Death comes once, let it be easy.
Ring one bell for me once, let it go at that.
Or ring no bell at all, better yet.
Sing one song if I die.
Sing John Brown's Body or Shout All Over God's
Heaven.
Or sing nothing at all, better yet.
Death comes once, let it be easy.
The flutter of blue pigeon's wings
Under a river bridge
Hunting a clean dry arch,
A corner for a sleep —
This flutters here in a woman's hand.
A singing sleep cry,
A drunken poignant two lines of song,
Somebody looking clean into yesterday
And remembering, or looking clean into
To-morrow, and reading, —
This sings here as a woman's sleep cry sings.
Pigeon friend of mine,
Fly on, sing on.
Jimmy Wimbledon listened a first week in June.
Ditches along prairie roads of Northern Illinois
Filled the arch of night with young bullfrog songs.
Infinite mathematical metronomic croaks rose and spoke.
Rose and sang, rose in a choir of puzzles.
They made his head ache with riddles of music.
They rested his head with beaten cadence.
Jimmy Wimbledon listened.
Must I round my life to a song,
As the waves wear smooth the shore-stone?
Shall the mortal beat and throb
Of this heart of mine
Be only to crumble a dream,
And fashion the pebbles of fancy,
That the tides of time may cover,
Or a child may find?
Little in truth it matters;
But this at the most I know:
Infinite is the ocean
That thunders upon man's soul,
And the sooner the soul falls broken,
The smoother will be its song!
Happiness is like a kind wife,
Within her rounded arms, she carries Sleep.
But I who am mad for Ecstasy, would keep
The favour of my mistress, Sorrow, all my life.
For Sorrow's sake.
Through the dark hours I lie awake.
So that my songs shall greet a day.
Which has forgot the pleasures of my clay.
Of every step I took in pain
I had some gain.
Of every night of blind excess
I had reward of half-dead idleness.
Back to the lone road
With the old load!
But rest at night is sweet
To wounded feet.
And when the day is long,
There is miraculous reward of song.
I WALKED when the wood was full of minstrelsy.
A pretty prince came down to talk with me.
He spoke so kindly, and quite loud:
Then he was gone, quick as high cloud.
That he came here is such a happy thing,
I sit quite still in the wood and sing.
A MAN can build a bridge of wood and stone;
Exterior forces his trained powers control;
But the material of the Singer is his own,
He cuts his songs from the raw texture of his soul.
It must be true I love you well
Since your light words are whips of Hell.
But who has pain has songs to sell.
My profitable Friends, farewell!
I WOULD live for a day and a night,
In the rigorous land where everything's right.
Then I would sit and make a song,
In the leisurely land where everything's wrong.
If I had peace to sit and sing,
Then I could make a lovely thing;
But I am stung with goads and whips,
So I build songs like iron ships.
Let it be something for my song,
If it is sometimes swift and strong.
I MADE a song one morning.
Sitting in the shade under the hornbeam hedge.
I played it on my pipe.
And the clear notes delighted me.
And the little hedge-sparrows and the chipmunks
Also seemed pleased.
So I was very proud
That I had made so good a song.
Would you like to hear my song ?
I will play it to you
As I did that evening to my Beloved,
Standing on the moon-bright cobbles
Underneath her window.
But you are not my Beloved,
You must give me a silver shilling.
Round and glittering like the moon.