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He was born in Alabama. He was bred in Illinois. He was nothing but a Plain black boy. Swing low swing low sweet sweet chariot. Nothing but a plain black boy. Drive him past the Pool Hall. Drive him past the Show. Blind within his casket, But maybe he will know. Down through Forty-seventh Street: Underneath the L, And Northwest Corner, Prairie, That he loved so well. Don’t forget the Dance Halls— Warwick and Savoy, Where he picked his women, where He drank his liquid joy. Born in Alabama. Bred in Illinois. He was nothing but a Plain black boy. Swing low swing low sweet sweet chariot. Nothing but a plain black boy.

Of Glory not a Beam is left But her Eternal House – The Asterisk is for the Dead, The Living, for the Stars –

We have memorized America, how it was born and who we have been and where. In ceremonies and silence we say the words, telling the stories, singing the old songs. We like the places they take us. Mostly we do. The great and all the anonymous dead are there. We know the sound of all the sounds we brought. The rich taste of it is on our tongues. But where are we going to be, and why, and who? The disenfranchised dead want to know. We mean to be the people we meant to be, to keep on going where we meant to go. But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how except in the minds of those who will call it Now? The children. The children. And how does our garden grow? With waving hands—oh, rarely in a row— and flowering faces. And brambles, that we can no longer allow. Who were many people coming together cannot become one people falling apart. Who dreamed for every child an even chance cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not. Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head cannot let chaos make its way to the heart. Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot. We know what we have done and what we have said, and how we have grown, degree by slow degree, believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become— just and compassionate, equal, able, and free. All this in the hands of children, eyes already set on a land we never can visit—it isn’t there yet— but looking through their eyes, we can see what our long gift to them may come to be. If we can truly remember, they will not forget.

Here the subject thinks “there could be flowers” or “the water was a bit disturbed when the ring fell in.” All that, painted from said things, pleases it. That explains all things except for Ovid’s exile which we will probably never understand. That adds to our sense of fragility, confirms the order in which we read. You still have the right to bear arms, “thing and joy,” the anxious doubt that was once written about. There are several versions of the story where she is transformed into a swallow, flies around a pillar. And do you find the rhyme? It originally meant spoken, the sentence, but spoken. Flight, interchangeable with fate. As for myself, I can’t begin to approach the woods with it. The words of its condition.

“Stephen Smith, University of Iowa sophomore, burned what he said was his draft card” and Norman Morrison, Quaker, of Baltimore Maryland, burned what he said was himself. You, Robert McNamara, burned what you said was a concentration of the Enemy Aggressor. No news medium troubled to put it in quotes. And Norman Morrison, Quaker, of Baltimore Maryland, burned what he said was himself. He said it with simple materials such as would be found in your kitchen. In your office you were informed. Reporters got cracking frantically on the mental disturbance angle. So far nothing turns up. Norman Morrison, Quaker, of Baltimore Maryland, burned, and while burning, screamed. No tip-off. No release. Nothing to quote, to manage to put in quotes. Pity the unaccustomed hesitance of the newspaper editorialists. Pity the press photographers, not called. Norman Morrison, Quaker, of Baltimore Maryland, burned and was burned and said all that there is to say in that language. Twice what is said in yours. It is a strange sect, Mr. McNamara, under advice to try the whole of a thought in silence, and to oneself.

How Love came in, I do not know, Whether by th’ eye, or eare, or no: Or whether with the soule it came (At first) infused with the same: Whether in part ‘tis here or there, Or, like the soule, whole every where: This troubles me: but as I well As any other, this can tell; That when from hence she does depart, The out-let then is from the heart.

LXI. Of Man by Nature From God he's a Back slider, Of Ways, he loves the wider; With Wickedness a Sider, More Venom than a Spider. In Sin he's a Confider, A Make-bate, and Divider; Blind Reason is his Guider, The Devil is his Rider.

(A Pantoum) Of making many books there is no end, Though myriads have to deep oblivion gone; Each day new manuscripts are being penned, And still the ceaseless tide of ink flows on. Though myriads have to deep oblivion gone, New volumes daily issue from the press; And still the ceaseless tide of ink flows on— The prospect is disheartening, I confess. New volumes daily issue from the press; My pile of unread books I view aghast. The prospect is disheartening, I confess; Why will these modern authors write so fast? My pile of unread books I view aghast— Of course I must keep fairly up to date— Why will these modern authors write so fast? They seem to get ahead of me of late. Of course I must keep fairly up to date; The books of special merit I must read; They seem to get ahead of me of late, Although I skim them very fast indeed. The books of special merit I must read; And then the magazines come round again; Although I skim them very fast indeed, I can’t get through with more than eight or ten. And then the magazines come round again! How can we stem this tide of printer’s ink? I can’t get through with more than eight or ten— It is appalling when I stop to think. How can we stem this tide of printer’s ink? Of making many books there is no end. It is appalling when I stop to think Each day new manuscripts are being penned!

The poem of the mind in the act of finding What will suffice. It has not always had To find: the scene was set; it repeated what Was in the script. Then the theatre was changed To something else. Its past was a souvenir. It has to be living, to learn the speech of the place. It has to face the men of the time and to meet The women of the time. It has to think about war And it has to find what will suffice. It has To construct a new stage. It has to be on that stage And, like an insatiable actor, slowly and With meditation, speak words that in the ear, In the delicatest ear of the mind, repeat, Exactly, that which it wants to hear, at the sound Of which, an invisible audience listens, Not to the play, but to itself, expressed In an emotion as of two people, as of two Emotions becoming one. The actor is A metaphysician in the dark, twanging An instrument, twanging a wiry string that gives Sounds passing through sudden rightnesses, wholly Containing the mind, below which it cannot descend, Beyond which it has no will to rise. It must Be the finding of a satisfaction, and may Be of a man skating, a woman dancing, a woman Combing. The poem of the act of the mind.

As the tide rises, the closed mollusc Opens a fraction to the ocean's food, Bathed in its riches. Do not ask What force would do, or if force could. A knife is of no use against a fortress. You might break it to pieces as gulls do. No, only the rising tide and its slow progress Opens the shell. Lovers, I tell you true. You who have held yourselves closed hard Against warm sun and wind, shelled up in fears And hostile to a touch or tender word— The ocean rises, salt as unshed tears. Now you are floated on this gentle flood That cannot force or be forced, welcome food Salt as your tears, the rich ocean's blood, Eat, rest, be nourished on the tide of love.