in that Pacific calm?C'etait mon enfant, mon bijou, mon ame.The sea-clouds whitened far below the calmAnd moved, as blooms move, in the swimming greenAnd in its watery radiance, while the hueOf heaven in an antique reflection rolledRound those flotillas. And sometimes the seaPoured brilliant iris on the glistening blue. IIIn that November off TehuantepecThe slopping of the sea grew still one night.At breakfast jelly yellow streaked the deckAnd made one think of chop-house chocolateAnd sham umbrellas. And a sham-like greenCapped summer-seeming on the tense machineOf ocean, which in sinister flatness lay.Who, then, beheld the rising of the cloudsThat strode submerged in that malevolent sheen,Who saw the mortal massives of the bloomsOf water moving on the water-floor?C'etait mon frere du ciel, ma vie, mon or.The gongs rang loudly as the windy boomsHoo-hooed it in the darkened ocean-blooms.The gongs grew still. And then blue heaven spreadIts crystalline pendentives on the seaAnd the macabre of the water-gloomsIn an enormous undulation fled. IIIIn that November off Tehuantepec,The slopping of the sea grew still one nightAnd a pale silver patterned on the deckAnd made one think of porcelain chocolateAnd pied umbrellas. An uncertain green,Piano-polished, held the tranced machineOf ocean, as a prelude holds and holds,Who, seeing silver petals of white bloomsUnfolding in the water, feeling sureOf the milk within the saltiest spurge, heard, then,The sea unfolding in the sunken clouds?Oh! C'etait mon extase et mon amour.So deeply sunken were they that the shrouds,The shrouding shadows, made the petals blackUntil the rolling heaven made them blue,A blue beyond the rainy hyacinth,And smiting the crevasses of the leavesDeluged the ocean with a sapphire blue. IVIn that November off TehuantepecThe night-long slopping of the sea grew still.A mallow morning dozed upon the deckAnd made one think of musky chocolateAnd frail umbrellas. A too-fluent greenSuggested malice in the dry machineOf ocean, pondering dank stratagem.Who then beheld the figures of the cloudsLike blooms secluded in the thick marine?Like blooms? Like damasks that were shaken offFrom the loosed girdles in the spangling must.C'etait ma foi, la nonchalance divine.The nakedness would rise and suddenly turnSalt masks of beard and mouths of bellowing,Would--But more suddenly the heaven rolledIts bluest sea-clouds in the thinking green,And the nakedness became the broadest blooms,Mile-mallows that a mallow sun cajoled. VIn that November off TehuantepecNight stilled the slopping of the sea.The day came, bowing and voluble, upon the deck,Good clown... One thought of Chinese chocolateAnd large umbrellas. And a motley greenFollowed the drift of the obese machineOf ocean, perfected in indolence.What pistache one, ingenious and droll,Beheld the sovereign clouds as juggleryAnd the sea as turquoise-turbaned *****, neatAt tossing saucers--cloudy-conjuring sea?C'etait mon esprit batard, l'ignominie.The sovereign clouds came clustering. The conchOf loyal conjuration *******. The windOf green blooms turning crisped the motley hueTo clearing opalescence. Then the seaAnd heaven rolled as one and from the twoCame fresh transfigurings of freshest blue.

Anne Bradstreet :The Author to her Book

Thou ill-form'd offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth didst by my side remain, Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true, Who thee abroad, expos'd to publick view, Made thee in raggs, halting to th' press to trudge, Where errors were not lessened (all may judg). At thy return my blushing was not small, My rambling brat (in print) should mother call, I cast thee by as one unfit for light, Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight; Yet being mine own, at length affection would Thy blemishes amend, if so I could: I wash'd thy face, but more defects I saw, And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw. I stretched thy joynts to make thee even feet, Yet still thou run'st more hobling then is meet; In better dress to trim thee was my mind, But nought save home-spun Cloth, i' th' house I find. In this array 'mongst Vulgars mayst thou roam. In Criticks hands, beware thou dost not come; And take thy way where yet thou art not known, If for thy Father askt, say, thou hadst none: And for thy Mother, she alas is poor, Which caus'd her thus to send thee out of door.

Toomer, Cane, Her Lips are Copper Wire

whisper of yellow globesgleaming on lamp-posts that swaylike bootleg licker drinkers in the fog and let your breath be moist against melike bright beads on yellow globes telephone the power-housethat the main wires are insulate (her words play softly up and downdewy corridors of billboards) then with your tongue remove the tape and press your lips to mine till they are incandescent

Whitman I, selections from Calamus; FOR YOU O DEMOCRACY.

COME, I will make the continent indissoluble, I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon, I will make divine magnetic lands,With the love of comrades,With the life-long love of comrades. I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers ofAmerica, and along the shores of the great lakes, and allover the prairies, I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other's necks, By the love of comrades,By the manly love of comrades. For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you ma femme! For you, for you I am trilling these songs.

Rankine, excerpts from Citizen

/ You are in the dark, in the car, watching the black-tarred street being swallowed by speed; he tells you his dean is making him hire a person of color when there are so many great writers out there. You think maybe this is an experiment and you are being tested or retroactively insulted or you have done something that communicates this is an okay conversation to be having. Why do you feel okay saying this to me? You wish the light would turn red or a police siren would go off so you could slam on the brakes, slam into the car ahead of you, be propelled forward so quickly both your faces would suddenly be exposed to the wind. As usual you drive straight through the moment with the expected backing off of what was previously said. It is not only that confrontation is headache producing; it is also that you have a destination that doesn't include acting like this moment isn't inhabitable, hasn't happened before, and the before isn't part of the now as the night darkens and the time shortens between where we are and where we are going. / When you arrive in your driveway and turn off the car, you remain behind the wheel another ten minutes. You fear the night is being locked in and coded on a cellular level and want time to function as a power wash. Sitting there staring at the closed garage door you are reminded that a friend once told you there exists a medical term — John Henryism — for people exposed to stresses stemming from racism. They achieve themselves to death trying to dodge the build up of erasure. Sherman James, the researcher who came up with the term, claimed the physiological costs were high. You hope by sitting in silence you are bucking the trend. / When the stranger asks, Why do you care? you just stand there staring at him. He has just referred to the boisterous teenagers in Starbucks as ******s. Hey, I am standing right here, you responded, not necessarily expecting him to turn to you. He is holding the lidded paper cup in one hand and a small paper bag in the other. They are just being kids. Come on, no need to get all KKK on them, you say. Now there you go, he responds. The people around you have turned away from their screens. The teenagers are on pause. There I go? you ask, feeling irritation begin to rain down. Yes, and something about hearing yourself repeating this stranger's accusation in a voice usually reserved for your partner makes you smile. / A man knocked over her son in the subway. You feel your own body wince. He's okay, but the son of a bitch kept walking. She says she grabbed the stranger's arm and told him to apologize: I told him to look at the boy and apologize. And yes, you want it to stop, you want the black child pushed to the ground to be seen, to be helped to his feet and be brushed off, not brushed off by the person that did not see him, has never seen him, has perhaps never seen anyone who is not a reflection of himself. The beautiful thing is that a group of men began to stand behind me like a fleet of bodyguards, she says, like newly found uncles and brothers. / The new therapist specializes in trauma counseling. You have only ever spoken on the phone. Her house has a side gate that leads to a back entrance she uses for patients. You walk down a path bordered on both sides with deer grass and rosemary to the gate, which turns out to be locked. At the front door the bell is a small round disc that you press firmly. When the door finally opens, the woman standing there yells, at the top of her lungs, Get away from my house. What are you doing in my yard? It's as if a wounded Doberman pinscher or a German shepherd has gained the power of speech. And though you back up a few steps, you manage to tell her you have an appointment. You have an appointment? she spits back. Then she pauses. Everything pauses. Oh, she says, followed by, oh, yes, that's right. I am sorry. I am so sorry, so, so sorry. /

Mckay: The Tropics in New York

Bananas ripe and green, and ginger-root, Cocoa in pods and alligator pears, And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit, Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs, Set in the window, bringing memories Of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills, And dewy dawns, and mystical blue skies In benediction over nun-like hills. My eyes grew dim, and I could no more gaze; A wave of longing through my body swept, And, hungry for the old, familiar ways, I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.

Stein: Food from Tender Buttons

ROASTBEEF; MUTTON; BREAKFAST; SUGAR; CRANBERRIES; MILK; EGGS; APPLE; TAILS; LUNCH; CUPS; RHUBARB; SINGLE; FISH; CAKE; CUSTARD; POTATOES; ASPARAGUS; BUTTER; END OF SUMMER; SAUSAGES; CELERY; VEAL; VEGETABLE; COOKING; CHICKEN; PASTRY; CREAM; CUCUMBER; DINNER; DINING; EATING; SALAD; SAUCE; SALMON; ORANGE; COCOA; AND CLEAR SOUP AND ORANGES AND OAT-MEAL; SALAD DRESSING AND AN ARTICHOKE; A CENTRE IN A TABLE.ROASTBEEF.In the inside there is sleeping, in the outside there is reddening, in the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling. In the evening there is feeling. In feeling anything is resting, in feeling anything is mounting, in feeling there is resignation, in feeling there is recognition, in feeling there is recurrence and entirely mistaken there is pinching. All the standards have steamers and all the curtains have bed linen and all the yellow has discrimination and all the circle has circling. This makes sand.Very well. Certainly the length is thinner and the rest, the round rest has a longer summer. To shine, why not shine, to shine, to station, to enlarge, to hurry the measure all this means nothing if there is singing, if there is singing then there is the resumption.The change the dirt, not to change dirt means that there is no beefsteak and not to have that is no obstruction, it is so easy to exchange meaning, it is so easy to see the difference. The difference is that a plain resource is not entangled with thickness and it does not mean that thickness shows such cutting, it does mean that a meadow is useful and a cow absurd. It does not mean that there are tears, it does not mean that exudation is cumbersome, it means no more than a memory, a choice and a reëstablishment, it means more than any escape from a surrounding extra. All the time that there is use there is use and any time there is a surface there is a surface, and every time there is an exception there is an exception and every time there is a division there is a dividing. Any time there is a surface there is a surface and every time there is a suggestion there is a suggestion and every time there is silence there is silence and every time that is languid there is that there then and not oftener, not always, not particular, tender and changing and external and central and surrounded and singular and simple and the same and the surface and the circle and the shine and the succor and the white and the same and the better and the red and the same and the centre and the yellow and the tender and the better, and altogether.Considering the circumstances there is no occasion for a reduction, considering that there is no pealing there is no occasion for an obligation, considering that there is no outrage there is no necessity for any reparation, considering that there is no particle sodden there is no occasion for deliberation. Considering everything and which way the turn is tending, considering everything why is there no restraint, considering everything what makes the place settle and the plate distinguish some specialties. The whole thing is not understood and this is not strange considering that there is no education, this is not strange because having that certainly does show the difference in cutting, it shows that when there is turning there is no distress.In kind, in a control, in a period, in the alteration of pigeons, in kind cuts and thick and thin spaces, in kind ham and different colors, the length of leaning a strong thing outside not to make a sound but to suggest a crust, the principal taste is when there is a whole chance to be reasonable, this does not mean that there is overtaking, this means nothing precious, this means clearly that the chance to exercise is a social success. So then the sound is not obtrusive. Suppose it is obtrusive suppose it is. What is certainly the desertion is not a reduced description, a description is not a birthday.Lovely snipe and tender turn, excellent vapor and slender butter, all the splinter and the trunk, all the poisonous darkning drunk, all the joy in weak success, all the joyful tenderness, all the section and the tea, all the stouter symmetry.Around the size that is small, inside the stern that is the middle, besides the remains that are praying, inside the between that is turning, all the region is measuring and melting is exaggerating.Rectangular ribbon does not mean that there is no eruption it means that if there is no place to hold there is no place to spread. Kindness is not earnest, it is not assiduous it is not revered.Room to comb chickens and feathers and ripe purple, room to curve single plates and large sets and second silver, room to send everything away, room to save heat and distemper, room to search a light that is simpler, all room has no shadow.There is no use there is no use at all in smell, in taste, in teeth, in toast, in anything, there is no use at all and the respect is mutual.Why should that which is uneven, that which is resumed, that which is tolerable why should all this resemble a smell, a thing is there, it whistles, it is not narrower, why is there no obligation to stay away and yet courage, courage is everywhere and the best remains to stay.If there could be that which is contained in that which is felt there would be a chair where there are chairs and there would be no more denial about a clatter. A clatter is not a smell. All this is good.The Saturday evening which is Sunday is every week day. What choice is there when there is a difference. A regulation is not active. Thirstiness is not equal division.Anyway, to be older and ageder is not a surfeit nor a suction, it is not dated and careful, it is not dirty. Any little thing is clean, rubbing is black. Why should ancient lambs be goats and young colts and never beef, why should they, they should because there is so much difference in age.A sound, a whole sound is not separation, a whole sound is in an order.Suppose there is a pigeon, suppose there is.Looseness, why is there a shadow in a kitchen, there is a shadow in a kitchen because every little thing is bigger.The time when there are four choices and there are four choices in a difference, the time when there are four choices there is a kind and there is a kind. There is a kind. There is a kind. Supposing there is a bone, there is a bone. Supposing there are bones. There are bones. When there are bones there is no supposing there are bones. There are bones and there is that consuming. The kindly way to feel separating is to have a space between. This shows a likeness.Hope in gates, hope in spoons, hope in doors, hope in tables, no hope in daintiness and determination. Hope in dates.Tin is not a can and a stove is hardly. Tin is not necessary and neither is a stretcher. Tin is never narrow and thick.Color is in coal. Coal is outlasting roasting and a spoonful, a whole spoon that is full is not spilling. Coal any coal is copper.Claiming nothing, not claiming anything, not a claim in everything, collecting claiming, all this makes a harmony, it even makes a succession.Sincerely gracious one morning, sincerely graciously trembling, sincere in gracious eloping, all this makes a furnace and a blanket. All this shows quantity.Like an eye, not so much more, not any searching, no compliments.Please be the beef, please beef, pleasure is not wailing. Please beef, please be carved clear, please be a case of consideration.Search a neglect. A sale, any greatness is a stall and there is no memory, there is no clear collection.A satin sight, what is a trick, no trick is mountainous and the color, all the rush is in the blood.Bargaining for a little, bargain for a touch, a liberty, an estrangement, a characteristic turkey.Please spice, please no name, place a whole weight, sink into a standard rising, raise a circle, choose a right around, make the resonance accounted and gather green any collar.To bury a slender chicken, to raise an old feather, to surround a garland and to bake a pole splinter, to suggest a repose and to settle simply, to surrender one another, to succeed saving simpler, to satisfy a singularity and not to be blinder, to sugar nothing darker and to read redder, to have the color better, to sort out dinner, to remain together, to surprise no sinner, to curve nothing sweeter, to continue thinner, to increase in resting recreation to design string not dimmer.Cloudiness what is cloudiness, is it a lining, is it a roll, is it melting.The sooner there is jerking, the sooner freshness is tender, the sooner the round it is not round the sooner it is withdrawn in cutting, the sooner the measure means service, the sooner there is chinking, the sooner there is sadder than salad, the sooner there is none do her, the sooner there is no choice, the sooner there is a gloom freer, the same sooner and more sooner, this is no error in hurry and in pressure and in opposition to consideration.A recital, what is a recital, it is an organ and use does not strengthen valor, it soothes medicine.A transfer, a large transfer, a little transfer, some transfer, clouds and tracks do transfer, a transfer is not neglected.Pride, when is there perfect pretence, there is no more than yesterday and ordinary.A sentence of a vagueness that is violence is authority and a mission and stumbling and also certainly also a prison. Calmness, calm is beside the plate and in way in. There is no turn in terror. There is no volume in sound.There is coagulation in cold and there is none in prudence. Something is preserved and the evening is long and the colder spring has sudden shadows in a sun. All the stain is tender and lilacs really lilacs are disturbed. Why is the perfect reëstablishment practiced and prized, why is it composed. The result the pure result is juice and size and baking and exhibition and nonchalance and sacrifice and volume and a section in division and the surrounding recognition and horticulture and no murmur. This is a result. There is no superposition and circumstance, there is hardness and a reason and the rest and remainder. There is no delight and no mathematics.MUTTON.A letter which can wither, a learning which can suffer and an outrage which is simultaneous is principal.Student, students are merciful and recognised they chew something.Hate rests that is solid and sparse and all in a shape and largely very largely. Interleaved and successive and a sample of smell all this makes a certainty a shade.Light curls very light curls have no more curliness than soup. This is not a subject.Change a single stream of denting and change it hurriedly, what does it express, it expresses nausea. Like a very strange likeness and pink, like that and not more like that than the same resemblance and not more like that than no middle space in cutting.An eye glass, what is an eye glass, it is water. A splendid specimen, what is it when it is little and tender so that there are parts. A centre can place and four are no more and two and two are not middle.Melting and not minding, safety and powder, a particular recollection and a sincere solitude all this makes a shunning so thorough and so unrepeated and surely if there is anything left it is a bone. It is not solitary.Any space is not quiet it is so likely to be shiny. Darkness very dark darkness is sectional. There is a way to see in onion and surely very surely rhubarb and a tomato, surely very surely there is that seeding. A little thing in is a little thing.Mud and water were not present and not any more of either. Silk and stockings were not present and not any more of either. A receptacle and a symbol and no monster were present and no more. This made a piece show and was it a kindness, it can be asked was it a kindness to have it warmer, was it a kindness and does gliding mean more. Does it.Does it dirty a ceiling. It does not. Is it dainty, it is if prices are sweet. Is it lamentable, it is not if there is no undertaker. Is it curious, it is not when there is youth. All this makes a line, it even makes makes no more. All this makes cherries. The reason that there is a suggestion in vanity is due to this that there is a burst of mixed music.A temptation any temptation is an exclamation if there are misdeeds and little bones. It is not astonishing that bones mingle as they vary not at all and in any case why is a bone outstanding, it is so because the circumstance that does not make a cake and character is so easily churned and cherished.Mouse and mountain and a quiver, a quaint statue and pain in an exterior and silence more silence louder shows salmon a mischief intender. A cake, a real salve made of mutton and liquor, a specially retained rinsing and an established cork and blazing, this which resignation influences and restrains, restrains more altogether. A sign is the specimen spoken.A meal in mutton, mutton, why is lamb cheaper, it is cheaper because so little is more. Lecture, lecture and repeat instruction.BREAKFAST.A change, a final change includes potatoes. This is no authority for the abuse of cheese. What language can instruct any fellow.A shining breakfast, a breakfast shining, no dispute, no practice, nothing, nothing at all.A sudden slice changes the whole plate, it does so suddenly.An imitation, more imitation, imitation succeed imitations.Anything that is decent, anything that is present, a calm and a cook and more singularly still a shelter, all these show the need of clamor. What is the custom, the custom is in the centre.What is a loving tongue and pepper and more fish than there is when tears many tears are necessary. The tongue and the salmon, there is not salmon when brown is a color, there is salmon when there is no meaning to an early morning being pleasanter. There is no salmon, there are no tea-cups, there are the same kind of mushes as are used as stomachers by the eating hopes that makes eggs delicious. Drink is likely to stir a certain respect for an egg cup and more water melon than was ever eaten yesterday. Beer is neglected and cocoanut is famous. Coffee all coffee and a sample of soup all soup these are the choice of a baker. A white cup means a wedding. A wet cup means a vacation. A strong cup means an especial regulation. A single cup means a capital arrangement between the drawer and the place that is open.Price a price is not in language, it is not in custom, it is not in praise.A colored loss, why is there no leisure. If the persecution is so outrageous that nothing is solemn is there any occasion for persuasion.A grey turn to a top and bottom, a silent pocketful of much heating, all the pliable succession of surrendering makes an ingenious joy.A breeze in a jar and even then silence, a special anticipation in a rack, a gurgle a whole gurgle and more cheese than almost anything, is this an astonishment, does this incline more than the original division between a tray and a talking arrangement and even then a calling into another room gently with some chicken in any way.A bent way that is a way to declare that the best is all together, a bent way shows no result, it shows a slight restraint, it shows a necessity for retraction.Suspect a single buttered flower, suspect it certainly, suspect it and then glide, does that not alter a counting.A hurt mended stick, a hurt mended cup, a hurt mended article of exceptional relaxation and annoyance, a hurt mended, hurt and mended is so necessary that no mistake is intended.What is more likely than a roast, nothing really and yet it is never disappointed singularly.A steady cake, any steady cake is perfect and not plain, any steady cake has a mounting reason and more than that it has singular crusts. A season of more is a season that is instead. A season of many is not more a season than most.Take no remedy lightly, take no urging intently, take no separation leniently, beware of no lake and no larder.Burden the cracked wet soaking sack heavily, burden it so that it is an institution in fright and in climate and in the best plan that there can be.An ordinary color, a color is that strange mixture which makes, which does make which does not make a ripe juice, which does not make a mat.A work which is a winding a real winding of the cloaking of a relaxing rescue. This which is so cool is not dusting, it is not dirtying in smelling, it could use white water, it could use more extraordinarily and in no solitude altogether. This which is so not winsome and not widened and really not so dipped as dainty and really dainty, very dainty, ordinarily, dainty, a dainty, not in that dainty and dainty. If the time is determined, if it is determined and there is reunion there is reunion with that then outline, then there is in that a piercing shutter, all of a piercing shouter, all of a quite weather, all of a withered exterior, all of that in most violent likely.An excuse is not dreariness, a single plate is not butter, a single weight is not excitement, a solitary crumbling is not only martial.A mixed protection, very mixed with the same actual intentional unstrangeness and riding, a single action caused necessarily is not more a sign than a minister.Seat a knife near a cage and very near a decision and more nearly a timely working cat and scissors. Do this temporarily and make no more mistake in standing. Spread it all and arrange the white place, does this show in the house, does it not show in the green that is not necessary for that color, does it not even show in the explanation and singularly not at all stationary.SUGAR.A violent luck and a whole sample and even then quiet.Water is squeezing, water is almost squeezing on lard. Water, water is a mountain and it is selected and it is so practical that there is no use in money. A mind under is exact and so it is necessary to have a mouth and eye glasses.A question of sudden rises and more time than awfulness is so easy and shady. There is precisely that noise.A peck a small piece not privately overseen, not at all not a slice, not at all crestfallen and open, not at all mounting and chaining and evenly surpassing, all the bidding comes to tea.A separation is not tightly in worsted and sauce, it is so kept well and sectionally.Put it in the stew, put it to shame. A little slight shadow and a solid fine furnace.The teasing is tender and trying and thoughtful.The line which sets sprinkling to be a remedy is beside the best cold.A puzzle, a monster puzzle, a heavy choking, a neglected Tuesday.Wet crossing and a likeness, any likeness, a likeness has blisters, it has that and teeth, it has the staggering blindly and a little green, any little green is ordinary.One, two and one, two, nine, second and five and that.A blaze, a search in between, a cow, only any wet place, only this tune.Cut a gas jet uglier and then pierce pierce in between the next and negligence. Choose the rate to pay and pet pet very much. A collection of all around, a signal poison, a lack of languor and more hurts at ease.A white bird, a colored mine, a mixed orange, a dog.Cuddling comes in continuing a change.A piece of separate outstanding rushing is so blind with open delicacy.A canoe is orderly. A period is solemn. A cow is accepted.A nice old chain is widening, it is absent, it is laid by.CRANBERRIES.Could there not be a sudden date, could there not be in the present settlement of old age pensions, could there not be by a witness, could there be.Count the chain, cut the grass, silence the noon and murder flies. See the basting undip the chart, see the way the kinds are best seen from the rest, from that and untidy.Cut the whole space into twenty-four spaces and then and then is there a yellow color, there is but it is smelled, it is then put where it is and nothing stolen.A remarkable degree of red means that, a remarkable exchange is made.Climbing altogether in when there is a solid chance of soiling no more than a dirty thing, coloring all of it in steadying is jelly.Just as it is suffering, just as it is succeeded, just as it is moist so is there no countering.MILK.A white egg and a colored pan and a cabbage showing settlement, a constant increase.A cold in a nose, a single cold nose makes an excuse. Two are more necessary.All the goods are stolen, all the blisters are in the cup.Cooking, cooking is the recognition between sudden and nearly sudden very little and all large holes.A real pint, one that is open and closed and in the middle is so bad.Tender colds, seen eye holders, all work, the best of change, the meaning, the dark red, all this and bitten, really bitten.Guessing again and golfing again and the best men, the very best men.MILK.Climb up in sight climb in the whole utter needles and a guess a whole guess is hanging. Hanging hanging.EGGS.Kind height, kind in the right stomach with a little sudden mill.Cunning shawl, cunning shawl to be steady.In white in white handkerchiefs with little dots in a white belt all shadows are singular they are singular and procured and relieved.No that is not the cows shame and a precocious sound, it is a bite.Cut up alone the paved way which is harm. Harm is old boat and a likely dash.APPLE.Apple plum, carpet steak, seed clam, colored wine, calm seen, cold cream, best shake, potato, potato and no no gold work with pet, a green seen is called bake and change sweet is bready, a little piece a little piece please.A little piece please. Cane again to the presupposed and ready eucalyptus tree, count out sherry and ripe plates and little corners of a kind of ham. This is use.TAILS.Cold pails, cold with joy no joy.A tiny seat that means meadows and a lapse of cuddles with cheese and nearly bats, all this went messed. The post placed a loud loose sprain. A rest is no better. It is better yet. All the time.LUNCH.Luck in loose plaster makes holy gauge and nearly that, nearly more states, more states come in town light kite, blight not white.A little lunch is a break in skate a little lunch so slimy, a west end of a board line is that which shows a battle beneath so that necessity is a silk under wear. That is best wet. It is so natural, and why is there flake, there is flake to explain exhaust.A real cold hen is nervous is nervous with a towel with a spool with real beads. It is mostly an extra sole nearly all that shaved, shaved with an old mountain, more than that bees more than that dinner and a bunch of likes that is to say the hearts of onions aim less.Cold coffee with a corn a corn yellow and green mass is a gem.CUPS.A single example of excellence is in the meat. A bent stick is surging and might all might is mental. A grand clothes is searching out a candle not that wheatly not that by more than an owl and a path. A ham is proud of cocoanut.A cup is neglected by being all in size. It is a handle and meadows and sugar any sugar.A cup is neglected by being full of size. It shows no shade, in come little wood cuts and blessing and nearly not that not with a wild bought in, not at all so polite, not nearly so behind.Cups crane in. They need a pet oyster, they need it so hoary and nearly choice. The best slam is utter. Nearly be freeze.Why is a cup a stir and a behave. Why is it so seen.A cup is readily shaded, it has in between no sense that is to say music, memory, musical memory.Peanuts blame, a half sand is holey and nearly.RHUBARB.Rhubarb is susan not susan not seat in bunch toys not wild and laughable not in little places not in neglect and vegetable not in fold coal age not please.SINGLE FISH.Single fish single fish single fish egg-plant single fish sight.A sweet win and not less noisy than saddle and more ploughing and nearly well painted by little things so.Please shade it a play. It is necessary and beside the large sort is puff.Every way oakly, please prune it near. It is so found.It is not the same.CAKE.Cake cast in went to be and needles wine needles are such.This is today. A can experiment is that which makes a town, makes a town dirty, it is little please. We came back. Two bore, bore what, a mussed ash, ash when there is tin. This meant cake. It was a sign.Another time there was extra a hat pin sought long and this dark made a display. The result was yellow. A caution, not a caution to be.It is no use to cause a foolish number. A blanket stretch a cloud, a shame, all that bakery can tease, all that is beginning and yesterday yesterday we had it met. It means some change. No some day.A little leaf upon a scene an ocean any where there, a bland and likely in the stream a recollection green land. Why white.CUSTARD.Custard is this. It has aches, aches when. Not to be. Not to be narrowly. This makes a whole little hill.It is better than a little thing that has mellow real mellow. It is better than lakes whole lakes, it is better than seeding.POTATOES.Real potatoes cut in between.POTATOES.In the preparation of cheese, in the preparation of crackers, in the preparation of butter, in it.ROAST POTATOES.Roast potatoes for.ASPARAGUS.Asparagus in a lean in a lean to hot. This makes it art and it is wet wet weather wet weather wet.BUTTER.Boom in boom in, butter. Leave a grain and show it, show it. I spy.It is a need it is a need that a flower a state flower. It is a need that a state rubber. It is a need that a state rubber is sweet and sight and a swelled stretch. It is a need. It is a need that state rubber.Wood a supply. Clean little keep a strange, estrange on it.Make a little white, no and not with pit, pit on in within.END OF SUMMER.Little eyelets that have hammer and a check with stripes between a lounge, in wit, in a rested development.SAUSAGES.Sausages in between a glass.There is read butter. A loaf of it is managed. Wake a question. Eat an instant, answer.A reason for bed is this, that a decline, any decline is poison, poison is a toe a toe extractor, this means a solemn change. Hanging.No evil is wide, any extra in leaf is so strange and singular a red breast.CELERY.Celery tastes tastes where in curled lashes and little bits and mostly in remains.A green acre is so selfish and so pure and so enlivened.VEAL.Very well very well, washing is old, washing is washing.Cold soup, cold soup clear and particular and a principal a principal question to put into.VEGETABLE.What is cut. What is cut by it. What is cut by it in.It was a cress a crescent a cross and an unequal scream, it was upslanting, it was radiant and reasonable with little ins and red.News. News capable of glees, cut in shoes, belike under pump of wide chalk, all this combing.WAY LAY VEGETABLE.Leaves in grass and mow potatoes, have a skip, hurry you up flutter.Suppose it is ex a cake suppose it is new mercy and leave charlotte and nervous bed rows. Suppose it is meal. Suppose it is sam.COOKING.Alas, alas the pull alas the bell alas the coach in china, alas the little put in leaf alas the wedding butter meat, alas the receptacle, alas the back shape of mussle, mussle and soda.CHICKEN.Pheasant and chicken, chicken is a peculiar third.CHICKEN.Alas a dirty word, alas a dirty third alas a dirty third, alas a dirty bird.CHICKEN.Alas a doubt in case of more go to say what it is cress. What is it. Mean. Potato. Loaves.CHICKEN.Stick stick call then, stick stick sticking, sticking with a chicken. Sticking in a extra succession, sticking in.CHAIN-BOATS.Chain-boats are merry, are merry blew, blew west, carpet.PASTRY.Cutting shade, cool spades and little last beds, make violet, violet when.CREAM.In a plank, in a play sole, in a heated red left tree there is shut in specs with salt be where. This makes an eddy. Necessary.CREAM.Cream cut. Any where crumb. Left hop chambers.CUCUMBER.Not a razor less, not a razor, ridiculous pudding, red and relet put in, rest in a slender go in selecting, rest in, rest in in white widening.DINNER.Not a little fit, not a little fit sun sat in shed more mentally.Let us why, let us why weight, let us why winter chess, let us why way.Only a moon to soup her, only that in the sell never never be the cocups nice be, shatter it they lay.Egg ear nuts, look a bout. Shoulder. Let it strange, sold in bell next herds.It was a time when in the acres in late there was a wheel that shot a burst of land and needless are ******s and a sample sample set of old eaten butterflies with spoons, all of it to be are fled and measure make it, make it, yet all the one in that we see where shall not it set with a left and more so, yes there add when the longer not it shall the best in the way when all be with when shall not for there with see and chest how for another excellent and excellent and easy easy excellent and easy express e c, all to be nice all to be no so. All to be no so no so. All to be not a white old chat churner. Not to be any example of an edible apple in.DINING.Dining is west.EATING.Eat ting, eating a grand old man said roof and never never re soluble burst, not a near ring not a bewildered neck, not really any such bay.Is it so a noise to be is it a least remain to rest, is it a so old say to be, is it a leading are been. Is it so, is it so, is it so, is it so is it so is it so.Eel us eel us with no no pea no pea cool, no pea cool cooler, no pea cooler with a land a land cost in, with a land cost in stretches.Eating he heat eating he heat it eating, he heat it heat eating. He heat eating.A little piece of pay of pay owls owls such as pie, bolsters.Will leap beat, willie well all. The rest rest oxen occasion occasion to be so purred, so purred how.It was a ham it was a square come well it was a square remain, a square remain not it a bundle, not it a bundle so is a grip, a grip to shed bay leave bay leave draught, bay leave draw cider in low, cider in low and george. George is a mass.EATING.It was a shame it was a shame to stare to stare and double and relieve relieve be cut up show as by the elevation of it and out out more in the steady where the come and on and the all the shed and that.It was a garden and belows belows straight. It was a pea, a pea pour it in its not a succession, not it a simple, not it a so election, election with.SALAD.It is a winning cake.SAUCE.What is bay labored what is all be section, what is no much. Sauce sam in.SALMON.It was a peculiar bin a bin fond in beside.ORANGE.Why is a feel oyster an egg stir. Why is it orange centre.A show at tick and loosen loosen it so to speak sat.It was an extra leaker with a see spoon, it was an extra licker with a see spoon.ORANGE.A type oh oh new new not no not knealer knealer of old show beefsteak, neither neither.ORANGES.Build is all right.ORANGE IN.Go lack go lack use to her.Cocoa and clear soup and oranges and oat-meal.Whist bottom whist close, whist clothes, woodling.Cocoa and clear soup and oranges and oat-meal.Pain soup, suppose it is question, suppose it is butter, real is, real is only, only excreate, only excreate a no since.A no, a no since, a no since when, a no since when since, a no since when since a no since when since, a no since, a no since when since, a no since, a no, a no since a no since, a no since, a no since.SALAD DRESSING AND AN ARTICHOKE.Please pale hot, please cover rose, please acre in the red stranger, please butter all the beef-steak with regular feel faces.SALAD DRESSING AND AN ARTICHOKE.It was please it was please carriage cup in an ice-cream, in an ice-cream it was too bended bended with scissors and all this time. A whole is inside a part, a part does go away, a hole is red leaf. No choice was where there was and a second and a second.A CENTRE IN A TABLE.It was a way a day, this made some sum. Suppose a cod liver a cod liver is an oil, suppose a cod liver oil is tunny, suppose a cod liver oil tunny is pressed suppose a cod liver oil tunny pressed is china and secret with a bestow a bestow reed, a reed to be a reed to be, in a reed to be.Next to me next to a folder, next to a folder some waiter, next to a foldersome waiter and re letter and read her. Read her with her for less.

Whitman: A Song for Occupations

1 A SONG for occupations! In the labor of engines and trades and the labor of fields I findthe developments, And find the eternal meanings. Workmen and Workwomen! Were all educations practical and ornamental well display'd outof me, what would it amount to? Were I as the head teacher, charitable proprietor, wise statesman,what would it amount to? Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you, would thatsatisfy you? The learn'd, virtuous, benevolent, and the usual terms, A man like me and never the usual terms. Neither a servant nor a master I, I take no sooner a large price than a small price, I will have myown whoever enjoys me, I will be even with you and you shall be even with me. If you stand at work in a shop I stand as nigh as the nighest inthe same shop, If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend I demand asgood as your brother or dearest friend, If your lover, husband, wife, is welcome by day or night, I mustbe personally as welcome, If you become degraded, criminal, ill, then I become so for yoursake, If you remember your foolish and outlaw'd deeds, do you thinkI cannot remember my own foolish and outlaw'd deeds? If you carouse at the table I carouse at the opposite side of thetable, If you meet some stranger in the streets and love him or her, whyI often meet strangers in the street and love them. Why what have you thought of yourself? Is it you then that thought yourself less? Is it you that thought the President greater than you? Or the rich better off than you? or the educated wiser than you? (Because you are greasy or pimpled, or were once drunk, or athief, Or that you are diseas'd, or rheumatic, or a prostitute, Or from frivolity or impotence, or that you are no scholar andnever saw your name in print, Do you give in that you are any less immortal?) 2 Souls of men and women! it is not you I call unseen, unheard,untouchable and untouching, It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and to settle whetheryou are alive or no, I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns. Grown, half-grown and babe, of this country and every country, in-doors and out-doors, one just as much as the other, I see, And all else behind or through them. The wife, and she is not one jot less than the husband, The daughter, and she is just as good as the son, The mother, and she is every bit as much as the father. Offspring of ignorant and poor, boys apprenticed to trades, Young fellows working on farms and old fellows working on farms, Sailor-men, merchant-men, coasters, immigrants, All these I see, but nigher and farther the same I see, None shall escape me and none shall wish to escape me. I bring what you much need yet always have, Not money, amours, dress, eating, erudition, but as good, I send no agent or medium, offer no representative of value, butoffer the value itself. There is something that comes to one now and perpetually, It is not what is printed, preach'd, discussed, it eludes discussionand print, It is not to be put in a book, it is not in this book, It is for you whoever you are, it is no farther from you than yourhearing and sight are from you, It is hinted by nearest, commonest, readiest, it is ever provokedby them. You may read in many languages, yet read nothing about it, You may read the President's message and read nothing about itthere, Nothing in the reports from the State department or Treasurydepartment, or in the daily papers or weekly papers, Or in the census or revenue returns, prices current, or anyaccounts of stock. 3 The sun and stars that float in the open air, The apple-shaped earth and we upon it, surely the drift of themis something grand, I do not know what it is except that it is grand, and that it ishappiness, And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation orbon-mot or reconnoissance, And that it is not something which by luck may turn out well forus, and without luck must be a failure for us, And not something which may yet be retracted in a certaincontingency. The light and shade, the curious sense of body and identity, thegreed that with perfect complaisance devours all things, The endless pride and outstretching of man, unspeakable joysand sorrows, The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees, and thewonders that fill each minute of time forever, What have you reckon'd them for, camerado? Have you reckon'd them for your trade or farm-work? or for theprofits of your store? Or to achieve yourself a position? or to fill a gentleman's leisure,or a lady's leisure? Have you reckon'd that the landscape took substance and formthat it might be painted in a picture? Or men and women that they might be written of, and songs sung? Or the attraction of gravity, and the great laws and harmoniouscombinations and the fluids of the air, as subjects for thesavans? Or the brown land and the blue sea for maps and charts? Or the stars to be put in constellations and named fancy names? Or that the growth of seeds is for agricultural tables, or agricul-ture itself? Old institutions, these arts, libraries, legends, collections, and thepractice handed along in manufactures, will we rate themso high? Will we rate our cash and business high? I have no objection, I rate them as high as the highest—then a child born of awoman and man I rate beyond all rate. We thought our Union grand, and our Constitution grand, I do not say they are not grand and good, for they are, I am this day just as much in love with them as you, Then I am in love with You, and with all my fellows upon theearth. We consider bibles and religions divine—I do not say they arenot divine, I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of youstill, It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life, Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from the earth,than they are shed out of you. 4 The sum of all known reverence I add up in you whoever you are, The President is there in the White House for you, it is not youwho are here for him, The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them, The Congress convenes every Twelfth-month for you, Laws, courts, the forming of States, the charters of cities, thegoing and coming of commerce and mails, are all for you. List close my scholars dear, Doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you, Sculpture and monuments and any thing inscribed anywhere aretallied in you, The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the records reachis in you this hour, and myths and tales the same, If you were not breathing and walking here, where would theyall be? The most renown'd poems would be ashes, orations and playswould be vacuums. All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it, (Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines ofthe arches and cornices?) All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by theinstruments, It is not the violins and the cornets, it is not the oboe nor thebeating drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singinghis sweet romanza, nor that of the men's chorus, nor thatof the women's chorus, It is nearer and farther than they. 5 Will the whole come back then? Can each see signs of the best by a look in the looking-glass? isthere nothing greater or more? Does all sit there with you, with the mystic unseen soul? Strange and hard that paradox true I give, Objects gross and the unseen soul are one. House-building, measuring, sawing the boards, Blacksmithing, glass-blowing, nail-making, coopering, tin-roofing,shingle-dressing, Ship-joining, dock-building, fish-curing, flagging of sidewalks byflaggers, The pump, the pile-driver, the great derrick, the coal-kiln andbrick-kiln, Coal-mines and all that is down there, the lamps in the darkness,echoes, songs, what meditations, what vast native thoughtslooking through smutch'd faces, Iron-works, forge-fires in the mountains or by river-banks, menaround feeling the melt with huge crowbars, lumps of ore,the due combining of ore, limestone, coal, The blast-furnace and the puddling-furnace, the loup-lump at thebottom of the melt at last, the rolling-mill, the stumpybars of pig-iron, the strong clean-shaped T-rail for rail-roads, Oil-works, silk-works, white-lead-works, the sugar-house, steam-saws, the great mills and factories, Stone-cutting, shapely trimmings for façades or window or door-lintels, the mallet, the tooth-chisel, the jib to protect thethumb, The calking-iron, the kettle of boiling vault-cement, and the fireunder the kettle, The cotton-bale, the stevedore's hook, the saw and buck of thesawyer, the mould of the moulder, the working-knife ofthe butcher, the ice-saw, and all the work with ice, The work and tools of the rigger, grappler, sail-maker, block-maker, Goods of gutta-percha, papier-maché, colors, brushes, brush-making, glazier's implements, The veneer and glue-pot, the confectioner's ornaments, thedecanter and glasses, the shears and flat-iron, The awl and knee-strap, the pint measure and quart measure, thecounter and stool, the writing-pen of quill or metal, themaking of all sorts of edged tools, The brewery, brewing, the malt, the vats, every thing that is doneby brewers, wine-makers, vinegar-makers, Leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making, rope-twisting, dis-tilling, sign-painting, lime-burning, cotton-picking, electro-plating, electrotyping, stereotyping, Stave-machines, planing-machines, reaping-machines, ploughing-machines, thrashing-machines, steam wagons, The cart of the carman, the omnibus, the ponderous dray, Pyrotechny, letting off color'd fireworks at night, fancy figures andjets; Beef on the butcher's stall, the slaughter-house of the butcher, thebutcher in his killing-clothes, The pens of live pork, the killing-hammer, the hog-hook, thescalder's tub, gutting, the cutter's cleaver, the packer's maul,and the plenteous winterwork of pork-packing, Flour-works, grinding of wheat, rye, maize, rice, the barrels andthe half and quarter barrels, the loaded barges, the highpiles on wharves and levees, The men and the work of the men on ferries, railroads, coasters,fish-boats, canals; The hourly routine of your own or any man's life, the shop, yard,store, or factory, These shows all near you by day and night—workman! whoeveryou are, your daily life! In that and them the heft of the heaviest—in that and them farmore than you estimated, (and far less also,) In them realities for you and me, in them poems for you and me, In them, not yourself—you and your soul enclose all things, re-gardless of estimation, In them the development good—in them all themes, hints, possi-bilities. I do not affirm that what you see beyond is futile, I do not adviseyou to stop, I do not say leadings you thought great are not great, But I say that none lead to greater than these lead to. 6 Will you seek afar off? you surely come back at last, In things best known to you finding the best, or as good as thebest, In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest, Happiness, knowledge, not in another place but this place, not foranother hour but this hour, Man in the first you see or touch, always in friend, brother,nighest neighbor—woman in mother, sister, wife, The popular tastes and employments taking precedence in poemsor anywhere, You workwomen and workmen of these States having your owndivine and strong life, And all else giving place to men and women like you. When the psalm sings instead of the singer, When the script preaches instead of the preacher, When the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver thatcarved the supporting desk, When I can touch the body of books by night or by day, andwhen they touch my body back again, When a university course convinces like a slumbering woman andchild convince, When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the night-watchman'sdaughter, When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite and are my friendlycompanions, I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them asI do of men and women like you.

Long Soldier: 38

Here, the sentence will be respected. I will compose each sentence with care by minding what the rules of writing dictate. For example, all sentences will begin with capital letters. Likewise, the history of the sentence will be honored by ending each one with appropriate punctuation such as a period or question mark, thus bringing the idea to (momentary) completion. You may like to know, I do not consider this a "creative piece." In other words, I do not regard this as a poem of great imagination or a work of fiction. Also, historical events will not be dramatized for an interesting read. Therefore, I feel most responsible to the orderly sentence; conveyor of thought. That said, I will begin: You may or may not have heard about the Dakota 38. If this is the first time you've heard of it, you might wonder, "What is the Dakota 38?" The Dakota 38 refers to thirty-eight Dakota men who were executed by hanging, under orders from President Abraham Lincoln. To date, this is the largest "legal" mass execution in U.S. history. The hanging took place on December 26th, 1862—the day after Christmas. This was the same week that President Lincoln signed The Emancipation Proclamation. In the preceding sentence, I italicize "same week" for emphasis. There was a movie titled Lincoln about the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. The signing of The Emancipation Proclamation was included in the film Lincoln; the hanging of the Dakota 38 was not. In any case, you might be asking, "Why were thirty-eight Dakota men hung?" As a side note, the past tense of hang is hung, but when referring to the capital punishment of hanging, the correct tense is hanged. So it's possible that you're asking, "Why were thirty-eight Dakota men hanged?" They were hanged for The Sioux Uprising. I want to tell you about The Sioux Uprising, but I don't know where to begin. I may jump around and details will not unfold in chronological order. Keep in mind, I am not a historian. So I will recount facts as best as I can, given limited resources and understanding. Before Minnesota was a state, the Minnesota region, generally speaking, was the traditional homeland for Dakota, Anishnaabeg and Ho-Chunk people. During the 1800s, when the U.S. expanded territory, they "purchased" land from the Dakota people as well as the other tribes. But another way to understand that sort of "purchase" is: Dakota leaders ceded land to the U.S. Government in exchange for money and goods, but most importantly, the safety of their people. Some say that Dakota leaders did not understand the terms they were entering, or they never would have agreed. Even others call the entire negotiation, "trickery." But to make whatever-it-was official and binding, the U. S. Government drew up an initial treaty. This treaty was later replaced by another (more convenient) treaty, and then another. I've had difficulty unraveling the terms of these treaties, given the legal speak and congressional language. As treaties were abrogated (broken) and new treaties were drafted, one after another, the new treaties often referenced old defunct treaties and it is a muddy, switchback trail to follow. Although I often feel lost on this trail, I know I am not alone. However, as best as I can put the facts together, in 1851, Dakota territory was contained to a 12-mile by 150-mile long strip along the Minnesota river. But just seven years later, in 1858, the northern portion was ceded (taken) and the southern portion was (conveniently) allotted, which reduced Dakota land to a stark 10-mile tract. These amended and broken treaties are often referred to as The Minnesota Treaties. The word Minnesota comes from mni which means water; sota which means turbid. Synonyms for turbid include muddy, unclear, cloudy, confused and smoky. Everything is in the language we use. For example, a treaty is, essentially, a contract between two sovereign nations. The U.S. treaties with the Dakota Nation were legal contracts that promised money. It could be said, this money was payment for the land the Dakota ceded; for living within assigned boundaries (a reservation); and for relinquishing rights to their vast hunting territory which, in turn, made Dakota people dependent on other means to survive: money. The previous sentence is circular, which is akin to so many aspects of history. As you may have guessed by now, the money promised in the turbid treaties did not make it into the hands of Dakota people. In addition, local government traders would not offer credit to "Indians" to purchase food or goods. Without money, store credit or rights to hunt beyond their 10-mile tract of land, Dakota people began to starve. The Dakota people were starving. The Dakota people starved. In the preceding sentence, the word "starved" does not need italics for emphasis. One should read, "The Dakota people starved," as a straightforward and plainly stated fact. As a result—and without other options but to continue to starve—Dakota people retaliated. Dakota warriors organized, struck out and killed settlers and traders. This revolt is called The Sioux Uprising. Eventually, the U.S. Cavalry came to Mnisota to confront the Uprising. Over one thousand Dakota people were sent to prison. As already mentioned, thirty-eight Dakota men were subsequently hanged. After the hanging, those one thousand Dakota prisoners were released. However, as further consequence, what remained of Dakota territory in Mnisota was dissolved (stolen). The Dakota people had no land to return to. This means they were exiled. Homeless, the Dakota people of Mnisota were relocated (forced) onto reservations in South Dakota and Nebraska. Now, every year, a group called the The Dakota 38 + 2 Riders conduct a memorial horse ride from Lower Brule, South Dakota to Mankato, Mnisota. The Memorial Riders travel 325 miles on horseback for eighteen days, sometimes through sub-zero blizzards. They conclude their journey on December 26th, the day of the hanging. Memorials help focus our memory on particular people or events. Often, memorials come in the forms of plaques, statues or gravestones. The memorial for the Dakota 38 is not an object inscribed with words, but an act. Yet, I started this piece (which I do not consider a poem or work of fiction) because I was interested in writing about grasses. So, there is one other event to include, although it's not in chronological order and we must backtrack a little. When the Dakota people were starving, as you may remember, government traders would not extend store credit to "Indians." One trader named Andrew Myrick is famous for his refusal to provide credit to Dakotas by saying, "If they are hungry, let them eat grass." There are variations of Myrick's words, but they are all something to that effect. When settlers and traders were killed during the Sioux Uprising, one of the first to be executed by the Dakota was Andrew Myrick. When Myrick's body was found, his mouth was stuffed with grass. I am inclined to call this act by the Dakota warriors a poem. There's irony in their poem. There was no text. "Real" poems do not "really" require words. I have italicized the previous sentence to indicate inner dialogue; a revealing moment. But, on second thought, the particular words "Let them eat grass," click the gears of the poem into place. So, we could also say, language and word choice are crucial to the poem's work. Things are circling back again. Sometimes, when in a circle, if I wish to exit, I must leap. And let the body swing. From the platform. Out to the grasses.

Anne Bradstreet: To her Father with Some Verses

Most truly honoured, and as truly dear, If worth in me or ought I do appear, Who can of right better demand the same Than may your worthy self from whom it came? The principal might yield a greater sum, Yet handled ill, amounts but to this crumb; My stock's so small I know not how to pay, My bond remains in force unto this day; Yet for part payment take this simple mite, Where nothing's to be had, kings loose their right. Such is my debt I may not say forgive, But as I can, I'll pay it while I live; Such is my bond, none can discharge but I, Yet paying is not paid until I die.

Dunbar: Signs of the Times

Air a-gittin' cool an' coolah, Frost a-comin' in de night, Hicka' nuts an' wa'nuts fallin', Possum keepin' out o' sight. Tu'key struttin' in de ba'nya'd, Nary step so proud ez his; Keep on struttin', Mistah Tu'key, Yo' do' know whut time it is. Cidah press commence a-squeakin' Eatin' apples sto'ed away, Chillun swa'min' 'roun' lak ho'nets, Huntin' aigs ermung de hay. Mistah Tu'key keep on gobblin' At de geese a-flyin' souf, Oomph! dat bird do' know whut's comin'; Ef he did he'd shet his mouf. Pumpkin gittin' good an' yallah Mek me open up my eyes; Seems lak it's a-lookin' at me Jes' a-la'in' dah sayin' "Pies." Tu'key gobbler gwine 'roun' blowin', Gwine 'roun' gibbin' sass an' slack; Keep on talkin', Mistah Tu'key, You ain't seed no almanac. Fa'mer walkin' th'oo de ba'nya'd Seein' how things is comin' on, Sees ef all de fowls is fatt'nin'— Good times comin' sho's you bo'n. Hyeahs dat tu'key gobbler braggin', Den his face break in a smile— Nebbah min', you sassy rascal, He's gwine nab you atter while. Choppin' suet in de kitchen, Stonin' raisins in de hall, Beef a-cookin' fu' de mince meat, Spices groun'—I smell 'em all. Look hyeah, Tu'key, stop dat gobblin', You ain' luned de sense ob feah, You ol' fool, yo' naik's in dangah, Do' you know Thanksgibbin's hyeah?

Whitman I, selections from Calamus; IN PATHS UNTRODDEN.

IN paths untrodden, In the growth by margins of pond-waters, Escaped from the life that exhibits itself, From all the standards hitherto publish'd, from the pleasures,profits, conformities, Which too long I was offering to feed my soul, Clear to me now standards not yet publish'd, clear to me that mysoul, That the soul of the man I speak for rejoices in comrades, Here by myself away from the clank of the world, Tallying and talk'd to here by tongues aromatic, No longer abash'd, (for in this secluded spot I can respond as Iwould not dare elsewhere,) Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet containsall the rest, Resolv'd to sing no songs to-day but those of manly attachment, Projecting them along that substantial life, Bequeathing hence types of athletic love, Afternoon this delicious Ninth-month in my forty-first year, I proceed for all who are or have been young men, To tell the secret of my nights and days, To celebrate the need of comrades.

Anne Bradstreet: To My Dear and Loving Husband

If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were loved by wife, then thee. If ever wife was happy in a man, Compare with me, ye women, if you can. I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold, Or all the riches that the East doth hold. My love is such that rivers cannot quench, Nor ought but love from thee give recompense. Thy love is such I can no way repay; The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray. Then while we live, in love let's so persever, That when we live no more, we may live ever.

O'Hara: The Day Lady Died

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday three days after Bastille day, yes it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner and I don't know the people who will feed me I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun and have a hamburger and a malted and buy an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets in Ghana are doing these days I go on to the bank and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard) doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or Brendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine after practically going to sleep with quandariness and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT while she whispered a song along the keyboard to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

Ashbery: The Chateau Hardware

It was always November there. The farms Were a kind of precinct; a certain control Had been exercised. The little birds Used to collect along the fence. It was the great "as though," the how the day went, The excursions of the police As I pursued my bodily functions, wanting Neither fire nor water, Vibrating to the distant pinch And turning out the way I am, turning out to greet you.

Toomer, Cane, Song of the Son

Pour O pour that parting soul in song, O pour it in the sawdust glow of night, Into the velvet pine-smoke air to-night, And let the valley carry it along. And let the valley carry it along. O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree, So scant of grass, so profligate of pines, Now just before an epoch's sun declines Thy son, in time, I have returned to thee, Thy son, I have in time returned to thee. In time, for though the sun is setting on A song-lit race of slaves, it has not set; Though late, O soil, it is not too late yet To catch thy plaintive soul, leaving, soon gone, Leaving, to catch thy plaintive soul soon gone. O Negro slaves, dark purple ripened plums, Squeezed, and bursting in the pine-wood air, Passing before they stripped the old tree bare One plum was saved for me, one seed becomes An everlasting song, a singing tree, Caroling softly souls of slavery, What they were, and what they are to me, Caroling softly souls of slavery.

Dunbar; " A Negro Love-Song,"

Seen my lady home las' night, Jump back, honey, jump back. Hel' huh han' an' sque'z it tight, Jump back, honey, jump back. Hyeahd huh sigh a little sigh, Seen a light gleam f'om huh eye, An' a smile go flittin' by — Jump back, honey, jump back. Hyeahd de win' blow thoo de pine, Jump back, honey, jump back. Mockin'-bird was singin' fine, Jump back, honey, jump back. An' my hea't was beatin' so, When I reached my lady's do', Dat I could n't ba' to go — Jump back, honey, jump back. Put my ahm aroun' huh wais', Jump back, honey, jump back. Raised huh lips an' took a tase, Jump back, honey, jump back. Love me, honey, love me true? Love me well ez I love you? An' she answe'd, "'Cose I do"— Jump back, honey, jump back.

To S. M. A Young African Painter, On Seeing His Works

TO show the lab'ring bosom's deep intent, And thought in living characters to paint, When first thy pencil did those beauties give, And breathing figures learnt from thee to live, How did those prospects give my soul delight, A new creation rushing on my sight? Still, wond'rous youth! each noble path pursue, On deathless glories fix thine ardent view: Still may the painter's and the poet's fire To aid thy pencil, and thy verse conspire! And may the charms of each seraphic theme Conduct thy footsteps to immortal fame! High to the blissful wonders of the skies Elate thy soul, and raise thy wishful eyes. Thrice happy, when exalted to survey That splendid city, crown'd with endless day, Whose twice six gates on radiant hinges ring: Celestial Salem blooms in endless spring. Calm and serene thy moments glide along, And may the muse inspire each future song! Still, with the sweets of contemplation bless'd, May peace with balmy wings your soul invest! But when these shades of time are chas'd away, And darkness ends in everlasting day, On what seraphic pinions shall we move, And view the landscapes in the realms above? There shall thy tongue in heav'nly murmurs flow, And there my muse with heav'nly transport glow: No more to tell of Damon's tender sighs, Or rising radiance of Aurora's eyes, For nobler themes demand a nobler strain, And purer language on th' ethereal plain. Cease, gentle muse! the solemn gloom of night Now seals the fair creation from my sight.

Whitman I, selections from Calamus; WHOEVER YOU ARE HOLDING ME NOW IN HAND

WHOEVER you are holding me now in hand, Without one thing all will be useless, I give you fair warning before you attempt me further, I am not what you supposed, but far different. Who is he that would become my follower? Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections? The way is suspicious, the result uncertain, perhaps destructive, You would have to give up all else, I alone would expect to be your sole and exclusive standard, Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting, The whole past theory of your life and all conformity to the lives around you would have to be abandon'd, Therefore release me now before troubling yourself any further, letgo your hand from my shoulders, Put me down and depart on your way. Or else by stealth in some wood for trial, Or back of a rock in the open air, (For in any roof'd room of a house I emerge not, nor in com-pany, And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,) But just possibly with you on a high hill, first watching lest anyperson for miles around approach unawares, Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea orsome quiet island, Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you, With the comrade's long-dwelling kiss or the new husband's kiss, For I am the new husband and I am the comrade. Or if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing, Where I may feel the throbs of your heart or rest upon yourhip, Carry me when you go forth over land or sea; For thus merely touching you is enough, is best, And thus touching you would I silently sleep and be carriedeternally. But these leaves conning you con at peril, For these leaves and me you will not understand, They will elude you at first and still more afterward, I willcertainly elude you, Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me,behold! Already you see I have escaped from you. For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written thisbook, Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it, Nor do those know me best who admire me and vauntingly praiseme, Nor will the candidates for my love (unless at most a very few)prove victorious, Nor will my poems do good only, they will do just as much evil,perhaps more, For all is useless without that which you may guess at many timesand not hit, that which I hinted at; Therefore release me and depart on your way.

Toomer, Cane, Karintha

Her skin... Karintha

Whitman, Song of Myself

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

Whitman: OUT OF THE CRADLE ENDLESSLY ROCKING.

OUT of the cradle endlessly rocking, Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle, Out of the Ninth-month midnight, Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the childleaving his bed wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot, Down from the shower'd halo, Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as ifthey were alive, Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fall-ings I heard, From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if withtears, From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist, From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease, From the myriad thence-arous'd words, From the word stronger and more delicious than any, From such as now they start the scene revisiting, As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing, Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly, A man, yet by these tears a little boy again, Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves, I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter, Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them, A reminiscence sing. Once Paumanok, When the lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth-month grass wasgrowing, Up this seashore in some briers, Two feather'd guests from Alabama, two together, And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown, And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand, And every day the she-bird crouch'd on her nest, silent, withbright eyes, And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbingthem, Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating. Shine! shine! shine! Pour down your warmth, great sun! While we bask, we two together. Two together! Winds blow south, or winds blow north, Day come white, or night come black, Home, or rivers and mountains from home, Singing all time, minding no time, While we two keep together. Till of a sudden, May-be kill'd, unknown to her mate, One forenoon the she-bird crouch'd not on the nest, Nor return'd that afternoon, nor the next, Nor ever appear'd again. And thenceforward all summer in the sound of the sea, And at night under the full of the moon in calmer weather, Over the hoarse surging of the sea, Or flitting from brier to brier by day, I saw, I heard at intervals the remaining one, the he-bird, The solitary guest from Alabama. Blow! blow! blow! Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok's shore; I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me. Yes, when the stars glisten'd, All night long on the prong of a moss-scallop'd stake, Down almost amid the slapping waves, Sat the lone singer wonderful causing tears. He call'd on his mate, He pour'd forth the meanings which I of all men know. Yes my brother I know, The rest might not, but I have treasur'd every note, For more than once dimly down to the beach gliding, Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows, Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds andsights after their sorts, The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing, I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair, Listen'd long and long. Listen'd to keep, to sing, now translating the notes, Following you my brother. Soothe! soothe! soothe! Close on its wave soothes the wave behind, And again another behind embracing and lapping, every one close, But my love soothes not me, not me. Low hangs the moon, it rose late, It is lagging—O I think it is heavy with love, with love. O madly the sea pushes upon the land, With love, with love. O night! do I not see my love fluttering out among the breakers? What is that little black thing I see there in the white? Loud! loud! loud! Loud I call to you, my love! High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves, Surely you must know who is here, is here, You must know who I am, my love. Low-hanging moon! What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow? O it is the shape, the shape of my mate! O moon do not keep her from me any longer. Land! land! O land! Whichever way I turn, O I think you could give me my mateback again if you only would, For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look. O rising stars! Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with someof you. O throat! O trembling throat! Sound clearer through the atmosphere! Pierce the woods, the earth, Somewhere listening to catch you must be the one I want. Shake out carols! Solitary here, the night's carols! Carols of lonesome love! death's carols! Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon! O under that moon where she droops almost down into the sea! O reckless despairing carols. But soft! sink low! Soft! let me just murmur, And do you wait a moment you husky-nois'd sea, For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me, So faint, I must be still, be still to listen, But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediatelyto me. Hither my love! Here I am! here! With this just-sustain'd note I announce myself to you, This gentle call is for you my love, for you. Do not be decoy'd elsewhere, That is the whistle of the wind, it is not my voice, That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray, Those are the shadows of leaves. O darkness! O in vain! O I am very sick and sorrowful. O brown halo in the sky near the moon, drooping upon the sea! O troubled reflection in the sea! O throat! O throbbing heart! And I singing uselessly, uselessly all the night. O past! O happy life! O songs of joy! In the air, in the woods, over fields, Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved! But my mate no more, no more with me! We two together no more. The aria sinking, All else continuing, the stars shining, The winds blowing, the notes of the bird continuous echoing, With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning, On the sands of Paumanok's shore gray and rustling, The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the faceof the sea almost touching, The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet the waves, with his hair theatmosphere dallying, The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultu-ously bursting, The aria's meaning, the ears, the soul, swiftly depositing, The strange tears down the cheeks coursing, The colloquy there, the trio, each uttering, The undertone, the savage old mother incessantly crying, To the boy's soul's questions sullenly timing, some drown'd secrethissing, To the outsetting bard. Demon or bird! (said the boy's soul,) Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it really to me? For I, that was a child, my tongue's use sleeping, now I haveheard you, Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake, And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, louderand more sorrowful than yours, A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, neverto die. O you singer solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me, O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease perpetuatingyou, Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations, Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me, Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before whatthere in the night, By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon, The messenger there arous'd, the fire, the sweet hell within, The unknown want, the destiny of me. O give me the clew! (it lurks in the night here somewhere,) O if I am to have so much, let me have more! A word then, (for I will conquer it,) The word final, superior to all, Subtle, sent up—what is it?—I listen; Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-waves? Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands? Whereto answering, the sea, Delaying not, hurrying not, Whisper'd me through the night, and very plainly before day-break, Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death, And again death, death, death, death, Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous'd child'sheart, But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet, Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly allover, Death, death, death, death, death. Which I do not forget, But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother, That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok's gray beach, With the thousand responsive songs at random, My own songs awaked from that hour, And with them the key, the word up from the waves, The word of the sweetest song and all songs, That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet, (Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweetgarments, bending aside,) The sea whisper'd me.

Dunbar; The Poet

He sang of life, serenely sweet,With, now and then, a deeper note.From some high peak, nigh yet remote,He voiced the world's absorbing beat. He sang of love when earth was young,And Love, itself, was in his lays.But ah, the world, it turned to praiseA jingle in a broken tongue.

Mckay: The Spanish Needle

Lovely dainty Spanish needle With your yellow flower and white, Dew bedecked and softly sleeping, Do you think of me to-night? Shadowed by the spreading mango, Nodding o'er the rippling stream, Tell me, dear plant of my childhood, Do you of the exile dream? Do you see me by the brook's side Catching crayfish 'neath the stone, As you did the day you whispered: Leave the harmless dears alone? Do you see me in the meadow Coming from the woodland spring With a bamboo on my shoulder And a pail slung from a string? Do you see me all expectant Lying in an orange grove, While the swee-swees sing above me, Waiting for my elf-eyed love? Lovely dainty Spanish needle, Source to me of sweet delight, In your far-off sunny southland Do you dream of me to-night?

Stein; Objects from Tender Buttons

A CARAFE, THAT IS A BLIND GLASS. A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle and nothing strange a single hurt color and an arrangement in a system to pointing. All this and not ordinary, not unordered in not resembling. The difference is spreading. GLAZED GLITTER. Nickel, what is nickel, it is originally rid of a cover. The change in that is that red weakens an hour. The change has come. There is no search. But there is, there is that hope and that interpretation and sometime, surely any is unwelcome, sometime there is breath and there will be a sinecure and charming very charming is that clean and cleansing. Certainly glittering is handsome and convincing. There is no gratitude in mercy and in medicine. There can be breakages in Japanese. That is no programme. That is no color chosen. It was chosen yesterday, that showed spitting and perhaps washing and polishing. It certainly showed no obligation and perhaps if borrowing is not natural there is some use in giving. A SUBSTANCE IN A CUSHION. The change of color is likely and a difference a very little difference is prepared. Sugar is not a vegetable. Callous is something that hardening leaves behind what will be soft if there is a genuine interest in there being present as many girls as men. Does this change. It shows that dirt is clean when there is a volume. A cushion has that cover. Supposing you do not like to change, supposing it is very clean that there is no change in appearance, supposing that there is regularity and a costume is that any the worse than an oyster and an exchange. Come to season that is there any extreme use in feather and cotton. Is there not much more joy in a table and more chairs and very likely roundness and a place to put them. A circle of fine card board and a chance to see a tassel. What is the use of a violent kind of delightfulness if there is no pleasure in not getting tired of it. The question does not come before there is a quotation. In any kind of place there is a top to covering and it is a pleasure at any rate there is some venturing in refusing to believe nonsense. It shows what use there is in a whole piece if one uses it and it is extreme and very likely the little things could be dearer but in any case there is a bargain and if there is the best thing to do is to take it away and wear it and then be reckless be reckless and resolved on returning gratitude. Light blue and the same red with purple makes a change. It shows that there is no mistake. Any pink shows that and very likely it is reasonable. Very likely there should not be a finer fancy present. Some increase means a calamity and this is the best preparation for three and more being together. A little calm is so ordinary and in any case there is sweetness and some of that. A seal and matches and a swan and ivy and a suit. A closet, a closet does not connect under the bed. The band if it is white and black, the band has a green string. A sight a whole sight and a little groan grinding makes a trimming such a sweet singing trimming and a red thing not a round thing but a white thing, a red thing and a white thing. The disgrace is not in carelessness nor even in sewing it comes out out of the way. What is the sash like. The sash is not like anything mustard it is not like a same thing that has stripes, it is not even more hurt than that, it has a little top. A BOX. Out of kindness comes redness and out of rudeness comes rapid same question, out of an eye comes research, out of selection comes painful cattle. So then the order is that a white way of being round is something suggesting a pin and is it disappointing, it is not, it is so rudimentary to be analysed and see a fine substance strangely, it is so earnest to have a green point not to red but to point again. A PIECE OF COFFEE. More of double. A place in no new table. A single image is not splendor. Dirty is yellow. A sign of more in not mentioned. A piece of coffee is not a detainer. The resemblance to yellow is dirtier and distincter. The clean mixture is whiter and not coal color, never more coal color than altogether. The sight of a reason, the same sight slighter, the sight of a simpler negative answer, the same sore sounder, the intention to wishing, the same splendor, the same furniture. The time to show a message is when too late and later there is no hanging in a blight. A not torn rose-wood color. If it is not dangerous then a pleasure and more than any other if it is cheap is not cheaper. The amusing side is that the sooner there are no fewer the more certain is the necessity dwindled. Supposing that the case contained rose-wood and a color. Supposing that there was no reason for a distress and more likely for a number, supposing that there was no astonishment, is it not necessary to mingle astonishment. The settling of stationing cleaning is one way not to shatter scatter and scattering. The one way to use custom is to use soap and silk for cleaning. The one way to see cotton is to have a design concentrating the illusion and the illustration. The perfect way is to accustom the thing to have a lining and the shape of a ribbon and to be solid, quite solid in standing and to use heaviness in morning. It is light enough in that. It has that shape nicely. Very nicely may not be exaggerating. Very strongly may be sincerely fainting. May be strangely flattering. May not be strange in everything. May not be strange to. DIRT AND NOT COPPER. Dirt and not copper makes a color darker. It makes the shape so heavy and makes no melody harder. It makes mercy and relaxation and even a strength to spread a table fuller. There are more places not empty. They see cover. NOTHING ELEGANT. A charm a single charm is doubtful. If the red is rose and there is a gate surrounding it, if inside is let in and there places change then certainly something is upright. It is earnest. MILDRED'S UMBRELLA. A cause and no curve, a cause and loud enough, a cause and extra a loud clash and an extra wagon, a sign of extra, a sac a small sac and an established color and cunning, a slender grey and no ribbon, this means a loss a great loss a restitution. A METHOD OF A CLOAK. A single climb to a line, a straight exchange to a cane, a desperate adventure and courage and a clock, all this which is a system, which has feeling, which has resignation and success, all makes an attractive black silver. A RED STAMP. If lilies are lily white if they exhaust noise and distance and even dust, if they dusty will dirt a surface that has no extreme grace, if they do this and it is not necessary it is not at all necessary if they do this they need a catalogue.

It Was Raining in Delft" (Peter Gizzi)

A cornerstone. Marble pilings. Curbstones and brick.I saw rooftops. The sun after a rain shower.Liz, there are children in clumsy jackets. Cobblestones and the sun now in a curbside pool.I will call in an hour where you are sleeping. I've been walking for 7 hrs on yr name day.Dead, I am calling you now.There are colonnades. Yellow wrappers in the square.Just what you'd suspect: a market with flowers and matrons, handbags.Beauty walks this world. It ages everything.I am far and I am an animal and I am just another I-am poem, a we-see poem, a they-love poem.The green. All the different windows.There is so much stone here. And grass. So beautiful each translucent electric blade.And the noise. Cheers folding into traffic. These things. Things that have been already said many times:leaf, zipper, sparrow, lintel, scarf, window shade.

Toomer, Cane, Conversion

African Guardian of Souls, Drunk with rum, Feasting on a strange cassava, Yielding to new words and a weak palabra Of a white-faced sardonic god— Grins, cries Amen, Shouts hosanna.

Stevens, The Well Dressed Man With A Beard

After the final no there comes a yes And on that yes the future world depends. No was the night. Yes is this present sun. If the rejected things, the things denied, Slid over the western cataract, yet one, One only, one thing that was firm, even No greater than a cricket's horn, no more Than a thought to be rehearsed all day, a speech Of the self that must sustain itself on speech, One thing remaining, infallible, would be Enough. Ah! douce campagna of that thing! Ah! douce campagna, honey in the heart, Green in the body, out of a petty phrase, Out of a thing believed, a thing affirmed: The form on the pillow humming while one sleeps, The aureole above the humming house... It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.

Stevens, The Plain Sense of Things

After the leaves have fallen, we return To a plain sense of things. It is as if We had come to an end of the imagination, Inanimate in an inert savoir. It is difficult even to choose the adjective For this blank cold, this sadness without cause. The great structure has become a minor house. No turban walks across the lessened floors. The greenhouse never so badly needed paint. The chimney is fifty years old and slants to one side. A fantastic effort has failed, a repetition In a repetitiousness of men and flies. Yet the absence of the imagination had Itself to be imagined. The great pond, The plain sense of it, without reflections, leaves, Mud, water like dirty glass, expressing silence Of a sort, silence of a rat come out to see, The great pond and its waste of the lilies, all this Had to be imagined as an inevitable knowledge, Required, as a necessity requires.

Mckay: Anfonso, Dressing to Wait at Table

Alfonso is a handsome bronze-hued lad Of subtly-changing and surprising parts; His moods are storms that frighten and make glad, His eyes were made to capture women's hearts. Down in the glory-hole Alfonso sings An olden song of wine and clinking glasses And riotous rakes; magnificently flings Gay kisses to imaginary lasses. Alfonso's voice of mellow music thrills Our swaying forms and steals our hearts with joy; And when he soars, his fine falsetto trills Are rarest notes of gold without alloy. But, O Alfonso! wherefore do you sing Dream-songs of carefree men and ancient places? Soon we shall be beset by clamouring Of hungry and importunate palefaces.

anne Bradstreet: before the birth of one of her children

All things within this fading world hath end, Adversity doth still our joyes attend; No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet, But with death's parting blow is sure to meet. The sentence past is most irrevocable, A common thing, yet oh inevitable. How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend, How soon't may be thy Lot to lose thy friend, We are both ignorant, yet love bids me These farewell lines to recommend to thee, That when that knot's untied that made us one, I may seem thine, who in effect am none. And if I see not half my dayes that's due, What nature would, God grant to yours and you; The many faults that well you know I have Let be interr'd in my oblivious grave; If any worth or virtue were in me, Let that live freshly in thy memory And when thou feel'st no grief, as I no harms, Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms. And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains Look to my little babes, my dear remains. And if thou love thyself, or loved'st me, These o protect from step Dames injury. And if chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse, With some sad sighs honour my absent Herse; And kiss this paper for thy loves dear sake, Who with salt tears this last Farewel did take.

Emily Dickinson, John Newton, Amazing Grace

Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound!)That sav'd a wretch like me!I once was lost, but now am found;Was blind, but now I see.'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,And grace my fears reliev'd;How precious did that grace appear,The hour I first believ'd!Thro' many dangers, toils, and snares,I have already come;'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,And grace will lead me home.The Lord has promis'd good to me,His word my hope secures;He will my shield and portion be,As long as life endures.Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,And mortal life shall cease;I shall possess, within the veil,A life of joy and peace.This earth shall soon dissolve like snow,The sun forbear to shine;But God, who call'd me here below,Will be for ever mine.

Mckay: To One Coming North

At first you'll joy to see the playful snow, Like white moths trembling on the tropic air, Or waters of the hills that softly flow Gracefully falling down a shining stair. And when the fields and streets are covered white And the wind-worried void is chilly, raw, Or underneath a spell of heat and light The cheerless frozen spots begin to thaw, Like me you'll long for home, where birds' glad song Means flowering lanes and leas and spaces dry, And tender thoughts and feelings fine and strong, Beneath a vivid silver-flecked blue sky. But oh! more than the changeless southern isles, When Spring has shed upon the earth her charm, You'll love the Northland wreathed in golden smiles By the miraculous sun turned glad and warm.

Toomer, Cane, Reapers

Black reapers with the sound of steel on stones Are sharpening scythes. I see them place the hones In their hip-pockets as a thing that's done, And start their silent swinging, one by one. Black horses drive a mower through the weeds, And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds. His belly close to ground. I see the blade, Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade.

Dunbar: Invitation to Love

Come when the nights are bright with stars Or come when the moon is mellow; Come when the sun his golden bars Drops on the hay-field yellow. Come in the twilight soft and gray, Come in the night or come in the day, Come, O love, whene'er you may, And you are welcome, welcome. You are sweet, O Love, dear Love, You are soft as the nesting dove. Come to my heart and bring it to rest As the bird flies home to its welcome nest. Come when my heart is full of grief Or when my heart is merry; Come with the falling of the leaf Or with the redd'ning cherry. Come when the year's first blossom blows, Come when the summer gleams and glows, Come with the winter's drifting snows, And you are welcome, welcome.

Toomer, Cane, Cotton Song

Come, brother, come. Lets lift it; Come now, hew it! roll away! Shackles fall upon the Judgment Day But lets not wait for it. God's body's got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Cant blame God if we dont roll, Come, brother, roll, roll! Cotton bales are the fleecy way Weary sinner's bare feet trod, Softly, softly to the throne of God, "We aint agwine t wait until th Judgment Day! Nassur; nassur, Hump. Eoho, eoho, roll away! We aint agwine t wait until th Judgment Day!" God's body's got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Cant blame God is we dont roll, Come, brother, roll, roll!

O'Hara: Ode: Salute to the French Neg Poets

From near the sea, like Whitman my great predecessor, I callto the spirits of other lands to make fecund my existence do not spare your wrath upon our shores, that trees may growupon the sea, mirror of our total mankind in the weather one who no longer remembers dancing in the heat of the moon may callacross the shifting sands, trying to live in the terrible western world here where to love at all's to be a politician, as to love a poemis pretentious, this may tendentious but it's lyrical which shows what lyricism has been brought to by our fables timeswhere cowards are shibboleths and one specific love's traduced by shame for what you love more generally and never would avoidwhere reticence is paid for by a poet in his blood or ceasing to be blood! Blood that we have mountains in our veins to stand off jackalsin the pillaging of our desires and allegiances, Aimé Césaire for if there is fortuity it's in the love we bear each other's differencesin race which is the poetic ground on which we rear our smiles standing in the sun of marshes as we wade slowly toward the culminationof a gift which is categorically the most difficult relationship and should be sought as such because it is our nature, nothinginspires us but the love we want upon the frozen face of earth and utter disparagement turns into praise as generations read the messageof our hearts in adolescent closets who once shot at us in doorways or kept us from living freely because they were too young then to knowwhat they would ultimately need from a barren and heart-sore life the beauty of America, neither cool jazz nor devoured Egyptian heroes, lies inlives in the darkness I inhabit in the midst of sterile millions the only truth is face to face, the poem whose words become your mouthand dying in black and white we fight for what we love, not are.

Dunbar; To the Eastern Shore

I 's feelin' kin' o' lonesome in my little room to-night,An' my min 's done los' de minutes an' de miles,Wile it teks me back a-flyin' to de country of delight,Whaih de Chesapeake goes grumblin' er wid smiles. Oh, de ol' plantation 's callin' to me, Come, come back, Hyeah 's de place fu' you to labouh an' to res','Fu my sandy roads is gleamin' w'ile de city ways is black;Come back, honey, case yo' country home is bes'.I know de moon is shinin' down erpon de Eastern sho',An' de bay 's a-sayin' "Howdy" to de lan';An' de folks is all a-settin' out erroun' de cabin do',Wid dey feet a-restin' in de silvah san'; An' de ol' plantation 's callin' to me, Come, oh, come,F'om de life dat 's des' a-waihin' you erway,F'om de trouble an' de bustle, an' de agernizin' humDat de city keeps ergoin' all de day.I 's tiahed of de city, tek me back to Sandy Side,Whaih de po'est ones kin live an' play an' eat;Whaih we draws a simple livin' f'om de fo'est an' de tide,An' de days ah faih, an' evah night is sweet. Fu' de ol' plantation 's callin' to me, Come, oh, come.An' de Chesapeake 's a-sayin' "Dat's de t'ing,"W'ile my little cabin beckons, dough his mouf is closed an' dumb,I 's a-comin, an' my hea't begins to sing.

Claude McKay; excerpt from Harlem Shadows

I hear the halting footsteps of a lass In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass To bend and barter at desire's call. Ah, little dark girls who in slippered feet Go prowling through the night from street to street! Through the long night until the silver break Of day the little gray feet know no rest; Through the lone night until the last snow-flake Has dropped from heaven upon the earth's white breast, The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street. Ah, stern harsh world, that in the wretched way Of poverty, dishonor and disgrace, Has pushed the timid little feet of clay, The sacred brown feet of my fallen race! Ah, heart of me, the weary, weary feet In Harlem wandering from street to street.

Dunbar; "Sympathy"

I know what the caged bird feels, alas! When the sun is bright on the upland slopes; When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass, And the river flows like a stream of glass; When the first bird sings and the first bud opes, And the faint perfume from its chalice steals— I know what the caged bird feels! I know why the caged bird beats his wing Till its blood is red on the cruel bars; For he must fly back to his perch and cling When he fain would be on the bough a-swing; And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars And they pulse again with a keener sting— I know why he beats his wing! I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,— When he beats his bars and he would be free; It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core, But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings— I know why the caged bird sings!

Mckay: The White City

I will not toy with it nor bend an inch. Deep in the secret chambers of my heart I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch I bear it nobly as I live my part. My being would be a skeleton, a shell, If this dark Passion that fills my every mood, And makes my heaven in the white world's hell, Did not forever feed me vital blood. I see the mighty city through a mist— The strident trains that speed the goaded mass, The poles and spires and towers vapor -kissed, The fortressed port through which the great ships pass, The tides, the wharves, the dens I contemplate, Are sweet like wanton loves because I hate.

Dunbar; On the Road

I's boun' to see my gal to-night--Oh, lone de way, my dearie!De moon ain't out, de stars ain't bright--Oh, lone de way, my dearie!Dis hoss o' mine is pow'ful slow,But when I does git to yo' do'Yo' kiss'll pay me back, an' mo',Dough lone de way, my dearie. De night is skeery-lak an' still--Oh, lone de way, my dearie!'Cept fu' dat mou'nful whippo'will--Oh, lone de way, my dearie!De way so long wif dis slow pace,'T''u'd seem to me lak savin' graceEf you was on a nearer place,Fu' lone de way, my dearie. I hyeah de hootin' of de owl--Oh, lone de way, my dearie!I wish dat watch-dog wouldn't howl--Oh, lone de way, my dearie!An' evaht'ing, bofe right an' lef',Seem p'int'ly lak hit put itse'fIn shape to skeer me half to def--Oh, lone de way, my dearie! I whistles so's I won't be feared--Oh, lone de way, my dearie!But anyhow I's kin o' skeered,Fu' lone de way, my dearie.De sky been lookin' mightly glum,But you kin mek hit lighten some,Ef you'll jes' say you's glad I come,Dough lone de way, my dearie.

Dunbar; "The Lawyers' Ways"

I've been list'nin' to them lawyers In the court house up the street, An' I've come to the conclusion That I'm most completely beat. Fust one feller riz to argy, An' he boldly waded in As he dressed the tremblin' pris'ner In a coat o' deep-dyed sin. Why, he painted him all over In a hue o' blackest crime, An' he smeared his reputation With the thickest kind o' grime, Tell I found myself a-wond'rin', In a misty way and dim, How the Lord had come to fashion Sich an awful man as him. Then the other lawyer started, An' with brimmin', tearful eyes, Said his client was a martyr That was brought to sacrifice. An' he give to that same pris'ner Every blessed human grace, Tell I saw the light o' virtue Fairly shinin' from his face. Then I own 'at I was puzzled How sich things could rightly be; An' this aggervatin' question Seems to keep a-puzzlin' me. So, will some one please inform me, An' this mystery unroll— How an angel an' a devil Can persess the self-same soul?

O'Hara: Music

If I rest for a moment near The Equestrianpausing for a liver sausage sandwich in the Mayflower Shoppe,that angel seems to be leading the horse into Bergdorf'sand I am naked as a table cloth, my nerves humming.Close to the fear of war and the stars which have disappeared.I have in my hands only 35c, it's so meaningless to eat!and gusts of water spray over the basins of leaveslike the hammers of a glass pianoforte. If I seem to youto have lavender lips under the leaves of the world,I must tighten my belt.It's like a locomotive on the march, the seasonof distress and clarityand my door is open to the evenings of midwinter'slightly falling snow over the newspapers.Clasp me in your handkerchief like a tear, trumpetof early afternoon! in the foggy autumn.As they're putting up the Christmas trees on Park AvenueI shall see my daydreams walking by with dogs in blankets,put to some use before all those coloured lights come on!But no more fountains and no more rain,and the stores stay open terribly late.

O'Hara: A Step Away From Them

It's my lunch hour, so I go for a walk among the hum-colored cabs. First, down the sidewalk where laborers feed their dirty glistening torsos sandwiches and Coca-Cola, with yellow helmets on. They protect them from falling bricks, I guess. Then onto the avenue where skirts are flipping above heels and blow up over grates. The sun is hot, but the cabs stir up the air. I look at bargains in wristwatches. There are cats playing in sawdust. On to Times Square, where the sign blows smoke over my head, and higher the waterfall pours lightly. A Negro stands in a doorway with a toothpick, languorously agitating. A blonde chorus girl clicks: he smiles and rubs his chin. Everything suddenly honks: it is 12:40 of a Thursday. Neon in daylight is a great pleasure, as Edwin Denby would write, as are light bulbs in daylight. I stop for a cheeseburger at JULIET'S CORNER. Giulietta Masina, wife of Federico Fellini, è bell' attrice. And chocolate malted. A lady in foxes on such a day puts her poodle in a cab. There are several Puerto Ricans on the avenue today, which makes it beautiful and warm. First Bunny died, then John Latouche, then Jackson Pollock. But is the earth as full as life was full, of them? And one has eaten and one walks, past the magazines with nudes and the posters for BULLFIGHT and the Manhattan Storage Warehouse, which they'll soon tear down. I used to think they had the Armory Show there. A glass of papaya juice and back to work. My heart is in my pocket, it is Poems by Pierre Reverdy.

LeRoi Jones; Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

Lately, I've become accustomed to the way The ground opens up and envelopes me Each time I go out to walk the dog. Or the broad edged silly music the wind Makes when I run for a bus... Things have come to that. And now, each night I count the stars, And each night I get the same number. And when they will not come to be counted, I count the holes they leave. Nobody sings anymore. And then last night, I tiptoed up To my daughter's room and heard her Talking to someone, and when I opened The door, there was no one there... Only she on her knees, peeking into Her own clasped hands.

Toomer, Cane, Seventh Street

Money burns the pocket, pocket hurts, Bootleggers in silken shirts, Ballooned, zooming Cadillacs, Whizzing, whizzing down the street-car tracks. Seventh Street is a bastard of Prohibition and the War. A crude-boned, soft-skinned wedge of ****** life breathing its loafer air, jazz songs and love, thrusting unconscious rhythms, black reddish blood into the white and whitewashed wood of Washington. Stale soggy wood of Washington. Wedges rust in soggy wood. . . Split it! In two! Again! Shred it! . . the sun. Wedges are brilliant in the sun; ribbons of wet wood dry and blow away. Black reddish blood. Pouring for crude-boned soft-skinned life, who set you flowing? Blood suckers of the War would spin in a frenzy of dizziness if they drank your blood. Prohibition would put a stop to it. Who set you flowing? White and whitewash disappear in blood. Who set you flowing? Flowing down the smooth asphalt of Seventh Street, in shanties, brick office buildings, theaters, drug stores, restaurants, and cabarets? Eddying on the corners? Swirling like a blood-red smoke up where the buzzards fly in heaven? God would not dare to suck black red blood. A ****** God! He would duck his head in shame and call for the Judgement Day. Who set you flowing? Money burns the pocket, pocket hurts, Bootleggers in silken shirts, Ballooned, zooming Cadillacs, Whizzing, whizzing down the street-car tracks.

Whitman I, selections from Calamus; NOT HEAVING FROM MY RIBB'D BREAST ONLY.

NOT heaving from my ribb'd breast only, Not in sighs at night in rage dissatisfied with myself, Not in those long-drawn, ill-supprest sighs, Not in many an oath and promise broken, Not in my wilful and savage soul's volition, Not in the subtle nourishment of the air, Not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists, Not in the curious systole and diastole within which will one daycease, Not in many a hungry wish told to the skies only, Not in cries, laughter, defiances, thrown from me when alone farin the wilds, Not in husky pantings through clinch'd teeth, Not in sounded and resounded words, chattering words, echoes,dead words, Not in the murmurs of my dreams while I sleep, Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day, Nor in the limbs and senses of my body that take you and dismiss you continually—not there, Not in any or all of them O adhesiveness! O pulse of my life! Need I that you exist and show yourself any more than in these songs.

Phyllis Wheatley: On Virtue

O thou bright jewel in my aim I strive To comprehend thee. Thine own words declare Wisdom is higher than a fool can reach. I cease to wonder, and no more attempt Thine height t'explore, or fathom thy profound. But, O my soul, sink not into despair, Virtue is near thee, and with gentle hand Would now embrace thee, hovers o'er thine head. Fain would the heaven-born soul with her converse, Then seek, then court her for her promised bliss. Auspicious queen, thine heavenly pinions spread, And lead celestial Chastity along; Lo! now her sacred retinue descends, Arrayed in glory from the orbs above. Attend me, Virtue, thro' my youthful years! O leave me not to the false joys of time! But guide my steps to endless life and bliss. Greatness, or Goodness, say what I shall call thee, To give an higher appellation still, Teach me a better strain, a nobler lay, O Thou, enthroned with Cherubs in the realms of day!

Dunbar; The Deserted Plantation

Oh, de grubbin'-hoe 's a-rustin' in de co'nah,An' de plow 's a-tumblin' down in de fiel',While de whippo'will 's a-wailin' lak a mou'nahWhen his stubbo'n hea't is tryin' ha'd to yiel'. In de furrers whah de co'n was allus wavin',Now de weeds is growin' green an' rank an' tall;An' de swallers roun' de whole place is a-bravin'Lak dey thought deir folks had allus owned it all. An' de big house stan's all quiet lak an' solemn,Not a blessed soul in pa'lor, po'ch, er lawn;Not a guest, ner not a ca'iage lef' to haul 'em,Fu' de ones dat tu'ned de latch-string out air gone. An' de banjo's voice is silent in de qua'ters,D' ain't a hymn ner co'n-song ringin' in de air;But de murmur of a branch's passin' watersIs de only soun' dat breks de stillness dere. Whah 's de da'kies, dem dat used to be a-dancin'Evry night befo' de ole cabin do'?Whah 's de chillun, dem dat used to be a-prancin'Er a-rollin' in de san' er on de flo'? Whah 's ole Uncle Mordecai an' Uncle Aaron?Whah 's Aunt Doshy, Sam, an' Kit, an' all de res'?Whah 's ole Tom de da'ky fiddlah, how 's he farin'?Whah 's de gals dat used to sing an' dance de bes'? Gone! not one o' dem is lef' to tell de story;Dey have lef' de deah ole place to fall away.Could n't one o' dem dat seed it in its gloryStay to watch it in de hour of decay? Dey have lef' de ole plantation to de swallers,But it hol's in me a lover till de las';Fu' I fin' hyeah in de memory dat follersAll dat loved me an' dat I loved in de pas'. So I'll stay an' watch de deah ole place an' tend itEz I used to in de happy days gone by.'Twell de othah Mastah thinks it's time to end it,An' calls me to my qua'ters in de sky.

Phyllis Wheatley: To a Gentleman and Lady on the Death of the Lady's Brother and Sister, and a Child of the Name Avis, Aged One Year

On Death's domain intent I fix my eyes, Where human nature in vast ruin lies, With pensive mind I search the drear abode, Where the great conqu'ror has his spoils bestow'd; There there the offspring of six thousand years In endless numbers to my view appears: Whole kingdoms in his gloomy den are thrust, And nations mix with their primeval dust: Insatiate still he gluts the ample tomb; His is the present, his the age to come See here a brother, here a sister spread, And a sweet daughter mingled with the dead. But, Madam, let your grief be laid aside, And let the fountain of your tears be dry'd, In vain they flow to wet the dusty plain, Your sighs are wafted to the skies in vain, Your pains they witness, but they can no more, While Death reigns tyrant o'er this mortal shore. The glowing stars and silver queen of light At last must perish in the gloom of night: Resign thy friends to that Almighty hand, Which gave them life, and bow to his command; Thine Avis give without a murm'ring heart, Though half thy soul be fated to depart. To shining guards consign thine infant care To waft triumphant through the seas of air: Her soul enlarg'd to heav'nly pleasure springs, She feeds on truth and uncreated things. Methinks I hear her in the realms above, And leaning forward with a filial love, Invite you there to share immortal bliss Unknown, untasted in a state like this. With tow'ring hopes, and growing grace arise, And seek beatitude beyond the skies.

Stevens; The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the sound of the wind, In the sound of a few leaves, Which is the sound of the land Full of the same wind That is blowing in the same bare place For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Whitman I, selections from Calamus; SCENTED HERBAGE OF MY BREAST.

SCENTED herbage of my breast, Leaves from you I glean, I write, to be perused best afterwards, Tomb-leaves, body-leaves growing up above me above death, Perennial roots, tall leaves, O the winter shall not freeze youdelicate leaves, Every year shall you bloom again, out from where you retired youshall emerge again; O I do not know whether many passing by will discover you orinhale your faint odor, but I believe a few will; O slender leaves! O blossoms of my blood! I permit you to tellin your own way of the heart that is under you, O I do not know what you mean there underneath yourselves, youare not happiness, You are often more bitter than I can bear, you burn and sting me, Yet you are beautiful to me you faint tinged roots, you make methink of death, Death is beautiful from you, (what indeed is finally beautiful exceptdeath and love?) O I think it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of lovers,I think it must be for death, For how calm, how solemn it grows to ascend to the atmosphereof lovers, Death or life I am then indifferent, my soul declines to prefer, (I am not sure but the high soul of lovers welcomes death most,) Indeed O death, I think now these leaves mean precisely the sameas you mean, Grow up taller sweet leaves that I may see! grow up out of mybreast! Spring away from the conceal'd heart there! Do not fold yourself so in your pink-tinged roots timid leaves! Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my breast! Come I am determin'd to unbare this broad breast of mine, Ihave long enough stifled and choked; Emblematic and capricious blades I leave you, now you serve menot, I will say what I have to say by itself, I will sound myself and comrades only, I will never again utter acall only their call, I will raise with it immortal reverberations through the States, I will give an example to lovers to take permanent shape andwill through the States, Through me shall the words be said to make death exhilarating, Give me your tone therefore O death, that I may accord with it, Give me yourself, for I see that you belong to me now above all,and are folded inseparably together, you love and death are, Nor will I allow you to balk me any more with what I was calling life, For now it is convey'd to me that you are the purports essential, That you hide in these shifting forms of life, for reasons, and thatthey are mainly for you, That you beyond them come forth to remain, the real reality, That behind the mask of materials you patiently wait, no matterhow long, That you will one day perhaps take control of all, That you will perhaps dissipate this entire show of appearance, That may-be you are what it is all for, but it does not last so verylong, But you will last very long.

Stevens: The Idea of Order at Key West

She sang beyond the genius of the sea. The water never formed to mind or voice, Like a body wholly body, fluttering Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry, That was not ours although we understood, Inhuman, of the veritable ocean. The sea was not a mask. No more was she. The song and water were not medleyed sound Even if what she sang was what she heard, Since what she sang was uttered word by word. It may be that in all her phrases stirred The grinding water and the gasping wind; But it was she and not the sea we heard. For she was the maker of the song she sang. The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea Was merely a place by which she walked to sing. Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew It was the spirit that we sought and knew That we should ask this often as she sang. If it was only the dark voice of the sea That rose, or even colored by many waves; If it was only the outer voice of sky And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled, However clear, it would have been deep air, The heaving speech of air, a summer sound Repeated in a summer without end And sound alone. But it was more than that, More even than her voice, and ours, among The meaningless plungings of water and the wind, Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres Of sky and sea. It was her voice that made The sky acutest at its vanishing. She measured to the hour its solitude. She was the single artificer of the world In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea, Whatever self it had, became the self That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we, As we beheld her striding there alone, Knew that there never was a world for her Except the one she sang and, singing, made. Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know, Why, when the singing ended and we turned Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights, The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there, As the night descended, tilting in the air, Mastered the night and portioned out the sea, Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles, Arranging, deepening, enchanting night. Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon, The maker's rage to order words of the sea, Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred, And of ourselves and of our origins, In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.

Mckay: Flame-heart

So much have I forgotten in ten years, So much in ten brief years! I have forgot What time the purple apples come to juice, And what month brings the shy forget-me-not. I have forgot the special, startling season Of the pimento's flowering and fruiting; What time of year the ground doves brown the fields And fill the noonday with their curious fluting. I have forgotten much, but still remember The poinsettia's red, blood-red in warm December. I still recall the honey-fever grass, But cannot recollect the high days when We rooted them out of the ping-wing path To stop the mad bees in the rabbit pen. I often try to think in what sweet month The languid painted ladies used to dapple The yellow by-road mazing from the main, Sweet with the golden threads of the rose-apple. I have forgotten—strange—but quite remember The poinsettia's red, blood-red in warm December. What weeks, what months, what time of the mild year We cheated school to have our fling at tops? What days our wine-thrilled bodies pulsed with joy Feasting upon blackberries in the copse? Oh some I know! I have embalmed the days, Even the sacred moments when we played, All innocent of passion, uncorrupt, At noon and evening in the flame-heart's shade. We were so happy, happy, I remember, Beneath the poinsettia's red in warm December.

Whitman I, selections from Calamus; THESE I SINGING IN SPRING.

THESE I singing in spring collect for lovers, (For who but I should understand lovers and all their sorrow andjoy? And who but I should be the poet of comrades?) Collecting I traverse the garden the world, but soon I pass thegates, Now along the pond-side, now wading in a little, fearing not thewet, Now by the post-and-rail fences where the old stones thrown there,pick'd from the fields, have accumulated, (Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stonesand partly cover them, beyond these I pass,) Far, far in the forest, or sauntering later in summer, before I thinkwhere I go, Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in thesilence, Alone I had thought, yet soon a troop gathers around me, Some walk by my side and some behind, and some embrace myarms or neck, They the spirits of dear friends dead or alive, thicker they come,a great crowd, and I in the middle, Collecting, dispensing, singing, there I wander with them, Plucking something for tokens, tossing toward whoever is near me, Here, lilac, with a branch of pine, Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull'd off a live-oakin Florida as it hung trailing down, Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage, And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pond-side, (O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me, and returns againnever to separate from me, And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades, thiscalamus-root shall, Interchange it youths with each other! let none render it back!) And twigs of maple and a bunch of wild orange and chestnut, And stems of currants and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar, These I compass'd around by a thick cloud of spirits, Wandering, point to or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from me, Indicating to each one what he shall have, giving something to each; But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve, I will give of it, but only to them that love as I myself am capable of loving.

Stevens, "Of Modern Poetry"

The poem of the mind in the act of finding What will suffice. It has not always had To find: the scene was set; it repeated what Was in the script. Then the theatre was changed To something else. Its past was a souvenir. It has to be living, to learn the speech of the place. It has to face the men of the time and to meet The women of the time. It has to think about war And it has to find what will suffice. It has To construct a new stage. It has to be on that stage And, like an insatiable actor, slowly and With meditation, speak words that in the ear, In the delicatest ear of the mind, repeat, Exactly, that which it wants to hear, at the sound Of which, an invisible audience listens, Not to the play, but to itself, expressed In an emotion as of two people, as of two Emotions becoming one. The actor is A metaphysician in the dark, twanging An instrument, twanging a wiry string that gives Sounds passing through sudden rightnesses, wholly Containing the mind, below which it cannot descend, Beyond which it has no will to rise. It must Be the finding of a satisfaction, and may Be of a man skating, a woman dancing, a woman Combing. The poem of the act of the mind.

Toomer, Cane, Georgia Dusk

The sky, lazily disdaining to pursue The setting sun, too indolent to hold A lengthened tournament for flashing gold,Passively darkens for night's barbecue, A feast of moon and men and barking hounds, An orgy for some genius of the South With blood-hot eyes and cane-lipped scented mouth,Surprised in making folk-songs from soul sounds. The sawmill blows its whistle, buzz-saws stop, And silence breaks the bud of knoll and hill, Soft settling pollen where plowed lands fulfillTheir early promise of a bumper crop. Smoke from the pyramidal sawdust pile Curls up, blue ghosts of trees, tarrying low Where only chips and stumps are left to showThe solid proof of former domicile. Meanwhile, the men, with vestiges of pomp, Race memories of king and caravan, High-priests, an ostrich, and a juju-man,Go singing through the footpaths of the swamp. Their voices rise . . . the pine trees are guitars, Strumming, pine-needles fall like sheets of rain . . . Their voices rise . . . the chorus of the caneIs caroling a vesper to the stars . . . O singers, resinous and soft your songs Above the sacred whisper of the pines, Give virgin lips to cornfield concubines,Bring dreams of Christ to dusky cane-lipped throngs.