' Live-Poets Society ' – A Corner For Poetry

[AC Benus]

Anyone have any thoughts on this free-form poem...?

 

A Peregrination 

 

Sun-kissed Swabia, my mother, 

you're as fortune-blessed as your sister, 

Lombardy yonder set,

with a hundred streams across you.   

And groves aplenty, snow-blossomed and crimson,  

foreboding woods, beset by wild, deep-green leaves --

and the Alpine ridges of Switzerland's shadow 

neighboring you; for near the earth of the houses 

abide you, and hear within 

the silv'ry sacrificial bowls 

whose wellsprings burst, pouring forth

by spotless hands, when acted on. 

 

From your warming rays

over crystalline ice, transforming, 

via the gently coaxing light 

upon snow-laden ranges, anoint the earth 

with the purest of waters. That's why  

innate loyalty is yours. Hard left 

is land so close to one's natal crib. 

And your offspring, the far cities, 

and those by the distant lake,

upon river pastures, or the Rhine, 

will all account, there is none  

that makes a better place to live. 

 

I'll also head to the Caucasus, 

because I still hear 

it said upon the breeze:

be free, poets, like the swallows. 

What's more, one of their kind 

confided in my younger days

that once, once upon a time,  

my distant parents, a randier breed,    

stepped away from the waters of the Danube,

along with the sun's children

on the worst of the Dog Days, with wanderlust in mind,

and together sought out shade where

they could terry on Black Sea's shores; 

proving it's not for naught

the place is known as welcoming. 

 

For when first seeing one another,  

Some others drew near; and our party sat them down 

by the others, intrigued, under the olive trees. 

But as their raiments glared with distraction,

and neither heard the other speak

their own words, spreading misunderstanding;

a spat might have sprung, but from above  

came dispassion through the branches 

that can smile cool on the faces 

of those who might want to stir up an argument.

and then while gazing up, they held out 

hands to hold each other in love. And soon 

 

They exchanged arms, weapons, and all

the precious goods of their houses;

they exchanged their troth as well. And also

the doting fathers left nothing wanting 

for the wedded bliss of their children. 

For from these holy unions sprung  

a generation more 

beautiful than 

the people who have come before or since.

But where, where do you live, my dear kinsmen, 

that we may revive this covenant

in remembrance of our loved ancestors? 

 

There on the shores, under Ionian 

trees, or on the plains of the mighty Cayster, 

where cranes, happy in that ether,

enclosed within the circle of twilight mountains, 

there were you as well, O most beautiful ones,

who tended the isles of wine too

crowned in the full springtime glory and song most full;

while others dwelt upon mount Taygetus, or 

the too boldly bloomed Hymettus.

Or the golden springs of Parnassus  

whose streams girt Tmolus endlessly 

in strains of song; and when there rustles 

the sacred woods and groves 

all appears heavenly mild

when stirred and played in unison. 

 

O land of Homer!

by magenta cherry trees, or when,

sent by thee, the swelling peaches

ripen green in my vineyard, 

and the swallows come from afar to build their houses 

in my walls and tell me many tales 

in the days of May, even under the stars

remembering me of you, O Ionia. 

But people hold the present dear, so I've 

come to see you, your islands, and you, O mouth   

of mighty rivers, and, O you, of the Halls of Tethys,

and your forests, and you, drifting clouds of Ida!  

 

But I do not intend to stay,

for too difficult and hard to win o'er

is the withdrawn one from whom I've escaped, our mother. 

one of her sons, the Rhine, tried to force 

his way into her heart, and from whence, he vanished,

the wayward one, no one knows where, into the wan distance.

But I harbored no wish to part from her side,

and did so only to entreat you 

to come to me, O thou Grecian Graces, 

you daughters of what's heavenly,

if the journey's not too argerous, 

and terry with us, you fair ones! 

 

_

Edited February 21, 2021 by AC Benus

[Parker Owens]

@AC Benus How I enjoyed reading this! You made me want to wander those places and greet those people you describe. 

Edited February 21, 2021 by Parker Owens

[AC Benus]

6 hours ago, Parker Owens said:

@AC Benus How I enjoyed reading this! You made me want to wander those places and greet those people you describe. 

Thank you, Parker. It's a mountain of a poem to climb. I hope this translation of an early 19th century Romantic poem is readable. I always think it can be better though... 

[RafaelDe]

On 2/1/2021 at 4:45 PM, Parker Owens said:

 

I don’t know

how to ask politely

 

for what I want from another man,

 

what etiquette dictates in such circumstances:

 

do I dress requests in finery,

 

or should they come garbed in

 

plain, rough clothes?

Begs the question, what makes a man?

The finery (or roughness) of his clothes or the finery of the man himself... mind, body and soul?

I say nothing is sexier than a man dressed in confidence...although a nice pair of pants wrapped about a sweet apple'd ass never hurts🤔😇! Meow MeYuM

Thanks for the thought provoking poem...awesomeness! Enjoyed molto!

[Parker Owens]

6 hours ago, RafaelDe said:

Begs the question, what makes a man?

The finery (or roughness) of his clothes or the finery of the man himself... mind, body and soul?

I say nothing is sexier than a man dressed in confidence...although a nice pair of pants wrapped about a sweet apple'd ass never hurts🤔😇! Meow MeYuM

Thanks for the thought provoking poem...awesomeness! Enjoyed molto!

Thank you, grazie, for thinking about this poem. I love the way you put it: nothing is sexier than a man dressed in confidence.

[RafaelDe]

I'm a puzzle doer by nature.

Nothing more puzzling than spinning words in 17 simple syllables. Sometimes silly, often blue... Wild curlies pearled in dew. 

Tonight, though, waxed me coifed in an entirely different cloth. 

Any thoughts out there? Rebuttals?

 

Walked on...back, then forth
One too many passes swept
Know your footsteps well

 

Faggots lost in haze

Tendrils wisp ethereal

Embers crackle; PoP!

 

Naked before God

Pearly gates were closed to me

Entered from arrears

 

[Parker Owens]

5 hours ago, RafaelDe said:

I'm a puzzle doer by nature.

Nothing more puzzling than spinning words in 17 simple syllables. Sometimes silly, often blue... Wild curlies pearled in dew. 

Tonight, though, waxed me coifed in an entirely different cloth. 

Any thoughts out there? Rebuttals?

 

Walked on...back, then forth
One too many passes swept
Know your footsteps well

 

Faggots lost in haze

Tendrils wisp ethereal

Embers crackle; PoP!

 

Naked before God

Pearly gates were closed to me

Entered from arrears

Full of arresting images. I enjoyed it. 

[RafaelDe]

8 hours ago, Parker Owens said:

Full of arresting images. I enjoyed it. 

Hey Parker 🖐!

Thank you for taking time to read and comment! You are always so sweet and kind.

Be well in all you do!

[AC Benus]

Two poems from Robert Nichols. During the First World War, Nichols was often anthologized and greatly admired as a soldier poet. Some of the graphic scenes I've read from him are worthy of study and remembrance today.

Here are two poems from him: the first, a War Sonnet; and second a rhapsodic piece he wrote in 1918. In context of one another, they are very telling.

 

Begin, O guns, your giant requiem

   Over my lovely friend the Fiend has slain

   From whom Death has not snatched the diadem

   Promised by Poetry; for not in vain

Has he a greater glory now put on

   Since, bound with cypress black, his boyish head

   Shines on Death's crowded groves as none has shone

   Since Sidney set a-whispering the dead.

 

Begin, O guns, and when ye have begun

   Lift up your voices louder and proclaim

   The sick moon set, arisen the strong sun,

   Filling our skies with new and noble flame.

The Soldier and the Poet now are one

   And the Heroic more than a mere name.

Robert Nichols,[i]

1915

 

 

---------------------------------------------

 

The Consummation

 

 

There is a pigeon in the apple-tree

And when he moves the petals fall in showers

And O how low, how slow, how rapturously

He croons and croons again among the flowers!

 

Above the boughs a solemn cloud-bank climbs,

White, pure white, dazzling, a shield of light;

Speck on its space, a lark, whose quick song chimes

With each brief shake of wings, vaults t'ward the height.

 

Below, a beetle on a stook of grass

Slowly unharnesses his shuttered wings.

His tiny rainbow wings of shrivelled glass.

He leaps ! He whirrs away. The grass blade swings.

 

Faint breezes through the branches wind and call.

It is the hour. This perfect hour is His,

Who stooping through the depth, quiet, joy of all

Prints on my upturned face a silent kiss.

Robert Nichols,[ii]

1918

 

 

 

---

[i] "Begin, O guns, your giant requiem” Robert Nichols Invocation: War Poems and Others, London 1915, p. 18

https://archive.org/details/invocationwarpoe00nichiala/page/18/mode/2up

 

[ii] "The Consummation” Robert Nichols The Budded Branch, London 1918, p. 24

https://archive.org/details/buddedbranch00nichrich/page/24/mode/2up

 

 

Edited May 3, 2021 by AC Benus

[Parker Owens]

Those are both awesome. You are wonderful to share them

[dughlas]

May I say each is lovely in it's way for the feelings evoked. Thank you for sharing them.

[AC Benus]

.

I feel the truth in his body

 

Later: Everything is okay again and I didn't have to move downstairs after all.

He slept alone on the beach [last night] because he needed some sleep. Doesn't get much with me. But that's his own fault for being so incredibly beautiful. We wake up two or three times in the night and start all over again[.] The ceiling is very high like the loft of a barn and the tide is lapping under the wharf. The sky amazingly brilliant with stars. The wind blows the door wide open, the gulls are crying. Oh, Christ. I call him baby like you call Butch, though when I lie on top of him, I feel like I am polishing the Statue of Liberty or something. He is so enormous. A great bronze statue of antique Greece come to life. But with a little boy's face. A funny upturned nose, slanting eyes, and underlip that sticks out, and hair that comes to a point in the middle of his forehead. I lean over him in the night and memorize the geography of his body with my hands — he arches his throat and makes a soft, purring sound. His skin is steaming hot like the hide of a horse that's been galloping. It has a warm, rich odor. The odor of life. He lies very still [on his back] for a while, then his breath comes fast and his body begins to lunge. Great rhythmic plunging motion with panting breath and his hands working over my body. Then sudden release — and he moans like a little baby. I rest with my head on his stomach. Sometimes fall asleep that way. We doze for a while. And then I whisper "Turn over." He does. We use brilliantine [hair oil]. The first time I come in three seconds, as soon as I get inside. The next time is better, slower, the bed seems to be enormous. Pacific, Atlantic, the North American continent. — A wind has blown the door open, the sky's full of stars. High tide is in and water laps under the wharf. And now we're so tired we can't move. After a long while he whispers, "l like you, Tenny" — hoarse — embarrassed — ashamed of such intimate speech! — and I laugh, for I know that he loves me! — That nobody ever loved me before so completely. I feel the truth in his body. I call him baby — and tell him to go to sleep. After a while he does, his breathing is deep and even, and his great deep chest is like a continent moving slowly, warmly beneath me. The world grows dim, the world grows warm and tremendous.

Tennessee Williams,[i]

1940

 

The picture Kip gave of himself to Williams that summer

 

 

 

---

[i] “I feel the truth in his body” Tennessee Williams, July 29-30 letter to Donald Windham from Provincetown, Massachusetts. Included in The Love of Friends by Constance Jones and Val Clark, New York 1997, p.383

_

 

Edited November 3, 2021 by AC Benus

[Parker Owens]

18 hours ago, AC Benus said:

I feel the truth in his body

 

 

Later: Everything is okay again and I didn't have to move downstairs after all.

 

He slept alone on the beach [last night] because he needed some sleep. Doesn't get much with me. But that's his own fault for being so incredibly beautiful. We wake up two or three times in the night and start all over again[.] The ceiling is very high like the loft of a barn and the tide is lapping under the wharf. The sky amazingly brilliant with stars. The wind blows the door wide open, the gulls are crying. Oh, Christ. I call him baby like you call Butch, though when I lie on top of him, I feel like I am polishing the Statue of Liberty or something. He is so enormous. A great bronze statue of antique Greece come to life. But with a little boy's face. A funny upturned nose, slanting eyes, and underlip that sticks out, and hair that comes to a point in the middle of his forehead. I lean over him in the night and memorize the geography of his body with my hands — he arches his throat and makes a soft, purring sound. His skin is steaming hot like the hide of a horse that's been galloping. It has a warm, rich odor. The odor of life. He lies very still [on his back] for a while, then his breath comes fast and his body begins to lunge. Great rhythmic plunging motion with panting breath and his hands working over my body. Then sudden release — and he moans like a little baby. I rest with my head on his stomach. Sometimes fall asleep that way. We doze for a while. And then I whisper "Turn over." He does. We use brilliantine [hair oil]. The first time I come in three seconds, as soon as I get inside. The next time is better, slower, the bed seems to be enormous. Pacific, Atlantic, the North American continent. — A wind has blown the door open, the sky's full of stars. High tide is in and water laps under the wharf. And now we're so tired we can't move. After a long while he whispers, "l like you, Tenny" — hoarse — embarrassed — ashamed of such intimate speech! — and I laugh, for I know that he loves me! — That nobody ever loved me before so completely. I feel the truth in his body. I call him baby — and tell him to go to sleep. After a while he does, his breathing is deep and even, and his great deep chest is like a continent moving slowly, warmly beneath me. The world grows dim, the world grows warm and tremendous.

 

Tennessee Williams,[i]

 

1940

 

The picture of himself Kip gave to Williams that summer

 

 

 

 

---

[i] “I feel the truth in his body” Tennessee Williams, July 29-30 letter to Donald Windham from Provincetown, Massachusetts. Included in The Love of Friends by Constance Jones and Val Clark, New York 1997, p.383

_

 

 

 

And people wonder why it's so important to save and read letters. This reads like a wonderful poem.

[Parker Owens]

I ran across this poem recently. I wish the poet were alive today to talk about it.

 

Shall hearts that beat no base retreat

In youth’s magnanimous years—

Ignoble hold it, if discreet

When interest tames to fears;

Shall spirits that worship light

Perfidious deem its sacred glow,

Recant, and trudge where worldlings go,

Conform and own them right?

 

Shall Time with creeping influence cold

Unnerve and cow? The heart

Pine for the heartless ones enrolled

With palterers of the mart?

Shall faith abjure her skies,

Or pale probation blench her down

To shrink from Truth so still, so lone

Mid loud gregarious lies?

 

Each burning boat in Caesar’s rear,

Flames—No return through me!

So put the torch to ties though dear,

If ties but tempters be,

Nor cringe if come the night:

Walk through the cloud to meet the pall,

Though light forsake thee, never fall

From fealty to light.

 

     - Herman Melville, The Enthusiast

[AC Benus]

1 hour ago, Parker Owens said:

I ran across this poem recently. I wish the poet were alive today to talk about it.

Shall hearts that beat no base retreat

In youth’s magnanimous years—

Ignoble hold it, if discreet

When interest tames to fears;

Shall spirits that worship light

Perfidious deem its sacred glow,

Recant, and trudge where worldlings go,

Conform and own them right?

 

Shall Time with creeping influence cold

Unnerve and cow? The heart

Pine for the heartless ones enrolled

With palterers of the mart?

Shall faith abjure her skies,

Or pale probation blench her down

To shrink from Truth so still, so lone

Mid loud gregarious lies?

 

Each burning boat in Caesar’s rear,

Flames—No return through me!

So put the torch to ties though dear,

If ties but tempters be,

Nor cringe if come the night:

Walk through the cloud to meet the pall,

Though light forsake thee, never fall

From fealty to light.

     - Herman Melville, The Enthusiast

 

What a poem! Hard not to read it in a queer context. 

[Parker Owens]

3 hours ago, AC Benus said:

What a poem! Hard not to read it in a queer context. 

That was how I read it initially.

[AC Benus]

.

A ruddy drop of manly blood

The surging sea outweighs;

The world uncertain comes and goes,

The lover rooted stays.

I fancied he was fled,

And, after many a year,

Glowed unexhausted kindliness

Like daily sunrise there.

My careful heart was free again –

‘O friend,’ my bosom said,

‘Through thee alone the sky is arched,

Through thee the rose is red;

All things through thee take nobler form,

And look beyond the earth,

And is the mill-round of our fate

A sun-path in thy worth.

Me too thy nobleness has taught

To master my despair;

The fountains of my hidden life

Are through thy friendship fair.’

                         —Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

 

_

Edited November 3, 2021 by AC Benus

[Lyssa]

2 hours ago, AC Benus said:

.

A ruddy drop of manly blood

 

The surging sea outweighs;

 

The world uncertain comes and goes,

 

The lover rooted stays.

 

I fancied he was fled,

 

And, after many a year,

 

Glowed unexhausted kindliness

 

Like daily sunrise there.

 

My careful heart was free again –

 

‘O friend,’ my bosom said,

 

‘Through thee alone the sky is arched,

 

Through thee the rose is red;

 

All things through thee take nobler form,

 

And look beyond the earth,

 

And is the mill-round of our fate

 

A sun-path in thy worth.

 

Me too thy nobleness has taught

 

To master my despair;

 

The fountains of my hidden life

 

Are through thy friendship fair.’

 

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

_

That is so beautiful and touching. I love it.

[Parker Owens]

On 6/16/2021 at 1:05 PM, AC Benus said:

.

A ruddy drop of manly blood

 

The surging sea outweighs;

 

The world uncertain comes and goes,

 

The lover rooted stays.

 

I fancied he was fled,

 

And, after many a year,

 

Glowed unexhausted kindliness

 

Like daily sunrise there.

 

My careful heart was free again –

 

‘O friend,’ my bosom said,

 

‘Through thee alone the sky is arched,

 

Through thee the rose is red;

 

All things through thee take nobler form,

 

And look beyond the earth,

 

And is the mill-round of our fate

 

A sun-path in thy worth.

 

Me too thy nobleness has taught

 

To master my despair;

 

The fountains of my hidden life

 

Are through thy friendship fair.’

 

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

_

What a marvelous poem, and one more reason to read Emerson again.

[AC Benus]

35 minutes ago, Parker Owens said:

What a marvelous poem, and one more reason to read Emerson again.

This poem came to me in an old, inexpensive volume of his collected essays. He heads most of those essays with original poems, like this one for "Friendship." It's possible the poems from the essays were not reprinted in Emerson's collected verse. This one has certainly never shown up in any of the dozen or so anthologies of Gay verse I have...and it should!!!

[Valkyrie]

Myr is looking to expand the genre tags into more specific categories, with a primary genre followed by specific subgenres.  The poetry tags need a lot of work, so we're looking for suggestions.  I've already done some consulting and have come up with a list based on their feedback.  Please let me know if there are any other suggestions to include with the poetry tags.  

NaPoWriMo

Translation

Haiku

Limerick

Epic

Blank Verse

Free Verse

Counted Syllable Forms

Sonnet

Lyric

Mixed Forms

Erotic

Other Forms

[AC Benus]

I found this fascinating Rubaiyat by an unexpected poet. If you are like me, you will think it's pretty darn accomplished for its date and for being the work of a young poet. 

 

ad auditorem

 

Take hands with me, dear unknown friend, and find

Some downy hollow, sheltered from the wind,

Where summer meadows overlook the sea,

And let us, in the grass at length reclined,

 

Hold converse, while the melting air around

Is full of golden light and murmuring sound,

And let your soul shine frankly upon me,

And I will tell the best my heart has found.

 

But first hold up against the light your wrist,

Where blue veins hide like unhewn amethyst,

And let me feel that you have bodily fire

And purple that the sacred sun has kissed.

 

Else, if your blood be chilly, go your way –

I have no song to sing to you to-day;

The goal to which our lyric hearts aspire

Must be the very core of life in May.

 

The wind that glows about your cool brown throat,

The mists that in the violet distance float,

The sun that dips into the rippling waves,

All chant the lesson I have learned by rote.

 

I clasp, as bees do flowers, with amorous wings,

The spirit of life in moving joyous things;

Where’er desire receives the boon it craves,

A new Athene from my forehead springs.

 

When on the rose-stock a fresh blossom blows,

I live within the young triumphant rose;

I stretch my plumes with new-born butterflies,

And with the yearling linnet’s my voice grows.

 

But most I find the answer to my mind

Where men and women live as God designed,

With natural aims, warm loves and sympathies,

By no court-rules or uncouth laws confined.

 

Lovers behind the hay-stacks out of sight,

And peasants dancing in a barn at night,

Rough fishers chanting as they haul the net,

And whistling mowers in the fading light,

 

Slim country girls that chatter hand in hand,

Men singing homewards through the harvest-land,

The fiddler scraping, when the moon has set,

A may -pole ditty for a laughing band –

 

All these are more than my own life to me;

I haul the moon-shot fishes from the sea,

I fiddle on the village-green, I dance,

I thrill with others in their honest glee.

 

And this is what I choose, and, if you will

To call it higher, I reach higher still;

Whatever joyous gift design or chance

Has given our little round of years to fill,

 

Is mine by love of it; and when I stand

To watch the fingers of a master's hand,

And taste the rich arpeggios, and, ablaze

With florid chords, hear how the fire is fanned;

 

Or by some sweet entablature discern

Old stories at a painter's beck return

And shed their dewy light on our dark days,

I throb with joy, and as I look, I learn.

 

And these make up my sum of life’s desire –

To live for ever in the sun’s broad fire,

To know and love strong men and shapely girls,

And nobly working till the end aspire.

 

With colour, verse, and harmony to frame

A house of beautiful delights, whose name

May stir the world with pleasure like fine pearls,

Strung on a gold thread gleaming as a flame.

 

There have been sage philosophers who found

That pleasure was a dream, and song mere sound;

They passed, and left us poorer; now, ah me!

I wonder what they dream of underground!

 

For lying in the narrow earth they miss

All consolations of remembered bliss,

The scent of wine, blown air and glowing sea,

The songs we sing, the kisses that we kiss.

 

For us no learning is worth half the lore

Of knowing what the breakers tell the shore;

No science half so wise as what the bee

Is murmuring while he feels the lily's core.

 

So listen while I tell you my delights

On sunny afternoons and starry nights,

What secrets Love has whispered low to me,

And what I know of Nature’s mystic rites.

 

And though the sunset, with her warm red flesh,

And blown hair tangled in a golden mesh,

Wind all along the west her mute caress,

Yet turn and let our hearts commune afresh.

 

Yes! go not till the amorous night suspires

From heaven her stars, from earth her glow-worm fires,

And I will sing my songs to you, and press

Your shoulder with my head till day expires.[i]

—Edmund Gosse,

1873

 

 

(Gosse is famous for the passionate love letters he exchanged with fellow artist William Hamo Thornydyke, which miraculously have been preserved. Their relationship was so open, a person who knew the men quipped much later that if Gosse wasn't Gay, he was certainly "Hamosexual" lol)  

 

 

---

[i] “ad auditorem” [meaning, ‘to the listener’] Edmund Gosse On Viol and Flute (London 1873), ps. 1-5

https://archive.org/details/onviolflute00goss/page/n13/mode/2up

 _

Edited November 2, 2021 by AC Benus

[Parker Owens]

There are so many appealing images and sensations that float to the surface in every stanza. Each one stirs my heart, reaching a sweet kind of cadence in the last four. Hamo was indeed a lucky man. 

[AC Benus]

I would like to see what you think. My attention was recently directed towards the work of someone I'd never encountered before. The question asked of me was "What do you think? Could he have been Gay or Bi based on the printed material?" I read his work, and still at this point, I am not sure. So, I thought I'd post a selection of his poems and see what you think. In the absence of any biographical information stating he was close to any specific male person, do you think the work itself speaks to a quality of love that can only be understood fully in the context of same-sex love?

 

A selection from “Poems and Lyrics”

George Reston Malloch

 

To E. J. V. M., in memory of one April of shower

and sun, and the tears and laughter of the April

years that we shared.

 

 

 

Thou Unimagined Word

 

Thou unimagined word,

And thou half-faltered phrase,

Half-guessed, half-known, half-heard,

Eluding all my days!

 

How shall I sing, unblest,

And not of Orpheus’ kith,

The glories April drest

Her eager mornings with?

 

Or tell how summer’s fair,

Or read the rose’s sheen,

Or with sonorous air,

Autumn’s reluctant mien

 

Best fits my barren mood

A winter poverty,

When no bird in the wood

Shall make a mockery.    

 

 

 

Love and Spring

 

I saw the wind come over the young wheat,

With soft, invisible feet.

 

And many an oak held up his golden buds

About the songful woods.

 

So I saw, over the youth of our young love,

Dim-moving Beauty move.

 

So in my heart the golden buds were springing,

And there were voices singing.

 

 

 

Oh, Soul that Walks Alone

 

Oh, soul that walks alone,

Between the sky and sea,

Upon the changing earth:

 

The sky is full of gods,

The sea is full of death,

The earth is full of dreams.

 

 

 

June

 

When the woodpecker laughs in the summer wood,

And shy birds whisper in hidden brakes,

And the doe in the bracken hides her brood:

 

When the last long note of the nightingale wakes,

And lovers tremble who long withstood,

Lest the witchery win them that moonlight makes:

 

Song awakens and hushes her lips,

Lest she should lose but a note of the birds,

Lest she should trouble with idle words

Deeper and tenderer fellowships.

 

 

 

The Forest Ways are Full of Song

 

The forest ways are full of song,

Of songs that hesitate and change

As though they were too sweet and strange

For birds to sing them over long.

 

A soft wind flutters from the west,

The shy is blue and white the cloud –

I stand and tell my love aloud,

To add a beauty to the rest.

 

The forest ways are full of song,

Of songs that hesitate and change,

As though they were too sweet and strange

For birds to sing them over long.

 

 

 

from Festal Chorus

 

Let mirth and laughter flow,

Crown every youthful head

With garlands new and sweet!

Let every maiden bud

In beauty break,

And wintry prudence shed.*

 

* I include this as illustration of the way the poet uses “youth” and its derivations. Here he clearly contrasts, in boys and girls fashion, “youthful head” with “maiden bud,” showing youth to him signifies young man.

 

 

 

The Parents

 

They sing the sacred joys of parenthood,

They hold the voice of children the best truth,

They tell us of sweet women, mother-wise.

 

Ah, woe of mothers, never understood!

Ah, pain of fathers, seeing their own youth

Look at them with unrecognized eyes!

 

 

 

The Gossamer Thread

 

Love, as lovely and frail as the gossamer thread,

Woven like a garment over the morning earth,

To shine, and die, and be as the shadowy dead

Behind out mirth:

 

Ah, was the weight of these jewelled tears too much?

How fair they were in the rays of the autumn sun!

Was the web too fragile to bear a moment’s touch,

So finely spun?

 

Did it shrivel and break in the glare of noonday heat?

Or snap at the echo of laughter, the weight of dread?

Enough that the lawns are bare, and the white, swift feet

Of Love are sped.

 

 

 

The Statue at Copt Hall

 

The statue of Pan

Stands in the alley;

It looks on the fields,

And looks on the valley.

 

Still are his pipes,

And still his features;

Still are the fields,

And still his creatures.

 

The heat of noon

Burns on the meadow

The statue is white

In the yew-trees’ shadow.

 

Why wears the God

That smile sardonic?

Heard he our talk

Of love Platonic?

 

 

 

Knowledge

 

He.

I have known many women, and I know

That love is sweeter unfulfilled.

Cast not your heavy eyes upon me so,

Love-weary child!

 

Our souls held commune sweetly, as they willed,

And it is sweeter, fairer, so.

Sweeter to sit, hands clasped and voices stilled,

In the evening glow.

 

She.

I have known no man, ever – and I know

That all my body burns for you.

Surges from some vast ocean ebb and flow

My hot veins through.

 

And while our souls communed, in me there grew

A hungry, passionate, wild glow.

My flesh is yearning for your flesh, a new,

Immense, strange throe.

 

 

 

The Enchanted Youths

 

Their brows fading sombre

Are pale with what they know:

The fountains of youth remember

The ocean to which they flow.

 

They crown themselves with garlands,

And drink of a golden wine,

But their eyes are set on far lands,

Their lips for a richer vine.

 

And through their autumn dreaming,

The choir of vague, sweet song,

Breathes of unfound redeeming,

And fires that smoulder long.

 

They see soft arms outreaching

To clasp them home to bliss,

They look to the stars beseeching,

Beseeching – but not for this.

 

Their brows fading sombre

Are pale with what they know:

The fountains of youth remember

The ocean to which they flow.

 

 

 

“But I am Youth and you are Age”

 

My beauteous youth in lovely guise

Looked on me with a stranger’s eyes,

And faltered to my amorous rage,

“But I am Youth and you are Age!”

 

Oh, sentence of a harsh assize!

I bad my heart to be cold and wise,

But nothing could these words assuage,

“But I am Youth and you are Age!”

 

This the tear that never dries.

In vain, my heart – lost are your skies,

Oh, bird that beats about Time’s cage!

“But I am Youth and you are Age!”

 

 

 

Beauty

 

Beauty, unattempted,

She was my lover:

To me, too blessèd,

Her white limbs did uncover.

 

Eyes had fill of rapture,

Lips had lips to kiss:

Sought I to capture

The deepest, deepest bliss.

 

Then the fiery pang

Smote through heart and core:

Then the love song rang

False, and rose no more.

 

 

 

from An Admonition to Venus

 

Now Aphrodite we discrown,

Love grows to something more than lust,

And passion chooses other ways

Of soul and spirit for its own.

Our lover asks an equal trust,

And less the accidental praise

Of beauty—*

 

* I include this snippet because it illustrates love as understood from Plato’s Symposium. In it, Plato writes Venus is the goddess of prostitutes and opposite-sex love, whose impulses drive human procreation. In this poem, Malloch’s “other ways,” along with the notion of an equality of love and lovers, is straight from Plato too, who states Eros governs the selfless and pure (‘heavenly’ is his word) nature of Gay love.

 

 

 

Gold of October

 

Shall any gold October brings

Console us for a far-off time

When April sighed and spread her wings?

 

Or shall achievement in its prime

Fulfil the rapturous hope that sings

In the first ecstasy of rhyme?

 

A deepening chill the autumn brings.

The finished statue stands sublime.

Life turns to hew at other things.

   

     

 

The Great Silence

 

These are the lips that made a rose for you,

And these the tender arms that lie at rest:

The clasped hands break not their repose for you,

Folded on that quiet breast.

 

Silent the voice that made a song for you,

And spells unbreakable the white limbs bind:

Still is the heart that used to long for you,

And satisfied the mind.

 

Peace, peace – marmoreal peace, how far from you!

Broken for ever is this soul from yours:

Silent, and alien as a star from you,

In silence that endures.

 

 

 

~

 

 

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hwkgxy&view=1up&seq=7&skin=2021

 

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Edited November 15, 2021 by AC Benus

[Parker Owens]

How did I miss this? These poems make me walk in my old shoes again.