Unseen Poetry. Anthology NAME:

Transcription

1 Unseen Poetry Anthology NAME:

2 His Visitor I come across from Mellstock while the moon wastes weaker To behold where I lived with you for twenty years and more: I shall go in the gray, at the passing of the mail-train, And need no setting open of the long familiar door As before. The change I notice in my once own quarters! A brilliant budded border where the daisies used to be, The rooms new painted, and the pictures altered, And other cups and saucers, and no cosy nook for tea As with me. I discern the dim faces of the sleep-wrapt servants; They are not those who tended me through feeble hours and strong, But strangers quite, who never knew my rule here, Who never saw me painting, never heard my softling song Float along. So I don't want to linger in this re-decked dwelling, I feel too uneasy at the contrasts I behold, And I make again for Mellstock to return here never, And rejoin the roomy silence, and the mute and manifold Souls of old. 1

3 I Look into My Glass I look into my glass, And view my wasting skin, And say, Would God it came to pass My heart had shrunk as thin! For then, I undistrest By hearts grown cold to me, Could lonely wait my endless rest With equanimity. But Time, to make me grieve, Part steals, lets part abide; And shakes this fragile frame at eve With throbbings of noontide 2

4 Your Dad Did What Where they have been, if they have been away, or what they ve done at home, if they have not - you make them write about the holiday. One writes My Dad did. What? Your Dad did what? That s not a sentence. Never mind the bell. We stay behind until the work is done. You count their words (you who can count and spell); all the assignments are complete bar one and though this boy seems bright, that one is his. He says he s finished, doesn t want to add anything, hands it in just as it is. No change. My Dad did. What? What did his Dad? You find the E you gave him as you sort through reams of what this girl did, what that lad did, and read the line again, just one e short: This holiday was horrible. My Dad did. 3

5 The Pen and the Gun There s never a time I use this fountain pen without I m haunted by a pigeon s pain. Then I tried and got, beginner s luck, a hit, of sorts, with my first ever shot. This pen scrats out the panic that it felt. It took almost two days dying. All my fault. It fell in the gutter out of reach and sight but for its claws that scraped against the slate My friend Pinhead got an airgun once and what we did with it still makes me wince. and scratched all day, all night, and not until teatime the next day were those claws still. His mam bought him it when his dad died. She thought it d help him not to miss his dad. I was young enough to cry. Never again did I show any interest in a gun It was the thing that Pinhead wanted most. He had the first few goes, and always missed the pigeon on his chimney, nowhere near, so wide the bird stayed basking, unaware. I grew to think the pen far mightier than though the scraped claw sound still haunts me from back then. This pen scratching like its slowly blunting claw Has haunted me for fifty years or more 4

6 A Poison Tree I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I watered it in fears, Night and morning with my tears; And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright. And my foe beheld it shine. And he knew that it was mine, And into my garden stole When the night had veiled the pole; In the morning glad I see My foe outstretched beneath the tree. 5

7 A Birthday My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a watered shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these Because my love is come to me. Raise me a dais of silk and down; Hang it with vair and purple dyes; Carve it in doves and pomegranates, And peacocks with a hundred eyes; Work it in gold and silver grapes, In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys; Because the birthday of my life Is come, my love is come to me. 6

8 Nothing Gold Can Stay Nature s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. 7

9 Not Yet My Mother Yesterday I found a photo of you at seventeen, holding a horse and smiling, not yet my mother. The tight riding hat hid your hair, and your legs were still the long shins of a boy s. You held the horse by the halter, your hand a fist under its huge jaw. The blown trees were still in the background and the sky was grained by the old film stock, but what caught me was your face, which was mine. And I thought, just for a second, that you were me. But then I saw the woman s jacket, nipped at the waist, the ballooned jodhpurs, and of course the date, scratched in the corner. All of which told me again, that this was you at seventeen, holding a horse and smiling, not yet my mother, although I was clearly already your child. 8

10 Anthem for Doomed Youth What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. The pallor of girls brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds. 9

11 Spared That Love is all there is, Is all we know of Love Emily Dickinson It wasn t you, it wasn t me, Up there, two thousand feet above A New York street. We re safe and free, A little while, to live and love, Imagining what might have been The phone call from the blazing tower, A last farewell on the machine, While someone sleeps another hour, Or worse, perhaps, to say goodbye And listen to each other s pain, Send helpless love across the sky, Knowing we ll never meet again, Or jump together, hand in hand, To certain death. Spared all of this For now, how well I understand That love is all, is all there is. 10

12 A Well-Worn Story In April, in April, My one love came along, And I ran the slope of my high hill To follow a thread of song. His eyes were hard as porphyry With looking on cruel lands; His voice went slipping over me Like terrible silver hands. Together we trod the secret lane And walked the muttering town. I wore my heart like a wet, red stain On the breast of a velvet gown. In April, in April, My love went whistling by, And I stumbled here to my high hill Along the way of a lie. Now what should I do in this place But sit and count the chimes, And splash cold water on my face And spoil a page with rhymes? 11

13 Flag What s that fluttering in a breeze? It s just a piece of cloth that brings a nation to its knees. What s that unfurling from a pole? It s just a piece of cloth that makes the guts of men grow bold. What s that rising over a tent? It s just a piece of cloth that dares the coward to relent. What s that flying across a field? It s just a piece of cloth that will outlive the blood you bleed. How can I possess such a cloth? Just ask for a flag, my friend. Then blind your conscience to the end. 12

14 The Sick Rose O Rose thou art sick. The invisible worm, That flies in the night In the howling storm: Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy. 13

15 Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. 14

16 next to of course god america i "next to of course god america i love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh say can you see by the dawn's early my country 'tis of centuries come and go and are no more what of it we should worry in every language even deafanddumb thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry by jingo by gee by gosh by gum why talk of beauty what could be more beautiful than these heroic happy dead who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter they did not stop to think they died instead then shall the voice of liberty be mute? He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water 15