wind

Th'imprison'd winds slumber within their caves
Fast bound: the fickle vane, emblem of change,
Wavers no more, long-settling to a point.
All nature nodding seems compos'd: thick steams
From land, from flood up-drawn, dimming the day,
"Like a dark ceiling stand:" slow thro' the air
Gossamer floats, or stretch'd from blade to blade
The wavy net-work whitens all the field.
Push'd by the weightier atmosphere, up springs
The ponderous Mercury, from scale to scale
Mounting, amidst the Torricellian tube.

We're driving across tableland
somewhere in the world;
it is almost bare of trees.

Upland near void of features
always moves me, but not to thought;
it lets me rest from thinking.

I feel no need to interpret it
as if it were art. Too much
of poetry is criticism now.

That hawk, clinging to
the eaves of the wind, beating
its third wing, its tail

isn't mine to sell. And here is
more like the space that needs
to exist aound an image.

This cloud-roof country reminds me

O grandly flowing River!
O silver-gliding River!
Thy springing willows shiver
In the sunset as of old;
They shiver in the silence
Of the willow-whitened islands,
While the sun-bars and the sand-bars
Fill air and wave with gold.

O gay, oblivious River!
O sunset-kindled River!
Do you remember ever
The eyes and skies so blue
On a summer day that shone here,
When we were all alone here,
And the blue eyes were too wise
To speak the love they knew?

Wind whines and whines the shingle,
The crazy pierstakes groan;
A senile sea numbers each single
Slimesilvered stone.

From whining wind and colder
Grey sea I wrap him warm
And touch his trembling fineboned shoulder
And boyish arm.

Around us fear, descending
Darkness of fear above
And in my heart how deep unending
Ache of love!

When the salt wave laps on the long, dim shore,
And frets the reef with its windy sallies,
And the dawn's white light is threading once more
The purple firs in the landward valleys,
While yet the arms of the wide gray sea
Are cradling the sunrise that is to be,
The fisherman's boat, through the mist afar,
Has sailed in the wake of the morning star.

The wind in his cordage and canvas sings
Its old glad song of strength and endeavor,
And up from the heart of the ocean rings
A call of courage and cheer forever;

Farewell gay Summer! now the changing wind
That Autumn brings commands thee to retreat;
It fades the roses which thy temples bind,
And the green sandals which adorn thy feet.

Now flies with thee the walk at eventide,
That favouring hour to rapt enthusiasts dear;
When most they love to seek the mountain side,
And mark the pomp of twilight hastening near.

Then fairy forms around the poet throng,
On every cloud a glowing charm he sees....
Sweet Evening, these delights to thee belong:....

Take, greedy death, a body here entomd
That by a thousand stroakes was made one wound,
Where all thy shafts were stuck with fatall ayme
Untill a quiver this thy marke became,
Had Cæsar fifty wounds to let in thee
Because a troop of men might seeme to bee
Comprised in that great Spirit, this had more
Whose deaths were equalld with the fruitfull store
Of hopefull vertues, though each wound did reach
The very heart, yet none could make a breach
Into his soule, a soule more fully drest

My spirit is too weak; mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagined pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.
Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep,
That I have not the cloudy winds to keep
Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain
Bring round the heart an indescribable feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old Time -with a billowy main,

[During an anti-saloon campaign, in central Illinois.]


In the midst of the battle I turned,
(For the thunders could flourish without me)
And hid by a rose-hung wall,
Forgetting the murder about me;
And wrote, from my wound, on the stone,
In mirth, half prayer, half play: —
"Send me a picture book,
Send me a song, to-day."

I saw him there by the wall
When I scarce had written the line,
In the enemy's colors dressed
And the serpent-standard of wine

On Rabbi Kook's Street
I walk without this good man--
A streiml he wore for prayer
A silk top hat he wore to govern,
fly in the wind of the dead
above me, float on the water
of my dreams.

I come to the Street of Prophets--there are none.
And the Street of Ethiopians--there are a few. I'm
looking for a place for you to live after me
padding your solitary nest for you,
setting up the place of my pain with the sweat of my brow
examining the road on which you'll return