water
WATER and Peace
stemmed all from Neptune
hence the
bas reliefs
Sd Mr Yeats (W. B.) “Nothing affects these people
Except our conversation”
for light
is an attribute of fire and,
wrote the priest in his edition of Scotus:
Cheerfulness the virtue cheerfulness
the queen stitched King Carolus’ shirts or whatever
greek tags in his excellent verses
in fact an excellent poet, Paris
always Pari’
(Charles the Bald)
and you might find a bit of enamel
a bit of true blue enamel
on a metal pyx or whatever
all, that is, light is, or whatever
so they dug up his bones
(Simon)
Paradise is not artificial
and Uncle William dawdling around Notre Dame
in search of whatever
paused to admire the symbol
with Notre Dame standing inside it
mermaids, that carving,
in the drenched tent there is quiet
sered eyes are at rest
the rain beat as with colour of feldspar
blue as the flying fish
peace, water WATER
the sage
delighteth in water
the humane man has amity with the hills
as the grass grows by the weirs
thought Uncle William grieving
as the grass on the roof of St What’s his name
near “Dog and Cat”
is to be your love
it would be about a-level the windows
the grass would, or I dare say above that
when they bless the wax for the horserace
Formerly
with Maria’s face there in the fresco
painted two centuries sooner,
at least that
before she wore it
in that family group of about 1820
not wholly Hardy’s material
or everything flows
as he was standing below the altars
of the spirits of rain
“When every hollow is full
it moves forward”
to the phantom mountain above the cloud
But in the caged panther’s eyes:
“Nothing. Nothing that you can do . . .”
green pool, under green of the jungle,
caged: “Nothing, nothing that you can do.”
Tree nymph, your eyes are like clouds
Nor can who has passed a month in the death cells
believe in capital punishment
No man who has passed a month in the death cells
believes in cages for beasts
Tree nymph, your eyes are like the clouds
When some of the rain has fallen
and half remains yet to fall
The roots go down to the river’s edge
and the hidden city moves upward
white ivory under the bark
With clouds
when the blackberry ripens
and now the new moon
one must count by the dawn star
Tree Nymph, thy peace is like water
There is September sun on the pools
More things diaphanous
the Sun’s daughters lift the mist from the young willows
there is no base seen
but the brightness of water water
the poplar tips float in brightness
only the stockade posts stand
And now the ants seem to stagger
as the dawn sun has trapped their shadows,
this breath wholly covers the mountains
it shines and divides
it nourishes by its rectitude
does no injury
overstanding the earth it fills the nine fields
to heaven
Boon companion to equity
it joins with the process
lacking it, there is inanition
When the equities are gathered together
as birds alighting
it springeth up vital
If deeds be not ensheaved and garnered in the heart
there is inanition
(have I perchance a debt to a man)
that he eat of the barley corn
and move with the seed’s breath
the sun as a golden eye
between dark cloud and the mountain
“Don’t fight” said Jane
meaning, as before stated, don’t work so hard
don’t
not
help
grow
Old John raced at seventy after his glories
and came in long last
and the family eyes stayed the same Adriatic
for three generations
and was, I suppose, last month
Will I ever see Venice again?
or the lights
or the two towers where are the cypress no more
or the boats moored off
or the north quai
OF TEARS WEEPING
and Brother Wasp is building a very neat house
of four rooms, one shaped like a squat indian bottle
The wasp, the wasp, mud, swallow system
so that dreaming
cat that with a well timed leap
could turn the level-shaped door handle
It comes over me that Mr. Walls must be a ten-strike
with the young women
and in the warmth after chill sunrise
an infant, green as new grass
has stuck its head or tip
out of Mrs. Wasp’s bottle
mint springs up again
in spite of Jones’ rodents
as had the clover by the gorilla cage
with a four-leaf
When the mind swings by a grass-blade
an ant’s forefoot shall save you
the clover leaf smells and tastes as its flower
The infant has descended,
from mud on the tent roof to Earth,
like to like colour he goes amid grass-blades
greeting them that dwell under EARTH EARTH
THOSE OF EARTH; to carry our news
THOSE OF EARTH to them that dwell under the earth,
begotten of air, that shall sing in the bower
of Persephone, Persephone
and have speech with Tiresias, of Thebes
Christ the King, God the Sun
in about 1/2 a day she has made her adobe
(the wasp) the tiny mud-flask
and that day I wrote no further
There is fatigue deep as the grave.
grows in flat land out of mist
sun rises lop-sided over the mountain
so that I recalled the noise in the chimney
as it were the wind in the chimney
but was in reality Uncle William
downstairs composing
that had made a great Peeeeacock
in the proide ov his oiye
had made a great peeeeeeecock in the . . .
made a great peacock
in the proide of his oyyee
proide ov his oy-ee
as indeed he had, and perdurable
a great peacock more enduring than bronze
or as in the advice to the young man to
breed and get married (or not)
as you choose to regard it
at Stone Cottage in Sussex by the waste moor
(or whatever) and the holly bush
who would not eat ham for dinner
because peasants eat ham for dinner
despite the excellent quality
and the pleasure of having it hot
well those days are gone forever
and the traveling rug with the coon-skin tabs
and his hearing nearly all Wordsworth
for the sake of his conscience but
preferring
Witches
did we ever get to the end of Doughty:
The Dawn in Britain?
perhaps not
Summons withdrawn, sir.)
(bein’ aliens in prohibited area)
clouds lift their small mountains
before the elder hills
A fat moon rises lop-sided over the mountain
The eyes, this time my world,
But pass and look from mine
between my lids
sea, sky, and pool
alternate
pool, sky, sea,
morning moon against sunrise
like a bit of the best antient greek coinage
and
The women
say to me
you are old,
And that a twentieth-century Madonna
cd/ be as a fifteenth-century Madonna
This I learned in the Tyrol
and as perfect
where they paint the houses outside with figures
and the deep inner courts run back triple
“That’s called Walter Square”
heard in Bozen (Bolzano)
and in my mother’s time it was respectable,
it was social, apparently,
to sit in the Senate gallery
or even in that of the House
to hear the fire-works of the senators
(and possibly representatives)
as was still done in Westminster in my time
and a very poor show from the once I saw it)
but if Senator
cd/ speak
and have his tropes stay in the memory 40 years, 60 years?
in short / the descent
has not been of advantage either
to the Senate or to “society”
or to the people
The States have passed thru a
dam’d supercilious era
Down, Derry-down /
Oh let an old man rest.
