oems
On Shakespear
What needs my Shakespear for his honour’d Bones,
The labour of an age in piled Stones,
Or that his hallow’d reliques should be hid
Under a Star-ypointing Pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame,
What need’st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.
For whilst toth’ shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu’d Book,
Those Delphick lines with deep impression took
Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving,
Dost make us Marble with too much conceaving;
And so Sepulcher’d in such pomp dost lie,
That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.
– John Milton
Sharing Eve’s Apple
1.
O Blush not so! O blush not so!
Or I shall think you knowing;
And if you smile the blushing while,
Then maidenheads are going.
2.
There’s a blush for want, and a blush for shan’t,
And a blush for having done it;
There’s a blush for thought, and a blush for nought,
And a blush for just begun it.
3.
O sigh not so! O sigh not so!
For it sounds of Eve’s sweet pippin;
By these loosen’d lips you have tasted the pips
And fought in an amorous nipping.
4.
Will you play once more at nice-cut-core,
For it only will last our youth out,
And we have the prime of the kissing time,
We have not one sweet tooth out.
5.
There’s a sigh for aye, and a sigh for nay,
And a sigh for ‘I can’t bear it!’
O what can be done, shall we stay or run?
O cut the sweet apple and share it!
– John Keats
Wordfall
Among the dark trees these in autumn prime
rise under empty skies/Let colour leaven
the shadowed woods I wander through in time.
Red oak and bright sweet chestnut spread sublime
rich canopies for jay or squirrel, woven
among the dark trees, these. In autumn prime,
acorns and prickly chestuts challenge rhyme,
pale cases and their gilt-speared leaves enliven
the shadowed woods I wander through. In time,
late summer chills the landscape. As I climb
words dropp like a snow-warning, white as heaven
among the dark trees. These in autumn prime
their measures with the season, pulse and mime
and fall in hasty turbulence, panic driven
from sahdowed words I wander through. In time
drifts of their meaning overwhelm me. I’m
victim and foool of wordall in this haven
among the darkteres, thefse, in autumn, prime
the shadowed woods. I wander through, in time.
From the Great North Road, 2007
– Sally Evans
http://www.aromaticcoffees.co.uk
Man’s Discontent
White feet half hid in violets, small hands in a burden fair,
A burden of Spring’s first blossoms she wove for her neck and hair
Into wreaths, as she paused a moment on the threshold of maidenhood.
O my child love! hesitating, there I met her as she stood.
So I stayed till I grew weary—man’s discontent, I ween—
Then I thought I longed for Summer, with trees for ever green.
I tired of primrose blossoms and the budding boughs of spring,
And the chirp! chirp! of this year’s birds that had not learned to sing.
I thought her soft arms too slender, and the smooth young cheek too clear,
And the April eyes that loved me too ready with smile or tear,
Too ready to read my wishes in mine that she might obey
Ere I spoke; so in the springtime I went from her arms away.
I sought my love and I found her, when Summer days were long,
All the hedges bright with blossoms and musical with song,
But the eyes that saw me coming no answer to mine would speak;
The lids drooped till the lashes lay dark on her crimson cheek,
The hands I clasped for a moment would but struggle to be free,
As I tried to win her to speak of love, of herself, of me.
‘Hark! the young birds,’ she only said; ‘dost hear them sing in the wood?’
Love’s rosy wings had brushed her eyes as she passed to maidenhood.
So I stayed, but soon grew weary—man’s discontent, I ween—
And I longed for Autumn colours, not trees for ever green.
Cried I ‘Its sky at sunset is far more fair than this.’
Then I thought, my love’s cheek flushes too ready ‘neath my kiss,
That the gentle voice replying spoke love too timidly,
And the shy hands culling blossoms had no caress for me.
I tired of roses’ perfume and the song the wild-birds sung,
So I left her in the noon-time, when Summer yet was young.
‘Neath the sunset skies of Autumn, all the heath-clad hills flushed red;
Sweet the lark his matins singing in the blue sky overhead,
And the languid breeze was perfumed by a rose’s stolen breath;
‘Twas the last white bud of Summer that escaped the hand of death,
And my sweet, I feared to meet her for my yesterday of scorn;
Then I flung myself beside her as she knelt amid the corn.
She only said ‘To red and gold grew the green young leaf of Spring.
The rose filled the dead cowslip’s throne; now poppy reigns a king.’
Then she sighed, with blue eyes tearful and quivering lips that smiled,
‘And to womanhood’s perfection came the promise of the child.
But the rose and cowslip withered, and the poppy’s death is nigh,
For the changing leaf that lingers there remains nought but to die.
Through the bitter winds of Winter let me shelter by thy side;
Prithee, stray not with the Autumn, O my love! unsatisfied.’
So I stayed, but soon grew weary—man’s discontent, I ween—
Of the woods all clad in splendour, rarest red, and gold, and green;
Of the hands that toiling for me pressed the red juice from the vine,
And brought the fragrant peaches that I might not trouble mine;
Of the fawn-like eyes that watched me, ever speaking of their love;
Of the neck I once thought softer than the white breast of a dove.
So I rose up from my resting ere the Autumn days were dead,
And the oak, and beech, and chestnut had not yet their bright leaves shed;
While the birds were singing gaily from their shelter in the thorn,
Still the sleep-bestowing poppies lit their red lamps in the corn.
I sought my love in the Winter, for I sorrowed for the past,
And in the long nights of thinking I knew my own heart at last;
That mine were the imperfections that I seemed in her to find,
That happiness ever beside me made me to sorrow grow blind,
How I of God’s gifts grew weary—man’s discontent, I ween—
That to-day sighs for to-morrow, then to weep for what had been.
She was sleeping when I found her, O my love! in one hand lay
Spring’s young buds and Summer roses with their fair bloom passed away;
But the poison-breathing poppy on her lip was lying red,
Ah! the sleep-bestowing poppy had left me but the dead;
The calm eyes gazing heavenwards could not see the love mine bore,
And the pale brow ‘neath my kisses still its marble colour wore;
Till the snow that was not whiter hid the silent face from me—
Hid the lips that could not answer and the eyes that could not see.
Flake by flake came down and hid her from the cold sky overhead.
Thus, having all, I lost all, ere the Winter days had fled.
– Dora Sigerson Shorter
http://www.aromaticcoffees.co.uk
These, I, Singing in Spring
These, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and
joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world–but soon I pass the
gates,
Now along the pond-side–now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,
Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones thrown there,
pick’d from the fields, have accumulated,
(Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and
partly cover them–Beyond these I pass,)
Far, far in the forest, before I think where I go,
Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the
silence,
Alone I had thought–yet soon a troop gathers around me, 10
Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or
neck,
They, the spirits of dear friends, dead or alive–thicker they come,
a great crowd, and I in the middle,
Collecting, dispensing, singing in spring, there I wander with them,
Plucking something for tokens–tossing toward whoever is near me;
Here! lilac, with a branch of pine,
Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull’d off a live-oak in
Florida, as it hung trailing down,
Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage,
And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pondside,
(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me–and returns again,
never to separate from me,
And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades–this
Calamus-root shall, 20
Interchange it, youths, with each other! Let none render it back!)
And twigs of maple, and a bunch of wild orange, and chestnut,
And stems of currants, and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar:
These, I, compass’d around by a thick cloud of spirits,
Wandering, point to, or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from
me,
Indicating to each one what he shall have–giving something to each;
But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve,
I will give of it–but only to them that love, as I myself am capable
of loving.
– Walt Whitman
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