69 Romantic poems

The strings, as if they knew the lovers are about to meet, begin to soar, and when he marches in the door they soar some more—half ecstasy, half pain, the musical equivalent of rain— while children who have grown up with one stare steal further looks across a crowded room, as goners tend to do. My father loved it too, warned me at dinner that he’d be a wreck long before the final trio came (Ja,ja, she sighed, and gave him up forever); he found his Sophie better late than never and took the fifth about his silent tears but like him I’m a softie, with a massive gift for feeling blue. I went with others, threw bouquets and caution to the whirling wind, believing that the rhapsody on stage would waft its wonders up to our cheap seats; but mirrors can be beautiful fierce cheats, delusions of an over-smitten mind; I relished trouser roles until I had no petals left to strew. Up, down the avenue I wandered like a ghost, I wondered why a miracle is always a mirage, then plodded home and set back all the clocks, spent hard-won funds installing strong new locks, telling myself if violence like this could never sound like violins, I would to art, not life, be true. And I am trying to fathom the way I got from there to here, the joy that snuck up when I’d sworn off joy: we’ve made a sterling start, we’ve got a plan to watch it on your satin couch downtown and I’ll be there upon the stroke of eight, bearing in my trembling ungloved hand a silver rose for you.

They were driving into the mountains, suddenly married, sometimes touching each other’s cheek with a fingernail gingerly: the radio played ecstatic static: certain roads marked with blue enamel numbers led to cloud banks, or basalt screes, or dim hotels with padlocked verandas. Sometimes they quarreled, sometimes they grew old, the wind was constant in their eyes, it was their own wind, they made it. Small towns flew past, Rodez, Albi, limestone quarries, pear orchards, children racing after hoops, wobbling when their shadows wavered, infants crying for fine rain, old women on stoops darning gray veils—and who were we, watching? Doubles, ghosts, the ones who would tell of the field where they pulled over, bluish tinge of the elms, steepness of the other’s eyes, glowworm hidden in its own glint, how the rain was twilight and now is darkness.

Written in Germany If I had but two little wings And were a little feathery bird, To you I'd fly, my dear! But thoughts like these are idle things, And I stay here. But in my sleep to you I fly: I'm always with you in my sleep! The world is all one's own. But then one wakes, and where am I? All, all alone. Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids: So I love to wake ere break of day: For though my sleep be gone, Yet while 'tis dark, one shuts one's lids, And still dreams on.

Why, Damon , why, why, why so pressing? The Heart you beg’s not worth possessing: Each Look, each Word, each Smile’s affected, And inward Charms are quite neglected: Then scorn her, scorn her, foolish Swain, And sigh no more, no more in vain. Beauty’s worthless, fading, flying; Who would for Trifles think of dying? Who for a Face, a Shape, wou’d languish, And tell the Brooks, and Groves his Anguish, Till she, till she thinks fit to prize him, And all, and all beside despise him? Fix, fix your Thoughts on what’s inviting, On what will never bear the slighting: Wit and Virtue claim your Duty, They’re much more worth than Gold and Beauty: To them, to them, your Heart resign, And you’ll no more, no more repine.

A youth for Jane with ardour sighed, The maid with sparkling eye; But to his vows she still replied, ‘I’ll hear you by and by.’ ‘Suspense (he cries) my bloom decays, And bids my spirits fly; Now hear my vows,’ — but still she says, ‘I’ll hear you by and by.’ At length her frowns his love subdue, He shuns her scornful eye, And Emma seeks, who’ll hear him woo Both now, and by and by. And soon to church he leads the maid, When lo! he sees draw nigh, The now repentant fair who said She’d hear him by and by. ‘Hear me (she cries): no more in vain Thy hear for me shall sigh!’ — ‘I’m busy now (said he) — but, Jane! I’ll hear you by and by.’

Ach, in den Armen hab ich sie alle verloren, du nur, du wirst immer wieder geboren .... —Rilke, Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge The twilight falls; I soften the dusting feathers, And clean again. The house has lain and moldered for three days. The windows smeared with rain, the curtains torn, The mice come in, The kitchen blown with cold. I keep the house, and say no words. It is true I am as twisted as the cactus That gnarls and turns beside the milky light, That cuts the fingers easily and means nothing, For all the pain that shoots along the hand. I dust the feathers down the yellow thorns, I light the stove. The gas curls round the iron fretwork. the flame Floats above the lace, And bounces like a dancer stayed on air. Fire does not rest on iron, it drifts like a blue blossom And catches on my breath; Coiling, spinning, the blue foam of the gas fire Writhes like a naked girl; Turns up its face, like her. She came to me in rain. I did not know her, I did not know my name After she left to bed her children down, To phone her husband they were gone asleep. And she, lying, a pure fire, in the feathers, Dancing above the ironwork of her bed, Roaring, and singeing nothing. She had not wound her arms about me then, She had not dared. I only took her coat, and smiled to hear How she had left her purse and her umbrella In the theater, how she was sopping cold With the fall rain; and mine was the one light In the neighborhood. She came to my gas fire And lay before it, sprawled, her pure bare shoulders Folded in a doze, a clear, cold curve of stone. I only leaned above the hair, Turned back the quilt, arranged the feet, the arms, And kissed the sleeping shoulder, lightly, like the rain; And when she woke to wear her weathered clothes, I sent her home. She floated, a blue blossom, over the street. And when she came again, It was not long before she turned to me, And let her shawl slide down her neck and shoulder, Let her hair fall. And when she came again, It did not rain. Her husband came to pluck her like an apple, As the drunken farmer lurches against the tree, Grips the green globe not long beyond its bloom, And tears the skin, brutally, out of the bark, Leaves the whole bough broken, The orchard torn with many footprints, The fence swung wide On a raw hinge. And now it is said of me That my love is nothing because I have borne no children, Or because I have fathered none; That I twisted the twig in my hands And cut the blossom free too soon from the seed; That I lay across the fire, And snuffed it dead sooner than draft or rain. But I have turned away, and drawn myself Upright to walk along the room alone. Across the dark the spines of cactus plants Remind me how I go—aloof, obscure, Indifferent to the words the children chalk Against my house and down the garden walls. They cannot tear the garden out of me, Nor smear my love with names. Love is a cliff, A clear, cold curve of stone, mottled by stars, smirched by the morning, carved by the dark sea Till stars and dawn and waves can slash no more, Till the rock’s heart is found and shaped again. I keep the house and say no words, the evening Falls like a petal down the shawl of trees. I light the fire and see the blossom dance On air alone; I will not douse that flame, That searing flower; I will burn in it. I will not banish love to empty rain. For I know that I am asked to hate myself For their sweet sake Who sow the world with child. I am given to burn on the dark fire they make With their sly voices. But I have burned already down to bone. There is a fire that burns beyond the names Of sludge and filth of which this world is made. Agony sears the dark flesh of the body, And lifts me higher than the smoke, to rise Above the earth, above the sacrifice; Until my soul flares outward like a blue Blossom of gas fire dancing in mid-air: Free of the body’s work of twisted iron.

I Why should you sweare I am forsworn, Since thine I vow’d to be? Lady it is already Morn, And ’twas last night I swore to thee That fond impossibility. II Have I not lov’d thee much and long, A tedious twelve houres space? I must all other Beauties wrong, And rob thee of a new imbrace; Could I still dote upon thy Face. III Not, but all joy in thy browne haire, By others may be found; But I must search the blank and faire Like skilfull Minerallist’s that sound For Treasure in un-plow’d-up ground. IV Then, if when I have lov’d my round, Thou prov’st the pleasant she; With spoyles of meaner Beauties crown’d, I laden will returne to thee, Ev’d sated with Varietie.

How long it must have been, the girl’s hair, cascading down her shoulders almost to her waist, light brown and heavy as brocade: the story I’m remembering of N’s, remembering as my own hair’s washed and cut, the salt-and-pepper cuneiform to frill my barber’s smock. Arts and Science is expanding. The wall to the empty shop next door pulled down and a dozen workmen slink improbably on scaffolds butting the dusty ceiling, cacophony and plastic tarps, the whirr of drills that mingles with the dryers’ jittery hums, the scissors’ flash, veronicas of clicks, the coloring, the curling, the antique cash register, melodious with its chime. And best, the liquid gurgle of hands massaging scalps the row of sinks, twelve hands and six wet scalps in a line. I’m next, and leaning back (let me wash it in this big tin basin, battered and shiny like the moon)

She lay all naked in her bed, And I myself lay by; No veil but curtains about her spread, No covering but I: Her head upon her shoulders seeks To hang in careless wise, And full of blushes was her cheeks, And of wishes were her eyes. Her blood still fresh into her face, As on a message came, To say that in another place It meant another game; Her cherry lip moist, plump, and fair, Millions of kisses crown, Which ripe and uncropped dangle there, And weigh the branches down. Her breasts, that welled so plump and high Bred pleasant pain in me, For all the world I do defy The like felicity; Her thighs and belly, soft and fair, To me were only shown: To have seen such meat, and not to have eat, Would have angered any stone. Her knees lay upward gently bent, And all lay hollow under, As if on easy terms, they meant To fall unforced asunder; Just so the Cyprian Queen did lie, Expecting in her bower; When too long stay had kept the boy Beyond his promised hour. ‘Dull clown,’ quoth she, ‘why dost delay such proffered bliss to take? Canst thou find out no other way Similitudes to make?’ Mad with delight I thundering Throw my arms about her, But pox upon’t ’twas but a dream. And so I lay without her.

Smudged here with betel juice, burnished there with aloe paste, a splash of powder in one corner, and lacquer from footprints embroidered in another, with flowers from her hair strewn all over its winding crumpled folds, the sheets celebrate the joy of making love to a woman in every position.