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Until wolf-light I will count my sheep, Adumbrated, uncomedic, as they are. One is perdu, two, qualm, three Is sprawl, four, too late, Night is already a thirsty county in Texas, Salt flat and unremitting Blacktop dry as my mouth, And your elastic vowels, my genial, My electric ghost, my Radio’s lonely station. Because the spectacle Of suffering corrupts us, all punishments Are now executive, offstage. Most presume you a fable: Echoes of approaching bootheels That harry labyrinths of concrete corridors, Or hooded in burlap. We are convicted As we are also pardoned: He cherished His lawn, or afterwards he covered The victim’s face. You make no judgments Yourself. Only in bursal tones, Tactful as the file box That shows, if opened, the neon, pleading heart Of Jesus wrapped in barbed wire, You perform penalties others have scripted, so Untroubled by so many. How long I have listened to you For news of the opal distances,

A siren sang, and Europe turned away From the high castle and the shepherd’s crook. Three caravels went sailing to Cathay On the strange ocean, and the captains shook Their banners out across the Mexique Bay. And in our early days we did the same. Remembering our fathers in their wreck We crossed the sea from Palos where they came And saw, enormous to the little deck, A shore in silence waiting for a name. The treasures of Cathay were never found. In this America, this wilderness Where the axe echoes with a lonely sound, The generations labor to possess And grave by grave we civilize the ground.

The newspaper caption read: “Two officers talk to a young man, name withheld, as he stands on a bridge above the Merrimack River, distraught over learning that his mother is terminally ill.” When I first saw you I could glance up from your image in the paper and out her kitchen doorway watch my mother trim her artemisia, scraps of silver trailing her green wheelbarrow. And I imagined yes, if mine were dying, I would be on the abutment too, about to release the cable ignoring those attempting rescue

Are you content, you pretty three-years’ wife? Are you content and satisfied to live On what your loving husband loves to give, And give to him your life? Are you content with work, — to toil alone, To clean things dirty and to soil things clean; To be a kitchen-maid, be called a queen, — Queen of a cook-stove throne? Are you content to reign in that small space -- A wooden palace and a yard-fenced land -- With other queens abundant on each hand, Each fastened in her place? Are you content to rear your children so? Untaught yourself, untrained, perplexed, distressed, Are you so sure your way is always best? That you can always know? Have you forgotten how you used to long In days of ardent girlhood, to be great, To help the groaning world, to serve the state, To be so wise — so strong? And are you quite convinced this is the way, The only way a woman’s duty lies -- Knowing all women so have shut their eyes? Seeing the world to-day? Having no dream of life in fuller store? Of growing to be more than that you are? Doing the things you know do better far, Yet doing others - more? Losing no love, but finding as you grew That as you entered upon nobler life You so became a richer, sweeter wife, A wiser mother too? What holds you? Ah, my dear, it is your throne, Your paltry queenship in that narrow place, Your antique labours, your restricted space, Your working all alone! Be not deceived! ‘Tis not your wifely bond That holds you, nor the mother’s royal power, But selfish, slavish service hour by hour -- A life with no beyond!

Such are the little memories of you; They come and go, return and lie apart From all main things of life; yet more than they, With noiseless feet, they come and grip the heart. Gay laughter leading quick and stormy tears, Then smiles again and pulse of flying feet, In breathless chase of fleeting gossamers, Are memories so dear, so bitter-sweet. No more are echoes of your flying feet. Hard by, where Pike’s Peak rears its head in state, The erstwhile rushing feet, with halting steps, For health’s return in Denver watch and wait. But love and memories of noiseless tread, Where angels hovered once, all shining fair, To tuck you in your little trundle bed, Kneel nightly now in agony of prayer.

crossed in despair many deserts full of hope carrying their empty fists of sorrow everywhere mouthing a bitter night of shovels and nails “you’re nothing you’re shit your home’s nowhere”— mountains will speak for you rain will flesh your bones green again among ashes after a long fire started in a fantasy island some time ago turning Natives into aliens

To tonsured monks and dreadlocked Rastas, To idol worshippers and idol smashers, To fasting Jains and feasting Shaivites, To Vedic pundits and Faber poets, The weaver Kabir sends one message: The noose of death hangs over all. Only Rama’s name can save you. Say it now .

The skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crispéd and sere— The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region of Weir— It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. Here once, through an alley Titanic, Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul— Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul. These were days when my heart was volcanic As the scoriac rivers that roll— As the lavas that restlessly roll Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek In the ultimate climes of the pole— That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek In the realms of the boreal pole. Our talk had been serious and sober, But our thoughts they were palsied and sere— Our memories were treacherous and sere— For we knew not the month was October, And we marked not the night of the year— (Ah, night of all nights in the year!) We noted not the dim lake of Auber— (Though once we had journeyed down here)— We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber, Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. And now, as the night was senescent And star-dials pointed to morn— As the star-dials hinted of morn— At the end of our path a liquescent And nebulous lustre was born, Out of which a miraculous crescent Arose with a duplicate horn— Astarte's bediamonded crescent Distinct with its duplicate horn. And I said—"She is warmer than Dian: She rolls through an ether of sighs— She revels in a region of sighs: She has seen that the tears are not dry on These cheeks, where the worm never dies, And has come past the stars of the Lion To point us the path to the skies— To the Lethean peace of the skies— Come up, in despite of the Lion, To shine on us with her bright eyes— Come up through the lair of the Lion, With love in her luminous eyes." But Psyche, uplifting her finger, Said—"Sadly this star I mistrust— Her pallor I strangely mistrust:— Oh, hasten! oh, let us not linger! Oh, fly!—let us fly!—for we must." In terror she spoke, letting sink her Wings till they trailed in the dust— In agony sobbed, letting sink her Plumes till they trailed in the dust— Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust. I replied—"This is nothing but dreaming: Let us on by this tremulous light! Let us bathe in this crystalline light! Its Sybilic splendor is beaming With Hope and in Beauty to-night:— See!—it flickers up the sky through the night! Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming, And be sure it will lead us aright— We safely may trust to a gleaming That cannot but guide us aright, Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night." Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her, And tempted her out of her gloom— And conquered her scruples and gloom: And we passed to the end of the vista, But were stopped by the door of a tomb— By the door of a legended tomb; And I said—"What is written, sweet sister, On the door of this legended tomb?" She replied—"Ulalume—Ulalume— 'Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!" Then my heart it grew ashen and sober As the leaves that were crispèd and sere— As the leaves that were withering and sere, And I cried—"It was surely October On this very night of last year That I journeyed—I journeyed down here— That I brought a dread burden down here— On this night of all nights in the year, Oh, what demon has tempted me here? Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber— This misty mid region of Weir— Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber— In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir." Said we, then—the two, then—"Ah, can it Have been that the woodlandish ghouls— The pitiful, the merciful ghouls— To bar up our way and to ban it From the secret that lies in these wolds— From the thing that lies hidden in these wolds— Had drawn up the spectre of a planet From the limbo of lunary souls— This sinfully scintillant planet From the Hell of the planetary souls?"

Roman Virgil, thou that singest Ilion's lofty temples robed in fire, Ilion falling, Rome arising, wars, and filial faith, and Dido's pyre; Landscape-lover, lord of language more than he that sang the "Works and Days," All the chosen coin of fancy flashing out from many a golden phrase; Thou that singest wheat and woodland, tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd; All the charm of all the Muses often flowering in a lonely word; Poet of the happy Tityrus piping underneath his beechen bowers; Poet of the poet-satyr whom the laughing shepherd bound with flowers; Chanter of the Pollio, glorying in the blissful years again to be, Summers of the snakeless meadow, unlaborious earth and oarless sea; Thou that seëst Universal Nature moved by Universal Mind; Thou majestic in thy sadness at the doubtful doom of human kind; Light among the vanish'd ages; star that gildest yet this phantom shore; Golden branch amid the shadows, kings and realms that pass to rise no more; Now thy Forum roars no longer, fallen every purple Cæsar's dome— Tho' thine ocean-roll of rhythm sound forever of Imperial Rome— Now the Rome of slaves hath perish'd, and the Rome of freemen holds her place, I, from out the Northern Island sunder'd once from all the human race, I salute thee, Mantovano, I that loved thee since my day began, Wielder of the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of man.

I Calm was the sea to which your course you kept, Oh, how much calmer than all southern seas! Many your nameless mates, whom the keen breeze Wafted from mothers that of old have wept. All souls of children taken as they slept Are your companions, partners of your ease, And the green souls of all these autumn trees Are with you through the silent spaces swept. Your virgin body gave its gentle breath Untainted to the gods. Why should we grieve, But that we merit not your holy death? We shall not loiter long, your friends and I; Living you made it goodlier to live, Dead you will make it easier to die. II With you a part of me hath passed away; For in the peopled forest of my mind A tree made leafless by this wintry wind Shall never don again its green array. Chapel and fireside, country road and bay, Have something of their friendliness resigned; Another, if I would, I could not find, And I am grown much older in a day. But yet I treasure in my memory Your gift of charity, your mellow ease, And the dear honour of your amity; For these once mine, my life is rich with these. And I scarce know which part may greater be,— What I keep of you, or you rob of me. III Your bark lies anchored in the peaceful bight Until a kinder wind unfurl her sail; Your docile spirit, wingèd by this gale, Hath at the dawning fled into the light. And I half know why heaven deemed it right Your youth, and this my joy in youth, should fail; God hath them still, for ever they avail, Eternity hath borrowed that delight. For long ago I taught my thoughts to run Where all the great things live that lived of yore, And in eternal quiet float and soar; There all my loves are gathered into one, Where change is not, nor parting any more, Nor revolution of the moon and sun. IV In my deep heart these chimes would still have rung To toll your passing, had you not been dead; For time a sadder mask than death may spread Over the face that ever should be young. The bough that falls with all its trophies hung Falls not too soon, but lays its flower-crowned head Most royal in the dust, with no leaf shed Unhallowed or unchiselled or unsung. And though the after world will never hear The happy name of one so gently true, Nor chronicles write large this fatal year, Yet we who loved you, though we be but few, Keep you in whatsoe’er is good, and rear In our weak virtues monuments to you.