I am a river flowing from God’s sea
Through devious ways. He mapped my course for me;
I cannot change it; mine alone the toil
To keep the waters free from grime and soil
The winding river ends where it began;
And when my life had compassed its brief span
I must return to that mysterious source.
So let me gather daily on my course
The perfume from the blossoms as I pass,
Balm from the pines, and healing from the grass,
And carry down my current as I go
Not common stones but precious gems to show;

IN SEVEN PARTS

Facile credo, plures esse Naturas invisibiles quam visibiles in rerum
universitate. Sed horum omnium familiam quis nobis enarrabit ? et gradus et
cognationes et discrimina et singulorum munera ? Quid agunt ? quae loca
habitant ? Harum rerum notitiam semper ambivit ingenium humanum, nunquam
attigit. Juvat, interea, non diffiteor, quandoque in animo, tanquam in
tabulâ, majoris et melioris mundi imaginem contemplari : ne mens assuefacta
hodiernae vitae minutiis se contrahat nimis, et tota subsidat in pusillas

The horse beneath me seemed
To know what course to steer
Through the horror of snow I dreamed,
And so I had no fear,

Nor was I chilled to death
By the wind’s white shudders, thanks
To the veils of his patient breath
And the mist of sweat from his flanks.

It seemed that all night through,
Within my hand no rein
And nothing in my view
But the pillar of his mane,

I rode with magic ease
At a quick, unstumbling trot
Through shattering vacancies
On into what was not,

Till the weave of the storm grew thin,

Pro Bono Publico
Went out the streets to scan,
And marching to and fro
He met a seedy man,
Who did a tale unfold
In solemn tones and slow
And this is what he told
Pro Bono Publico.

"For many years I led
The people's onward march;
I was the 'Fountain Head',
The 'Democratic Arch'.

"In more than regal state
I used to sit and smile,
And bridges I'd donate,
And railways by the mile.

"I pawned the country off
For many million quid,
And spent it like a toff --
So hel me, Bob, I did.

On being asked, Whence is the flower?

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals, fallen in the pool,
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,

I

AT Flores, in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a flutter’d bird, came flying from far away;
“Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!”
Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: “’Fore God I am no coward;
But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear,
And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick.
We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?”

II

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: “I know you are no coward;

And there we were together again—
Together again, we three:
Morgan, Fingal, fiddle, and all,
They had come for the night with me.

The spirit of joy was in Morgan’s wrist,
There were songs in Fingal’s throat;
And secure outside, for the spray to drench,
Was a tossed and empty boat.

And there were the pipes, and there was the punch,
And somewhere were twelve years;
So it came, in the manner of things unsought,
That a quick knock vexed our ears.

The night wind hovered and shrieked and snarled,

Why look the distant mountains
So gloomy and so drear?
Are rain clouds passing o’er them,
Or is the tempest near?
No shadow of the tempest
Is there, nor wind nor rain—
’Tis Charon that is passing by,
With all his gloomy train.

The young men march before him,
In all their strength and pride;
The tender little infants,
They totter by his side;
The old men walk behind him,
And earnestly they pray—
Both old and young imploring him
To grant some brief delay.

‘O Charon! halt, we pray thee,

". . . our language, forged in the dark bycenturies of violent
pressure, underground,out of the stuff of dead life."

Thirsty and languorous after their long black sleep
The old gods crooned and shuffled and shook their heads.
Dry, dry. By railroad they set out
Across the desert of stars to drink the world
Our mouths had soaked
In the strange sentences we made
While they were asleep: a pollen-tinted
Slurry of passion and lapsed
Intention, whose imagined
Taste made the savage deities hiss and snort.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.