death

Medicate me with a peaceful pile of letters,
And lead me on my way again.
You picked me up when I was down,
And you drowned me with your love again.
Compassion is what you are made up of,
And compassion brought me to live in sin.
Love brightens the darkened shadows in your garden,
That I’ve been pleading for you to let me in.
Winter is climbing quickly,
And laughing in my face again.
Loves are coming and going,
And your heart I will never win;
But you picked me up when I was down,

Dead is he? Yes, our stranger guest said dead--
said it by noonday, when it seemed a thing
most natural and so indifferent
as if the tale ran that a while ago
there died a man I talked with a chance hour
when he by chance was near me. If I spoke
"Good news for us but ill news for the dead
when the gods sweep a villain down to them,"
'twas the prompt trick of words, like a pat phrase
from some one other's song, found on the lips
and used because 'tis there: for through all day

Mother of man's time-travelling generations,
Breath of his nostrils, heartblood of his heart,
God above all Gods worshipped of all nations,
Light above light, law beyond law, thou art.

Thy face is as a sword smiting in sunder
Shadows and chains and dreams and iron things;
The sea is dumb before thy face, the thunder
Silent, the skies are narrower than thy wings.

Angels and Gods, spirit and sense, thou takest
In thy right hand as drops of dust or dew;
The temples and the towers of time thou breakest,

You almost heard the surface bake, and saw the gum-leaves turn --
You could have watched the grass scorch brown had there been grass to burn.
In such a drought the strongest heart might well grow faint and weak --
'Twould frighten Satan to his home -- not far from Dingo Creek.

The tanks went dry on Ninety Mile, as tanks go dry out back,
The Half-Way Spring had failed at last when Marshall missed the track;
Beneath a dead tree on the plain we saw a pack-horse reel --

537

Me prove it now—Whoever doubt
Me stop to prove it—now—
Make haste—the Scruple! Death be scant
For Opportunity—

The River reaches to my feet—
As yet—My Heart be dry—
Oh Lover—Life could not convince—
Might Death—enable Thee—

The River reaches to My Breast—
Still—still—My Hands above
Proclaim with their remaining Might—
Dost recognize the Love?

The River reaches to my Mouth—
Remember—when the Sea
Swept by my searching eyes—the last—

Born screaming small into this world-
Living I am.
Occupational therapy twixt birth and death-
What was I before?
What will I be next?
What am I now?
Cruel answer carried in the jesting mind
of a careless God
I will not bend and grovel
When I die. If He says my sins are myriad
I will ask why He made me so imperfect
And he will say 'My chisels were blunt'
I will say 'Then why did you make so
many of me'.

May dew and haze
I catch in taut canvases.
Stuffed in a costrel tight,
I'll take them home come light.
Blissful constellations blaze
the Zodiac cites.
Planets make marriages
guarding my rite.
And now I pick the rotted plant
of bitter and of living life.
Vatic bubbling rants...
Flame, fiery ally!
All from death must sink from sight,
(Are the stars in well or sky?)
Clear stubble of bygone vine
I'm given again to derive.
Bark and pinkish light, -
Everything's back from dust.

Unhewn in quarry lay the Parian stone,
   Ere hands, god-guided, of Praxiteles
Might shape the Cnidian Venus. Long ungrown
   The ivory was which, chiselled, robbed of ease
   Pygmalion, sculptor-lover. Now are these,
The stone and ivory, immortal made.
   The golden apples of Hesperides
Shall never, scattered, in blown dust be laid,
   Till Time, the dragon-guard, has lived his last decade.

The Cnidian Venus, Galatea's shape,
   A wondering world beheld, as we behold, --

There is an awe in mortals' joy,
A deep mysterious fear
Half of the heart will still employ,
As if we drew too near
To Eden's portal, and those fires
That bicker round in wavy spires,
Forbidding, to our frail desires,
What cost us once so dear.

We cower before th' heart-searching eye
In rapture as its pain;
E'en wedded Love, till Thou be nigh,
Dares not believe her gain:
Then in the air she fearless springs,
The breath of Heaven beneath her wings,
And leaves her woodnote wild, and sings

JUST as of yore the friendly rain
Patters its old and frank refrain;
Just as of yore the world swings by
The little window where I lie
Watching the shadows wax and wane.

I see, beyond the Aegean main,
His cross upon the grave-scarred plain—
Yet still the dawn-flush climbs the sky,
Just as of yore!

His cross—and mine! They try in vain
With careful phrase to stanch the pain;
They say, ‘A hero’s death!’ But I
Long only for his footstep nigh;