343 Grief poems

This is just a place: we go around, distanced, yearly in a star’s atmosphere, turning daily into and out of direct light and slanting through the quadrant seasons: deep space begins at our heels, nearly rousing us loose: we look up or out so high, sight’s silk almost draws us away: this is just a place: currents worry themselves coiled and free in airs and oceans: water picks up mineral shadow and plasm into billions of designs, frames: trees, grains, bacteria: but is love a reality we made here ourselves— and grief—did we design that—or do these, like currents, whine in and out among us merely as we arrive and go: this is just a place: the reality we agree with, that agrees with us, outbounding this, arrives to touch, joining with us from far away: our home which defines us is elsewhere but not so far away we have forgotten it: this is just a place.

I The angels guide him now, And watch his curly head, And lead him in their games, The little boy we led. II He cannot come to harm, He knows more than we know, His light is brighter far Than daytime here below. III His path leads on and on, Through pleasant lawns and flowers, His brown eyes open wide At grass more green than ours. IV With playmates like himself, The shining boy will sing, Exploring wondrous woods, Sweet with eternal spring. V Yet, he is lost to us, Far is his path of gold, Far does the city seem, Lonely our hearts and old.

Who bequeathed to Chicago a School of Music. So in Pieria, from the wedded bliss Of Time and Memory, the Muses came To be the means of rich oblivion, And rest from cares.  And when the Thunderer Took heaven, then the Titans warred on him For pity of mankind. But the great law, Which is the law of music, not of bread, Set Atlas for a pillar, manacled His brother to the rocks of the Scythia, And under Aetna fixed the furious Typhon. So should thought rule, not force. And Amphion, Pursuing justice, entered Thebes and slew His mother's spouse; but when he would make sure And fortify the city, then he took The lyre that Hermes gave, and played, and watched The stones move and assemble, till a wall Engirded Thebes and kept the citadel Beyond the reach of arrows and of fire. What other power but harmony can build A city, and what gift so magical As that by which a city lifts its walls? So men, in years to come, shall feel the power Of this man moving through the high-ranged thought Which plans for beauty, builds for larger life. The stones shall rise in towers to answer him.

Rigid Body (sings). Gin a body meet a body Flyin’ through the air, Gin a body hit a body, Will it fly? and where? Ilka impact has its measure, Ne’er a ane hae I, Yet a’ the lads they measure me, Or, at least, they try. Gin a body meet a body Altogether free, How they travel afterwards We do not always see. Ilka problem has its method By analytics high; For me, I ken na ane o’ them, But what the waur am I?

Wisdom and Valour, Faith, Justice,—the lofty names Of virtue’s quest and prize,— What is each but a cold wraith Until it lives in a man And looks thro’ a man’s eyes? On Chivalry as I muse, The spirit so high and clear It cannot soil with aught It meets of foul misuse; It turns wherever burns The flame of a brave thought; And wheresoever the moan Of the helpless and betrayed Calls, from near or far, It replies as to its own Need, and is armed and goes Straight to its sure pole—star;— No legendary knight Renowned in an ancient cause I warm my thought upon. There comes to the mind’s sight One whom I knew, whose hand Grasped mine: George Calderon. Him now as of old I see Carrying his head with an air Courteous and virile, With the charm of a nature free, Daring, resourceful, prompt, In his frank and witty smile. By Oxford towers and streams Who shone among us all In body and brain so bold? Who shaped so firm his themes Crystal—hard in debate? And who hid a heart less cold? Lover of strange tongues, Whether in snowy Russia, Or tropic island bowers Listening to the songs Of the soft—eyed islanders, Crowned with Tahitian flowers, A maker of friends he went. Yet who divined him wholly Or his secret chivalries?— Was all that accomplishment, Wit, alertness, grace, But a kind of blithe disguise? Restless in curious thought And subtle exploring mind, He mixt his modern vein With a strain remotely brought From an older blood than ours, Proud loyalties of Spain. Was it the soul of a sword? For a bright sword leapt from sheath Upon that August day When war’s full thunder stored Over Europe, suddenly crashed, And a choice upon each man lay. Others had left their youth In the taming years; and some Doubted; some made moan. To meet the peril of truth With aught but a gay courage Was not for Calderon. Wounded from France he came. His spirit halted not; In that long battle afar, Fruitless in all but fame, Athos and Ida saw Where sank his gallant star. O well could I set my mood To a mournful falling measure For a friend dear and dead! And well could memory brood Singing of youth’s delight And lost adventure fled. But that so fearless friend With his victorious smile My mourning mood has chid. He went to the very end; He counted not the cost; What he believed, he did.

When snow like sheep lay in the fold And winds went begging at each door, And the far hills were blue with cold, And a cold shroud lay on the moor, She kept the siege. And every day We watched her brooding over death Like a strong bird above its prey. The room filled with the kettle’s breath. Damp curtains glued against the pane Sealed time away. Her body froze As if to freeze us all, and chain Creation to a stunned repose. She died before the world could stir. In March the ice unloosed the brook And water ruffled the sun’s hair. Dead cones upon the alder shook.

the remnant of a vast, oceanic bruise (wound delivered early and long ago) was in you purity and sweetness self-gathered, CHOSEN • When I tried to find words for the moral sense that unifies and sweetens the country voices in your collage The Friendly Way, you said It'sa code. You were a code I yearned to decipher.— In the end, the plague that full swift runs by took you, broke you;— in the end, could not take you, did not break you— you had somehow erased within you not only meanness, but anger, the desire to punish the universe for everything not achieved,not tasted, seen again, touched—; . . . the undecipherable code unbroken even as the soul learns once again the body it loves and hates is made of earth, and will betray it.

But the essential advantage for a poet is not, to have a beautiful world with which to deal: it is to be able to see beneath both beauty and ugliness; to see the boredom, and the horror, and the glory. T. S. ELIOT It was his story. It would always be his story. It followed him; it overtook him finally— The boredom, and the horror, and the glory. Probably at the end he was not yet sorry, Even as the boots were brutalizing him in the alley. It was his story. It would always be his story, Blown on a blue horn, full of sound and fury, But signifying, O signifying magnificently The boredom, and the horror, and the glory. I picture the snow as falling without hurry To cover the cobbles and the toppled ashcans completely. It was his story. It would always be his story. Lately he had wandered between St. Mark’s Place and the Bowery, Already half a spirit, mumbling and muttering sadly. O the boredom, and the horror, and the glory. All done now. But I remember the fiery Hypnotic eye and the raised voice blazing with poetry. It was his story and would always be his story— The boredom, and the horror, and the glory.

Back to the flower-town, side by side, The bright months bring, New-born, the bridegroom and the bride, Freedom and spring. The sweet land laughs from sea to sea, Filled full of sun; All things come back to her, being free; All things but one. In many a tender wheaten plot Flowers that were dead Live, and old suns revive; but not That holier head. By this white wandering waste of sea, Far north, I hear One face shall never turn to me As once this year: Shall never smile and turn and rest On mine as there, Nor one most sacred hand be prest Upon my hair. I came as one whose thoughts half linger, Half run before; The youngest to the oldest singer That England bore. I found him whom I shall not find Till all grief end, In holiest age our mightiest mind, Father and friend. But thou, if anything endure, If hope there be, O spirit that man's life left pure, Man's death set free, Not with disdain of days that were Look earthward now; Let dreams revive the reverend hair, The imperial brow; Come back in sleep, for in the life Where thou art not We find none like thee. Time and strife And the world's lot Move thee no more; but love at least And reverent heart May move thee, royal and released, Soul, as thou art. And thou, his Florence, to thy trust Receive and keep, Keep safe his dedicated dust, His sacred sleep. So shall thy lovers, come from far, Mix with thy name As morning-star with evening-star His faultless fame.

Gently, let us steep our love In the silence deep, as thus, Branches arching high above Twine their shadows over us. Let us blend our souls as one, Hearts’ and senses’ ecstasies, Evergreen, in unison With the pines’ vague lethargies. Dim your eyes and, heart at rest, Freed from all futile endeavor, Arms crossed on your slumbering breast, Banish vain desire forever. Let us yield then, you and I, To the waftings, calm and sweet, As their breeze-blown lullaby Sways the gold grass at your feet. And, when night begins to fall From the black oaks, darkening, In the nightingale’s soft call Our despair will, solemn, sing.