English

Covetous Nebraskaites, The
Have near extinguished Freedom's lights,
Have thrown her altars to the ground
And hurled the hallowed parts around.
And then, their treason to complete,
They've leaped with their unhallowed feet
Upon the fragments on the sand,
(Still both magnificent and grand,)
And in their wild delirium swore
That liberty should be no more.
The dignified and lofty tree,
Of heaven-descending liberty,
No longer tow'ring upward stands,
But, prostrate by Vandalic hands,

Law! what is law? The wise and sage,
Of every clime and every age,
In this most cordially unite,
That 'tis a rule for doing right.

Great Blackstone, that illustrious sire,
Whose commentaries all admire,
And Witherspoon, and Cicero,
And all distinguished jurists show
That law is but the power supreme
To shield, to nurture, or redeem
Those rights so sacred, which belong
To man; and to prohibit wrong.
But definitions more concise,
Than any framed by man's device,
The conscientious patriot draws

O Freedom! Freedom! O! how oft
Thy loving children call on Thee!
In wailings loud, and breathings soft,
Beseeching God, Thy face to see.

With agonizing hearts we kneel,
While 'round us howls the oppressor's cry, —
And suppliant pray, that we may feel
The ennob'ling glances of Thine eye.

We think of Thee as once we saw
Thee, jewel'd by Thy Father's hand,
Afar beside dark Egypt's shore,
Exulting with Thy ransom'd band.

We hear, as then, the thrilling song,
That hail'd Thy passage through the sea, —

I
My love forever!
The day I first saw you
At the end of the market-house,
My eye observed you,
My heart approved you,
I fled from my father with you,
Far from my home with you.
II

I never repented it:
You whitened a parlour for me,
Painted rooms for me,
Reddened ovens for me,
Baked fine bread for me,
Basted meat for me,
Slaughtered beasts for me;
I slept in ducks' feathers
Till midday milking-time,
Or more if it pleased me.
III

My friend forever!

1

Spawn of Fantasies
Sitting the appraisable
Pig Cupid
His rosy snout
Rooting erotic garbage
" Once upon a time "
Pulls a weed
White star-topped
Among wild oats
Sown in mucous-membrane.

I would
An eye in a Bengal light
Eternity in a skyrocket
Constellations in an ocean
Whose rivers run no fresher
Than a trickle of saliva

There are suspect places
I must live in my lantern
Trimming subliminal flicker
Virginal to the bellows
Of experience

VII

At least I have the flowers of myself,
and my thoughts, no god
can take that;
I have the fervour of myself for a presence
and my own spirit for light;

and my spirit with its loss
knows this;
though small against the black,
small against the formless rocks,
hell must break before I am lost;

before I am lost,
hell must open like a red rose
For the dead to pass.

I

So you have swept me back,
I who could have walked with the live souls
above the earth,
I who could have slept among the live flowers
at last;

so for your arrogance
and your ruthlessness
I am swept back
where dead lichens drip
dead cinders upon moss of ash;

so for your arrogance
I am broken at last,
I who had lived unconscious,
who was almost forgot;

if you had let me wait
I had grown from listlessness
into peace,

Farewell, Rewards & Faeries ,
Good Houswives now may say;
For now foule Slutts in Daries
Doe fare as well as they;
And though they sweepe theyr Hearths no less
Then Maydes were wont to doe,
Yet who of late for Cleaneliness
Finds sixe-pence in her Shoe?

Lament, lament, old Abbies,
The Faries lost Command:
They did but change Priests Babies ,

Farewell, Rewards & Faeries ,
Good Houswives now may say;
For now foule Slutts in Daries
Doe fare as well as they;
And though they sweepe theyr Hearths no less
Then Maydes were wont to doe,
Yet who of late for Cleaneliness
Finds sixe-pence in her Shoe?

Lament, lament, old Abbies,
The Faries lost Command:
They did but change Priests Babies ,

Queen of the differentiated sites, administratrix of the
demarcations, let our cry come unto you.
In all times of imperium save us when the mercatores
come save us
from the guile of the negotiatores save us from the missi ,
from the agents
who think no shame
by inquest to audit what is shameful to tell
deliver us.
When they check their capitularies in their curias
confuse their reckonings.