Works

There was a time when I was confident
That God's stupendous mystery of birth
Was mine to know. The wonder of it lent
New ecstasy and glory to the earth.
I heard no voice that uttered it aloud,...

Sous un grand ciel gris, dans une grande plaine poudreuse, sans
chemins, sans gazon, sans un chardon, sans une ortie, je rencontrai
plusieurs hommes qui marchaient courb's.
...

I'm sitting in a "sixties bar." No put-on.
All around old Rolling Stones music is playing.
I can tell it's a sixties bar by the spiffy waiter recycling sheets for
tablecloths. The sixties was "into," environment....

It's Chairley Burke's in town, b'ys! He's down til "Jamesy's Place,"
Wid a bran'-new shave upon 'um, an' the fhwhuskers aff his face;
He's quit the Section-Gang last night, and yez can chalk it down...

How bland and sweet the greeting of this breeze
To him who flies
From crowded street and red wall's weary gleam,
Till far behind him like a hideous dream
The close dark city lies
...

In the glad revels, in the happy fetes,
When cheeks are flushed, and glasses gilt and pearled
With the sweet wine of France that concentrates
The sunshine and the beauty of the world,
...

The pride of all our chivalry,
The name of Worth will stand,
While throbs the pulse of liberty
Within his native land:
The wreath his brow was formed to wear,
A nation's tears will freshen there.
...

(From the prose of Parkman.)

I. THE WINTER.

September bade the sail of Pontgrav'
Godspeed, and smil'd upon the infant nation;
October deckt the shores and hills with "gay...

How many times we must have met
Here on the street as strangers do,
Children of chance we were, who passed
The door of heaven and never knew.

As she's lying there in sherbet panties
looking somewhat disaffected, a nez perce
expression bordered by sleep,
think of the Sultan's regalia
his entourage of kings...

Remember me as I was then;
Turn from me now, but always see
The laughing shadowy girl who stood
At midnight by the flowering tree,
With eyes that love had made as bright...

Just as this wood, cast on the snaky fire,
Crushes the curling heads till smoke is thickened
And the ash sinks beneath the billet's weight,
And then again the hissing heads are quickened:...

Change is the order of the universe.
Worlds wax and wane; suns die and stars are born.
Two atoms of cosmic dust unite, cohere
And lo the building of a world begun....

But now life's face beholden
Seemed bright as heaven's bare brow
With hope of gifts withholden
But now.

From time's full-flowering bough
Each bud spake bloom to embolden...

Changed? Yes, I will confess it - I have changed.
I do not love in the old fond way.
I am your friend still - time has not estranged
One kindly feeling of that vanished day.
...

All things subjected are to fate;
Whom this morn sees most fortunate,
The evening sees in poor estate.

From the outskirts of the town
Where of old the mile-stone stood.
Now a stranger, looking down
I behold the shadowy crown
Of the dark and haunted wood.

Is it changed, or am I changed?...

I know not why my soul is rack'd
Why I ne'er smile as was my wont:
I only know that, as a fact,
I don't.
I used to roam o'er glen and glade
Buoyant and blithe as other folk:...

What now we like anon we disapprove:
The new successor drives away old love.

New doth the sun appear,
The mountains' snows decay,
Crown'd with frail flowers forth comes the baby year.
My soul, time posts away;
And thou yet in that frost
Which flower and fruit hath lost,...