Senator of the self-consuming eye,
Ever conscious of your every pose,
Elegant elongations of your neck, you ply
Your deeply-felt horizons. What high repose
Graces your brow, you glory of the day!
You are the change which you have waited for,
Redeeming king for which your masses pray:
The One to shower all with heaven’s store!
Senator of the self-afflicting eye,
Blinded by your desire to seize the crown:
You fool! Your nation threatens swift to die
Beneath its massy debts, and tear you down,
A human wreck of vanity and pride,
Where naught but your own ruin shall preside.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Britannia (2009)
“Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves
Britons never shall be slaves”
~James Thomson, circa 1740
Britannia: the last and greatest Rome,
The Empire of the never-setting sun,
The envy of the world; the starry dome
Could scarcely contain the glory that you won.
Britannia: yoke of nations, one in four
Of all earth’s people knelt beneath your sun;
Merchant and Warrior sailing from your shore
To conquer all, and conquered be by none.
Britannia, though you never be the slave
Of others, still, I gaze behind your coasts
And spot a mound, a long-forgotten grave,
For England’s free, sublime and sovereign ghosts.
Living, they filled your nation’s happy eye,
But for the imperial slaughter, had to die.
Britons never shall be slaves”
~James Thomson, circa 1740
Britannia: the last and greatest Rome,
The Empire of the never-setting sun,
The envy of the world; the starry dome
Could scarcely contain the glory that you won.
Britannia: yoke of nations, one in four
Of all earth’s people knelt beneath your sun;
Merchant and Warrior sailing from your shore
To conquer all, and conquered be by none.
Britannia, though you never be the slave
Of others, still, I gaze behind your coasts
And spot a mound, a long-forgotten grave,
For England’s free, sublime and sovereign ghosts.
Living, they filled your nation’s happy eye,
But for the imperial slaughter, had to die.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Mistakes (2006)
It's true I've made mistakes along the way,
As often as directly looked askance;
Or wandered here and there and then astray,
Pulled everywhere by unreflecting chance.
And I suspect that you have known the same
Experience in this confusing wood,
This wilderness that none shall ever tame
Nor, not for lack of trying, understood.
I could lament the troubles that we shared,
The wasted time, the traps we should have seen;
But foresight is to hindsight incompared,
And in the end 'tis for the best what's been.
For all these wending ways, which wayward drew,
Have drawn me back more lovingly to you.
As often as directly looked askance;
Or wandered here and there and then astray,
Pulled everywhere by unreflecting chance.
And I suspect that you have known the same
Experience in this confusing wood,
This wilderness that none shall ever tame
Nor, not for lack of trying, understood.
I could lament the troubles that we shared,
The wasted time, the traps we should have seen;
But foresight is to hindsight incompared,
And in the end 'tis for the best what's been.
For all these wending ways, which wayward drew,
Have drawn me back more lovingly to you.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Grow Old With Me (2009)
Grow old with me, my lovely girl,
Grow old along with me;
The flower does not bud but for
The poet and the bee!
Come home with me, my lovely girl,
Come fill my empty home;
For girls cannot forever bloom,
Nor boys forever roam.
To you alone, my lovely girl,
To you I promise this:
That you shall not be loveless while
These lips are warm to kiss!
So take my hand, my lovely girl,
And hand in hand we’ll go,
And though we creak and totter on
Our eyes will keep their glow.
Grow old with me, my lovely girl,
And there shall be no end:
As one we’ll slip beneath the earth,
As one we shall ascend.
Grow old along with me;
The flower does not bud but for
The poet and the bee!
Come home with me, my lovely girl,
Come fill my empty home;
For girls cannot forever bloom,
Nor boys forever roam.
To you alone, my lovely girl,
To you I promise this:
That you shall not be loveless while
These lips are warm to kiss!
So take my hand, my lovely girl,
And hand in hand we’ll go,
And though we creak and totter on
Our eyes will keep their glow.
Grow old with me, my lovely girl,
And there shall be no end:
As one we’ll slip beneath the earth,
As one we shall ascend.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Sonnet to Keats (2005)
Sleep on Adonis, peace is your abode:
No critics slander, naught disturbs your rest;
The laurel wreath that crowns your gentle breast
Thrives rich and green, as always it bestowed
Its leafy luxury, and ever glowed
A 'welcome all' that all might be your guest,
And toast to all the beautiful and best
That from the fount of Helicon has flowed.
Dream on Adonis, whom the world did bear
So crudely; fear not that you wrote in vain:
Your name, though writ in water, feeds the grain
That ripens and becomes the future's fare;
Though you had none, your word shall seed an heir,
And through his voice shall yours resound again.
No critics slander, naught disturbs your rest;
The laurel wreath that crowns your gentle breast
Thrives rich and green, as always it bestowed
Its leafy luxury, and ever glowed
A 'welcome all' that all might be your guest,
And toast to all the beautiful and best
That from the fount of Helicon has flowed.
Dream on Adonis, whom the world did bear
So crudely; fear not that you wrote in vain:
Your name, though writ in water, feeds the grain
That ripens and becomes the future's fare;
Though you had none, your word shall seed an heir,
And through his voice shall yours resound again.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The Ottawa (2010)
1
The river slides beneath me, ponderously,
Inexorably into the east, the west
Pours out its heart in rapids, floods and calms,
Emptying into the confluence farther on.
This river, elder highway of the land,
Still churns with echoes heard for centuries:
Of splashing paddles, droplets, sleek canoes,
Laden grunts, and sighs, and river songs.
Then chugs of steamships pushing up the shores,
Of settlers awed to whispers by the wastes,
The shouts of men, the primal scrapes and groans
Of a million logs’ slow journey to the sea.
The river’s current holds it all within:
The history of the people who have come,
Of those who left and those who still endure –
The vast migrations of millennia.
This place, this channel cutting through the rock,
This highway of the north, and east and west,
Still visits with its people in our dreams,
And grants us visions, calls us in our bones
To movement, on and on, to leap across
Geographies of distance in the mind:
Across the hills and lakes, the golden sea,
And the Rockies, to a far-off, ocean shore.
2
Into the wilds he went, the first, the Fleuve,
Up, up the Ottawa, up the Mattawa,
Across Lake Nipissing, and down French River,
Then Georgian Bay - a thousand mile leap!
There on an island of an inland sea,
“La mer douce” they called it, upon it rests
A monument, worn by waves and winds and rains;
Yet still upon its weathered face it reads:
“Samuel de Champlain by Canoe
A.D. Sixteen hundred and fifteen.
As for me, I labour always to prepare
A way for those willing to follow it.”
Four centuries later, and here I stand
In Ottawa, gazing out towards the east;
I think of those who westward went before,
Who followed Champlain into the wilderness.
The Coureurs-de-bois, The Voyageurs; the men
Who followed the rivers across a continent,
And married in the west with Native girls;
The Métis who arose for a time to rule the plains.
Their echoes rise and spill with liquid ease
Beyond the boundaries that we construct
To separate ourselves in solitudes,
The prisons that we build within our minds.
3
Beyond the wilds he looked, across the west,
While standing by the stone-wrought citadel,
Quebec, the eldest daughter of the Fleuve,
And Cartier dreamt a river crossed it all,
Of wood and steel, a precious, slender band
Of promise to a people far away,
To men whose tongue was not his own,
Who lived upon a far-off ocean shore.
And Laurier too, he gazed on the golden sea,
The vastness of the spaces in the west,
Where sky was blue infinity, where land
Rolled on forever, its soil rich and black.
Beneath the ripples of the shimmering grass
He saw the future cities and the towns,
The numberless farms, the wealth that would be grown
To feed the world; he saw it from Quebec.
And soon the millions came to Montreal,
And docking on the continental verge,
Began their arduous voyage to the west
Like waves, slow-moving over the rolling land.
4
The river’s current runs on steadily
And deep, beneath the din of spume and spray;
The storms sweep in and bluster, but they leave,
And still the waters flow unto the sea.
For the river has a way of moving on
Like history, like the motions of the heart,
Which call to us in dreams to leap across
Geographies of separate solitudes.
It calls us all to movement, on and on,
To seek the ancient highways of the mind,
Which cross the hills and lakes, the golden sea,
And the Rockies, to a far-off, ocean shore.
The river slides beneath me, ponderously,
Inexorably into the east, the west
Pours out its heart in rapids, floods and calms,
Emptying into the confluence farther on.
This river, elder highway of the land,
Still churns with echoes heard for centuries:
Of splashing paddles, droplets, sleek canoes,
Laden grunts, and sighs, and river songs.
Then chugs of steamships pushing up the shores,
Of settlers awed to whispers by the wastes,
The shouts of men, the primal scrapes and groans
Of a million logs’ slow journey to the sea.
The river’s current holds it all within:
The history of the people who have come,
Of those who left and those who still endure –
The vast migrations of millennia.
This place, this channel cutting through the rock,
This highway of the north, and east and west,
Still visits with its people in our dreams,
And grants us visions, calls us in our bones
To movement, on and on, to leap across
Geographies of distance in the mind:
Across the hills and lakes, the golden sea,
And the Rockies, to a far-off, ocean shore.
2
Into the wilds he went, the first, the Fleuve,
Up, up the Ottawa, up the Mattawa,
Across Lake Nipissing, and down French River,
Then Georgian Bay - a thousand mile leap!
There on an island of an inland sea,
“La mer douce” they called it, upon it rests
A monument, worn by waves and winds and rains;
Yet still upon its weathered face it reads:
“Samuel de Champlain by Canoe
A.D. Sixteen hundred and fifteen.
As for me, I labour always to prepare
A way for those willing to follow it.”
Four centuries later, and here I stand
In Ottawa, gazing out towards the east;
I think of those who westward went before,
Who followed Champlain into the wilderness.
The Coureurs-de-bois, The Voyageurs; the men
Who followed the rivers across a continent,
And married in the west with Native girls;
The Métis who arose for a time to rule the plains.
Their echoes rise and spill with liquid ease
Beyond the boundaries that we construct
To separate ourselves in solitudes,
The prisons that we build within our minds.
3
Beyond the wilds he looked, across the west,
While standing by the stone-wrought citadel,
Quebec, the eldest daughter of the Fleuve,
And Cartier dreamt a river crossed it all,
Of wood and steel, a precious, slender band
Of promise to a people far away,
To men whose tongue was not his own,
Who lived upon a far-off ocean shore.
And Laurier too, he gazed on the golden sea,
The vastness of the spaces in the west,
Where sky was blue infinity, where land
Rolled on forever, its soil rich and black.
Beneath the ripples of the shimmering grass
He saw the future cities and the towns,
The numberless farms, the wealth that would be grown
To feed the world; he saw it from Quebec.
And soon the millions came to Montreal,
And docking on the continental verge,
Began their arduous voyage to the west
Like waves, slow-moving over the rolling land.
4
The river’s current runs on steadily
And deep, beneath the din of spume and spray;
The storms sweep in and bluster, but they leave,
And still the waters flow unto the sea.
For the river has a way of moving on
Like history, like the motions of the heart,
Which call to us in dreams to leap across
Geographies of separate solitudes.
It calls us all to movement, on and on,
To seek the ancient highways of the mind,
Which cross the hills and lakes, the golden sea,
And the Rockies, to a far-off, ocean shore.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Ye Cloud-Wreathed Peaks (2006)
Ye cloud-wreathed peaks, ye children of an age
Beyond the names of men and memory,
Who stand austere and still. Born of the rage
Of the deep-set earth, half-clothed now verdantly
In forests of pine; your upthrust layers speak
Of cataclysmic forces far beneath
And high above this place; a world could break
Upon your granite armor, adamant teeth,
To move you not. High on your brows are laid
Glacial-fired crowns, which silent blaze
Like beacons forth: eternity displayed
For all who lift their eyes and upward gaze.
O happy, ye impregnables of stone,
Ye incorruptibles; you are a light
For all of us who yearn to be our own,
To stand against the accumulated might
Of mankind's cruel oppressors. Pinnacles bold,
As you've withstood an elemental fray
Of aeons - foemen of a tougher mold -
We too will overcome our baneful day.
Beyond the names of men and memory,
Who stand austere and still. Born of the rage
Of the deep-set earth, half-clothed now verdantly
In forests of pine; your upthrust layers speak
Of cataclysmic forces far beneath
And high above this place; a world could break
Upon your granite armor, adamant teeth,
To move you not. High on your brows are laid
Glacial-fired crowns, which silent blaze
Like beacons forth: eternity displayed
For all who lift their eyes and upward gaze.
O happy, ye impregnables of stone,
Ye incorruptibles; you are a light
For all of us who yearn to be our own,
To stand against the accumulated might
Of mankind's cruel oppressors. Pinnacles bold,
As you've withstood an elemental fray
Of aeons - foemen of a tougher mold -
We too will overcome our baneful day.
Farewell Vancouver (2006)
Farewell Vancouver, mistress of the western sea,
Farewell Rocky Mountains of the lofty spires:
To muse on you, my mind, it never tires;
Though I'm bound to leave, with you my thoughts are free.
I love these plains which roll towards infinity,
The eastern hills where my voyage fast retires;
But I'll stay not overlong, my heart aspires
To return to you, for with you my heart is free.
Farewell Vancouver, mistress of the western sea,
Farewell Rocky Mountains of the lofty spires:
Fond memories I'll keep - Promethean fires
For my muse, so with you, I'll be forever free.
Farewell Rocky Mountains of the lofty spires:
To muse on you, my mind, it never tires;
Though I'm bound to leave, with you my thoughts are free.
I love these plains which roll towards infinity,
The eastern hills where my voyage fast retires;
But I'll stay not overlong, my heart aspires
To return to you, for with you my heart is free.
Farewell Vancouver, mistress of the western sea,
Farewell Rocky Mountains of the lofty spires:
Fond memories I'll keep - Promethean fires
For my muse, so with you, I'll be forever free.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
For Whom Do You Sing (2007)
For whom do you sing this lovely morn
When spring is fresh on every bough,
In every waft of air up-born;
O little sparrow, piping from your bough?
With greater gladness than most hearts allow!
Perhaps you sing for your chicks unhatched,
The coming joys of parenthood,
Perhaps you sing of friends unmatched,
Who chirp their gay replies across the wood,
In tongues which, long ago, I understood.
But sing of distant cherished places,
And I'll attend your cheerful tune,
Until my cares your charm erases;
That moment will not – cannot come too soon!
Good spirit, grant this solitary boon!
Alas, that we are bound to wander
Far from our homes and friendships old;
Yet since it makes the memory fonder,
Sing spirit! Thoughts are never cold
Nor love, when you with music all enfold.
When spring is fresh on every bough,
In every waft of air up-born;
O little sparrow, piping from your bough?
With greater gladness than most hearts allow!
Perhaps you sing for your chicks unhatched,
The coming joys of parenthood,
Perhaps you sing of friends unmatched,
Who chirp their gay replies across the wood,
In tongues which, long ago, I understood.
But sing of distant cherished places,
And I'll attend your cheerful tune,
Until my cares your charm erases;
That moment will not – cannot come too soon!
Good spirit, grant this solitary boon!
Alas, that we are bound to wander
Far from our homes and friendships old;
Yet since it makes the memory fonder,
Sing spirit! Thoughts are never cold
Nor love, when you with music all enfold.
On Poets (2007)
Though poets sing of many things:
The wild and the free,
The most sublime of humankind
And human misery,
The novel and the commonplace,
The greatest and the least;
They always seek that single grace
Ashine in night's bejewelled face,
Whose light has never ceased.
If ever you have watched them close
When they have been inspired:
Now blowing gently on a spark
Imagination fired,
Now guarding it with memory,
Then with it they will play,
Yet trace its meaning earnestly
For like the pale anemone
Too soon it fades away.
Despite their many frailties
And consequent mistakes,
When inspiration catches them
And poetry awakes,
These mortals just a moment past
Shake off their mortal skin;
With beamy spirits unsurpassed
Become as stars, whose beams outlast
Life's transitory din.
To each a solitary soul,
To each a melody;
To each an ear with witch to hear
A timeless harmony;
To modulate their voice among
The many come before;
To sing a part as yet unsung
That cheers the old, and stirs the young
Their genius to outpour.
These sons and daughters of the light
Blaze forth eternally;
Each steals a Promethean spark,
Defying Jove's decree.
Each stands before his own demise
And finds his courage near,
For if he gaze across the skies,
How many of his brethren's eyes
And works to him appear?
Exemplars of what man can be
They live all times at once;
They dream for those as yet unborn:
All generations hence.
They even breach those ages cold
When tongues have fallen dumb;
The while they sing no thought is old,
Then Beauty's tale is freshly told,
For Beauty they've become.
The wild and the free,
The most sublime of humankind
And human misery,
The novel and the commonplace,
The greatest and the least;
They always seek that single grace
Ashine in night's bejewelled face,
Whose light has never ceased.
If ever you have watched them close
When they have been inspired:
Now blowing gently on a spark
Imagination fired,
Now guarding it with memory,
Then with it they will play,
Yet trace its meaning earnestly
For like the pale anemone
Too soon it fades away.
Despite their many frailties
And consequent mistakes,
When inspiration catches them
And poetry awakes,
These mortals just a moment past
Shake off their mortal skin;
With beamy spirits unsurpassed
Become as stars, whose beams outlast
Life's transitory din.
To each a solitary soul,
To each a melody;
To each an ear with witch to hear
A timeless harmony;
To modulate their voice among
The many come before;
To sing a part as yet unsung
That cheers the old, and stirs the young
Their genius to outpour.
These sons and daughters of the light
Blaze forth eternally;
Each steals a Promethean spark,
Defying Jove's decree.
Each stands before his own demise
And finds his courage near,
For if he gaze across the skies,
How many of his brethren's eyes
And works to him appear?
Exemplars of what man can be
They live all times at once;
They dream for those as yet unborn:
All generations hence.
They even breach those ages cold
When tongues have fallen dumb;
The while they sing no thought is old,
Then Beauty's tale is freshly told,
For Beauty they've become.
In a Lawless World (2010)
In a lawless world the thief is also lord,
And murderers wear the clothes of righteousness;
In a lawless world the wicked know success
And scraps are all that goodness can afford.
I’ve seen the way that people have adored
A bloated leech with claims to some noblesse,
Who doled out pious crumbs of his excess
While billions of starving people were ignored.
In a lawless world injustice works the scales
And sets all riches in the killer’s hands,
Then balances his money with the wails
Of children, dying in desolated lands.
But there is yet some justice: for he will die,
His riches will betray him, and none will cry.
And murderers wear the clothes of righteousness;
In a lawless world the wicked know success
And scraps are all that goodness can afford.
I’ve seen the way that people have adored
A bloated leech with claims to some noblesse,
Who doled out pious crumbs of his excess
While billions of starving people were ignored.
In a lawless world injustice works the scales
And sets all riches in the killer’s hands,
Then balances his money with the wails
Of children, dying in desolated lands.
But there is yet some justice: for he will die,
His riches will betray him, and none will cry.
Friday, January 8, 2010
The Greatest Mystery (2005)
When I marvel at the greatest mystery,
The greatest miracle; I often think
These eyes, which countless pleasant sights will drink,
Were formed so I be seen and also see;
These words that flow so sweet and lightsomely
Between us should, like ghosts, to nothing sink,
If we merely spoke and sang because we speak.
In each of us there is a melody
That must be sung in chorus: every voice,
So perfectly unique, is from its place
A mirror to the rest. Yet why rejoice
At the song and soul behind a smiling face –
Why love? Why have we this eternal Power,
If we do not transcend the mortal hour?
The greatest miracle; I often think
These eyes, which countless pleasant sights will drink,
Were formed so I be seen and also see;
These words that flow so sweet and lightsomely
Between us should, like ghosts, to nothing sink,
If we merely spoke and sang because we speak.
In each of us there is a melody
That must be sung in chorus: every voice,
So perfectly unique, is from its place
A mirror to the rest. Yet why rejoice
At the song and soul behind a smiling face –
Why love? Why have we this eternal Power,
If we do not transcend the mortal hour?
To The Youth of Today (2007)
A madman, would-be king, a world aflame,
A generation from their duty flies,
Who, elders only in their graying shame,
Will damn you all, your future they despise.
Ill-fated youth, what hope do you expect,
What words of kind sagacity, what boon?
Not this: that Fortune does your star reject,
The golden hour passes swift, and soon
Night falls – such is the poison you are fed.
No happy labor, systems in distress,
Impossible debts: all weigh upon your head;
But even so, with nothing, on you press,
As Fortune kneels before courageous deeds,
The future yours – it's all your spirit needs.
A generation from their duty flies,
Who, elders only in their graying shame,
Will damn you all, your future they despise.
Ill-fated youth, what hope do you expect,
What words of kind sagacity, what boon?
Not this: that Fortune does your star reject,
The golden hour passes swift, and soon
Night falls – such is the poison you are fed.
No happy labor, systems in distress,
Impossible debts: all weigh upon your head;
But even so, with nothing, on you press,
As Fortune kneels before courageous deeds,
The future yours – it's all your spirit needs.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
On Old Age (2007)
Another autumn evening sets; the breath
Of winter settles swiftly on the lips
With mortal epithets; the season of death,
Of ice and stillness, dreamlessness, that slips
Upon us almost unexpectedly.
In spring there is no word for cold,
The summer dreams in green and gold,
But now in autumn grip we find ourselves grown old!
And winter rushes in relentlessly!
Then old age, blunter of passion’s edge,
Usurps the throne of youth’s virility,
He ruins beauty, steals her privilege,
And dulls the palate’s pleasure for the bold.
Old age – death’s captain – he whom many fear,
Whose eyes, they whisper, prophesy the end is near.
But why should we fear old age? There is a place
For every season and human pleasure.
First there is spring, when the farmer’s plough will trace
Deep furrows, black and rich, and later measure
The tiny grains that soon push up their stalks.
Then with the rains on which they feed,
Up spring the shoots with frantic speed,
Hoping to grow more swiftly than the stifling weed!
Later, his field the farmer tends and walks,
The sun attains the summit of his course;
Beneath this heat and care the earth unlocks
Her hidden wealth; the stalk of wheat out-pours
Its laden fruit, it trails and then it leads
In the last breeze of August. The time to reap
Draws near, the end to which the spring and summer sweep.
Here at the close of life’s checkered journey
In the cool calm of autumn’s rich embrace,
The traveler, wearied by the day’s hurly burly,
Finds quiet repose in the evening’s grace.
Long is the voyage and far, far afield
We wander, beholding many things:
The relics of statesmen, priests and kings,
The instruments of history, which through them sings!
The journey’s end approaches, what does it yield?
Is memory doomed to die with the dying day?
What was it for, when the funeral bells have pealed,
And the dust of our living has winnowed away?
Life begets life, the past in the future rings:
Each human, good or evil, foul or fair,
Comes to this, fed by hope or fed on by despair.
Abundantly teeming autumn! The year’s
Proud banquet, its celebration of the soil.
The wealth is heaped, no centimeter clear,
At last it is covered, this table of our toil,
With fresh delights: fruit of the vanished petal.
And though the boisterous summer’s gone,
Still, something of it lingers on,
Within the young, who dash about the leaf-strewn lawn.
Now, at the dusk of the year, the aged settle
Into the soft-voiced realm of memory;
The tumultuousness of life’s great kettle,
Boiling and screeching, now murmurs distantly.
They follow their unruly youth; a dawn,
New hope, they see at which their hearts excite,
Though they are doomed to pass into the longest night.
Youth! The worship of all who ever live,
The crest of life, the regent of desire,
So fleeting, like the hind whom chase we give,
Which speeds the swifter as our bodies tire.
Insatiate king, these are your sacrifice,
Who think to slake your quenchless thirst,
Who prize your whimsy as the first:
These are the souls most harried and most cursed!
Wisdom and youth – like fire they are, and ice;
Like Furies, pleasures drive our minds to madness,
Good sense becomes a whipping boy, and dice
The tyrants of contentment and of sadness.
Happy is he whose age denies this worst
Enslaver; master of himself, he’ll be
The incessant friend of truth and harmony.
This temperor of o’er-exuberant mettle,
Age brings us strength of a different kind:
The body fails, but thought is in best fettle,
Which culminates when all else has declined.
And what could be better when the mind is free
Than scores of youngsters thronging round,
Whose thirst for knowledge has no bound,
Who love the dignity with which they each are crowned?
In us there shines a fine nobility,
A beauty higher than the outward show;
As present, past and future are not three,
But one, a beauty which may ceaseless grow
And what of can perish when thoughts compound
With thoughts and thoughts? Most happy is the one
Who in those upturned looks beholds the good he’s done.
At last the autumn dwindles into frost,
The fields lay bare, the harvest hour ends,
The motions of life decline and then are lost;
Yet to his work the farmer still attends.
For though the outside world must seem a tomb
While winter rests upon the soil,
He will within the garner toil
In wise anticipation of the coming moil.
How proper that the seed of winter’s womb
Is autumn’s gift for vernal promises,
And summer purposed by the dying bloom
Of autumn! Life is made of kindnesses,
Not cruelties – these are but a fragile foil;
We make them what they are. Be happy: live,
That when you’re old you’ll have your greatest gifts to give.
Of winter settles swiftly on the lips
With mortal epithets; the season of death,
Of ice and stillness, dreamlessness, that slips
Upon us almost unexpectedly.
In spring there is no word for cold,
The summer dreams in green and gold,
But now in autumn grip we find ourselves grown old!
And winter rushes in relentlessly!
Then old age, blunter of passion’s edge,
Usurps the throne of youth’s virility,
He ruins beauty, steals her privilege,
And dulls the palate’s pleasure for the bold.
Old age – death’s captain – he whom many fear,
Whose eyes, they whisper, prophesy the end is near.
But why should we fear old age? There is a place
For every season and human pleasure.
First there is spring, when the farmer’s plough will trace
Deep furrows, black and rich, and later measure
The tiny grains that soon push up their stalks.
Then with the rains on which they feed,
Up spring the shoots with frantic speed,
Hoping to grow more swiftly than the stifling weed!
Later, his field the farmer tends and walks,
The sun attains the summit of his course;
Beneath this heat and care the earth unlocks
Her hidden wealth; the stalk of wheat out-pours
Its laden fruit, it trails and then it leads
In the last breeze of August. The time to reap
Draws near, the end to which the spring and summer sweep.
Here at the close of life’s checkered journey
In the cool calm of autumn’s rich embrace,
The traveler, wearied by the day’s hurly burly,
Finds quiet repose in the evening’s grace.
Long is the voyage and far, far afield
We wander, beholding many things:
The relics of statesmen, priests and kings,
The instruments of history, which through them sings!
The journey’s end approaches, what does it yield?
Is memory doomed to die with the dying day?
What was it for, when the funeral bells have pealed,
And the dust of our living has winnowed away?
Life begets life, the past in the future rings:
Each human, good or evil, foul or fair,
Comes to this, fed by hope or fed on by despair.
Abundantly teeming autumn! The year’s
Proud banquet, its celebration of the soil.
The wealth is heaped, no centimeter clear,
At last it is covered, this table of our toil,
With fresh delights: fruit of the vanished petal.
And though the boisterous summer’s gone,
Still, something of it lingers on,
Within the young, who dash about the leaf-strewn lawn.
Now, at the dusk of the year, the aged settle
Into the soft-voiced realm of memory;
The tumultuousness of life’s great kettle,
Boiling and screeching, now murmurs distantly.
They follow their unruly youth; a dawn,
New hope, they see at which their hearts excite,
Though they are doomed to pass into the longest night.
Youth! The worship of all who ever live,
The crest of life, the regent of desire,
So fleeting, like the hind whom chase we give,
Which speeds the swifter as our bodies tire.
Insatiate king, these are your sacrifice,
Who think to slake your quenchless thirst,
Who prize your whimsy as the first:
These are the souls most harried and most cursed!
Wisdom and youth – like fire they are, and ice;
Like Furies, pleasures drive our minds to madness,
Good sense becomes a whipping boy, and dice
The tyrants of contentment and of sadness.
Happy is he whose age denies this worst
Enslaver; master of himself, he’ll be
The incessant friend of truth and harmony.
This temperor of o’er-exuberant mettle,
Age brings us strength of a different kind:
The body fails, but thought is in best fettle,
Which culminates when all else has declined.
And what could be better when the mind is free
Than scores of youngsters thronging round,
Whose thirst for knowledge has no bound,
Who love the dignity with which they each are crowned?
In us there shines a fine nobility,
A beauty higher than the outward show;
As present, past and future are not three,
But one, a beauty which may ceaseless grow
And what of can perish when thoughts compound
With thoughts and thoughts? Most happy is the one
Who in those upturned looks beholds the good he’s done.
At last the autumn dwindles into frost,
The fields lay bare, the harvest hour ends,
The motions of life decline and then are lost;
Yet to his work the farmer still attends.
For though the outside world must seem a tomb
While winter rests upon the soil,
He will within the garner toil
In wise anticipation of the coming moil.
How proper that the seed of winter’s womb
Is autumn’s gift for vernal promises,
And summer purposed by the dying bloom
Of autumn! Life is made of kindnesses,
Not cruelties – these are but a fragile foil;
We make them what they are. Be happy: live,
That when you’re old you’ll have your greatest gifts to give.
Thoughts on Poetry
Poetry is inseparable from human thought; it is essential to how we express and understand ourselves, and to how we exercise our creative faculties. It is to be lamented that poetry has become marginalized by today's popular culture, since any improvement in our societies requires new ideas, and new ideas require us to rework our languages, expanding our capacity to express complex concepts not previously possible.
Nevertheless, I do have faith that poetry will eventually regain its rightful place, because as long as there are humans beings on this earth there will be poetry as well. Just as no tyrant or calamity can quench the natural capacity and desire for human beings to love, neither can the spirit of creativity so central to human nature ever be crushed.
As Percy B. Shelley once wrote, the poet is like a nightingale, singing alone in the forest shadows, unaware and unconcerned if anyone is listening. He sings because it is his nature to do so, and if history is changed because of him, he is even more delighted. But most poets will never see the changes their poetry will effect, and so they must have faith and hope that human decency and love will persevere over the course of time.
Meanwhile they will continue to sing.
Nevertheless, I do have faith that poetry will eventually regain its rightful place, because as long as there are humans beings on this earth there will be poetry as well. Just as no tyrant or calamity can quench the natural capacity and desire for human beings to love, neither can the spirit of creativity so central to human nature ever be crushed.
As Percy B. Shelley once wrote, the poet is like a nightingale, singing alone in the forest shadows, unaware and unconcerned if anyone is listening. He sings because it is his nature to do so, and if history is changed because of him, he is even more delighted. But most poets will never see the changes their poetry will effect, and so they must have faith and hope that human decency and love will persevere over the course of time.
Meanwhile they will continue to sing.
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