We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
And the just man trailed God's shining agent, over a black mountain, in his giant track, while a restless voice kept harrying his woman: 'It's not too late, you can still look back
at the red towers of your native Sodom, the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed, at the empty windows set in the tall house where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed.' A single glance: a sudden dart of pain stitching her eyes before she made a sound... Her body flaked into transparent salt, and her swift legs rooted to the ground.
Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem too insignificant for our concern? Yet in my heart I never will deny her, who suffered death because she chose to turn.
And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays; Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; Every clod feels a stir of might, An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And, groping blindly above it for light, Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; The flush of life may well be seen Thrilling back over hills and valleys; The cowslip startles in meadows green, The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean To be some happy creature's palace; The little bird sits at his door in the sun, Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, And lets his illumined being o'errun With the deluge of summer it receives; His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?
Now is the high-tide of the year, And whatever of life hath ebbed away Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer, Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, We are happy now because God wills it; No matter how barren the past may have been, 'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green; We sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell; We may shut our eyes but we cannot help knowing That skies are clear and grass is growing; The breeze comes whispering in our ear, That dandelions are blossoming near, That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, That the river is bluer than the sky, That the robin is plastering his house hard by; And if the breeze kept the good news back, For our couriers we should not lack; We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing, And hark! How clear bold chanticleer, Warmed with the new wine of the year, Tells all in his lusty crowing!
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how; Everything is happy now, Everything is upward striving; 'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, 'Tis for the natural way of living: Who knows whither the clouds have fled? In the unscarred heaven they leave not wake, And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache; The soul partakes the season's youth, And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow To do our country loss; and if to live The fewer men, the greater share of honour. God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; It yearns me not if men my garments wear; Such outward things dwell not in my desires. But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive. No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England. God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour As one man more, methinks, would share from me For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more! Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, That he which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart; his passport shall be made And crowns for convoy put into his purse: We would not die in that man’s company That fears his fellowship to die with us. This day is call’d the feast of Crispian: He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named, And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors, And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian.’ Then he will strip his sleeve and show his scars, And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’ Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, But he’ll remember with advantages What feats he did that day: then shall our names Familiar in his mouth as household words: Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d, This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition. And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
I wander'd lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretch'd in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
But be contented: when that fell arrest Without all bail shall carry me away, My life hath in this line some interest, Which for memorial still with thee shall stay. When thou reviewest this, thou dost review The very part was consecrate to thee: The earth can have but earth, which is his due; My spirit is thine, the better part of me: So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life, The prey of worms, my body being dead, The coward conquest of a wretch's knife, Too base of thee to be remembered. The worth of that is that which it contains, And that is this, and this with thee remains.
Reading together one day for delight Of Lancelot, caught up in love’s sweet snare, We were alone, with no thought of what might Occur to us, although we stopped to stare Sometimes at what we read, and even paled. But then the moment came we turned a page And all our powers of resistance failed: When we read of that great knight in a rage To kiss the smile he so desired, Paolo, This one so quiet now, made my mouth still— Which, loosened by those words, had trembled so— With his mouth. And right then we lost the will— For love can will will’s loss, as well you know— To read on. But let that man take a bow Who wrote the book we called our Galahad, The reason nothing can divide us now.
I could never have dreamt that there were such goings-on in the world between the covers of books, such sandstorms and ice blasts of words, such staggering peace, such enormous laughter, such and so many blinding bright lights, splashing all over the pages in a million bits and pieces all of which were words, words, words, and each of which were alive forever in its own delight and glory and oddity and light.
That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees, —Those dying generations—at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God's holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
(Neoneo was reminded of this poem, here.)The first verse feels stolen from Hopkins, doesn't it?
I love you, though I rage at it, Though it is shame and toil misguided, And to my folly self-derided Here at your feet I will admit! It ill befits my years, my station, Good sense has long been overdue! And yet, by every indication Love's plague has stricken me anew: You're out of sight---I fall to yawning; You're here---I suffer and feel blue, And barely keep myself from owning, Dear elf, how much I care for you! Why, when your guileless girlish chatter Drifts from next door your airy tread, Your rustling dress, my senses scatter And I completely lose my head. You smile---I flush with exultation; You turn away---I'm plunged in gloom, Your pallid hand is compensation For a whole day of fancied doom. When to the frame with artless motion You bend to cross-stitch, all devotion, Your eyes and ringlets down-beguiled, My heart goes out in mute emotion, Rejoicing in you like a child! Dare I confess to you my sighing, How jealously I chafe and balk When you set forth, defying Bad weather, on a lengthy walk? And then your solitary crying, Those twosome whispers out of sight, Your carriage to Opochka plying, And the piano late at night... Aline! I ask but to be pitied, I do not dare to plead for love; Love, for the sins I have committed, I am perhaps unworthy of. But make believe! Your gaze, dear elf, Is fit to conjure with, believe me! Ah, it is easy to deceive me!... I long to be deceived myself!
Refresh your memory about the father of Russian literature here.
The sea is calm to-night. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand; Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.
This saying good-bye on the edge of the dark And cold to an orchard so young in the bark Reminds me of all that can happen to harm An orchard away at the end of the farm All winter, cut off by a hill from the house. I don't want it girdled by rabbit and mouse, I don't want it dreamily nibbled for browse By deer, and I don't want it budded by grouse. (If certain it wouldn't be idle to call I'd summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall And warn them away with a stick for a gun.) I don't want it stirred by the heat of the sun. (We made it secure against being, I hope, By setting it out on a northerly slope.) No orchard's the worse for the wintriest storm; But one thing about it, it mustn't get warm. "How often already you've had to be told, Keep cold, young orchard. Good-bye and keep cold. Dread fifty above more than fifty below." I have to be gone for a season or so. My business awhile is with different trees, Less carefully nourished, less fruitful than these, And such as is done to their wood with an axe-- Maples and birches and tamaracks.
I wish I could promise to lie in the night And think of an orchard's arboreal plight When slowly (and nobody comes with a light) Its heart sinks lower under the sod. But something has to be left to God.
'A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter.' And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory, Lying down in the melting snow. There were times we regretted The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces, And the silken girls bringing sherbet. Then the camel men cursing and grumbling And running away, and wanting their liquor and women, And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters, And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly And the villages dirty and charging high prices: A hard time we had of it. At the end we preferred to travel all night, Sleeping in snatches, With the voices singing in our ears, saying That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley, Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation; With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness, And three trees on the low sky, And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow. Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel, Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver, And feet kicking the empty wine-skins. But there was no information, and so we continued And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again, but set down This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.
December twenty-first we gather at the white Church festooned red and green, the tree flashing green-red lights beside the altar. After the children of Sunday School recite Scripture, sing songs, and scrape out solos, they retire to dress for the finale, to perform the pageant again: Mary and Joseph kneeling cradleside, Three Kings, shepherds and shepherdesses. Their garments are bathrobes with mothholes, cut down from the Church's ancestors. Standing short and long, they stare in all directions for mothers, sisters and brothers, giggling and waving in recognition, and at the South Danbury Church, a moment before Santa arrives with her ho-hos and bags of popcorn, in the half-dark of whole silence, God enters the world as a newborn again.
The nation's Poet Laureate, Donald Hall, is a native of New Haven and lives in Danbury, NH. He knows both death and baseball, and he has written a heck of a lot of things. More of his poems here.
Written as prose, A Child's Christmas in Wales might as well be verse. It begins thus:
One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now, out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six. All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen...
The whole piece can be read here but, better yet, you can stream Thomas reading it here. (19 minutes)
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rage at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The Stranger within my gate, He may be true or kind, But he does not talk my talk— I cannot feel his mind. I see the face and the eyes and the mouth, But not the soul behind.
The men of my own stock, They may do ill or well, But they tell the lies I am wonted to, They are used to the lies I tell; And we do not need interpreters When we go to buy or sell.
The Stranger within my gates, He may be evil or good, But I cannot tell what powers control— What reasons sway his mood; Nor when the Gods of his far-off land Shall repossess his blood.
The men of my own stock, Bitter bad they may be, But, at least, they hear the things I hear, And see the things I see; And whatever I think of them and their likes They think of the likes of me.
This was my father's belief And this is also mine: Let the corn be all one sheaf— And the grapes be all one vine, Ere our children's teeth are set on edge By bitter bread and wine.
Where are you tonight? (Journey Through Black Heat), 1978
There’s a long-distance train rolling through the rain Tears on the letter I write There’s a woman I long to touch and I miss her so much But she’s drifting like a satellite
There’s a neon light ablaze in this green smoky haze Laughter down on Elizabeth Street And a lonesome bell tone in that valley of stone Where she bathed in a stream of pure heat
Her father would emphasize you got to be more than streetwise But he practiced what he preached from the heart A full-blooded Cherokee, he predicted to me The time and the place that the trouble would start
There’s a babe in the arms of a woman in a rage And a longtime golden-haired stripper onstage And she winds back the clock and she turns back the page Of a book that no one can write Oh, where are you tonight?
The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure To live it you have to explode In that last hour of need, we entirely agreed Sacrifice was the code of the road
I left town at dawn, with Marcel and St. John Strong men belittled by doubt I couldn’t tell her what my private thoughts were But she had some way of finding them out
He took dead-center aim but he missed just the same She was waiting, putting flowers on the shelf She could feel my despair as I climbed up her hair And discovered her invisible self
There’s a lion in the road, there’s a demon escaped There’s a million dreams gone, there’s a landscape being raped As her beauty fades and I watch her undrape I won’t but then again, maybe I might Oh, if I could just find you tonight
I fought with my twin, that enemy within ’Til both of us fell by the way Horseplay and disease is killing me by degrees While the law looks the other way
Your partners in crime hit me up for nickels and dimes The guy you were lovin’ couldn’t stay clean It felt outa place, my foot in his face But he should-a stayed where his money was green
I bit into the root of forbidden fruit With the juice running down my leg Then I dealt with your boss, who’d never known about loss And who always was too proud to beg
There’s a white diamond gloom on the dark side of this room And a pathway that leads up to the stars If you don’t believe there’s a price for this sweet paradise Remind me to show you the scars
There’s a new day at dawn and I’ve finally arrived If I’m there in the morning, baby, you’ll know I’ve survived I can’t believe it, I can’t believe I’m alive But without you it just doesn’t seem right Oh, where are you tonight?
Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action, and till action, lust Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust, Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight, Past reason hunted, and no sooner had, Past reason hated as a swallowed bait On purpose laid to make the taker mad; Mad in pursuit, and in possession so, Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe; Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream. All this the world well knows, yet none knows well To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
Stevens was, if anything, too smart for his own good. Readers of his essays and correspondence know that he thought at length about the essence and purpose of poetry. Stevens was an Emersonian mystic for whom poetry was a substitute, and a fit one, for belief in God, which, for reasons he was usually vague about, was impossible for those of us living in the 20th century. The highest life to which man could aspire was one of exhaustive, all-consuming self invention. Like Eliot, he wrote the poems that fit his own extensive critical criteria to a T. I underlined the word “self” 46 times in my copy of the new Collected Poems.
Many animals, like birds and reptiles, have a cloaca (or "vent" - hence the word "venting"), which combines urinary, defecatory and sexual functions. (Most birds copulate via a "cloacal kiss," but a few lucky birds, notably ducks, swans and ostriches, have penises.)
This reminds me of the Yeats:
Vl: Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop
I met the Bishop on the road And much said he and I. 'Those breasts are flat and fallen now, Those veins must soon be dry; Live in a heavenly mansion, Not in some foul sty.'
'Fair and foul are near of kin, And fair needs foul,' I cried. 'My friends are gone, but that's a truth Nor grave nor bed denied, Learned in bodily lowliness And in the heart's pride.
'A woman can be proud and stiff When on love intent; But Love has pitched his mansion in The place of excrement; For nothing can be sole or whole That has not been rent.'
Daffodils
(It's a lengthy piece about the death of his best friend, 
Sailing to Byzantium (1933)
Confession
Good Bye and Keep Cold
Christmas Party at the South Danbury Church
Written as prose, A Child's Christmas in Wales might as well be verse. It begins thus:
Sonnet 129
A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts (1937)