From: VAX::LOU "Lou Burnard" 5-SEP-1989 12:01:19.64 To: ARCHIVE CC: Subj: dylan thomas 1 From: CBS%UK.AC.SWANSEA.VAX::CSMIKE 5-SEP-1989 11:40:54.90 To: LOU CC: Subj: Dylan Thomas Poems Via: UK.AC.SWANSEA.VAX; Tue, 5 Sep 89 11:36 BST Date: Tue, 5 Sep 89 11:37 GMT From: CSMIKE@UK.AC.SWANSEA.VAX To: LOU@UK.AC.OXFORD.VAX Subject: Dylan Thomas Poems ^ {Dylan Thomas: The Poems. Edited by Daniel Jones} {Revised edition 1974, London, J.M.Dent} {Corrections for 1978 edition added in proof February 1978} {N.B. All lines have been left justified} {This work is copyright - contact J.M.Dent the publishers} {This text has been prepared & edited in computer readable form by } {Michael & Jill Farringdon, University College of Swansea, March to June 1977} { Special coding marks } { % dash " opening quote $ closing quote } { = contraction } { ^ begins each new poem or 'part' } { # begins each new line of poetry } { ## begins each new 'stanza' } { \ precedes an italic word } { * indicates an acute accent } { + indicates continuation of a line up to } { / which indicates termination of continued line } {Identification between angle brackest < > } { P poem 'number' } { where number 0 is the Prologue } { numbers 1 to 163 are as in the Contents } { numbers 164 & 165 correspond to A & B in Appendix I} { numbers 166 to 191 correspond to I-XXVI in Appendix II} { number 192 is pub poem in Appendix III} { C 'part' number where applicable - else set to zero } { S 'stanza' number where applicable - reset to 1} { for each new part - else set to zero } { L 'line' number being set to 1 for each new stanza} { or part or poem as applicable} ^ ^ {Prologue} ^ ^

^ This day winding down now # At God speeded summer's end # In the torrent salmon sun, # In my seashaken house # On a breakneck of rocks # Tangled with chirrup and fruit, # Froth, flute, fin and quill # At a wood's dancing hoof, # By scummed, starfish sands # With their fishwife cross # Gulls, pipers, cockles, and sails, # Out there, crow black, men # Tackled with clouds, who kneel # To the sunset nets, # Geese nearly in heaven, boys # Stabbing, and herons, and shells # That speak seven seas, # Eternal waters away # From the cities of nine # Days' night whose towers will catch # In the religious wind # Like stalks of tall, dry straw, # At poor peace I sing # To you strangers (though song # Is a burning and crested act, # The fire of birds in # The world's turning wood, # For my sawn, splay sounds), # Out of these seathumbed leaves # That will fly and fall # Like leaves of trees and as soon # Crumble and undie # Into the dogdayed night. # Seaward the salmon, sucked sun slips, # And the dumb swans drub blue # My dabbed bay's dusk, as I hack # This rumpus of shapes # For you to know # How I, a spinning man, # Glory also this star, bird # Roared, sea born, man torn, blood blest. # Hark: I trumpet the place, # From fish to jumping hill] Look: # I build my bellowing ark # To the best of my love # As the flood begins, # Out of the fountainhead # Of fear, rage red, manalive, # Molten and mountainous to stream # Over the wound asleep # Sheep white hollow farms ## To Wales in my arms. # Hoo, there, in castle keep, # You king singsong owls, who moonbeam # The flickering runs and dive # The dingle furred deer dead] # Huloo, on plumbed bryns, # O my ruffled ring dove # In the hooting, nearly dark # With Welsh and reverent rook, # Coo rooing the woods' praise, # Who moons her blue notes from her nest # Down to the curlew herd] # Ho, hullaballoing clan # Agape, with woe # In your beaks, on the gabbing capes] # Heigh, on horseback hill, jack # Whisking hare] who # Hears, there, this fox light, my flood ship's # Clangour as I hew and smite # (A clash of anvils for my # Hubbub and fiddle, this tune # On a tongued puffball) # But animals thick as thieves # On God's rough tumbling grounds # (Hail to His beasthood). # Beasts who sleep good and thin, # Hist, in hogsback woods] The haystacked # Hollow farms in a throng # Of waters cluck and cling, # And barnroofs cockcrow war] # O kingdom of neighbours, finned # Felled and quilled, flash to my patch # Work ark and the moonshine # Drinking Noah of the bay, # With pelt, and scale, and fleece: # Only the drowned deep bells # Of sheep and churches noise # Poor peace as the sun sets # And dark shoals every holy field. # We will ride out alone, and then, # Under the stars of Wales, # Cry, Multitudes of arks] Across # The water lidded lands, # Manned with their loves they=ll move, # Like wooden islands, hill to hill. # Huloo, my prowed dove with a flute] # Ahoy, old, sea-legged fox, # Tom tit and Dai mouse] # My ark sings in the sun # At God speeded summer's end # And the flood flowers now. ^ ^ ^ {I know this vicious minute's hour} ^ ^

^ I know this vicious minute's hour; # It is a sour motion in the blood, # That, like a tree, has roots in you, # And buds in you. # Each silver moment chimes # in steps of sound, # And I, caught in mid-air perhaps, # Hear and am still the little bird. # You have offended, periodic heart; # You I shall drown unreasonably, # Leave you in me to be found # Darker than ever, # Too full with blood to let my love flow in. # Stop is unreal; # I want reality to hold # within my palm, # Not, as a symbol, stone # speaking or no, # But it, reality, whose voice I know # To be the circle not the stair of sound. # Go is my wish; # Then shall I go, # But in the light of going # Minutes are mine # I could devote to other things. # Stop has no minutes, # but I go or die. ^ ^ ^ {Cool, oh no cool} ^ ^

^ Cool, oh no cool, # Sharp, oh no sharp, # The hillock of the thoughts you think # With that half-moulded mind I said was yours, # But cooler when I take it back, # And sharper if I break asunder # The icicle of each deliberate fancy. # For when I bought you for a thought, (you cost no more) # How could I smooth that skin # Knowing a dream could darken it, # And, the string pulled, some mental doll # Ravage and break, # How kiss, when doll could say # Master, her mouth is sawdust # And her tongue, look, ash, # Part from her, # Part from her, # Sweet, automatic me knows best. # But you shall not go from me, creation; # Oh no, my mind is your panopticon; # You shall not go unless I will it # And my thoughts flow so uneasily # There is no measured sea for them, # No place in which, wave perched on wave, # Such energy may gain # The sense it is to have. # You wish to stay my prisoner # Closed in your cell of secret thoughts, # And I, your captor, have my love to keep # From which you may not fly. ^ ^ ^ {The air you breathe} ^ ^

^ The air you breathe encroaches # The throat is mine I know the neck # Wind is my enemy you hair shant stir # Under his strong impulsive kiss # The rainbow's foot is not more apt # To have the centaur lover # So steal her not O goat-legged wind # But leave but still adore # For if the gods would love # Theyd see with eyes like mine # But should not touch like I # Your sweet inducive thighs # And raven hair. ^ ^ ^ {Cabaret} ^ ^

^ I, poor romantic, held her heel # Upon the island of my palm, # And saw towards her tiny face # Going her glistening calves that minute. # There was a purpose in her pointed foot; # Her thighs and underclothes were sweet, # And drew my spiral breath # To circumambulate for decency # Their golden and their other colour. # The band was playing on the balcony. # One lady's hand was lifted, # But she did not cry, "I see; # I see the man is mad with love.$ # Her fan burst in a million lights # As that her heel was lifted, # Gone from my palm to leave it marked # With quite a kind of heart. # She is on dancing toes again, # Sparkling a twelve-legged body # And many arms to raise # Over her heel and me. # I, poor romantic, contemplate # The insect on this painted tree. # Which is the metal wing # And which the real? ^ ^ ^ {Sometimes the sky's too bright} ^ ^

^ Sometimes the sky=s too bright, # Or has too many clouds or birds, # And far away=s too sharp a sun # To nourish thinking of him. # Why is my hand too blunt # To cut in front of me # My horrid images for me, # Of over-fruitful smiles, # The weightless touching of the lip # I wish to know # I cannot lift, but can, # The creature with the angel's face # Who tells me hurt, # And sees my body go # Down into misery? # No stopping. Put the smile # Where tears have come to dry. # The angel's hurt is left; # His telling burns. # Sometimes a woman's heart has salt, # Or too much blood; # I tear her breast, # And see the blood is mine, # Flowing from her but mine, # And then I think # Perhaps the sky=s too bright; # And watch my hand, # But do not follow it, # And feel the pain it gives, # But do not ache. ^ ^ ^ {Rain cuts the place we tread} ^ ^

^ Rain cuts the place we tread, # A sparkling fountain for us # With no fountain boy but me # To balance on my palms # The water from a street of clouds. # We sail a boat upon the path, # Paddle with leaves # Down an ecstatic line of light, # Watching, not too aware # To make our senses take too much, # The unrolled waves # So starred with gravel, # The living vessels of the garden # Drifting in easy time; # And, as we watch, the rainbow's foot # Stamps on the ground, # A legendary horse with hoof and feather, # Impatient to be off. # He goes across the sky, # But, when he=s out of sight, # The mark his flying tail has left # Branches a million shades, # A gay parabola # Above a boat of leaves and weeds. # We try to steer; # The stream=s fantastically hard, # Too stiff to churn with leaves, # A sedge of broken stalks and shells. # This is a drain of iron plants, # For when we touch a flower with our oar # We strike but do not stir it. # Our boat is made to rise # By waves which grow again # Their own melodious height, # Into the rainbow's shy embrace. # We shiver uncomplainingly, # And taste upon our lips, this minute, # The emerald kiss, # And breath on breath of indigo. ^ ^ ^ {The morning, space for Leda} ^ ^

^ The morning, space for Leda # To stir the water with a buoyant foot, # And interlude for violins # To catch her sailing down the stream % # The phrases on the wood aren=t hers; # A fishing bird has notes of ivory # Alive within his craning throat % # Sees the moon still up, # Bright, well-held head, # And, for a pivot, # The shadows from the glassy sea # To wet the sky with tears, # And daub the unrisen sun with longing. # The swan makes strings of water in her wake; # Between the moon and sun # There=s time to pluck a tune upon the harp, # Moisten the mouth of sleep # To kiss awake # My hand with honey that had closed upon a flower. # Between the rising and the falling # Spring may be green % # Under her cloth of trees no sorrow, # Under her grassy dress no limbs % # And winter follow like an echo # The summer voice so warm from fruit # That clustered round her shoulders, # And hid her uncovered breast. # The morning, too, is time for love, # When Leda, on a toe of down, # Dances a measure with the swan # Who holds her clasped inside his strong, white wings; # And darkness, hand in hand with light, # Is blind with tears too frail to taste. ^ ^ ^ {The spire cranes} ^ ^

^ The spire cranes. Its statue is an aviary. # From the stone nest it does not let the feathery # Carved birds blunt their striking throats on the salt gravel, # Pierce the spilt sky with diving wing in weed and heel # An inch in froth. Chimes cheat the prison spire, pelter # In time like outlaw rains on that priest, water, # Time for the swimmers' hands, music for silver lock # And mouth. Both note and plume plunge from the spire's hook. # Those craning birds are choice for you, songs that jump back # To the built voice, or fly with winter to the bells, # But do not travel down dumb wind like prodigals. ^ ^ ^ {Time enough to rot} ^ ^

^ Time enough to rot; # Toss overhead # Your golden ball of blood; # Breathe against air, # Puffing the light's flame to and fro, # Not drawing in your suction's kiss. # Your mouth's fine dust # Will find such love against the grain, # And break through dark; # It=s acrid in the streets; # A paper witch upon her sulphured broom # Flies from the gutter. # The still go hard, # The moving fructify; # The walker's apple's black as sin; # The waters of his mind draw in. # Then swim your head, # For you=ve a sea to lie. ^ ^ ^ {It's not in misery but in oblivion} ^ ^

^ It=s not in misery but in oblivion, # Not vertically in a mood of joy # Screaming the spring # Over the ancient winter, # He=ll lie down, and our breath # Will chill the roundness of his cheeks, # And make his wide mouth home. # For we must whisper down the funnel # The love we had and glory in his blood # Coursing along the channels # Until the spout dried up # That flowed out of the soil # All seasons with the same meticulous power, # But the veins must fail. # He=s not awake to the grave # Though we cry down the funnel, # Splitting a thought into such hideous moments # As drown, over and over, this fever. # He=s dead, home, has no lover, # But our speaking does not thrive # In the bosom, or the empty channels. # Our evil, when we breathe it, # Of dissolution and the empty fall, # Won=t harm the tent around him, # Uneaten and not to be pierced # By us in sin or us in gaiety. # And who shall tell the amorist # Oblivion is so loverless. ^ ^ ^ {The natural day and night} ^ ^

^ The natural day and night # Are full enough to drown my melancholy # Of sound and sight, # Vigour and harmony in light to none, # One hour spend my time for me # In tuning impulses to calls; # Kinder; # So phrase; # Don=t hurt the chic anatomy # Of ladies' needles worn to breaking point # Sewing a lie to a credulity, # With zest culled from their ladylike heat, # Hedgerow, laboratory, and even glasshouse, # But the sun cracks it # But the stones crack it # Out of my hand in stopping up my mouth, # My ears, my nose, my eyes, # And all my thin prerogative of taste. # But while day is there=s night to it, # And night to it. # The black shadow comes down, # And the beautiful noise is quelled, # For my merry words, # So rare % # Who taught me trouble? # I, said the beetle, out of my thin black womb, # Out of my thin black lips, # Trouble enough for the world # Out of my filthy eyes # And my corrupting knowledge % # They are words for weeping. # Crying aloud in pain, # Thick to the skull, # Oh gaiety] # Oh gaiety] # Penumbra derry, # Do the right thing to do the right; # Do, down a derry. ^ ^ ^ {Conceive these images in air} ^ ^

^ Conceive these images in air, # Wrap them in flame, they=re mine; # Set against granite, # Let the two dull stones be grey, # Or, formed of sand, # Trickle away through thought, # In water or in metal, # Flowing and melting under lime. # Cut them in rock, # So, not to be defaced, # They harden and take shape again # As signs I=ve not brought down # To any lighter state # By love-tip or my hand's red heat. ^ ^ ^ {The neophyte, baptized in smiles} ^ ^

^ The neophyte, baptized in smiles, # Is laughing boy beneath his oath, # Breathing no poison from the oval mouth, # Or evil from the cankered heart. # Where love is there=s a crust of joy # To hide what drags its belly from the egg, # And, on the ground, gyrates as easily # As though the sun were spinning up through it. # Boy sucks no sweetness from the willing mouth, # Nothing but poison from the breath, # And, in the grief of certainty, # Knows his love rots. # Outdo your prude's genetic faculty # That grew for good # Out of the bitter conscience and the nerves, # Not from the senses' dualizing tip # Of water, flame, or air. # Wetten your tongue and lip, # Moisten your care to carelessness, # For she who sprinkled on your brow # Soft shining symbols of her peace with you, # Was old when you were young, # Old in illusions turned to acritudes, # And thoughts, be they so kind, # Touched, by a finger's nail, to dust. ^ ^ ^ {To be encompassed by the brilliant earth} ^ ^

^ To be encompassed by the brilliant earth # Breathing on all sides pungently # Into her vegetation's lapping mouths # Must feel like such encroachment # As edges off your nerves to mine, # The hemming contact that=s so trammelled # By love or look, # In death or out of death, # Glancing from the yellow nut, # Eyeing from the wax's tower, # Or, white as milk, out of the seeping dark, # The drooping as you close me in # A world of webs # I touch and break, # I touch and break. ^ ^ ^ {Although through my bewildered way} ^ ^

^ Although through my bewildered way # Of crying off this unshaped evil, # Death to the magical when all is done, # Age come to you % you=re bright and useless, # Soon to my care, my love, # But soon to die # In time, like all, through my unreason # In a gay moment's falsity % # There is no need of hope for hope, # You=ll bring the place to me # Where all is well, # Noble among a crowd of lights. # Then shall your senses, out of joy, # Tingle on mine; # You=re the perverse to lie across, # Out of the heart for me, # Sick, pale, and plain, # So that the process calls for laughs, # The silly binding # Snapped in a rain of pieces falling # On head and running foot, # For, if I could, I=d fly away, # For, if I could, I=d fly away # Before the last light is blown # Into the void again of this bewilderment and that insanity ^ ^ ^ {High on a hill} ^ ^

^ High on a hill, # Straddle and soak, # Out of the way of the eyes of men, # Out of the way, # Straddle her wrinkled knees # Until the day=s broken % # Christ, let me write from the heart, # War on the heart % # Puff till the adder is, # Breathe till the snake is home, # Inch on the old thigh # Till the bird has burst his shell, # And the carnal stem that stood # Blowing with the blood's ebb, # Is fallen down # To the ground. ^ ^ ^ {Since, on a quiet night} ^ ^

^ Since, on a quiet night, I heard them talk # Who have no voices but the winds' # Of all the mystery there is in life # And all the mastery there is in death, # I have not lain an hour asleep # But troubled by their curious speech # Stealing so softly into the ears. # One says: There was a woman with no friend, # And, standing over the sea, she=d cry # Her loneliness across the empty waves # Time after time. # And every voice: # Oblivion is as loverless; # Oblivion is as loverless. # And then again: There was a child # Upon the earth who knew no joy, # For there was no light in his eyes, # And there was no light in his soul. # Oblivion is as blind, # Oblivion is as blind, # I hear them say out of the darkness # Who have no talk but that of death. ^ ^ ^ {They are the only dead who did not love} ^ ^

^ They are the only dead who did not love, # Lipless and tongueless in the sour earth # Staring at others, poor unlovers. # They are the only living thing who did love, # So are we full with strength, # Ready to rise, easy to sleep. # Who has completeness that can cut # A comic hour to an end through want of woman # And the warmth she gives, # And yet be human, # Feel the same soft blood flow thoroughly, # Have food and drink, unloving? # None, and his deadly welcome # At the hour's end # Shall prove unworthy for his doing, # Which was good at word, # But came from out the mouth unknowing # Of such great goodness as is ours. # There is no dead but is not loved # Awhile, a little, # Out of the fullness of another's heart # Having so much to spare. # That, then, is fortunate, # But, by your habit unreturned, # And by your habit unreturnable. # So is there missed a certain godliness # That=s not without its woe, # And not without divinity, # For it can quicken or it can kill. # Look, there=s the dead who did not love, # And there=s the living who did love, # Around our little selves # Touching our separate love with badinage ^ ^ ^ {Little problem} ^ ^

^ Foot, head, or traces # Are on sandy soil their spirit level; # Their level is the length # Of foot on head we=ll be the time # In tracing # For a purpose (head to foot is head and foot, # No wit, is one), # That=ll make, it=s brittle, diaphragm # For use of sense, (no hurt no sense). # Foot head compressed, # It=s easy tracing what each gives the other # By toe or hair to common good, # (Good for can run # And know why run), # Though, after=s done, I # See the reason for undoubling doubling not, # Unless for poetry, which, if it asks me # For a spirit, can # Run and know why # And know why know, no wit, # Can ever further, # Though no ask brings it # For a lazy sake that won=t create # But only plumb such depths # As you, Original, derive. ^ ^ ^ {When you have ground such beauty down to dust} ^ ^

^ When you have ground such beauty down to dust # As flies before the breath # And, at the touch, trembles with lover's fever, # Or sundered it to look the closer, # Magnified and made immense # At one side's loss, # Turn inside out, and see at glance # Wisdom is folly, love is not, # Sense can but maim it, wisdom mar it, # Folly purify and make it true. # For folly was # When wisdom lay not in the soul # But in the body of the trees and stones, # Was when sense found a way to them # Growing on hills or shining under water. # Come wise in foolishness, # Go silly and be Christ's good brother, # He whose lovers were both wise and sensible # When folly stirred, warm in the foolish heart. ^ ^ ^ {There's plenty in the world} ^ ^

^ There=s plenty in the world that doth not die, # And much that lives to perish, # That rises and then falls, buds but to wither; # The season's sun, though he should know his setting # Up to the second of the dark coming, # Death sights and sees with great misgiving # A rib of cancer on the fluid sky. # But we, shut in the houses of the brain, # Brood on each hothouse plant # Spewing its sapless leaves around, # And watch the hand of time unceasingly # Ticking the world away, # Shut in the madhouse call for cool air to breathe. # There=s plenty that doth die; # Time cannot heal nor resurrect; # And yet, mad with young blood or stained with age, # We still are loth to part with what remains, # Feeling the wind about our heads that does not cool, # And on our lips the dry mouth of the rain. ^ ^ ^ {Written for a personal epitaph} ^ ^

^ Feeding the worm # Who do I blame # Because laid down # At last by time, # Here under the earth with girl and thief, # Who do I blame? # Mother I blame # Whose loving crime # Moulded my form # Within her womb, # Who gave me life and then the grave, # Mother I blame. # Here is her labour's end, # Dead limb and mind, # All love and sweat # Gone now to rot. # I am man's reply to every question, # His aim and destination. ^ ^ ^ {Never to reach the oblivious dark} ^ ^

^ Never to reach the oblivious dark # And not to know # Any man's troubles nor your own % # Negatives impress negation, # Empty of light and find the darkness lit % # Never is nightmare, # Never flows out from the wound of sleep # Staining the broken brain # With knowledge that no use and nothing worth # Still=s vain to argue after death; # No use to run your head against the wall # To find a sweet blankness in the blood and shell, # This pus runs deep. # There=s poison in your red wine, drinker, # Which spreads down to the dregs # Leaving a corrupted vein of colour, # Sawdust beneath the skirts; # On every hand the evil=s positive # For dead or live, # Froth or a moment's movement # All hold the sum, nothing to nothing, # Even the words are nothing # While the sun=s turned to salt, # Can be but vanity, such an old cry, # Nothing never, nothing older # Though we=re consumed by loves and doubts. # I love and doubt, it=s vain, it=s vain, # Loving and doubting like one who is to die # Planning what=s good, though it=s but winter, # When spring is come, # The jonquil and the trumpet. ^ ^ ^ {Children of darkness got no wings} ^ ^

^ Children of darkness got no wings, # This we know we got no wings, # Stay, dramatic figures, tethered down # By weight of cloth and fact, # Crystal or funeral, got no hope # For us that knows misventure # Only as wrong; but shan=t the genius fail, # Gliding, rope-dancing, is his fancy, # Better nor us can=t gainsay walking, # Who=ll break our necks upon the pavement # Easier than he upon the ice. # For we are ordinary men, # Sleep, wake, and sleep, eat, love, and laugh, # With wide, dry mouths and eyes, # Poor, petty vermin, # Stink of cigarettes and armpits, # Cut our figures, and retreat at night # Into a double or a single bed, # The same thoughts in our head. # We are ordinary men, # Bred in the dark behind the skirting-board, # Crying with hungry voices in our nest. ## Children of darkness got no wings, # This we know, we got no wings, # Stay, in a circle chalked upon the floor, # Waiting all vainly this we know. ^ ^ ^ {Too long, skeleton} ^ ^

^ Too long, skeleton, death=s risen # Out of the soil and seed into the drive, # Chalk cooled by leaves in the hot season, # Too long, skeleton, death=s all alive # From nape to toe, a sanatorium piece # Sly as an adder, rid of fleas. # Take now content, no longer posturing # As raped and reaped, the final emblem. # Thy place is filled, bones bid for auction, # The prism of the eye now void by suction, # New man best whose blood runs thick, # Rather than charnel-house as symbol # Of the moment and the dead hour. ^ ^ ^ {Nearly summer} ^ ^

^ Nearly summer, and the devil # Still comes visiting his poor relations, # If not in person sends his unending evil # By messengers, the flight of birds # Spelling across the sky his devil's news, # The seasons' cries, full of his intimations. # He has the whole field now, the gods departed # Who cannot count the seeds he sows, # The law allows # His wild carouses, and his lips # Poised at the ready ear # To whisper, when he wants, the senses' war # Or lay the senses' rumour. # The welcome devil comes as guest, # Steals what is best % the body's splendour % # Rapes, leaves for lost (the amorist]), # Counts on his fist # All he has reaped in wonder. ## The welcome devil comes invited, # Suspicious but that soon passes. # They cry to be taken, and the devil breaks # All that is not already broken, # Leaves it among the cigarette ends and the glasses. ^ ^ ^ {Youth calls to age} ^ ^

^ You too have seen the sun a bird of fire # Stepping on clouds across the golden sky, # Have known man's envy and his weak desire, # Have loved and lost. # You, who are old, have loved and lost as I # All that is beautiful but born to die, # Have traced your patterns in the hastening frost. # And you have walked upon the hills at night, # And bared your head beneath the living sky, # When it was noon have walked into the light, # Knowing such joy as I. # Though there are years between us, they are naught; # Youth calls to age across the tired years: # "What have you found,$ he cries, "what have you sought?$ # "What you have found,$ age answers through his tears, # "What you have sought.$ ^ ^ ^ {Being but men} ^ ^

^ Being but men, we walked into the trees # Afraid, letting our syllables be soft # For fear of waking the rooks, # For fear of coming # Noiselessly into a world of wings and cries. ## If we were children we might climb, # Catch the rooks sleeping, and break no twig, # And, after the soft ascent, # Thrust out our heads above the branches # To wonder at the unfailing stars. ## Out of confusion, as the way is, # And the wonder that man knows, # Out of the chaos would come bliss. ## That, then, is loveliness, we said, # Children in wonder watching the stars, # Is the aim and the end. ## Being but men, we walked into the trees. ^ ^ ^ {Out of the sighs} ^ ^

^ Out of the sighs a little comes, # But not of grief, for I have knocked down that # Before the agony; the spirit grows, # Forgets, and cries; # A little comes, is tasted and found good; # All could not disappoint; # There must, be praised, some certainty, # If not of loving well, then not, # And that is true after perpetual defeat. ## After such fighting as the weakest know, # There=s more than dying; # Lose the great pains or stuff the wound, # He=ll ache too long # Through no regret of leaving woman waiting # For her soldier stained with spilt words # That spill such acrid blood. ## Were that enough, enough to ease the pain, # Feeling regret when this is wasted # That made me happy in the sun, # How much was happy while it lasted, # Were vaguenesses enough and the sweet lies plenty, # The hollow words could bear all suffering # And cure me of ills. ## Were that enough, bone, blood, and sinew, # The twisted brain, the fair-formed loin, # Groping for matter under the dog's plate, # Man should be cured of distemper. # For all there is to give I offer: # Crumbs, barn, and halter. ^ ^ ^ {Upon your held-out hand} ^ ^

^ Upon your held-out hand # Count the endless days until they end, # Feel, as the pulse grows tired, # The angels' wings beating about your head # Unsounding, they beat so soft. # Why count so sadly? # Learn to be merry with the merriest, # Or (change the key]) give vent to utterances # As meaningless as the bells (oh change the life]), # The sideboard fruit, the ferns, the picture houses # And the pack of cards. ## When I was seven I counted four and forty trees # That stood before my window, # Which may or may not be relevant # And symbolise the maddening factors # That madden both watchers and actors. # I=ve said my piece: count or go mad. # The new asylum on the hill # Leers down the valley like a fool # Waiting and watching for your fingers to fail # To keep count of the stiles # The thousand sheep # Leap over to my criss-cross rhythms. # I=ve said my piece. ^ ^ ^ {Walking in gardens} ^ ^

^ Walking in gardens by the sides # Of marble bathers toeing the garden ponds, # Skirting the ordered beds of paint-box flowers, # We spoke of drink and girls, for hours # Touched on the outskirts of the mind, # Then stirred a little chaos in the sun. # A new divinity, a god of wheels # Destroying souls and laying waste, # Trampling to dust the bits and pieces # Of faulty men and their diseases, # Rose in our outworn brains. We spoke our lines, # Made, for the bathers to admire, # Dramatic gestures in the air. # Ruin and revolution # Whirled in our words, then faded. # We might have tried light matches in the wind. # Over and round the ordered garden hummed, # There was no need of a new divinity, # No tidy flower moved, no bather gracefully # Lifted her marble foot, or lowered her hand # To brush upon the waters of the pond. ^ ^ ^ {Now the thirst parches lip and tongue} ^ ^

^ Now the thirst parches lip and tongue, # The dry fever burns until no heart is left, # Now is decay in bone and sinew, # When heaven % open wide the gates % has taken flight, # Searing the sky for thunderbolts to fall # On man and mountain, # Is treason's time and the time of envy. ## The acid pours away, the acid drips # Into the places and the crevices # Most fit for lovers to make harmony, # To catch the lovers' palsy, # And on the sweethearts' bed to lie and grin, # To smirk at love's undress, # Make mock of woman's meat, # And drown all sorrows in the gross catastrophe. ^ ^ ^ {Lift up your face} ^ ^

^ Lift up your face, light # Breaking, stare at the sky # Consoling for night by day # That chases the ghosts of the trees # And the ghosts of the brain, # Making fresh what was stale # In the unsleeping mummery # Of men and creatures horribly # Staring at stone walls. # Lift up your head, let # Comfort come through the devil's clouds, # The nightmare's mist # Suspended from the devil's precipice, # Let comfort come slowly, lift # Up your hand to stroke the light, # Its honeyed cheek, soft-talking mouth, # Lift up the blinds over the blind eyes. ## Out of unsleeping cogitations, # When the skeleton of war # Is with the corpse of peace, # (Notes not in sympathy, discord, unease), # The only visitor, # Must come content. # Therefore lift up, see, stroke the light. # Content shall come after a twisted night # If only with sunlight. ^ ^ ^ {Let it be known} ^ ^

^ Let it be known that little live but lies, # Love-lies, and god-lies, and lies-to-please, # Let children know, and old men at their gates, # That this is lies that moans departure, # And that is lies that, after the old men die, # Declare their souls, let children know, live after. ^ ^ ^ {The midnight road} ^ ^

^ The midnight road, though young men tread unknowing, # Harbouring some thought of heaven, or haven hoping, # Yields peace and plenty at the end. Or is it peace, # This busy jarring on the nerves yet no outbreak? # And this is plenty, then, cloves and sweet oils, the bees' honey, # Enough kind food, enough kind speaking, # A film of people moving, # Their hands outstretched, to give and give? # And now behind the screen are vixen voices, # The midnight figures of a sulphurous brood # Stepping in nightmare on a nightmare's edges. # Above them poise the swollen clouds # That wait for breaking and that never break, # The living sky, the faces of the stars. ^ ^ ^ {With windmills turning wrong directions} ^ ^

^ With windmills turning wrong directions, # And signposts pointing up and down # Towards destruction and redemption, # No doubt the wind on which the rooks # Tumble, not flying, is false, # Plays scurvy tricks with values and intentions, # Guides and blows wickedly, for larks # Find hard to dart against a cloud, # To London=s turned, and thirsty loads # Of men with flannel shirts # And girls with flowered hats # Intent on visiting the famous spots, # Ride in their charabancs on roads # That lead away to dirty towns # Dirtier with garages and cheap tea signs. ## Faith in divinity would solve most things, # For then the wrong wind certainly # Would be the devil's wind, and the high trinity # Be guiltless of the windy wrongs. ## But ways have changed, and most ways lead # To different places than were said # By those who planned the obvious routes # And now, mistaking the direction, # On miles of horizontal milestones, # Perplexed beyond perplexion, # Catch their poor guts. ## The wind has changed, blown inside out # The coverings of dark and light, # Made meaning meaningless. The wrong wind stirs, # Puffed, old with venom, from a crusted mouth. # The changed wind blows, and there=s a choice of signs # To Heaven=s turned, and pious loads # Of neophytes take altered roads. ^ ^ ^ {The gossipers} ^ ^

^ The gossipers have lowered their voices, # Willing words to make the rumours certain, # Suspicious hands tug at the neighbouring vices, # Unthinking actions given causes # Stir their old bones behind cupboard and curtain. ## Putting two and two together, # Informed by rumour and the register, # The virgins smelt out, three streets up, # A girl whose single bed held two # To make ends meet, # Found managers and widows wanting # In morals and full marriage bunting, # And other virgins in official fathers. ## For all the inconvenience they make, # The trouble, devildom, and heartbreak, # The withered women win them bedfellows. # Nightly upon their wrinkled breasts # Press the old lies and the old ghosts. ^ ^ ^ {Before the gas fades} ^ ^

^ Before the gas fades with a harsh last bubble, # And the hunt in the hatstand discovers no coppers, # Before the last fag and the shirt sleeves and slippers, # The century's trap will have snapped round your middle, # Before the allotment is weeded and sown, # And the oakum is picked, and the spring trees have grown green, # And the state falls to bits, # And is fed to the cats, # Before civilization rises or rots, # (It=s a matter of guts, # Graft, poison, and bluff, # Sobstuff, mock reason, # The chameleon coats of the big bugs and shots,) # The jaws will have shut, and life be switched out. # Before the arrival of angel or devil, # Before evil or good, light or dark, # Before white or black, the right or left sock, # Before good or bad luck. ## Man's manmade sparetime lasts the four seasons, # Is empty in springtime, and no other time lessens # The bitter, the wicked, the longlying leisure, # Sleep punctured by waking, dreams # Broken by choking, # The hunger of living, the oven and gun # That turned on and lifted in anger # Make the hunger for living # When the purse is empty # And the belly is empty, # The harder to bear and the stronger. # The century's trap will have closed for good # About you, flesh will perish, and blood # Run down the world's gutters, # Before the world steadies, stops rocking, is steady, # Or rocks, swings and rocks, before the world totters. ## Caught in the trap's machinery, lights out, # With sightless eyes and hearts that do not beat, # You will not see the steadying or falling, # Under the heavy layers of the night # Not black or white or left or right. ^ ^ ^ {Was there a time} ^ ^

^ Was there a time when dancers with their fiddles # In children's circuses could stay their troubles? # There was a time they could cry over books, # But time has set its maggot on their track. # Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe. # What=s never known is safest in this life. # Under the skysigns they who have no arms # Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost # Alone=s unhurt, so the blind man sees best. ^ ^ ^ {'We who are young are old'} ^ ^

^ "We who are young are old. It is the oldest cry. # Age sours before youth=s tasted in the mouth # And any sweetness that it has # Is sucked away.$ ## We who are still young are old. It is a dead cry, # The squeal of the damned out of the old pit. # We have grown weak before we could grow strong, # For us there is no shooting and no riding, # The Western man has lost one lung # And cannot mount a clotheshorse without bleeding. ## Until the whisper of the last trump louden # We shall play Chopin in our summer garden, # With half-averted heads, as if to listen, # Play Patience in the parlour after dark. # For us there is no riding and no shooting, # No frosty gallops through the winter park. # We who are young sit holding yellow hands. ## No faith to fix the teeth on carries # Men old before their time into dark valleys # Where death lies dead asleep, one bright eye open, # No faith to sharpen the old wits leaves us # Lost in the shades, no course, no use # To fight through the invisible weeds, # No faith to follow is the world's curse # That falls on chaos. ## There is but one message for the earth, # Young men with fallen chests and old men's breath, # Women with cancer at their sides # And cancerous speaking dripping from their mouths, # And lovers turning on the gas, # Ex-soldiers with horrors for a face, # A pig's snout for a nose, # The lost in doubt, the nearly mad, the young # Who, undeserving, have suffered the earth's wrong, # The living dead left over from the war, # The living after, the filled with fear, # The caught in the cage, the broken winged, # The flying loose, albino eyed, wing singed, # The white, the black, the yellow and mulatto # From Harlem, Bedlam, Babel, and the Ghetto, # The Piccadilly men, the back street drunks, # The grafters of cats' heads on chickens' trunks, # The whole, the crippled, the weak and strong, # The Western man with one lung gone % # Faith fixed beyond the spinning stars, # Fixed faith, believing and worshipping together # In god or gods, christ or his father, # Mary, virgin, or any other. # Faith. Faith. Firm faith in many or one, # Faith fixed like a star beyond the stars, # And the skysigns and the night lights, # And the shores of the last sun. ## We who are young are old, and unbelieving, # Sit at our hearths from morning until evening, # Warming dry hands and listening to the wind. # We have no faith to set between our teeth. # Believe, believe and be saved, we cry, who have no faith. ^ ^ ^ {Out of a war of wits} ^ ^

^ Out of a war of wits, when folly of words # Was the world's to me, and syllables # Fell hard as whips on an old wound, # My brain came crying into the fresh light, # Called for confessor but there was none # To purge after the wits' fight, # And I was struck dumb by the sun. # Praise that my body be whole, I=ve limbs, # Not stumps, after the hour of battle, # For the body=s brittle and the skin=s white. # Praise that only the wits are hurt after the wits' fight. # Overwhelmed by the sun, with a torn brain # I stand beneath the clouds' confessional, # But the hot beams rob me of speech, # After the perils of friends' talk # Reach asking arms up to the milky sky, # After a volley of questions and replies # Lift wit-hurt head for sun to sympathize, # And the sun heals, closing sore eyes. # It is good that the sun shine, # And, after it has sunk, the sane moon, # For out of a house of matchboard and stone # Where men would argue till the stars be green, # It is good to step onto the earth, alone, # And be struck dumb, if only for a time. ^ ^ ^ {Their faces shone under some radiance} ^ ^

^ Their faces shone under some radiance # Of mingled moonlight and lamplight # That turned the empty kisses into meaning, # The island of such penny love # Into a costly country, the graves # That neighboured them to wells of warmth, # (And skeletons had sap). One minute # Their faces shone; the midnight rain # Hung pointed in the wind, # Before the moon shifted and the sap ran out, # She, in her cheap frock, saying some cheap thing, # And he replying, # Not knowing radiance came and passed. # The suicides parade again, now ripe for dying. ^ ^ ^ {I have longed to move away} ^ ^

^ I have longed to move away # From the hissing of the spent lie # And the old terrors' continual cry # Growing more terrible as the day # Goes over the hill into the deep sea; # I have longed to move away # From the repetition of salutes, # For there are ghosts in the air # And ghostly echoes on paper, # And the thunder of calls and notes. ## I have longed to move away but am afraid; # Some life, yet unspent, might explode # Out of the old lie burning on the ground, # And, crackling into the air, leave me half-blind. # Neither by night's ancient fear, # The parting of hat from hair, # Pursed lips at the receiver, # Shall I fall to death's feather. # By these I would not care to die, # Half convention and half lie. ^ ^ ^ {To follow the fox} ^ ^

^ To follow the fox at the hounds' tails # And at their baying move a tailor's inch # To follow, wild as the chicken stealer, # Scent through the clutches of the heather, # Leads to fool's paradise where the redcoated killer # Deserves no brush, but a fool's ambush. # Following the nose down dell, up rise # Into the map-backed hills where paths # Cross all directions, bracken points to the skies, # Leads, too, to a lead pit, whinny and fall, # No fox, no good, fool's, not a fox's, hole, # And that is the reward of labour # Through heath and heather at the mind's will. # To follow the nose if the nose goes # Wisely at the dogs' tails, leads # Through easier heather to the foul lair # Over a road thick with the bones of words. # If hunting means anything more than the chase # On a mare's back of a mare's nest or a goose, # Then only over corpses shall the feet tread, # Crunching the already broken, # And this way leads to good and bad, # Where more than snails are friends. ^ ^ ^ {The ploughman's gone} ^ ^

^ The ploughman=s gone, the hansom driver, # Left in the records of living a not-to-be-broken picture, # In sun and rain working for good and gain, # Left only the voice in the old village choir # To remember, cast stricture on mechanics and man. # The windmills of the world still stand # With wooden arms revolving in the wind # Against the rusty sword and the old horse # Bony and spavined, rich with fleas. # But the horses are gone and the reins are green # As the hands that held them in my father's time. # The wireless snarls on the hearth. # No more toils over the fields # The rawboned horse to a man's voice # Telling it this, patting its black nose: # You shall go as the others have gone, # Lay your head on a hard bed of stone, # And have the raven for companion. # The ploughman=s gone, the hansom driver, # With rain-beaten hands holding the whip, # Masters over unmastered nature, # Streets' stock, of the moon lit, ill lit, field and town, # Lie cold, with their horses, for raven and kite. ## Man toils now on an iron saddle, riding # In sun and rain over the dry shires, # Hearing the engines, and the wheat dying. # Sometimes at his ear the engine's voice # Revolves over and over again # The same tune as in my father's time: # You shall go as the others have gone, # Lay your head on a hard bed of stone, # And have the raven for companion. # It is the engine and not the raven. # Man who once drove is driven in sun and rain. # It is the engine for companion. # It is the engine under the unaltered sun. ^ ^ ^ {Poet: 1935} ^ ^

^ See, on gravel paths under the harpstrung trees # He steps so near the water that a swan's wing # Might play upon his lank locks with its wind, # The lake's voice and the rolling of mock waves # Make discord with the voice within his ribs # That thunders as heart thunders, slows as heart slows. # Is not his heart imprisoned by the summer # Snaring the whistles of the birds # And fastening in its cage the flowers' colour? # No, he=s a stranger, outside the season's humour, # Moves, among men caught by the sun, # With heart unlocked upon the gigantic earth. # He alone is free, and, free, moans to the sky. # He, too, could touch the season's lips and smile, # Under the hanging branches hear the winds' harps. # But he is left. Summer to him # Is the unbosoming of the sun. ## So shall he step till summer loosens its hold # On the canvas sky, and all hot colours melt # Into the browns of autumn and the sharp whites of winter, # And so complain, in a vain voice, to the stars. ## Even among his own kin is he lost, # Is love a shadow on the wall, # Among all living men is a sad ghost. # He is not man's nor woman's man, # Leper among a clean people # Walks with the hills for company, # And has the mad trees' talk by heart. ## An image of decay disturbs the crocus # Opening its iris mouth upon the sill # Where fifty flowers breed in a fruit box, # And washing water spilt upon their necks # Cools any ardour they may have # And he destroys, though flowers are his loves, # If love he can being no woman's man. # An image born out of the uproarious spring # Hastens the time of the geranium to breathe; # Life, till the change of mood, forks # From the unwatered leaves and the stiff stalks, # The old flowers' legs too taut to dance, # But he makes them dance, cut capers # Choreographed on paper. # The image changes, and the flowers drop # Into their prison with a slack sound, # Fresh images surround the tremendous moon, # Or catch all death that=s in the air. ## O lonely among many, the gods' man, # Knowing exceeding grief and the gods' sorrow # That, like a razor, skims, cuts, and turns, # Aches till the metal meets the marrow, # You, too, know the exceeding joy # And the triumphant crow of laughter. # Out of a bird's wing writing on a cloud # You capture more than man or woman guesses; # Rarer delight shoots in the blood # At the deft movements of the irises # Growing in public places than man knows. ## See, on gravel paths under the harpstrung trees, # Feeling the summer wind, hearing the swans, # Leaning from windows over a length of lawns, # On tumbling hills admiring the sea, # I am alone, alone complain to the stars. # Who are his friends? The wind is his friend, # The glow-worm lights his darkness, and # The snail tells of coming rain. ^ ^ ^ {Light, I know, treads the ten million stars} ^ ^

^ Light, I know, treads the ten million stars, # And blooms in the Hesperides. Light stirs # Out of the heavenly sea onto the moon's shores. # Such light shall not illuminate my fears # And catch a turnip ghost in every cranny. # I have been frightened of the dark for years. # When the sun falls and the moon stares, # My heart hurls from my side and tears # Drip from my open eyes as honey # Drips from the humming darkness of the hive. # I am a timid child when light is dead. # Unless I learn the night I shall go mad. # It is night's terrors I must learn to love, # Or pray for day to some attentive god # Who on his cloud hears all my wishes, # Hears and refuses. # Light walks the sky, leaving no print, # And there is always day, the shining of some sun, # In those high globes I cannot count, # And some shine for a second and are gone, # Leaving no print. # But lunar light will not glow in my blackness, # Make bright its corners where a skeleton # Sits back and smiles, a tiny corpse # Turns to the roof a hideous grimace, # Or mice play with an ivory tooth. # Stars' light and sun's light will not shine # As clearly as the light of my own brain, # Will only dim life, and light death. # I must learn night's light or go mad. ^ ^ ^ {And death shall have no dominion} ^ ^

^ And death shall have no dominion. # Dead men naked they shall be one # With the man in the wind and the west moon; # When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone, # They shall have stars at elbow and foot; # Though they go mad they shall be sane, # Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; # Though lovers be lost love shall not; # And death shall have no dominion. ## And death shall have no dominion. # Under the windings of the sea # They lying long shall not die windily; # Twisting on racks when sinews give way, # Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break; # Faith in their hands shall snap in two, # And the unicorn evils run them through; # Split all ends up they shan=t crack; # And death shall have no dominion. ## And death shall have no dominion. # No more may gulls cry at their ears # Or waves break loud on the seashores; # Where blew a flower may a flower no more # Lift its head to the blows of the rain; # Though they be mad and dead as nails, # Heads of the characters hammer through daisies; # Break in the sun till the sun breaks down, # And death shall have no dominion. ^ ^ ^ {Out of the pit} ^ ^

^ Within his head revolved a little world # Where wheels, confusing music, confused doubts, # Rolled down all images into the pits # Where half dead vanities were sleeping curled # Like cats, and lusts lay half hot in the cold. ## Within his head the engines made their hell, # The veins at either temple whipped him mad, # And, mad, he called his curses upon God, # Spied moon-mad beasts carousing on the hill, # Mad birds in trees, and mad fish in a pool. # Across the sun was spread a crazy smile. # The moon leered down the valley like a fool. ## Now did the softest sound of foot or voice # Echo a hundred times, the flight of birds # Drum harshly on the air, the lightning swords # Tear with a great sound through the skies, # And there was thunder in an opening rose. ## All reason broke, and horror walked the roads. # A smile let loose a devil, a bell struck. # He could hear women breathing in the dark, # See women's faces under living snoods, # With serpents' mouths and scalecophidian voids # Where eyes should be, and nostrils full of toads. ## Taxis and lilies to tinned music stepped # A measure on the lawn where cupids blew # Water from nose and arse, a Sanger's show # Paraded up the aisles and in the crypt # Of churches made from abstract and concrete. # Pole-sitting girls descended for a meal, # Stopped non-stop dancing to let hot feet cool, # Or all-in wrestling for torn limbs to heal, # The moon leered down the valley like a fool. ## Where, what=s my God among this crazy rattling # Of knives on forks, he cried, of nerve on nerve, # Man's rib on woman's, straight line on a curve, # And hand to buttock, man to engine, battling, # Bruising, where=s God=s my Shepherd, God is Love? # No loving shepherd in this upside life. ## So crying, he was dragged into the sewer, # Voles at his armpits, down the sad canal # Where floated a dead dog who made him ill, # Plunged in black waters, under hail and fire, # Knee-deep in vomit. I saw him there, # And thus I saw him searching for his soul. ## And swimming down the gutters he looks up # At cotton worlds revolving on a hip, # Riding on girders of the air, looks down # On garages and clinics in the town. ## Where, what=s my God among this taxi stepping, # This lily crawling round the local pubs? # It was November there were whizzbangs hopping, # But now there are the butt-ends of spent squibs. ## So crying, he was pushed into the Jordan. # He, too, has known the agony in the Garden, # And felt a skewer enter at his side. # He, too, has seen the world as bottom rotten, # Kicked, with a clatter, ash-bins marked verboten, # And heard the teeth of weasels drawing blood. ## And thus I saw him. He was poised like this, # One hand at head, the other at a loss, # Between the street-lamps and the ill-lit sky, # And thus, between the seasons, heard him cry: ## Where, what=s my God? I have been mad, am mad, # Have searched for shells and signs on the sea shore, # Stuck straw and seven stars upon my hair, # And leant on stiles and on the golden bar, # I have ridden on gutter dung and cloud. # Under a hideous sea where coral men # Feed in the armpits of drowned girls, I=ve swum # And sunk; waved flags to every fife and drum; # Said all the usual things over and again; # Lain with parched things; loved dogs and women; # I have desired the circle of the sun. # Tested by fire, double thumb to nose, # I=ve mocked the moving of the universe. ## Where, what? There was commotion in the skies, # But no god rose. I have seen bad and worse, # Gibed the coitus of the stars. No god # Comes from my evil or my good. Mad, mad, # Feeling the pinpricks of the blood, I=ve said # The novel things. But it has been no good. ## Crying such words, he left the crying crowds, # Unshackled the weights of words from tired limbs, # And took to feeding birds with broken crumbs # Of old divinities, split bits of names. # Very alone, he ploughed the only way. # And thus I saw him in a square of fields, # Knocking off turnip tops, with trees for friends, # And thus, some time later, I heard him say: ## Out of the buildings of the day I=ve stepped # To hermits' huts, and talked to ancient men. # Out of the noise into quiet I ran. # My God=s a shepherd, God=s the love I hoped. # The moon peers down the valley like a saint. # Taxis and lilies, noise and no noise, # Pair off, make harmonies, a harmonious chord, # For he has found his soul in loneliness, # Now he is one with many, one with all, # Fire and Jordan and the sad canal. # Now he has heard and read the happy word. # Still, in his hut, he broods among his birds. # I see him in the crowds, not shut # From you or me or wind or rat # Or this or that. ^ ^ ^ {We lying by seasand} ^ ^

^ We lying by seasand, watching yellow # And the grave sea, mock who deride # Who follow the red rivers, hollow # Alcove of words out of cicada shade, # For in this yellow grave of sand and sea # A calling for colour calls with the wind # That=s grave and gay as grave and sea # Sleeping on either hand. # The lunar silences, the silent tide # Lapping the still canals, the dry tide-master # Ribbed between desert and water storm, # Should cure our ills of the water # With a one-coloured calm; # The heavenly music over the sand # Sounds with the grains as they hurry # Hiding the golden mountains and mansions # Of the grave, gay, seaside land. # Bound by a sovereign strip, we lie, # Watch yellow, wish for wind to blow away # The strata of the shore and drown red rock; # But wishes breed not, neither # Can we fend off rock arrival, # Lie watching yellow until the golden weather # Breaks, O my heart's blood, like a heart and hill. ^ ^ ^ {No man believes} ^ ^

^ No man believes who, when a star falls shot, # Cries not aloud blind as a bat, # Cries not in terror when a bird is drawn # Into the quicksand feathers down, # Who does not make a wound in faith # When any light goes out, and life is death. ## No man believes who cries not, God is not, # Who feels not coldness in the heat, # In the breasted summer longs not for spring, # No breasted girl, no man who, young # And green, sneers not at the old sky. # No man believes who does not wonder why. ## Believe and be saved. No man believes # Who curses not what makes and saves, # No man upon this cyst of earth # Believes who does not lance his faith, # No man, no man, no man. ## And this is true, no man can live # Who does not bury God in a deep grave # And then raise up the skeleton again, # No man who does not break and make, # Who in the bones finds not new faith, # Lends not flesh to ribs and neck, # Who does not break and make his final faith. ^ ^ ^ {Why east wind chills} ^ ^

^ Why east wind chills and south wind cools # Shall not be known till windwell dries # And west=s no longer drowned # In winds that bring the fruit and rind # Of many a hundred falls; # Why silk is soft and the stone wounds # The child shall question all his days, # Why night-time rain and the breast's blood # Both quench his thirst he=ll have a black reply. ## When cometh Jack Frost? the children ask. # Shall they clasp a comet in their fists? # Not till, from high and low, their dust # Sprinkles in children's eyes a long-last sleep # And dusk is crowded with the children's ghosts, # Shall a white answer echo from the rooftops. ## All things are known: the stars' advice # Calls some content to travel with the winds, # Though what the stars ask as they round # Time upon time the towers of the skies # Is heard but little till the stars go out. # I hear content, and "Be content$ # Ring like a handbell through the corridors, # And "Know no answer$, and I know # No answer to the children's cry # Of echo's answer and the man of frost # And ghostly comets over the raised fists. ^ ^ ^ {Greek play in a garden} ^ ^

^ A woman wails her dead among the trees, # Under the green roof grieves the living; # The living sun laments the dying skies, # Lamenting falls. Pity Electra's loving ## Of all Orestes' continent of pride # Dust in the little country of an urn, # Of Agamemnon and his kingly blood # That cries along her veins. No sun or moon ## Shall lamp the raven darkness of her face, # And no Aegean wind cool her cracked heart; # There are no seacaves deeper than her eyes; # Day treads the trees and she the cavernous night. ## Among the trees the language of the dead # Sounds, rich with life, out of a painted mask; # The queen is slain; Orestes' hands drip blood; # And women talk of horror to the dusk. ## There can be few tears left: Electra wept # A country's tears and voiced a world's despair # At flesh that perishes and blood that=s spilt # And love that goes down like a flower. ## Pity the living who are lost, alone; # The dead in Hades have their host of friends, # The dead queen walketh with Mycenae's king # Through Hades' groves and the Eternal Lands. ## Pity Electra loveless, she whose grief # Drowns and is drowned, who utters to the stars # Her syllables, and to the gods her love; # Pity the poor unpitied who are strange with tears. ## Among the garden trees a pigeon calls, # And knows no woe that these sad players mouth # Of evil oracles and funeral ills; # A pigeon calls and women talk of death. ^ ^ ^ {Praise to the architects} ^ ^

^ Praise to the architects; # Dramatic shadows in a tin box; # Nonstop; stoppress; vinegar from wisecracks; # Praise to the architects; # Radio=s a building in the air; # The poster is today's text, # The message comes from negro mystics, # An old chatterbox, barenaveled at Nice, # Who steps on the gas; # Praise to the architects; # A pome=s a building on a page; # Keatings is good for lice, # A pinch of Auden is the lion's feast; # Praise to the architects; # Empty, To Let, are signs on this new house; # To leave it empty=s lion's or louse's choice; # Lion or louse? Take your own advice; # Praise to the architects. ^ ^ ^ {Here in this spring} ^ ^

^ Here in this spring, stars float along the void; # Here in this ornamental winter # Down pelts the naked weather; # This summer buries a spring bird. ## Symbols are selected from the years' # Slow rounding of four seasons' coasts, # In autumn teach three seasons' fires # And four birds' notes. ## I should tell summer from the trees, the worms # Tell, if at all, the winter's storms # Or the funeral of the sun; # I should learn spring by the cuckooing, # And the slug should teach me destruction. ## A worm tells summer better than the clock, # The slug=s a living calendar of days; # What shall it tell me if a timeless insect # Says the world wears away? ^ ^ ^ {We have the fairy tales by heart} ^ ^

^ We have the fairy tales by heart, # No longer tremble at a bishop's hat, # And the thunder's first note; # We have these little things off pat, # Avoid church as a rat; # We scorn the juggernaut, # And the great wheels' rut; # Half of the old gang's shot, # Thank God, but the enemy stays put. ## We know our Mother Goose and Eden, # No longer fear the walker in the garden, # And the fibs for children; # The old spells are undone. # But still ghosts madden, # A cupboard skeleton # Raises the hairs of lad and maiden. ## If dead men walked they, too, would holler # At sight of death, the last two fisted killer # Stained a blood colour; # A panic's pallor # Would turn the dead yellow. ## We have by heart the children's stories, # Have blown sky high the nursery of fairies; # Still a world of furies # Burns in many mirrors. ## Death and evil are twin spectres. # What shall destruction count if these are fixtures? # Why blot the pictures # Of elves and satyrs # If these two gnomes remain unmoved by strictures? ## We have the stories backwards, # Torn out magic from the hearts of cowards # By nape and gizzards; # There are two laggards, # Death and evil, too slow in heeding words. ## Tear by the roots these twin growths in your gut; # Shall we learn fairy tales off pat, # Not benefit from that? # Burn out the lasting rot, # Fear death as little as the thunder's shot, # The holy hat. ^ ^ ^ {'Find meat on bones'} ^ ^

^ "Find meat on bones that soon have none, # And drink in the two milked crags, # The merriest marrow and the dregs # Before the ladies' breasts are hags # And the limbs are torn. # Disturb no winding-sheets, my son, # But when the ladies are cold as stone # Then hang a ram rose over the rags. ## "Rebel against the binding moon # And the parliament of sky, # The kingcrafts of the wicked sea, # Autocracy of night and day, # Dictatorship of sun. # Rebel against the flesh and bone, # The word of the blood, the wily skin, # And the maggot no man can slay.$ ## "The thirst is quenched, the hunger gone, # And my heart is cracked across; # My face is haggard in the glass, # My lips are withered with a kiss, # My breasts are thin. # A merry girl took me for man, # I laid her down and told her sin, # And put beside her a ram rose. ## "The maggot that no man can kill # And the man no rope can hang # Rebel against my father's dream # That out of a bower of red swine # Howls the foul fiend to heel. # I cannot murder, like a fool, # Season and sunshine, grace and girl, # Nor can I smother the sweet waking.$ ## Black night still ministers the moon, # And the sky lays down her laws, # The sea speaks in a kingly voice, # Light and dark are no enemies # But one companion. # "War on the spider and the wren] # War on the destiny of man] # Doom on the sun]$ # Before death takes you, O take back this. ^ ^ ^ {Ears in the turrets hear} ^ ^

^ Ears in the turrets hear # Hands grumble on the door, # Eyes in the gables see # The fingers at the locks. # Shall I unbolt or stay # Alone till the day I die # Unseen by stranger-eyes # In this white house? # Hands, hold you poison or grapes? ## Beyond this island bound # By a thin sea of flesh # And a bone coast, # The land lies out of sound # And the hills out of mind. # No birds or flying fish # Disturbs this island's rest. ## Ears in this island hear # The wind pass like a fire, # Eyes in this island see # Ships anchor off the bay. # Shall I run to the ships # With the wind in my hair, # Or stay till the day I die # And welcome no sailor? # Ships, hold you poison or grapes? ## Hands grumble on the door, # Ships anchor off the bay, # Rain beats the sand and slates. # Shall I let in the stranger, # Shall I welcome the sailor, # Or stay till the day I die? ## Hands of the stranger and holds of the ships, # Hold you poison or grapes? ^ ^ ^ {The Woman Speaks} ^ ^

^ The Woman Speaks: # No food suffices but the food of death; # Sweet is the waxen blood, honey the falling flesh; # There is no fountain springing from the earth # Cool as the wax-red fountains of the veins; # No cradle=s warmer than this perished breast, # And hid behind the fortress of the ribs # The heart lies ready for the raven's mouth, # And lustreless within the ruined face # The eyes remark the antics of the hawk. ## The sniper laid him low and strewed his brains; # One would not think the greenness of this valley ## Could in a day be sick with so much blood; # What were young limbs are faggots on the land, # And young guts dry beneath the sickened sun. # Let me not think, O God of carnage, # Of ravens at the hero's meat and nerves # Pecking and nestling all the time of night. ## The grass he covers is a pretty green; # He has the still moon and the hundred stars; # He learns the carrion pickers of the sky, # And on his shoulders fall their world of wings, # And on his ears hosannas of the grave. ## His narrow house is walled with blades of grass, # Roofed with the sky and patterned with blond bones; # The birds make him his cerements of plumes, # Cerecloth of weed, and build an ordured bed. ## Since the first flesh of man was riven # By scalpel lightning from the rifted sky, # Man's marrow barbed, and breast ripped with a steel, # All that was loved and loved made the fowls' food, # Grief, like an open wound, has cried to heaven. # No food suffices but the food of death; # Death's appetite is sharpened by the bullet's thumb; # Yet he is dead, and still by woman's womb # Hungers for quickening, and my lonely lips # Hunger for him who dungs the valley fields. ## There shall be no mute mourning over his acre, # Sorrow shall have no words, no willow wearing; # Rain shall defile and cover, wind bear away # The saddest dust in all this hollow world. ## Old men whose blood is hindered in their veins, # Whom cancer crops, whose drinking rusts, these die; # These die who shovel the last home of man; # The sniper dies; the fingers from the sky # Strangle the little children in their beds; # One day my woman's body will be cold. ## So I have come to know, but knowledge aches; # I know that age is snow upon the hair, # Wind carven lines around the drooping mouth; # And raven youth will feast but where he will. ## Since the first womb spat forth a baby's corpse, # The mother's cry has fumed about the winds; # O tidal winds, cast up her cry for me; # That I may drown, let loose her flood of tears. ## It was a haggard night the first flesh died, # And shafted hawks came snarling down the sky; # A mouse it was played with an ivory tooth, # And ravens fed confection to their young. ## Palm of the earth, O sprinkle on my head # That dust you hold, O strew that little left; # Let what remains of that first miracle # Be sour in my hair. That I may learn # The mortal miracle, let that first dust # Tell me of him who feeds the raging birds. ^ ^ ^ {Shall gods be said to thump the clouds} ^ ^

^ Shall gods be said to thump the clouds # When clouds are cursed by thunder, # Be said to weep when weather howls? # Shall rainbows be their tunics' colour? ## When it is rain where are the gods? # Shall it be said they sprinkle water # From garden cans, or free the floods? ## Shall it be said that, venuswise, # An old god's dugs are pressed and pricked, # The wet night scolds me like a nurse? ## It shall be said that gods are stone. # Shall a dropped stone drum on the ground, # Flung gravel chime? Let the stones speak # With tongues that talk all tongues. ^ ^ ^ {The hand that signed the paper} ^ ^

^ The hand that signed the paper felled a city; # Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath, # Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country; # These five kings did a king to death. ## The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder, # The finger joints are cramped with chalk; # A goose's quill has put an end to murder # That put an end to talk. ## The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever, # And famine grew, and locusts came; # Great is the hand that holds dominion over # Man by a scribbled name. ## The five kings count the dead but do not soften # The crusted wound nor stroke the brow; # A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven; # Hands have no tears to flow. ^ ^ ^ {Let for one moment a faith statement} ^ ^

^ Let for one moment a faith statement # Rule the blank sheet of sleep, # The virgin lines be mated with a circle. # A circle spins. Let each revolving spoke # Turn and churn nightseed till it curdle. ## Let for one moment a faith statement # Strip the dreams' livery, # And gods be changed as often as the shift. # God is the same though he be praised as many, # Remains though gods be felled till none are left. ## Let for one moment a faith statement # See the first living light, # And your maieutic slumber drag it forth. # The child tells, when the trembling chord is cut, # God shall be gods and many deaths be death. ^ ^ ^ {You are the ruler of this realm of flesh} ^ ^

^ You are the ruler of this realm of flesh, # And this hill of bone and hair # Moves to the Mahomet of your hand. # But all this land gives off a charnel stench, # The wind smacks of the poor # Dumb dead the crannies house and hide. ## You rule the thudding heart that bites the side; # The heart steps to death's finger, # The brain acts to the legal dead. # Why should I think on death when you are ruler? ## You are my flesh's ruler whom I treason, # Housing death in your kingdom, # Paying heed to the thirsty voice. # Condemn me to an everlasting facing # Of the dead eyes of children # And their rivers of blood turned to ice. ^ ^ ^ {Before I knocked} ^ ^

^ Before I knocked and flesh let enter, # With liquid hands tapped on the womb, # I who was shapeless as the water # That shaped the Jordan near my home # Was brother to Mnetha's daughter # And sister to the fathering worm. ## I who was deaf to spring and summer, # Who knew not sun nor moon by name, # Felt thud beneath my flesh's armour, # As yet was in a molten form, # The leaden stars, the rainy hammer # Swung by my father from his dome. ## I knew the message of the winter, # The darted hail, the childish snow, # And the wind was my sister suitor; # Wind in me leaped, the hellborn dew; # My veins flowed with the Eastern weather; # Ungotten I knew night and day. ## As yet ungotten, I did suffer; # The rack of dreams my lily bones # Did twist into a living cipher, # And flesh was snipped to cross the lines # Of gallow crosses on the liver # And brambles in the wringing brains. ## My throat knew thirst before the structure # Of skin and vein around the well # Where words and water make a mixture # Unfailing till the blood runs foul; # My heart knew love, my belly hunger; # I smelt the maggot in my stool. ## And time cast forth my mortal creature # To drift or drown upon the seas # Acquainted with the salt adventure # Of tides that never touch the shores. # I who was rich was made the richer # By sipping at the vine of days. ## I, born of flesh and ghost, was neither # A ghost nor man, but mortal ghost. # And I was struck down by death's feather. # I was a mortal to the last # Long breath that carried to my father # The message of his dying christ. ## You who bow down at cross and altar, # Remember me and pity Him # Who took my flesh and bone for armour # And doublecrossed my mother's womb. ^ ^ ^ {We see rise the secret wind} ^ ^

^ We see rise the secret wind behind the brain, # The sphinx of light sit on the eyes, # The code of stars translate in heaven. # A secret night descends between # The skull, the cells, the cabinned ears # Holding for ever the dead moon. ## A shout went up to heaven like a rocket, # Woe from the rabble of the blind # Adorners of the city's forehead, # Gilders of streets, the rabble hand # Saluting the busy brotherhood # Of rod and wheel that wake the dead. ## A city godhead, turbine moved, steel sculptured, # Glitters in the electric streets; # A city saviour, in the orchard # Of lamp-posts and high-volted fruits, # Speaks a steel gospel to the wretched # Wheel-winders and fixers of bolts. ## We hear rise the secret wind behind the brain, # The secret voice cry in our ears, # The city gospel shout to heaven. # Over the electric godhead grows # One God, more mighty than the sun. # The cities have not robbed our eyes. ^ ^ ^ {Take the needles and the knives} ^ ^

^ Take the needles and the knives, # Put an iron at the eyes, # Let a maggot at the ear # Toil away till music dies. ## Let me in the devil's groves # Cut my fingers on a rose, # Let the maggot of despair # Drain the spring where promise goes. ## Take the scissors and the pan, # Let the tiny armies lap, # And the heralds of decay, # At the labyrinthine pap. ## Choke the bladder with a stone, # Fill the veins the fevers broke, # All the cabinned faiths deny # And the feeble house of hope. ## And a child might be my slayer, # And a mother in her labour # Murder with a cry of pain; # Half a smile might be her sabre. ## Let it be a sword of fire, # Lightning or the darting viper, # Thunder's rod or man's machine; # God and I will pay the sniper. ## Flesh is suffered, is laid low, # Mixes, ripens, in the loam; # Spirit suffers but is still # In its labyrinthine home. ## In the wilderness they go, # Flesh and spirit, babe and dam, # Walking in the evening's cool # With the leper and the lamb. ## In the darkness dam and babe # Tremble at the starry stain, # And the ruin of the sky; # Darkness is the dam of pain. ## Take the scissors to this globe, # Firmament of flesh and bone # Lawed and ordered from on high # By a godhead of my own. ## Mother root that shot me forth, # Like a green tree through the sward, # Mothers me until I die, # And my father was the lord. ## When I yield the tree to death, # In the country of the dead # Dam and sire, living, lo, # Will be breathing by my bed. ## Take the needles to this tree # Bowing on its mossy knees, # Stitch the stem on to the leaf, # Let the sap leak in the breeze. ## Thread and torture all the day; # You but wound the lord of days; # Slay me, slay the god of love; # God is slain in many ways. ## Question: Shall the root be true # And the green tree trust the root? # Answer: Shall a mother lie # In the face of seed and fruit? ## Question: When shall root-dam die? # Answer: When her babe denies her. # Question: When shall root-dam grow? # Answer: When the green leaves prize her. ^ ^ ^ {Not forever shall the Lord of the red hail} ^ ^

^ Not forever shall the Lord of the red hail # Hold in his velvet hand the can of blood; # He shall be wise and let his brimstone spill, # Free from their burning nests the arrows' brood. # And sweet shall fall contagion from his side, # And loud his anger stamp upon the hill. ## As fire falls, two hemispheres divide, # Shall drown the boys of battle in their swill, # The stock and steel that bayonet from the mud, # The fields yet undivided behind the skull. # Both mind and matter at the scalding word # Shall fall away, and leave one singing shell. ## A hole in space shall keep the shape of thought, # The lines of earth, the curving of the heart, # And from this darkness spin the golden soul. # Intangible my world shall come to naught, # The solid world shall wither in the heat, # How soon, how soon, O lord of the red hail] ^ ^ ^ {Before we mothernaked fall} ^ ^

^ Before we mothernaked fall # Upon the land of gold or oil, # Between the raid and the response # Of flesh and bones, # Our claim is staked for once and all # Near to the quarry or the well, # Before the promises fulfill # And joys are pains. ## Then take the gusher or the field # Where all the hidden stones are gold, # We have no choice, the choice was made # Before our blood; # And I will build my liquid world, # And you, before the breath is cold # And veins are spilled and doom is turned, # Your solid land. ^ ^ ^ {The sun burns the morning} ^ ^

^ The sun burns the morning, a bush in the brain; # Moon walks the river and raises the dead; # Here in my wilderness wanders the blood; # And the sweat on the brow makes a sign, # And the wailing heart=s nailed to the side. ## Here is a universe bred in the bone, # Here is a saviour who sings like a bird, # Here the night shelters and here the stars shine, # Here a mild baby speaks his first word # In the stable under the skin. ## Under the ribs sail the moon and the sun; # A cross is tatooed on the breast of the child, # And sewn on his skull a scarlet thorn; # A mother in labour pays twice her pain, # Once for the Virgin's child, once for her own. ^ ^ ^ {My hero bares his nerves} ^ ^

^ My hero bares his nerves along my wrist # That rules from wrist to shoulder, # Unpacks the head that, like a sleepy ghost, # Leans on my mortal ruler, # The proud spine spurning turn and twist. ## And these poor nerves so wired to the skull # Ache on the lovelorn paper # I hug to love with my unruly scrawl # That utters all love hunger # And tells the page the empty ill. ## My hero bares my side and sees his heart # Tread, like a naked Venus, # The beach of flesh, and wind her bloodred plait; # Stripping my loin of promise, # He promises a secret heat. ## He holds the wire from this box of nerves # Praising the mortal error # Of birth and death, the two sad knaves of thieves, # And the hunger's emperor; # He pulls the chain, the cistern moves. ^ ^ ^ {Song} ^ ^

^ Love me, not as the dreaming nurses # My falling lungs, nor as the cypress # In his age the lass's clay. # Love me and lift your mask. ## Love me, not as the girls of heaven # Their airy lovers, nor the mermaiden # Her salty lovers in the sea. # Love me and lift your mask. ## Love me, not as the ruffling pigeon # The tops of trees, nor as the legion # Of the gulls the lip of waves. # Love me and lift your mask. ## Love me, as loves the mole his darkness # And the timid deer the tigress: # Hate and fear be your two loves. # Love me and lift your mask. ^ ^ ^ {Through these lashed rings} ^ ^

^ Through these lashed rings set deep inside their hollows # I eye the ring of earth, the airy circle, # My Maker's flesh that garments my clayfellows. # And through these trembling rings set in their valley # Whereon the hooded hair casts down its girdle, # A holy voice acquaints me with His glory. ## Through, I tell you, your two midnight lips I pray # To that unending sea around my island # The water-spirit moves as it is hidden, # And with not one fear-beggared syllable # Praise Him who springs and fills the tidal well. ## And through these eyes God marks myself revolving, # And from these tongue-plucked senses draws His tune; # Inside this mouth I feel His message moving # Acquainting me with my divinity; # And through these ears He harks my fire burn # His awkward heart into some symmetry. ^ ^ ^ {The force that through the green fuse drives the flower} ^ ^

^ The force that through the green fuse drives the flower # Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees # Is my destroyer. # And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose # My youth is bent by the same wintry fever. ## The force that drives the water through the rocks # Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams # Turns mine to wax. # And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins # How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks. ## The hand that whirls the water in the pool # Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind # Hauls my shroud sail. # And I am dumb to tell the hanging man # How of my clay is made the hangman's lime. ## The lips of time leech to the fountain head; # Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood # Shall calm her sores. # And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind # How time has ticked a heaven round the stars. ## And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb # How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm. ^ ^ ^ {From love's first fever to her plague} ^ ^

^ From love's first fever to her plague, from the soft second # And to the hollow minute of the womb, # From the unfolding to the scissored caul, # The time for breast and the green apron age # When no mouth stirred about the hanging famine, # All world was one, one windy nothing, # My world was christened in a stream of milk. # And earth and sky were as one airy hill, # The sun and moon shed one white light. ## From the first print of the unshodden foot, the lifting # Hand, the breaking of the hair, # From the first secret of the heart, the warning ghost, # And to the first dumb wonder at the flesh, # The sun was red, the moon was grey, # The earth and sky were as two mountains meeting. ## The body prospered, teeth in the marrowed gums, # The growing bones, the rumour of manseed # Within the hallowed gland, blood blessed the heart, # And the four winds, that had long blown as one, # Shone in my ears the light of sound, # Called in my eyes the sound of light. # And yellow was the multiplying sand, # Each golden grain spat life into its fellow, # Green was the singing house. ## The plum my mother picked matured slowly, # The boy she dropped from darkness at her side # Into the sided lap of light grew strong, # Was muscled, matted, wise to the crying thigh # And to the voice that, like a voice of hunger, # Itched in the noise of wind and sun. ## And from the first declension of the flesh # I learnt man's tongue, to twist the shapes of thoughts # Into the stony idiom of the brain, # To shade and knit anew the patch of words # Left by the dead who, in their moonless acre, # Need no word's warmth. # The root of tongues ends in a spentout cancer, # That but a name, where maggots have their X. ## I learnt the verbs of will, and had my secret; # The code of night tapped on my tongue; # What had been one was many sounding minded. ## One womb, one mind, spewed out the matter, # One breast gave suck the fever's issue; # From the divorcing sky I learnt the double, # The two-framed globe that spun into a score; # A million minds gave suck to such a bud # As forks my eye; # Youth did condense; the tears of spring # Dissolved in summer and the hundred seasons; # One sun, one manna, warmed and fed. ^ ^ ^ {The almanac of time} ^ ^

^ The almanac of time hangs in the brain; # The seasons numbered by the inward sun, # The winter years, move in the pit of man; # His graph is measured as the page of pain # Shifts to the redwombed pen. ## The calendar of age hangs in the heart, # A lover's thought tears down the dated sheet, # The inch of time=s protracted to a foot # By youth and age, the mortal state and thought # Ageing both day and night. ## The word of time lies on the chaptered bone, # The seed of time is sheltered in the loin: # The grains of life must seethe beneath the sun, # The syllables be said and said again: # Time shall belong to man. ^ ^ ^ {All that I owe the fellows of the grave} ^ ^

^ All that I owe the fellows of the grave # And all the dead bequeath from pale estates # Lies in the fortuned bone, the flask of blood, # Like senna stirs along the ravaged roots. # O all I owe is all the flesh inherits, # My fathers' loves that pull upon my nerves, # My sisters' tears that sing upon my head, # My brothers' blood that salts my open wounds. ## Heir to the scalding veins that hold love's drop, # My fallen filled, that had the hint of death, # Heir to the telling senses that alone # Acquaint the flesh with a remembered itch, # I round this heritage as rounds the sun # His winy sky, and, as the candle's moon, # Cast light upon my weather. I am heir # To women who have twisted their last smile, # To children who were suckled on a plague, # To young adorers dying on a kiss. # All such disease I doctor in my blood, # And all such love=s a shrub sown in the breath. ## Then look, my eyes, upon this bonebound fortune # And browse upon the postures of the dead; # All night and day I eye the ragged globe # Through periscopes rightsighted from the grave; # All night and day I wander in these same # Wax clothes that wax upon the ageing ribs; # All night my fortune slumbers in its sheet. # Then look, my heart, upon the scarlet trove, # And look, my grain, upon the falling wheat; # All night my fortune slumbers in its sheet. ^ ^ ^ {Here lie the beasts} ^ ^

^ Here lie the beasts of man and here I feast, # The dead man said, # And silently I milk the devil's breast. # Here spring the silent venoms of his blood, # Here clings the meat to sever from his side. # Hell=s in the dust. ## Here lies the beast of man and here his angels, # The dead man said, # And silently I milk the buried flowers. # Here drips a silent honey in my shroud, # Here slips the ghost who made of my pale bed # The heaven's house. ^ ^ ^ {Light breaks where no sun shines} ^ ^

^ Light breaks where no sun shines; # Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart # Push in their tides; # And, broken ghosts with glow-worms in their heads, # The things of light # File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones. ## A candle in the thighs # Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age; # Where no seed stirs, # The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars, # Bright as a fig; # Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs. ## Dawn breaks behind the eyes; # From poles of skull and toe the windy blood # Slides like a sea; # Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky # Spout to the rod # Divining in a smile the oil of tears. ## Night in the sockets rounds, # Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes; # Day lights the bone; # Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin # The winter's robes; # The film of spring is hanging from the lids. ## Light breaks on secret lots, # On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain; # When logics die, # The secret of the soil grows through the eye, # And blood jumps in the sun; # Above the waste allotments the dawn halts. ^ ^ ^ {A letter to my aunt discussing the correct approach to modern poetry} ^ ^

^ To you, my aunt, who would explore # The literary Chankley Bore, # The paths are hard, for you are not # A literary Hottentot # But just a kind and cultured dame # Who knows not Eliot (to her shame). # Fie on you, aunt, that you should see # No genius in David G., # No elemental form and sound # In T.S.E. and Ezra Pound. # Fie on you, aunt] I=ll show you how # To elevate your middle brow, # And how to scale and see the sights # From modernist Parnassian heights. ## First buy a hat, no Paris model # But one the Swiss wear when they yodel, # A bowler thing with one or two # Feathers to conceal the view; # And then in sandals walk the street # (All modern painters use their feet # For painting, on their canvas strips, # Their wives or mothers minus hips). ## Perhaps it would be best if you # Created something very new, # A dirty novel done in Erse # Or written backwards in Welsh verse, # Or paintings on the backs of vests, # Or Sanskrit psalms on lepers' chests. # But if this proved imposs-i-ble # Perhaps it would be just as well, # For you could then write what you please, # And modern verse is done with ease. ## Do not forget that "limpet$ rhymes # With "strumpet$ in these troubled times, # And commas are the worst of crimes; # Few understand the works of Cummings, # And few James Joyce's mental slummings, # And few young Auden's coded chatter; # But then it is the few that matter. # Never be lucid, never state, # If you would be regarded great, # The simplest thought or sentiment, # (For thought, we know, is decadent); # Never omit such vital words # As belly, genitals, and %, # For these are things that play a part # (And what a part) in all good art. # Remember this: each rose is wormy, # And every lovely woman=s germy; # Remember this: that love depends # On how the Gallic letter bends; # Remember, too, that life is hell # And even heaven has a smell # Of putrefying angels who # Make deadly whoopee in the blue. # These things remembered, what can stop # A poet going to the top? ## A final word: before you start # The convulsions of your art, # Remove your brains, take out your heart; # Minus these curses, you can be # A genius like David G. ## Take courage, aunt, and send your stuff # To Geoffrey Grigson with my luff, # And may I yet live to admire # How well your poems light the fire. ^ ^ ^ {See, says the lime} ^ ^

^ See, says the lime, my wicked milks # I put round ribs that packed their heart, # And elbowed veins that, nudging blood, # Roused it to fire; # Once in this clay fenced by the sticks # That starry fence the clay of light # The howling spirit shaped a god # Of death's undoer. ## On these blue lips, the lime remarks, # The wind of kisses sealed a pact # That leaping veins threw to the wind # And brains turned sour; # The blood got up as red as wax # As kisses froze the waxing thought, # The spirit racked its muscles and # The loins cried murder. ## The strings of fire choked his sex # And tied an iris in his throat # To burst into a hanging land # Where flesh's fever # Itched on the hangman's silks; # The brains of death undid the knot # Before the blood and flame were twined # In love's last collar. # See, says the lime, around these wrecks # Of growing bones the muscles slid; # I chalked upon the breastbone's slate # And ran a river # Up through the fingers' cracks; # The milk of death, I filled the hand # That drove my stuff through skin and gut; # Death=s death's undoer. ^ ^ ^ {This bread I break} ^ ^

^ This bread I break was once the oat, # This wine upon a foreign tree # Plunged in its fruit; # Man in the day or wind at night # Laid the crops low, broke the grape's joy. ## Once in this wine the summer blood # Knocked in the flesh that decked the vine, # Once in this bread # The oat was merry in the wind; # Man broke the sun, pulled the wind down. ## This flesh you break, this blood you let # Make desolation in the vein, # Were oat and grape # Born of the sensual root and sap; # My wine you drink, my bread you snap. ^ ^ ^ {Your pain shall be a music} ^ ^

^ Your pain shall be a music in your string # And fill the mouths of heaven with your tongue # Your pain shall be # O my unborn # A vein of mine # Made fast by me. ## Your string shall stretch a gully twixt the thumbs # Whose flaming blood shall rub it at the rims # Your pain shall be # O my unsown # A ragged vein # Twixt you and me. ## Your pain shall be a meaning in your lips # As milk shall be a music in the paps # Your pain shall be # O my unknown # A stream of mine # Not milked by me. ## Your pain shall not unmilk you of the food # That drops to make a music in your blood # Your pain shall be # O my undone # Flesh blood and bone # Surrounding me. ^ ^ ^ {A process in the weather of the heart} ^ ^

^ A process in the weather of the heart # Turns damp to dry; the golden shot # Storms in the freezing tomb. # A weather in the quarter of the veins # Turns night to day; blood in their suns # Lights up the living worm. ## A process in the eye forewarns # The bones of blindness; and the womb # Drives in a death as life leaks out. ## A darkness in the weather of the eye # Is half its light; the fathomed sea # Breaks on unangled land. # The seed that makes a forest of the loin # Forks half its fruit; and half drops down, # Slow in a sleeping wind. ## A weather in the flesh and bone # Is damp and dry; the quick and dead # Move like two ghosts before the eye. ## A process in the weather of the world # Turns ghost to ghost; each mothered child # Sits in their double shade. # A process blows the moon into the sun, # Pulls down the shabby curtains of the skin; # And the heart gives up its dead. ^ ^ ^ {Our eunuch dreams} ^ ^

^ {i} ^ Our eunuch dreams, all seedless in the light, # Of light and love, the tempers of the heart, # Whack their boys' limbs, # And, winding-footed in their shawl and sheet, # Groom the dark brides, the widows of the night # Fold in their arms. ## The shades of girls, all flavoured from their shrouds, # When sunlight goes are sundered from the worm, # The bones of men, the broken in their beds, # By midnight pulleys that unhouse the tomb. ^ {ii} ^ In this our age the gunman and his moll, # Two one-dimensioned ghosts, love on a reel, # Strange to our solid eye, # And speak their midnight nothings as they swell; # When cameras shut they hurry to their hole # Down in the yard of day. ## They dance between their arclamps and our skull, # Impose their shots, throwing the nights away; # We watch the show of shadows kiss or kill, # Flavoured of celluloid give love the lie. ^ {iii} ^ Which is the world? Of our two sleepings, which # Shall fall awake when cures and their itch # Raise up this red-eyed earth? # Pack off the shapes of daylight and their starch, # The sunny gentlemen, the Welshing rich, # Or drive the night-geared forth. ## The photograph is married to the eye, # Grafts on its bride one-sided skins of truth; # The dream has sucked the sleeper of his faith # That shrouded men might marrow as they fly. ^ {iv} ^ This is the world: the lying likeness of # Our strips of stuff that tatter as we move # Loving and being loth; # The dream that kicks the buried from their sack # And lets their trash be honoured as the quick. # This is the world. Have faith. ## For we shall be a shouter like the cock, # Blowing the old dead back; our shots shall smack # The image from the plates; # And we shall be fit fellows for a life, # And who remain shall flower as they love, # Praise to our faring hearts. ^ ^ ^ ^ {Where once the waters of your face} ^ ^

^ Where once the waters of your face # Spun to my screws, your dry ghost blows, # The dead turns up its eye; # Where once the mermen through your ice # Pushed up their hair, the dry wind steers # Through salt and root and roe. ## Where once your green knots sank their splice # Into the tided cord, there goes # The green unraveller, # His scissors oiled, his knife hung loose # To cut the channels at their source # And lay the wet fruits low. ## Invisible, your clocking tides # Break on the lovebeds of the weeds; # The weed of love=s left dry; # There round about your stones the shades # Of children go who, from their voids, # Cry to the dolphined sea. ## Dry as a tomb, your coloured lids # Shall not be latched while magic glides # Sage on the earth and sky; # There shall be corals in your beds, # There shall be serpents in your tides, # Till all our sea-faiths die. ^ ^ ^ {I see the boys of summer} ^ ^

^ {i} ^ I see the boys of summer in their ruin # Lay the gold tithings barren, # Setting no store by harvest, freeze the soils; # There in their heat the winter floods # Of frozen loves they fetch their girls, # And drown the cargoed apples in their tides. ## These boys of light are curdlers in their folly, # Sour the boiling honey; # The jacks of frost they finger in the hives; # There in the sun the frigid threads # Of doubt and dark they feed their nerves; # The signal moon is zero in their voids. ## I see the summer children in their mothers # Split up the brawned womb's weathers, # Divide the night and day with fairy thumbs; # There in the deep with quartered shades # Of sun and moon they paint their dams # As sunlight paints the shelling of their heads. ## I see that from these boys shall men of nothing # Stature by seedy shifting, # Or lame the air with leaping from its heats; # There from their hearts the dogdayed pulse # Of love and light bursts in their throats. # O see the pulse of summer in the ice. ^ {ii} ^ But seasons must be challenged or they totter # Into a chiming quarter # Where, punctual as death, we ring the stars; # There, in his night, the black-tongued bells # The sleepy man of winter pulls, # Nor blows back moon-and-midnight as she blows. ## We are the dark deniers, let us summon # Death from a summer woman, # A muscling life from lovers in their cramp, # From the fair dead who flush the sea # The bright-eyed worm on Davy's lamp, # And from the planted womb the man of straw. ## We summer boys in this four-winded spinning, # Green of the seaweeds' iron, # Hold up the noisy sea and drop her birds, # Pick the world's ball of wave and froth # To choke the deserts with her tides, # And comb the county gardens for a wreath. ## In spring we cross our foreheads with the holly, # Heigh ho the blood and berry, # And nail the merry squires to the trees; # Here love's damp muscle dries and dies, # Here break a kiss in no love's quarry. # O see the poles of promise in the boys. ^ {iii} ^ I see you boys of summer in your ruin. # Man in his maggot's barren. # And boys are full and foreign in the pouch. # I am the man your father was. # We are the sons of flint and pitch. # O see the poles are kissing as they cross. ^ ^ ^ {In the beginning} ^ ^

^ In the beginning was the three-pointed star, # One smile of light across the empty face; # One bough of bone across the rooting air, # The substance forked that marrowed the first sun; # And, burning ciphers on the round of space, # Heaven and hell mixed as they spun. ## In the beginning was the pale signature, # Three-syllabled and starry as the smile; # And after came the imprints on the water, # Stamp of the minted face upon the moon; # The blood that touched the crosstree and the grail # Touched the first cloud and left a sign. ## In the beginning was the mounting fire # That set alight the weathers from a spark, # A three-eyed, red-eyed spark, blunt as a flower; # Life rose and spouted from the rolling seas, # Burst in the roots, pumped from the earth and rock # The secret oils that drive the grass. ## In the beginning was the word, the word # That from the solid bases of the light # Abstracted all the letters of the void; # And from the cloudy bases of the breath # The word flowed up, translating to the heart # First characters of birth and death. ## In the beginning was the secret brain. # The brain was celled and soldered in the thought # Before the pitch was forking to a sun; # Before the veins were shaking in their sieve, # Blood shot and scattered to the winds of light # The ribbed original of love. ^ ^ ^ {If I were tickled by the rub of love} ^ ^

^ If I were tickled by the rub of love, # A rooking girl who stole me for her side, # Broke through her straws, breaking my bandaged string, # If the red tickle as the cattle calve # Still set to scratch a laughter from my lung, # I would not fear the apple nor the flood # Nor the bad blood of spring. ## Shall it be male or female? say the cells, # And drop the plum like fire from the flesh. # If I were tickled by the hatching hair, # The winging bone that sprouted in the heels, # The itch of man upon the baby's thigh, # I would not fear the gallows nor the axe # Nor the crossed sticks of war. ## Shall it be male or female? say the fingers # That chalk the walls with green girls and their men. # I would not fear the muscling-in of love # If I were tickled by the urchin hungers # Rehearsing heat upon a raw-edged nerve. # I would not fear the devil in the loin # Nor the outspoken grave. ## If I were tickled by the lovers' rub # That wipes away not crow's-foot nor the lock # Of sick old manhood on the fallen jaws, # Time and the crabs and the sweethearting crib # Would leave me cold as butter for the flies, # The sea of scums could drown me as it broke # Dead on the sweethearts' toes. ## This world is half the devil's and my own, # Daft with the drug that=s smoking in a girl # And curling round the bud that forks her eye. # An old man's shank one-marrowed with my bone, # And all the herrings smelling in the sea, # I sit and watch the worm beneath my nail # Wearing the quick away. ## And that=s the rub, the only rub that tickles. # The knobbly ape that swings along his sex # From damp love-darkness and the nurse's twist # Can never raise the midnight of a chuckle, # Nor when he finds a beauty in the breast # Of lover, mother, lovers, or his six # Feet in the rubbing dust. ## And what=s the rub? Death's feather on the nerve? # Your mouth, my love, the thistle in the kiss? # My Jack of Christ born thorny on the tree? # The words of death are dryer than his stiff, # My wordy wounds are printed with your hair. # I would be tickled by the rub that is: # Man be my metaphor. ^ ^ ^ {Twelve} ^ ^

^ That the sum sanity might add to naught # And words fall crippled from the slaving lips, # Girls take to broomsticks when the thief of night # Has stolen the starved babies from their laps, # I would enforce the black apparelled cries, # Speak like a hungry parson of the manna, # Add one more nail of praise on to the cross, # And talk of light to a mad miner. # I would be woven a religious shape; # As fleeced as they bow lowly with the sheep, # My house would fall like bread about my homage; # And I would choke the heavens with my hymn # That men might see the devil in the crumb # And the death in a starving image. ^ ^ ^ ^ {When once the twilight locks no longer} ^ ^

^ When once the twilight locks no longer # Locked in the long worm of my finger # Nor damned the sea that sped about my fist, # The mouth of time sucked, like a sponge, # The milky acid on each hinge, # And swallowed dry the waters of the breast. ## When the galactic sea was sucked # And all the dry seabed unlocked, # I sent my creature scouting on the globe, # That globe itself of hair and bone # That, sewn to me by nerve and brain, # Had stringed my flask of matter to his rib. ## My fuses timed to charge his heart, # He blew like powder to the light # And held a little sabbath with the sun, # But when the stars, assuming shape, # Drew in his eyes the straws of sleep, # He drowned his father's magics in a dream. ## All issue armoured, of the grave, # The redhaired cancer still alive, # The cataracted eyes that filmed their cloth; # Some dead undid their bushy jaws, # And bags of blood let out their flies; # He had by heart the Christ-cross-row of death. ## Sleep navigates the tides of time; # The dry Sargasso of the tomb # Gives up its dead to such a working sea; # And sleep rolls mute above the beds # Where fishes' food is fed the shades # Who periscope through flowers to the sky. ## When once the twilight screws were turned, # And mother milk was stiff as sand, # I sent my own ambassador to light; # By trick or chance he fell asleep # And conjured up a carcass shape # To rob me of my fluids in his heart. ## Awake, my sleeper, to the sun, # A worker in the morning town, # And leave the poppied pickthank where he lies; # The fences of the light are down, # All but the briskest riders thrown, # And worlds hang on the trees. ^ ^ ^ {Especially when the October wind} ^ ^

^ Especially when the October wind # With frosty fingers punishes my hair, # Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire # And cast a shadow crab upon the land, # By the sea's side, hearing the noise of birds, # Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks, # My busy heart who shudders as she talks # Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words. ## Shut, too, in a tower of words, I mark # On the horizon walking like the trees # The wordy shapes of women, and the rows # Of the star-gestured children in the park. # Some let me make you of the vowelled beeches, # Some of the oaken voices, from the roots # Of many a thorny shire tell you notes, # Some let me make you of the water's speeches. ## Behind a pot of ferns the wagging clock # Tells me the hour's word, the neural meaning # Flies on the shafted disk, declaims the morning # And tells the windy weather in the cock. # Some let me make you of the meadow's signs; # The signal grass that tells me all I know # Breaks with the wormy winter through the eye. # Some let me tell you of the raven's sins. ## Especially when the October wind # (Some let me make you of autumnal spells, # The spider-tongued, and the loud hill of Wales) # With fists of turnips punishes the land, # Some let me make you of the heartless words. # The heart is drained that, spelling in the scurry # Of chemic blood, warned of the coming fury. # By the sea's side hear the dark-vowelled birds. ^ ^ ^ {When, like a running grave} ^ ^

^ When, like a running grave, time tracks you down, # Your calm and cuddled is a scythe of hairs, # Love in her gear is slowly through the house, # Up naked stairs, a turtle in a hearse, # Hauled to the dome, ## Comes, like a scissors stalking, tailor age, # Deliver me who, timid in my tribe, # Of love am barer than Cadaver's trap # Robbed of the foxy tongue, his footed tape # Of the bone inch, ## Deliver me, my masters, head and heart, # Heart of Cadaver's candle waxes thin, # When blood, spade-handed, and the logic time # Drive children up like bruises to the thumb, # From maid and head, ## For, sunday faced, with dusters in my glove, # Chaste and the chaser, man with the cockshut eye, # I, that time's jacket or the coat of ice # May fail to fasten with a virgin o # In the straight grave, ## Stride through Cadaver's country in my force, # My pickbrain masters morsing on the stone # Despair of blood, faith in the maiden's slime, # Halt among eunuchs, and the nitric stain # On fork and face. ## Time is a foolish fancy, time and fool. # No, no, you lover skull, descending hammer # Descends, my masters, on the entered honour. # You hero skull, Cadaver in the hangar # Tells the stick, "fail$. ## Joy is no knocking nation, sir and madam, # The cancer's fusion, or the summer feather # Lit on the cuddled tree, the cross of fever, # Nor city tar and subway bored to foster # Man through macadam. ## I damp the waxlights in your tower dome. # Joy is the knock of dust, Cadaver's shoot # Of bud of Adam through his boxy shift, # Love's twilit nation and the skull of state, # Sir, is your doom. ## Everything ends, the tower ending and, # (Have with the house of wind), the leaning scene, # Ball of the foot depending from the sun, # (Give, summer, over), the cemented skin, # The actions' end. ## All, men my madmen, the unwholesome wind # With whistler's cough contages, time on track # Shapes in a cinder death; love for his trick, # Happy Cadaver's hunger as you take # The kissproof world. ^ ^ ^ {I fellowed sleep} ^ ^

^ I fellowed sleep who kissed me in the brain, # Let fall the tear of time; the sleeper's eye, # Shifting to light, turned on me like a moon. # So, planing-heeled, I flew along my man # And dropped on dreaming and the upward sky. ## I fled the earth and, naked, climbed the weather, # Reaching a second ground far from the stars; # And there we wept, I and a ghostly other, # My mothers-eyed, upon the tops of trees; # I fled that ground as lightly as a feather. ## "My fathers' globe knocks on its nave and sings.$ # "This that we tread was, too, your fathers' land.$ # "But this we tread bears the angelic gangs, # Sweet are their fathered faces in their wings.$ # "These are but dreaming men. Breathe, and they fade.$ ## faded my elbow ghost, the mothers-eyed, # As, blowing on the angels, I was lost # On that cloud coast to each grave-gabbing shade; # I blew the dreaming fellows to their bed # Where still they sleep unknowing of their ghost. ## Then all the matter of the living air # Raised up a voice, and, climbing on the words, # I spelt my vision with a hand and hair, # How light the sleeping on this soily star, # How deep the waking in the worlded clouds. ## There grows the hours' ladder to the sun, # Each rung a love or losing to the last, # The inches monkeyed by the blood of man. # An old, mad man still climbing in his ghost, # My fathers' ghost is climbing in the rain. ^ ^ ^ {I dreamed my genesis} ^ ^

^ I dreamed my genesis in sweat of sleep, breaking # Through the rotating shell, strong # As motor muscle on the drill, driving # Through vision and the girdered nerve, ## From limbs that had the measure of the worm, shuffled # Off from the creasing flesh, filed # Through all the irons in the grass, metal # Of suns in the man-melting night. ## Heir to the scalding veins that hold love's drop, costly # A creature in my bones I # Rounded my globe of heritage, journey # In bottom gear through night-geared man. ## I dreamed my genesis and died again, shrapnel # Rammed in the marching heart, hole # In the stitched wound and clotted wind, muzzled # Death on the mouth that ate the gas. ## Sharp in my second death I marked the hills, harvest # Of hemlock and the blades, rust # My blood upon the tempered dead, forcing # My second struggling from the grass. ## And power was contagious in my birth, second # Rise of the skeleton and # Rerobing of the naked ghost. Manhood # Spat up from the resuffered pain. ## I dreamed my genesis in sweat of death, fallen # Twice in the feeding sea, grown # Stale of Adam's brine until, vision # Of new man strength, I seek the sun. ^ ^ ^ {My world is pyramid} ^ ^

^ {i} ^ Half of the fellow father as he doubles # His sea-sucked Adam in the hollow hulk, # Half of the fellow mother as she dabbles # To-morrow's diver in her horny milk, # Bisected shadows on the thunder's bone # Bolt for the salt unborn. ## The fellow half was frozen as it bubbled # Corrosive spring out of the iceberg's crop, # The fellow seed and shadow as it babbled # The swing of milk was tufted in the pap, # For half of love was planted in the lost, # And the unplanted ghost. ## The broken halves are fellowed in a cripple, # The crutch that marrow taps upon their sleep, # Limp in the street of sea, among the rabble # Of tide-tongued heads and bladders in the deep, # And stake the sleepers in the savage grave # That the vampire laugh. ## The patchwork halves were cloven as they scudded # The wild pigs' wood, and slime upon the trees, # Sucking the dark, kissed on the cyanide, # And loosed the braiding adders from their hairs; # Rotating halves are horning as they drill # The arterial angel. ## What colour is glory? death's feather? tremble # The halves that pierce the pin's point in the air, # And prick the thumb-stained heaven through the thimble. # The ghost is dumb that stammered in the straw, # The ghost that hatched his havoc as he flew # Blinds their cloud-tracking eye. ^ {ii} ^ My world is pyramid. The padded mummer # Weeps on the desert ochre and the salt # Incising summer. # My Egypt's armour buckling in its sheet, # I scrape through resin to a starry bone # And a blood parhelion. ## My world is cypress, and an English valley. # I piece my flesh that rattled on the yards # Red in an Austrian volley. # I hear, through dead men's drums, the riddled lads, # Strewing their bowels from a hill of bones, # Cry Eloi to the guns. ## My grave is watered by the crossing Jordan. # The Arctic scut, and basin of the South, # Drip on my dead house garden. # Who seek me landward, marking in my mouth # The straws of Asia, lose me as I turn # Through the Atlantic corn. ## The fellow halves that, cloven as they swivel # On casting tides, are tangled in the shells, # Bearding the unborn devil, # Bleed from my burning fork and smell my heels. # The tongues of heaven gossip as I glide # Binding my angel's hood. ## Who blows death's feather? What glory is colour? # I blow the stammel feather in the vein. # The loin is glory in a working pallor. # My clay unsuckled and my salt unborn, # The secret child, I shift about the sea # Dry in the half-tracked thigh. ^ ^ ^ {All all and all the dry worlds lever} ^ ^

^ {i} ^ All all and all the dry worlds lever, # Stage of the ice, the solid ocean, # All from the oil, the pound of lava. # City of spring, the governed flower, # Turns in the earth that turns the ashen # Towns around on a wheel of fire. ## How now my flesh, my naked fellow, # Dug of the sea, the glanded morrow, # Worm in the scalp, the staked and fallow. # All all and all, the corpse's lover, # Skinny as sin, the foaming marrow, # All of the flesh, the dry worlds lever. ^ {ii} ^ Fear not the working world, my mortal, # Fear not the flat, synthetic blood, # Nor the heart in the ribbing metal. # Fear not the tread, the seeded milling, # The trigger and scythe, the bridal blade, # Nor the flint in the lover's mauling. ## Man of my flesh, the jawbone riven, # Know now the flesh's lock and vice, # And the cage for the scythe-eyed raven. # Know, O my bone, the jointed lever, # Fear not the screws that turn the voice, # And the face to the driven lover. ^ {iii} ^ All all and all the dry worlds couple, # Ghost with her ghost, contagious man # With the womb of his shapeless people. # All that shapes from the caul and suckle, # Stroke of mechanical flesh on mine, # Square in these worlds the mortal circle. ## Flower, flower the people's fusion, # O light in zenith, the coupled bud, # And the flame in the flesh's vision. # Out of the sea, the drive of oil, # Socket and grave, the brassy blood, # Flower, flower, all all and all. ^ ^ ^ {Grief thief of time} ^ ^

^ Grief thief of time crawls off, # The moon-drawn grave, with the seafaring years, # The knave of pain steals off # The sea-halved faith that blew time to his knees, # The old forget the cries, # Lean time on tide and times the wind stood rough, # Call back the castaways # Riding the sea light on a sunken path, # The old forget the grief, # Hack of the cough, the hanging albatross, # Cast back the bone of youth # And salt-eyed stumble bedward where she lies # Who tossed the high tide in a time of stories # And timelessly lies loving with the thief. ## Now Jack my fathers let the time-faced crook, # Death flashing from his sleeve, # With swag of bubbles in a seedy sack # Sneak down the stallion grave, # Bull's-eye the outlaw through a eunuch crack # And free the twin-boxed grief, # No silver whistles chase him down the weeks' # Dayed peaks to day to death, # These stolen bubbles have the bites of snakes # And the undead eye-teeth, # No third eye probe into a rainbow's sex # That bridged the human halves, # All shall remain and on the graveward gulf # Shape with my fathers' thieves. ^ ^ ^ {I, in my intricate image} ^ ^

^ {i} ^ I, in my intricate image, stride on two levels, # Forged in man's minerals, the brassy orator # Laying my ghost in metal, # The scales of this twin world tread on the double, # My half ghost in armour hold hard in death's corridor, # To my man-iron sidle. ## Beginning with doom in the bulb, the spring unravels, # Bright as her spinning-wheels, the colic season # Worked on a world of petals; # She threads off the sap and needles, blood and bubble # Casts to the pine roots, raising man like a mountain # Out of the naked entrail. # Beginning with doom in the ghost, and the springing marvels, # Image of images, my metal phantom # Forcing forth through the harebell, # My man of leaves and the bronze root, mortal, unmortal, # I, in my fusion of rose and male motion, # Create this twin miracle. ## This is the fortune of manhood: the natural peril, # A steeplejack tower, bonerailed and masterless, # No death more natural; # Thus the shadowless man or ox, and the pictured devil, # In seizure of silence commit the dead nuisance: # The natural parallel. ## My images stalk the trees and the slant sap's tunnel, # No tread more perilous, the green steps and spire # Mount on man's footfall, # I with the wooden insect in the tree of nettles, # In the glass bed of grapes with snail and flower, # Hearing the weather fall. ## Intricate manhood of ending, the invalid rivals, # Voyaging clockwise off the symboled harbour, # Finding the water final, # On the consumptives' terrace taking their two farewells, # Sail on the level, the departing adventure, # To the sea-blown arrival. ^ {ii} ^ They climb the country pinnacle, # Twelve winds encounter by the white host at pasture, # Corner the mounted meadows in the hill corral; # They see the squirrel stumble, # The haring snail go giddily round the flower, # A quarrel of weathers and trees in the windy spiral. # As they dive, the dust settles, # The cadaverous gravels, falls thick and steadily, # The highroad of water where the seabear and mackerel # Turn the long sea arterial # Turning a petrol face blind to the enemy # Turning the riderless dead by the channel wall. ## (Death instrumental, # Splitting the long eye open, and the spiral turnkey, # Your corkscrew grave centred in navel and nipple, # The neck of the nostril, # Under the mask and the ether, they, making bloody # The tray of knives, the antiseptic funeral, ## Bring out the black patrol, # Your monstrous officers and the decaying army, # The sexton sentinel, garrisoned under thistles, # A cock-on-a-dunghill # Crowing to Lazarus the morning is vanity, # Dust be your saviour under the conjured soil.) ## As they drown, the chime travels, # Sweetly the diver's bell in the steeple of spindrift # Rings out the Dead Sea scale; # And, clapped in water till the triton dangles, # Strung by the flaxen whale-weed, from the hangman's raft, # Hear they the salt glass breakers and the tongues of burial. ## (Turn the sea-spindle lateral, # The grooved land rotating, that the stylus of lightning # Dazzle this face of voices on the moon-turned table, # Let the wax disk babble # Shames and the damp dishonours, the relic scraping. # These are your years' recorders. The circular world stands + still.) ^ {iii} ^ They suffer the undead water where the turtle nibbles, # Come unto sea-stuck towers, at the fibre scaling, # The flight of the carnal skull # And the cell-stepped thimble; # Suffer, my topsy-turvies, that a double angel # Sprout from the stony lockers like a tree on Aran. ## Be by your one ghost pierced, his pointed ferrule, # Brass and the bodiless image, on a stick of folly # Star-set at Jacob's angle, # Smoke hill and hophead's valley. # And the five-fathomed Hamlet on his father's coral, # Thrusting the tom-thumb vision up the iron mile. ## Suffer the slash of vision by the fin-green stubble, # Be by the ships' sea broken at the manstring anchored # The stoved bones' voyage downward # In the shipwreck of muscle; # Give over, lovers, locking, and the seawax struggle, # Love like a mist or fire through the bed of eels. ## And in the pincers of the boiling circle, # The sea and instrument, nicked in the locks of time, # My great blood's iron single # In the pouring town, # I, in a wind on fire, from green Adam's cradle, # No man more magical, clawed out the crocodile. ## Man was the scales, the death birds on enamel, # Tail, Nile, and snout, a saddler of the rushes, # Time in the hourless houses # Shaking the sea-hatched skull, # And, as for oils and ointments on the flying grail, # All-hollowed man wept for his white apparel. ## Man was Cadaver's masker, the harnessing mantle, # Windily master of man was the rotten fathom, # My ghost in his metal neptune # Forged in man's mineral. # This was the god of beginning in the intricate seawhirl, # And my images roared and rose on heaven's hill. ^ ^ ^ {Do you not father me} ^ ^

^ Do you not father me, nor the erected arm # For my tall tower's sake cast in her stone? # Do you not mother me, nor, as I am, # The lovers' house, lie suffering my stain? # Do you not sister me, nor the erected crime # For my tall turrets carry as your sin? # Do you not brother me, nor, as you climb, # Adore my windows for their summer scene? ## Am I not father, too, and the ascending boy, # The boy of woman and the wanton starer # Marking the flesh and summer in the bay? # Am I not sister, too, who is my saviour? # Am I not all of you by the directed sea # Where bird and shell are babbling in my tower? # Am I not you who front the tidy shore, # Nor roof of sand, nor yet the towering tiler? ## You are all these, said she who gave me the long suck, # All these, he said who sacked the children's town, # Up rose the Abraham-man, mad for my sake, # They said, who hacked and humoured, they were mine. # I am, the tower told, felled by a timeless stroke, # Who razed my wooden folly stands aghast, # For man-begetters in the dry-as-paste, # The ringed-sea ghost, rise grimly from the wrack. ## Do you not father me on the destroying sand? # You are your sisters' sire, said seaweedy, # The salt sucked dam and darlings of the land # Who play the proper gentleman and lady. # Shall I still be love's house on the widdershin earth, # Woe to the windy masons at my shelter? # Love's house, they answer, and the tower death # Lie all unknowing of the grave sin-eater. ^ ^ ^ {How soon the servant sun} ^ ^

^ How soon the servant sun, # (Sir morrow mark), # Can time unriddle, and the cupboard stone, # (Fog has a bone # He=ll trumpet into meat), # Unshelve that all my gristles have a gown # And the naked egg stand straight, ## Sir morrow at his sponge, # (The wound records), # The nurse of giants by the cut sea basin, # (Fog by his spring # Soaks up the sewing tides), # Tells you and you, my masters, as his strange # Man morrow blows through food. ## All nerves to serve the sun, # The rite of light, # A claw I question from the mouse's bone, # The long-tailed stone # Trap I with coil and sheet, # Let the soil squeal I am the biting man # And the velvet dead inch out. ## How soon my level, lord, # (Sir morrow stamps # Two heels of water on the floor of seed), # Shall raise a lamp # Or spirit up a cloud, # Erect a walking centre in the shroud, # Invisible on the stump ## A leg as long as trees, # This inward sir, # Mister and master, darkness for his eyes, # The womb-eyed, cries, # And all sweet hell, deaf as an hour's ear, # Blasts back the trumpet voice. ^ ^ ^ {A grief ago} ^ ^

^ A grief ago, # She who was who I hold, the fats and flower, # Or, water-lammed, from the scythe-sided thorn, # Hell wind and sea, # A stem cementing, wrestled up the tower, # Rose maid and male, # Or, masted venus, through the paddler's bowl # Sailed up the sun; ## Who is my grief, # A chrysalis unwrinkling on the iron, # Wrenched by my fingerman, the leaden bud # Shot through the leaf, # Was who was folded on the rod the aaron # Rose cast to plague, # The horn and ball of water on the frog # Housed in the side. ## And she who lies, # Like exodus a chapter from the garden, # Brand of the lily's anger on her ring, # Tugged through the days # Her ropes of heritage, the wars of pardon, # On field and sand # The twelve triangles of the cherub wind # Engraving going. ## Who then is she, # She holding me? The people's sea drives on her, # Drives out the father from the caesared camp; # The dens of shape # Shape all her whelps with the long voice of water, # That she I have, # The country-handed grave boxed into love, # Rise before dark. ## The night is near, # A nitric shape that leaps her, time and acid; # I tell her this: before the suncock cast # Her bone to fire, # Let her inhale her dead, through seed and solid # Draw in their seas, # So cross her hand with their grave gipsy eyes, # And close her fist. ^ ^ ^ {Should lanterns shine} ^ ^

^ Should lanterns shine, the holy face, # Caught in an octagon of unaccustomed light, # Would wither up, and any boy of love # Look twice before he fell from grace. # The features in their private dark # Are formed of flesh, but let the false day come # And from her lips the faded pigments fall, # The mummy cloths expose an ancient breast. ## I have been told to reason by the heart, # But heart, like head, leads helplessly; # I have been told to reason by the pulse, # And, when it quickens, alter the actions' pace # Till field and roof lie level and the same # So fast I move defying time, the quiet gentleman # Whose beard wags in Egyptian wind. ## I have heard many years of telling, # And many years should see some change. ## The ball I threw while playing in the park # Has not yet reached the ground. ^ ^ ^ {Altarwise by owl-light} ^ ^

^ {i} ^ Altarwise by owl-light in the half-way house # The gentleman lay graveward with his furies; # Abaddon in the hangnail cracked from Adam, # And, from his fork, a dog among the fairies, # The atlas-eater with a jaw for news, # Bit out the mandrake with to-morrow's scream. # Then, penny-eyed, that gentleman of wounds, # Old cock from nowheres and the heaven's egg, # With bones unbuttoned to the half-way winds, # Hatched from the windy salvage on one leg, # Scraped at my cradle in a walking word # That night of time under the Christward shelter: # I am the long world's gentleman, he said, # And share my bed with Capricorn and Cancer. ^ {ii} ^ Death is all metaphors, shape in one history; # The child that sucketh long is shooting up, # The planet-ducted pelican of circles # Weans on an artery the gender's strip; # Child of the short spark in a shapeless country # Soon sets alight a long stick from the cradle; # The horizontal cross-bones of Abaddon, # You by the cavern over the black stairs, # Rung bone and blade, the verticals of Adam, # And, manned by midnight, Jacob to the stars. # Hairs of your head, then said the hollow agent, # Are but the roots of nettles and of feathers # Over these groundworks thrusting through a pavement # And hemlock-headed in the wood of weathers. ^ {iii} ^ First there was the lamb on knocking knees # And three dead seasons on a climbing grave # That Adam's wether in the flock of horns, # Butt of the tree-tailed worm that mounted Eve, # Horned down with skullfoot and the skull of toes # On thunderous pavements in the garden time; # Rip of the vaults, I took my marrow-ladle # Out of the wrinkled undertaker's van, # And, Rip Van Winkle from a timeless cradle, # Dipped me breast-deep in the descending bone; # The black ram, shuffling of the year, old winter, # Alone alive among his mutton fold, # We rung our weathering changes on the ladder, # Said the antipodes, and twice spring chimed. ^ {iv} ^ What is the metre of the dictionary? # The size of genesis? the short spark's gender? # Shade without shape? the shape of Pharaoh's echo? # (My shape of age nagging the wounded whisper.) # Which sixth of wind blew out the burning gentry? # (Questions are hunchbacks to the poker marrow.) # What of a bamboo man among your acres? # Corset the boneyards for a crooked boy? # Button your bodice on a hump of splinters, # My camel's eyes will needle through the shroud. # Love's reflection of the mushroom features, # Stills snapped by night in the bread-sided field, # Once close-up smiling in the wall of pictures, # Arc-lamped thrown back upon the cutting flood. ^ {v} ^ And from the windy West came two-gunned Gabriel, # From Jesu's sleeve trumped up the king of spots, # The sheath-decked jacks, queen with a shuffled heart; # Said the fake gentleman in suit of spades, # Black-tongued and tipsy from salvation's bottle. # Rose my Byzantine Adam in the night. # For loss of blood I fell on Ishmael's plain, # Under the milky mushrooms slew my hunger, # A climbing sea from Asia had me down # And Jonah's Moby snatched me by the hair, # Cross-stroked salt Adam to the frozen angel # Pin-legged on pole-hills with a black medusa # By waste seas where the white bear quoted Virgil # And sirens singing from our lady's sea-straw. ^ {vi} ^ Cartoon of slashes on the tide-traced crater, # He in a book of water tallow-eyed # By lava's light split through the oyster vowels # And burned sea silence on a wick of words. # Pluck, cock, my sea eye, said medusa's scripture, # Lop, love, my fork tongue, said the pin-hilled nettle; # And love plucked out the stinging siren's eye, # Old cock from nowheres lopped the minstrel tongue # Till tallow I blew from the wax's tower # The fats of midnight when the salt was singing; # Adam, time's joker, on a witch of cardboard # Spelt out the seven seas, an evil index, # The bagpipe-breasted ladies in the deadweed # Blew out the blood gauze through the wound of manwax. ^ {vii} ^ Now stamp the Lord's Prayer on a grain of rice, # A Bible-leaved of all the written woods # Strip to this tree: a rocking alphabet, # Genesis in the root, the scarecrow word, # And one light's language in the book of trees. # Doom on deniers at the wind-turned statement. # Time's tune my ladies with the teats of music, # The scaled sea-sawers, fix in a naked sponge # Who sucks the bell-voiced Adam out of magic, # Time, milk, and magic, from the world beginning. # Time is the tune my ladies lend their heartbreak, # From bald pavilions and the house of bread # Time tracks the sound of shape on man and cloud, # On rose and icicle the ringing handprint. ^ {viii} ^ This was the crucifixion on the mountain, # Time's nerve in vinegar, the gallow grave # As tarred with blood as the bright thorns I wept; # The world=s my wound, God's Mary in her grief, # Bent like three trees and bird-papped through her shift, # With pins for teardrops is the long wound's woman. # This was the sky, Jack Christ, each minstrel angle # Drove in the heaven-driven of the nails # Till the three-coloured rainbow from my nipples # From pole to pole leapt round the snail-waked world. # I by the tree of thieves, all glory's sawbones, # Unsex the skeleton this mountain minute, # And by this blowclock witness of the sun # Suffer the heaven's children through my heartbeat. ^ {ix} ^ From the oracular archives and the parchment, # Prophets and fibre kings in oil and letter, # The lamped calligrapher, the queen in splints, # Buckle to lint and cloth their natron footsteps, # Draw on the glove of prints, dead Cairo's henna # Pour like a halo on the caps and serpents. # This was the resurrection in the desert, # Death from a bandage, rants the mask of scholars # Gold on such features, and the linen spirit # Weds my long gentleman to dusts and furies; # With priest and pharaoh bed my gentle wound, # World in the sand, on the triangle landscape, # With stones of odyssey for ash and garland # And rivers of the dead around my neck. ^ {x} ^ Let the tale's sailor from a Christian voyage # Atlaswise hold half-way off the dummy bay # Time's ship-racked gospel on the globe I balance: # So shall winged harbours through the rockbirds' eyes # Spot the blown word, and on the seas I image # December's thorn screwed in a brow of holly. # Let the first Peter from a rainbow's quayrail # Ask the tall fish swept from the bible east, # What rhubarb man peeled in her foam-blue channel # Has sown a flying garden round that sea-ghost? # Green as beginning, let the garden diving # Soar, with its two bark towers, to that Day # When the worm builds with the gold straws of venom # My nest of mercies in the rude, red tree. ^ ^ ^ {Incarnate devil} ^ ^

^ Incarnate devil in a talking snake, # The central plains of Asia in his garden, # In shaping-time the circle stung awake, # In shapes of sin forked out the bearded apple, # And God walked there who was a fiddling warden # And played down pardon from the heavens' hill. ## When we were strangers to the guided seas, # A handmade moon half holy in a cloud, # The wisemen tell me that the garden gods # Twined good and evil on an eastern tree; # And when the moon rose windily it was # Black as the beast and paler than the cross. ## We in our Eden knew the secret guardian # In sacred waters that no frost could harden, # And in the mighty mornings of the earth; # Hell in a horn of sulphur and the cloven myth, # All heaven in a midnight of the sun, # A serpent fiddled in the shaping-time. ^ ^ ^ {Hold hard, these ancient minutes in the cuckoo's month} ^ ^

^ Hold hard, these ancient minutes in the cuckoo's month, # Under the lank, fourth folly on Glamorgan's hill, # As the green blooms ride upward, to the drive of time; # Time, in a folly's rider, like a county man # Over the vault of ridings with his hound at heel, # Drives forth my men, my children, from the hanging south. ## Country, your sport is summer, and December's pools # By crane and water-tower by the seedy trees # Lie this fifth month unskated, and the birds have flown; # Hold hard, my country children in the world of tales, # The greenwood dying as the deer fall in their tracks, # This first and steepled season, to the summer's game. ## And now the horns of England, in the sound of shape, # Summon your snowy horsemen, and the four-stringed hill, # Over the sea-gut loudening, sets a rock alive; # Hurdles and guns and railings, as the boulders heave, # Crack like a spring in a vice, bone breaking April, # Spill the lank folly's hunter and the hard-held hope. ## Down fall four padding weathers on the scarlet lands, # Stalking my children's faces with a tail of blood, # Time, in a rider rising, from the harnessed valley; # Hold hard, my country darlings, for a hawk descends, # Golden Glamorgan straightens, to the falling birds. # Your sport is summer as the spring runs angrily. ^ ^ ^ {Foster the light} ^ ^

^ Foster the light nor veil the manshaped moon, # Nor weather winds that blow not down the bone, # But strip the twelve-winded marrow from his circle; # Master the night nor serve the snowman's brain # That shapes each bushy item of the air # Into a polestar pointed on an icicle. ## Murmur of spring nor crush the cockerel's eggs, # Nor hammer back a season in the figs, # But graft these four-fruited ridings on your country; # Farmer in time of frost the burning leagues, # By red-eyed orchards sow the seeds of snow, # In your young years the vegetable century. ## And father all nor fail the fly-lord's acre, # Nor sprout on owl-seed like a goblin-sucker, # But rail with your wizard's ribs the heart-shaped planet; # Of mortal voices to the ninnies' choir, # High lord esquire, speak up the singing cloud, # And pluck a mandrake music from the marrowroot. ## Roll unmanly over this turning tuft, # O ring of seas, nor sorrow as I shift # From all my mortal lovers with a starboard smile; # Nor when my love lies in the cross-boned drift # Naked among the bow-and-arrow birds # Shall you turn cockwise on a tufted axle. # Who gave these seas their colour in a shape, # Shaped my clayfellow, and the heaven's ark # In time at flood filled with his coloured doubles; # O who is glory in the shapeless maps, # Now make the world of me as I have made # A merry manshape of your walking circle. ^ ^ ^ {Today, this insect} ^ ^

^ Today, this insect, and the world I breathe, # Now that my symbols have outelbowed space, # Time at the city spectacles, and half # The dear, daft time I take to nudge the sentence, # In trust and tale have I divided sense, # Slapped down the guillotine, the blood-red double # Of head and tail made witnesses to this # Murder of Eden and green genesis. ## The insect certain is the plague of fables. ## This story's monster has a serpent caul, # Blind in the coil scrams round the blazing outline, # Measures his own length on the garden wall # And breaks his shell in the last shocked beginning; # A crocodile before the chrysalis, # Before the fall from love the flying heartbone, # Winged like a sabbath ass this children's piece # Uncredited blows Jericho on Eden. ## The insect fable is the certain promise. ## Death: death of Hamlet and the nightmare madmen, # An air-drawn windmill on a wooden horse, # John's beast, Job's patience, and the fibs of vision, # Greek in the Irish sea the ageless voice: # "Adam I love, my madmen's love is endless, # No tell-tale lover has an end more certain, # All legends' sweethearts on a tree of stories, # My cross of tales behind the fabulous curtain.$ ^ ^ ^ {The seed-at-zero} ^ ^

^ The seed-at-zero shall not storm # That town of ghosts, the trodden womb # With her rampart to his tapping, # No god-in-hero tumble down # Like a tower on the town # Dumbly and divinely stumbling # Over the manwaging line. ## The seed-at-zero shall not storm # That town of ghosts, the manwaged womb # With her rampart to his tapping, # No god-in-hero tumble down # Like a tower on the town # Dumbly and divinely leaping # Over the warbearing line. ## Through the rampart of the sky # Shall the star-flanked seed be riddled, # Manna for the rumbling ground, # Quickening for the riddled sea; # Settled on a virgin stronghold # He shall grapple with the guard # And the keeper of the key. ## Through the rampart of the sky # Shall the star-flanked seed be riddled, # Manna for the guarded ground, # Quickening for the virgin sea; # Settling on a riddled stronghold # He shall grapple with the guard # And the loser of the key. ## May a humble village labour # And a continent deny? # A hemisphere may scold him # And a green inch be his bearer; # Let the hero seed find harbour, # Seaports by a drunken shore # Have their thirsty sailors hide him. ## May a humble planet labour # And a continent deny? # A village green may scold him # And a high sphere be his bearer; # Let the hero seed find harbour, # Seaports by a thirsty shore # Have their drunken sailors hide him. ## Man-in-seed, in seed-at-zero, # From the foreign fields of space, # Shall not thunder on the town # With a star-flanked garrison, # Nor the cannons of his kingdom # Shall the hero-in-tomorrow # Range on the sky-scraping place. ## Man-in-seed, in seed-at-zero, # From the star-flanked fields of space, # Thunders on the foreign town # With a sand-bagged garrison, # Nor the cannons of his kingdom # Shall the hero-in-tomorrow # Range from the grave-groping place. ^ ^ ^ {Now} ^ ^

^ Now # Say nay, # Man dry man, # Dry lover mine # The deadrock base and blow the flowered anchor, # Should he, for centre sake, hop in the dust, # Forsake, the fool, the hardiness of anger. ## Now # Say nay, # Sir no say, # Death to the yes, # The yes to death, the yesman and the answer, # Should he who split his children with a cure # Have brotherless his sister on the handsaw. ## Now # Say nay, # No say sir # Yea the dead stir, # And this, nor this, is shade, the landed crow, # He lying low with ruin in his ear, # The cockerel's tide upcasting from the fire. ## Now # Say nay, # So star fall, # So the ball fail, # So solve the mystic sun, the wife of light, # The sun that leaps on petals through a nought, # The come-a-cropper rider of the flower. ## Now # Say nay # A fig for # The seal of fire, # Death hairy-heeled, and the tapped ghost in wood, # We make me mystic as the arm of air, # The two-a-vein, the foreskin, and the cloud. ^ ^ ^ {Then was my neophyte} ^ ^

^ Then was my neophyte, # Child in white blood bent on its knees # Under the bell of rocks, # Ducked in the twelve, disciple seas # The winder of the water-clocks # Calls a green day and night. # My sea hermaphrodite, # Snail of man in His ship of fires # That burn the bitten decks, # Knew all His horrible desires # The climber of the water sex # Calls the green rock of light. ## Who in these labyrinths, # This tidethread and the lane of scales, # Twine in a moon-blown shell, # Escapes to the flat cities' sails # Furled on the fishes' house and hell, # Nor falls to His green myths? # Stretch the salt photographs, # The landscape grief, love in His oils # Mirror from man to whale # That the green child see like a grail # Through veil and fin and fire and coil # Time on the canvas paths. ## He films my vanity. # Shot in the wind, by tilted arcs, # Over the water come # Children from homes and children's parks # Who speak on a finger and thumb, # And the masked, headless boy. # His reels and mystery # The winder of the clockwise scene # Wound like a ball of lakes # Then threw on that tide-hoisted screen # Love's image till my heartbone breaks # By a dramatic sea. ## Who kills my history? # The year-hedged row is lame with flint, # Blunt scythe and water blade. # "Who could snap off the shapeless print # From your tomorrow-treading shade # With oracle for eye?$ # Time kills me terribly. # "Time shall not murder you,$ He said, # "Nor the green nought be hurt; # Who could hack out your unsucked heart, # O green and unborn and undead?$ # I saw time murder me. ^ ^ ^ {It is the sinners' dust-tongued bell} ^ ^

^ It is the sinners' dust-tongued bell claps me to churches # When, with his torch and hourglass, like a sulphur priest, # His beast heel cleft in a sandal, # Time marks a black aisle kindle from the brand of ashes, # Grief with dishevelled hands tear out the altar ghost # And a firewind kill the candle. ## Over the choir minute I hear the hour chant: # Time's coral saint and the salt grief drown a foul sepulchre # And a whirlpool drives the prayerwheel; # Moonfall and sailing emperor, pale as their tide-print, # Hear by death's accident the clocked and dashed-down spire # Strike the sea hour through bellmetal. ## There is loud and dark directly under the dumb flame, # Storm, snow, and fountain in the weather of fireworks, # Cathedral calm in the pulled house; # Grief with drenched book and candle christens the cherub time # From the emerald, still bell; and from the pacing weather-cock # The voice of bird on coral prays. ## Forever it is a white child in the dark-skinned summer # Out of the font of bone and plants at that stone tocsin # Scales the blue wall of spirits; # From blank and leaking winter sails the child in colour, # Shakes, in crabbed burial shawl, by sorcerer's insect woken, # Ding dong from the mute turrets. ## I mean by time the cast and curfew rascal of our marriage, # At nightbreak born in the fat side, from an animal bed # In a holy room in a wave; # And all love's sinners in sweet cloth kneel to a hyleg image, # Nutmeg, civet, and sea-parsley serve the plagued groom and bride # Who have brought forth the urchin grief. ^ ^ ^ {I make this in a warring absence} ^ ^

^ I make this in a warring absence when # Each ancient, stone-necked minute of love's season # Harbours my anchored tongue, slips the quaystone, # When, praise is blessed, her pride in mast and fountain # Sailed and set dazzling by the handshaped ocean, # In that proud sailing tree with branches driven # Through the last vault and vegetable groyne, # And this weak house to marrow-columned heaven, ## Is corner-cast, breath's rag, scrawled weed, a vain # And opium head, crow stalk, puffed, cut, and blown, # Or like the tide-looped breastknot reefed again # Or rent ancestrally the roped sea-hymen, # And, pride is last, is like a child alone # By magnet winds to her blind mother drawn, # Bread and milk mansion in a toothless town. ## She makes for me a nettle's innocence # And a silk pigeon's guilt in her proud absence, # In the molested rocks the shell of virgins, # The frank, closed pearl, the sea-girls' lineaments # Glint in the staved and siren-printed caverns, # Is maiden in the shameful oak, omens # Whalebed and bulldance, the gold bush of lions, # Proud as a sucked stone and huge as sandgrains. ## These are her contraries: the beast who follows # With priest's grave foot and hand of five assassins # Her molten flight up cinder-nesting columns, # Calls the starved fire herd, is cast in ice, # Lost in a limp-treed and uneating silence, # Who scales a hailing hill in her cold flintsteps # Falls on a ring of summers and locked noons. ## I make a weapon of an ass's skeleton # And walk the warring sands by the dead town, # Cudgel great air, wreck east, and topple sundown, # Storm her sped heart, hang with beheaded veins # Its wringing shell, and let her eyelids fasten. # Destruction, picked by birds, brays through the jaw-bone, # And, for that murder's sake, dark with contagion # Like an approaching wave I sprawl to ruin. ## Ruin, the room of errors, one rood dropped # Down the stacked sea and water-pillared shade, # Weighed in rock shroud, is my proud pyramid; # Where, wound in emerald linen and sharp wind, # The hero's head lies scraped of every legend, # Comes love's anatomist with sun-gloved hand # Who picks the live heart on a diamond. ## "His mother's womb had a tongue that lapped up mud,$ # Cried the topless, inchtaped lips from hank and hood # In that bright anchorground where I lay linened, # "A lizard darting with black venom's thread # Doubled, to fork him back, through the lockjaw bed # And the breath-white, curtained mouth of seed.$ # "See,$ drummed the taut masks, "how the dead ascend: # In the groin's endless coil a man is tangled.$ ## These once-blind eyes have breathed a wind of visions, # The cauldron's root through this once-rindless hand # Fumed like a tree, and tossed a burning bird; # With loud, torn tooth and tail and cobweb drum # The crumpled packs fled past this ghost in bloom, # And, mild as pardon from a cloud of pride, # The terrible world my brother bares his skin. ## Now in the cloud's big breast lie quiet countries, # Delivered seas my love from her proud place # Walks with no wound, nor lightning in her face, # A calm wind blows that raised the trees like hair # Once where the soft snow's blood was turned to ice. # And though my love pulls the pale, nippled air, # Prides of tomorrow suckling in her eyes, # Yet this I make in a forgiving presence. ^ ^ ^ {O make me a mask} ^ ^

^ O make me a mask and a wall to shut from your spies # Of the sharp, enamelled eyes and the spectacled claws # Rape and rebellion in the nurseries of my face, # Gag of a dumbstruck tree to block from bare enemies # The bayonet tongue in this undefended prayerpiece, # The present mouth, and the sweetly blown trumpet of lies, # Shaped in old armour and oak the countenance of a dunce # To shield the glistening brain and blunt the examiners, # And a tear-stained widower grief drooped from the lashes # To veil belladonna and let the dry eyes perceive # Others betray the lamenting lies of their losses # By the curve of the nude mouth or the laugh up the sleeve. ^ ^ ^ {Not from this anger} ^ ^

^ Not from this anger, anticlimax after # Refusal struck her loin and the lame flower # Bent like a beast to lap the singular floods # In a land strapped by hunger # Shall she receive a bellyful of weeds # And bear those tendril hands I touch across # The agonized, two seas. ## Behind my head a square of sky sags over # The circular smile tossed from lover to lover # And the golden ball spins out of the skies; # Not from this anger after # Refusal struck like a bell under water # Shall her smile breed that mouth, behind the mirror, # That burns along my eyes. ^ ^ ^ {How shall my animal} ^ ^

^ How shall my animal # Whose wizard shape I trace in the cavernous skull, # Vessel of abscesses and exultation's shell, # Endure burial under the spelling wall, # The invoked, shrouding veil at the cap of the face, # Who should be furious, # Drunk as a vineyard snail, flailed like an octopus, # Roaring, crawling, quarrel # With the outside weathers, # The natural circle of the discovered skies # Draw down to its weird eyes? ## How shall it magnetize, # Towards the studded male in a bent, midnight blaze # That melts the lionhead's heel and horseshoe of the heart, # A brute land in the cool top of the country days # To trot with a loud mate the haybeds of a mile, # Love and labour and kill # In quick, sweet, cruel light till the locked ground sprout out, # The black, burst sea rejoice, # The bowels turn turtle, # Claw of the crabbed veins squeeze from each red particle # The parched and raging voice? ## Fishermen of mermen # Creep and harp on the tide, sinking their charmed, bent pin # With bridebait of gold bread, I with a living skein, # Tongue and ear in the thread, angle the temple-bound # Curl-locked and animal cavepools of spells and bone, # Trace out a tentacle, # Nailed with an open eye, in the bowl of wounds and weed # To clasp my fury on ground # And clap its great blood down; # Never shall beast be born to atlas the few seas # Or poise the day on a horn. ## Sigh long, clay cold, lie shorn, # Cast high, stunned on gilled stone; sly scissors ground in frost # Clack through the thicket of strength, love hewn in pillars drops # With carved bird, saint, and sun, the wrackspiked maiden mouth # Lops, as a bush plumed with flames, the rant of the fierce eye, # Clips short the gesture of breath. # Die in red feathers when the flying heaven=s cut, # And roll with the knocked earth: # Lie dry, rest robbed, my beast. # You have kicked from a dark den, leaped up the whinnying light, # And dug your grave in my breast. ^ ^ ^ {After the funeral} {In memory of Ann Jones} ^ ^

^ After the funeral, mule praises, brays, # Windshake of sailshaped ears, muffle-toed tap # Tap happily of one peg in the thick # Grave's foot, blinds down the lids, the teeth in black, # The spittled eyes, the salt ponds in the sleeves, # Morning smack of the spade that wakes up sleep, # Shakes a desolate boy who slits his throat # In the dark of the coffin and sheds dry leaves, # That breaks one bone to light with a judgment clout, # After the feast of tear-stuffed time and thistles # In a room with a stuffed fox and a stale fern, # I stand, for this memorial's sake, alone # In the snivelling hours with dead, humped Ann # Whose hooded, fountain heart once fell in puddles # Round the parched worlds of Wales and drowned each sun # (Though this for her is a monstrous image blindly # Magnified out of praise; her death was a still drop; # She would not have me sinking in the holy # Flood of her heart's fame; she would lie dumb and deep # And need no druid of her broken body). # But I, Ann's bard on a raised hearth, call all # The seas to service that her wood-tongued virtue # Babble like a bellbuoy over the hymning heads, # Bow down the walls of the ferned and foxy woods # That her love sing and swing through a brown chapel, # Bless her bent spirit with four, crossing birds. # Her flesh was meek as milk, but this skyward statue # With the wild breast and blessed and giant skull # Is carved from her in a room with a wet window # In a fiercely mourning house in a crooked year. # I know her scrubbed and sour humble hands # Lie with religion in their cramp, her threadbare # Whisper in a damp word, her wits drilled hollow, # Her fist of a face died clenched on a round pain; # And sculptured Ann is seventy years of stone. # These cloud-sopped, marble hands, this monumental # Argument of the hewn voice, gesture and psalm, # Storm me forever over her grave until # The stuffed lung of the fox twitch and cry Love # And the strutting fern lay seeds on the black sill. ^ ^ ^ {O Chatterton} ^ ^

^ O Chatterton and others in the attic # Linked in one gas bracket # Taking Jeyes' fluid as narcotic; # Drink from the earth's teats, # Life neat=s a better poison than in bottle, # A better venom seethes in spittle # Than one could probe out of a serpent's guts; # Each new sensation emits # A new vinegar; # Be a regular # Fellow with saw at the jugular. # On giddy nights when slap on the moon's mask # A madman with a brush has slapped a face # I pick a stick of celery from the valley # I find a tripper's knicker in the gully # And take another nibble at my flask. # What meaning, voices, in the straight-ruled grass, # Meaning in hot sock soil? A little cuss # Can=t read sense in the rain that willynilly # Soaks to the vest old dominies and drunks. # Dissect that statement, voices, on the slabs. # Love=s a decision of 3 nerves # And Up and Down love's questions ask; # On giddy nights I slap a few drunk curves # Slap on the drunk moon's mask. # Rape gulp and be marry, he also serves # Who only drinks his profits # And would a-wooing go around the graves. # Celibate I sit and see # Women figures round my cell, # Women figures on the wall # point their little breasts at me; # I must wait for a woman's smile # Not in the sun but in the dark; # The two words stallion and sterile # Stand in a question mark. # The smiling woman is a mad story, # Wipe it away, wipe a crumb # From the preacher's table. # I offer you women, not woman, # A home and a dowry: # 3 little lusts shall your dowry be, # And your home in a centaur's stable. ^ ^ ^ {When all my five and country senses see} ^ ^

^ When all my five and country senses see, # The fingers will forget green thumbs and mark # How, through the halfmoon's vegetable eye, # Husk of young stars and handfull zodiac, # Love in the frost is pared and wintered by, # The whispering ears will watch love drummed away # Down breeze and shell to a discordant beach, # And, lashed to syllables, the lynx tongue cry # That her fond wounds are mended bitterly. # My nostrils see her breath burn like a bush. ## My one and noble heart has witnesses # In all love's countries, that will grope awake; # And when blind sleep drops on the spying senses, # The heart is sensual, though five eyes break. ^ ^ ^ {The tombstone told when she died} ^ ^

^ The tombstone told when she died. # Her two surnames stopped me still. # A virgin married at rest. # She married in this pouring place, # That I struck one day by luck, # Before I heard in my mother's side # Or saw in the looking-glass shell # The rain through her cold heart speak # And the sun killed in her face. # More the thick stone cannot tell. ## Before she lay on a stranger's bed # With a hand plunged through her hair, # Or that rainy tongue beat back # Through the devilish years and innocent deaths # To the room of a secret child, # Among men later I heard it said # She cried her white-dressed limbs were bare # And her red lips were kissed black, # She wept in her pain and made mouths, # Talked and tore though her eyes smiled. ## I who saw in a hurried film # Death and this mad heroine # Meet once on a mortal wall, # Heard her speak through the chipped beak # Of the stone bird guarding her: # I died before bedtime came # But my womb was bellowing # And I felt with my bare fall # A blazing red harsh head tear up # And the dear floods of his hair. ^ ^ ^ {On no work of words} ^ ^

^ On no work of words now for three lean months in the bloody # Belly of the rich year and the big purse of my body # I bitterly take to task my poverty and craft: ## To take to give is all, return what is hungrily given # Puffing the pounds of manna up through the dew to heaven, # The lovely gift of the gab bangs back on a blind shaft. ## To lift to leave from the treasures of man is pleasing death # That will rake at last all currencies of the marked breath # And count the taken, forsaken mysteries in a bad dark. ## To surrender now is to pay the expensive ogre twice. # Ancient woods of my blood, dash down to the nut of the seas # If I take to burn or return this world which is each man's work. ^ ^ ^ {I, the first named} ^ ^

^ I, the first named, am the ghost of this sir and Christian friend # Who writes these words I write in a still room in a spellsoaked + house: # I am the ghost in this house that is filled with the tongue and eyes # Of a lack-a-head ghost I fear to the anonymous end. ^ ^ ^ {A saint about to fall} ^ ^

^ A saint about to fall, # The stained flats of heaven hit and razed # To the kissed kite hems of his shawl, # On the last street wave praised # The unwinding, song by rock, # Of the woven wall # Of his father's house in the sands, # The vanishing of the musical ship-work and the chucked bells, # The wound-down cough of the blood-counting clock # Behind a face of hands, # On the angelic etna of the last whirring featherlands, # Wind-heeled foot in the hole of a fireball, # Hymned his shrivelling flock, # On the last rick's tip by spilled wine-wells # Sang heaven hungry and the quick # Cut Christbread spitting vinegar and all # The mazes of his praise and envious tongue were worked in flames + and shells. ## Glory cracked like a flea. # The sun-leaved holy candlewoods # Drivelled down to one singeing tree # With a stub of black buds, # The sweet, fish-gilled boats bringing blood # Lurched through a scuttled sea # With a hold of leeches and straws, # Heaven fell with his fall and one crocked bell beat the left air. # O wake in me in my house in the mud # Of the crotch of the squawking shores, # Flicked from the carbolic city puzzle in a bed of sores # The scudding base of the familiar sky, # The lofty roots of the clouds. # From an odd room in a split house stare, # Milk in your mouth, at the sour floods # That bury the sweet street slowly, see # The skull of the earth is barbed with a war of burning brains and + hair. ## Strike in the time-bomb town, # Raise the live rafters of the eardrum, # Throw your fear a parcel of stone # Through the dark asylum, # Lapped among herods wail # As their blade marches in # That the eyes are already murdered, # The stocked heart is forced, and agony has another mouth to feed. # O wake to see, after a noble fall, # The old mud hatch again, the horrid # Woe drip from the dishrag hands and the pressed sponge of the + forehead, # The breath draw back like a bolt through white oil # And a stranger enter like iron. # Cry joy that this witchlike midwife second # Bullies into rough seas you so gentle # And makes with a flick of the thumb and sun # A thundering bullring of your silent and girl-circled island. ^ ^ ^ {Twenty-four years} ^ ^

^ Twenty-four years remind the tears of my eyes. # (Bury the dead for fear that they walk to the grave in labour.) # In the groin of the natural doorway I crouched like a tailor # Sewing a shroud for a journey # By the light of the meat-eating sun. # Dressed to die, the sensual strut begun, # With my red veins full of money, # In the final direction of the elementary town # I advance for as long as forever is. ^ ^ ^ {The molls} ^ ^

^ I found them lying on the floor, # Male shapes, girl-lipped, but clad like boys: # Night after night their hands implore # Emetic Percies for their joys. ## They retch into my secret night # With stale and terrifying camp # And offer as the last delight # A crude, unhappy, anal cramp. ## Gently they sigh to my behind # Wilde words, all buttered, badly bred, # And when I dream of them I find # Peacockstain's poems on my bed. ^ ^ ^ {Once it was the colour of saying} ^ ^

^ Once it was the colour of saying # Soaked my table the uglier side of a hill # With a capsized field where a school sat still # And a black and white patch of girls grew playing; # The gentle seaslides of saying I must undo # That all the charmingly drowned arise to cockcrow and kill. # When I whistled with mitching boys through a reservoir park # Where at night we stoned the cold and cuckoo # Lovers in the dirt of their leafy beds, # The shade of their trees was a word of many shades # And a lamp of lightning for the poor in the dark; # Now my saying shall be my undoing, # And every stone I wind off like a reel. ^ ^ ^ {Because the pleasure-bird whistles} ^ ^

^ Because the pleasure-bird whistles after the hot wires, # Shall the blind horse sing sweeter? # Convenient bird and beast lie lodged to suffer # The supper and knives of a mood. # In the sniffed and poured snow on the tip of the tongue of the year # That clouts the spittle like bubbles with broken rooms, # An enamoured man alone by the twigs of his eyes, two fires, # Camped in the drug-white shower of nerves and food, # Savours the lick of the times through a deadly wood of hair # In a wind that plucked a goose, # Nor ever, as the wild tongue breaks its tombs, # Rounds to look at the red, wagged root. # Because there stands, one story out of the bum city, # That frozen wife whose juices drift like a fixed sea # Secretly in statuary, # Shall I, struck on the hot and rocking street, # Not spin to stare at an old year # Toppling and burning in the muddle of towers and galleries # Like the mauled pictures of boys? # The salt person and blasted place # I furnish with the meat of a fable; # If the dead starve, their stomachs turn to tumble # An upright man in the antipodes # Or spray-based and rock-chested sea: # Over the past table I repeat this present grace. ^ ^ ^ {'If my head hurt a hair's foot'} ^ ^

^ "If my head hurt a hair's foot # Pack back the downed bone. If the unpricked ball of my breath # Bump on a spout let the bubbles jump out. # Sooner drop with the worm of the ropes round my throat # Than bully ill love in the clouted scene. ## "All game phrases fit your ring of a cockfight: # I=ll comb the snared woods with a glove on a lamp, # Peck, sprint, dance on fountains and duck time # Before I rush in a crouch the ghost with a hammer, air, # Strike light, and bloody a loud room. ## "If my bunched, monkey coming is cruel # Rage me back to the making house. My hand unravel # When you sew the deep door. The bed is a cross place. # Bend, if my journey ache, direction like an arc or make # A limp and riderless shape to leap nine thinning months.$ ## "No. Not for Christ's dazzling bed # Or a nacreous sleep among soft particles and charms # My dear would I change my tears or your iron head. # Thrust, my daughter or son, to escape, there is none, none, none, # Nor when all ponderous heaven's host of waters breaks. ## "Now to awake husked of gestures and my joy like a cave # To the anguish and carrion, to the infant forever unfree, # O my lost love bounced from a good home; # The grain that hurries this way from the rim of the grave # Has a voice and a house, and there and here you must couch and + cry. ## "Rest beyond choice in the dust-appointed grain, # At the breast stored with seas. No return # Through the waves of the fat streets nor the skeleton's thin ways. # The grave and my calm body are shut to your coming as stone, # And the endless beginning of prodigies suffers open.$ ^ ^ ^ {To others than you} ^ ^

^ Friend by enemy I call you out. ## You with a bad coin in your socket, # You my friend there with a winning air # Who palmed the lie on me when you looked # Brassily at my shyest secret, # Enticed with twinkling bits of the eye # Till the sweet tooth of my love bit dry, # Rasped at last, and I stumbled and sucked, # Whom now I conjure to stand as thief # In the memory worked by mirrors, # With unforgettably smiling act, # Quickness of hand in the velvet glove # And my whole heart under your hammer, # Were once such a creature, so gay and frank # A desireless familiar # I never thought to utter or think # While you displaced a truth in the air, ## That though I loved them for their faults # As much as for their good, # My friends were enemies on stilts # With their heads in a cunning cloud. ^ ^ ^ {Unluckily for a death} ^ ^

^ Unluckily for a death # Waiting with phoenix under # The pyre yet to be lighted of my sins and days, # And for the woman in shades # Saint carved and sensual among the scudding # Dead and gone, dedicate forever to my self # Though the brawl of the kiss has not occurred # On the clay cold mouth, on the fire # Branded forehead, that could bind # Her constant, nor the winds of love broken wide # To the wind the choir and cloister # Of the wintry nunnery of the order of lust # Beneath my life, that sighs for the seducer's coming # In the sun strokes of summer, ## Loving on this sea banged guilt # My holy lucky body # Under the cloud against love is caught and held and kissed # In the mill of the midst # Of the descending day, the dark our folly # Cut to the still star in the order of the quick # But blessed by such heroic hosts in your every # Inch and glance that the wound # Is certain god, and the ceremony of souls # Is celebrated there, and communion between suns. # Never shall my self chant # About the saint in shades while the endless breviary # Turns of your prayed flesh, nor shall I shoo the bird below me: # The death biding two lie lonely. ## I see the tigron in tears # In the androgynous dark, # His striped and noon maned tribe striding to holocaust, # The she mules bear their minotaurs, # The duck-billed platypus broody in a milk of birds. # I see the wanting nun saint carved in a garb # Of shades, symbol of desire beyond my hours # And guilts, great crotch and giant # Continence. I see the unfired phoenix, herald # And heaven crier, arrow now of aspiring # And the renouncing of islands. # All love but for the full assemblage in flower # Of the living flesh is monstrous or immortal, # And the grave its daughters. ## Love, my fate got luckily, # Teaches with no telling # That the phoenix' bid for heaven and the desire after # Death in the carved nunnery # Both shall fail if I bow not to your blessing # Nor walk in the cool of your mortal garden # With immortality at my side like Christ the sky. # This I know from the native # Tongue of your translating eyes. The young stars told me, # Hurling into beginning like Christ the child. # Lucklessly she must lie patient # And the vaulting bird be still. O my true love, hold me. # In your every inch and glance is the globe of genesis spun, # And the living earth your sons. ^ ^ ^ {Paper and sticks} ^ ^

^ Paper and sticks and shovel and match # Why won=t the news of the old world catch # And the fire in a temper start ## Once I had a rich boy for myself # I loved his body and his navy blue wealth # And I lived in his purse and his heart ## When in our bed I was tossing and turning # All I could see were his brown eyes burning # By the green of a one pound note ## I talk to him as I clean the grate # O my dear it=s never too late # To take me away as you whispered and wrote ## I had a handsome and well-off boy # I=ll share my money and we=ll run for joy # With a bouncing and silver spooned kid ## Sharp and shrill my silly tongue scratches # Words on the air as the fire catches # \You never did and \he never did. ^ ^ ^ {When I woke} ^ ^

^ When I woke, the town spoke. # Birds and clocks and cross bells # Dinned aside the coiling crowd, # The reptile profligates in a flame, # Spoilers and pokers of sleep, # The next-door sea dispelled # Frogs and satans and woman-luck, # While a man outside with a billhook, # Up to his head in his blood, # Cutting the morning off, # The warm-veined double of Time # And his scarving beard from a book, # Slashed down the last snake as though # It were a wand or subtle bough, # Its tongue peeled in the wrap of a leaf. ## Every morning I make, # God in bed, good and bad, # After a water-face walk, # The death-stagged scatter-breath # Mammoth and sparrowfall # Everybody's earth. # Where birds ride like leaves and boats like ducks # I heard, this morning, waking, # Crossly out of the town noises # A voice in the erected air, # No prophet-progeny of mine, # Cry my sea town was breaking. # No Time, spoke the clocks, no God, rang the bells, # I drew the white sheet over the islands # And the coins on my eyelids sang like shells. ^ ^ ^ {Once below a time} ^ ^

^ {i} ^ Once below a time # When my pinned-around-the-spirit # Cut-to-measure flesh bit, # Suit for a serial sum # On the first of each hardship, # My paid-for slaved-for own too late # In love torn breeches and blistered jacket # On the snapping rims of the ashpit, # In grottoes I worked with birds, # Spiked with a mastiff collar, # Tasselled in cellar and snipping shop # Or decked on a cloud swallower, ## Then swift from a bursting sea with bottlecork boats # And out-of-perspective sailors, # In common clay clothes disguised as scales, # As a he-god's paddling water skirts, # I astounded the sitting tailors, # I set back the clock faced tailors, # Then, bushily swanked in bear wig and tails, # Hopping hot leaved and feathered # From the kangaroo foot of the earth, # From the chill, silent centre # Trailing the frost bitten cloth, # Up through the lubber crust of Wales # I rocketed to astonish # The flashing needle rock of squatters, # The criers of Shabby and Shorten, # The famous stitch droppers. ^ {ii} ^ My silly suit, hardly yet suffered for, # Around some coffin carrying # Birdman or told ghost I hung. # And the owl hood, the heel hider, # Claw fold and hole for the rotten # Head, deceived, I believed, my maker, ## The cloud perched tailors' master with nerves for cotton. # On the old seas from stories, thrashing my wings, # Combing with antlers, Columbus on fire, # I was pierced by the idol tailor's eyes, # Glared through shark mask and navigating head, # Cold Nansen's beak on a boat full of gongs, ## To the boy of common thread, # The bright pretender, the ridiculous sea dandy # With dry flesh and earth for adorning and bed. # It was sweet to drown in the readymade handy water # With my cherry capped dangler green as seaweed ## Summoning a child's voice from a webfoot stone, # Never never oh never to regret the bugle I wore # On my cleaving arm as I blasted in a wave. # Now shown and mostly bare I would lie down, # Lie down, lie down and live # As quiet as a bone. ^ ^ ^ {There was a saviour} ^ ^

^ There was a saviour # Rarer than radium, # Commoner than water, crueller than truth; # Children kept from the sun # Assembled at his tongue # To hear the golden note turn in a groove, # Prisoners of wishes locked in their eyes # In the jails and studies of his keyless smiles. ## The voice of children says # From a lost wilderness # There was calm to be done in his safe unrest, # When hindering man hurt # Man, animal, or bird # We hid our fears in that murdering breath, # Silence, silence to do, when earth grew loud, # In lairs and asylums of the tremendous shout. ## There was glory to hear # In the churches of his tears, # Under his downy arm you sighed as he struck, # O you who could not cry # On to the ground when a man died # Put a tear for joy in the unearthly flood # And laid your cheek against a cloud-formed shell: # Now in the dark there is only yourself and myself. ## Two proud, blacked brothers cry, # Winter-locked side by side, # To this inhospitable hollow year, # O we who could not stir # One lean sigh when we heard # Greed on man beating near and fire neighbour # But wailed and nested in the sky-blue wall # Now break a giant tear for the little known fall, ## For the drooping of homes # That did not nurse our bones, # Brave deaths of only ones but never found, # Now see, alone in us, # Our own true strangers' dust # Ride through the doors of our unentered house. # Exiled in us we arouse the soft, # Unclenched, armless, silk and rough love that breaks all rocks. ^ ^ ^ {The countryman's return} ^ ^

^ Embracing low-falutin # London (said the odd man in # A country pot, his hutch in # The fields, by a motherlike henrun) # With my fishtail hands and gently # Manuring popeye or # Swelling in flea-specked linen # The rankest of the city # I spent my unwasteable # Time among walking pintables # With sprung and padded shoulders, # Tomorrow's drunk club majors # Growing their wounds already, # The last war's professional # Unclaimed dead, girls from good homes # Studying the testicle # In communal crab flats # With the Sunflowers laid on, # Old paint-stained tumblers riding # On stools to a one man show down, # Gasketted and sirensuited # Bored and viciously waiting # Nightingales of the casualty stations # In the afternoon wasters # White feathering the living. ## London's arches are falling # In, in Pedro's or Wendy's # With a silverfox farmer # Trying his hand at failing # Again, a collected poet # And some dismantled women, # Razor man and belly king, # I propped humanity's weight # Against the fruit machine, # Opened my breast and into # The spongebag let them all melt. # Zip once more for a traveller # With his goods under his eyes, # Another with hers under her belt, # The black man bleached to his tide # Mark, trumpet lipped and blackhead # Eyed, while the tears drag on the tail, # The weighing-scales, of my hand. # Then into blind streets I swam # Alone with my bouncing bag, # Too full to bow to the dim # Moon with a relation's face # Or lift my hat to unseen # Brothers dodging through the fog # The affectionate pickpocket # And childish, snivelling queen. ## Beggars, robbers, inveiglers, # Voices from manholes and drains, # Maternal short time pieces, # Octopuses in doorways, # Dark inviters to keyholes # And evenings with great danes, # Bedsitting girls on the beat # With nothing for the metre, # Others whose single beds hold two # Only to make two ends meet, # All the hypnotised city's # Insidious procession # Hawking for money and pity # Among the hardly possessed. # And I in the wanting sway # Caught among never enough # Conjured me to resemble # A singing Walt from the mower # And jerrystone trim villas # Of the upper of the lower half, # Beardlessly wagging in Dean Street, # Blessing and counting the bustling # Twolegged handbagged sparrows, # Flogging into the porches # My cavernous, featherbed self. ## Cut. Cut the crushed streets, leaving # A hole of errands and shades; # Plug the paper-blowing tubes; # Emasculate the seedy clocks; # Rub off the scrawl of prints on # Body and air and building; # Branch and leaf the birdless roofs; # Faces of melting visions, # Magdalene prostitution, # Glamour of the bloodily bowed, # Exaltation of the blind, # That sin-embracing dripper of fun # Sweep away like a cream cloud; # Bury all rubbish and love signs # Of my week in the dirtbox # In this anachronistic scene # Where sitting in clean linen # In a hutch in a cowpatched glen # Now I delight, I suppose, in # The countryman's return # And count by birds' eggs and leaves # The rusticating minutes, # The wasteful hushes among trees. # And O to cut the green field, leaving # One rich street with hunger in it. ^ ^ ^ {Into her lying down head} ^ ^

^ {i} ^ Into her lying down head # His enemies entered bed, # Under the encumbered eyelid, # Through the rippled drum of the hair-buried ear; # And Noah's rekindled now unkind dove # Flew man-bearing there. # Last night in a raping wave # Whales unreined from the green grave # In fountains of origin gave up their love, # Along her innocence glided # Juan aflame and savagely young King Lear, # Queen Catherine howling bare # And Samson drowned in his hair, # The colossal intimacies of silent # Once seen strangers or shades on a stair; # There the dark blade and wanton sighing her down # To a haycock couch and the scythes of his arms # Rode and whistled a hundred times # Before the crowing morning climbed; # Man was the burning England she was sleep-walking, and the + enamouring island # Made her limbs blind by luminous charms, # Sleep to a newborn sleep in a swaddling loin-leaf stroked and sang # And his runaway beloved childlike laid in the acorned sand. ^ {ii} ^ There where a numberless tongue # Wound their room with a male moan, # His faith around her flew undone # And darkness hung the walls with baskets of snakes, # A furnace-nostrilled column-membered # Super-or-near man # Resembling to her dulled sense # The thief of adolescence, # Early imaginary half remembered # Oceanic lover alone # Jealousy cannot forget for all her sakes, # Made his bad bed in her good # Night, and enjoyed as he would. # Crying, white gowned, from the middle moonlit stages # Out to the tiered and hearing tide, # Close and far she announced the theft of the heart # In the taken body at many ages, # Trespasser and broken bride # Celebrating at her side # All blood-signed assailings and vanished marriages in which he + had no lovely part # Nor could share, for his pride, to the least # Mutter and foul wingbeat of the solemnizing nightpriest # Her holy unholy hours with the always anonymous beast. ^ {iii} ^ Two sand grains together in bed, # Head to heaven-circling head, # Singly lie with the whole wide shore, # The covering sea their nightfall with no names; # And out of every domed and soil-based shell # One voice in chains declaims # The female, deadly, and male # Libidinous betrayal, # Golden dissolving under the water veil. # A she bird sleeping brittle by # Her lover's wings that fold to-morrow's flight, # Within the nested treefork # Sings to the treading hawk # Carrion, paradise, chirrup my bright yolk. # A blade of grass longs with the meadow, # A stone lies lost and locked in the lark-high hill. # Open as to the air to the naked shadow # O she lies alone and still, # Innocent between two wars, # With the incestuous secret brother in the seconds to perpetuate + the stars, # A man torn up mourns in the sole night. # And the second comers, the severers, the enemies from the deep # Forgotten dark, rest their pulse and bury their dead in her + faithless sleep. ^ ^ ^ {Request to Leda} {Homage to William Empson} ^ ^

^ Not your winged lust but his must now change suit. # The harp-waked Casanova rakes no range. # The worm is (pin-point) rational in the fruit. ## Not girl for bird (gourd being man) breaks root. # Taking no plume for index in love's change # Not your winged lust but his must now change suit. ## Desire is phosphorus: the chemic bruit # Lust bears like volts, who=ll amplify, and strange # The worm is (pin-point) rational in the fruit. ^ ^ ^ {Deaths and entrances} ^ ^

^ On almost the incendiary eve # Of several near deaths, # When one at the great least of your best loved # And always known must leave # Lions and fires of his flying breath, # Of your immortal friends # Who=d raise the organs of the counted dust # To shoot and sing your praise, # One who called deepest down shall hold his peace # That cannot sink or cease # Endlessly to his wound # In many married London's estranging grief. ## On almost the incendiary eve # When at your lips and keys, # Locking, unlocking, the murdered strangers weave, # One who is most unknown, # Your polestar neighbour, sun of another street, # Will dive up to his tears. # He=ll bathe his raining blood in the male sea # Who strode for your own dead # And wind his globe out of your water thread # And load the throats of shells # With every cry since light # Flashed first across his thunderclapping eyes. ## On almost the incendiary eve # Of deaths and entrances, # When near and strange wounded on London's waves # Have sought your single grave, # One enemy, of many, who knows well # Your heart is luminous # In the watched dark, quivering through locks and caves, # Will pull the thunderbolts # To shut the sun, plunge, mount your darkened keys # And sear just riders back, # Until that one loved least # Looms the last Samson of your zodiac. ^ ^ ^ {On a wedding anniversary} ^ ^

^ The sky is torn across # This ragged anniversary of two # Who moved for three years in tune # Down the long walks of their vows. ## Now their love lies a loss # And Love and his patients roar on a chain; # From every true or crater # Carrying cloud, Death strikes their house. ## Too late in the wrong rain # They come together whom their love parted: # The windows pour into their heart # And the doors burn in their brain. ^ ^ ^ {Ballad of the long-legged bait} ^ ^

^ The bows glided down, and the coast # Blackened with birds took a last look # At his thrashing hair and whale-blue eye; # The trodden town rang its cobbles for luck. ## Then good-bye to the fishermanned # Boat with its anchor free and fast # As a bird hooking over the sea, # High and dry by the top of the mast, ## Whispered the affectionate sand # And the bulwarks of the dazzled quay. # For my sake sail, and never look back, # Said the looking land. ## Sails drank the wind, and white as milk # He sped into the drinking dark; # The sun shipwrecked west on a pearl # And the moon swam out of its hulk. ## Funnels and masts went by in a whirl. # Good-bye to the man on the sea-legged deck # To the gold gut that sings on his reel # To the bait that stalked out of the sack, ## For we saw him throw to the swift flood # A girl alive with his hooks through her lips; # All the fishes were rayed in blood, # Said the dwindling ships. ## Good-bye to chimneys and funnels, # Old wives that spin in the smoke, # He was blind to the eyes of candles # In the praying windows of waves ## But heard his bait buck in the wake # And tussle in a shoal of loves. # Now cast down your rod, for the whole # Of the sea is hilly with whales, ## She longs among horses and angels, # The rainbow-fish bend in her joys, # Floated the lost cathedral # Chimes of the rocked buoys. ## Where the anchor rode like a gull # Miles over the moonstruck boat # A squall of birds bellowed and fell, # A cloud blew the rain from its throat; ## He saw the storm smoke out to kill # With fuming bows and ram of ice, # Fire on starlight, rake Jesu's stream; # And nothing shone on the water's face ## But the oil and bubble of the moon, # Plunging and piercing in his course # The lured fish under the foam # Witnessed with a kiss. ## Whales in the wake like capes and Alps # Quaked the sick sea and snouted deep, # Deep the great bushed bait with raining lips # Slipped the fins of those humpbacked tons ## And fled their love in a weaving dip. # Oh, Jericho was falling in their lungs] # She nipped and dived in the nick of love, # Spun on a spout like a long-legged ball ## Till every beast blared down in a swerve # Till every turtle crushed from his shell # Till every bone in the rushing grave # Rose and crowed and fell] ## Good luck to the hand on the rod, # There is thunder under its thumbs; # Gold gut is a lightning thread, # His fiery reel sings off its flames, ## The whirled boat in the burn of his blood # Is crying from nets to knives, # Oh the shearwater birds and their boatsized brood # Oh the bulls of Biscay and their calves ## Are making under the green, laid veil # The long-legged beautiful bait their wives. # Break the black news and paint on a sail # Huge weddings in the waves, ## Over the wakeward-flashing spray # Over the gardens of the floor # Clash out the mounting dolphin's day, # My mast is a bell-spire, ## Strike and smoothe, for my decks are drums, # Sing through the water-spoken prow # The octopus walking into her limbs # The polar eagle with his tread of snow. ## From salt-lipped beak to the kick of the stern # Sing how the seal has kissed her dead] # The long, laid minute's bride drifts on # Old in her cruel bed. ## Over the graveyard in the water # Mountains and galleries beneath # Nightingale and hyena # Rejoicing for that drifting death ## Sing and howl through sand and anemone # Valley and sahara in a shell, # Oh all the wanting flesh his enemy # Thrown to the sea in the shell of a girl ## Is old as water and plain as an eel; # Always good-bye to the long-legged bread # Scattered in the paths of his heels # For the salty birds fluttered and fed ## And the tall grains foamed in their bills; # Always good-bye to the fires of the face, # For the crab-backed dead on the sea-bed rose # And scuttled over her eyes, ## The blind, clawed stare is cold as sleet. # The tempter under the eyelid # Who shows to the selves asleep # Mast-high moon-white women naked ## Walking in wishes and lovely for shame # Is dumb and gone with his flame of brides. # Susannah=s drowned in the bearded stream # And no-one stirs at Sheba's side ## But the hungry kings of the tides; # Sin who had a woman's shape # Sleeps till Silence blows on a cloud # And all the lifted waters walk and leap. ## Lucifer that bird's dropping # Out of the sides of the north # Has melted away and is lost # Is always lost in her vaulted breath, ## Venus lies star-struck in her wound # And the sensual ruins make # Seasons over the liquid world, # White springs in the dark. ## Always good-bye, cried the voices through the shell, # Good-bye always for the flesh is cast # And the fisherman winds his reel # With no more desire than a ghost. ## Always good luck, praised the finned in the feather # Bird after dark and the laughing fish # As the sails drank up the hail of thunder # And the long-tailed lightning lit his catch. ## The boat swims into the six-year weather, # A wind throws a shadow and it freezes fast. # See what the gold gut drags from under # Mountains and galleries to the crest] ## See what clings to hair and skull # As the boat skims on with drinking wings] # The statues of great rain stand still, # And the flakes fall like hills. ## Sing and strike his heavy haul # Toppling up the boatside in a snow of light] # His decks are drenched with miracles. # Oh miracle of fishes] The long dead bite] ## Out of the urn the size of a man # Out of the room the weight of his trouble # Out of the house that holds a town # In the continent of a fossil ## One by one in dust and shawl, # Dry as echoes and insect-faced, # His fathers cling to the hand of the girl # And the dead hand leads the past, ## Leads them as children and as air # On to the blindly tossing tops; # The centuries throw back their hair # And the old men sing from newborn lips: ## \Time \is \bearing \another \son. # \Kill \Time] \She \turns \in \her \pain] # \The \oak \is \felled \in \the \acorn # \And \the \hawk \in \the \egg \kills \the \wren. ## He who blew the great fire in # And died on a hiss of flames # Or walked on the earth in the evening # Counting the denials of the grains ## Clings to her drifting hair, and climbs; # And he who taught their lips to sing # Weeps like the risen sun among # The liquid choirs of his tribes. ## The rod bends low, divining land, # And through the sundered water crawls # A garden holding to her hand # With birds and animals ## With men and women and waterfalls # Trees cool and dry in the whirlpool of ships # And stunned and still on the green, laid veil # Sand with legends in its virgin laps ## And prophets loud on the burned dunes; # Insects and valleys hold her thighs hard, # Time and places grip her breast bone, # She is breaking with seasons and clouds; ## Round her trailed wrist fresh water weaves, # With moving fish and rounded stones # Up and down the greater waves # A separate river breathes and runs; ## Strike and sing his catch of fields # For the surge is sown with barley, # The cattle graze on the covered foam, # The hills have footed the waves away, ## With wild sea fillies and soaking bridles # With salty colts and gales in their limbs # All the horses of his haul of miracles # Gallop through the arched, green farms, ## Trot and gallop with gulls upon them # And thunderbolts in their manes. # O Rome and Sodom To-morrow and London # The country tide is cobbled with towns, ## And steeples pierce the cloud on her shoulder # And the streets that the fisherman combed # When his long-legged flesh was a wind on fire # And his loin was a hunting flame ## Coil from the thoroughfares of her hair # And terribly lead him home alive # Lead her prodigal home to his terror, # The furious ox-killing house of love. ## Down, down, down, under the ground, # Under the floating villages, # Turns the moon-chained and water-wound # Metropolis of fishes, ## There is nothing left of the sea but its sound, # Under the earth the loud sea walks, # In deathbeds of orchards the boat dies down # And the bait is drowned among hayricks, ## Land, land, land, nothing remains # Of the pacing, famous sea but its speech, # And into its talkative seven tombs # The anchor dives through the floors of a church. ## Good-bye, good luck, struck the sun and the moon, # To the fisherman lost on the land. # He stands alone at the door of his home, # With his long-legged heart in his hand. ^ ^ ^ {Love in the asylum} ^ ^

^ A stranger has come # To share my room in the house not right in the head, # A girl mad as birds ## Bolting the night of the door with her arm her plume. # Strait in the mazed bed # She deludes the heaven-proof house with entering clouds ## Yet she deludes with walking the nightmarish room, # At large as the dead, # Or rides the imagined oceans of the male wards. ## She has come possessed # Who admits the delusive light through the bouncing wall, # Possessed by the skies ## She sleeps in the narrow trough yet she walks the dust # Yet raves at her will # On the madhouse boards worn thin by my walking tears. ## And taken by light in her arms at long and dear last # I may without fail # Suffer the first vision that set fire to the stars. ^ ^ ^ {On the marriage of a virgin} ^ ^

^ Waking alone in a multitude of loves when morning's light # Surprised in the opening of her nightlong eyes # His golden yesterday asleep upon the iris # And this day's sun leapt up the sky out of her thighs # Was miraculous virginity old as loaves and fishes, # Though the moment of a miracle is unending lightning # And the shipyards of Galilee's footprints hide a navy of doves. ## No longer will the vibrations of the sun desire on # Her deepsea pillow where once she married alone, # Her heart all ears and eyes, lips catching the avalanche # Of the golden ghost who ringed with his streams her mercury bone, # Who under the lids of her windows hoisted his golden luggage, # For a man sleeps where fire leapt down and she learns through his + arm # That other sun, the jealous coursing of the unrivalled blood. ^ ^ ^ {The hunchback in the park} ^ ^

^ The hunchback in the park # A solitary mister # Propped between trees and water # From the opening of the garden lock # That lets the trees and water enter # Until the Sunday sombre bell at dark ## Eating bread from a newspaper # Drinking water from the chained cup # That the children filled with gravel # In the fountain basin where I sailed my ship # Slept at night in a dog kennel # But nobody chained him up. ## Like the park birds he came early # Like the water he sat down # And Mister they called Hey mister # The truant boys from the town # Running when he had heard them clearly # On out of sound ## Past lake and rockery # Laughing when he shook his paper # Hunchbacked in mockery # Through the loud zoo of the willow groves # Dodging the park keeper # With his stick that picked up leaves. ## And the old dog sleeper # Alone between nurses and swans # While the boys among willows # Made the tigers jump out of their eyes # To roar on the rockery stones # And the groves were blue with sailors ## Made all day until bell time # A woman figure without fault # Straight as a young elm # Straight and tall from his crooked bones # That she might stand in the night # After the locks and chains ## All night in the unmade park # After the railings and shrubberies # The birds the grass the trees the lake # And the wild boys innocent as strawberries # Had followed the hunchback # To his kennel in the dark. ^ ^ ^ {Among those killed in the dawn raid was a man aged a hundred} ^ ^

^ When the morning was waking over the war # He put on his clothes and stepped out and he died, # The locks yawned loose and a blast blew them wide, # He dropped where he loved on the burst pavement stone # And the funeral grains of the slaughtered floor. # Tell his street on its back he stopped a sun # And the craters of his eyes grew springshoots and fire # When all the keys shot from the locks, and rang. # Dig no more for the chains of his grey-haired heart. # The heavenly ambulance drawn by a wound # Assembling waits for the spade's ring on the cage. # O keep his bones away from that common cart, # The morning is flying on the wings of his age # And a hundred storks perch on the sun's right hand. ^ ^ ^ {Ceremony after a fire raid} ^ ^

^ {i} ^ Myselves # The grievers # Grieve # Among the street burned to tireless death # A child of a few hours # With its kneading mouth # Charred on the black breast of the grave # The mother dug, and its arms full of fires. ## Begin # With singing # Sing # Darkness kindled back into beginning # When the caught tongue nodded blind, # A star was broken # Into the centuries of the child # Myselves grieve now, and miracles cannot atone. ## Forgive # Us forgive # Us # Your death that myselves the believers # May hold it in a great flood # Till the blood shall spurt, # And the dust shall sing like a bird # As the grains blow, as your death grows, through our heart. ## Crying # Your dying # Cry, # Child beyond cockrow, by the fire-dwarfed # Street we chant the flying sea # In the body bereft. # Love is the last light spoken. Oh # Seed of sons in the loin of the black husk left. ^ {ii} ^ I know not whether # Adam or Eve, the adorned holy bullock # Or the white ewe lamb # Or the chosen virgin # Laid in her snow # On the altar of London, # Was the first to die # In the cinder of the little skull, # O bride and bride groom # O Adam and Eve together # Lying in the lull # Under the sad breast of the head stone # White as the skeleton # Of the garden of Eden. ## I know the legend # Of Adam and Eve is never for a second # Silent in my service # Over the dead infants # Over the one # Child who was priest and servants, # Word, singers, and tongue # In the cinder of the little skull, # Who was the serpent's # Night fall and the fruit like a sun, # Man and woman undone, # Beginning crumbled back to darkness # Bare as the nurseries # Of the garden of wilderness. ^ {iii} ^ Into the organpipes and steeples # Of the luminous cathedrals, # Into the weathercocks' molten mouths # Rippling in twelve-winded circles, # Into the dead clock burning the hour # Over the urn of sabbaths # Over the whirling ditch of daybreak # Over the sun's hovel and the slum of fire # And the golden pavements laid in requiems, # Into the bread in a wheatfield of flames, # Into the wine burning like brandy, # The masses of the sea # The masses of the sea under # The masses of the infant-bearing sea # Erupt, fountain, and enter to utter for ever # Glory glory glory # The sundering ultimate kingdom of genesis' thunder. ^ ^ ^ {Last night I dived my beggar arm} ^ ^

^ Last night I dived my beggar arm # Days deep in her breast that wore no heart # For me alone but only a rocked drum # Telling the heart I broke of a good habit ## That her loving, unfriendly limbs # Would plunge my betrayal from sheet to sky # So the betrayed might learn in the sun beams # Of the death in a bed in another country. ^ ^ ^ {Poem} ^ ^

^ Your breath was shed # Invisible to make # About the soiled undead # Night for my sake, ## A raining trail # Intangible to them # With biter's tooth and tail # And cobweb drum, ## A dark as deep # My love as a round wave # To hide the wolves of sleep # And mask the grave. ^ ^ ^ {Poem in October} ^ ^

^ It was my thirtieth year to heaven # Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood # And the mussel pooled and the heron # Priested shore # The morning beckon # With water praying and call of seagull and rook # And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall # Myself to set foot # That second # In the still sleeping town and set forth. ## My birthday began with the water-+ #Birds / and the birds of the winged trees flying my name # Above the farms and the white horses # And I rose # In the rainy autumn # And walked abroad in a shower of all my days. # High tide and the heron dived when I took the road # Over the border # And the gates # Of the town closed as the town awoke. ## A springful of larks in a rolling # Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling # Blackbirds and the sun of October # Summery # On the hill's shoulder, # Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly # Come in the morning where I wandered and listened # To the rain wringing # Wind blow cold # In the wood faraway under me. ## Pale rain over the dwindling harbour # And over the sea wet church the size of a snail # With its horns through mist and the castle # Brown as owls # But all the gardens # Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales # Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud. # There could I marvel # My birthday # Away but the weather turned around. ## It turned away from the blithe country # And down the other air and the blue altered sky # Streamed again a wonder of summer # With apples # Pears and red currants # And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's # Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother # Through the parables # Of sun light # And the legends of the green chapels ## And the twice told fields of infancy # That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine. # These were the woods the river and sea # Where a boy # In the listening # Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy # To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide. # And the mystery # Sang alive # Still in the water and singingbirds. ## And there could I marvel my birthday # Away but the weather turned around. And the true # Joy of the long dead child sang burning # In the sun. # It was my thirtieth # Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon # Though the town below lay leaved with October blood. # O may my heart's truth # Still be sung # On this high hill in a year's turning. ^ ^ ^ {New Quay} ^ ^

^ Dear Tommy, please, from far, sciatic Kingsley # Borrow my eyes. The darkening sea flings Lea # And Perrins on the cockled tablecloth # Of mud and sand. And, like a sable moth, # A cloud against the glassy sun flutters his # Wings. It would be better if the shutters is # Shut. Sinister dark over Cardigan # Bay. No-good is abroad. I unhardy can # Hardly bear the din of No-good wracked dry on # The pebbles. It is time for the Black Lion # But there is only Buckley's unfrisky # Mild. Turned again, Worthington. Never whisky. # I sit at the open window, observing # The salty scene and my Playered gob curving # Down to the wild, umbrella=d, and french lettered # Beach, hearing rise slimy from the Welsh lechered # Caves the cries of the parchs and their flocks. I # Hear their laughter sly as gonococci. # There stinks a snoop in black. I=m thinking it # Is Mr. Jones the Cake, that winking-bit, # That hymning Gooseberry, that Bethel-worm # At whose ball-prying even death=ll squirm # And button up. He minces among knickers, # That prince of pimps, that doyen of dung-lickers. # Over a rump on the clerical-grey seashore, # See how he stumbles. Hallelujah hee-haw] # His head=s in a nest where no bird lays her egg. # He cuts himself on an elder's razor leg. # Sniff, here is sin] Now must he grapple, rise: # He snuggles deep among the chapel thighs, # And when the moist collection plate is passed # Puts in his penny, generous at last. ^ ^ ^ {Vision and prayer} ^ ^

^ {i} ^ Who # Are you # Who is born # In the next room # So loud to my own # That I can hear the womb # Opening and the dark run # Over the ghost and the dropped son # Behind the wall thin as a wren's bone? # In the birth bloody room unknown # To the burn and turn of time # And the heart print of man # Bows no baptism # But dark alone # Blessing on # The wild # Child. ## I # Must lie # Still as stone # By the wren bone # Wall hearing the moan # Of the mother hidden # And the shadowed head of pain # Casting to-morrow like a thorn # And the midwives of miracle sing # Until the turbulent new born # Burns me his name and his flame # And the winged wall is torn # By his torrid crown # And the dark thrown # From his loin # To bright # Light. ## When # The wren # Bone writhes down # And the first dawn # Furied by his stream # Swarms on the kingdom come # Of the dazzler of heaven # And the splashed mothering maiden # Who bore him with a bonfire in # His mouth and rocked him like a storm # I shall run lost in sudden # Terror and shining from # The once hooded room # Crying in vain # In the cauldron # Of his # Kiss ## In # The spin # Of the sun # In the spuming # Cyclone of his wing # For I was lost who am # Crying at the man drenched throne # In the first fury of his stream # And the lightnings of adoration # Back to black silence melt and mourn # For I was lost who have come # To dumbfounding haven # And the finding one # And the high noon # Of his wound # Blinds my # Cry. ## There # Crouched bare # In the shrine # Of his blazing # Breast I shall waken # To the judge blown bedlam # Of the uncaged sea bottom # The cloud climb of the exhaling tomb # And the bidden dust upsailing # With his flame in every grain. # O spiral of ascension # From the vultured urn # Of the morning # Of man when # The land # And ## The # Born sea # Praised the sun # The finding one # And upright Adam # Sang upon origin] # O the wings of the children] # The woundward flight of the ancient # Young from the canyons of oblivion] # The sky stride of the always slain # In battle] the happening # Of saints to their vision] # The world winding home] # And the whole pain # Flows open # And I # Die. ^ {ii} ^ In the name of the lost who glory in # The swinish plains of carrion # Under the burial song # Of the birds of burden # Heavy with the drowned # And the green dust # And bearing # The ghost # From # The ground # Like pollen # On the black plume # And the beak of slime # I pray though I belong # Not wholly to that lamenting # Brethren for joy has moved within # The inmost marrow of my heart bone ## That he who learns now the sun and moon # Of his mother's milk may return # Before the lips blaze and bloom # To the birth bloody room # Behind the wall's wren # Bone and be dumb # And the womb # That bore # For # All men # The adored # Infant light or # The dazzling prison # Yawn to his upcoming. # In the name of the wanton # Lost on the unchristened mountain # In the centre of dark I pray him ## That he let the dead lie though they moan # For his briared hands to hoist them # To the shrine of his world's wound # And the blood drop's garden # Endure the stone # Blind host to sleep # In the dark # And deep # Rock # Awake # No heart bone # But let it break # On the mountain crown # Unbidden by the sun # And the beating dust be blown # Down to the river rooting plain # Under the night forever falling. ## Forever falling night is a known # Star and country to the legion # Of sleepers whose tongue I toll # To mourn his deluging # Light through sea and soil # And we have come # To know all # Places # Ways # Mazes # Passages # Quarters and graves # Of the endless fall. # Now common lazarus # Of the charting sleepers prays # Never to awake and arise # For the country of death is the heart's size ## And the star of the lost the shape of the eyes. # In the name of the fatherless # In the name of the unborn # And the undesirers # Of midwiving morning's # Hands or instruments # O in the name # Of no one # Now or # No # One to # Be I pray # May the crimson # Sun spin a grave grey # And the colour of clay # Stream upon his martyrdom # In the interpreted evening # And the known dark of the earth amen. ## I turn the corner of prayer and burn # In a blessing of the sudden # Sun. In the name of the damned # I would turn back and run # To the hidden land # But the loud sun # Christens down # The sky. # I # Am found. # O let him # Scald me and drown # Me in his world's wound. # His lightning answers my # Cry. My voice burns in his hand. # Now I am lost in the blinding # One. The sun roars at the prayer's end. ^ ^ ^ {Holy spring} ^ ^

^ O # Out of a bed of love # When that immortal hospital made one more move to soothe # The cureless counted body, # And ruin and his causes # Over the barbed and shooting sea assumed an army # And swept into our wounds and houses, # I climb to greet the war in which I have no heart but only # That one dark I owe my light, # Call for confessor and wiser mirror but there is none # To glow after the god stoning night # And I am struck as lonely as a holy maker by the sun. ## No # Praise that the spring time is all # Gabriel and radiant shrubbery as the morning grows joyful # Out of the woebegone pyre # And the multitude's sultry tear turns cool on the weeping wall, # My arising prodigal # Sun the father his quiver full of the infants of pure fire, # But blessed be hail and upheaval # That uncalm still it is sure alone to stand and sing # Alone in the husk of man's home # And the mother and toppling house of the holy spring, # If only for a last time. ^ ^ ^ {A winter's tale} ^ ^

^ It is a winter's tale # That the snow blind twilight ferries over the lakes # And floating fields from the farm in the cup of the vales, # Gliding windless through the hand folded flakes, # The pale breath of cattle at the stealthy sail, ## And the stars falling cold, # And the smell of hay in the snow, and the far owl # Warning among the folds, and the frozen hold # Flocked with the sheep white smoke of the farm house cowl # In the river wended vales where the tale was told. ## Once when the world turned old # On a star of faith pure as the drifting bread, # As the food and flames of the snow, a man unrolled # The scrolls of fire that burned in his heart and head, # Torn and alone in a farm house in a fold ## Of fields. And burning then # In his firelit island ringed by the winged snow # And the dung hills white as wool and the hen # Roosts sleeping chill till the flame of the cock crow # Combs through the mantled yards and the morning men ## Stumble out with their spades, # The cattle stirring, the mousing cat stepping shy, # The puffed birds hopping and hunting, the milkmaids # Gentle in their clogs over the fallen sky, # And all the woken farm at its white trades, ## He knelt, he wept, he prayed, # By the spit and the black pot in the log bright light # And the cup and the cut bread in the dancing shade, # In the muffled house, in the quick of night, # At the point of love, forsaken and afraid. ## He knelt on the cold stones, # He wept from the crest of grief, he prayed to the veiled sky # May his hunger go howling on bare white bones # Past the statues of the stables and the sky roofed sties # And the duck pond glass and the blinding byres alone ## Into the home of prayers # And fires where he should prowl down the cloud # Of his snow blind love and rush in the white lairs. # His naked need struck him howling and bowed # Though no sound flowed down the hand folded air ## But only the wind strung # Hunger of birds in the fields of the bread of water, tossed # In high corn and the harvest melting on their tongues. # And his nameless need bound him burning and lost # When cold as snow he should run the wended vales among ## The rivers mouthed in night, # And drown in the drifts of his need, and lie curled caught # In the always desiring centre of the white # Inhuman cradle and the bride bed forever sought # By the believer lost and the hurled outcast of light. ## Deliver him, he cried, # By losing him all in love, and cast his need # Alone and naked in the engulfing bride, # Never to flourish in the fields of the white seed # Or flower under the time dying flesh astride. ## Listen. The minstrels sing # In the departed villages. The nightingale, # Dust in the buried wood, flies on the grains of her wings # And spells on the winds of the dead his winter's tale. # The voice of the dust of water from the withered spring ## Is telling. The wizened # Stream with bells and baying water bounds. The dew rings # On the gristed leaves and the long gone glistening # Parish of snow. The carved mouths in the rock are wind swept + strings. # Time sings through the intricately dead snow drop. Listen. ## It was a hand or sound # In the long ago land that glided the dark door wide # And there outside on the bread of the ground # A she bird rose and rayed like a burning bride. # A she bird dawned, and her breast with snow and scarlet downed. ## Look. And the dancers move # On the departed, snow bushed green, wanton in moon light # As a dust of pigeons. Exulting, the graved hooved # Horses, centaur dead, turn and tread the drenched white # Paddocks in the farms of birds. The dead oak walks for love. ## The carved limbs in the rock # Leap, as to trumpets. Calligraphy of the old # Leaves is dancing. Lines of age on the stones weave in a flock. # And the harp shaped voice of the water's dust plucks in a fold # Of fields. For love, the long ago she bird rises. Look. ## And the wild wings were raised # Above her folded head, and the soft feathered voice # Was flying through the house as though the she bird praised # And all the elements of the slow fall rejoiced # That a man knelt alone in the cup of the vales, ## In the mantle and calm, # By the spit and the black pot in the log bright light. # And the sky of birds in the plumed voice charmed # Him up and he ran like a wind after the kindling flight # Past the blind barns and byres of the windless farm. ## In the poles of the year # When black birds died like priests in the cloaked hedge row # And over the cloth of counties the far hills rode near, # Under the one leaved trees ran a scarecrow of snow # And fast through the drifts of the thickets antlered like deer, ## Rags and prayers down the knee-+ #Deep / hillocks and loud on the numbed lakes, # All night lost and long wading in the wake of the she-+ #Bird / through the times and lands and tribes of the slow flakes. # Listen and look where she sails the goose plucked sea, ## The sky, the bird, the bride, # The cloud, the need, the planted stars, the joy beyond # The fields of seed and the time dying flesh astride, # The heavens, the heaven, the grave, the burning font. # In the far ago land the door of his death glided wide ## And the bird descended. # On a bread white hill over the cupped farm # And the lakes and floating fields and the river wended # Vales where he prayed to come to the last harm # And the home of prayers and fires, the tale ended. ## The dancing perishes # On the white, no longer growing green, and, minstrel dead, # The singing breaks in the snow shoed villages of wishes # That once cut the figures of birds on the deep bread # And over the glazed lakes skated the shapes of fishes ## Flying. The rite is shorn # Of nightingale and centaur dead horse. The springs wither # Back. Lines of age sleep on the stones till trumpeting dawn. # Exultation lies down. Time buries the spring weather # That belled and bounded with the fossil and the dew reborn. ## For the bird lay bedded # In a choir of wings, as though she slept or died, # And the wings glided wide and he was hymned and wedded, # And through the thighs of the engulfing bride, # The woman breasted and the heaven headed ## Bird, he was brought low, # Burning in the bride bed of love, in the whirl-+ #Pool / at the wanting centre, in the folds # Of paradise, in the spun bud of the world. # And she rose with him flowering in her melting snow. ^ ^ ^ {A refusal to mourn the death, by fire, of a child in london} ^ ^

^ Never until the mankind making # Bird beast and flower # Fathering and all humbling darkness # Tells with silence the last light breaking # And the still hour # Is come of the sea tumbling in harness ## And I must enter again the round # Zion of the water bead # And the synagogue of the ear of corn # Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound # Or sow my salt seed # In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn ## The majesty and burning of the child's death. # I shall not murder # The mankind of her going with a grave truth # Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath # With any further # Elegy of innocence and youth. ## Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter, # Robed in the long friends, # The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother, # Secret by the unmourning water # Of the riding Thames. # After the first death, there is no other. ^ ^ ^ {This side of the truth} {for Llewelyn} ^ ^

^ This side of the truth, # You may not see, my son, # King of your blue eyes # In the blinding country of youth, # That all is undone, # Under the unminding skies, # Of innocence and guilt # Before you move to make # One gesture of the heart or head, # Is gathered and spilt # Into the winding dark # Like the dust of the dead. ## Good and bad, two ways # Of moving about your death # By the grinding sea, # King of your heart in the blind days, # Blow away like breath, # Go crying through you and me # And the souls of all men # Into the innocent # Dark, and the guilty dark, and good # Death, and bad death, and then # In the last element # Fly like the stars' blood, ## Like the sun's tears, # Like the moon's seed, rubbish # And fire, the flying rant # Of the sky, king of your six years. # And the wicked wish, # Down the beginning of plants # And animals and birds, # Water and light, the earth and sky, # Is cast before you move, # And all your deeds and words, # Each truth, each lie, # Die in unjudging love. ^ ^ ^ {The conversation of prayer} ^ ^

^ The conversation of prayers about to be said # By the child going to bed and the man on the stairs # Who climbs to his dying love in her high room, # The one not caring to whom in his sleep he will move # And the other full of tears that she will be dead, ## Turns in the dark on the sound they know will arise # Into the answering skies from the green ground, # From the man on the stairs and the child by his bed. # The sound about to be said in the two prayers # For the sleep in a safe land and the love who dies ## Will be the same grief flying. Whom shall they calm? # Shall the child sleep unharmed or the man be crying? # The conversation of prayers about to be said # Turns on the quick and the dead, and the man on the stairs # To-night shall find no dying but alive and warm ## In the fire of his care his love in the high room. # And the child not caring to whom he climbs his prayer # Shall drown in a grief as deep as his true grave, # And mark the dark eyed wave, through the eyes of sleep, # Dragging him up the stairs to one who lies dead. ^ ^ ^ {Lie still, sleep becalmed} ^ ^

^ Lie still, sleep becalmed, sufferer with the wound # In the throat, burning and turning. All night afloat # On the silent sea we have heard the sound # That came from the wound wrapped in the salt sheet. ## Under the mile off moon we trembled listening # To the sea sound flowing like blood from the loud wound # And when the salt sheet broke in a storm of singing # The voices of all the drowned swam on the wind. ## Open a pathway through the slow sad sail, # Throw wide to the wind the gates of the wandering boat # For my voyage to begin to the end of my wound, # We heard the sea sound sing, we saw the salt sheet tell. # Lie still, sleep becalmed, hide the mouth in the throat, # Or we shall obey, and ride with you through the drowned. ^ ^ ^ {Fern hill} ^ ^

^ Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs # About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green, # The night above the dingle starry, # Time let me hail and climb # Golden in the heydays of his eyes, # And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns # And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves # Trail with daisies and barley # Down the rivers of the windfall light. ## And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns # About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home, # In the sun that is young once only, # Time let me play and be # Golden in the mercy of his means, # And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves # Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold, # And the sabbath rang slowly # In the pebbles of the holy streams. ## All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay # Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air # And playing, lovely and watery # And fire green as grass. # And nightly under the simple stars # As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away, # All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars # Flying with the ricks, and the horses # Flashing into the dark. ## And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white # With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all # Shining, it was Adam and maiden, # The sky gathered again # And the sun grew round that very day. # So it must have been after the birth of the simple light # In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm # Out of the whinnying green stable # On to the fields of praise. ## And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house # Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long, # In the sun born over and over, # I ran my heedless ways, # My wishes raced through the house high hay # And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows # In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs # Before the children green and golden # Follow him out of grace, ## Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me # Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand, # In the moon that is always rising, # Nor that riding to sleep # I should hear him fly with the high fields # And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land. # Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, # Time held me green and dying # Though I sang in my chains like the sea. ^ ^ ^ {In my craft or sullen art} ^ ^

^ In my craft or sullen art # Exercised in the still night # When only the moon rages # And the lovers lie abed # With all their griefs in their arms, # I labour by singing light # Not for ambition or bread # Or the strut and trade of charms # On the ivory stages # But for the common wages # Of their most secret heart. ## Not for the proud man apart # From the raging moon I write # On these spindrift pages # Nor for the towering dead # With their nightingales and psalms # But for the lovers, their arms # Round the griefs of the ages, # Who pay no praise or wages # Nor heed my craft or art. ^ ^ ^ {In country sleep} ^ ^

^ {i} ^ Never and never, my girl riding far and near # In the land of the hearthstone tales, and spelled asleep, # Fear or believe that the wolf in a sheepwhite hood # Loping and bleating roughly and blithely shall leap, # My dear, my dear, # Out of a lair in the flocked leaves in the dew dipped year # To eat your heart in the house in the rosy wood. ## Sleep, good, for ever, slow and deep, spelled rare and wise, # My girl ranging the night in the rose and shire # Of the hobnail tales: no gooseherd or swine will turn # Into a homestall king or hamlet of fire # And prince of ice # To court the honeyed heart from your side before sunrise # In a spinney of ringed boys and ganders, spike and burn, ## Nor the innocent lie in the rooting dingle wooed # And staved, and riven among plumes my rider weep. # From the broomed witch's spume you are shielded by fern # And flower of country sleep and the greenwood keep. # Lie fast and soothed, # Safe be and smooth from the bellows of the rushy brood. # Never, my girl, until tolled to sleep by the stern ## Bell believe or fear that the rustic shade or spell # Shall harrow and snow the blood while you ride wide and near, # For who unmanningly haunts the mountain ravened eaves # Or skulks in the dell moon but moonshine echoing clear # From the starred well? # A hill touches an angel. Out of a saint's cell # The nightbird lauds through nunneries and domes of leaves ## Her robin breasted tree, three Marys in the rays. # \Sanctum \sanctorum the animal eye of the wood # In the rain telling its beads, and the gravest ghost # The owl at its knelling. Fox and holt kneel before blood. # Now the tales praise # The star rise at pasture and nightlong the fables graze # On the lord's-table of the bowing grass. Fear most ## For ever of all not the wolf in his baaing hood # Nor the tusked prince, in the ruttish farm, at the rind # And mire of love, but the Thief as meek as the dew. # The country is holy: O bide in that country kind, # Know the green good, # Under the prayer wheeling moon in the rosy wood # Be shielded by chant and flower and gay may you ## Lie in grace. Sleep spelled at rest in the lowly house # In the squirrel nimble grove, under linen and thatch # And star: held and blessed, though you scour the high four # Winds, from the dousing shade and the roarer at the latch, # Cool in your vows. # Yet out of the beaked, web dark and the pouncing boughs # Be you sure the Thief will seek a way sly and sure ## And sly as snow and meek as dew blown to the thorn, # This night and each vast night until the stern bell talks # In the tower and tolls to sleep over the stalls # Of the hearthstone tales my own, lost love; and the soul walks # The waters shorn. # This night and each night since the falling star you were born, # Ever and ever he finds a way, as the snow falls, ## As the rain falls, hail on the fleece, as the vale mist rides # Through the haygold stalls, as the dew falls on the wind-+ #Milled / dust of the apple tree and the pounded islands # Of the morning leaves, as the star falls, as the winged # Apple seed glides, # And falls, and flowers in the yawning wound at our sides, # As the world falls, silent as the cyclone of silence. ^ {ii} ^ Night and the reindeer on the clouds above the haycocks # And the wings of the great roc ribboned for the fair] # The leaping saga of prayer] And high, there, on the hare-+ #Heeled / winds the rooks # Cawing from their black bethels soaring, the holy books # Of birds] Among the cocks like fire the red fox ## Burning] Night and the vein of birds in the winged, sloe wrist # Of the wood] Pastoral beat of blood through the laced leaves] # The stream from the priest black wristed spinney and sleeves # Of thistling frost # Of the nightingale's din and tale] The upgiven ghost # Of the dingle torn to singing and the surpliced ## Hill of cypresses] The din and tale in the skimmed # Yard of the buttermilk rain on the pail] The sermon # Of blood] The bird loud vein] The saga from mermen # To seraphim # Leaping] The gospel rooks] All tell, this night, of him # Who comes as red as the fox and sly as the heeled wind. ## Illumination of music] The lulled black-backed # Gull, on the wave with sand in its eyes] And the foal moves # Through the shaken greensward lake, silent, on moonshod hooves, # In the winds' wakes. # Music of elements, that a miracle makes] # Earth, air, water, fire, singing into the white act, ## The haygold haired, my love asleep, and the rift blue # Eyed, in the haloed house, in her rareness and hilly # High riding, held and blessed and true, and so stilly # Lying the sky # Might cross its planets, the bell weep, night gather her eyes, # The Thief fall on the dead like the willy nilly dew, ## Only for the turning of the earth in her holy # Heart] Slyly, slowly, hearing the wound in her side go # Round the sun, he comes to my love like the designed snow, # And truly he # Flows to the strand of flowers like the dew's ruly sea, # And surely he sails like the ship shape clouds. Oh he ## Comes designed to my love to steal not her tide raking # Wound, nor her riding high, nor her eyes, nor kindled hair, # But her faith that each vast night and the saga of prayer # He comes to take # Her faith that this last night for his unsacred sake # He comes to leave her in the lawless sun awaking ## Naked and forsaken to grieve he will not come. # Ever and ever by all your vows believe and fear # My dear this night he comes and night without end my dear # Since you were born: # And you shall wake, from country sleep, this dawn and each first + dawn, # Your faith as deathless as the outcry of the ruled sun. ^ ^ ^ {Over Sir John's hill} ^ ^

^ Over Sir John's hill, # The hawk on fire hangs still; # In a hoisted cloud, at drop of dusk, he pulls to his claws # And gallows, up the rays of his eyes the small birds of the bay # And the shrill child's play # Wars # Of the sparrows and such who swansing, dusk, in wrangling + hedges. # And blithely they squawk # To fiery tyburn over the wrestle of elms until # The flashed the noosed hawk # Crashes, and slowly the fishing holy stalking heron # In the river Towy below bows his tilted headstone. ## Flash, and the plumes crack, # And a black cap of jack-+ #Daws / Sir John's just hill dons, and again the gulled birds hare # To the hawk on fire, the halter height, over Towy's fins, # In a whack of wind. # There # Where the elegiac fisherbird stabs and paddles # In the pebbly dab-filled # Shallow and sedge, and "dilly dilly$, calls the loft hawk, # "Come and be killed,$ # I open the leaves of the water at a passage # Of psalms and shadows among the pincered sandcrabs prancing ## And read, in a shell, # Death clear as a buoy's bell: # All praise of the hawk on fire in hawk-eyed dusk be sung, # When his viperish fuse hangs looped with flames under the brand # Wing, and blest shall # Young # Green chickens of the bay and bushes cluck, "dilly dilly, # Come let us die.$ # We grieve as the blithe birds, never again, leave shingle and elm, # The heron and I, # I young Aesop fabling to the near night by the dingle # Of eels, saint heron hymning in the shell-hung distant ## Crystal harbour vale # Where the sea cobbles sail, # And wharves of water where the walls dance and the white cranes + stilt. # It is the heron and I, under judging Sir John's elmed # Hill, tell-tale the knelled # Guilt # Of the led-astray birds whom God, for their breast of whistles, # Have mercy on, # God in his whirlwind silence save, who marks the sparrows hail, # For their souls' song. # Now the heron grieves in the weeded verge. Through windows # Of dusk and water I see the tilting whispering ## Heron, mirrored, go, # As the snapt feathers snow, # Fishing in the tear of the Towy. Only a hoot owl # Hollows, a grassblade blown in cupped hands, in the looted elms # And no green cocks or hens # Shout # Now on Sir John's hill. The heron, ankling the scaly # Lowlands of the waves # Makes all the music; and I who hear the tune of the slow, # Wear-willow river, grave, # Before the lunge of the night, the notes on this time-shaken # Stone for the sake of the souls of the slain birds sailing. ^ ^ ^ ^ {In the white giant's thigh} ^ ^

^ Through throats where many rivers meet, the curlews cry, # Under the conceiving moon, on the high chalk hill, # And there this night I walk in the white giant's thigh # Where barren as boulders women lie longing still ## To labour and love though they lay down long ago. ## Through throats where many rivers meet, the women pray, # Pleading in the waded bay for the seed to flow # Though the names on their weed grown stones are rained away, ## And alone in the night's eternal, curving act # They yearn with tongues of curlews for the unconceived # And immemorial sons of the cudgelling, hacked ## Hill. Who once in gooseskin winter loved all ice leaved # In the courters' lanes, or twined in the ox roasting sun # In the wains tonned so high that the wisps of the hay # Clung to the pitching clouds, or gay with any one # Young as they in the after milking moonlight lay ## Under the lighted shapes of faith and their moonshade # Petticoats galed high, or shy with the rough riding boys, # Now clasp me to their grains in the gigantic glade, ## Who once, green countries since, were a hedgerow of joys. # Time by, their dust was flesh the swineherd rooted sly, # Flared in the reek of the wiving sty with the rush # Light of his thighs, spreadeagle to the dunghill sky, # Or with their orchard man in the core of the sun's bush # Rough as cows' tongues and thrashed with brambles their buttermilk # Manes, under his quenchless summer barbed gold to the bone, ## Or rippling soft in the spinney moon as the silk # And ducked and draked white lake that harps to a hail stone. ## Who once were a bloom of wayside brides in the hawed house # And heard the lewd, wooed field flow to the coming frost, # The scurrying, furred small friars squeal, in the dowse # Of day, in the thistle aisles, till the white owl crossed ## Their breast, the vaulting does roister, the horned bucks climb # Quick in the wood at love, where a torch of foxes foams, # All birds and beasts of the linked night uproar and chime ## And the mole snout blunt under his pilgrimage of domes, # Or, butter fat goosegirls, bounced in a gambo bed, # Their breasts full of honey, under their gander king # Trounced by his wings in the hissing shippen, long dead # And gone that barley dark where their clogs danced in the spring, # And their firefly hairpins flew, and the ricks ran round % ## (But nothing bore, no mouthing babe to the veined hives # Hugged, and barren and bare on Mother Goose's ground # They with the simple Jacks were a boulder of wives) % ## Now curlew cry me down to kiss the mouths of their dust. ## The dust of their kettles and clocks swings to and fro # Where the hay rides now or the bracken kitchens rust # As the arc of the billhooks that flashed the hedges low # And cut the birds' boughs that the minstrel sap ran red. # They from houses where the harvest kneels, hold me hard, # Who heard the tall bell sail down the Sundays of the dead # And the rain wring out its tongues on the faded yard, # Teach me the love that is evergreen after the fall leaved # Grave, after Belov*ed on the grass gulfed cross is scrubbed # Off by the sun and Daughters no longer grieved # Save by their long desirers in the fox cubbed # Streets or hungering in the crumbled wood: to these # Hale dead and deathless do the women of the hill # Love for ever meridian through the courters' trees ## And the daughters of darkness flame like Fawkes fires still. ^ ^ ^ {Lament} ^ ^

^ When I was a windy boy and a bit # And the black spit of the chapel fold, # (Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women), # I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood, # The rude owl cried like a telltale tit, # I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled # Ninepin down on the donkeys' common, # And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed # Whoever I would with my wicked eyes, # The whole of the moon I could love and leave # All the green leaved little weddings' wives # In the coal black bush and let them grieve. ## When I was a gusty man and a half # And the black beast of the beetles' pews, # (Sighed the old ram rod, dying of bitches), # Not a boy and a bit in the wick-+ #Dipping / moon and drunk as a new dropped calf, # I whistled all night in the twisted flues, # Midwives grew in the midnight ditches, # And the sizzling beds of the town cried, Quick] % # Whenever I dove in a breast high shoal, # Wherever I ramped in the clover quilts, # Whatsoever I did in the coal-+ #Black / night, I left my quivering prints. ## When I was a man you could call a man # And the black cross of the holy house, # (Sighed the old ram rod, dying of welcome), # Brandy and ripe in my bright, bass prime, # No springtailed tom in the red hot town # With every simmering woman his mouse # But a hillocky bull in the swelter # Of summer come in his great good time # To the sultry, biding herds, I said, # Oh, time enough when the blood creeps cold, # And I lie down but to sleep in bed, # For my sulking, skulking, coal black soul] ## When I was a half of the man I was # And serve me right as the preachers warn, # (Sighed the old ram rod, dying of downfall), # No flailing calf or cat in a flame # Or hickory bull in milky grass # But a black sheep with a crumpled horn, # At last the soul from its foul mousehole # Slunk pouting out when the limp time came; # And I gave my soul a blind, slashed eye, # Gristle and rind, and a roarers' life, # And I shoved it into the coal black sky # To find a woman's soul for a wife. ## Now I am a man no more no more # And a black reward for a roaring life, # (Sighed the old ram rod, dying of strangers), # Tidy and cursed in my dove cooed room # I lie down thin and hear the good bells jaw % # For, oh, my soul found a sunday wife # In the coal black sky and she bore angels] # Harpies around me out of her womb] # Chastity prays for me, piety sings, # Innocence sweetens my last black breath, # Modesty hides my thighs in her wings, # And all the deadly virtues plague my death] ^ ^ ^ {Do not go gentle into that good night} ^ ^

^ Do not go gentle into that good night, # Old age should burn and rave at close of day; # Rage, rage against the dying of the light. ## Though wise men at their end know dark is right, # Because their words had forked no lightning they # Do not go gentle into that good night. ## Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright # Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, # Rage, rage against the dying of the light. ## Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, # And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, # Do not go gentle into that good night. ## Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight # Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, # Rage, rage against the dying of the light. ## And you, my father, there on the sad height, # Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. # Do not go gentle into that good night. # Rage, rage against the dying of the light. ^ ^ ^ {Poem on his birthday} ^ ^

^ In the mustardseed sun, # By full tilt river and switchback sea # Where the cormorants scud, # In his house on stilts high among beaks # And palavers of birds # This sandgrain day in the bent bay's grave # He celebrates and spurns # His driftwood thirty-fifth wind turned age; # Herons spire and spear. ## Under and round him go # Flounders, gulls, on their cold, dying trails, # Doing what they are told, # Curlews aloud in the congered waves # Work at their ways to death, # And the rhymer in the long tongued room, # Who tolls his birthday bell, # Toils towards the ambush of his wounds; # Herons, steeple stemmed, bless. ## In the thistledown fall, # He sings towards anguish; finches fly # In the claw tracks of hawks # On a seizing sky; small fishes glide # Through wynds and shells of drowned # Ship towns to pastures of otters. He # In his slant, racking house # And the hewn coils of his trade perceives # Herons walk in their shroud, ## The livelong river's robe # Of minnows wreathing around their prayer; # And far at sea he knows, # Who slaves to his crouched, eternal end # Under a serpent cloud, # Dolphins dive in their turnturtle dust, # The rippled seals streak down # To kill and their own tide daubing blood # Slides good in the sleek mouth. ## In a cavernous, swung # Wave's silence, wept white angelus knells. # Thirty-five bells sing struck # On skull and scar where his loves lie wrecked, # Steered by the falling stars. # And to-morrow weeps in a blind cage # Terror will rage apart # Before chains break to a hammer flame # And love unbolts the dark ## And freely he goes lost # In the unknown, famous light of great # And fabulous, dear God. # Dark is a way and light is a place, # Heaven that never was # Nor will be ever is always true, # And, in that brambled void, # Plenty as blackberries in the woods # The dead grow for His joy. ## There he might wander bare # With the spirits of the horseshoe bay # Or the stars' seashore dead, # Marrow of eagles, the roots of whales # And wishbones of wild geese, # With blessed, unborn God and His Ghost, # And every soul His priest, # Gulled and chanter in young Heaven's fold # Be at cloud quaking peace, ## But dark is a long way. # He, on the earth of the night, alone # With all the living, prays, # Who knows the rocketing wind will blow # The bones out of the hills, # And the scythed boulders bleed, and the last # Rage shattered waters kick # Masts and fishes to the still quick stars, # Faithlessly unto Him ## Who is the light of old # And air shaped Heaven where souls grow wild # As horses in the foam: # Oh, let me midlife mourn by the shrined # And druid herons' vows # The voyage to ruin I must run, # Dawn ships clouted aground, # Yet, though I cry with tumbledown tongue, # Count my blessings aloud: ## Four elements and five # Senses, and man a spirit in love # Tangling through this spun slime # To his nimbus bell cool kingdom come # And the lost, moonshine domes, # And the sea that hides his secret selves # Deep in its black, base bones, # Lulling of spheres in the seashell flesh, # And this last blessing most, ## That the closer I move # To death, one man through his sundered hulks, # The louder the sun blooms # And the tusked, ramshackling sea exults; # And every wave of the way # And gale I tackle, the whole world then, # With more triumphant faith # That ever was since the world was said, # Spins its morning of praise, ## I hear the bouncing hills # Grow larked and greener at berry brown # Fall and the dew larks sing # Taller this thunderclap spring, and how # More spanned with angels ride # The mansouled fiery islands] Oh, # Holier then their eyes, # And my shining men no more alone # As I sail out to die. ^ ^ ^ {In country heaven} ^ ^

^ Always when he, in country heaven, # (Whom my heart hears), # Crosses the breast of the praising East, and kneels, # Humble in all his planets, # And weeps on the abasing hill, ## Then in the delight and grove of beasts and birds # And the canonized valley # Where the dewfall stars sing grazing still # And the angels whirr like pheasants # Through naves of leaves, ## Light and his tears glide down together # (O hand in hand) # From the country eyes, salt and sun, star and woe # Down the cheek bones and whinnying # Downs into the low browsing dark. ## Housed in hamlets of heaven swing the loft lamps, # In the black buried spinneys # Bushes and owls blow out like candles, # And seraphic fields of shepherds # Fade with their rose-+ #White, #{White,} God's bright, flocks, the belled lambs leaping, # (His gentle kind); # The shooting star hawk statued blind in a cloud # Over the blackamoor shires # Hears the belfries and the cobbles ## Of the twelve apostles' towns ring in his night; # And the long fox like fire # Prowls flaming among the cockerels # In the farms of heaven's keeping, # But they sleep sound. ## For the fifth element is pity, # (Pity for death).... ^ ^ ^ {Elegy} ^ ^

^ Too proud to die, broken and blind he died # The darkest way, and did not turn away, # A cold kind man brave in his narrow pride ## On that darkest day. Oh, forever may # He lie lightly, at last, on the last, crossed # Hill, under the grass, in love, and there grow ## Young among the long flocks, and never lie lost # Or still all the numberless days of his death, though # Above all he longed for his mother's breast ## Which was rest and dust, and in the kind ground # The darkest justice of death, blind and unblessed. # Let him find no rest but be fathered and found, ## I prayed in the crouching room, by his blind bed, # In the muted house, one minute before # Noon, and night, and light. The rivers of the dead ## Veined his poor hand I held, and I saw # Through his unseeing eyes to the roots of the sea. # @An old tormented man three-quarters blind, ## I am not too proud to cry that He and he # Will never never go out of my mind. # All his bones crying, and poor in all but pain, ## Being innocent, he dreaded that he died # Hating his God, but what he was was plain: # An old kind man brave in his burning pride. ## The sticks of the house were his; his books he owned. # Even as a baby he had never cried; # Nor did he now, save to his secret wound. ## Out of his eyes I saw the last light glide. # Here among the light of the lording sky # An old blind man is with me where I go ## Walking in the meadows of his son's eye # On whom a world of ills came down like snow. # He cried as he died, fearing at last the spheres' ## Last sound, the world going out without a breath: # Too proud to cry, too frail to check the tears, # And caught between two nights, blindness and death. ## O deepest wound of all that he should die # On that darkest day. Oh, he could hide # The tears out of his eyes, too proud to cry. ## Until I die he will not leave my side.@ ^ ^ ^ {The song of the mischievous dog} # #

^ There are many who say that a dog has its day, # And a cat has a number of lives; # There are others who think that a lobster is pink, # And that bees never work in their hives. # There are fewer, of course, who insist that a horse # Has a horn and two humps on its head, # And a fellow who jests that a mare can build nests # Is as rare as a donkey that=s red. # Yet in spite of all this, I have moments of bliss, # For I cherish a passion for bones, # And though doubtful of biscuit, I=m willing to risk it, # And I love to chase rabbits and stones. # But my greatest delight is to take a good bite # At a calf that is plump and delicious; # And if I indulge in a bite at a bulge, # Let=s hope you won=t think me too vicious. ^ ^ ^ {Forest picture} ^ ^

^ Calm and strange is this evening hour in the forest, # Carven domes of green are the trees by the pathway, # Infinite shadowy isles lie silent before me, # Summer is heavy with age, and leans upon Autumn. ## All the land is ripe. There is no motion # Down the long bays of blue that those cloudy headlands # Sleep above in the glow of a fading sunset; # All things rest in the will of purpose triumphant. ## Outlines melting into a vague immensity # Fade, the green gloom grows darker, and deeper the dusk: # Hark] a voice and laughter % the living and loving # Down these fantastic avenues pass like shadows. ^ ^ ^ {Missing} ^ ^

^ Seek him, thou sun, in the dread wilderness, # For that he loved thee, seek thou him and bless # His upturned face with one divine caress. ## Lightly, thou wind, over his dear, dark head, # Where now the wings of dreamless sleep are spread, # Whisper a benediction for the dead. ## Softly, thou rain % and for his mother's sake, # Shed thou thy tears on him; he will not wake, # No weeping through that deep repose can break. ^ ^ ^ {In dreams} ^ ^

^ And in her garden grow the fleur de lys, # The tall mauve iris of a sleeping clime. # Their pale, ethereal beauty seems to be # The frail and delicate breath of even-time. # And night, who stooped to kiss the pallid leaves # To that strange colour, sighing gently, grieves # For her who walks within her garden-close. # Somehow it seems, amid the evening haze, # That in her garden, rather than the days, # There should be night for ever, and no rose, # But only iris on their slender stalks # Along the borders of the garden-walks. # . . . . . # Her garden blooms with iris, and it seems # The moons are white flames, like the moons in dreams. ^ ^ ^ {Idyll of unforgetfulness} ^ ^

^ To have seen countries which were glorious, # Immutable, and ardourously consecrated; # To have known them in their blue-hued valiance, # Felt their serenity of ripple-woven loveliness; # To have heard their vague, rhapsodic singings, # Their silences in silver quietness of sleep, # And listened when a slow, starred slumber wrapt the moon, # To the voices of the wind caught in the cradle-petals of the night: # These were my desires, eternal as mountains, # These were the whisperings that sighed on my lips at dusk, # These the imaginings, tender and blossomed with futility, # That played in voiceless frolic at the threshold of my heart. # These countries I have not visioned, # Which bathe themselves in a ravishment of snow; # Their grasses, each a tiny ecstasy, # Have not adored my body as it softly smoothed their skin. # But I have known the still ardour of equability; # I have known the mystery of the sea to be mantled about me; # I have felt the silk wind brush my lips; # I have made my throat an arbour for forgotten songs. # The sea has been breeze-serene sapphire, # And blue-tipped birds have rippled it, # And the sun has smoothed it with quiet fire, # And I have reflected its colours in the peace of my eyes; # It has been vague, and made of shadow, # With little, odd mists waved in the path of its echo, # When everything slept and the smell of the waves was strange; # The foam has lingered into white, little flowers, # And changed with the wind into indistinct patterns of frolic, # And my fingers have touched the glass of the waters, # And hours made little I have dipped my arms in their rapture; # Little white-lipped faces have peered up at me, # And eyes have been grove-green catching mine from the depth of + the silence; # Voices have called, and the answers lemural whispers from the sea; # And covering all has been a quietude, and a singing from flake-+ bare throats. # Now the sea has a flowering of foam; # Hidden in delicate drifts of mist are they that beckon, # They of the pale, sea-wan beauty, they of the home # Of the pale-green, delicate fishes, silver as sighs; # Their voices are dim; they have passed, # In the carpeting of the dusk, obscurely and elusively, # Enveloping themselves in the laden eve; # The darkness is illimitable, green shadow, # And the whisper caught in its pageant of tawny pearl, # Green-shadowed panoply enveloping all its strangeness and + softness of stealth./ ^ ^ ^ {Of any flower} ^ ^

^ Hourly I sigh, # For all things are leaf-like # And cloud-like. ## Flowerly I die, # For all things are grief-like # And shroud-like. ^ ^ ^ {Clown in the moon} ^ ^

^ My tears are like the quiet drift # Of petals from some magic rose; # And all my grief flows from the rift # Of unremembered skies and snows. ## I think, that if I touched the earth, # It would crumble; # It is so sad and beautiful, # So tremulously like a dream. ^ ^ ^ {To a slender wind} ^ ^

^ Chrysolith thy step, # And on a jewelled pool # Faint arrowy moonstone on a tear-culled cadence, # Like fragmentary rain # Shaken silkily from star-scaled boughs. ## Each note of thy dusky song # Is a petal that has delicate breath # And is azure; # And is more beautiful than the drift of leaves. ^ ^ ^ {The elm} ^ ^

^ They are all goddesses; # Nodding like flowers, # They are further and more delicate # Than the years that dwindle; # They are deeper in darkness # Than the hours. ## Celestial, # Slenderly lethal things, # Beautifully little like clouds: # Leaf driftwood that has blown. ^ ^ ^ {The oak} ^ ^

^ Fierce colours fled about the branches, # Enveloping the ragged leaves unseen and strewn. ## Hazardous reflections dipped in evening # Hover, making the forest fluctuantly vague. ## Something austere hides, something uncertain # Beneath the deep bark calls and makes quiet music. ^ ^ ^ {The pine} ^ ^

^ Virgate and sprung of the dusk, # The pine is the tree of the breeze, # And the winds that stream through the ribboned light # And the motley winds from the seas. ^ ^ ^ {To the spring-spirit} ^ ^

^ And when it was spring I said, # "Linger not deeper in the coloured trees, # But beautifully flake your head # With foam flung by the flowering seas.$ ## And you arose from depths of grass # That whispered with the wind and wept, # Saying you would let the chill seas pass, # Seeking no further than your petals that still slept. ## And I forgot the driftless foam, and sand, # Idling with the radiance of the hours # Among the quiet trees. And hand in hand # We strangely sang among the feathery flowers. ^ ^ ^ {Triolet} ^ ^

^ The bees are glad the livelong day, # For lilacs in their beauty blow # And make my garden glad and gay. # The bees are glad the livelong day, # They to my blossoms wing their way, # And honey steal from flowers aglow. # The bees are glad the livelong day, # For lilacs in their beauty blow. ^ ^ ^ {You shall not despair} ^ ^

^ You shall not despair # Because I have forsaken you # Or cast your love aside; # There is a greater love than mine # Which can comfort you # And touch you with softer hands. # I am no longer # Friendly and beautiful to you; # Your body cannot gladden me, # Nor the splendour of your dark hair, # But I do not humiliate you; # You shall be taken sweetly again # And soothed with slow tears; # You shall be loved enough. ^ ^ ^ {My river} ^ ^

^ My river, even though it lifts # Ledges of waves high over your head, # Cannot wear your edge away, # Round it so smoothly, # Or rub your bright stone. # You stand a little apart, # Strong enough to tread on the sand # And leave a clear print, # Strong and beautiful enough # To thrust your arm into the earth # And leave a tunnel # Looking up at you. # The metallic rain # Cannot dent your flanks; # The wind cannot blunt # The blade of your long foot, # Nor can the snow # Smooth the prisms of your breasts. # Sea, do not flow # Against this side. ## You stretch out your hands # To touch the hydrangeas, # Then take them away quickly # As the mouth of the tiger-lily # Closes about your clasped fingers # With uneven, spiral teeth. # Your hands are beautiful hands # With slender fingers # And milk-white nails. # Your eyes can be the eyes # Of the nightingale, # Or the eyes of the eagle # Rising on black wings. # Your voice can be the voice # Of the sea under the hard sun, # The sea speaking keenly, # Or the voice of the river # Moving in one direction, # In a pattern like a shell # Lying upon the yellow beach. # My river cannot rub your bright stone, # Which cuts into the strength # And takes the heat away. # My river has high waves, # But your stone is many pointed, # And your side is steep. ^ ^ ^ {We will be conscious of our sanctity} ^ ^

^ We will be conscious of our sanctity # That ripens as we develop # Our rods and substantial centres, # Our branches and holy leaves # On the edge beyond your reach; # We will remark upon the size # Of our roots, # Beautiful roots # Because they are under the surface # Of our charm. # Give us the pleasure of regret; # Our tears sound wiser # Than our laughter at the air # Or the yellow linnet who does not merit it. # We will be conscious of our divinity # When the time comes, # Unashamed but not with delight, # Making our affections fast; # We will tie you down # To one sense of finality # Like a cave with one thread. # Under this shade # The kingfisher comes # And the fresh-water bird # With his pink beak, # But we do not concern ourselves, # Waiting, waiting, # Waiting for the bird who shall say, # "I have come to elevate you, # To saw through your roots # And let you float.$ # Then will we rise # Upon broad wings # And go into the air, # Burrow our way upwards into the blue sky; # This shade # Has the dragonfly and the swordfish # Cleaving their own sedges, # The otter # Hand in hand with the mermaid # Creeping catlike under the water. # We will be conscious # Of a new country # Opening in the blind cloud over our heads; # We will be conscious of a great divinity # And a wide sanity ^ ^ ^ {I have come to catch your voice} ^ ^

^ I have come to catch your voice, # Your constructed notes going out of the throat # With dry, mechanical gestures, # To catch the shaft # Although it is so straight and unbending; # Then, when I open my mouth, # The light will come in an unwavering line. # Then to catch night # Wading through her dark cave on ferocious wings. # Oh, eagle-mouthed, # I have come to pluck you, # And take away your exotic plumage, # Although your anger is not a slight thing, # Take you into my own place # Where the frost can never fall, # Nor the petals of any flower drop. ^ ^ ^ {When your furious motion} ^ ^

^ When your furious motion is steadied, # And your clamour stopped, # And when the bright wheel of your turning voice is stilled, # Your step will remain about to fall. # So will your voice vibrate # And its edge cut the surface, # So, then, will the dark cloth of your hair # Flow uneasily behind you. ## This ponderous flower # Which leans one way, # Weighed strangely down upon you # Until you could bear it no longer # And bent under it, # While its violet shells broke and parted. # When you are gone # The scent of the great flower will stay, # Burning its sweet path clearer than before. # Press, press, and clasp steadily; # You shall not let go; # Chain the strong voice # And grip the inexorable song, # Or throw it, stone by stone, # Into the sky. ^ ^ ^ {No thought can trouble my unwholesome pose} ^ ^

^ No thought can trouble my unwholesome pose, # Nor make the stern shell of my spirit move. # You do not hurt, nor can your hand # Touch to remember and be sad. # I take you to myself, sweet pain, # And make you bitter with my cold, # My net that takes to break # The fibres, or the senses' thread. # No love can penetrate # The thick hide covering, # The strong, unturning crust that hides # The flower from the smell, # And does not show the fruit to taste; # No wave comb the sea, # And settle in the steady path. # Here is the thought that comes # Like a bird in its lightness, # On the sail of each slight wing # White with the rising water. # Come, you are to lose your freshness. # Will you drift into the net willingly, # Or shall I drag you down # Into my exotic composure? ^ ^ ^ {No, pigeon, I'm too wise} ^ ^

^ No, pigeon, I=m too wise; # No sky for me that carries # Its shining clouds for you; # Sky has not loved me much, # And if it did, who should I have # To wing my shoulders and my feet? # There=s no way. # Ah, nightingale, my voice # Could never touch your spinning notes, # Nor be so clear. # I=m not secure enough # To tell what note I could reach if I tried, # But no high tree for me # With branches waiting for a singing bird, # And every nightingale a swan # Who sails on tides of leaves and sound. # I=m all for ground, # To touch what=s to be touched, # To imitate myself mechanically, # Doing my little tricks of speech again # With all my usual care. # No bird for me: # He flies too high. ^ ^ ^ {Woman on tapestry} ^ ^

^ Her woven hands beckoned me, # And her eyes pierced their intense love into me, # And I drew closer to her # Until I felt the rhythm of her body # Like a living cloak over me. # I saw the cold, green trees, # Their silken branches unmoving, # Their delicate, silken leaves folded, # And the deep sky over them # With immeasurable sadness. ## Her love for me is fierce and continual, # Strong, fresh, and overpowering. # My love for her is like the moving of a cloud # Serene and unbroken, # Or the motion of a flower # Stirring its pole stem in delight, # Or the graceful sound of laughter. # In the victory of her gladness # And the triumph of her pitiless gaiety # She became like a dancer or a pretty animal # Suave in her movements, # On the balance of her dark foot, # Stepping down. ## Let me believe in the clean faith of the body, # The sweet, glowing vigour # And the gestures of unageing love. # She shall make for me # A sensitive confusion in the blood, # A rhythm I cannot break # Stroking the air and holding light. ## And the roots of the trees climbed through the air # Touching the silver clouds, # Trailing their fingers on the hard edges # Pacing in kind praise. ## I have made an image of her # With the power of my hands # And the cruelty of my subtle eyes, # So that she appears entertaining # Like the arms of a clean woman # Or the branches of a green tree. ## Death comes to the beautiful. # He is a friend with fresh breath # And small, feminine shoulders, # And white, symmetrical lips # Drawing the energy from the love, # And the glitter from the fine teeth. ## You shall comfort me # With your symmetrical devotion # And the web of your straight senses. # Your bitterness is masked with smiles, # And your sharp pity is unchangeable. # I can detect a tolerance, # A compassion springing from the deep body, # Which goes around me easily # Like the body of a girl. # So the ilex and the cypress # Mix their wild blood # With yours, # And thrill and breathe and move # Unhealthily with dry veins. ## There will be a new bitterness # Binding me with pain, # And a clean surge of love moving. # In the fold of her arms # And the contact with her breasts # There will be a new life # Growing like a powerful root inside me. # The gestures of my love # Involve me in a gaiety, # Recall my old desire # Like a sweet, sensitive plant # In the barbed earth, # Holding a voluptuous clarity # Under the tent of its wings. ## So the hills # Coiled into their bodies like snakes, # And the trees # Went away from the bright place. ## Let me believe in the clean faith of the body, # The sweet, glowing vigour, # And the gestures of unageing love. ^ ^ ^ {Pillar breaks} ^ ^

^ Pillar breaks, and mast is cleft # Now that the temple's trumpeter # Has stopped, (angel, you=re proud), # And gallantly (water, you=re strong % # You batter back my fleet), # Boat cannot go. ## The raven=s fallen and the magpie=s still. # Silly to cage and then set free, # You loose, delicious will # That teaches me to wait, # Whose minute kindles more than the wise hour. # Temple should never have been filled # With ravens beating on the roof: # One day they had to fly, # And, there, what wings they had, # Poor, broken webs to strike the sky] # It was the magpie, after, # Bird on the mast, (he contemplated), # Who flew himself because the boat remained # Unmoving in a shouldering sea, # Flew for a time in vain, to drop at last # And catch the uprising wave. ## Pity is not enough: # Temple=s broken and poor raven=s dead; # Build from the ashes] # Boat=s broken, too, and magpie=s still; # Build, build again] ^ ^ ^ {It's light that makes the intervals} ^ ^

^ It=s light that makes the intervals # Between the pyramids so large, # And shows them fair against the dark, # Light that compels # The yellow bird to show his colour. # Light, not so to me; # Let me change to blue, # Or throw a violet shadow when I will. # To-day, if all my senses act, # I=ll make your shape my own, # Grow into your delicate skin, # Feel your woman's breasts rise up like flowers # And pulse to open # Your wide smile for me. # Challenge my metamorphosis, # And I will break your spacing light. # Mock me, # And see your colour snap, # Glass to my hands endowed with double strength. # But if you break I suffer, # There=ll be my bone to go: # Oh, let me destroy for once, # Rend the bright flesh away, # And twine the limbs around my hands. # I never break but feel the sudden pain, # The ache return. # I=ll have to break in thought again, # Crush your sharp light, # And chip, in silence and in tears, # Your rock of sound. ^ ^ ^ {Let me escape} ^ ^

^ Let me escape, # Be free, (wind for my tree and water for my flower), # Live self for self, # And drown the gods in me, # Or crush their viper heads beneath my foot. # No space, no space, you say, # But you=ll not keep me in # Although your cage is strong. # My strength shall sap your own; # I=ll cut through your dark cloud # To see the sun myself, # Pale and decayed, an ugly growth. ^ ^ ^ {The rod can lift its twining head} ^ ^

^ The rod can lift its twining head # To maim or sting my arm, # But if it stings my body dead # I=ll know I=m out of harm, # For death is friendly to the man # Who lets his own rod be # The saviour of the cross who can # Compel eternity. # I=d rather have the worm to feed # Upon my flesh and skin, # Than sit here wasting, while I bleed, # My aptitude for sin. ^ ^ ^ {Admit the sun} ^ ^

^ Admit the sun into your high nest # Where the eagle is a strong bird # And where the light comes cautiously # To find and then to strike; # Let the frost harden # And the shining rain # Drop onto your wings, # Bruising the tired feathers. ## I build a fortress from a heap of flowers; # Wisdom is stored with the clove # And the head of the bright poppy. # I bury, I travel to find pride # In the age of Lady Frankincense # Lifting her smell over the city buildings. # Where is there greater love # For the muscular and the victorious # Than in the gull and the fierce eagle # Who do not break? ## Take heed of strength] # It is a weapon that can turn back # From the well-made hand # Out of the air it strikes. ^ ^ ^ {A pub poem} ^ ^

^ Sooner than you can water milk or cry Amen # Darkness comes, psalming, over Cards again; # Some lights go on; some men go out; some men slip in; # Some girls lie down, calling the beer-brown bulls to sin # And boom among their fishy fields; some elders stand # With thermoses and telescopes and spy the sand # Where farmers plough by night and sailors rock and rise, # Tattooed with texts, between the Atlantic thighs # Of Mrs Rosser Tea and little Nell the Knock: # One pulls out \Pam \in \Paris from his money sock; # One from the mothy darkness of his black back house # Drinks vinegar and paraffin and blinds a mouse; # One reads his cheque book in the dark and eats fish-heads; # One creeps into the Cross Inn and fouls the beds; # One in the rubbered hedges rolls with a bald Liz # Who=s old enough to be his mother (and she is); # Customers in the snugbar by the gobgreen logs # Tell other customers what they do with dogs; # The chemist is performing an unnatural act # In the organ loft; and the lavatory is packed.