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When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, “Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free.” But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me. When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again, “The heart out of the bosom Was never given in vain; ’Tis paid with sighs a plenty And sold for endless rue.” And I am two-and-twenty, And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.

Look who’s whistling through bleached teeth now, one hand on svelte hip, one fist pumping the air– Pittsburgh–once that madcap & zany joke factory now chosen for her fetching comeback tale & her earth-sheltered welcome center & her Warhol & her Tropical Forest Conservatory & her Rosemont, working farm of the moguls of ketchup. Rarely since the global credit crisis do Pittsburghers cross bridges or rivers or the thresholds of stunningly profitable ventures. Yet tonight, as global output contracts at a pace not seen since the 1930s, as the French president proposes reform of the International Monetary Fund & the US president delights in the local crepes with crispy edges, & as Greenpeace commandos drape a WHAT THE FUCK? banner from the deck of the West End Bridge (above which Chinook & Black Hawk helicopter hover), & as police use the LRAD sound cannon on protesters for the first time in the United States or Canada– a Pittsburgh Pirate homers into the Allegheny River & sets the esplanade ablaze with the flash & fizzle of fireworks launched at the flat lozenge of the moon, a ghostly azure, suspended low above the sweep of the cantilevered roofs on the opposite shoreline–the poured concrete, the glass towers, the obelisks–a costly parody of bygone days when confidence in the future, evinced by our sixty miles of integrated mills, was illustrated by a time capsule, a chamber “hermetically” sealed in Steel City alloys, bicentennially filled with newsprint & artifacts of 1958 Pittsburgh to be cracked open & savored in some distant epoch, an idea first embraced by Esarhaddon, son of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, Babylonia, & Egypt, & reenacted now in waves of sound & light–the roar of fireworks night for a losing franchise, the hoarse voices of Pittsburghers– wafting into the void, accelerated by Jupiter’s pull, & then hurled by Jupiter out of the solar system, yet another urban missive from a noisy planet, a comingling of mathematics and human music, charming & powerful, a murmur preserved of our city-state that once flourished–before its citizens dispersed to other lands, to greater deeds on the blue Earth.

When in Wisconsin where I once had time the flyway swans came whistling to the rotten Green Bay ice and stayed, not feeding, four days, maybe five, I shouted and threw stones to see them fly. Blue herons followed, or came first. I shot a bittern’s wing off with my gun. For that my wife could cry. My neighbor’s wife mistook the spawning frogs for wood ducks nesting the white pines up on Bean Hill: I straightway set her right. Each April, on the first rainy night I lantern-hunt for salamanders where they hide, toewalking the bottom mucks and muds. I shudder at the scored skin of their sides, the deep flesh tucks. In hand, they dry. I walk in frogspawn jellies on my lawns. One time I hoped the great white birds might brake for the frog ditch and alight, but all the addled past falls in on itself, splash rings close inward on the rising stone, my gun sucks fire, the bone becomes whole bone, light narrows back on point and filament, the forest turns to sand, and only season lacking source rolls round and round, till I in my turns fall forever back clutching my stone, my gun, my light. When in Wisconsin where I once had time and spring beasts gorged my marrows and my tongue, I was not blind: the red eft clambered in my eye.

When in your neighborhood you hear a neigh, It means that there's a horse not far away.

when it rains it pours the rain it raineth everyday pull up the reins, rayned in by reason, rule, and reverence if the aim is total abject embarrassment of shiny-looking objects tenderly gathered for the pome’s sunset quinceañera a star winked at me btwn the apricot and the cypress 2 crows atop them like a punter on the mizzenmast u better step up your game, havelok by what means of studye and devocyon what is love but a constellation of significances it liked to eat salmon w/ its fingers like a bear and then use those fingers to clean its glasses it cries and it looks like a wolf   I believe it wanted to cultivate this look

When last we parted, thou wert young and fair, How beautiful let fond remembrance say! Alas! since then old time has stolen away Full thirty years, leaving my temples bare.— So has it perished like a thing of air, The dream of love and youth!— now both are grey Yet still remembering that delightful day, Though time with his cold touch has blanched my hair, Though I have suffered many years of pain Since then, though I did never think to live To hear that voice or see those eyes again, I can a sad but cordial greeting give, And for thy welfare breathe as warm a prayer— As when I loved thee young and fair.

1 When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d, And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night, I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring. Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west, And thought of him I love. 2 O powerful western fallen star! O shades of night—O moody, tearful night! O great star disappear’d—O the black murk that hides the star! O cruel hands that hold me powerless—O helpless soul of me! O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul. 3 In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash’d palings, Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green, With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love, With every leaf a miracle—and from this bush in the dooryard, With delicate-color’d blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, A sprig with its flower I break. 4 In the swamp in secluded recesses, A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song. Solitary the thrush, The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements, Sings by himself a song. Song of the bleeding throat, Death’s outlet song of life, (for well dear brother I know, If thou wast not granted to sing thou would’st surely die.) 5 Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities, Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep’d from the ground, spotting the gray debris, Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the endless grass, Passing the yellow-spear’d wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprisen, Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards, Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave, Night and day journeys a coffin. 6 Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land, With the pomp of the inloop’d flags with the cities draped in black, With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil’d women standing, With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night, With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the unbared heads, With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces, With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn, With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour’d around the coffin, The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs—where amid these you journey, With the tolling tolling bells’ perpetual clang, Here, coffin that slowly passes, I give you my sprig of lilac. 7 (Nor for you, for one alone, Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring, For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you O sane and sacred death. All over bouquets of roses, O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies, But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first, Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes, With loaded arms I come, pouring for you, For you and the coffins all of you O death.) 8 O western orb sailing the heaven, Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I walk’d, As I walk’d in silence the transparent shadowy night, As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after night, As you droop’d from the sky low down as if to my side, (while the other stars all look’d on,) As we wander’d together the solemn night, (for something I know not what kept me from sleep,) As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how full you were of woe, As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze in the cool transparent night, As I watch’d where you pass’d and was lost in the netherward black of the night, As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as where you sad orb, Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone. 9 Sing on there in the swamp, O singer bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I hear your call, I hear, I come presently, I understand you, But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detain’d me, The star my departing comrade holds and detains me. 10 O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved? And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone? And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love? Sea-winds blown from east and west, Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, till there on the prairies meeting, These and with these and the breath of my chant, I’ll perfume the grave of him I love. 11 O what shall I hang on the chamber walls? And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls, To adorn the burial-house of him I love? Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes, With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright, With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air, With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific, In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there, With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows, And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys, And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning. 12 Lo, body and soul—this land, My own Manhattan with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships, The varied and ample land, the South and the North in the light, Ohio’s shores and flashing Missouri, And ever the far-spreading prairies cover’d with grass and corn. Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty, The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes, The gentle soft-born measureless light, The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill’d noon, The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars, Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land. 13 Sing on, sing on you gray-brown bird, Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your chant from the bushes, Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines. Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song, Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe. O liquid and free and tender! O wild and loose to my soul—O wondrous singer! You only I hear—yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart,) Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me. 14 Now while I sat in the day and look’d forth, In the close of the day with its light and the fields of spring, and the farmers preparing their crops, In the large unconscious scenery of my land with its lakes and forests, In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturb’d winds and the storms,) Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of children and women, The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sail’d, And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with labor, And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals and minutia of daily usages, And the streets how their throbbings throbb’d, and the cities pent—lo, then and there, Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with the rest, Appear’d the cloud, appear’d the long black trail, And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death. Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me, And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me, And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands of companions, I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not, Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness, To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still. And the singer so shy to the rest receiv’d me, The gray-brown bird I know receiv’d us comrades three, And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love. From deep secluded recesses, From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still, Came the carol of the bird. And the charm of the carol rapt me, As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night, And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird. Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later delicate death. Prais’d be the fathomless universe, For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise! For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death. Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet, Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly. Approach strong deliveress, When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead, Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee, Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death. From me to thee glad serenades, Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee, And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are fitting, And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night. The night in silence under many a star, The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know, And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil’d death, And the body gratefully nestling close to thee. Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide, Over the dense-pack’d cities all and the teeming wharves and ways, I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death. 15 To the tally of my soul, Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird, With pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night. Loud in the pines and cedars dim, Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume, And I with my comrades there in the night. While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed, As to long panoramas of visions. And I saw askant the armies, I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags, Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc’d with missiles I saw them, And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody, And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,) And the staffs all splinter’d and broken. I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them, I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war, But I saw they were not as was thought, They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer’d not, The living remain’d and suffer’d, the mother suffer’d, And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer’d, And the armies that remain’d suffer’d. 16 Passing the visions, passing the night, Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades’ hands, Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my soul, Victorious song, death’s outlet song, yet varying ever-altering song, As low and wailing, yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flooding the night, Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet again bursting with joy, Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven, As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses, Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves, I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring. I cease from my song for thee, From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee, O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night. Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night, The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird, And the tallying chant, the echo arous’d in my soul, With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of woe, With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird, Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well, For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake, Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul, There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.

I blush quicker than a school of blue jack mackerel arranging itself into an orb of dazzle to avoid nips and gulps from the dolphins who’ve been silently trailing them, waiting for them to relax. When I hear her growl—her scratch-thirst and giggle when she drops swear words pressed to wax—I can’t even look him in the eye when I ask him to give it a good listen with me. But he does, ever patient, and we both get a light bless of sweat on, a bright address that still maps us to each other after all this time. When I read him the lyrics, the pink of my cheeks is like the pink of an orchid mantis. Just when you least expect it, the pretend flower will reach out and snatch a butterfly from the air. When I say flower I mean how her song blooms in the cicada-electric Mississippi night. When I say pink I mean nectar I mean a long kiss good and sweet.

When ’midst the gay I meet That gentle smile of thine, Though still on me it turns most sweet, I scarce can call it mine: But when to me alone Your secret tears you show, Oh, then I feel those tears my own, And claim them while they flow. Then still with bright looks bless The gay, the cold, the free; Give smiles to those who love you less, But keep your tears for me. The snow on Jura’s steep Can smile in many a beam, Yet still in chains of coldness sleep, How bright soe’er it seem. But, when some deep-felt ray, Whose touch is fire, appears, Oh, then the smile is warm’d away, And, melting, turns to tears. Then still with bright looks bless The gay, the cold, the free; Give smiles to those who love you less, But keep your tears for me.

When on the marge of evening the last blue light is broken, And winds of dreamy odour are loosened from afar, Or when my lattice opens, before the lark hath spoken, On dim laburnum-blossoms, and morning’s dying star, I think of thee (O mine the more if other eyes be sleeping!), Whose greater noonday splendours the many share and see, While sacred and for ever, some perfect law is keeping The late, the early twilight, alone and sweet for me.