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for Dore and Adja Under the bronze crown Too big for the head of the stone cherub whose feet A serpent has begun to eat, Sweet water brims a cockle and braids down Past spattered mosses, breaks On the tipped edge of a second shell, and fills The massive third below. It spills In threads then from the scalloped rim, and makes A scrim or summery tent For a faun-ménage and their familiar goose. Happy in all that ragged, loose Collapse of water, its effortless descent And flatteries of spray, The stocky god upholds the shell with ease, Watching, about his shaggy knees, The goatish innocence of his babes at play; His fauness all the while Leans forward, slightly, into a clambering mesh Of water-lights, her sparkling flesh In a saecular ecstasy, her blinded smile Bent on the sand floor Of the trefoil pool, where ripple-shadows come And go in swift reticulum, More addling to the eye than wine, and more Interminable to thought Than pleasure’s calculus. Yet since this all Is pleasure, flash, and waterfall, Must it not be too simple? Are we not More intricately expressed In the plain fountains that Maderna set Before St. Peter’s—the main jet Struggling aloft until it seems at rest In the act of rising, until The very wish of water is reversed, That heaviness borne up to burst In a clear, high, cavorting head, to fill With blaze, and then in gauze Delays, in a gnatlike shimmering, in a fine Illumined version of itself, decline, And patter on the stones its own applause? If that is what men are Or should be, if those water-saints display The pattern of our aret ê , What of these showered fauns in their bizarre, Spangled, and plunging house? They are at rest in fulness of desire For what is given, they do not tire Of the smart of the sun, the pleasant water-douse And riddled pool below, Reproving our disgust and our ennui With humble insatiety. Francis, perhaps, who lay in sister snow Before the wealthy gate Freezing and praising, might have seen in this No trifle, but a shade of bliss— That land of tolerable flowers, that state As near and far as grass Where eyes become the sunlight, and the hand Is worthy of water: the dreamt land Toward which all hungers leap, all pleasures pass.

The warping night air having brought the boom Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room, We tell the wakened child that all she heard Was an odd question from a forest bird, Asking of us, if rightly listened to, “Who cooks for you?” and then “Who cooks for you?” Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear, Can also thus domesticate a fear, And send a small child back to sleep at night Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.

There’s a barrel-organ carolling across a golden street In the City as the sun sinks low; And the music's not immortal; but the world has made it sweet And fulfilled it with the sunset glow; And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the pain That surround the singing organ like a large eternal light; And they’ve given it a glory and a part to play again In the Symphony that rules the day and night. And now it’s marching onward through the realms of old romance And trolling out a fond familiar tune, And now it’s roaring cannon down to fight the King of France, And now it’s prattling softly to the moon, And all around the organ there’s a sea without a shore Of human joys and wonders and regrets; To remember and to recompense the music evermore For what the cold machinery forgets. . . . Yes; as the music changes, Like a prismatic glass, It takes the light and ranges Through all the moods that pass; Dissects the common carnival Of passions and regrets, And gives the world a glimpse of all The colours it forgets. And there La Traviata sighs Another sadder song; And there Il Trovatore cries A tale of deeper wrong; And bolder knights to battle go With sword and shield and lance, Than ever here on earth below Have whirled into—a dance!— Go down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time; Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn’t far from London!) And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer’s wonderland; Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn’t far from London!) The cherry-trees are seas of bloom and soft perfume and sweet perfume, The cherry-trees are seas of bloom (and oh, so near to London!) And there they say, when dawn is high and all the world’s a blaze of sky The cuckoo, though he’s very shy, will sing a song for London. The Dorian nightingale is rare and yet they say you’ll hear him there At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!) The linnet and the throstle, too, and after dark the long halloo And golden-eyed tu-whit, tu-whoo, of owls that ogle London. For Noah hardly knew a bird of any kind that isn’t heard At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!) And when the rose begins to pout and all the chestnut spires are out You’ll hear the rest without a doubt, all chorussing for London:— Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time; Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn’t far from London!) And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer’s wonderland; Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn’t far from London!)

Y otras pasan; y vi é ndome tan triste, toman un poquito de ti en la abrupta arruga de mi hondo dolor. Cesar Vellejo I won’t let anybody take a drink out of this barrel of tears I’ve collected from you. Least of all another woman. I see her coming along. I know the type. I can tell you what she’ll be wearing. I know the type I won’t like it. She’ll look at that barrel she’s had a few in her day. Not that she’s ever filled one. She’ll remark casually, “Sweet water, good to wash my hair.” And who doesn’t know tears are purer than rain water and softer on the hair. Just as she steps toward it and makes for the cup, I’ll see phantom you and what you were brought up by the sea. And scraps of paper from this ditch of my brain will float on the water and choke her.

Later, lying on the lawn of the big house someone asked could we remove our jackets. No one had taken charge we were young officers and I took mine off. And then (or earlier) we were in the battle zone taking cover behind parked cars postboxes, phone booths and in abandoned trams when my friend took one full in the chest and went down without a word. “Way to go,” I thought and imagined the sniper reporting “I got one” and being doubted but I could have attested to it the perfect shot. And then the shelling and the strafing began. Later I wrote a report (I was good at that) and I remembered lying out on the lawn of the big house that was called “Mandalay” in the hot sun and Barry asking about our jackets and I removing mine and Ian saying “In the enemy army you could be shot for that.” The battle zone wasn’t always a city sometimes it was jungle where our first foes were mosquitoes who took our blood and flew away with it like bees, Barry joked taking pollen from the full flower of our youth.

Life has loveliness to sell, All beautiful and splendid things, Blue waves whitened on a cliff, Soaring fire that sways and sings, And children's faces looking up Holding wonder like a cup. Life has loveliness to sell, Music like a curve of gold, Scent of pine trees in the rain, Eyes that love you, arms that hold, And for your spirit's still delight, Holy thoughts that star the night. Spend all you have for loveliness, Buy it and never count the cost; For one white singing hour of peace Count many a year of strife well lost, And for a breath of ecstasy Give all you have been, or could be.

’Twas when the Proclamation came,— Far in the sixties back,— He left his lord, and changed his name To “Mister Bartow Black.” He learned to think himself a man, And privileged, you know, To adopt a new and different plan,— To lay aside the hoe. He took the lead in politics, And handled all the “notes,”— For he was up to all the tricks That gather in the votes; For when the war came to a close And negroes “took a stand,” Young Bartow with the current rose, The foremost in command. His voice upon the “stump” was heard; He “Yankeedom” did prate; The “carpet-bagger” he revered; The Southerner did hate. He now was greater than the lord Who used to call him slave, For he was on the “County Board,” With every right to rave. But this amazing run of luck Was far too good to stand; And soon the chivalrous “Ku-Klux” Rose in the Southern land. Then Bartow got a little note,— ’Twas very queerly signed,— It simply told him not to vote, Or be to death resigned. Young Bartow thought this little game Was very fine and nice To bring his courage rare to shame And knowledge of justice. “What right have they to think I fear?” He to himself did say. “Dare they presume that I do care How loudly they do bray? “This is my home, and here I die, Contending for my right! Then let them come! My colors fly! I’m ready now to fight! “Let those who think that Bartow Black,— An office-holder, too!— Will to the cowards show his back, Their vain presumption rue!” Bartow pursued his office game, And made the money, too, But home at nights he wisely came And played the husband true. When they had got their subject tame, And well-matured their plan, They at the hour of midnight came, And armed was every man! They numbered fifty Southern sons, And masked was every face; And Winfield rifles were their guns,— You could that plainly trace. One Southern brave did have a key, An entrance quick to make; They entered all; but meek, you see, Their victim not to wake! They reached his room! He was in bed,— His wife was by his side! They struck a match above his head,— His eyes he opened wide! Poor Bartow could not reach his gun, Though quick his arm did stretch, For twenty bullets through him spun, That stiffly laid the wretch. And then they rolled his carcass o’er, And filled both sides with lead; And then they turned it on the floor, And shot away his head! Ere Black his bloody end did meet His wife had swooned away; The Southern braves did now retreat,— There was no need to stay!

The sun is still burning in my skin even though it set half-an-hour ago, and Cindy and Bob and Bev and John are pulling on their sweatshirts and gathering around the fire pit. John hands me a cold one and now Bev comes into my arms and I can feel the sun’s heat, and taste the Pacific on her cheek. I am not in Vietnam, nor is John or Bob, because our deferments came through, and we get to remain boys for at least another summer like this one in Santa Cruz, surfing the afternoons in a sweet blue dream I’m remembering now, as the nurse puts my cheek to sleep, and the doctor begins to burn those summers away.

Every day I peruse the box scores for hours Sometimes I wonder why I do it Since I am not going to take a test on it And no one is going to give me money The pleasure’s something like that of codes Of deciphering an ancient alphabet say So as brightly to picturize Eurydice In the Elysian Fields on her perfect day The day she went 5 for 5 against Vic Raschi

These are the saddest of possible words: “Tinker to Evers to Chance.” Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds, Tinker and Evers and Chance. Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble, Making a Giant hit into a double— Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble: “Tinker to Evers to Chance.”