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Everything is half here, like the marble head of the Roman emperor and the lean torso of his favorite. The way the funnel cloud which doesn't seem to touch ground does— flips a few cars, a semi— we learn to walk miles above our bodies. The pig farms dissolve, then the small hills. As in dreams fraught with irrevocable gestures, the ruined set seems larger, a charred palace the gaze tunnels through and through. How well we remember the stage— the actors gliding about like petite sails, the balustrade cooling our palms. Not wings or singing, but a darkness fast as blood. It ended at our fingertips: the fence gave way to the forest. The world began.

I say to the named granite stone, to the brown grass, to the dead chrysanthemums,Mother, I still have a body, what else could receive my mind's transmissions, its dots and dashes of pain

Elle’s writing her book of wisdom. She writes until she cannot hold her pen. The labyrinth miraculously is uncovered. An American woman’s progressing on her knees. She read something but not Elle’s book. No one will read Elle’s book. I walk the circular path, first the left side, then the right, casting petals to the north, east, south, and west (this intuitively). A diminutive prelate shoos me away. When he leaves, I return to the center. The organist, practicing, strikes up Phantom. Elle says she cannot hear him. Elle! I cry,I cannot see you. I had prayed Death spare you. Remember our meal among the termites of Arcadia Street, that cottage of spirits with its riddled beams and long veranda bordered by plantain trees, and the spiral you traced for me on scrap-paper? I kept it for such a long time. The organist, of course, is playing Bach. A boy has scattered the petals I threw. Elle’s voice surrounds me. The quiet hills I lift mine eyes.

It’s the way they cannot understand the window they buzz and buzz against, the bees that take a wrong turn at my door and end up thus in a drift at first of almost idle curiosity, cruising the room until they find themselves smack up against it and they cannot fathom how the air has hardened and the world they know with their eyes keeps out of reach as, stuck there with all they want just in front of them, they must fling their bodies against the one unalterable law of things—this fact of glass—and can only go on making the sound that tethers their electric fury to what’s impossible, feeling the sting in it.

(As Distinguished by an Italian Person of Quality) Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square; Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there! Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least! There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast; While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast. Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature's skull, Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull! —I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool. But the city, oh the city—the square with the houses! Why? They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there's something to take the eye! Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry; You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by; Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high; And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly. What of a villa? Though winter be over in March by rights, 'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights: You've the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen steam and wheeze, And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray olive-trees. Is it better in May, I ask you? You've summer all at once; In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns. 'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well, The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell. Is it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to spout and splash! In the shade it sings and springs: in the shine such foambows flash On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash Round the lady atop in her conch—fifty gazers do not abash, Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash. All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger, Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted forefinger. Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix in the corn and mingle, Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle. Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill, And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill. Enough of the seasons,—I spare you the months of the fever and chill. Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin: No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in: You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin. By and by there's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth; Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath. At the post-office such a scene-picture—the new play, piping hot! And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot. Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes, And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the Duke's! Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and so, Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Saint Jerome and Cicero, "And moreover," (the sonnet goes rhyming,) "the skirts of Saint Paul has reached, Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he preached." Noon strikes,—here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling and smart With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart! Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife. No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure in life. But bless you, it's dear—it's dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate. They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing the gate It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city! Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still—ah, the pity, the pity! Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals, And the penitents dressed in white shirts a-holding the yellow candles; One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles. And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of scandals: Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife; Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life!

Does the road wind up-hill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the day’s journey take the whole long day? From morn to night, my friend. But is there for the night a resting-place? A roof for when the slow dark hours begin. May not the darkness hide it from my face? You cannot miss that inn. Shall I meet other wayfarers at night? Those who have gone before. Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? They will not keep you standing at that door. Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak? Of labour you shall find the sum. Will there be beds for me and all who seek? Yea, beds for all who come.

There will be no deafening noise. No hornblow of thunder. The small plants of the earth will not tremble on the hillside as grace is prepared. The sky will neither drown us in its plenty, nor the ground crack and consume feet in its hunger. No, bodies will not, in their last rags of flesh, creep from under the earth, and with breath once torn from them, choke and expel the old mud of the world. Adam and Eve, incredulous, will not embrace again in their poverty, not knowing whether to shield themselves, or to emerge shameless from the past's shadow, astonished to again greet Terra Firma . The book of the world, encrusted with deep-sea pearls and the blood of the lamb, will not open up its pages in which all deeds have been inscribed. And the totality of history will not roll back together, all events fusing, once and for all, into the great blazing sphere of time. None will sit on the right hand. There will be no right hand. And the figure of sorrow and grace, with his staff upright, its purple pennant caught in that final wind, will not be there to greet us, with the mercy of justice in his eyes. No, never judgment. Just the abyss into which all acts are thrown down, and the terrible white silence in which judgment either endures or burns.

Here she lies, a pretty bud, Lately made of flesh and blood, Who as soon fell fast asleep As her little eyes did peep. Give her strewings, but not stir The earth that lightly covers her.

Thou sorrow, venom Elfe: Is this thy play, To spin a web out of thyselfe To Catch a Fly? For Why? I saw a pettish wasp Fall foule therein: Whom yet thy Whorle pins did not clasp Lest he should fling His sting. But as affraid, remote Didst stand hereat, And with thy little fingers stroke And gently tap His back. Thus gently him didst treate Lest he should pet, And in a froppish, aspish heate Should greatly fret Thy net. Whereas the silly Fly, Caught by its leg Thou by the throate tookst hastily And 'hinde the head Bite Dead. This goes to pot, that not Nature doth call. Strive not above what strength hath got, Lest in the brawle Thou fall. This Frey seems thus to us. Hells Spider gets His intrails spun to whip Cords thus And wove to nets And sets. To tangle Adams race In's stratigems To their Destructions, spoil'd, made base By venom things, Damn'd Sins. But mighty, Gracious Lord Communicate Thy Grace to breake the Cord, afford Us Glorys Gate And State. We'l Nightingaile sing like When pearcht on high In Glories Cage, thy glory, bright, And thankfully, For joy.

If ever the sweet spring comes, I’ll put aside these dead books And try to feel the herbage freshen Along the withered boughs of old dry thoughts. I’ll walk out somewhere where a garden grows, And there I’ll stand some summer evening, Hat beside elbows on the gray stone wall, And the wind will stir, coming from behind the hill. Afterward I’ll walk home, hands behind me, And pause a moment before going in, Half fancying some one has called my name, Or been awakened to a flutter as I passed. Of course, I’ll enter, but leave the door ajar, For someone might come in, you know, Expectantly I’ll sit to fancy the long evening through That a pair of eyes in the summer night Might light a candle in the dull world, So softly that none might see to smile at, Yet ardently enough—like a vestal candle burning— For a little heat in a cold house.