YOUTH.

AWAY, thou swarthy witch! Go forth

From out my house, I tell thee!
Or else I needs must, in my wrath,

Expel thee!
What's this thou singest so falsely, forsooth,
Of love and a maiden's silent truth?

Who'll trust to such a story!

GIPSY.

I sing of a maid's repentant fears,

And long and bitter yearning;
Her levity's changed to truth and tears

All-burning.
She dreads no more the threats of her mother,
She dreads far less the blows of her brother,

THE worst of ills, with jealousy compared,
Are trifling torments ev'ry where declared.

IMAGINE, to yourself a silly fool,
To dark suspicion grown an easy tool;
No soft repose he finds, by night or day;
But rings his ear, he's wretched ev'ry way!
Continually he dreams his forehead sprouts;
The truth of reveries he never doubts.
But this I would not fully guaranty,
For he who dreams, 'tis said, asleep should be;
And those who've caught, from time to time, a peep,
Pretend to say--the jealous never sleep.

In the postoffice window was one broken pane;
In the wainscot there was one loosen'd board;
And conveniently near was the broad oaken table,
Where the mail from the bag had been pour'd,
'Twas a morning in May, with a sweet odor'd breeze;
And it happen'd unnotic'd by all,
That a most precious missive, that love laden letter,
Flutter'd down thro' the gap in the wall.

Two lives wreck'd by a zephyr!
Two hearts crush'd by the fall,
When that most precious missive, that love laden letter,
Flutter'd down thro' the gap in the wall.

So Eden was deserted, and at eve
Into the quiet place God came to grieve.
His face was sad, His hands hung slackly down
Along his robe; too sorrowful to frown
He paced along the grassy paths and through
The silent trees, and where the flowers grew
Tended by Adam. All the birds had gone
Out to the world, and singing was not one
To cheer the lonely God out of His grief --
The silence broken only when a leaf
Tapt lightly on a leaf, or when the wind,
Slow-handed, swayed the bushes to its mind.

"Soyez muette pour moi, Idole contemplative..."


I came home and found a lion in my living room
Rushed out on the fire escape screaming Lion! Lion!
Two stenographers pulled their brunnette hair and banged the window shut
I hurried home to Patterson and stayed two days

Called up old Reichian analyst
who'd kicked me out of therapy for smoking marijuana
'It's happened' I panted 'There's a Lion in my living room'
'I'm afraid any discussion would have no value' he hung up

I went to my old boyfriend we got drunk with his girlfriend

There were some dirty plates
and a glass of milk
beside her on a small table
near the rank, disheveled bed--

Wrinkled and nearly blind
she lay and snored
rousing with anger in her tones
to cry for food,

Gimme something to eat--
They're starving me--
I'm all right--I won't go
to the hospital.No, no, no

Give me something to eat!
Let me take you
to the hospital, I said
and after you are well

you can do as you please.
She smiled, Yes
you do what you please first
then I can do what I please--

After the sack of the City when Rome was sunk to a name,
In the years that the lights were darkened, or ever St. Wilfrid
came,
Low on the borders of Britain (the ancient poets sing)
Between the Cliff and the Forest there ruled a Saxon King.
Stubborn all were his people from cottar to overlord--
Not to be cowed by the cudgel, scarce to be schooled by the
sword;
Quick to turn at their pleasure, cruel to cross in their mood,
And set on paths of their choosing as the hogs of Andred's Wood.
Laws they made in the Witan--the laws of flaying and fine--

The Jackdaw sat on the Cardinal's chair!
Bishop, and abbot, and prior were there;
Many a monk, and many a friar,
Many a knight, and many a squire,
With a great many more of lesser degree,--
In sooth a goodly company;
And they served the Lord Primate on bended knee.
Never, I ween,
Was a prouder seen,
Read of in books, or dreamt of in dreams,
Than the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims!

In and out
Through the motley rout,
That little Jackdaw kept hopping about;
Here and there
Like a dog in a fair,
Over comfits and cates,

(A Pharaoh Speaks.)

I said, "Why should a pyramid
Stand always dully on its base?
I'll change it! Let the top be hid,
The bottom take the apex-place!"
And as I bade they did.

The people flocked in, scores on scores,
To see it balance on its tip.
They praised me with the praise that bores,
My godlike mind on every lip.
-- Until it fell, of course.

And then they took my body out
From my crushed palace, mad with rage,
-- Well, half the town WAS wrecked, no doubt --
Their crazy anger to assuage

Thus did the Trojans watch. But Panic, comrade of blood-stained
Rout, had taken fast hold of the Achaeans and their princes were all
of them in despair. As when the two winds that blow from Thrace- the
north and the northwest- spring up of a sudden and rouse the fury of
the main- in a moment the dark waves uprear their heads and scatter
their sea-wrack in all directions- even thus troubled were the
hearts of the Achaeans.
The son of Atreus in dismay bade the heralds call the people to a
council man by man, but not to cry the matter aloud; he made haste