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1914-18 “equality of sacrifice” A. “I was a Have.”   B. “I was a ‘have-not.’” (Together).“What hast thou given which I gave not?” a servant We were together since the War began. He was my servant—and the better man. a son My son was killed while laughing at some jest.    I would I knew What it was, and it might serve me in a time when jests are few. an only son I have slain none except my Mother.    She (Blessing her slayer) died of grief for me. ex-clerk Pity not!    The Army gave Freedom to a timid slave: In which Freedom did he find Strength of body, will, and mind: By which strength he came to prove Mirth, Companionship, and Love: For which Love to Death he went: In which Death he lies content. the wonder Body and Spirit I surrendered whole To harsh Instructors—and received a soul . . . If mortal man could change me through and through From all I was—what may The God not do? hindu sepoy in france This man in his own country prayed we know not to what Powers. We pray Them to reward him for his bravery in ours. the coward I could not look on Death, which being known, Men led me to him, blindfold and alone. shock My name, my speech, my self I had forgot. My wife and children came—I knew them not. I died.    My Mother followed.    At her call And on her bosom I remembered all. a grave near cairo Gods of the Nile, should this stout fellow here Get out—get out!    He knows not shame nor fear. pelicans in the wilderness

Butane, propane and lungful of diesel. I did not stand a chance. Always with poison breath, bill, responsibility: a man with rote hands. Everything in exchange, rain in a frozen season. Our roof, roofs strung with hot wire. Our love, what was, an impression of light, gaunt: there is nothing to get.

Ye learned sisters which have oftentimes Beene to me ayding, others to adorne: Whom ye thought worthy of your gracefull rymes, That even the greatest did not greatly scorne To heare theyr names sung in your simple layes, But joyed in theyr prayse. And when ye list your owne mishaps to mourne, Which death, or love, or fortunes wreck did rayse, Your string could soone to sadder tenor turne, And teach the woods and waters to lament Your dolefull dreriment. Now lay those sorrowfull complaints aside, And having all your heads with girland crownd, Helpe me mine owne loves prayses to resound, Ne let the same of any be envide: So Orpheus did for his owne bride, So I unto my selfe alone will sing, The woods shall to me answer and my Eccho ring. Early before the worlds light giving lampe, His golden beame upon the hils doth spred, Having disperst the nights unchearefull dampe, Doe ye awake, and with fresh lusty hed, Go to the bowre of my beloved love, My truest turtle dove, Bid her awake; for Hymen is awake, And long since ready forth his maske to move, With his bright Tead that flames with many a flake, And many a bachelor to waite on him, In theyr fresh garments trim. Bid her awake therefore and soone her dight, For lo the wished day is come at last, That shall for al the paynes and sorrowes past, Pay to her usury of long delight: And whylest she doth her dight, Doe ye to her of joy and solace sing, That all the woods may answer and your eccho ring. Bring with you all the Nymphes that you can heare Both of the rivers and the forrests greene: And of the sea that neighbours to her neare, Al with gay girlands goodly wel beseene. And let them also with them bring in hand Another gay girland For my fayre love of lillyes and of roses, Bound truelove wize with a blew silke riband. And let them make great store of bridale poses, And let them eeke bring store of other flowers To deck the bridale bowers. And let the ground whereas her foot shall tread, For feare the stones her tender foot should wrong Be strewed with fragrant flowers all along, And diapred lyke the discolored mead. Which done, doe at her chamber dore awayt, For she will waken strayt, The whiles doe ye this song unto her sing, The woods shall to you answer and your Eccho ring. Ye Nymphes of Mulla which with carefull heed, The silver scaly trouts doe tend full well, And greedy pikes which use therein to feed, (Those trouts and pikes all others doo excell) And ye likewise which keepe the rushy lake, Where none doo fishes take, Bynd up the locks the which hang scatterd light, And in his waters which your mirror make, Behold your faces as the christall bright, That when you come whereas my love doth lie, No blemish she may spie. And eke ye lightfoot mayds which keepe the deere, That on the hoary mountayne use to towre, And the wylde wolves which seeke them to devoure, With your steele darts doo chace from comming neer, Be also present heere, To helpe to decke her and to help to sing, That all the woods may answer and your eccho ring. Wake, now my love, awake; for it is time, The Rosy Morne long since left Tithones bed, All ready to her silver coche to clyme, And Phoebus gins to shew his glorious hed. Hark how the cheerefull birds do chaunt theyr laies And carroll of loves praise. The merry Larke hir mattins sings aloft, The thrush replyes, the Mavis descant playes, The Ouzell shrills, the Ruddock warbles soft, So goodly all agree with sweet consent, To this dayes merriment. Ah my deere love why doe ye sleepe thus long, When meeter were that ye should now awake, T'awayt the comming of your joyous make, And hearken to the birds lovelearned song, The deawy leaves among. For they of joy and pleasance to you sing, That all the woods them answer and theyr eccho ring. My love is now awake out of her dreames, And her fayre eyes like stars that dimmed were With darksome cloud, now shew theyr goodly beames More bright then Hesperus his head doth rere. Come now ye damzels, daughters of delight, Helpe quickly her to dight, But first come ye fayre houres which were begot In Joves sweet paradice, of Day and Night, Which doe the seasons of the yeare allot, And al that ever in this world is fayre Doe make and still repayre. And ye three handmayds of the Cyprian Queene, The which doe still adorne her beauties pride, Helpe to addorne my beautifullest bride: And as ye her array, still throw betweene Some graces to be seene, And as ye use to Venus, to her sing, The whiles the woods shal answer and your eccho ring. Now is my love all ready forth to come, Let all the virgins therefore well awayt, And ye fresh boyes that tend upon her groome Prepare your selves; for he is comming strayt. Set all your things in seemely good aray Fit for so joyfull day, The joyfulst day that ever sunne did see. Faire Sun, shew forth thy favourable ray, And let thy lifull heat not fervent be For feare of burning her sunshyny face, Her beauty to disgrace. O fayrest Phoebus, father of the Muse, If ever I did honour thee aright, Or sing the thing, that mote thy mind delight, Doe not thy servants simple boone refuse, But let this day let this one day be myne, Let all the rest be thine. Then I thy soverayne prayses loud will sing, That all the woods shal answer and theyr eccho ring. Harke how the Minstrels gin to shrill aloud Their merry Musick that resounds from far, The pipe, the tabor, and the trembling Croud, That well agree withouten breach or jar. But most of all the Damzels doe delite, When they their tymbrels smyte, And thereunto doe daunce and carrol sweet, That all the sences they doe ravish quite, The whyles the boyes run up and downe the street, Crying aloud with strong confused noyce, As if it were one voyce. Hymen io Hymen, Hymen they do shout, That even to the heavens theyr shouting shrill Doth reach, and all the firmament doth fill, To which the people standing all about, As in approvance doe thereto applaud And loud advaunce her laud, And evermore they Hymen Hymen sing, That al the woods them answer and theyr eccho ring. Loe where she comes along with portly pace Lyke Phoebe from her chamber of the East, Arysing forth to run her mighty race, Clad all in white, that seemes a virgin best. So well it her beseemes that ye would weene Some angell she had beene. Her long loose yellow locks lyke golden wyre, Sprinckled with perle, and perling flowres a tweene, Doe lyke a golden mantle her attyre, And being crowned with a girland greene, Seeme lyke some mayden Queene. Her modest eyes abashed to behold So many gazers, as on her do stare, Upon the lowly ground affixed are. Ne dare lift up her countenance too bold, But blush to heare her prayses sung so loud, So farre from being proud. Nathlesse doe ye still loud her prayses sing, That all the woods may answer and your eccho ring. Tell me ye merchants daughters did ye see So fayre a creature in your towne before? So sweet, so lovely, and so mild as she, Adornd with beautyes grace and vertues store, Her goodly eyes lyke Saphyres shining bright, Her forehead yvory white, Her cheekes lyke apples which the sun hath rudded, Her lips lyke cherryes charming men to byte, Her brest like to a bowle of creame uncrudded, Her paps lyke lyllies budded, Her snowie necke lyke to a marble towre, And all her body like a pallace fayre, Ascending uppe with many a stately stayre, To honors seat and chastities sweet bowre. Why stand ye still ye virgins in amaze, Upon her so to gaze, Whiles ye forget your former lay to sing, To which the woods did answer and your eccho ring. But if ye saw that which no eyes can see, The inward beauty of her lively spright, Garnisht with heavenly guifts of high degree, Much more then would ye wonder at that sight, And stand astonisht lyke to those which red Medusaes mazeful hed. There dwels sweet love and constant chastity, Unspotted fayth and comely womenhed, Regard of honour and mild modesty, There vertue raynes as Queene in royal throne, And giveth lawes alone. The which the base affections doe obay, And yeeld theyr services unto her will, Ne thought of thing uncomely ever may Thereto approch to tempt her mind to ill. Had ye once seene these her celestial threasures, And unrevealed pleasures, Then would ye wonder and her prayses sing, That al the woods should answer and your eccho ring. Open the temple gates unto my love, Open them wide that she may enter in, And all the postes adorne as doth behove, And all the pillours deck with girlands trim, For to recyve this Saynt with honour dew, That commeth in to you. With trembling steps and humble reverence, She commeth in, before th'almighties vew: Of her ye virgins learne obedience, When so ye come into those holy places, To humble your proud faces; Bring her up to th'high altar that she may, The sacred ceremonies there partake, The which do endlesse matrimony make, And let the roring Organs loudly play The praises of the Lord in lively notes, The whiles with hollow throates The Choristers the joyous Antheme sing, That al the woods may answere and their eccho ring. Behold whiles she before the altar stands Hearing the holy priest that to her speakes And blesseth her with his two happy hands, How the red roses flush up in her cheekes, And the pure snow with goodly vermill stayne, Like crimsin dyde in grayne, That even th'Angels which continually, About the sacred Altare doe remaine, Forget their service and about her fly, Ofte peeping in her face that seemes more fayre, The more they on it stare. But her sad eyes still fastened on the ground, Are governed with goodly modesty, That suffers not one looke to glaunce awry, Which may let in a little thought unsownd. Why blush ye love to give to me your hand, The pledge of all our band? Sing ye sweet Angels, Alleluya sing, That all the woods may answere and your eccho ring. Now al is done; bring home the bride againe, Bring home the triumph of our victory, Bring home with you the glory of her gaine, With joyance bring her and with jollity. Never had man more joyfull day then this, Whom heaven would heape with blis. Make feast therefore now all this live long day, This day for ever to me holy is, Poure out the wine without restraint or stay, Poure not by cups, but by the belly full, Poure out to all that wull, And sprinkle all the postes and wals with wine, That they may sweat, and drunken be withall. Crowne ye God Bacchus with a coronall, And Hymen also crowne with wreathes of vine, And let the Graces daunce unto the rest; For they can doo it best: The whiles the maydens doe theyr carroll sing, To which the woods shal answer and theyr eccho ring. Ring ye the bels, ye yong men of the towne, And leave your wonted labors for this day: This day is holy; doe ye write it downe, That ye for ever it remember may. This day the sunne is in his chiefest hight, With Barnaby the bright, From whence declining daily by degrees, He somewhat loseth of his heat and light, When once the Crab behind his back he sees. But for this time it ill ordained was, To chose the longest day in all the yeare, And shortest night, when longest fitter weare: Yet never day so long, but late would passe. Ring ye the bels, to make it weare away, And bonefiers make all day, And daunce about them, and about them sing: That all the woods may answer, and your eccho ring. Ah when will this long weary day have end, And lende me leave to come unto my love? How slowly do the houres theyr numbers spend? How slowly does sad Time his feathers move? Hast thee O fayrest Planet to thy home Within the Westerne fome: Thy tyred steedes long since have need of rest. Long though it be, at last I see it gloome, And the bright evening star with golden creast Appeare out of the East. Fayre childe of beauty, glorious lampe of love That all the host of heaven in rankes doost lead, And guydest lovers through the nightes dread, How chearefully thou lookest from above, And seemst to laugh atweene thy twinkling light As joying in the sight Of these glad many which for joy doe sing, That all the woods them answer and their echo ring. Now ceasse ye damsels your delights forepast; Enough is it, that all the day was youres: Now day is doen, and night is nighing fast: Now bring the Bryde into the brydall boures. Now night is come, now soone her disaray, And in her bed her lay; Lay her in lillies and in violets, And silken courteins over her display, And odourd sheetes, and Arras coverlets. Behold how goodly my faire love does ly In proud humility; Like unto Maia, when as Jove her tooke, In Tempe, lying on the flowry gras, Twixt sleepe and wake, after she weary was, With bathing in the Acidalian brooke. Now it is night, ye damsels may be gon, And leave my love alone, And leave likewise your former lay to sing: The woods no more shal answere, nor your echo ring. Now welcome night, thou night so long expected, That long daies labour doest at last defray, And all my cares, which cruell love collected, Hast sumd in one, and cancelled for aye: Spread thy broad wing over my love and me, That no man may us see, And in thy sable mantle us enwrap, From feare of perrill and foule horror free. Let no false treason seeke us to entrap, Nor any dread disquiet once annoy The safety of our joy: But let the night be calme and quietsome, Without tempestuous storms or sad afray: Lyke as when Jove with fayre Alcmena lay, When he begot the great Tirynthian groome: Or lyke as when he with thy selfe did lie, And begot Majesty. And let the mayds and yongmen cease to sing: Ne let the woods them answer, nor theyr eccho ring. Let no lamenting cryes, nor dolefull teares, Be heard all night within nor yet without: Ne let false whispers, breeding hidden feares, Breake gentle sleepe with misconceived dout. Let no deluding dreames, nor dreadful sights Make sudden sad affrights; Ne let housefyres, nor lightnings helpelesse harmes, Ne let the Pouke, nor other evill sprights, Ne let mischivous witches with theyr charmes, Ne let hob Goblins, names whose sence we see not, Fray us with things that be not. Let not the shriech Oule, nor the Storke be heard: Nor the night Raven that still deadly yels, Nor damned ghosts cald up with mighty spels, Nor griesly vultures make us once affeard: Ne let th'unpleasant Quyre of Frogs still croking Make us to wish theyr choking. Let none of these theyr drery accents sing; Ne let the woods them answer, nor theyr eccho ring. But let stil Silence trew night watches keepe, That sacred peace may in assurance rayne, And tymely sleep, when it is tyme to sleepe, May poure his limbs forth on your pleasant playne, The whiles an hundred little winged loves, Like divers fethered doves, Shall fly and flutter round about your bed, And in the secret darke, that none reproves, Their prety stelthes shal worke, and snares shal spread To filch away sweet snatches of delight, Conceald through covert night. Ye sonnes of Venus, play your sports at will, For greedy pleasure, carelesse of your toyes, Thinks more upon her paradise of joyes, Then what ye do, albe it good or ill. All night therefore attend your merry play, For it will soone be day: Now none doth hinder you, that say or sing, Ne will the woods now answer, nor your Eccho ring. Who is the same, which at my window peepes? Or whose is that faire face, that shines so bright, Is it not Cinthia, she that never sleepes, But walkes about high heaven al the night? O fayrest goddesse, do thou not envy My love with me to spy: For thou likewise didst love, though now unthought, And for a fleece of woll, which privily, The Latmian shephard once unto thee brought, His pleasures with thee wrought. Therefore to us be favorable now; And sith of wemens labours thou hast charge, And generation goodly dost enlarge, Encline thy will t'effect our wishfull vow, And the chast wombe informe with timely seed, That may our comfort breed: Till which we cease our hopefull hap to sing, Ne let the woods us answere, nor our Eccho ring. And thou great Juno, which with awful might The lawes of wedlock still dost patronize, And the religion of the faith first plight With sacred rites hast taught to solemnize: And eeke for comfort often called art Of women in their smart, Eternally bind thou this lovely band, And all thy blessings unto us impart. And thou glad Genius, in whose gentle hand, The bridale bowre and geniall bed remaine, Without blemish or staine, And the sweet pleasures of theyr loves delight With secret ayde doest succour and supply, Till they bring forth the fruitfull progeny, Send us the timely fruit of this same night. And thou fayre Hebe, and thou Hymen free, Grant that it may so be. Til which we cease your further prayse to sing, Ne any woods shal answer, nor your Eccho ring. And ye high heavens, the temple of the gods, In which a thousand torches flaming bright Doe burne, that to us wretched earthly clods, In dreadful darknesse lend desired light; And all ye powers which in the same remayne, More then we men can fayne, Poure out your blessing on us plentiously, And happy influence upon us raine, That we may raise a large posterity, Which from the earth, which they may long possesse, With lasting happinesse, Up to your haughty pallaces may mount, And for the guerdon of theyr glorious merit May heavenly tabernacles there inherit, Of blessed Saints for to increase the count. So let us rest, sweet love, in hope of this, And cease till then our tymely joyes to sing, The woods no more us answer, nor our eccho ring. Song made in lieu of many ornaments, With which my love should duly have bene dect, Which cutting off through hasty accidents, Ye would not stay your dew time to expect, But promist both to recompens, Be unto her a goodly ornament, And for short time an endlesse moniment.

At once this dragnet of cousins Whips its way into your presence saying None of them among us. They are Oracles on the court of midnight, The tight filigree of a mind or your Splashing around in, your pandemonium Of copper graffiti inexpertly put up. They make weapons of furled hands. “We will walk, but our bones will carry Ribbons of lead, or we will, like Acrobats mill-headed in 3s (3 blades, 3 hips, 3 tongues), answer to what comes Before, what comes before?” Eleousa, Master of Dark Eyelids, eye opening Like a fennel seed, you are generous Or are you not, do you shore up and Wink at the soul? What does the soul say Other than “my divorce from . . .,” “tan Holiday . . .,” “smoking crystal in teak rooms . . .” But should have asked, “What do you See?” The sun a sequence of fans, a bridge, Only so exquisitely cabled as to make us Still—shall we fall Or travel between bridges Among the robust, sane clouds, A face cut from smoke, heat, and light? The sun, dancing in a vial, the initial Memory of what it was to be born— Doberman of a sheer-white universe— To school out—the audacity of rising Without name or color to new rooms, New youth, fruitful, born singularly To precise moments not in epiphany But duration—as under new weather We become—in action, receive—our Bodies uncasked like umbrellas under The flamingo-red light of the racing day.

I am unable to jump more than ten feet in the air. I am blind. I am unable to understand the dark passages. I begin to speak of being deprived. I believe that I am being kept in want. Who governs me? Who is to say what I am, and what I am not? I wish to be conscious of myself. My frontiers are long and insecure. I contract them. I cannot command them. I determine myself not to desire what is unattainable. I have a wound in my leg. I am a schoolboy. A rule does not oppress me if I impose it on myself. I assimilate it into my substance. I can never be thwarted. I cannot want it to be other than it is.

Someone said that working through difficult equations was like walking in a pure and beautiful landscape – the numbers glowing like works of art. And in the same crowded room a woman I thought I didn’t like was singing to herself – talking and listening but singing to herself too and instantly with the logic of numbers I liked her as if she had balanced something I couldn’t. The corridors are long and pristine but I’m not lost – just working towards some minute or overwhelming equipoise.

It may be esoteric and perverse That I consult Pythagoras to hear A music tuning in the universe. My interest in his math of star and sphere Has triggered theorems too far-fetched to solve. They don't add up. But if I rack and toil More in ether than a mortal coil, It is to comprehend how you revolve, By formulas of orbit, ellipse, and ring. Dear son and daughter, if I seem to range It is to chart the numbers spiraling Between my life and yours until the strange And seamless beauty of equations click Solutions for the heart's arithmetic.

You will recall the day the dead returned to the village. Name it now the nebula of perfect expulsion. These fragments of existence spin their enclosing web, unlock the uncertainty of grace. We are late. On the third day we will dance with the beer; the vessel will be prepared for the corrupted descent of power. Radiant in its bounded estate, the spirit knows itself as the guide who moves to erase her footsteps. So once again the dance negotiates the property of being strange, that absolute desire for falling. The red roof tiles slip into the morning fog There is a red silence all around us. It will take years to learn this coherent grammar. The oriole has established an evasive coherence, infinite, exact, with its place, there where the day seems set to honor the bird's expressive deceit. Logic always fails that Carolina wren. The propositional exactitude of a certain absence draws fire upon its wings. The bird knows itself a strict proposal of faith, a ground state that moves without an absolute space. Grammatical bird, attuned to roots and implication. Love is ancient evidence, an instrument constrained, jealous of its utility, in awe of its own death; every name embraces it.

Turning the corner, we discovered it just as the old wrought-iron lamps went on— a quiet, tree-lined street, only one block long resting between the noisy avenues. The streetlamps splashed the shadows of the leaves across the whitewashed brick, and each tall window glowing through the ivy-decked facade promised lives as perfect as the light. Walking beneath the trees, we counted all the high black doors of houses bolted shut. And yet we could have opened any door, entered any room the evening offered. Or were we deluded by the strange equations of the light, the vagrant wind searching the trees, that we believed this brief conjunction of our separate lives was real? It seemed that moment lingered like a ghost, a flicker in the air, smaller than a moth, a curl of smoke flaring from a match, haunting a world it could not touch or hear. There should have been a greeting or a sign, the smile of a stranger, something beyond the soft refusals of the summer air and children trading secrets on the steps. Traffic bellowed from the avenue. Our shadows moved across the street’s long wall, and at the end what else could I have done but turn the corner back into my life?

Here, the brightest constellation is Hydra, the Water Snake, named for the half-woman, half-reptile whom Hercules slew with the help of  Iolaus, his charioteer. Imagine the sound of so many heads screaming — the long, shrill bays of an angry woman times twenty — and the smell of birth, of all origins, that followed Hydra as she rose from her fetid swamp. Iolaus was strategic, went straight for the bowels instead of the mouth, burned her center before the head. When her fundament was reduced to ash, only then could Hydra be silenced. Hera, enraged that Hercules was able to slay the creature she had raised in order to destroy him, flung the corpse of the decapitated, maimed Hydra into the sky, lest she be forgotten. Hydra’s blood, unstoppable, became hot gas; her screams rose and fell until they were radio waves; and her wild flailing was fixed into points of radiance. Hera was right to hurl those stars here, above this bay, so close to where the earth is bisected, a place where Hydra’s mirror image glosses the water, where dense blooms of  algae flourish on the nitrogen surface, thousands of wild heads and arms devouring ammonia, cyanide, and sewage as fast as we can produce them, this hydra, emblem of insatiable desire.