153 Sorrow and grieving poems

This is a letter to the worm-threaded earth. This is a letter to November, its gray bowl of sky riven by black-branched trees. A letter to split-tomato skins, overripe apples, & a flock of fruit flies lifting from the blueing clementines’ wood crate. To the broken confetti of late fall leaves. This is a letter to rosemary. This is a letter to the floor’s sink & creak, the bedroom door’s torn hinge moaning its good-night. This is to the unshaven cheek. To cedar, mothballs, camphor, & last winter’s unwashed wool. This is a letter to the rediscovered, to mulch, pine needles, the moon, frost, flats of pansies, the backyard, hunger, night, the unseen. This is a letter to soil, thrumming as it waits to be turned. This is a letter to compost, eggshell’s bone-ash chips, fruit rinds curved like fingernails, & stale chunks of bread. A letter to the intimate dark—mouth-warm & damp as a bed. This is a letter to the planet’s scavenging lips.

1 I will cry to regret and slaughter my heart on a desolate rock in the steppe and run in the wilderness run in their illusions in the mirrors of bullets while shooing victory and defeat and also the dead with war's twig 2 I will arch my back like a noble wolf and howl in the plains until the plains go mad and the god of soldiers spots me lifeless in war's meanness I'd be pleased yet angry and forlorn of seas that have tolled for thirty centuries they come and go 3 I call to my friend and leave him standing in speech I call to my lover and leave her insomniac

How changed is here each spot man makes or fills! In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same; The village street its haunted mansion lacks, And from the sign is gone Sibylla's name, And from the roofs the twisted chimney-stacks— Are ye too changed, ye hills? See, 'tis no foot of unfamiliar men To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays! Here came I often, often, in old days— Thyrsis and I; we still had Thyrsis then. Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm, Past the high wood, to where the elm-tree crowns The hill behind whose ridge the sunset flames? The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs, The Vale, the three lone weirs, the youthful Thames?— This winter-eve is warm, Humid the air! leafless, yet soft as spring, The tender purple spray on copse and briers! And that sweet city with her dreaming spires, She needs not June for beauty's heightening, Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night!— Only, methinks, some loss of habit's power Befalls me wandering through this upland dim. Once pass'd I blindfold here, at any hour; Now seldom come I, since I came with him. That single elm-tree bright Against the west—I miss it! is it goner? We prized it dearly; while it stood, we said, Our friend, the Gipsy-Scholar, was not dead; While the tree lived, he in these fields lived on. Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here, But once I knew each field, each flower, each stick; And with the country-folk acquaintance made By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick. Here, too, our shepherd-pipes we first assay'd. Ah me! this many a year My pipe is lost, my shepherd's holiday! Needs must I lose them, needs with heavy heart Into the world and wave of men depart; But Thyrsis of his own will went away. It irk'd him to be here, he could not rest. He loved each simple joy the country yields, He loved his mates; but yet he could not keep, For that a shadow lour'd on the fields, Here with the shepherds and the silly sheep. Some life of men unblest He knew, which made him droop, and fill'd his head. He went; his piping took a troubled sound Of storms that rage outside our happy ground; He could not wait their passing, he is dead. So, some tempestuous morn in early June, When the year's primal burst of bloom is o'er, Before the roses and the longest day— When garden-walks and all the grassy floor With blossoms red and white of fallen May And chestnut-flowers are strewn— So have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry, From the wet field, through the vext garden-trees, Come with the volleying rain and tossing breeze: The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I! Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go? Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on, Soon will the musk carnations break and swell, Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, Sweet-William with his homely cottage-smell, And stocks in fragrant blow; Roses that down the alleys shine afar, And open, jasmine-muffled lattices, And groups under the dreaming garden-trees, And the full moon, and the white evening-star. He hearkens not! light comer, he is flown! What matters it? next year he will return, And we shall have him in the sweet spring-days, With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling fern, And blue-bells trembling by the forest-ways, And scent of hay new-mown. But Thyrsis never more we swains shall see; See him come back, and cut a smoother reed, And blow a strain the world at last shall heed— For Time, not Corydon, hath conquer'd thee! Alack, for Corydon no rival now!— But when Sicilian shepherds lost a mate, Some good survivor with his flute would go, Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate; And cross the unpermitted ferry's flow, And relax Pluto's brow, And make leap up with joy the beauteous head Of Proserpine, among whose crowned hair Are flowers first open'd on Sicilian air, And flute his friend, like Orpheus, from the dead. O easy access to the hearer's grace When Dorian shepherds sang to Proserpine! For she herself had trod Sicilian fields, She knew the Dorian water's gush divine, She knew each lily white which Enna yields Each rose with blushing face; She loved the Dorian pipe, the Dorian strain. But ah, of our poor Thames she never heard! Her foot the Cumner cowslips never stirr'd; And we should tease her with our plaint in vain! Well! wind-dispersed and vain the words will be, Yet, Thyrsis, let me give my grief its hour In the old haunt, and find our tree-topp'd hill! Who, if not I, for questing here hath power? I know the wood which hides the daffodil, I know the Fyfield tree, I know what white, what purple fritillaries The grassy harvest of the river-fields, Above by Ensham, down by Sandford, yields, And what sedged brooks are Thames's tributaries; I know these slopes; who knows them if not I?— But many a tingle on the loved hillside, With thorns once studded, old, white-blossom'd trees, Where thick the cowslips grew, and far descried High tower'd the spikes of purple orchises, Hath since our day put by The coronals of that forgotten time; Down each green bank hath gone the ploughboy's team, And only in the hidden brookside gleam Primroses, orphans of the flowery prime. Where is the girl, who by the boatman's door, Above the locks, above the boating throng, Unmoor'd our skiff when through the Wytham flats, Red loosestrife and blond meadow-sweet among And darting swallows and light water-gnats, We track'd the shy Thames shore? Where are the mowers, who, as the tiny swell Of our boat passing heaved the river-grass, Stood with suspended scythe to see us pass?— They all are gone, and thou art gone as well! Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade. I see her veil draw soft across the day, I feel her slowly chilling breath invade The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent with grey; I feel her finger light Laid pausefully upon life's headlong train; — The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew, The heart less bounding at emotion new, And hope, once crush'd, less quick to spring again. And long the way appears, which seem'd so short To the less practised eye of sanguine youth; And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air, The mountain-tops where is the throne of Truth, Tops in life's morning-sun so bright and bare! Unbreachable the fort Of the long-batter'd world uplifts its wall; And strange and vain the earthly turmoil grows, And near and real the charm of thy repose, And night as welcome as a friend would fall. But hush! the upland hath a sudden loss Of quiet!—Look, adown the dusk hill-side, A troop of Oxford hunters going home, As in old days, jovial and talking, ride! From hunting with the Berkshire hounds they come. Quick! let me fly, and cross Into yon farther field!—'Tis done; and see, Back'd by the sunset, which doth glorify The orange and pale violet evening-sky, Bare on its lonely ridge, the Tree! the Tree! I take the omen! Eve lets down her veil, The white fog creeps from bush to bush about, The west unflushes, the high stars grow bright, And in the scatter'd farms the lights come out. I cannot reach the signal-tree to-night, Yet, happy omen, hail! Hear it from thy broad lucent Arno-vale (For there thine earth forgetting eyelids keep The morningless and unawakening sleep Under the flowery oleanders pale), Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there!— Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim, These brambles pale with mist engarlanded, That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him; To a boon southern country he is fled, And now in happier air, Wandering with the great Mother's train divine (And purer or more subtle soul than thee, I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see) Within a folding of the Apennine, Thou hearest the immortal chants of old!— Putting his sickle to the perilous grain In the hot cornfield of the Phrygian king, For thee the Lityerses-song again Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing; Sings his Sicilian fold, His sheep, his hapless love, his blinded eyes— And how a call celestial round him rang, And heavenward from the fountain-brink he sprang, And all the marvel of the golden skies. There thou art gone, and me thou leavest here Sole in these fields! yet will I not despair. Despair I will not, while I yet descry 'Neath the mild canopy of English air That lonely tree against the western sky. Still, still these slopes, 'tis clear, Our Gipsy-Scholar haunts, outliving thee! Fields where soft sheep from cages pull the hay, Woods with anemonies in flower till May, Know him a wanderer still; then why not me? A fugitive and gracious light he seeks, Shy to illumine; and I seek it too. This does not come with houses or with gold, With place, with honour, and a flattering crew; 'Tis not in the world's market bought and sold— But the smooth-slipping weeks Drop by, and leave its seeker still untired; Out of the heed of mortals he is gone, He wends unfollow'd, he must house alone; Yet on he fares, by his own heart inspired. Thou too, O Thyrsis, on like quest wast bound; Thou wanderedst with me for a little hour! Men gave thee nothing; but this happy quest, If men esteem'd thee feeble, gave thee power, If men procured thee trouble, gave thee rest. And this rude Cumner ground, Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms, its quiet fields, Here cams't thou in thy jocund youthful time, Here was thine height of strength, thy golden prime! And still the haunt beloved a virtue yields. What though the music of thy rustic flute Kept not for long its happy, country tone; Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note Of men contention-tost, of men who groan, Which task'd thy pipe too sore, and tired thy throat— It fail'd, and thou wage mute! Yet hadst thou always visions of our light, And long with men of care thou couldst not stay, And soon thy foot resumed its wandering way, Left human haunt, and on alone till night. Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here! 'Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore, Thyrsis! in reach of sheep-bells is my home. —Then through the great town's harsh, heart-wearying roar, Let in thy voice a whisper often come, To chase fatigue and fear: Why faintest thou! I wander'd till I died. Roam on! The light we sought is shining still. Dost thou ask proof? Our tree yet crowns the hill, Our Scholar travels yet the loved hill-side.

The wind, that beats the mountain, blows More softly round the open wold, And gently comes the world to those That are cast in gentle mould. And me this knowledge bolder made, Or else I had not dare to flow In these words toward you, and invade Even with a verse your holy woe. 'Tis strange that those we lean on most, Those in whose laps our limbs are nursed, Fall into shadow, soonest lost: Those we love first are taken first. God gives us love. Something to love He lends us; but, when love is grown To ripeness, that on which it throve Falls off, and love is left alone. This is the curse of time. Alas! In grief I am not all unlearn'd; Once thro' mine own doors Death did pass; One went, who never hath return'd. He will not smile—not speak to me Once more. Two years his chair is seen Empty before us. That was he Without whose life I had not been. Your loss is rarer; for this star Rose with you thro' a little arc Of heaven, nor having wander'd far Shot on the sudden into dark. I knew your brother: his mute dust I honour and his living worth: A man more pure and bold and just Was never born into the earth. I have not look'd upon you nigh, Since that dear soul hath fall'n asleep. Great nature is more wise than I: I will not tell you not to weep. And tho' mine own eyes fill with dew, Drawn from the spirit thro' the brain, I will not even preach to you, "Weep, weeping dulls the inward pain." Let Grief be her own mistress still. She loveth her own anguish deep More than much pleasure. Let her will Be done—to weep or not to weep. I will not say "God's ordinance Of death is blown in every wind;" For that is not a common chance That takes away a noble mind. His memory long will live alone In all our hearts, as mournful light That broods above the fallen sun, And dwells in heaven half the night. Vain solace! Memory standing near Cast down her eyes, and in her throat Her voice seem'd distant, and a tear Dropt on the letters as I wrote. I wrote I know not what. In truth, How should I soothe you anyway, Who miss the brother of your youth? Yet something I did wish to say: For he too was a friend to me: Both are my friends, and my true breast Bleedeth for both: yet it may be That only silence suiteth best. Words weaker than your grief would make Grief more. 'Twere better I should cease; Although myself could almost take The place of him that sleeps in peace. Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace; Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, While the stars burn, the moons increase, And the great ages onward roll. Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet. Nothing comes to thee new or strange, Sleep full of rest from head to feet: Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.

Farewell, too little and too lately known, Whom I began to think and call my own; For sure our souls were near ally'd; and thine Cast in the same poetic mould with mine. One common note on either lyre did strike, And knaves and fools we both abhorr'd alike: To the same goal did both our studies drive, The last set out the soonest did arrive. Thus Nisus fell upon the slippery place, While his young friend perform'd and won the race. O early ripe! to thy abundant store What could advancing age have added more? It might (what nature never gives the young) Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue. But satire needs not those, and wit will shine Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line. A noble error, and but seldom made, When poets are by too much force betray'd. Thy generous fruits, though gather'd ere their prime Still show'd a quickness; and maturing time But mellows what we write to the dull sweets of rhyme. Once more, hail and farewell; farewell thou young, But ah too short, Marcellus of our tongue; Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound; But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around.

1. The Letter Everywhere the windows give up nothing but frost’s intricate veined foliage. Just engines shrilling pocked and frozen streets wailing toward some new disaster. No bright angels’ ladders going to split heaven this Chicago instant where the pier’s an iced fantastic: spiked, the glacial floes seize it greedy like a careless treasure— marquise diamonds, these round clear globes, the psychic’s crystal world spinning in her corner shop when I passed, a globe boundaried with turning silent winds and demons. Out here the pavement’s a slick graffitied strip:There’s more to life than violence.

To this man, to his boned shoulders Came the descent of pain. All kinds, Cruel, blind, dear, horrid, hallowed, Rained, again, again. To this small white blind boned face, Wherever it was, Descended The blows of pain, it took as it were blinded, As it were made for this. We were there. We uneasy Did not know if it were. Knew neither The reason nor the man nor whether To share, or to beware.

Crying is a habit with me. You mustn’t mind: onions make me smog headlines in the

He was so tired that he was scarcely able to hear a note of the songs: he felt imprisoned in a cold region where his brain was numb and his spirit was isolated. 1 Requite this angel whose flushed and thirsting face stoops to the sacrifice out of which it arose. This is the lord Eros of grief who pities no one; it is Lazarus with his sores. 2 And you, who with your soft but searching voice drew me out of the sleep where I was lost, who held me near your heart that I might rest confiding in the darkness of your choice: possessed by you I chose to have no choice, fulfilled in you I sought no further quest. You keep me, now, in dread that quenches trust, in desolation where my sins rejoice. As I am passionate so you with pain turn my desire; as you seem passionless so I recoil from all that I would gain, wounding myself upon forgetfulness, false ecstasies, which you in truth sustain as you sustain each item of your cross. 3 Veni Redemptor, but not in our time. Christus Resurgens, quite out of this world. ‘Ave’ we cry; the echoes are returned. Amor Carnalis is our dwelling-place. 4 O light of light, supreme delight; grace on our lips to our disgrace. Time roosts on all such golden wrists; our leanness is our luxury. Our love is what we love to have; our faith is in our festivals. 5 Stupefying images of grief-in-dream, succubae to my natural grief of heart, cling to me, then; you who will not desert your love nor lose him in some blank of time. You come with all the licence of her name to tell me you are mine. But you are not and she is not. Can my own breath be hurt by breathless shadows groaning in their game? It can. The best societies of hell acknowledge this, aroused by what they know: consummate rage recaptured there in full as faithfulness demands it, blow for blow, and rectitude that mimics its own fall reeling with sensual abstinence and woe. 6 This is the ash-pit of the lily-fire, this is the questioning at the long tables, this is true marriage of the self-in-self, this is a raging solitude of desire, this is the chorus of obscene consent, this is a single voice of purest praise. 7 He wounds with ecstasy. All the wounds are his own. He wears the martyr’s crown. He is the Lord of Misrule. He is the Master of the Leaping Figures, the motley factions. Revelling in auguries he is the Weeper of the Valedictions. 8 Music survives, composing her own sphere, Angel of Tones, Medusa, Queen of the Air, and when we would accost her with real cries silver on silver thrills itself to ice.

Thus chydand with her drerie destenye, Weiping, scho woik the nicht fra end to end; Bot all in vane; hir dule, hir cairfull cry, Micht not remeid, nor yit hir murning mend. Ane lipper lady rais, and till hir wend, And said, "Quhy spurnis thow aganis the wall, To sla thyself, and mend nathing at all? "Sen thy weiping dowbillis bot thy wo, I counsall the mak vertew of ane neid; To leir to clap thy clapper to and fro, And leir efter the law of lipper leid." Thair was na buit, bot furth with thame scho yeid, Fra place to place, quhill cauld and hounger sair Compellit hir to be ane rank beggair. That samin tyme of Troy the garnisoun, Quhilk had to chiftane worthie Troylus, Throw jeopardie of weir had strikken down Knichtis of Grece in number marvellous: With greit tryumphe and laude victorious Agane to Troy richt royallie they raid, The way quhair Cresseid with the lipper baid. Seing that companie, thai come all with ane stevin; Thay gaif ane cry, and schuik coppis gude speid; Said, "Worthie lordis, for Goddis lufe of hevin, To us lipper part of your almous deid." Than to thair cry nobill Troylus tuik heid, Having pietie, neir by the place can pas Quhair Cresseid sat, not witting quhat scho was. Than upon him scho kest up baith her ene, And with ane blenk it come into his thocht That he sumtime hir face befoir had sene; But scho was in sic plye he knew hir nocht; Yit than hir luik into his mynd it brocht The sweit visage and amorous blenking Of fair Cresseid, sumtyme his awin darling. Na wonder was, suppois in mynd that he Tuik hir figure sa sone, and lo! now quhy! The idole of ane thing in cace may be Sa deip imprentit in the fantasy, That it deludis the wittis outwardly, And sa appeiris in forme and lyke estait Within the mynd, as it was figurait. Ane spark of lufe than till his hart culd spring, And kendlit all his bodie in ane fyre, With hait fevir ane sweit and trimbling Him tuik, quhill he was reddie to expyre; To beir his scheild his breist began to tyre; Within ane quhyle he changit mony hew, And, nevertheles, not ane ane uther knew. For knichtlie pietie and memoriall Of fair Cresseid, ane gyrdill can he tak, Ane purs of gold, and mony gay jowall, And in the skirt of Cresseid doun can swak: Than raid away, and not ane word he spak, Pensive in hart, quhill he come to the toun, And for greit cair oft syis almaist fell doun. The lipper folk to Cresseid than can draw, To se the equall distributioun Of the almous; but quhan the gold they saw, Ilk ane to uther prevelie can roun, And said, "Yone lord hes mair affectioun, How ever it be, unto yone lazarous, Than to us all; we knaw be his almous." "Quhat lord is yone," (quod scho), "have ye na feill, Hes done to us so greit humanitie?" "Yes," (quod a lipper man), "I knaw him weill; Schir Troylus it is, gentill and fre." Quhen Cresseid understude that it was he, Stiffer than steill thair stert ane bitter stound Throwout hir hart, and fell doun to the ground. Quhen scho, ouircome with siching sair and sad, With many cairfull cry and cald "Ochane! Now is my breist with stormie stoundis stad, Wrappit in wo, ane wretch full will of wane:" Than swounit scho oft or scho culd refrane, And ever in hir swouning cryit scho thus: "O, fals Cresseid, and trew knicht Troylus! "Thy lufe, thy lawtie, and thy gentilnes I countit small in my prosperitie; Sa elevait I was in wantones, And clam upon the fickill quheill sa hie; All faith and lufe I promissit to the Was in the self fickill and frivolous: O, fals Cresseid, and trew knicht Troilus! "For lufe of me thow keipt gude continence, Honest and chaist in conversatioun; Of all wemen protectour and defence Thou was, and helpit thair opinioun: My mynd in fleschelie foull affectioun Was inclynit to lustis lecherous: Fy, fals Cresseid! O, trew knicht Troylus! "Lovers, be war, and tak gude heid about Quhome that ye lufe, for quhome ye suffer paine; I lat yow wit, thair is richt few thairout Quhome ye may traist to have trew lufe agane: Preif quhen ye will, your labour is in vaine; Thairfoir, I reid ye tak thame as ye find, For thay ar sad as widdercock in wind, "Becaus I knaw the greit unstabilnes, Brukkil as glas, into my self, I say, Traisting in uther als greit unfaithfulnes, Als unconstant, and als untrew of fay; Thocht sum be trew, I wait richt few are thay; Quha findis treuth, lat him his lady ruse: Nane but my self, as now, I will accuse." Quhen this was said, with paper scho sat doun, And on this maneir maid hir testament: "Heir I beteiche my corps and carioun With wormis and with taidis to be rent; My cop and clapper, and myne ornament, And all my gold, the lipper folk sall have, Quhen I am deid, to burie me in grave. "This royall ring, set with this rubie reid, Quhilk Troylus in drowrie to me send, To him agane I leif it quhan I am deid, To mak my cairfull deid unto him kend: Thus I conclude schortlie, and mak ane end; My spreit I leif to Diane, quhair scho dwellis, To walk with hir in waist woddis and wellis. "O, Diomeid! thow hes baith broche and belt Quhilk Troylus gave me in takning Of his trew lufe,"—and with that word scho swelt; And sone ane lipper man tuik of the ring, Syne buryit hir withouttin tarying: To Troylus furthwith the ring he bair, And of Cresseid the deith he can declair. Quhen he had hard hir greit infirmitie, Hir legacie and lamentatioun, And how scho endit in sic povertie, He swelt for wo, and fell doun in ane swoun; For greit sorrow his hart to birst was boun: Siching full sadlie, said, "I can no moir; Scho was untrew, and wo is me thairfoir!" Sum said he maid ane tomb of merbell gray, And wrait hir name and superscriptioun, And laid it on hir grave, quhair that scho lay, In goldin letteris, conteining this ressoun: "Lo, fair ladyis, Cresseid of Troyis toun, Sumtyme countit the flour of womanheid, Under this stane, late lipper, lyis deid!" Now, worthie wemen, in this ballet schort, Made for your worschip and instructioun, Of cheritie I monische and exhort, Ming not your lufe with fals deceptioun; Beir in your mynd this schort conclusioun Of fair Cresseid, as I have said befoir: Sen scho is deid, I speik of hir no moir.