I Aria

"--Kiss me there where pride is glittering
Kiss me where I am ripened and round fruit
Kiss me wherever, however, I am supple, bare and flare
(Let the bell be rung as long as I am young:
let ring and fly like a great bronze wing!)

"--I'll kiss you wherever you think you are poor,
Wherever you shudder, feeling striped or barred,
Because you think you are bloodless, skinny or marred:
Until, until
your gaze has been stilled--
Until you are shamed again no more!

First Ghost

To sepulcher my mouldy bones
I bough a pile of noble stones,
And half a year a sculptor spent
To hew my marble monument,
The stateliest to rear its head
In all this city of the dead.

And generations passing through
Will gape, and ask: What did he do
To earn this tomb so rich and rare,
In Attic grace beyond compare?
How was his life in honour spent,
To worthy this proud monument?

What did I do" Well, nothing much.
'Tis true I had the Midas touch.
A million pounds I made wherewith

And have we done with War at last?
Well, we’ve been lucky devils both,
And there’s no need of pledge or oath
To bind our lovely friendship fast,
By firmer stuff
Close bound enough.

By wire and wood and stake we’re bound,
By Fricourt and by Festubert,
By whipping rain, by the sun’s glare,
By all the misery and loud sound,
By a Spring day,
By Picard clay.

Show me the two so closely bound
As we, by the red bond of blood,
By friendship, blossoming from mud,
By Death: we faced him, and we found

The title page will show, if there thou look,
Who are the proper subjects of this book.

They're boys and girls of all sorts and degrees,
From those of age to children on the knees.

Thus comprehensive am I in my notions,
They tempt me to it by their childish motions.

We now have boys with beards, and girls that be
Big[8]as old women, wanting gravity.

Then do not blame me, 'cause I thus describe them.
Flatter I may not, lest thereby I bribe them

To have a better judgment of themselves,

1.

Indeed I live in the dark ages!
A guileless word is an absurdity. A smooth forehead betokens
A hard heart. He who laughs
Has not yet heard
The terrible tidings.

Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!
And he who walks calmly across the street,
Is he not out of reach of his friends
In trouble?

It is true: I earn my living
But, believe me, it is only an accident.
Nothing that I do entitles me to eat my fill.

Fairfax, whose Name in Arms through Europe rings,
And fills all Mouths with Envy or with Praise,
And all her Jealous Monarchs with Amaze.
And Rumours loud which daunt remotest Kings,
Thy firm unshaken Valour ever brings
Victory home, while new Rebellions raise
Their Hydra-heads, and the false North displays
Her broken League to Imp her Serpent Wings:
O yet! a Nobler task awaits thy Hand,
For what can War, but Acts of War still breed
Till injur'd Truth from Violence be freed;

Since the disorders in Henan and the famine in Guannei, my brothers and sisters have been scattered. Looking at the moon, I express my thoughts in this poem, which I send to my eldest brother at Fuliang, my seventh brother at Yuqian, My fifteen brother at Wujiang and my younger brothers and sisters at Fuli and Xiagui.

My heritage lost through disorder and famine,
My brothers and sisters flung eastward and westward,
My fields and gardens wrecked by the war,
My own flesh and blood become scum of the street,

No sooner, FLAVIO, was you gone,
But, your Injunction thought upon,
ARDELIA took the Pen;
Designing to perform the Task,
Her FLAVIO did so kindly ask,
Ere he returned agen.

Unto Parnassus strait she sent,
And bid the Messenger, that went
Unto the Muses Court,
Assure them, she their Aid did need,
And begg'd they'd use their utmost Speed,
Because the Time was short.

The hasty Summons was allow'd;
And being well-bred, they rose and bow'd,
And said, they'd poste away;
That well they did ARDELIA know,

I.

Long in thy shackels, liberty
I ask not from these walls, but thee;
Left for awhile anothers bride,
To fancy all the world beside.

II.

Yet e're I doe begin to love,
See, how I all my objects prove;
Then my free soule to that confine,
'Twere possible I might call mine.

III.

First I would be in love with peace,
And her rich swelling breasts increase;
But how, alas! how may that be,
Despising earth, she will love me?

IV.

Faine would I be in love with war,

It doesn’t matter what’s the cause,
What wrong they say we’re righting,
A curse for treaties, bonds and laws,
When we’re to do the fighting!
And since we lads are proud and true,
What else remains to do?
Lucasta, when to France your man
Returns his fourth time, hating war,
Yet laughs as calmly as he can
And flings an oath, but says no more,
That is not courage, that’s not fear—
Lucasta he’s a Fusilier,
And his pride sends him here.

Let statesmen bluster, bark and bray,
And so decide who started