When All My Five and Country Senses
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.
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.
This Side of the Truth
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.
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?
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 the midnight of the sun, A serpent fiddled in the shaping-time.
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.
The Force That Through The Green Fuse
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.
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 wine 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.
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 wsa 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,
The 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 reins were shaking in their sieve,
Blood shot and scattered to the winds of light
The ribbed original of love.
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.
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 stair 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 made grave, And mark the dark eyed wave, through the eyes of sleep, Dragging him up the stairs to one who lies dead.
There Was A Savior
There was a savior
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 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.
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.
Do Not Go Gentle
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 grieve 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.
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 pat the brow; A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven; Hands have no tears to flow.
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 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.
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; Heads of the characters hammer through daisies; Break in the sun till the sun breaks down, And death shall have no dominion.
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 It Was The Color Of Saying
Once it was the color 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.