Ay! had we never loved at all, who knows If yonder daffodil had
lured the bee Into its gilded womb, or any rose Had hung with
crimson lamps its little tree!
Methinks no leaf would ever bud in spring, But for the lovers' lips
that kiss, the poet's lips that sing
Full winter: and the lusty goodman brings
His load of faggots from the chilly byre,
And stamps his feet upon the hearth, and flings
The sappy billets on the waning fire,
And laughs to see the sudden lightening scare
His children at their play, and yet, - the spring is in the air;
Then up and down the field the sower goes,
While close behind the laughing younker scares
With shrilly whoop the black and thievish crows,
And then the chestnut-tree its glory wears,
And on the grass the creamy blossom falls
In odorous excess, and faint half-whispered madrigals
Somehow the grace, the bloom of things has flown,
And of all men we are the most wretched who
Must live each other's lives and not our own
For very oity's sake and then undo
All that we lived for - it was otherwise
When soul and body seemed to blend in mystic symphonies.
When the moon comes out
bells mute
and paths seem
impenetrable.
When the moon comes out
the sea covers the earth
and the heart becomes
an island in infinity.
But we have left those gentle haunts to pass
With weary feet to the new Calvary,
Where we behold, as one who in a glass
Sees his own face, self-slain Humanity,
And in the dumb reproach of that sad gaze
Learn what an awful phantom the red hand of man can raise.
The silver trumpets rang across the Dome:
The people knelt upon the ground with awe:
And borne upon the necks of men I saw,
Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.
Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam,
And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red,
Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head:
In splendour and in light the Pope passed home.
My heart stole back across wide wastes of years
To One who wandered by a lonely sea,
And sought in vain for any place of rest:
'Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest,
I, only I, must wander wearily,
And bruise my feet, and drink wine salt with tears.'
Let us honour if we can
The vertical man
Though we value none
But the horizontal one.
An onion is something else.
It doesn't have any innerds.
Until its onioness.
Oniony outside,
oniony to the heart,
it could look within itself
without feeling any fear.
In us the unknown and forests
of flesh just covered,
infernal innerds,
violent anatomy,
but within the onion - onion,
not contorted bowels.
She is time and time again naked,
till the end and so on.
The onion is coherent,
the onion is realized.
In one there's the other,
in the biggest the smallest,
meaning the third and the fourth.
A centripetal flight.
A composed echo in a choir.
The onion, okay:
the most beautiful belly in the world.
To itself of auras
it wraps around itself.
In us - fat, nerves, veins,
muchus ad secretions.
And to us is negated
the idiocy of perfection.
When I knew, simply, that I existed
that I could've been, continued,
I felt afraid of it, of life,
I wanted them not to see me,
that they didn't know about my existence.
I became thin, pale, absent,
I didn't want to speak so that they couldn't
recognize my voice, I didn't want to see
so that they wouldn't see me,
walking, I stuck to a wall
like a shadow that slips away.
I would've dressed
with red tiles, of smoke.
to stay there, but invisible,
to be present in everything, but from afar,
mantaining my obscure identity,
tied to the rhythm of spring.
I am restless. I am athirst for far-away things.
My soul goes out in a longing to touch the skirt of the dim distance.
O Great Beyond, O the keen call of thy flute!
I forget, I ever forget, that I have no wings to fly, that I am bound in this spot evermore.
I am eager and wakeful, I am a stranger in a strange land.
Thy breath comes to me whispering an impossible hope.
Thy tongue is known to my heart as its very own.
O Far-to-seek, O the keen call of thy flute!
I forget, I ever forget, that I know not the way, that I have not the winged horse.
I am listless, I am a wanderer in my heart.
In the sunny haze of the languid hours, what vast vision of thine takes shape in the blue of the sky!
O Farthest end, O the keen call of thy flute!
I forget, I ever forget, that the gates are shut everywhere in the house where I dwell alone!