Lend no part to any humanity that suffuses you in its own light. Be not chimera of morning, Half-man, half-star. Be not an intelligence, Like a widow’s bird Or an old horse.

Metaphors of a Magnifico

Twenty men crossing a bridge, Into a village, Are twenty men crossing twenty bridges, Into twenty villages, Or one man Crossing a single bridge into a village.

This is old song That will not declare itself ...

Twenty men crossing a bridge, Into a village, Are Twenty men crossing a bridge Into a village.

That will not declare itself Yet is certain as meaning ...

The boots of the men clump On the boards of the bridge. The first white wall of the village Rises through fruit-trees. Of what was it I was thinking?

So the meaning escapes.

The first white wall of the village ... The fruit-trees....

Ploughing on Sunday

The white cock’s tail Tosses in the wind. The turkey-cock’s tail Glitters in the sun.

Water in the fields. The wind pours down. The feathers flare And bluster in the wind.

Remus, blow your horn! I’m ploughing on Sunday, Ploughing North America. Blow your horn!

Tum-ti-tum, Ti-tum-tum-tum! The turkey-cock’s tail Spreads to the sun.

The white cock’s tail Streams to the moon. Water in the fields. The wind pours down.

Cy Est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule, et Les Unze Mille Vierges

Ursula, in a garden, found A bed of radishes. She kneeled upon the ground And gathered them, With flowers around, Blue, gold, pink, and green.

She dressed in red and gold brocade And in the grass an offering made Of radishes and flowers.

She said, “My dear, Upon your altars, I have placed The marguerite and coquelicot, And roses Frail as April snow; But here,” she said, “Where none can see, I make an offering, in the grass, Of radishes and flowers.” And then she wept For fear the Lord would not accept.

The good Lord in His garden sought New leaf and shadowy tinct, And they were all His thought. He heard her low accord, Half prayer and half ditty, And He felt a subtle quiver, That was not heavenly love, Or pity.

This is not writ In any book.

Hibiscus on the Sleeping Shores

I say now, Fernando, that on that day The mind roamed as a moth roams, Among the blooms beyond the open sand;

And that whatever noise the motion of the waves Made on the sea-weeds and the covered stones Disturbed not even the most idle ear.

Then it was that that monstered moth Which had lain folded against the blue And the colored purple of the lazy sea,

And which had drowsed along the bony shores, Shut to the blather that the water made, Rose up besprent and sought the flaming red

Dabbled with yellow pollen--red as red As the flag above the old café-- And roamed there all the stupid afternoon.

Fabliau of Florida

Barque of phosphor On the palmy beach,

Move outward into heaven, Into the alabasters And night blues.

Foam and cloud are one. Sultry moon-monsters Are dissolving.

Fill your black hull With white moonlight.

There will never be an end To this droning of the surf.

The Doctor of Geneva

The doctor of Geneva stamped the sand That lay impounding the Pacific swell, Patted his stove-pipe hat and tugged his shawl.

Lacustrine man had never been assailed By such long-rolling opulent cataracts, Unless Racine or Bossuet held the like.

He did not quail. A man so used to plumb The multifarious heavens felt no awe Before these visible, voluble delugings,

Which yet found means to set his simmering mind Spinning and hissing with oracular Notations of the wild, the ruinous waste,

Until the steeples of his city clanked and sprang In an unburgherly apocalypse. The doctor used his handkerchief and sighed.

Another Weeping Woman

Pour the unhappiness out From your too bitter heart, Which grieving will not sweeten.

Poison grows in this dark. It is in the water of tears Its black blooms rise.

The magnificent cause of being, The imagination, the one reality In this imagined world

Leaves you With him for whom no phantasy moves, And you are pierced by a death.

Homunculus et la Belle Etoile

In the sea, Biscayne, there prinks The young emerald, evening star, Good light for drunkards, poets, widows, And ladies soon to be married.

By this light the salty fishes Arch in the sea like tree-branches, Going in many directions Up and down.

This light conducts The thoughts of drunkards, the feelings Of widows and trembling ladies, The movements of fishes.

How pleasant an existence it is That this emerald charms philosophers, Until they become thoughtlessly willing To bathe their hearts in later moonlight,

Knowing that they can bring back thought In the night that is still to be silent, Reflecting this thing and that, Before they sleep!

It is better that, as scholars, They should think hard in the dark cuffs Of voluminous cloaks, And shave their heads and bodies.

It might well be that their mistress Is no gaunt fugitive phantom. She might, after all, be a wanton, Abundantly beautiful, eager,

Fecund, From whose being by starlight, on sea-coast, The innermost good of their seeking Might come in the simplest of speech.

It is a good light, then, for those That know the ultimate Plato, Tranquillizing with this jewel The torments of confusion.

The Comedian as the Letter C