The Dead by Rupert BROOKE

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.

There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the nights

(from THE WAR SONNETS)

 

"Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
And Certainty? and Quiet kind?
Deep meadows yet, for to forget
The lies, and truths, and pain? ... Oh! yet
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?"

(from 'The Old Vicarege, Grantchester')

Rupert BROOKE ( 1887-1915)

The Reader by Wallace STEVENS

All night I sat reading a book,
Sat reading as if in a book
Of sombre pages.

It was autumn and falling stars
Covered the shrivelled forms
Crounched in the moonlight.

No lamp was burning as I read
A voice was mumbling, "Everything
Falls back to coldness,

Even the musky muscadines,
The melons, the vermilion pears
Of the leafless garden."

The sombre pages bore no print
Except the trace of burning stars
In the frosty heaven.

HARMONIUM
Wallace STEVENS

Gubbinal by Wallace STEVENS

that strange flower, the sun,
is just what you say.
have it your way.

the world is ugly,
and the people are sad.

that tuft of jungle feathers,
that animal eye,
is just what you say.

that savage of fire,
that seed,
have it your way.

the world is ugly,
and the people are sad.

HARMONIUM (1923)

Wallace STEVENS

The snow man by Wallace STEVENS (1879-1955)

The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

HARMONIUM (1923)
Wallace STEVENS

Whispers of heavenly death by Withman

in LEAVES OF GRASS

Darest thou now O soul,
Walk out with me toward the unknown region,
Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?

No map there, nor guide,
Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,
Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.

I know it not O soul,
Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us,
All waits undream'd of in that region, that inaccessible land.

Till when the ties loosen,
All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,
Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us.

Then we burst forth, we float,
In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them,
Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil O soul.

} Whispers of Heavenly Death

Whispers of heavenly death murmur'd I hear,
Labial gossip of night, sibilant chorals,
Footsteps gently ascending, mystical breezes wafted soft and low,
Ripples of unseen rivers, tides of a current flowing, forever flowing,
(Or is it the plashing of tears? the measureless waters of human tears?)

I see, just see skyward, great cloud-masses,
Mournfully slowly they roll, silently swelling and mixing,
With at times a half-dimm'd sadden'd far-off star,
Appearing and disappearing.

(Some parturition rather, some solemn immortal birth;
On the frontiers to eyes impenetrable,
Some soul is passing over.)

Walt WHITMAN ( 1819-1892)

O living always by Walt Whitman

O living always, always dying!
O the burials of me past and present,
O me while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever;
O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not, I am content;)
O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and
look at where I cast them,
To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind.


Walt WHITMAN (1819-1892)

Poet by Moe SEAGER

You Poet
Set lines afire
Spit vowels bursting
Hot flash: as ideas are food for thought
I could eat your words
Suck the salt of your inner vision
Tap the marrow of meaning

You Poet
I could wade the waters of you mouth
Lick your wind blown tongue to its liquorice roots
Caress melody from your vocal cords

You Poet
Send me turning pages on you
To the end of verse time
Time to ask you
To start it, all, anew

You Poet
I could throw away
My pens and paper plans
Lay my tomes
As stepping stones
To cross over

Let's go out, beyond
Far beyond the last metaphor
A new found hunger
For fresh poems, ripened fruits
Days at play, awesome wander
At the tree of life.