I climb you, old, steep hill
triumphantly - proudly
proclaiming every step.
Yet never question I
what it is I'm conquering.
Ne'er do I stop
to look down on
that which I step,
nor dig to find
mysteries untold
of what the hill has conquered
Only knowing that
one day it too shall
Conquer me.
And will it question
from where I have come
Because you are unworthy,
your value is set.
Because you are doomed,
you are deemed
ready. For no cause, for
nothing you have achieved,
you are eligible. Because
a recent sojourn featured
an unlovely foray into self
(vile reconnaissance),
you loathe yourself: this
is good preparation. Actually,
anything low, honest, sober,
and clear aids alertness.
Everyone and no one is better
than you. Write your name
It seems you must give up your long-term lease
On being right and wronged, righteous and hurt.
No doubt there's someone else who would be pleased
To lord over that haughty piece of Earth.
Move to a cottage of humility,
Cross-breezes, and a pantry full of jars
That hold your faults, preserved for scrutiny.
Live with the wretchedness of who you are.
Chop kindling from the stump of your assumptions,
And ask forgiveness from each simple wall.
It won't be long before you sense resumption
Of basic gratitude for life, for all.
Of course you'll want to pray again, poor sod.
But keep it basic: pray there is a God.
You have escaped the comedy
Of swift, pretentious praise and blame,
And smashed a tavern where they sell
The harlots' wine that men call fame.
Heralds of reckless solitude
Have offered you another voice,
But men are still a tempting jest.
You roam and cannot make a choice.
When you have played distractedly
With a humility, you tire
And change the pastime to a pride.
These are but moods of one desire.
You throw an imitating gleam
Upon the dwarfs that line your road,
Then with a worn hostility
You tramp along beneath your load.
Thin and dark green symbol
Of an earth forever raising
Myriads of chained wings,
Breezes have a form, to you,
And sounds break into vivid shape.
The proud finality of tiny sight
Cannot lure your pliant blindness.
Thin and dark green blade,
Be not awed by trees and men
Whose sound is all that gives them life.
You reach the sky because your face
Is not turned toward it.
Lacerated grey has bitten
Into your shapeless humility.
Little episodes of roving
Strew their hieroglyphics on your muteness.
Life has given you heavy stains
Like an ointment growing stale.
Endless feet tap over you
With a maniac insistence.
O unresisting street-pavement,
Keep your passive insolence
At the dwarfs who scorn you with their feet.
Only one who lies upon his back
Can disregard the stars.
I VISITED the palaces of kings,
And marvelled at the storied treasure brought
With vast expenditure of time and thought
To play upon the heart's imaginings;
All cunningly devised and priceless things —
Fine sculptured forms, rare, costly gems that caught
The sun, great canvases, and fabrics wrought
With wondrous skill to give the fancy wings.
But, coming forth, there crowded round my way
Such opulence of nature's tapestries,
That I reflected how the humblest may
Inherit all those lavish treasuries
Beside which human art is children's play,
And kings' possessions merest travesties.
Because you have no fear to mingle
Wings with those of greater part,
So like me, with song I single
Your sweet impudence of heart.
And when prouder feathers go where
Summer holds her leafy show,
You still come to us from nowhere
Like grey leaves across the snow.
In back ways where odd and end go
To your meals you drop down sure,
Knowing every broken window
Of the hospitable poor.
There is no bird half so harmless,
None so sweetly rude as you,
None so common and so charmless,
None of virtues nude as you.
Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in the burden'd air,
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.
Once meek, and in a perilous path
The just man kept his course along
The Vale of Death.
Roses are planted where thorns grow,
And on the barren heath
Sing the honey bees.
Then the perilous path was planted,
And a river and a spring
On every cliff and tomb;
And on the bleached bones
Red clay brought forth:
Till the villain left the paths of ease
To walk in perilous paths, and drive
The just man into barren climes.
Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
To thee I send this written embassage,
To witness duty, not to show my wit:
Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,
But that I hope some good conceit of thine
In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it:
Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,
Points on me graciously with fair aspect,
And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving,
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:
Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;
Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.
In heaven,
Some little blades of grass
Stood before God.
"What did you do?"
Then all save one of the little blades
Began eagerly to relate
The merits of their lives.
This one stayed a small way behind,
Ashamed.
Presently, God said,
"And what did you do?"
The little blade answered, "Oh my Lord,
Memory is bitter to me,
For, if I did good deeds,
I know not of them."
Then God, in all His splendor,
CONDEMN'D to Hope's delusive mine,
As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blasts or slow decline
Our social comforts drop away.
Well tried through many a varying year,
See Levet to the grave descend,
Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of every friendless name the friend.
Yet still he fills affection's eye,
Obscurely wise and coarsely kind;
Nor, letter'd Arrogance, deny
Thy praise to merit unrefined.
When fainting nature call'd for aid,
And hov'ring death prepared the blow,
His vig'rous remedy display'd
The power of art without the show.