Christopher John Brennan Poems

If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.
...

Fire in the heavens, and fire along the hills,
and fire made solid in the flinty stone,
thick-mass'd or scatter'd pebble, fire that fills
the breathless hour that lives in fire alone.
...

I am shut out of mine own heart
because my love is far from me,
nor in the wonders have I part
that fill its hidden empery:
...

I am driven everywhere from a clinging home,
O autumn eves! and I ween'd that you would yet
...

I SAID, This misery must end:
Shall I, that am a man and know
that sky and wind are yet my friend,
sit huddled under any blow?
...

Deep mists of longing blur the land
as in your late October eve:
almost I think your hand might leave
...

How old is my heart, how old, how old is my heart,
and did I ever go forth with song when the morn was new?
...

Autumn: the year breathes dully towards its death,
beside its dying sacrificial fire;
the dim world's middle-age of vain desire
is strangely troubled, waiting for the breath
...

The droning tram swings westward: shrill
the wire sings overhead, and chill
midwinter draughts rattle the glass
that shows the dusking way I pass
...

Come out, come out, ye souls that serve, why will ye die?
or will ye sit and stifle in your prison-homes
...