Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;   
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see   
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings   
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.   
   
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong   
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside   
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.   
   
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour   
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour 
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast   
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past. 

The night turns slowly round,
Swift trains go by in a rush of light;
Slow trains steal past.
This train beats anxiously, outward bound.

But I am not here.
I am away, beyond the scope of this turning;
There, where the pivot is, the axis
Of all this gear.

I, who sit in tears,
I, whose heart is torn with parting;
Who cannot bear to think back to the departure platform;
My spirit hears

Voices of men
Sound of artillery, aeroplanes, presences,
And more than all, the dead-sure silence,
The pivot again.

There, at the axis
Pain, or love, or grief
Sleep on speed; in dead certainty;
Pure relief.

There, at the pivot
Time sleeps again.
No has-been, no here-after; only the perfected
Silence of men.
 

Love, leave me like the light,
The gently passing day;
We would not know, but for the night,
When it has slipped away.

So many hopes have fled,
Have left me but the name
Of what they were. When love is dead,
Go thou, beloved, the same.

Go quietly; a dream
When done, should leave no trace
That it has lived, except a gleam
Across the dreamer’s face.

O Me! O life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

Now the flowers are all folded
And the dark is going by. 
The evening is arising…
It is time to rest.
When I am sleeping
I find my pillow full of dreams. 
They are all new dreams:
No one told them to me
Before I came through the cloud. 
They remember the sky, my little dreams,
They have wings, they are quick, they are sweet. 
Help me tell my dreams 
To the other children, 
So that their bread may taste whiter, 
So that the milk they drink 
May make them think of meadows
In the sky of stars. 
Help me give bread to the other children
So that their dreams may come back:
So they will remember what they knew 
Before they came through the cloud.
Let me hold their little hands in the dark, 
The lonely children,
The babies that have no mothers any more. 
Dear God, let me hold up my silver cup 
For them to drink, 
And tell them the sweetness 
Of my dreams. 

          Stupefy my heart to every day's monotony,
           Seal up my eyes, I would not look so far,
          Chasten my steps to peaceful regularity,
           Bow down my head lest I behold a star.

          Fill my days with work, a thousand calm necessities
           Leaving no moment to consecrate to hope,
          Girdle my thoughts within the dull circumferences
           Of facts which form the actual in one short hour's scope.

          Give me dreamless sleep, and loose night's power over me,
           Shut my ears to sounds only tumultuous then,
          Bid Fancy slumber, and steal away its potency,
           Or Nature wakes and strives to live again.

          Let each day pass, well ordered in its usefulness,
           Unlit by sunshine, unscarred by storm;
          Dower me with strength and curb all foolish eagerness —
           The law exacts obedience. Instruct, I will conform.

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

This is how a country goes bad.

Reason does not govern

The social order, in the Republic.

The old philosophers thought reason

If spoken plainly could alter

The governing order of the world.

Was it a comfort to believe

That someone held the Word

In their mind to establish

The world beyond thinking

The world on the ground

Upheld and upholding

The mind in its cottage

The thought of the world

Apart from the mind

Stable of immortal horses?

And the long disputations of Abelard... 

What was the discourse?

What was the virtue of speech

Had there not been a world

To uphold and a mind to think

Of worlds that were not itself

The mind echoing the outside

Creak of tree-frogs at night—

The window and witness—

To tell the story of what it saw?

Was there never a song

A dogma close to Paradise

Worthy of our tenderness?

Were the tongues always 

Deceived and the spoils 

Bestowed by conquerors

The purchase of blindness?

On the wall is the writing

By hand of the last poet

To leave the last city behind.

Her words are calligraphy.

The drawing made by them

The letters of the writing

What it says is that here

A hand once made a mark.
 

O liberty to write your precious

Freedom like a faulty wire.

Through the window the maple trees

Shining and swaying.

Lights sputter as the hand moves.

Well then, to write dark letters

On dark pages in the dark hall.

It matters that the words hold on

And the meanings cling like iron.