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XVI. Upon Apparel. God gave us Cloaths to hide our Nakedness , And we by them , do it expose to View. Our Pride, and unclean Minds, to an excess , By our Apparel we to others shew.

Within this sober frame expect Work of no foreign architect; That unto caves the quarries drew, And forests did to pastures hew; Who of his great design in pain Did for a model vault his brain; Whose columns should so high be rais’d To arch the brows that on them gaz’d. Why should of all things man unrul’d Such unproportion’d dwellings build? The beasts are by their dens exprest, And birds contrive an equal nest; The low roof’d tortoises do dwell In cases fit of tortoise-shell; No creature loves an empty space; Their bodies measure out their place. But he, superfluously spread, Demands more room alive than dead; And in his hollow palace goes Where winds as he themselves may lose. What need of all this marble crust T’impark the wanton mote of dust, That thinks by breadth the world t’unite Though the first builders fail’d in height? But all things are composed here Like nature, orderly and near; In which we the dimensions find Of that more sober age and mind, When larger sized men did stoop To enter at a narrow loop; As practising, in doors so straight, To strain themselves through Heaven’s gate. And surely when the after age Shall hither come in pilgrimage, These sacred places to adore, By Vere and Fairfax trod before, Men will dispute how their extent Within such dwarfish confines went; And some will smile at this, as well As Romulus his bee-like cell. Humility alone designs Those short but admirable lines, By which, ungirt and unconstrain’d, Things greater are in less contain’d. Let others vainly strive t’immure The circle in the quadrature! These holy mathematics can In ev’ry figure equal man. Yet thus the laden house does sweat, And scarce endures the master great, But where he comes the swelling hall Stirs, and the square grows spherical; More by his magnitude distress’d, Then he is by its straightness press’d, And too officiously it slights That in itself which him delights. So honour better lowness bears, Than that unwonted greatness wears; Height with a certain grace does bend, But low things clownishly ascend. And yet what needs there here excuse, Where ev’ry thing does answer use? Where neatness nothing can condemn, Nor pride invent what to contemn? A stately frontispiece of poor Adorns without the open door; Nor less the rooms within commends Daily new furniture of friends. The house was built upon the place Only as for a mark of grace; And for an inn to entertain Its lord a while, but not remain. Him Bishops-Hill, or Denton may, Or Billbrough, better hold than they; But nature here hath been so free As if she said leave this to me. Art would more neatly have defac’d What she had laid so sweetly waste; In fragrant gardens, shady woods, Deep meadows, and transparent floods.

You will need to state the reason for your visit. Don’t say because I want to walk down old roads and caress stone walls the color of my skin. You will need to state the reason for your visit. Don’t say because the olives are ready for harvest and I will coax the fruit from the trees, press it into liquid gold. You will need to state the reason for your visit. Don’t say because my parents’ house still sits empty on a bluff overlooking the sea, the green shutters my grandfather had just painted remain sealed shut and the army listed the property’s owners as absentees. You will need to state the reason for your visit. Don’t say because I am carrying prayers in my suitcase for a people who wait, and I’ll unfold them embroidered linens of verse and spread them out across the land.

Display thy breasts, my Julia, there let me Behold that circummortal purity; Between whose glories, there my lips I’ll lay, Ravished in that fair Via Lactea .

Whenas in silks my Julia goes, Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows That liquefaction of her clothes. Next, when I cast mine eyes, and see That brave vibration each way free, O how that glittering taketh me!

DIALOGUE T.C. J.S. Thom. Didst thou not find the place inspired, And flowers, as if they had desired No other sun, start from their beds, And for a sight steal out their heads? Heardst thou not music when she talked? And didst not find that as she walked She threw rare perfumes all about, Such as bean-blossoms newly out, Or chafèd spices give?— J.S. I must confess those perfumes, Tom, I did not smell; nor found that from Her passing by ought sprung up new. The flowers had all their birth from you; For I passed o’er the self-same walk And did not find one single stalk Of anything that was to bring This unknown after-after-spring. Thom. Dull and insensible, couldst see A thing so near a deity Move up and down, and feel no change? J.S. None, and so great, were alike strange; I had my thoughts, but not your way. All are not born, sir, to the bay. Alas! Tom, I am flesh and blood, And was consulting how I could In spite of masks and hoods descry The parts denied unto the eye. I was undoing all she wore, And had she walked but one turn more, Eve in her first state had not been More naked or more plainly seen. Thom. ’Twas well for thee she left the place; There is great danger in that face. But hadst thou viewed her leg and thigh, And upon that discovery Searched after parts that are more dear (As fancy seldom stops so near), No time or age had ever seen So lost a thing as thou hadst been.

Nothing! thou elder brother even to Shade: That hadst a being ere the world was made, And well fixed, art alone of ending not afraid. Ere Time and Place were, Time and Place were not, When primitive Nothing Something straight begot; Then all proceeded from the great united What. Something, the general attribute of all, Severed from thee, its sole original, Into thy boundless self must undistinguished fall; Yet Something did thy mighty power command, And from fruitful Emptiness’s hand Snatched men, beasts, birds, fire, air, and land. Matter the wicked’st offspring of thy race, By Form assisted, flew from thy embrace, And rebel Light obscured thy reverend dusky face. With Form and Matter, Time and Place did join; Body, thy foe, with these did leagues combine To spoil thy peaceful realm, and ruin all thy line; But turncoat Time assists the foe in vain, And bribed by thee, destroys their short-lived reign, And to thy hungry womb drives back thy slaves again. Though mysteries are barred from laic eyes, And the divine alone with warrant pries Into thy bosom, where truth in private lies, Yet this of thee the wise may truly say, Thou from the virtuous nothing dost delay, And to be part with thee the wicked wisely pray. Great Negative, how vainly would the wise Inquire, define, distinguish, teach, devise, Didst thou not stand to point their blind philosophies! Is, or Is Not, the two great ends of Fate, And True or False, the subject of debate, That perfect or destroy the vast designs of state— When they have racked the politician’s breast, Within thy Bosom most securely rest, And when reduced to thee, are least unsafe and best. But Nothing, why does Something still permit That sacred monarchs should at council sit With persons highly thought at best for nothing fit, While weighty Something modestly abstains From princes’ coffers, and from statemen’s brains, And Nothing there like stately Nothing reigns? Nothing! who dwell’st with fools in grave disguise For whom they reverend shapes and forms devise, Lawn sleeves, and furs, and gowns, when they like thee look wise: French truth, Dutch prowess, British policy, Hibernian learning, Scotch civility, Spaniards’ dispatch, Danes’ wit are mainly seen in thee. The great man’s gratitude to his best friend, Kings’ promises, whores’ vows—towards thee may bend, Flow swiftly into thee, and in thee ever end.

Old Parson Beanes hunts six days of the week, And on the seventh, he has his notes to seek. Six days he hollows so much breath away That on the seventh he can nor preach or pray.

In this little urn is laid Prudence Baldwin, once my maid, From whose happy spark here let Spring the purple violet.

I think first of two sparrows I met when walking home, late night years ago, in another city, not unlike this — the one bird frantic, attacking I thought, the way she swooped down, circled my head, and flailed her wings in my face; how she seemed to scream each time I swung; how she dashed back and forth between me and a blood-red Corolla parked near the opposite curb; how, finally, I understood: I spied another bird, also calling, its foot inexplicably caught in the car’s closed door, beating its whole bird body against it. Trying, it appeared, to bang himself free. And who knows how long he’d been there, wailing. Who knows — he and the other I mistook, at first, for a bat. They called to me — something between squawk and chirp, something between song and prayer — to do something, anything. And, like any good god, I disappeared. Not indifferent, exactly. But with things to do. And, most likely, on my way home from another heartbreak. Call it 1997, and say I’m several thousand miles from home. By which I mean those were the days I made of everyone a love song. By which I mean I was lonely and unrequited. But that’s not quite it either. Truth is, I did manage to find a few to love me, but couldn’t always love them back. The Rasta law professor. The firefighter’s wife. The burlesque dancer whose daughter blackened drawings with m s to mean the sky was full of birds the day her daddy died. I think his widow said he drowned one morning on a fishing trip. Anyway, I’m digressing. But if you asked that night — did I mention it was night? — why I didn’t even try to jimmy the lock to spring the sparrow, I couldn’t say, truthfully, that it had anything to do with envy, with wanting a woman to plead as deeply for me as these sparrows did, one for the other. No. I’d have said something, instead, about the neighborhood itself, the car thief shot a block and a half east the week before. Or about the men I came across nights prior, sweat-slicked and shirtless, grappling in the middle of the street, the larger one’s chest pressed to the back of the smaller, bruised and bleeding both. I know you thought this was about birds, but stay with me. I left them both in the street — the same street where I’d leave the sparrows — the men embracing and, for all one knows (especially one not from around there), they could have been lovers — the one whispering an old, old tune into the ear of the other —Baby, baby, don’t leave me this way. I left the men where I’d leave the sparrows and their song. And as I walked away, I heard one of the men call to me, please or help or brother or some such. And I didn’t break stride, not one bit. It’s how I’ve learned to save myself. Let me try this another way. Call it 1977. And say I’m back west, South Central Los Angeles. My mother and father at it again. But this time in the street, broad daylight, and all the neighbors watching. One, I think his name was Sonny, runs out from his duplex to pull my father off. You see where I’m going with this? My mother crying out, fragile as a sparrow. Sonny fighting my father, fragile as a sparrow. And me, years later, trying to get it all down. As much for you — I’m saying — as for me. Sonny catches a left, lies flat on his back, blood starting to pool and his own wife wailing. My mother wailing, and traffic backed, now, half a block. Horns, whistles, and soon sirens. 1977. Summer. And all the trees full of birds. Hundreds, I swear. And since I’m the one writing it, I’ll tell you they were crying. Which brings me back to Dolphy and his transcribing. The jazzman, I think, wanted only to get it down pure. To get it down exact — the animal racking itself against a car’s steel door, the animals in the trees reporting, the animals we make of ourselves and one another. Stay with me now. Don’t leave me. Days after the dustup, my parents took me to the park. And in this park was a pond, and in this pond were birds. Not sparrows, but swans. And my father spread a blanket and brought from a basket some apples and a paring knife. Summertime. My mother wore sunglasses. And long sleeves. My father, now sober, cursed himself for leaving the radio. But my mother forgave him, and said, as she caressed the back of his hand, that we could just listen to the swans. And we listened. And I watched. Two birds coupling, one beating its wings as it mounted the other. Summer, 1977. I listened. And watched. When my parents made love late into that night, I covered my ears in the next room, scanning the encyclopedia for swans. It meant nothing to me — then, at least — but did you know the collective noun for swans is a lamentation? And is a lamentation not its own species of song? What a woman wails, punch drunk in the street? Or what a widow might sing, learning her man was drowned by swans? A lamentation of them? Imagine the capsized boat, the panicked man, struck about the eyes, nose, and mouth each time he comes up for air. Imagine the birds coasting away and the waters suddenly calm. Either trumpet swans or mutes. The dead man’s wife running for help, crying to any who’d listen. A lamentation. And a city busy saving itself. I’m digressing, sure. But did you know that to digress means to stray from the flock? When I left my parents’ house, I never looked back. By which I mean I made like a god and disappeared. As when I left the sparrows. And the copulating swans. As when someday I’ll leave this city. Its every flailing, its every animal song.