1630 Nature poems

like a single branch of ash honed to the handle of an axe and made to take the hand of a woodsman as he throws his body weight to fell all the ash has sown, I turn your words although the line you spoke was simple

What can be compared to the living eye? Its East is flowering honeysuckle and its North dogwood bushes. What can be compared to light in which leaves darken after rain, fierce green? like Rousseau’s jungle: any minute the tiger head will poke through the foliage peering at experience. Who is like man sitting in the cell of referents, whose eye has never seen a jungle, yet looks in? It is the great eye, source of security. Praised be thou, as the Jews say, who have engraved clarity and delivered us to the mind where you must reign severe as quiddity of bone forever and ever without bias or mercy, attrition or mystery.

Below the gardens and the darkening pines The living water sinks among the stones, Sinking yet foaming till the snowy tones Merge with the fog drawn landward in dim lines. The cloud dissolves among the flowering vines, And now the definite mountain-side disowns The fluid world, the immeasurable zones. Then white oblivion swallows all designs. But still the rich confusion of the sea, Unceasing voice, sombre and solacing, Rises through veils of silence past the trees; In restless repetition bound, yet free, Wave after wave in deluge fresh releasing An ancient speech, hushed in tremendous ease.

To lie on a beach after looking at old poems: how slow untroubled by any grouch of mine or yours, Father Ocean tumbles in the bay alike with solitary divers, cripples, yelling girls and pipestem kids. He does what suits us all; and somewhere — there, out there, where the high tight sails are going — he wears a white death flag of foam for us, far out, for when we want it. So on Gea’s breast, the broad nurse who bears with me, I think of adolescence: that sad boy I was, thoughts crusted with ice on the treadmill of self-love, Narcissus damned, who yet brought like a coal in a hallow stalk, the seed of fire that runs through my veins now. I praise that sad boy now, who having no hope, did not blow out his brains.

Had I but lived a hundred years ago I might have gone, as I have gone this year, By Warmwell Cross on to a Cove I know, And Time have placed his finger on me there: "You see that man?" — I might have looked, and said, "O yes: I see him. One that boat has brought Which dropped down Channel round Saint Alban's Head. So commonplace a youth calls not my thought." "You see that man?" — "Why yes; I told you; yes: Of an idling town-sort; thin; hair brown in hue; And as the evening light scants less and less He looks up at a star, as many do." "You see that man?" — "Nay, leave me!" then I plead, "I have fifteen miles to vamp across the lea, And it grows dark, and I am weary-kneed: I have said the third time; yes, that man I see!" "Good. That man goes to Rome — to death, despair; And no one notes him now but you and I: A hundred years, and the world will follow him there, And bend with reverence where his ashes lie."

Hard to know which is more gnarled, the posts he hammers staples into or the blue hummocks which run across his hands like molehills. Work has reduced his wrists to bones, cut out of him the easy flesh and brought him down to this, the crowbar’s teeth caught just behind a barb. Again this morning the crowbar’s neck will make its blue slip into wood, there will be that moment when too much strength will cause the wire to break. But even at 70, he says, he has to have it right, and more than right. This morning, in the pewter light, he has the scars to prove it.

The sun is beginning to go down over a field of yellow onions. The edges of the clouds are almost pink, and at this hour the maguey rises up like a flower of dark blades. I worked so long today I have forgotten my own hunger. It takes a full minute for me to remember a word I have used all my life. What the Mexicans call poncho. At twilight I see it, abandoned, hanging like a ghost on the limb of a tree: my own brown ruana next to gray speckled chickens pecking at roots and a black track of storm coming west over the green mountain.

Sometimes on a late clear night you can pull that station from Denver or Boston out of the dark. All the elsewheres alter here, as what you remember changes what you think. Not spider nor plum nor pebble possess any of the names we give them. A kite tugging on its string gives you a sense of what's up there, though it is translated, and by a string. Out there, in the dark, the true thing.

Scintillas of the anatomical on the vines, buds opening— make me a figure for the woken. On the vines, buds opening— blue, little throats. For the woken, this different tin sky. Blue, little throats speak to me in the right voice. This different tin sky, the playground thawing. Speak to me in the right voice, only clean, sweeter. The playground thawing into its primary colors. Only clean, sweeter, briary as honeysuckle, into their primary colors the words come:bitter, astral. Briar—as honeysuckle, as attic webs, constellated into their primary colors. White, or whiter. The words come:bitter, astral. Make me a figure, blue little throats, scintillas of the anatomical.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour A Robin Red breast in a Cage Puts all Heaven in a Rage A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons Shudders Hell thr' all its regions A dog starvd at his Masters Gate Predicts the ruin of the State A Horse misusd upon the Road Calls to Heaven for Human blood Each outcry of the hunted Hare A fibre from the Brain does tear A Skylark wounded in the wing A Cherubim does cease to sing The Game Cock clipd & armd for fight Does the Rising Sun affright Every Wolfs & Lions howl Raises from Hell a Human Soul The wild deer, wandring here & there Keeps the Human Soul from Care The Lamb misusd breeds Public Strife And yet forgives the Butchers knife The Bat that flits at close of Eve Has left the Brain that wont Believe The Owl that calls upon the Night Speaks the Unbelievers fright He who shall hurt the little Wren Shall never be belovd by Men He who the Ox to wrath has movd Shall never be by Woman lovd The wanton Boy that kills the Fly Shall feel the Spiders enmity He who torments the Chafers Sprite Weaves a Bower in endless Night The Catterpiller on the Leaf Repeats to thee thy Mothers grief Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly For the Last Judgment draweth nigh He who shall train the Horse to War Shall never pass the Polar Bar The Beggars Dog & Widows Cat Feed them & thou wilt grow fat The Gnat that sings his Summers Song Poison gets from Slanders tongue The poison of the Snake & Newt Is the sweat of Envys Foot The poison of the Honey Bee Is the Artists Jealousy The Princes Robes & Beggars Rags Are Toadstools on the Misers Bags A Truth thats told with bad intent Beats all the Lies you can invent It is right it should be so Man was made for Joy & Woe And when this we rightly know Thro the World we safely go Joy & Woe are woven fine A Clothing for the soul divine Under every grief & pine Runs a joy with silken twine The Babe is more than swadling Bands Throughout all these Human Lands Tools were made & Born were hands Every Farmer Understands Every Tear from Every Eye Becomes a Babe in Eternity This is caught by Females bright And returnd to its own delight The Bleat the Bark Bellow & Roar Are Waves that Beat on Heavens Shore The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath Writes Revenge in realms of Death The Beggars Rags fluttering in Air Does to Rags the Heavens tear The Soldier armd with Sword & Gun Palsied strikes the Summers Sun The poor Mans Farthing is worth more Than all the Gold on Africs Shore One Mite wrung from the Labrers hands Shall buy & sell the Misers Lands Or if protected from on high Does that whole Nation sell & buy He who mocks the Infants Faith Shall be mockd in Age & Death He who shall teach the Child to Doubt The rotting Grave shall neer get out He who respects the Infants faith Triumphs over Hell & Death The Childs Toys & the Old Mans Reasons Are the Fruits of the Two seasons The Questioner who sits so sly Shall never know how to Reply He who replies to words of Doubt Doth put the Light of Knowledge out The Strongest Poison ever known Came from Caesars Laurel Crown Nought can Deform the Human Race Like to the Armours iron brace When Gold & Gems adorn the Plow To peaceful Arts shall Envy Bow A Riddle or the Crickets Cry Is to Doubt a fit Reply The Emmets Inch & Eagles Mile Make Lame Philosophy to smile He who Doubts from what he sees Will neer Believe do what you Please If the Sun & Moon should Doubt Theyd immediately Go out To be in a Passion you Good may Do But no Good if a Passion is in you The Whore & Gambler by the State Licencd build that Nations Fate The Harlots cry from Street to Street Shall weave Old Englands winding Sheet The Winners Shout the Losers Curse Dance before dead Englands Hearse Every Night & every Morn Some to Misery are Born Every Morn and every Night Some are Born to sweet delight Some are Born to sweet delight Some are Born to Endless Night We are led to Believe a Lie When we see not Thro the Eye Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light God Appears & God is Light To those poor Souls who dwell in Night But does a Human Form Display To those who Dwell in Realms of day