in Poems (Author's Poems)
Such as the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe!
Send
Author's Poems
in Poems (Author's Poems)
Rest at pale evening
a tall slim tree
night coming tenderly black like me.
Send
in Poems (Author's Poems)
For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.
Send
in Poems (Author's Poems)
They never forgot
that even the most dreadful martyrdom must run its course
anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
Send
in Poems (Author's Poems)
'Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery's the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit.
Send
in Poems (Author's Poems)
The thin-lipped armorer,
Hephaestos, hobbled away,
Thetis of the shining breasts
Cried out in dismay
At what the God had wrought
To please her son, the strong
Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles
Who would not live long.
Send
in Poems (Author's Poems)
A juggler long through all the town
Had raised his fortune and renown;
You'd think (so far his art transcends)
The devil at his fingers'ends.
Vice heard his fame, she read his bill;
Convinced of his inferior skill,
She sought his booth, and from the crowd
Defied the man of art aloud:
'Is this, then, he so famed for sleight?
Can this slow bungler cheat your sight!
Dares he with me dispute the prize?
I leave it to impartial eyes.
Provoked, the juggler cried, "tis done.
In science I submit to none.
Thus said, the cups and balls he played;
By turns, this here, that there, conveyed.
The cards, obedient to his words,
Are by a fillip turned to birds.
His little boxes change the grain:
Trick after trick deludes the train.
He shakes his bag, he shows all fair;
His fingers spreads, and nothing there;
Then bids it rain with showers of gold,
And now his ivory eggs are told.
But when from thence the hen he draws,
Amazed spectators hum applause.
Vice now stept forth, and took the place
With all the forms of his grimace.
'This magic looking-glass, ' she cries,
(There, hand it round)'will charm your eyes. '
Each eager eye the sight desired,
And every man himself admired.
Next to a senator addressing:
'See this bank-note; observe the blessing,
Breathe on the bill. ' Heigh, pass! 'Tis gone.
Upon his lips a padlock shone.
A second puff the magic broke,
The padlock vanished, and he spoke.
Twelve bottles ranged upon the board,
All full, with heady liquor stored,
By clean conveyance disappear,
And now two bloody swords are there.
A purse she to a thief exposed,
At once his ready fingers closed;
He opes his fist, the treasure's fled;
He sees a halter in its stead.
She bids ambition hold a wand;
He grasps a hatchet in his hand.
A box of charity she shows,
'Blow here; ' and a churchwarden blows,
'Tis vanished with conveyance neat,
And on the table smokes a treat.
She shakes the dice, the boards she knocks,
And from all pockets fills her box.
She next a meagre rake address'd:
" This picture see; her shape, her breast!
What youth, and what inviting eyes!
Hold her, and have her. "With surprise,
His hand exposed a box of pills,
And a loud laugh proclaimed his ills.
A counter, in a miser's hand,
Grew twenty guineas at command.
She bids his heir the sum retain,
And'tis a counter now again.
A guinea with her touch you see
Take every shape, but charity;
And not one thing you saw, or drew,
But changed from what was first in view.
The juggler now in grief of heart,
With this submission owned her art:
"Can I such matchless sleight withstand?
How practice hath improved your hand!
But now and then I cheat the throng;
You every day, and all day long."
Send
in Poems (Author's Poems)
The mass and majesty of this world, all
That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
And could not hope for help and no help came:
What their foes like to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died.
Send
in Poems (Author's Poems)
And we carry on
When our lives come undone
We carry on
Cause there's promise in the morning sun
We carry on
As the dark surrenders to the dawn
We were born to overcome
We carry on.
Beyond the picket fences and the oil wells
The happy endings and the fairy tales
Is the reality of shattered lives and broken dreams
We carry on.
Send
in Poems (Author's Poems)
Why yes; a man indeed had furnished us
With more occasions to be useful to him.
God knows how readily we should have seized them.
But then he would have nothing, wanted nothing
Was in himself wrapped up, and self-sufficient,
As angels are.
Send