1630 Nature poems

On the fleet streams, the Sun, that late arose, In amber radiance plays; the tall young grass No foot hath bruised; clear morning, as I pass, Breathes the pure gale, that on the blossom blows; And, as with gold yon green hill’s summit glows, The lake inlays the vale with molten glass: Now is the year’s soft youth, yet one, alas! Cheers not as it was wont; impending woes Weigh on my heart; the joys, that once were mine, Spring leads not back; and those that yet remain Fade while she blooms. Each hour more lovely shine Her crystal beams, and feed her floral train, But oh with pale, and warring fires, decline Those eyes, whose light my filial hopes sustain.

I scarcely grieve, O Nature! at the lot That pent my life within a city’s bounds, And shut me from thy sweetest sights and sounds. Perhaps I had not learned, if some lone cot Had nursed a dreamy childhood, what the mart Taught me amid its turmoil; so my youth Had missed full many a stern but wholesome truth. Here, too, O Nature! in this haunt of Art, Thy power is on me, and I own thy thrall. There is no unimpressive spot on earth! The beauty of the stars is over all, And Day and Darkness visit every hearth. Clouds do not scorn us: yonder factory’s smoke Looked like a golden mist when morning broke.

Is there a solitary wretch who hies To the tall cliff, with starting pace or slow, And, measuring, views with wild and hollow eyes Its distance from the waves that chide below; Who, as the sea-born gale with frequent sighs Chills his cold bed upon the mountain turf, With hoarse, half-uttered lamentation, lies Murmuring responses to the dashing surf? In moody sadness, on the giddy brink, I see him more with envy than with fear; He has no nice felicities that shrink From giant horrors; wildly wandering here, He seems (uncursed with reason) not to know The depth or the duration of his woe.

While summer roses all their glory yield To crown the votary of love and joy, Misfortune’s victim hails, with many a sigh, Thee, scarlet Poppy of the pathless field, Gaudy, yet wild and lone; no leaf to shield Thy flaccid vest that, as the gale blows high, Flaps, and alternate folds around thy head. So stands in the long grass a love-crazed maid, Smiling aghast; while stream to every wind Her garish ribbons, smeared with dust and rain; But brain-sick visions cheat her totured mind, And bring false peace. Thus, lulling grief and pain, Kind dreams oblivious from thy juice proceed, Thou flimsy, showy, melancholy weed.

I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide, As being past away.—Vain sympathies! For, backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes, I see what was, and is, and will abide; Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide; The Form remains, the Function never dies; While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise, We Men, who in our morn of youth defied The elements, must vanish;—be it so! Enough, if something from our hands have power To live, and act, and serve the future hour; And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, We feel that we are greater than we know.

Large moon the deep orange of embers. Also the scent. The griefs of others—beautiful, at a distance.

It makes one all right, though you hadn’t thought of it, A sound like the sound of the sky on fire, like Armageddon, Whistling and crackling, the explosions of sunlight booming As the huge mass of gas rages into the emptiness around it. It isn’t a sound you are often aware of, though the light speeds To us in seconds, each dawn leaping easily across a chasm Of space that swallows the sound of that sphere, but If you listen closely some morning, when the sun swells Over the horizon and the world is still and still asleep, You might hear it, a faint noise so far inside your mind That it must come from somewhere, from light rushing to darkness, Energy burning towards entropy, towards a peaceful solution, Burning brilliantly, spontaneously, in the middle of nowhere, And you, too, must make a sound that is somewhat like it, Though that, of course, you have no way of hearing at all.

Nice spring day off big white cloud At Inspiration Point escaping time wars Poet takes book & wine bottle up into Mist Mountains Since only available agenda is rhyming with silence Seeking window of opportunity on a wall I disguise what I have to say by sounding Chinese Such as stars are now darker and farther away They take deeper drinks because space is Drying out afraid to think own thoughts Administered citizen achieving condition of robot In public mind things not so good these days Nor in wrong run will it matter to Tu Fu

The birdhouse made from a gourd is wired to a flanged loop of steel and screwed to the southeast post of the shack. Two holes at the top—near where the stem was, for a thong of leather to hang it by, which long ago broke— are now the fingerholes of the mournful wind instrument it’s become. The broad round bowl of it makes a sort of birdly basso profundo that pearls through the steel, into the post, the floor joists and walls in two notes: a slightly sharp D and an equally sharp F, says the guitar tuner, which explains why all my thinking these days is in B-flat, a difficult key for all but the clarinet and this sudden covey of nuthatches, whose collective woe makes it a minor chord I am in the middle of. Nothing to do but hoist such silks as the luff of limbs and needles suggests, and sail on, the barely-escaped-from-the-cat chipmunk chattering like a gull, and the mountain’s last drift of snow resembling the back of a sounding whale. Hear the thrum of the rigging, Daggoo? Hear its profoundest woo, its sensible gobbledy-goo and doo-wop, the boo-hoos of the spheres, by vectors and veers, by tacks and refractal jabberings, taking us deeper into the weirdness of the ghost sea those prairie hills were the bottom of once, this nowhere we shall not be returning from. Draw the lines! Assume the crow’s nest, Pip. This ship sails on music and wind, and away with birds.

Two bedtimes ago, through my window, I heard a cat get eaten. As the cat split, it sounded like a balloon string put to scissors to make curls so the birthday boy would smile extra wide. Last night, by the same window, I heard mostly my breath, inside of which was a small baby suckling my air for his milk. When I bolted upright, the baby grew up into a carpenter, nailing his brains into the side of my lung to babyproof the light switch. Flip the switch and it lights a picture of my emaciated, sore-ridden bum for my breath to laugh at. Why is my breath so unlike yours? My ears? Why do I only hear such unnatural things? Although, come to think of it, death is completely natural. I’m just exasperated. Everywhere life-sounds swarm this, our shared pond, like mating turtles. Cars whoosh, schmoozers hum, snakes spit poison, Martin and Martina say yes and sob and hold, but my ears fill up instead with eggshells cracked by the bumbling parents. I cleaned my left ear out, but my nail cut the drum. It filled with water and is deaf for now. I’m leaving the right one dirty. No sudden changes. Keep everything dry. Let it figure out a way to heal itself. And me:  just practice living with yourself  deaf. Sometimes your brain is as unwelcome as muscles or guns. It’s obvious to others. Maybe even everyone. Don’t wish for anything. Don’t get organized. Don’t buy a book. Don’t go to bed early. Seek out beige, in foodstuffs and landscapes. Chew gum if  you’re overwhelmed. You’re in this alone. That means there’s nobody to stop you. You’re almost at the finish line. But first, you have to pick a finish line.