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Stranger, you who hide my love In the curved cheek of a smile And sleep with her upon a tongue Of soft lies that beguile, Your paradisal ecstasy Is justified is justified By hunger of the beasts beneath The overhanging cloud Who to snatch quick pleasures run Before their momentary sun Be eclipsed by death. Lightly, lightly from my sleep She stole, our vows of dew to break Upon a day of melting rain Another love to take: Her happy happy perfidy Was justified was justified Since compulsive needs of sense Clamour to be satisfied And she was never one to miss Plausible happiness Of a new experience. I, who stand beneath a bitter Blasted tree, with the green life Of summer joy cut from my side By that self-justifying knife, In my exiled misery Were justified were justified If upon two lives I preyed Or punished with my suicide, Or murdered pity in my heart Or two other lives did part To make the world pay what I paid. Oh, but supposing that I climb Alone to a high room of clouds Up a ladder of the time And lie upon a bed alone And tear a feather from a wing And listen to the world below And write round my high paper walls Anything and everything Which I know and do not know!

I shall not go with pain Whether you hold me, whether you forget My little loss and my immortal gain. O flower unseen, O fountain sealed apart! Give me one look, one look remembering yet, Sweet heart. I shall not go with grief, Whether you call me, whether you deny The crowning vintage and the golden sheaf. O, April hopes that blossom but to close! Give me one look, one look and so good-bye, Red rose. I shall not go with sighs, But as full-crowned the warrior leaves the fight, Dawn on his shield and death upon his eyes. O, life so bitter-sweet and heaven so far! Give me one look, one look and so good night, My star.

I make the drive, walk the corporate walk, To do what I must and give what I got. I turn the chrome knob and I fill my slot. I talk and I joke, a regular guy I input and output and rarely ask why. It's pasta and wine at home in my flat. It's voice mail and e-mail, then feed the stray cat. Sometimes I go out and chat up the girls. Some want to tango, some manage a smile. Some come home and have safe sex for a while. My sweet IRA, my 401-k, Let me buy tickets to games, to a play— I go with the gang and don't get involved. I fly to St. Croix and stare at the sea. I travel first class. No day-tripper me. My stocks are diverse to ride out the storm. I buy what is solid, hew to the norm. My portfolio teaches how I should vote. I'm cautious in style, suspicious of trend. When weather turns foul I always come in. This is my choice, my new BoBo life. A two-career marriage, the tension, the strife— It didn't last long. We parted as pals. She got the condo. I got the car. She's a savvy, cool chick. She'll go really far. My folks live upstate, where I misspent my youth. They're tight with their money and long in the tooth. When I visit it's hard with so little to say. They miss me, they claim. They worry. They pray. But they seem relieved when I drive away.

Some claim the origin of song was a war cry some say it was a rhyme telling the farmers when to plant and reap don’t they know the first song was a lullaby pulled from a mother’s sleep said the old woman A significant factor generating my delight in being alive this springtime is the birdsong that like a sweeping mesh has captured me like diamond rain I can’t hear it enough said the tulip lifetime after lifetime we surged up the hill I and my dear brothers thirsty for blood uttering our beautiful songs said the dog

O Love! that stronger art than wine, Pleasing delusion, witchery divine, Wont to be prized above all wealth, Disease that has more joys than health; Though we blaspheme thee in our pain, And of thy tyranny complain, We are all bettered by they reign. What reason never can bestow We to this useful passion owe; Love wakes the dull from sluggish ease, And learns a clown the art to please, Humbles the vain, kindles the cold, Makes misers free, and cowards bold; ’Tis he reforms the sot from drink, And teaches airy fops to think. When full brute appetite is fed, And choked the glutton lies and dead, Thou new spirits dost dispense And ’finest the gross delights of sense: Virtue’s unconquerable aid That against Nature can persuade, And makes a roving mind retire Within the bounds of just desire; Cheerer of age, youth’s kind unrest, And half the heaven of the blest!

Why, Damon , why, why, why so pressing? The Heart you beg’s not worth possessing: Each Look, each Word, each Smile’s affected, And inward Charms are quite neglected: Then scorn her, scorn her, foolish Swain, And sigh no more, no more in vain. Beauty’s worthless, fading, flying; Who would for Trifles think of dying? Who for a Face, a Shape, wou’d languish, And tell the Brooks, and Groves his Anguish, Till she, till she thinks fit to prize him, And all, and all beside despise him? Fix, fix your Thoughts on what’s inviting, On what will never bear the slighting: Wit and Virtue claim your Duty, They’re much more worth than Gold and Beauty: To them, to them, your Heart resign, And you’ll no more, no more repine.

A Scholar first my Love implor’d, And then an empty, titled Lord; The Pedant talk’d in lofty Strains; Alas! his Lordship wanted Brains: I list’ned not, to one or t’other, But straight referr’d them to my Mother. A Poet next my Love assail’d, A Lawyer hop’d to have prevail’d; The Bard too much approv’d himself, The Lawyer thirsted after Pelf: I list’ned not, to one or t’other, But still referr’d them to my Mother. An Officer my Heart wou’d storm, A Miser, sought me too, in Form; But Mars was over-free and bold, The miser’s Heart was in his Gold: I list’ned not, to one or t’other, Referring still unto my Mother. And after them, some twenty more, Successless were, as those before; When Damon , lovely Damon came! Our Hearts strait felt a mutual Flame; I vow’d I’d have him, and no other, Without referring, to my Mother.

rain on the lake room at the lodge alone in a room in the lazy light loons on the lake geese in the air moose in the woods aware    awake a cry dislodged from the musty woods the gamy musk of the one aroused the roaming moose the rooms lit up the woods awake in the loony light the moon dislodged the lake aflame the Muse amazed amused     aroused

Sweet beast, I have gone prowling, a proud rejected man who lived along the edges catch as catch can; in darkness and in hedges I sang my sour tone and all my love was howling conspicuously alone. I curled and slept all day or nursed my bloodless wounds until the squares were silent where I could make my tunes singular and violent. Then, sure as hearers came I crept and flinched away. And, girl, you've done the same. A stray from my own type, led along by blindness, my love was near to spoiled and curdled all my kindness. I find no kin, no child; only the weasel's ilk. Sweet beast, cat of my own stripe, come and take my milk.

“O Love, thou art winged and swift, Yet stay with me evermore!” And I guarded my house with bolt and bar Lest Love fly forth at the door. Without, in the world, ’t was cold, While Love and I together Laughed and sang by my red hearth-fire, Nor knew it was winter weather. Sweet Love would lull me to sleep, In his tireless arm caressed; His shadowing wings and burning eyes Like night and stars wrought rest. And ever the beat of Love’s heart As a chime rang at my ear; And ever Love’s bending, beautiful face Covered me close from fear. Was it long ere I waked alone? A snow-drift whitened the floor; I saw spent ashes upon my hearth And Death in my open door.