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‘’Tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation.’ -Falstaff ‘The night cometh, when no man can work.’ What though the beauty I love and serve be cheap, Ought you to take me for a beast or fool? All things a man could wish are in her keep; For her I turn swashbuckler in love’s school. When folk drop in, I take my pot and stool And fall to drinking with no more ado. I fetch them bread, fruit, cheese, and water, too; I say all’s right so long as I’m well paid; ‘Look in again when your flesh troubles you, Inside this brothel where we drive our trade.’ But soon the devil’s among us flesh and fell, When penniless to bed comes Madge my whore; I loathe the very sight of her like hell. I snatch gown, girdle, surcoat, all she wore, And tell her, these shall stand against her score. She grips her hips with both hands, cursing God, Swearing by Jesus’ body, bones, and blood, That they shall not. Then I, no whit dismayed, Cross her cracked nose with some stray shiver of wood Inside this brothel where we drive our trade. When all’s made up she drops me a windy word, Bloat like a beetle puffed and poisonous: Grins, thumps my pate, and calls me dickey-bird, And cuffs me with a fist that’s ponderous. We sleep like logs, being drunken both of us; Then when we wake her womb begins to stir; To save her seed she gets me under her Wheezing and whining, flat as planks are laid: And thus she spoils me for a whoremonger Inside this brothel where we drive our trade. Blow, hail or freeze, I’ve bread here baked rent free! Whoring’s my trade, and my whore pleases me; Bad cat, bad rat; we’re just the same if weighed. We that love filth, filth follows us, you see; Honour flies from us, as from her we flee Inside this brothel where we drive our trade. I bequeath likewise to fat Madge This little song to learn and study; By god’s head she’s a sweet fat fadge, Devout and soft of flesh and ruddy; I love her with my soul and body, So doth she me, sweet dainty thing. If you fall in with such a lady, Read it, and give it her to sing.

Written at Norfolk, in Virginia “They made her a grave, too cold and damp For a soul so warm and true; And she’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp, Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp, She paddles her white canoe. “And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see, And her paddle I soon shall hear; Long and loving our life shall be, And I’ll hide the maid in a cypress tree, When the footstep of death is near.” Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds— His path was rugged and sore, Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds, Through many a fen where the serpent feeds, And man never trod before. And when on the earth he sunk to sleep, If slumber his eyelids knew, He lay where the deadly vine doth weep Its venomous tear and nightly steep The flesh with blistering dew! And near him the she-wolf stirr’d the brake, And the copper-snake breath’d in his ear, Till he starting cried, from his dream awake, “Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake, And the white canoe of my dear?” He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright Quick over its surface play’d— “Welcome,” he said, “my dear one’s light!” And the dim shore echoed for many a night The name of the death-cold maid. Till he hollow’d a boat of the birchen bark, Which carried him off from shore; Far, far he follow’d the meteor spark, The wind was high and the clouds were dark, And the boat return’d no more. But oft, from the Indian hunter’s camp, This lover and maid so true Are seen at the hour of midnight damp To cross the Lake by a fire-fly lamp, And paddle their white canoe!

I tell thee, Dick, where I have been, Where I the rarest things have seen; Oh, things without compare! Such sights again cannot be found In any place on English ground, Be it at wake, or fair. At Charing-Cross, hard by the way, Where we (thou know’st) do sell our hay, There is a house with stairs; And there did I see coming down Such folk as are not in our town, Vorty, at least, in pairs. Amongst the rest, one pest’lent fine (His beard no bigger though than thine) Walk’d on before the rest: Our landlord looks like nothing to him: The King (God bless him) ’twould undo him, Should he go still so drest. At Course-a-Park, without all doubt, He should have first been taken out By all the maids i’th’ town: Though lusty Roger there had been, Or little George upon the Green, Or Vincent of the Crown. But wot you what? the youth was going To make an end of all his wooing; The parson for him stay’d: Yet by his leave (for all his haste), He did not so much wish all past (Perchance), as did the maid. The maid (and thereby hangs a tale) For such a maid no Whitsun-ale Could ever yet produce: No grape, that’s kindly ripe, could be So round, so plump, so soft as she, Nor half so full of juice. Her finger was so small, the ring Would not stay on, which they did bring; It was too wide a peck: And to say truth (for out it must) It look’d like the great collar (just) About our young colt’s neck. Her feet beneath her petticoat, Like little mice, stole in and out, As if they fear’d the light: But oh! she dances such a way No sun upon an Easter-day Is half so fine a sight. He would have kissed her once or twice, But she would not, she was nice, She would not do’t in sight, And then she looked as who should say I will do what I list to day; And you shall do’t at night. Her cheeks so rare a white was on, No daisy makes comparison, (Who sees them is undone); For streaks of red were mingled there, Such as are on a Catherine pear (The side that’s next the sun). Her lips were red, and one was thin, Compar’d to that was next her chin; (Some bee had stung it newly); But (Dick) her eyes so guard her face, I durst no more upon them gaze Than on the sun in July. Her mouth so small, when she does speak, Thou’dst swear her teeth her words did break, That they might passage get; But she so handled still the matter, They came as good as ours, or better, And are not spent a whit. If wishing should be any sin, The Parson himself had guilty been; (She looked that day so purely,) And did the youth so oft the feat At night, as some did in conceit, It would have spoil’d him, surely. Passion o’ me, how I run on! There’s that that would be thought upon (I trow) besides the bride. The business of the kitchen’s great, For it is fit that men should eat; Nor was it there denied. Just in the nick the cook knock’d thrice, And all the waiters in a trice His summons did obey: Each serving-man, with dish in hand, March’d boldly up, like our train’d band, Presented, and away. When all the meat was on the table, What man of knife or teeth was able To stay to be intreated? And this the very reason was, Before the parson could say grace, The company was seated. Now hats fly off, and youths carouse, Healths first go round, and then the house, The bride’s came thick and thick; And when ’twas nam’d another’s health, Perhaps he made it hers by stealth; And who could help it, Dick? O’ th’ sudden up they rise and dance; Then sit again and sigh, and glance; Then dance again and kiss: Thus sev’ral ways the time did pass, Whilst ev’ry woman wish’d her place, And ev’ry man wish’d his. By this time all were stol’n aside To counsel and undress the Bride; But that he must not know: But yet ’twas thought he guess’d her mind, And did not mean to stay behind Above an hour or so. When in he came (Dick) there she lay Like new-fal’n snow melting away, (’Twas time I trow to part) Kisses were now the only stay, Which soon she gave, as who would say, Good Boy! with all my heart. But just as heav’ns would have to cross it, In came the Bridemaids with the Posset: The Bridegroom eat in spite; For had he left the Women to’t It would have cost two hours to do’t, Which were too much that night. At length the candles out and out, All that they had not done, they do’t: What that is, who can tell? But I believe it was no more Then thou and I have done before With Bridget, and with Nell.

Like as the armed knight Appointed to the field, With this world will I fight And Faith shall be my shield. Faith is that weapon strong Which will not fail at need. My foes, therefore, among Therewith will I proceed. As it is had in strength And force of Christes way It will prevail at length Though all the devils say nay. Faith in the fathers old Obtained rightwisness Which make me very bold To fear no world's distress. I now rejoice in heart And Hope bid me do so For Christ will take my part And ease me of my woe. Thou saist, lord, who so knock, To them wilt thou attend. Undo, therefore, the lock And thy strong power send. More enmyes now I have Than hairs upon my head. Let them not me deprave But fight thou in my stead. On thee my care I cast. For all their cruel spight I set not by their haste For thou art my delight. I am not she that list My anchor to let fall For every drizzling mist My ship substancial. Not oft use I to wright In prose nor yet in rime, Yet will I shew one sight That I saw in my time. I saw a rial throne Where Justice should have sit But in her stead was one Of moody cruel wit. Absorpt was rightwisness As of the raging flood Sathan in his excess Suct up the guiltless blood. Then thought I, Jesus lord, When thou shalt judge us all Hard is it to record On these men what will fall. Yet lord, I thee desire For that they do to me Let them not taste the hire Of their iniquity.

My reading is extremely deep and wide; And as our modern education goes— Unique I think, and skilfully applied To Art and Industry and Autres Choses Through many years of scholarly repose. But there is one thing where I disappoint My numerous admirers (and my foes). Painting on Vellum is my weakest point.

Fawns in the winter wood Who feel their horns, and leap, Swans whom the bleakening mood Of evening stirs from sleep, Tall flowers that unfurl As a moth, driven, flies, Flowers with the breasts of a girl And sea-cold eyes. The bare bright mirrors glow For their enchanted shapes. Each is a flame, and so, Like flame, escapes.

It didn’t happen in that order— the endless growl of what will turn out to be miniature quad and trail bikes, carried along the top of the valley and rumbling its contents: small kids with helmets weighing more than their heads, ragged on by parents with crossed arms and ambition in their eyes: round and round the drone of fun. A country pursuit. Tracy tells me a professor of economics at a local city university while praising capitalism says he will only listen to opposition if it comes from one who eats only lentils, has given up cars and eschews imported brands of foodstuffs. Lentils? Contradictions aside, I’ll take him on, though it might be hard to hear me speak above the junior quad-bike circus performing along the hills. But hark, I’ll tell you something unusually usual: at dusk wandering the block with Katherine we came across shreds of chemical-pink balloon with plastic string attached to its tied-off umbilical cord, clearly an escapee from a party, the child—her name decorating the balloon with three crosses for kisses— in tears, chasing it up into the sky, watching it drift over the hills, her letter to the world a single word and her mark made over. Katherine asks if I recall the balloons her class back in England released with school name and address and how one floated all the way over the Channel and on to Belgium where another child picked up the shreds and deciphered the message and wrote back; weather balloons, “hopes and ambitions” as Delmore says, but without doubt or skepticism, in full expectation they will land somewhere far away and bring joy to the finder. I throw the shred of balloon away, fearing an animal crossing the block in the dark, night-eyed and keenly sampling the ground and the air with its snout, will reread or misread the code of chemical pinkness, and like some Red Riding Hood in reverse, choke on the gift of chance.

“Is there no balm in Gilead?” So cries dour Jeremiah in granite tones. “There is a balm in Gilead,” replies a Negro spiritual. The baritone who chants it, leaning forward on the platform, looks up, not knowing his voice is a rainstorm that rinses air to reveal earth’s surprises. Today, the summer gone, four monarch butterflies, their breed’s survivors, sucked a flower’s last blooms, opened their wings, orange-and-black stained glass, and printed on the sky in zigzag lines, watch bright things rise: winter moons, the white undersides of a California condor, once thought doomed, now flapping wide like the first bird from ashes.

Blood of an eye: tamarisk gall. Blood from a shoulder: bear’s breach. From the loins: chamomile. Blood from a head: lupine. A hawk’s heart: heart of wormwood. — From Coptic & Greek Magical Papyri

in memory of Edmond Jabè s “And so her worries ran on into the other world.” The Tale of Genji 1 ultimate boundary: arms stretched sideways to represent nothing supreme accomplishment: ends of the earth 2 I will forget first what happened, then ideas then all my feelings, forgetting finally what I’m up to now pose accept almost some expiring embers signifying momentary joy 3 and a bare knife also figures 4 amnesia retrograde and anterograde—unable to acquire new information and the old store lost blessed are the feet finite on this unfinished page defy conquer divine denominations de- rived from prepositions equivalent to end, the sky wears out as well 5 earth’s limit against the soles, bordering air, but my toes point come to the world’s con- clusion, distinguishing infinity from the boundless a figure of Death in the plural of majesty a bronze vase, as vessel for nothing burnt flesh figured by the living animal the “name, address and flower” test images of weeping friends, signifying weeping 6 immaterial mystery, imperfect misery I start at the coast, my limit the shore opposite not movement mere direction 7 mist dancing 8 ocean’s music 9 an ornamental barrier or parapet along the edge of this terrace, this balcony, this etc. inconceivable splendour signifying a choice of evils nameless objects seen imperfectly by the flame from sticks a nearer though still im- perfect view back to past ages watery track . . . 10 . . . Isle of the Dead 11 stranger both to model and to copy unable to relate the garment to the body absolute border: surface and line and point, alien to all experience weaving a sound over the water, not to harbor there but to surpass the port 12 objects of regret in a mysterious accent I will forget all my words, first proper names, then common nouns adjectives next next interjections and at last (even) gestures obscurity of the dawn signifying love of self 13 on a page of sand, appearance of a footprint 14 I heard the speech of one unknown to me the report dying gradually away I heard a voice I had not known the righteous lifted up, while we remain suspended I can hear a voice I no longer recognize a sort of tear, symbol of poured wine or else the splash of the wine poured he caused him to hear a tongue which he knew not 15 he temple figured by a frame, inlet to the sanctuary, narrow pass between columns then a track leading across and beyond the balustrade this room and a skein, succession of generations, some kind of existence 16 the spin begins to wobble the bare surface where earth meets air and becomes horizon 17 to remember you, as Aristotle would insist, is not to recall you not clever or quick enough for recollection but in the slow turn of attention, I do bring you back, which does not mean I know you a picture 18 two eyes, or one triangle—sight in abstracto 19 uncertain of the way 20 thrown 21 I will forget to appreciate Klee, Tristam Shandy, Emma Kirkby then forget how to do what- ever finally forget anger and finally fear common noise, a common languor, uncanny and pensive silence