246 Mythology poems

Well, jipes! I floored the Chevy/ fishtailed all over the soft-tarred road Old women babbling by the church shit no one with balls goes to flea markets the road festered at Pelsor curves at sixty-two overturned once on these roads still don’t know how I got out.

Hark! ah, the nightingale— The tawny-throated! Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst! What triumph! hark!—what pain! O wanderer from a Grecian shore, Still, after many years, in distant lands, Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world pain— Say, will it never heal? And can this fragrant lawn With its cool trees, and night, And the sweet, tranquil Thames, And moonshine, and the dew, To thy rack'd heart and brain Afford no balm? Dost thou to-night behold, Here, through the moonlight on this English grass, The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild? Dost thou again peruse With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame? Dost thou once more assay Thy flight, and feel come over thee, Poor fugitive, the feathery change Once more, and once more seem to make resound With love and hate, triumph and agony, Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale? Listen, Eugenia— How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves! Again—thou hearest? Eternal passion! Eternal pain!

Let the bird of loudest lay On the sole Arabian tree Herald sad and trumpet be, To whose sound chaste wings obey. But thou shrieking harbinger, Foul precurrer of the fiend, Augur of the fever's end, To this troop come thou not near. From this session interdict Every fowl of tyrant wing, Save the eagle, feather'd king; Keep the obsequy so strict. Let the priest in surplice white, That defunctive music can, Be the death-divining swan, Lest the requiem lack his right. And thou treble-dated crow, That thy sable gender mak'st With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st, 'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go. Here the anthem doth commence: Love and constancy is dead; Phoenix and the Turtle fled In a mutual flame from hence. So they lov'd, as love in twain Had the essence but in one; Two distincts, division none: Number there in love was slain. Hearts remote, yet not asunder; Distance and no space was seen 'Twixt this Turtle and his queen: But in them it were a wonder. So between them love did shine That the Turtle saw his right Flaming in the Phoenix' sight: Either was the other's mine. Property was thus appalled That the self was not the same; Single nature's double name Neither two nor one was called. Reason, in itself confounded, Saw division grow together, To themselves yet either neither, Simple were so well compounded; That it cried, "How true a twain Seemeth this concordant one! Love has reason, reason none, If what parts can so remain." Whereupon it made this threne To the Phoenix and the Dove, Co-supremes and stars of love, As chorus to their tragic scene: threnos Beauty, truth, and rarity, Grace in all simplicity, Here enclos'd, in cinders lie. Death is now the Phoenix' nest, And the Turtle's loyal breast To eternity doth rest, Leaving no posterity: 'Twas not their infirmity, It was married chastity. Truth may seem but cannot be; Beauty brag but 'tis not she; Truth and beauty buried be. To this urn let those repair That are either true or fair; For these dead birds sigh a prayer.

How like the sky she bends above her child, One with the great horizon of her pain! No sob from our low seas where woe runs wild, No weeping cloud, no momentary rain, Can mar the heaven-high visage of her grief, That frozen anguish, proud, majestic, dumb. She stoops in pity above the labouring earth, Knowing how fond, how brief Is all its hope, past, present, and to come, She stoops in pity, and yearns to assuage its dearth. Through that fair face the whole dark universe Speaks, as a thorn-tree speaks thro’ one white flower; And all those wrenched Promethean souls that curse The gods, but cannot die before their hour, Find utterance in her beauty. That fair head Bows over all earth’s graves. It was her cry Men heard in Rama when the twisted ways With children’s blood ran red. Her silence towers to Silences on high; And, in her face, the whole earth’s anguish prays. It is the pity, the pity of human love That strains her face, upturned to meet the doom, And her deep bosom, like a snow-white dove Frozen upon its nest, ne’er to resume Its happy breathing o’er the golden brace That she must shield till death. Death, death alone Can break the anguished horror of that spell. The sorrow on her face Is sealed: the living flesh is turned to stone; She knows all, all, that Life and Time can tell. Ah, yet, her woman’s love, so vast, so tender, Her woman’s body, hurt by every dart, Braving the thunder, still, still hide the slender Soft frightened child beneath her mighty heart. She is all one mute immortal cry, one brief Infinite pang of such victorious pain That she transcends the heavens and bows them down! The majesty of grief Is hers, and her dominion must remain Eternal. Grief alone can wear that crown.

Let us praise the immigrant who leaves the tropics and arrives in Chicago in the dead of winter. Let us praise the immigrant who has never worn coats who must bundle up against an unimaginable cold. For they will write letters home that speak of it like Norse sagas with claims that if a frigid hell exists the entrance is hidden somewhere in this city. Let us praise the immigrant who fears the depths of the subway the disappearance of landmarks to guide them through the labyrinth. Let us praise the immigrant who dreams of the pleasures of sunstroke who wakes each morning to the alien sight of their breath suspended in the cold city air.

The wanton troopers riding by Have shot my fawn, and it will die. Ungentle men! they cannot thrive To kill thee. Thou ne’er didst alive Them any harm, alas, nor could Thy death yet do them any good. I’m sure I never wish’d them ill, Nor do I for all this, nor will; But if my simple pray’rs may yet Prevail with Heaven to forget Thy murder, I will join my tears Rather than fail. But oh, my fears! It cannot die so. Heaven’s King Keeps register of everything, And nothing may we use in vain. Ev’n beasts must be with justice slain, Else men are made their deodands; Though they should wash their guilty hands In this warm life-blood, which doth part From thine, and wound me to the heart, Yet could they not be clean, their stain Is dyed in such a purple grain. There is not such another in The world to offer for their sin. Unconstant Sylvio, when yet I had not found him counterfeit One morning (I remember well) Tied in this silver chain and bell, Gave it to me; nay, and I know What he said then; I’m sure I do. Said he, “Look how your huntsman here Hath taught a fawn to hunt his dear.” But Sylvio soon had me beguil’d, This waxed tame, while he grew wild; And quite regardless of my smart, Left me his fawn, but took his heart. Thenceforth I set myself to play My solitary time away, With this, and very well content Could so mine idle life have spent; For it was full of sport, and light Of foot and heart, and did invite Me to its game; it seem’d to bless Itself in me. How could I less Than love it? Oh, I cannot be Unkind t’ a beast that loveth me. Had it liv’d long, I do not know Whether it too might have done so As Sylvio did; his gifts might be Perhaps as false or more than he. But I am sure, for aught that I Could in so short a time espy, Thy love was far more better then The love of false and cruel men. With sweetest milk and sugar first I it at mine own fingers nurst; And as it grew, so every day It wax’d more white and sweet than they. It had so sweet a breath! And oft I blush’d to see its foot more soft And white, shall I say than my hand? Nay, any lady’s of the land. It is a wond’rous thing how fleet ’Twas on those little silver feet; With what a pretty skipping grace It oft would challenge me the race; And when ’t had left me far away, ’Twould stay, and run again, and stay, For it was nimbler much than hinds, And trod, as on the four winds. I have a garden of my own, But so with roses overgrown And lilies, that you would it guess To be a little wilderness; And all the spring time of the year It only loved to be there. Among the beds of lilies I Have sought it oft, where it should lie; Yet could not, till itself would rise, Find it, although before mine eyes; For, in the flaxen lilies’ shade, It like a bank of lilies laid. Upon the roses it would feed Until its lips ev’n seemed to bleed, And then to me ’twould boldly trip And print those roses on my lip. But all its chief delight was still On roses thus itself to fill, And its pure virgin limbs to fold In whitest sheets of lilies cold. Had it liv’d long it would have been Lilies without, roses within. O help, O help! I see it faint, And die as calmly as a saint. See how it weeps! The tears do come, Sad, slowly dropping like a gum. So weeps the wounded balsam, so The holy frankincense doth flow; The brotherless Heliades Melt in such amber tears as these. I in a golden vial will Keep these two crystal tears, and fill It till it do o’erflow with mine, Then place it in Diana’s shrine. Now my sweet fawn is vanish’d to Whither the swans and turtles go, In fair Elysium to endure With milk-white lambs and ermines pure. O do not run too fast, for I Will but bespeak thy grave, and die. First my unhappy statue shall Be cut in marble, and withal Let it be weeping too; but there Th’ engraver sure his art may spare, For I so truly thee bemoan That I shall weep though I be stone; Until my tears, still dropping, wear My breast, themselves engraving there. There at my feet shalt thou be laid, Of purest alabaster made; For I would have thine image be White as I can, though not as thee.

If all the world and love were young, And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move, To live with thee, and be thy love. Time drives the flocks from field to fold, When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold, And Philomel becometh dumb, The rest complains of cares to come. The flowers do fade, and wanton fields, To wayward winter reckoning yields, A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall. Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of Roses, Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten: In folly ripe, in reason rotten. Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds, The Coral clasps and amber studs, All these in me no means can move To come to thee and be thy love. But could youth last, and love still breed, Had joys no date, nor age no need, Then these delights my mind might move To live with thee, and be thy love.

The first time I went to the tree was to knock on wood. No one answered. The second time I knocked, the tree, wild in the wind, leaned toward me. No bad luck arrived. I went back and knocked again to tell the tree my good fortune was not forgotten. • Chiseling a nest hole in dead wood, a woodpecker drills a downed log. The rapid blows of its beak hammer me awake each night for a week. • Beneath the bark nymphs live like hidden charms people leave in drawers or cupboards for protection. I believe in tree spirits who embed their souls in this wood. • They are not immortal • but their lives, says Hesiod, are ten times that of the phoenix, who outlives nine ravens, who outlive three glorious stags, who outlive four crows, who outlive nine generations of aged men. • Beyond the shelter- belts of farmsteads, found deep in poplar woods and birch thickets, a flicker assaults a tree as nymphs retreat into the tunneled ruts of the trunk. The bird chips away without distraction. Its showy red patch, a splash of blood, catches my eye. • Tender wing buds of an immature insect are like the rising nipples of a young girl. The temptation to slide a finger over the small mounds... • Fly away! • The nymphs are free, changed forever as they brush the pond's scalloped edge. What part of me they take away will settle some day. Deep in dying wood. I will be there when you knock.

Home, thou return'st from Thames, whose Naiads long Have seen thee ling'ring, with a fond delay, Mid those soft friends, whose hearts, some future day, Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song. Go, not unmindful of that cordial youth, Whom, long endear'd, thou leav'st by Lavant's side; Together let us wish him lasting truth, And joy untainted with his destined bride. Go! nor regardless, while these numbers boast My short-lived bliss, forget my social name; But think far off how, on the southern coast, I met thy friendship with an equal flame! Fresh to that soil thou turn'st, whose ev'ry vale Shall prompt the poet, and his song demand: To thee thy copious subjects ne'er shall fail; Thou need'st but take the pencil to thy hand, And paint what all believe who own thy genial land. There must thou wake perforce thy Doric quill, 'Tis Fancy's land to which thou sett'st thy feet; Where still, 'tis said, the fairy people meet Beneath each birken shade, on mead or hill. There each trim lass that skims the milky store To the swart tribes their creamy bowl allots; By night they sip it round the cottage-door, While airy minstrels warble jocund notes. There ev'ry herd, by sad experience, knows How, winged with fate, their elf-shot arrows fly, When the sick ewe her summer food forgoes, Or, stretched on earth, the heart-smit heifers lie. Such airy beings awe th' untutored swain: Nor thou, though learned, his homelier thoughts neglect; Let thy sweet muse the rural faith sustain; These are the themes of simple, sure effect, That add new conquests to her boundless reign. And fill with double force her heart-commanding strain. Ev'n yet preserv'd, how often may'st thou hear, Where to the pole the Boreal mountains run, Taught by the father to his list'ning son Strange lays, whose pow'r had charmed a Spenser's ear. At ev'ry pause, before thy mind possessed, Old Runic bards shall seem to rise around, With uncouth lyres, in many-coloured vest, Their matted hair with boughs fantastic crowned: Whether thou bidd'st the well-taught hind repeat The choral dirge that mourns some chieftain brave, When ev'ry shrieking maid her bosom beat, And strewed with choicest herbs his scented grave; Or whether, sitting in the shepherd's shiel, Thou hear'st some sounding tale of war's alarms; When, at the bugle's call, with fire and steel, The sturdy clans pour'd forth their bonny swarms, And hostile brothers met to prove each other's arms. 'Tis thine to sing how, framing hideous spells, In Skye's lone isle the gifted wizard seer, Lodged in the wintry cave with [          ] Or in the depth of Uist's dark forest dwells: How they, whose sight such dreary dreams engross, With their own visions oft astonished droop, When o'er the wat'ry strath or quaggy moss They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop. Or if in sports, or on the festive green, Their [      ] glance some fated youth descry, Who, now perhaps in lusty vigour seen And rosy health, shall soon lamented die. For them the viewless forms of air obey, Their bidding heed, and at their beck repair. They know what spirit brews the stormful day, And heartless, oft like moody madness stare To see the phantom train their secret work prepare. [Stanza 5 and the first eight lines of stanza 6 are missing] What though far off, from some dark dell espied, His glimm'ring mazes cheer th' excursive sight, Yet turn, ye wand'rers, turn your steps aside, Nor trust the guidance of that faithless light! For watchful, lurking mid th' unrustling reed, At those mirk hours the wily monster lies, And listens oft to hear the passing steed, And frequent round him rolls his sullen eyes, If chance his savage wrath may some weak wretch surprise. Ah, luckless swain, o'er all unblest indeed! Whom late bewildered in the dank, dark fen, Far from his flocks and smoking hamlet then! To that sad spot [            ]: On him, enraged, the fiend, in angry mood, Shall never look with pity's kind concern, But instant, furious, raise the whelming flood O'er its drowned banks, forbidding all return. Or, if he meditate his wished escape To some dim hill that seems uprising near, To his faint eye the grim and grisly shape, In all its terrors clad, shall wild appear. Meantime, the wat'ry surge shall round him rise, Poured sudden forth from ev'ry swelling source. What now remains but tears and hopeless sighs? His fear-shook limbs have lost their youthly force, And down the waves he floats, a pale and breathless corse. For him in vain his anxious wife shall wait, Or wander forth to meet him on his way; For him in vain, at to-fall of the day, His bairns shall linger at th' unclosing gate. Ah, ne'er shall he return! Alone, if night Her travell'd limbs in broken slumbers steep, With drooping willows dressed, his mournful sprite Shall visit sad, perhaps, her silent sleep: Then he, perhaps, with moist and watry hand, Shall fondly seem to press her shudd'ring cheek, And with his blue swoll'n face before her stand, And, shiv'ring cold, these piteous accents speak: 'Pursue, dear wife, thy daily toils pursue At dawn or dusk, industrious as before; Nor e'er of me one hapless thought renew, While I lie welt'ring on the osiered shore, Drown'd by the kaelpie's wrath, nor e'er shall aid thee more!' Unbounded is thy range; with varied style Thy Muse may, like those feath'ry tribes which spring From their rude rocks, extend her skirting wing Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle, To that hoar pile which still its ruin shows: In whose small vaults a pigmy-folk is found, Whose bones the delver with his spade upthrows, And culls them, wond'ring, from the hallowed ground! Or thither, where beneath the show'ry west The mighty kings of three fair realms are laid; Once foes, perhaps, together now they rest. No slaves revere them, and no wars invade: Yet frequent now, at midnight's solemn hour, The rifted mounds their yawning cells unfold, And forth the monarchs stalk with sov'reign pow'r, In pageant robes, and wreathed with sheeny gold, And on their twilight tombs aerial council hold. But, O! o'er all, forget not Kilda's race, On whose bleak rocks, which brave the wasting tides, Fair Nature's daughter, Virtue, yet abides! Go, just as they, their blameless manners trace! Then to my ear transmit some gentle song, Of those whose lives are yet sincere and plain, Their bounded walks the rugged cliffs along, And all their prospect but the wintry main. With sparing temp'rance, at the needful time, They drain the sainted spring, or, hunger-pressed, Along th' Atlantic rock undreading climb, And of its eggs despoil the solan's nest. Thus blest in primal innocence they live, Sufficed and happy with that frugal fare Which tasteful toil and hourly danger give. Hard is their shallow soil, [      ] and bare; Nor ever vernal bee was heard to murmur there! Nor need'st thou blush, that such false themes engage Thy gentle mind, of fairer stores possessed; For not alone they touch the village breast, But filled in elder time th' historic page. There Shakespeare's self, with ev'ry garland crowned, In musing hour, his Wayward Sisters found, And with their terrors dressed the magic scene. From them he sung, when mid his bold design, Before the Scot afflicted and aghast, The shadowy kings of Banquo's fated line Through the dark cave in gleamy pageant passed. Proceed, nor quit the tales which, simply told, Could once so well my answ'ring bosom pierce; Proceed, in forceful sounds and colours bold The native legends of thy land rehearse; To such adapt thy lyre and suit thy pow'rful verse. In scenes like these, which, daring to depart From sober truth, are still to nature true, And call forth fresh delight to Fancy's view, Th' heroic Muse employed her Tasso's art! How have I trembled when, at Tancred's stroke, Its gushing blood the gaping cypress poured; When each live plant with mortal accents spoke, And the wild blast up-heaved the vanished sword! How have I sat, where piped the pensive wind, To hear his harp, by British Fairfax strung, Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind Believed the magic wonders which he sung! Hence at each sound imagination glows; Hence his warm lay with softest sweetness flows; Melting it flows, pure, num'rous, strong, and clear, And fills th' impassioned heart, and lulls th' harmonious ear. All hail, ye scenes that o'er my soul prevail, Ye [       ] friths and lakes which, far away, Are by smooth Annan filled or past'ral Tay, Or Don's romantic springs, at distance, hail! The time shall come when I, perhaps, may tread Your lowly glens, o'erhung with spreading broom, Or, o'er your stretching heaths by Fancy led: Then will I dress once more the faded bow'r, Where Jonson sat in Drummond's [      ] shade; Or crop from Tiviot's dale each [       ] And mourn on Yarrow's banks [       ] Meantime, ye pow'rs, that on the plains which bore The cordial youth, on Lothian's plains attend, Where'er he dwell, on hill or lowly muir, To him I lose, your kind protection lend, And, touched with love like mine, preserve my absent friend

O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear, And pardon that thy secrets should be sung Even into thine own soft-conched ear: Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see The winged Psyche with awaken'd eyes? I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly, And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise, Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring roof Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran A brooklet, scarce espied: Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed, Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian, They lay calm-breathing, on the bedded grass; Their arms embraced, and their pinions too; Their lips touch'd not, but had not bade adieu, As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber, And ready still past kisses to outnumber At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love: The winged boy I knew; But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove? His Psyche true! O latest born and loveliest vision far Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy! Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-region'd star, Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky; Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none, Nor altar heap'd with flowers; Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan Upon the midnight hours; No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet From chain-swung censer teeming; No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming. O brightest! though too late for antique vows, Too, too late for the fond believing lyre, When holy were the haunted forest boughs, Holy the air, the water, and the fire; Yet even in these days so far retir'd From happy pieties, thy lucent fans, Fluttering among the faint Olympians, I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspir'd. So let me be thy choir, and make a moan Upon the midnight hours; Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet From swinged censer teeming; Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming. Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane In some untrodden region of my mind, Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain, Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind: Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep; And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees, The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep; And in the midst of this wide quietness A rosy sanctuary will I dress With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain, With buds, and bells, and stars without a name, With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign, Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same: And there shall be for thee all soft delight That shadowy thought can win, A bright torch, and a casement ope at night, To let the warm Love in!