To Die Before One Wakes Must be Glad
Alice Walker
to die before one
wakes
must be glad
(to the same extent
maybe
that it is also
sad)
a slipping away
in glee
unobserved and
free
in the wide—
to die before one
wakes
must be glad
(to the same extent
maybe
that it is also
sad)
a slipping away
in glee
unobserved and
free
in the wide—
For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love,
Or chide my palsy, or my gout,
My five grey hairs, or ruin’d fortune flout,
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his Honour, or his Grace,
Or the King’s real, or his stamped face
Contemplate, what you will,
It keeps eternal whisperings around
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell
Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell
Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.
Often ’tis in such gentle temper found
That scarcely will the very smallest shell
Be mov’d for days from whence it sometime fell,
When last the winds of heaven were unbound.
Oh
Heigho for a glass, heigho for a lass,
A drink and a kiss, I leave you;
Heigho for a friend that sticks till the end —
Good-bye, my lass, don’t you grieve you.
Hurrah for a song that is not too long,
With a jolly roaring chorus,
While our cans beat time to the ringing rhyme
Till the ceiling cracks up
The tune of Adowa
Drives Yaa to frenzy,
Her legs alternate–
they close,
they cross,
they open,
they part.
Oh, what a dancer,
The dancer of Adowa.
Her trunk goes–
to the left,
to the right,
to the front,
to the back.
John Delaney of the Rifles has been shot.
A man we never knew,
Does it cloud the day for you
That he lies among the dead
Moving, hearing, heeding not?
No history will hold his humble name.
No sculptured stone will tell
The traveller where he fell;
That he lies among the dead
Is the measure of his fame.
When
Something in altitude kindles power-thirst
Mere horse-height suffices the emir
Bestowing from rich folds of prodigious turban
Upon crawling peasants in the dust
Rare imperceptible nods enwrapped
In princely boredom.
I too have known
A parching of that primordial palate,
A quickening to manifest life
Of a long recessive appetite.
Though strapped and manacled
That day I commanded from the pinnacle<br
Talk with prudence to a Beggar
Of “Potose,” and the mines!
Reverently, to the Hungry
Of your viands, and your wines!
Cautious, hint to any Captive
You have passed enfranchised feet!
Anecdotes of air in Dungeons
What god will catch me
when I’m down, when I’ve taken
sufficient drink to reveal
myself, when my words are little
more than a blurring
of consonant and vowel?
I’m drunk on spring:
branches of waxy leaves that
greet me at my driveway,
a family clutching
trays of sweets.
How can I sing of this?
Twice or thrice had I loved thee,
Before I knew thy face or name;
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame,
Angels affect us oft, and worshipped be;
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.
But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could
COME unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Court’sied when you have, and kiss’d,–
The wild waves whist,–
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.
Hark, hark!
Bow, wow,
The watch-dogs bark:
Thy soul shall find itself alone
‘Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone;
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy.
Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not loneliness- for then
The spirits of the dead, who stood
In life before thee, are again
In death around thee, and their will
Shall overshadow thee; be
You are the one, the unbeatable of all time
When motion is still and helpless
When companions are scarce and wobble
When hope seems not to motivate and sightless
You are the one, who emerges sagaciously like a brighter moon.
You are the one, coming and the crests arise
Like a rainbow crescent in the sky
Like a supple wind gentle
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art–
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors–
No–yet still stedfast,
Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable,
Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat,
High in her chamber up a tower to the east
Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot;
Which first she placed where morning’s earliest ray
Might strike it, and awake her with the gleam;
Then fearing rust or soilure fashioned for it
A case of silk, and braided thereupon<br
I scarce believe my love to be so pure
As I had thought it was,
Because it doth endure
Vicissitude, and season, as the grass ;
Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore
My love was infinite, if spring make it more.
But if this medicine, love, which cures all sorrow
With more, not only be no quintessence,
But mix’d
My six children’s
thirty-six grandchildren’s
one thousand two hundred and ninety-six great-grandchildren
thank you
whose skin is more extensive
than all the sheets of paper in the world,
whose body is broader
than all the tombs in this world put together,
and whose smooth flesh has these moles,
marked like ancient script on birds’ eggs.
Thank you for the warm
They put the screens around his bed;
a crumpled heap I saw him lie,
White counterpane and rough dark head,
those screens – they showed that he would die.
The put the screens about his bed;
We might not play the gramophone,
And so we played at cards instead
And left him dying there alone.
The covers on the screens are red,<br
Wines of the great châteaux
Have been uncorked for you;
Come, take this terrace chair:
Examine the menu.
The view from here is such
As cannot find a match,
For even as you dine
You’re so placed as to watch
Starvation in our streets
That gives your canapé
Take me home
Where your elders
Can see our love
Stash me not away from the sky
Where your elders we say
I am not a highbrow suitor
As my elders
Known everything
About our relationship