A Lover's Call Xxvii

Where are you, my beloved? Are you in that little Paradise, watering the flowers who look upon you As infants look upon the breast of their mothers? Or are you in your chamber where the shrine of Virtue has been placed in your honor, and upon Which you offer my heart and soul as sacrifice?

A Child's Christmas In Wales

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six. All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.

A Cradle Song

Sweet dreams form a shade, O'er my lovely infants head. Sweet dreams of pleasant streams, By happy silent moony beams Sweet sleep with soft down. Weave thy brows an infant crown. Sweet sleep Angel mild, Hover o'er my happy child.

Balances

In life one is always balancing like we juggle our mothers against our fathers or one teacher against another (only to balance our grade average)

A Child Said, What Is The Grass?

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,

Smudge Of Blood

Here, this smudge of blood, Of a tender boy of eleven, Soaked thru the tarmac, Yet to be dried, still wet and warm! An innocent young lad, Fades-in my mind, Your bag! Your bag! Picking up a shopping bag, Shouting and chasing the biker,

A Letter To My Aunt

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

A Poet's Voice Xv

Part One The power of charity sows deep in my heart, and I reap and gather the wheat in bundles and give them to the hungry. My soul gives life to the grapevine and I press its bunches and give the juice to the thirsty. Heaven fills my lamp with oil and I place it at my window to direct the stranger through the dark. I do all these things because I live in them; and if destiny should tie my hands and prevent me from so doing, then death would be my only desire. For I am a poet, and if I cannot give, I shall refuse to receive.

The Cry Of The Children

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers--- And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows; The young birds are chirping in the nest; The young fawns are playing with the shadows; The young flowers are blowing toward the west--- But the young, young children, O my brothers, They are weeping bitterly!---

Without You

Without you every morning would feel like going back to work after a holiday, Without you I couldn't stand the smell of the East Lancs Road, Without you ghost ferries would cross the Mersey manned by skeleton crews, Without you I'd probably feel happy and have more money and time and nothing to do with it, Without you I'd have to leave my stillborn poems on other people's doorsteps, wrapped in brown paper, Without you there'd never be sauce to put on sausage butties, Without you plastic flowers in shop windows would just be plastic flowers in shop windows,

A New Heaven

Seeing we never found gay fairyland (Though still we crouched by bluebells moon by moon) And missed the tide of Lethe; yet are soon For that new bridge that leaves old Styx half-spanned; Nor ever unto Mecca caravanned; Nor bugled Asgard, skilled in magic rune; Nor yearned for far Nirvana, the sweet swoon, And from high Paradise are cursed and banned; -Let's die home, ferry across the Channel! Thus

A Bachelor

'Why keep a cow when I can buy,' Said he, 'the milk I need,' I wanted to spit in his eye Of selfishness and greed; But did not, for the reason he Was stronger than I be. I told him: ''Tis our human fate, For better or for worse, That man and maid should love and mate,

Hero

'Jack fell as he'd have wished,' the Mother said, And folded up the letter that she'd read. 'The Colonel writes so nicely.' Something broke In the tired voice that quavered to a choke. She half looked up. 'We mothers are so proud Of our dead soldiers.' Then her face was bowed. Quietly the Brother Officer went out. He'd told the poor old dear some gallant lies That she would nourish all her days, no doubt.

The Tiger

The tiger, on the other hand, Is kittenish and mild, And makes a pretty playfellow For any little child. And mothers of large families (Who claim to common sense) Will find a tiger well repays The trouble and expense.

September On Jessore Road

Millions of babies watching the skies Bellies swollen, with big round eyes On Jessore Road--long bamboo huts Noplace to shit but sand channel ruts Millions of fathers in rain Millions of mothers in pain Millions of brothers in woe Millions of sisters nowhere to go

Among School Children

I WALK through the long schoolroom questioning; A kind old nun in a white hood replies; The children learn to cipher and to sing, To study reading-books and histories, To cut and sew, be neat in everything In the best modern way -- the children's eyes In momentary wonder stare upon A sixty-year-old smiling public man. I dream of a Ledaean body, bent Above a sinking fire. a tale that she

The Echoing Green

The sun does arise, And make happy the skies; The merry bells ring To welcome the spring; The skylark and thrush, The birds of the bush, Sing louder around To the bell's cheerful sound, While our sports shall be seen On the Echoing Green.

Boy To A Man

Father dear father I must have loved you But to hear you Hurt my mother Made me want To hate you I should have been able To look up to you like all sons do

Before They Were Mothers

Before they were mothers Leto and Niobe had been the most devoted of friends

Man Of Earth In Color And Art (Prose Poem)

Direct clay was turned into required elements parts, sections, groups, classes in proportion to set in every function in as pottery style, osteoblasts turned into bones to form the cage, limes were to join each point of the body veins surrounded in and out of 206 bones hard, soft, wide, length, fat, thin setting by inner limbs, thick flesh and skin strong, elastic for the whole earthly life spent.