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I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love. Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me. I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please. The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice. My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land: The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely. Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines; for our vines have tender grapes. My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies. Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.

A comped piano lifted the leaves in Low Forest, a blanket of shade pulled up, a sheet of glass put in place, free pros- pect all around I thought. I wanted my allegoric lapse, I wanted my whatsaid companions. Alone looking out under house arrest, I wanted them back, less myself than before, unbeset...    An exquisite jewel it all was, no explanation, no equation, a time-lapse excursion it was. High John from High Point was on the box, the box blown roofless, hacked wood scattered what light there was...    A low trombone could be heard asking, “What have they done to my beautiful boy?” A tree limb cracked in the distance, the all-of-us the horns had be- come. All of us there to notice, all of us there to see, “Blue Train” our wounded anthem, hacked wood the woods we walked...    I was im- agining Sophia’s dreamt-about blue truck, dreamt arrival, Trane’s loud announcement a blur, train truck, wished-for congress come nigh. There was the sun’s late equation, the moon’s ludic blush, truck equaling train equaling train equaling truck, soon’s blue transport, soon soon come...    It was the muse’s blue lips the all-of- us the horns had become came thru, blue rebuked kiss, blue-blent reconnoiter. It was the muse’s gray canopy covered us, the we I’d otherwise be the trees fell free of, cries loud and low we’d have heard had we been there, wood equaling would equaling we...    I lay like Anuncio busted up contemplating the book of it, last leg’s no-exit announcement no way to run. I stood like Itamar, sat like Huff. A sweet smile captured my lips like Netsanet’s, Zeno and Zenette’s re- pair • Zeno and Zenette’s last anything. Zeno and Zenette’s last kiss. I saw them come back from afar, saw them bisect every step. Friend and familiar, affine, foe, they walked in smelling of salt, the reek of  Lone Coast on their hair, their skin, sand a kind of coat they wore... Some- thing I saw it seemed I dreamt I saw, some- thing seen exteriority reneged on, stand up wide awake though I did. Did I see what I saw I won- dered, the closer the coast was the less I felt located, water opening out onto everywhere, was what I saw what I saw I wanted to know... A versionary recital it seemed or so I thought, so abreast of it only the book of it remained, a finger dipped in butterfly dust, a foot gone print- less, what of it I glimpsed gone out on tiptoe, wuh we’d have been whose escorts, wuh we, once there, drew thru the woods...    So it was or so it went, going so, soon gone, a blip no screen accounted for, blink, as I did, all I could. The box had fallen away, sound itself an overt bed of scree, roughed underbody I fell and felt heir to, a chestnut sense were there any sense left, a new scrub sense of my- self ________________ “Let it play on you,” Huff had said, “let it have its way.” I wasn’t clear what “it” was but my ears perked up. Mu, I knew, had gone into hiding and it might have been Mu. I wondered was it Mu he spoke about... In front of us the waves rolled in. They gave his eyes a glassy look... To see was to see oneself suspended, round Insofarian bliss at the foot of Mount Ida, Huff ’s ythmic what- say, a smiling spider’s bite ________________ A sort of cartoon the sun had a face and grew limbs in, round and round of re- birth, death unacceptable, what I saw was too much. I saw a tiptoe ghost prome- nade, a sorcerer’s apprentice parade, Mr. and Mrs. P’s reminiscent lament... Some- thing seen in a face no straddling of legs lived up to. An epiphany or an epistrophe, no way of knowing which. Press there’d be no end of any- more

Anuncio drifted in a well of sound, unlay’s ward, late orphan, a wry erotics had its way. He called himself Antonio now, Ahdja having joined our group...    Dunelike hip and thigh he stipulated, the desert he insisted we see. We understood there was occult stuff going on un- derneath, telling ourselves get used to it, close to the bone so close it lay inside, the closer walk we all went on about...    We were in Port of  Spain thinking about India, bored outside the Red House, shimmering side street, pan exactitude bruited elsewhere, pan’s light water, floating light. The light hung as though it were buffed, embroidered, sound’s amanuensis, griff...    There they were at the well again, the we he’d been told would be there, whatsaid en- semble the air disinterred, hit by affliction in each their own way, beset by some other where there might’ve been, beset by some other when there might’ve been, beset by some nether light... If not bodily light’s late day there was nothing, the not-all-there there’d always been come into its own. Wind affliction was all, all there was, rent, a mere liplike wrinkle at least. “Back when we were alive,” it said...    Literal sigil. Sage regret. A way of  looking. Something we saw. “Sealed lips wheeled in the air,” we translated it. The point was to look past it we saw • He wanted Ahdja’s poise, Antonio’s aplomb, namesake demur, name notwithstanding. So it was he blinked and his eyes bled, wry erotics’ haunched interstice bloodstruck, never again be- fit, Mr. In-Between... A kaiso chorale, we sang “Namaste,” a voice inside the voice inside the box, tongue in cheek, box buried somewhere east... It wasn’t singing we were there for, chant though we did sotto voce, an agonized aplomb of some sort... An Ibibio go-head we each turned into, not meaning to... Go-heads one and all we were, snide choir... To sing wasn’t why we were there... What it was was names tore loose, took wing, what world had been ours theirs now, sound itself, A- nuncio’s well’s regress... So that what we sought was more tone, mock sonance, science an a- malgam of huh, wuh, huh, knowing’s new toll, wuh huh... We were where the songs had been beckon- ing from. This was as it always was. This was always it no matter what it was. All the things it was lay nameless. Roots drew loose with no tonic, it whether or not it was... An aroused incumbency surrounded us, unlay’s fallaway terrain’s intan- gibility, Antonio’s adjunct address. We were down to the it of it it seemed... Was it the shimmer of last things we wondered, queasiness come and gone come again. There the very it so what it was our knees gave, so close we could taste it, nonce elixir, lapse, ellipse... All of which Ahdja made light of, unsure what of it fit or if any of it fit. “You can’t come on with all that new-name talk, that no-name stuff. All that evac- uation stuff,” she said, “gets old, got old,” as Antonio carried on, kept on, Anuncio to some of us, even so... All as if the quality of standing there shifted, a new cast of soul come down • Some common body to adduce it would some- day come to. We stood on the dock, white clouds, blue sky all around, spiked Antillean salt in the air. Big ships loomed as we talked... Each of us with our well of sound, a sense of quest and of brute inconsequence, Anuncio’s mys- tic pretense. “Promises, promises,” we said suck- ing our teeth, said sucking wind thru the gaps between our teeth, a taunt song serenading Mr. In- Between... We stood looking out, disconsolate, nothing if not words for recompense, what if not words none of us knew. Words more whistle than words we admonished, Anuncio going on a- bout Antonio and Ahdja, the he and she of lore they’d have been had they been able, each the other’s butterfly twin... Each the other’s but- terfly friend if not all that, paperweight, open, flown. Second-, third-, nth-hand innuendo all there was, word more whistle, mere whistle we let loose, echo degree zero, choric sough... Black wheeze, occult burr, we susurrated. “Este mundo tan extraño,” she intoned, we as well. Ahdja was meat and bones on the spirit of place he con- vinced us existed, an impromptu polity exhumed... The feeling we were futureless went away. Wuh huh went as well • An inwardly repeated tableau. We sat on the dock, reluctant witnesses it seemed, more story to the story than we could see. What we thought real got a gossamer look, soon to tear thru it seemed. Lytic remit what we’d been told was real, brute reconnoiter, non- sonant lament it seemed... There we stood, toll- ing bone in the air, no tone. Huff called it skeletone. There we sat though we stood, stood though we sat, stark Trinidadian light a new life, shoal of an earlier life... I wanted Anuncio’s ythmic pivot, Ahdja’s mystic sa- shay, Antonio’s pirate swag rolled into one but no one was asking me. No one was noticing anything, I thought, the difference Ahdja made no matter, an order of self-containment ob- tained. So I thought or would’ve said I thought had anyone asked. No one did, said or saw... An illusion of place or an allusion to it, Mu was all there was, unmoored abstract integument, im- manent commemorative lament. Something known as la-la crowded my throat, clung to the roof of my mouth. La-la meant I loved it, torn but tucked away, the versionary company of love I’d fallen in with, first unfallen fallen, unre- formed... No time soon will I be done with it I thought. La-la mentored my disarray. No way can I be done with it I thought, Ahdja and Antonio Anuncio’s boon constituency, each the other’s go-head eminence, each the other’s glancing re- lay... Late that day we sat in a small boat on the other side of the island. Scarlet ibises got their color eating shrimp Ahdja pointed out. Anuncio, not knowing what to say, said, “So my heart...” Mu was not knowing. Mu meant shutting up. Mu was me and Ahdja, Mr. and Ms. In-Between. Mu meant no filler. “Promises, promises” resounded all day... Something we saw in Ahdja’s face wanted out it seemed. She was the one we had by not having lore had it, love’s adamant outskirts, love’s dog- matic heart. I made untimeliness a foregone future, something-seen-in-a-face a new order to restore. I saw gold where there maybe wasn’t, beer cans lined on the rail we leaned against, aught if not imagined im- pact, we the presumption of one... A long sus- tention of hum it came down to, Om the Vedic nu we reminisced, Om the seed-syllabic gist and embel- lishment, Om the intuitist Mu. “Greek to me,” each of us admitted, thrum we were ambushed by, glum subterranean drone strung under it, mosquito buzz athwart it all ________________ I dreamt I died and I went into an isolation booth, a quiz box I dug my breath up in. “Please call me Antonio,” I whispered, head against the hardness of the bone beneath her breast, an anacrustic psalm, a new “Dearly Beloved.” What to say but there was nothing to, wag as much we might...Something of which we had a name if nothing else. Something for which we had the name if nothing else. Something for which we had a name if nothing else. Something of which we had the name if nothing else

—orphic fragment— Carnival morning they were Greeks in Brazil, Africans in Greek disguise. Said of herself she was born in a house in heaven. He said he was born in the house next door... They were in hell. In Brazil they were lovebait. To abide by hearing was what love was... To love was to hear without looking. Sound was the beloved’s mummy cloth... All to say, said the exegete, love in hell was a voice, to be spoken to from behind, not be able to turn and look... It wasn’t Greece where they were, nor was it Benin... Carnival morning in made-up hell, bodies bathed in loquat light, would-be song’s all the more would-be title, “Sound and Cerement,” voice wound in bandages raveling lapse . Up all night, slept well past noon. Awoke restless having dreamt she awoke on Lone Coast, wondering afterwards what it came to, glimpsed interstice, crevice, crack... Saw her dead mother and brother pull up in a car, her brother at the wheel not having driven while alive, newly taught by death it appeared. A fancy car, bigger than any her mother had had while alive, she too better off it appeared... A wishful read, “it appeared” notwithstanding, the exegete impossibly benign. Dreamt a dream of dream’s end, anxious, unannounced, Eronel’s nevermore namesake, Monk’s anagrammatic Lenore... That the dead return in luxury cars made us weep, pathetic its tin elegance, pitiable, sweet read misread, would-be sweet

The vote came in early. We ignored it. No ballot-box auction for us... Nub’s uninstructed dance’s bare feet, music we took them for. At a loss with only bodies to fend with, nonsonant waves kept coming, sang without wind,        saltless, waterless,         Nub’s inverted run, Nub newly vented by horns blown elsewhere, bells full of insect husks... Nonsonant scruff held on to, sheerness... Nothingness it seemed we grabbed at, gathered, beginning to be unending it seemed. We were beginning to be lured again, ready to be hectored, huthered, move on, beginning to be uprooted again... A peppered expanse the country we crossed. Space doled out so stingily we wept, love’s numb extremity the outskirts of Nuh, name whose elision we embraced... A tale told many times over, known before it reached us, known before we knew, un- backed alley of soul we wandered into, shadowbox romance it was called... Come of late to creation’s outskirts, rub’s new muse a republic of none, a yet-to-be band the band we were... We were Andoumboulou, dreamt in- habitants of “mu,” moored but immersed, real but made up, so much farther flung than we’d have thought... They the would-be we lay on a bed the size of Outlandish. Lip attesting lip, tongue rummaging tongue, took between finger and thumb the hem of her dress, flat bead of sweat, salted cloth... A hammer hit them each on the head. Hammered heads rang and rang without end...       Called it creation, called it their clime, close where there was otherwise distance,       mute endearment,        recondite embrace... So much farther, felt even so, mouth she remembered, home. His to hear her tell it, hers were it his to say, whose book was of lengthening limbs, hers of the unquenchable kiss... A tale told over and over, long since known by heart. Lay belly to back, turned belly to belly, each the other’s dreamt accompanist, music they made in their sleep... Frayed hem the interstice, time’s moot rule. Time’s moot rule amended, echoed advance it was also called ______________ A first unfallen church of what might've been. Let run its course it would have gone otherwise, time's ulterior bequest... This they had a way of imagining, this they so wished it to be. Abstract he at the back of her mind, she at the back of his, each the other's Nub constituent, ghost of an alternative life... They were we before we were, ancestral, we who'd never not be ill at ease. A vocation for lack he'd have said, she'd have said longing, a world, were they to speak, be- tween... What wasn't, they'd have said, went away, would come back, first fanatic church, what would be • They the would-be we talking talk of election, devotees of Iemanjá. Glass- green water they were in up to their shoulders, each the other's moored recess... The way she said his name stayed with him. More made of what wasn't there than what was, whispered, came back again... Love called out from side- walk to balcony, rooftop to galaxy, mute... More made of what was there than was there, mouths vow-heavy at bed's edge, lip-touch never to be done. Never to get up again it seemed, lay shaken, endlessly commemorative advent, dreamt evanescent caress... A first unfallen church it might have been. Let run its course it would have gone otherwise, time's ulterior bequest... This they had a way of imagining, this they so wished it to be. Abstract he at the back of her mind, she at the back of his, each the other's Nub constituent, ghost of an alternative life... They were we before we were, ancestral, we who'd never not be ill at ease. A vocation for lack he'd have said, she'd have said longing, a world, were they to speak, be- tween... What wasn't, we'd have said, went away, would come back, first afflicted church, what would be... We were caught in a dream whispering names we'd forget waking up, caught waking up or in a dream of waking up, moot sound riffling our lips. Nub was a name,        was was a name,           a was a name, all moving on... Names came after us, roused us in our sleep, the ballot-box opening grinned and grinned again, gone we'd have been could we have run... It wasn't we were stuck, stood frozen, transfixed, Paralytic Dream #12... It was waking known otherwise put running out of reach, nonsonance's waterless waves held us up, more than we could sense but sensed even so, nonsonance's gaptooth slur • Day late so all the old attunements gave way, late but soon come even so... A political trek we'd have said it was albeit politics kept us at bay,         nothing wasn't politics we'd say. Wanting our want to be called otherwise, kept at bay though we were, day late but all the old stories echoed yet again, old but even so soon come... A mystic march they'd have said it was, acknowledging politics kept us at bay,        everything was mystical they'd say. Wanting our want to be so named, kept at bay as we were, what the matter was wasn't a question, no ques- tion what it was ______________ Nub no longer stood but lay and we lay with it, earth-sway cradling our backs. What the matter was rocked us, a way we had with dirt, awaiting what already might have been there... Dust... Abducted future... Dearth Lake's dry largesse... Dread Lakes' aliases, alibis, Death Lake also there... Where we were rubbed earth in our faces, a feeling we had for debris. Nub, no longer standing, filled the air, an exact powder, fell as we ran thru it, earth-sway swaddling our feet

Came now to another crossroads. Stick people stood awaiting us, to the left, straight ahead, to the right. What was that song you sang, they asked, spoke without sound sound’s immanence, not without song but only one song, the one song summon- ing song’s eclipse... The one song sang song’s inconsequence, crooned it could not’ve been otherwise, song song’s own lament... The one song sang song’s irrelevance, we were exhausted, we looked straight ahead, left, right. The stick people’s question fa- tigued us, glyphed riddle whose decipherment they said we’d someday be, exegetes against our will... Lack, reluctance, pallor, eidolon. Crossroads cryptogram, they themselves were sing- ing, nothing not what could be seen they said, soul not sign if not eyelight, song more what could be seen than they could say, wan unwillingness they said... Slick stick people, tricky, soul a sick thing they said... Signs all said Stick City. Stick City straight ahead, to the left, to the right, signs pointed every which way... Stick sublimity sent us reeling, a we that wasn’t we against one that was. Mass, intangible we it was we were, beads thrown off in a row... We’d have given anything to get to Stick City and there we were. Whatever way we took would take us there. Stick City loomed ahead and to the left and to the right, any which way but in back of us, Stick City meant no turning back... Signs all said Stick City. We read them all out loud, “Stick City.” “Styxicity,” Itamar quipped... It wasn’t water we crossed, it wasn’t hell we were in. Stick City housed our hearts’ desires we were told, Stick City stood without end or assistance, line long since what stuck... Line was all point, point all extensity, stick’s own deictic drop... No longer point less point than point’s target, Stick City made them one and the same... So it was on to where the signs said next, Stick the one place we were yet to arrive at, Diddie Wa Diddie’s twin. A winding road it now was we were on, so curved we could see our backs. No work, no worry up ahead we heard, music’s utopic stir... Hogs lay stuck with knives and forks, chickens likewise we heard. A wall of beats for backup, Stick City way off somewhere... As quick as that we were there, Stick City. It wasn’t the way we heard it was. Everyone limped, walked with a cane, no way how we heard it was... As quick as that there we were. Stick City lay before us, lied about. Legbaland it might’ve been... Diddie Wa Diddie’s non-identical twin if twin it was, no way the way we heard it was • Stick-figure escorts ushered us in, pointed out what was what. Stick people's gait was flawless, they said, unstick people limped on sticks... A strand of horsehair lay in the road, hair from a horse's tail. Come rain it became a snake, would-be stick though Stick City said no... It was getting to be late again, the arcade's light less intense... Come night we lay under a horse, shouted voiceless trying to wake each other up and woke up, coiled hair stiffened with earwax, as if at last we were Stick City's own... Not so we saw soon enough. No home, no haven was it, noise what of it we could keep... West L.A. it might've been, Saint-Pierre it might've been wélélé no matter where we were... Stick symphony. Ictic sashay... Head bob atop watery neck, nod homage, noise, names came loose. What of it we kept we kept in name only, “Stick City” ours to hold on to. Chance it might've meant, I Ching, no place but we were long since gone... Where sign had been sound X marked it, stick bisected stick. Signal some said, noise's alternate, half where we were nowhere near where we were, were where's discontent... It was getting to be light again, noise the new day's largesse. Sound was what sign turned out from, sound itself exed out... What the song was we sang no longer what we were asked, stick inquisitors gathered, mum to the bone. Frown, furrowed brow, grimace the glyphs met us, faces lined up in a row. Line was what pressed us, point egged us on, what the song was we sang no song we sang, what the song was we sang moot... The strand-of-horsehair-become-a-snake became a rope around our necks, rope what the song we sang was. We'd have given anything to say Stick City was where we were... Breath it was we gave, rope round our necks... We were neck- less, bobbing heads, barbershop xtet, calabashes hit with sticks. Whatever we were, whatever noise there was we made ours. “This is our dispatch,” we said... Euphemistic necktie, eu- phemistic float. Horsehair tickling the tops of our throats. Wet, euphemistic scruff... As it was getting to be noon we got our necks and bodies back. A cartoon watch dog bit us, a pinscher with painted lips. We were stick people now, initiates. Stick legs only a blur, we were running, pant legs and hem- lines ripped... Cross. Chiliasm. Crisis. Stick bisected stick. More hopeless the less we needed it, less real the more shot with stick vaccine, less real the more stick we were... Stick inquisitors fell away as we went in. Stick City disappeared as we ran deeper. Too late to turn back, we were twigs, kindling, dispatch gone up in smoke... We were jíbaros, hicks, cuatro ping in back of us, howled, “Aylelolay lolelay.” We stood absorbed in what felt like advent. We stood on a plane cut thru an adverse cone. Low, rummaging burr, the sound we sought sought us, we the make-believe dead more dead than we knew... Syllabic run was more alive than we were, bass clack bugling disaster, brute sun outside the nod house door ______________ Crossroads though it was it seemed an impasse, stick as in stuck we thought. Stick as in stone's accomplice, Quag's bone- yard remit... Insofar as there was an I it fell in, a brass bell's everted lips now convergent, shush we were hollowed by. Insofar as there was an I it was as each of us insisted, as far as there was an I, stick beating stick, there was an X... Crux... Cross... Crutch... Legs' Osirian soulstrut lost, Legbaland it was and we limped on, limped in, Stick City's outskirts endless it seemed, no matter we leaned on sticks... Were there an I it stood like a stick, mum-stuff crossing itself. Insofar as there was an I it was an X taking shape, there but to be gone if not no sooner there than gone, glass house holding its own ______________ We knew we wore skeleton suits. We knew we walked holding placards. “Dead from Day One" they read, part requiem, part rebuke... What lay around us had the sound of steam. Low-motion lurk. Time-lapse cascade. Stick City city limits notwithstanding, glass intangibles allowed what was lost otherwise, gripless in the house outside the house... It slipped away and we slipped away and it slipped away, Stick City a mirage nod concocted, not to be be- lieved but we did though it receded, nod Nub's emic retreat

1894 You couldn’t pack a Broadwood half a mile— You mustn’t leave a fiddle in the damp— You couldn’t raft an organ up the Nile, And play it in an Equatorial swamp. I travel with the cooking-pots and pails— I’m sandwiched ’tween the coffee and the pork— And when the dusty column checks and tails, You should hear me spur the rearguard to a walk! With my ‘Pilly-willy-winky-winky-popp!’ [Oh, it’s any tune that comes into my head!] So I keep ’em moving forward till they drop; So I play ’em up to water and to bed. In the silence of the camp before the fight, When it’s good to make your will and say your prayer, You can hear my strumpty-tumpty overnight, Explaining ten to one was always fair. I’m the Prophet of the Utterly Absurd, Of the Patently Impossible and Vain— And when the Thing that Couldn’t has occurred, Give me time to change my leg and go again. With my ‘Tumpa-tumpa-tumpa-tumpa-tump!’ In the desert where the dung-fed camp-smoke curled. There was never voice before us till I led our lonely chorus, I—the war-drum of the White Man round the world! By the bitter road the Younger Son must tread, Ere he win to hearth and saddle of his own,— ’Mid the riot of the shearers at the shed, In the silence of the herder’s hut alone— In the twilight, on a bucket upside down, Hear me babble what the weakest won’t confess— I am Memory and Torment—I am Town! I am all that ever went with evening dress! With my ‘Tunka-tunka-tunka-tunka-tunk!’ [So the lights—the London Lights—grow near and plain!] So I rowel ’em afresh towards the Devil and the Flesh Till I bring my broken rankers home again. In desire of many marvels over sea, Where the new-raised tropic city sweats and roars, I have sailed with Young Ulysses from the quay Till the anchor rumbled down on stranger shores. He is blooded to the open and the sky, He is taken in a snare that shall not fail, He shall hear me singing strongly, till he die, Like the shouting of a backstay in a gale. With my ‘Hya! Heeya! Heeya! Hullah! Haul!’ [Oh, the green that thunders aft along the deck!] Are you sick o’ towns and men? You must sign and sail again, For it’s ‘Johnny Bowlegs, pack your kit and trek!’ Through the gorge that gives the stars at noon-day clear— Up the pass that packs the scud beneath our wheel— Round the bluff that sinks her thousand fathom sheer— Down the valley with our guttering brakes asqueal: Where the trestle groans and quivers in the snow, Where the many-shedded levels loop and twine, Hear me lead my reckless children from below Till we sing the Song of Roland to the pine! With my ‘Tinka-tinka-tinka-tinka-tink!’ [Oh, the axe has cleared the mountain, croup and crest!] And we ride the iron stallions down to drink, Through the cañons to the waters of the West! And the tunes that mean so much to you alone— Common tunes that make you choke and blow your nose— Vulgar tunes that bring the laugh that brings the groan— I can rip your very heartstrings out with those; With the feasting, and the folly, and the fun— And the lying, and the lusting, and the drink, And the merry play that drops you, when you’re done. To the thoughts that burn like irons if you think. With my ‘Plunka-lunka-lunka-lunka-lunk!’ Here’s a trifle on account of pleasure past, Ere the wit that made you win gives you eyes to see your sin And—the heavier repentance at the last! Let the organ moan her sorrow to the roof— I have told the naked stars the Grief of Man! Let the trumpet snare the foeman to the proof— I have known Defeat, and mocked it as we ran! My bray ye may not alter nor mistake When I stand to jeer the fatted Soul of Things, But the Song of Lost Endeavour that I make, Is it hidden in the twanging of the strings? With my ‘Ta-ra-rara-rara-ra-ra-rrrp!’ [Is it naught to you that hear and pass me by?] But the word—the word is mine, when the order moves the line And the lean, locked ranks go roaring down to die! The grandam of my grandam was the Lyre— [Oh, the blue below the little fisher-huts!] That the Stealer stooping beachward filled with fire, Till she bore my iron head and ringing guts! By the wisdom of the centuries I speak— To the tune of yestermorn I set the truth— I, the joy of life unquestioned—I, the Greek— I, the everlasting Wonder-song of Youth! With my ‘Tinka-tinka-tinka-tinka-tink!’ [What d’ye lack, my noble masters! What d’ye lack?] So I draw the world together link by link: Yea, from Delos up to Limerick and back!

At the sight of the great light dawning in that glad night, small birds come singing to celebrate him with their sweet voices. And even the imperial eagle, soaring on the wind, sings a melodious song, saying:   Jesus is born to lift us from sin and bring us joy.

What of the bow? The bow was made in England: Of true wood, of yew-wood, The wood of English bows; So men who are free Love the old yew-tree And the land where the yew-tree grows. What of the cord? The cord was made in England: A rough cord, a tough cord, A cord that bowmen love; And so we will sing Of the hempen string And the land where the cord was wove. What of the shaft? The shaft was cut in England: A long shaft, a strong shaft, Barbed and trim and true; So we’ll drink all together To the grey goose-feather And the land where the grey goose flew. What of the mark? Ah, seek it not in England, A bold mark, our old mark Is waiting over-sea. When the strings harp in chorus, And the lion flag is o’er us, It is there that our mark will be. What of the men? The men were bred in England: The bowmen—the yeomen, The lads of dale and fell. Here’s to you—and to you! To the hearts that are true And the land where the true hearts dwell.

I put those things there.—See them burn. The emerald the azure and the gold Hiss and crack, the blues & greens of the world As if I were tired. Someone interferes Everywhere with me. The clouds, the clouds are torn In ways I do not understand or love. Licking my long lips, I looked upon God And he flamed and he was friendlier Than you were, and he was small. Showing me Serpents and thin flowers; these were cold. Dominion waved & glittered like the flare From ice under a small sun. I wonder. Afterward the violent and formal dancers Came out, shaking their pithless heads. I would instruct them but I cannot now,— Because of the elements. They rise and move, I nod a dance and they dance in the rain In my red coat. I am the king of the dead.