is a field 

             as long as the butterflies say 

                                                                       it is a field 

 
with their flight

 
                                         it takes a long time 

to see

                         like light or sound or language

                                                                                      to arrive

and keep 
                         arriving

 
 
                                       we have more

than six sense dialect

                                                                      and i

am still

              adjusting to time

 
                              the distance and its permanence

 
i have found my shortcuts

 
                             and landmarks

                                                          to place

 
where i first took form

                                                                                           in the field

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow:
You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
   Sailed off in a wooden shoe,—
Sailed on a river of crystal light
   Into a sea of dew.
"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
   The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring-fish
   That live in this beautiful sea;
   Nets of silver and gold have we,"
            Said Wynken,
            Blynken,
            And Nod.

The old moon laughed and sang a song,
   As they rocked in the wooden shoe;
And the wind that sped them all night long
   Ruffled the waves of dew;
The little stars were the herring-fish
   That lived in the beautiful sea.
"Now cast your nets wherever you wish,—
   Never afraid are we!"
   So cried the stars to the fishermen three,
            Wynken,
            Blynken,
            And Nod.

All night long their nets they threw
   To the stars in the twinkling foam,—
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
   Bringing the fishermen home:
'Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed
   As if it could not be;
And some folk thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed
   Of sailing that beautiful sea;
   But I shall name you the fishermen three:
            Wynken,
            Blynken,
            And Nod.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
   And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
   Is a wee one's trundle-bed;
So shut your eyes while Mother sings
   Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
   As you rock in the misty sea
   Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:—
            Wynken,
            Blynken,
            And Nod.

More like a basket
            of twig and hair, 
            surprisingly 
            tall
           
            and deep—

                        in a tree
            outside my bedroom
            window.

I knew 
            something lived in there
            you wouldn’t assume
                        lived in a nest.

Then I knew:
            a human lived there.

And once I knew—
            the nest, nearly 
           
            disintegrated, 
                           still in the tree. 
                                   
It wasn’t about trauma, the perfect 
            and then the broken 

                        nest 
            in which a human 
                        lived—

            Born and lit and broken
                                     comes I.

“The earthy smell that follows rain” from Greek, 
petros,  rock, and  ichor,  the gods’ blood. Its tang 
nuzzles my nose gustily beautiful as your ashes

settle into living loam layered with cedar oils. 
Sweet moisture plumps soil’s organic miniatures to life 
as rain taffetas the leaves, a green you once loved.

Ancient smells reside in my skull, olfactory memory: 
My mother’s aqua-ocean aroma, what I learned most 
when swaddled endless sleeps as a baby, that joy.

One spring I heard country folk in Ottawa remembering 
the distinct smell after winter thaw, when soil relaxes  
the last hard layer. What remains is fragrant peat,

fallow, before sap flows above ground. This moment 
as the Underworld gives up one secret—its scent— 
lingers this morning. It again rises into sunlight.

I love the silent hour of night, 
  For blissful dreams may then arise, 
Revealing to my charmèd sight 
  What may not bless my waking eyes.

And then a voice may meet my ear, 
  That death has silenced long ago; 
And hope and rapture may appear 
  Instead of solitude and woe.

Cold in the grave for years has lain 
  The form it was my bliss to see; 
And only dreams can bring again 
  The darling of my heart to me.

Hold fast to dreams 
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Once in a dream (for once I dreamed of you)
    We stood together in an open field;
    Above our heads two swift-winged pigeons wheeled, 
Sporting at east and courting full in view:—
When loftier still a broadening darkness flew, 
    Down-swooping, and a ravenous hawk revealed;
    Too weak to fight, too fond to fly, they yield;
So farewell life and love and pleasures new. 
Then as their plumes fell fluttering to the ground, 
    Their snow-white plumage flecked with crimson drops, 
        I wept, and thought I turned towards you to weep:
    But you were gone; while rustling hedgerow tops 
Bent in a wind which bore to me a sound
        Of far-off piteous bleat of lambs and sheep. 

somewhere, a sun. below, boys brown
as rye play the dozens & ball, jump 

in the air & stay there. boys become new 
moons, gum-dark on all sides, beg bruise

-blue water to fly, at least tide, at least 
spit back a father or two. i won’t get started.

history is what it is. it knows what it did.
bad dog. bad blood. bad day to be a boy

color of a July well spent. but here, not earth
not heaven, we can’t recall our white shirts

turned ruby gowns. here, there’s no language 
for officer or law, no color to call white.

if snow fell, it’d fall black. please, don’t call 
us dead, call us alive someplace better.

we say our own names when we pray.
we go out for sweets & come back. 

           //

this is how we are born: come morning
after we cypher/feast/hoop, we dig

a new one from the ground, take
him out his treebox, shake worms

from his braids. sometimes they’ll sing
a trapgod hymn (what a first breath!)  

sometimes it’s they eyes who lead
scanning for bonefleshed men in blue.

we say congrats, you’re a boy again! 
we give him a durag, a bowl, a second chance.

we send him off to wander for a day
or ever, let him pick his new name.

that boy was Trayvon, now called RainKing.
that man Sean named himself i do, i do.

O, the imagination of a new reborn boy
but most of us settle on alive. 

           //

sometimes a boy is born
right out the sky, dropped from

a bridge between starshine & clay.
one boy showed up pulled behind

a truck, a parade for himself
& his wet red train. years ago

we plucked brothers from branches
unpeeled their naps from bark.

sometimes a boy walks into his room
then walks out into his new world

still clutching wicked metals. some boys
waded here through their own blood. 

does it matter how he got here if we’re all here
to dance? grab a boy, spin him around.

if he asks for a kiss, kiss him.
if he asks where he is, say gone. 

           //

dear air where you used to be, dear empty Chucks 
by front door, dear whatever you are now, dear son,

they buried you all business, no ceremony. 
cameras, t-shirts, essays, protest 

then you were just dead. some nights
i want to dig you up, bury you right.

scrape dirt until my hands are raw 
& wounds pack themselves with mud. 

i want to dig you up, let it rain twice 
before our next good-bye.

 dear sprinkler dancer, i can’t tell if I’m crying 
or i’m the sky, but praise your sweet rot 

unstitching under soil, praise dandelions
 draining water from your greening, precious flesh. 

i’ll plant a garden on top
 of where your hurt stopped. 

//       

mama, 

 just this morning the sun laid a yellow not-palm
on my face & i woke knowing your hands 

were once the only place in the world. 
this very morning i woke up 

& remembered unparticular Tuesdays, 
my head in your lap, scalp covered in grease 

& your hands, your hands, those hands
my binary gods. Those milk hands, bread hands, 

hands in the air in church hands, cut-up fish hands,
for my own good hands, back talk backhands, hurt more 

than me hands, ain’t asking no mo’ hands
everything i need come from those hands, 

tired & still grabbing grease, hum
while she makes her son royal onyx hands. 

mama, how far am i 
gone from home?

            //

no need for geography
now, we safe everywhere.

point to whatever you please
& call it church, home, or sweet love.

paradise is a world where everything
is sanctuary & nothing is a gun.  

here, if it grows it knows its place
in history. yesterday, a poplar 

told me of old forest
heavy with fruits i’d call uncle

bursting red pulp & set afire, 
harvest of dark wind chimes. 

after i fell from its limb
it kissed sap into my wound.

do you know what it’s like to live
on land who loves you back?

            //

i loved a boy once & once he made me
a red dirge, skin casket, no burial.

left me to become a hum in a choir 
of bug mouths. he was my pastor 

in violet velvet, my night nurse
my tumor, my sick heart, my bad blood

all over his Tims. he needed me 
so much he had to end me. 

i was his fag sucked into ash, 
his lungs my final resting place. 

my baby turned me to smoke
choked on my name ‘til it was gone. 

i was his secret until i wasn’t,
alive until not. outside our closet

i found a garden. he would love it 
here. he could love me here.

           //

dear brother from another
time, today some stars gave in

to the black around them
& i knew it was you.

my ace, my g, my fellow
kingdomless king

they’ve made you a boy
 i don’t know

replaced my friend
with a hashtag.

 wish i could tell you
 his hands are draped

from my neck, but his
shield is shaped like

a badge. i leave revenge
hopelessly to God. 

            //       

brother, 

last night’s dream was a red June
filled with our mouths sticky

with sugar, we tiny teethed brown beasts
of corner stores, fingers always

dusted chetto gold. do you remember
those yellow months? our calves burned

all day biking each other around on pegs
taking turns being steed & warrior

at the park we stormed like distant shores
our little ashy wars, shoes lit with blue sparks

those summers we chased anybody
who would say our names, jumped fences

just to prove we could jump, fingers stained
piff green with stank, riding around

barely old enough to ride around, dreaming
a world to conquer? i wish you ended me, Sweet Cain.

            //

if we dream the old world 
we wake up hands up

sometimes we unfuneral a boy 
who shot another boy to here

& who was once a reaper we make 
a brother, a crush, a husband, a duet

of sweet remission. say the word
i can make any black boy a savior

make him a flock of ravens
his body burst into ebon seraphs. 

this, our hand-crafted religion. 
we are small gods of redemption. 

we dance until guilt turns to sweat. 
we sweat until we flood & drown.

don't fret, we don’t die. they can't kill 
the boy on your shirt again.

           //

the forest is a flock of boys
who never got to grow up

blooming into forever
afros like maple crowns 

reaching sap-slow toward sky. watch
Forest run in the rain, branches

melting into paper-soft curls, duck
under the mountain for shelter. watch

the mountain reveal itself a boy. 
watch Mountain & Forest playing

in the rain, watch the rain melt everything
into a boy with brown eyes & wet naps—

the lake turns into a boy in the rain
the swamp—a boy in the rain

the fields of lavender—brothers
dancing between the storm. 

            //

my stolen lover,

when i want to kiss you
 i kiss the ground.

i shout down sirens.
they bring no safety.

my king turned my ache
my one turned into my nothing.

all last month was spent in bed
with your long gone name.

what good is a name 
if no one answers back?

i know when the wind feels
as if it’s made of hands

& i feel like i’m made of water
it’s you trying to save me

from drowning in myself, but i can’t 
wed wind. I’m not water. 

            //       

dear dear
my most distant love—

when i dream of you i wake
in a field so blue i drown.

if you were here, we could play
Eden all day, but fruit here 

grows strange, i know before me
here lived something treacherous.

whose arms hold you now
after my paradise grew from chaos?

whose name do you make
thunder the room?

is he a good man?
does he know my face?

does he look like me? 
do i keep him up at night?

           //

how old am i? today, i’m today.
i’m as old as whatever light touches me.

some nights i’m new as the fire at my feet
some nights i’m a star, glamorous, ancient

& already extinguished. we citizens 
of an unpopular heaven

& low-attended crucifixions. listen
i’ve accepted what i was given 

be it my name or be it my ender’s verdict.
when i was born, i was born a bull’s-eye.

i spent my life arguing how i mattered
until it didn’t matter. 

who knew my haven
would be my coffin?

dead is the safest i’ve ever been. 
i’ve never been so alive.

           //

if you press your ear to the dirt
you can hear it hum, not like it’s filled

with beetles & other low gods
but like a tongue rot with gospel

& other glories. listen to the dirt
crescendo a kid back. 

come. celebrate. this 
is everyday. everyday 

holy. everyday high 
holiday. everyday new 

year. every year, days get longer. 
time clogged with boys. the boys

o the boys. they still come
in droves. the old world 

keeps choking them. our new one 
can’t stop spitting them out. 

           //

dear ghost i made,

i was raised with a healthy fear of the dark.
i turned the light bright, but you just kept

being born, kept coming for me, kept being
so dark, i got sca…i was doing my job.

//       

dear badge number 

what did i do wrong?
be born? be black? meet you?

           //

ask the mountainboy to put you on
his shoulders if you want to see

the old world, ask him for some lean
-in & you’ll be home. step off him

& walk around your block.
grow wings & fly above your city.

all the guns fire toward heaven.
warning shots mince your feathers.

fall back to the metal-less side
of the mountainboy, cry if you need to.

that world of laws rendered us into dark 
matter. we asked for nothing but our names

in a mouth we’ve known 
for decades. some were blessed 

to know the mouth.
our decades betrayed us. 

            //

there, i drowned, back before, once. 
there, i knew how to swim but couldn’t.

there, men stood by shore & watched me blue.
there, i was a dead fish, the river’s prince. 

there, i had a face & then didn’t.
there, my mother cried over me

but i wasn’t there. i was here, by my own
water, singing a song i learned somewhere

south of somewhere worse.
now, everywhere i am is 

the center of everything. i must 
be the lord of something. 

what was i before? a boy? a son?
a warning? a myth? i whistled

now i’m the god of whistling.
i built my Olympia downstream. 

           //

you are not welcome here. trust
the trip will kill you. go home.

we earned this paradise 
by a death we didn’t deserve.

i’m sure there are other heres.
a somewhere for every kind

of somebody, a heaven of brown 
girls braiding on golden stoops

but here—  
                     how could i ever explain to you—


            someone prayed we’d rest in peace
            & here we are

            in peace          whole          all summer

^{translated from the Spanish by Thomas Walsh and Salomón de la Selva}

In the pale afternoon the clouds go by
Aimlessly roving in the quiet sky.
His head between his hands, the dreamer weaves
His dream of clouds and Autumn-colored leaves.
Ah, his intimate sorrow, his long sighs,
And the glad radiance that has dimmed his eyes!
And all the tender glances, the blond tresses,
The rose hands over-brimming with caresses,
The sudden faces smiling everywhere
In the gold-dusted curtains of the air!

In the pale afternoon
A friendly faerie maiden comes to me
And tells me tales of many a secret thing
Fraught with the spell and music of the moon,
And I have learned what wonder the birds sing,
And what the breezes bring over the sea,
All that lies hidden in the mist or gleams,
A floating presence, in a young girl’s dreams.

And once the thirst of infinite desire
Possessed me like a fever, and I said,
“I want to feel all radiance, fragrance, fire
And joy of life within me, to inspire
My soul forever!” And the faerie maid
Called me to follow her, and when she spoke
It was as if a harp to the soft stroke
Of loving hands had wakened suddenly:
She syllabled hope’s language, calling me.

Oh, thirst for the ideal! From the height
Of a great mountain forested with night
She showed me all the stars and told their names;
It was a golden garden wherein grows
The fleur-de-lys of heaven, leaved with flames.
And I cried, “More!” and then the dawn arose.

The dawn came blushing; on her forehead beamed
Delicate splendor, and to me it seemed
A girl that, opening her casement, sees
Her lover watching her, and with surprise
Reddens but cannot hide her from his eyes.

And I cried, “More!” The faerie maiden smiled
And called the flowers, and the flowers were
Lovely and fresh and moist with essences,—
The virgin rose that in the woods grows wild,
The gentle lily tall and shy and fair,
The daisy glad and timid as a child,
Poppies and marigolds, and all the rare
Blossoms that freight with dreams the evening air.

But I cried, “More!” And then the winds brushed by
Bearing the laughter of the world, the cry
Of all glad lovers in the woods of Spring,
And echoes, and all pleasant murmuring
Of rustling leaf or southward-flying bird,
Unworded songs and musics never heard.
The faerie maiden, smiling, led me where
The sky is stretched over the world, above
Our heights and depths of hoping and despair,
Beyond the reach of singing and of love.
And then she tore the veil. And I saw there
That all was dawn. And in the deeps there beamed
A woman’s Face radiant exceedingly.—
Ah, never, Muses, never could ye say
The holy joyance that enkindled me!—
“More? . . .” said the faerie in her laughing way;
But I saw the Face only. And I dreamed.

Autumnal

^{Eros, Vita, Lumen}

    En las pálidas tardes
yerran nubes tranquilas
en el azul; en las ardientes manos
se posan las cabezas pensativas.
¡Ah los suspiros! ¡Ah los dulces sueños!
¡Ah las tristezas íntimas!
¡Ah el polvo de oro que en el aire flota,
tras cuyas ondas trémulas se miran
los ojos tiernos y húmedos,
las bocas inundadas de sonrisas,
las crespas cabelleras
y los dedos de rosa que acarician!

   En las pálidas tardes
me cuenta un hada amiga
las historias secretas
llenas de poesía;
lo que cantan los pájaros,
lo que llevan las brisas,
lo que vaga en las nieblas,
lo que sueñan las niñas.

   Una vez sentí el ansia
de una sed infinita.
Dije al hada amorosa:
—Quiero en el alma mía
tener la inspiración honda, profunda,
inmensa: luz, calor, aroma, vida.
Ella me dijo:—¡Ven! con el acento
con que hablaría un arpa. En él había
un divino aroma de esperanza.
¡Oh sed del ideal!

                       Sobre la cima
de un monté, á media noche,
me mostró las estrellas encendidas.
Era un jardín de oro
con pétalos de llama que titilan.
Exclamé:—Más . . .

                       La aurora
vino después. La aurora sonreía,
con la luz en la frente,
como la joven tímida
que abre la reja, y la sorprenden luego
ciertas curiosas, mágicas pupilas.
Y dije:—Más . . . sonriendo
la celeste hada amiga
prorrumpió:—¡Y bien! ¡Las flores!

                       Y las flores
estaban frescas, lindas,
empapadas de olor: la rosa virgen,
la blanca margarita,
la azucena gentil y las volúbiles
que cuelgan de la rama estremecida.
Y dije:—Más . . .

                       El viento
arrastraba rumores, ecos, risas,
murmullos misteriosos, aleteos,
músicas nunca oídas.
El hada entonces me llevó hasta el velo
que nos cubre las ansias infinitas,
la inspiración profunda
y el alma de las liras.
Y los rasgó. Y allí todo era aurora.
En el fondo se vía
un bello rostro de mujer.

                       ¡Oh; nunca,
   Piérides, diréis las sacras dichas
que en el alma sintiera!
Con su vaga sonrisa:—
—¿Más? . . .—dijo el hada.—Y yo tenía entonces,
clavadas las pupilas

     What wonder therefore, since th’indearing
Of passion link the universal kind        (ties
Of man so close, what wonder if to search
This common nature thro’ the various change
Of sex, and age, and fortune, and the frame
Of each peculiar, draw the busy mind
With unresisted charms? The spacious west,
And all the teeming regions of the south
Hold not a quarry, to the curious flight
Of knowledge, half so tempting or so fair,
As man to man. Nor only where the smiles
Of love invite; nor only where th’ applause
Of cordial honour turns th’ attentive eye
On virtue’s graceful deeds. For since the course
Of things external acts in different ways
On human apprehensions, as the hand
Of nature temper’d to a different frame
Peculiar minds; so haply where the pow’rs
Of fancy neither lessen nor enlarge
The images of things, but paint in all
Their genuine hues, the features which they wore
In nature; there opinion will be true,
And action right. For action treads the path
In which opinion says he follows good,
Or flies from evil; and opinion gives
Report of good or evil, as the scene
Was drawn by fancy, lovely or deform’d:
Thus her report can never there be true,
Where fancy cheats the intellectual eye,
With glaring colours and distorted lines.
Is there a man, who at the sound of death,
Sees ghastly shapes of terror conjur’d up,
And black before him; nought but death-bed groans,
And fearful pray’rs, and plunging from the brink
Of light and being, down the gloomy air,
An unknown depth? Alas! in such a mind,
If no bright forms of excellence attend
The image of his country; nor the pomp
Of sacred senates, nor the guardian voice
Of justice on her throne, nor aught that wakes
The conscious bosom with a patriot’s flame;
Will not opinion tell him, that to die,
Or stand the hazard, is a greater ill
Than to betray his country? And in act
Will he not chuse to be a wretch and live?
Here vice begins then. From th’ inchanting cup
Which fancy holds to all, th’ unwary thirst
Of youth oft swallows a Circaean draught,
That sheds a baleful tincture o’er the eye
Of reason, till no longer he discerns,
And only guides to err. Then revel forth
A furious band that spurn him from the throne;
And all is uproar. Thus ambition grasps
The empire of the soul: thus pale revenge
Unsheaths her murd’rous dagger; and the hands
Of lust and rapine, with unholy arts,
Watch to o’erturn the barrier of the laws
That keeps them from their prey: thus all the plagues
The wicked bear, or o’er the trembling scene
The tragic muse discloses, under shapes
Of honour, safety, pleasure, ease or pomp,
Stole first into the mind. Yet not by all
Those lying forms which fancy in the brain
Engenders, are the kindling passions driv’n
To guilty deeds; nor reason bound in chains,
That vice alone may lord it: oft adorn’d
With solemn pageants, folly mounts his throne,
And plays her ideot-anticks, like a queen.
A thousand garbs she wears; a thousand ways
She wheels her giddy empire. — Lo! thus far
With bold adventure, to the Mantuan lyre
I sing of nature’s charms, and touch well-pleas’d
A stricter note: now haply must my song
Unbend her serious measure, and reveal
In lighter strains, how folly’s aukward arts
Excite impetuous laughter’s gay rebuke;
The sportive province of the comic muse.

      See! in what crouds the uncouth forms advance,
Each would outstrip the other, each prevent
Our careful search, and offer to your gaze,
Unask’d, his motley features. Wait awhile,
My curious friends! and let us first arrange
In proper orders your promiscuous throng.

     Behold the foremost band; of slender thought,
And easy faith; whom flatt’ring fancy sooths
With lying spectres, in themselves to view
Illustrious forms of excellence and good,
That scorn the mansion. With exulting hearts
They spread their spurious treasures to the sun;
And bid the world admire! but chief the glance
Of wishful envy draws their joy-bright eyes,
And lists with self-applause each lordly brow.
In number boundless as the blooms of spring,
Behold their glaring idols, empty shades
By fancy gilded o’er, and then set up
For adoration. Some in learning’s garb,
With formal band and sable-cinctur’d gown,
And rags of mouldy volumes. Some elate
With martial splendour, steely pikes, and swords
Of costly frame, and gay Phoenician robes
Inwrought with flow’ring gold, assume the port
Of stately valour: list’ning by his side
There stands a female form; to her, with looks
Of earnest import, pregnant with amaze,
He talks of deadly deeds, of breaches, storms,
And sulph’rous mines, and ambush: then at once
Breaks off, and smiles to see her look so pale,
And asks some wond’ring question of her fears.
Others of graver mien; behold, adorn’d
With holy ensigns, how sublime they move,
And bending oft their sanctimonious eyes,
Take homage of the simple-minded throng;
Ambassadors of heav’n! Nor much unlike
Is he whose visage, in the lazy mist
That mantles every feature, hides a brood
Of politic conceits; of whispers, nods,
And hints deep-omen’d with unwieldy schemes,
And dark portents of state. Ten thousand more,
Prodigious habits and tumultuous tongues,
Pour dauntless in and swell the boastful band.

     Then comes the second order; all who seek
The debt of praise, where watchful unbelief
Darts thro’ the thin pretence her squinting eye
On some retir’d appearance which belies
The boasted virtue, or annulls th’ applause
That justice else would pay. Here side by side
I see two leaders of the solemn train,
Approaching: one a female, old and grey,
With eyes demure and wrinkle-furrow’d brow,
Pale as the cheeks of death; yet still she stuns
The sickning audience with a nauseous tale;
How many youths her myrtle chains have worn,
How many virgins at her triumphs pin’d!
Yet how resolv’d she guards her cautious heart;
Such is her terror at the risques of love,
And man’s seducing tongue! The other seems
A bearded sage, ungentle in his mien,
And sordid all his habit; peevish want
Grins at his heels, while down the gazing throng
He stalks, resounding in magnific phrase
The vanity of riches, the contempt
Of pomp and pow’r. Be prudent in your zeal,
Ye grave associates! let the silent grace
Of her who blushes at the fond regard
Her charms inspire, more eloquent unfold
The praise of spotless honour: let the man
Whose eye regards not his illustrious pomp
And ample store, but as indulgent streams
To chear the barren soil and spread the fruits
Of joy, let him by juster measure fix
The price of riches and the end of pow’r.

     Another tribe succeeds; deluded long
By fancy’s dazzling optics, these behold
The images of some peculiar things
With brighter hues resplendent, and portray’d
With features nobler far than e’er adorn’d
Their genuine objects. Hence the fever’d heart
Pants with delirious hope for tinsel charms;
Hence oft obtrusive on the eye of scorn,
Untimely zeal her witless pride betrays;
And serious manhood, from the tow’ring aim
Of wisdom, stoops to emulate the boast
Of childish toil. Behold yon mystic form,
Bedeck’d with feathers, insects, weeds and shells!
Not with intenser brow the Samian sage
Bent his fix’d eye on heav’n’s eternal fires,
When first the order of that radiant scene
Swell’d his exulting thought, than this surveys
A muckworm’s entrails or a spider’s fang.
Next him a youth, with flow’rs and myrtles crown’d,
Attends that virgin form, and blushing kneels,
With fondest gesture and a suppliant’s tongue,
To win her coy regard: adieu, for him,
The dull ingagements of the bustling world!
Adieu the sick impertinence of praise!
And hope, and action! for with her alone,
By streams and shades, to steal the sighing hours,
Is all he asks, and all that fate can give!
Thee too, facetious Momion, wandring here,
Thee, dreaded censor! oft have I beheld
Bewilder’d unawares: alas! too long
Flush’d with thy comic triumphs and the spoils
Of sly derision! till on every side
Hurling thy random bolts, offended truth
Assign'd thee here thy station with the slaves
Of folly. Thy once formidable name
Shall grace her humble records, and be heard
In scoffs and mock’ry bandied from the lips
Of all the vengeful brotherhood around,
So oft the patient victims of thy scorn.

     But now, ye gay! to whom indulgent fate,
Of all the muse’s empire hath assign’d
The fields of folly, hither each advance
Your sickles; here the teeming soil affords
Its richest growth. A fav’rite brood appears;
In whom the daemon, with a mother’s joy,
Views all her charms reflected, all her cares
At full repay’d. Ye most illustrious band!
Who scorning reason‘s tame, pedantic rules,
And order’s vulgar bondage, never meant
For souls sublime as yours, with generous zeal
Pay vice the rev’rence virtue long usurp’d,
And yield deformity the fond applause
Which beauty wont to claim; forgive my song,
That for the blushing diffidence of youth,
It shuns the unequal province of your praise.

     Thus far triumphant in the pleasing guile
Of bland imagination, folly’s train
Have dar’d our search: but now a dastard-kind
Advance reluctant, and with fault’ring feet
Shrink from the gazer’s eye: infeebled hearts,
Whom fancy chills with visionary fears,
Or bends to servile tameness with conceits
Of shame, of evil, or of base defect,
Fantastic and delusive. Here the slave
Who droops abash’d when sullen pomp surveys
His humbler habit: here the trembling wretch
Unnerv’d and froze with terror’s icy bolts
Spent in weak wailings, drown’d in shameful tears,
At every dream of danger: here subdued
By frontless laughter and the hardy scorn
Of old, unfeeling vice, the abject soul
Who blushing half resigns the candid praise
Of temperance and honour; half disowns
A freeman’s hatred of tyrannic pride;
And hears with sickly smiles the venal mouth
With foulest licence mock the patriot’s name.

     Last of the motley bands on whom the pow‘r
Of gay derision bends her hostile aim,
Is that where shameful ignorance presides.
Beneath her sordid banners, lo! they march,
Like blind and lame. Whate’er their doubtful hands
Attempt, confusion strait appears behind,
And troubles all the work. Thro’ many a maze,
Perplex’d they struggle, changing every path,
O’erturning every purpose; then at last
Sit down dismay’d, and leave th’entangled scene
For scorn to sport with. Such then is th’abode
Of folly in the mind; and such the shapes
In which she governs her obsequious train.
Tho’ every scene of ridicule in things
To lead the tenour of my devious lay;
Thro’ every swift occasion, which the hand
Of laughter points at, when the mirthful sting
Distends her sallying nerves and choaks her tongue;
What were it but to count each crystal drop
Which morning’s dewy fingers on the blooms
Of May distill? Suffice it to have said,
Where’er the pow’r of ridicule displays
Her quaint-ey’d visage, some incongruous form,
Some stubborn dissonance of things combin’d,
Strikes on the quick observer: whether pomp,
Or praise, or beauty mix their partial claim
Where sordid fashions, where ignoble deeds,
Where foul deformity are wont to dwell,
Or whether these with violation loath’d,
Invade resplendent pomp’s imperious mien,
The charms of beauty, or the boast of praise.

     Ask we for what fair end, th’ almighty sire
In mortal bosoms wakes this gay contempt,
These grateful stings of laughter, from disgust
Educing pleasure? Wherefore, but to aid
The tardy steps of reason, and at once
By this prompt impulse urge us to depress
The giddy aims of folly? Tho’ the light
Of truth slow-dawning on th’ inquiring mind,
At length unfolds, thro’ many a subtile tie,
How these uncouth disorders end at last
In public evil; yet benignant heav’n
Conscious how dim the dawn of truth appears
To thousands; conscious what a scanty pause
From labours and from care, the wider lot
Of humble life affords for studious thought
To scan the maze of nature; therefore stampt
The glaring scenes with characters of scorn,
As broad, as obvious to the passing clown,
As to the letter’d sage’s curious eye.

     Such are the various aspects of the mind —
Some heav’nly genius, whose unclouded thoughts
Attain that secret harmony which blends
Th’ aethereal spirit with its mold of clay;
O! teach me to reveal the grateful charm
That searchless nature o’er the sense of man
Diffuses, to behold, in lifeless things,
The inexpressive semblance of himself,
Of thought and passion. Mark the sable woods
That shade sublime yon mountain’s nodding brow;
With what religious awe the solemn scene
Commands your steps! as if the reverend form
Of Minos or of Numa should forsake
Th’ Elysian seats, and down th’ imbow’ring glade
Move to your pausing eye! Behold th’ expanse
Of yon gay landscape, where the silver clouds
Flit o’er the heav’ns before the sprightly breeze:
Now their grey cincture skirts the doubtful sun;
Now streams of splendor, thro’ their opening veil
Effulgent, sweep from off the gilded lawn
Th’ aerial shadows; on the curling brook,
And on the shady margin’s quiv’ring leaves
With quickest lustre glancing: while you view
The prospect, say, within your chearful breast
Plays not the lively sense of winning mirth
With clouds and sunshine chequer’d, while the round
Of social converse, to th’ inspiring tongue
Of some gay nymph amid her subject-train,
Moves all obsequious? Whence is this effect,
This kindred pow’r of such discordant things?
Or flows their semblance from that mystic tone
To which the new-born mind’s harmonious pow’rs
At first were strung? Or rather from the links
Which artful custom twines around her frame?

     For when the diff’rent images of things
By chance combin’d, have struck th’ attentive soul
With deeper impulse, or connected long,
Have drawn her frequent eye; howe’er distinct
Th’ external scenes, yet oft th’ ideas gain
From that conjunction an eternal tie,
And sympathy unbroken. Let the mind
Recall one partner of the various league,
Immediate, lo! the firm confed’rates rise,
And each his former station strait resumes:
One movement governs the consenting throng,
And all at once with rosy pleasure shine,
Or all are sadden’d with the glooms of care.
’Twas thus, if ancient fame the truth unfold,
Two faithful needles, from th’ informing touch
Of the same parent-stone, together drew
Its mystic virtue, and at first conspir’d
With fatal impulse quiv’ring to the pole;
Then, tho’ disjoin’d by kingdoms, tho’ the main
Rowl’d its broad surge betwixt, and diff’rent stars
Beheld their wakeful motions, yet preserv’d
The former friendship, and remember’d still
Th’ alliance of their birth: whate’er the line
Which one possess’d, nor pause, nor quiet knew
The sure associate, ere with trembling speed
He found its path and fix’d unerring there.
Such is the secret union, when we feel
A song, a flow’r, a name at once restore
Those long-connected scenes where first they mov’d
Th’ attention; backward thro’ her mazy walks
Guiding the wanton fancy to her scope,
To temples, courts or fields; with all the band
Of painted forms, of passions and designs
Attendant: whence, if pleasing in itself,
The prospect from that sweet accession gains
Redoubled influence o’er the list’ning mind.

     By these mysterious ties the busy pow’r
Of mem’ry her ideal train preserves
Intire; or when they would elude her watch,
Reclaims their fleeting footsteps from the waste
Of dark oblivion; thus collecting all
The various forms of being to present,
Before the curious aim of mimic art,
Their largest choice: like spring’s unfolded blooms
Exhaling sweetness, that the skillful bee
May taste at will, from their selected spoils
To work her dulcet food. For not th’ expanse
Of living lakes in summer’s noontide calm,
Reflects the bord’ring shade and sun-bright heav’ns
With fairer semblance; not the sculptur’d gold
More faithful keeps the graver’s lively trace,
Than he whose birth the sister-pow’rs of art
Propitious view’d, and from his genial star
Shed influence to the seeds of fancy kind;
Than his attemper’d bosom must preserve
The seal of nature. There alone unchang’d,
Her form remains. The balmy walks of May
There breathe perennial sweets: the trembling chord
Resounds for ever in th’ abstracted ear,
Melodious; and the virgin’s radiant eye,
Superior to disease, to grief, and time,
Shines with unbating lustre. Thus at length
Indow’d with all that nature can bestow,
The child of fancy oft in silence bends
O’er these mix’d treasures of his pregnant breast,
With conscious pride. From them he oft resolves
To frame he knows not what excelling things;
And win he knows not what sublime reward
Of praise and wonder. By degrees the mind
Feels her young nerves dilate: the plastic pow’rs
Labour for action: blind emotions heave
His bosom; and with loveliest frenzy caught,
From earth to heav’n he rolls his daring eye,
From heav’n to earth. Anon ten thousand shapes,
Like spectres trooping to the wisard’s call,
Fleet swift before him. From the womb of earth
From ocean’s bed they come: th’ eternal heav’ns
Disclose their splendors, and the dark abyss
Pours out her births unknown. With fixed gaze
He marks the rising phantoms. Now compares
Their diff’rent forms; now blends them, now divides;
Inlarges and extenuates by turns;
Opposes, ranges in fantastic bands,
And infinitely varies. Hither now,
Now thither fluctuates his inconstant aim,
With endless choice perplex’d. At length his plan
Begins to open. Lucid order dawns;
And as from Chaos old the jarring seeds
Of nature at the voice divine repair’d
Each to its place, till rosy earth unveil’d
Her fragrant bosom, and the joyful sun
Sprung up the blue serene; by swift degrees
Thus disentangled, his entire design
Emerges. Colours mingle, features join,
And lines converge: the fainter parts retire;
The fairer eminent in light advance;
And every image on its neighbour smiles.
A while he stands, and with a father’s joy
Contemplates. Then with Promethéan art,
Into its proper vehicle he breathes
The fair conception; which imbodied thus,
And permanent, becomes to eyes or ears
An object ascertain’d: while thus inform’d,
The various organs of his mimic skill,
The consonance of sounds, the featur’d rock,
The shadowy picture and impassion’d verse,
Beyond their proper pow’rs attract the soul
By that expressive semblance, while in sight
Of nature’s great original we scan
The lively child of art; while line by line,
And feature after feature we refer
To that sublime exemplar whence it stole
Those animating charms. Thus beauty’s palm
Betwixt ’em wav’ring hangs: applauding love
Doubts where to chuse; and mortal man aspires
To tempt creative praise. As when a cloud
Of gath’ring hail with limpid crusts of ice
Inclos’d and obvious to the beaming sun,
Collects his large effulgence; strait the heav’ns
With equal flames present on either hand
The radiant visage: Persia stands at gaze,
Appall’d; and on the brink of Ganges waits
The snowy-vested seer, in Mithra’s name,
To which the fragrance of the south shall burn,
To which his warbled orisons ascend.

     Such various bliss the well-tun’d heart injoys,
Favour’d of heav’n! While plung’d in sordid cares,
Th’ unfeeling vulgar mocks the boon divine:
And harsh austerity, from whose rebuke
Young love and smiling wonder shrink away,
Abash’d and chill of heart, with sager frowns
Condemns the fair inchantment. On, my strain,
Perhaps ev’n now some cold, fastidious judge
Casts a disdainful eye; and calls my toil,
And calls the love and beauty which I sing,
The dream of folly. Thou grave censor! say,
Is beauty then a dream, because the glooms
Of dullness hang too heavy on thy sense
To let her shine upon thee? So the man
Whose eye ne’er open’d on the light of heav’n,
Might smile with scorn while raptur’d vision tells
Of the gay, colour’d radiance flushing bright
O’er all creation. From the wise be far
Such gross, unhallow’d pride; nor needs my song
Descend so low; but rather now unfold,
If human thought could reach, or words unfold,
By what mysterious fabric of the mind,
The deep-felt joys and harmony of sound
Result from airy motion; and from shape
The lovely phantoms of sublime and fair.
By what fine ties hath GOD connected things
When present in the mind; which in themselves
Have no connection? Sure the rising sun,
O’er the caerulean convex of the sea,
With equal brightness and with equal warmth
Might rowl his fiery orb; nor yet the soul
Thus feel her frame expanded, and her pow’rs
Exulting in the splendor she beholds;
Like a young conqu’ror moving thro’ the pomp
Of some triumphal day. When join’d at eve,
Soft-murm’ring streams and gales of gentlest breath
Melodious Philomela’s wakeful strain
Attemper, could not man’s discerning ear
Thro’ all its tones the symphony pursue;
Nor yet this breath divine of nameless joy
Steal thro’ his veins and fan th’awaken’d heart,
Mild as the breeze, yet rapt’rous as the song?

     But were not nature still indow’d at large
With all which life requires, tho’ unadorn’d
With such inchantment? Wherefore then her form
So exquisitely fair? her breath perfum’d
With such aethereal sweetness? Whence her voice
Inform’d at will to raise or to depress
Th’ impassion’d soul? and whence the robes of light
Which thus invest her with more lovely pomp
Than fancy can describe? Whence but from thee,
O source divine of ever-flowing love,
And thy unmeasur‘d goodness? Not content
With every food of life to nourish man,
By kind illusions of the wond’ring sense
Thou mak’st all nature beauty to his eye,
Or music to his ear: well-pleas’d he scans
The goodly prospect; and with inward smiles
Treads the gay verdure of the painted plain;
Beholds the azure canopy of heav’n,
And living lamps that over-arch his head
With more than regal splendor; bends his ears
To the full choir of water, air, and earth;
Nor heeds the pleasing error of his thought,
Nor doubts the painted green or azure arch,
Nor questions more the music’s mingling sounds
Than space, or motion, or eternal time:
So sweet he feels their influence to attract
The fixed soul; to brighten the dull glooms
Of care, and make the destin’d road of life
Delightful to his feet. So fables tell,
Th‘ advent’rous heroe, bound on hard exploits,
Beholds with glad surprize, by secret spells
Of some kind sage, the patron of his toils,
A visionary paradise disclos’d
Amid the dubious wild: with streams, and shades,
And airy songs, th’ enchanted landscape smiles,
Chears his long labours and renews his frame.

     What then is taste, but these internal pow’rs
Active, and strong, and feelingly alive
To each fine impulse? a discerning sense
Of decent and sublime, with quick disgust
From things deform’d, or disarrang’d, or gross
In species? This, nor gems, nor stores of gold,
Nor purple state, nor culture can bestow;
But GOD alone, when first his active hand
Imprints the secret byass of the soul.
He, mighty parent! wise and just in all,
Free as the vital breeze or light of heav’n,
Reveals the charms of nature. Ask the swain
Who journeys homeward from a summer day’s
Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils
And due repose, he loiters to behold
The sunshine gleaming as thro’ amber clouds,
O’er all the western sky; full soon, I ween,
His rude expression and untutor’d airs,
Beyond the pow’r of language, will unfold
The form of beauty smiling at his heart,
How lovely! how commanding! But tho’ heav’n
In every breast hath sown these early seeds
Of love and admiration, yet in vain,
Without fair culture’s kind parental aid,
Without inlivening suns, and genial show’rs,
And shelter from the blast, in vain we hope
The tender plant should rear its blooming head,
Or yield the harvest promis’d in its spring.
Nor yet will every soil with equal stores
Repay the tiller’s labour; or attend
His will, obsequious, whether to produce
The olive or the laurel. Diff’rent minds
Incline to different objects: one pursues
The vast alone, the wonderful, the wild;
Another sighs for harmony, and grace,
And gentlest beauty. Hence when lightning fires
The arch of heav’n, and thunders rock the ground;
When furious whirlwinds rend the howling air,
And ocean, groaning from the lowest bed,
Heaves his tempestuous billows to the sky;
Amid the mighty uproar, while below
The nations tremble, Shakespear looks abroad
From some high cliff, superior, and enjoys
The elemental war. But Waller longs,
All on the margin of some flow’ry stream
To spread his careless limbs amid the cool
Of plantane shades, and to the list’ning deer,
The tale of slighted vows and love’s disdain
Resound soft-warbling all the live-long day:
Consenting Zephyr sighs; the weeping rill
Joins in his plaint, melodious; mute the groves;
And hill and dale with all their echoes mourn.
Such and so various are the tastes of men.

     Oh! blest of heav’n, whom not the languid songs
Of luxury, the Siren! not the bribes
Of sordid wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils
Of pageant honour can seduce to leave
Those ever-blooming sweets, which from the store
Of nature fair imagination culls
To charm th’ inliven’d soul! What tho’ not all
Of mortal offspring can attain the heights
Of envied life; tho’ only few possess
Patrician treasures or imperial state;
Yet nature’s care, to all her children just,
With richer treasures and an ampler state
Indows at large whatever happy man
Will deign to use them. His the city’s pomp,
The rural honours his. Whate’er adorns
The princely dome, the column and the arch,
The breathing marbles and the sculptur’d gold,
Beyond the proud possessor’s narrow claim,
His tuneful breast injoys. For him, the spring
Distills her dews, and from the silken gem
Its lucid leaves unfolds: for him, the hand
Of autumn tinges every fertile branch
With blooming gold and blushes like the morn.
Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings;
And still new beauties meet his lonely walk;
And loves unfelt attract him. Not a breeze
Flies o’er the meadow, not a cloud imbibes
The setting sun’s effulgence, not a strain
From all the tenants of the warbling shade
Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake
Fresh pleasure, unreprov’d. Nor thence partakes
Fresh pleasure only: for th’ attentive mind,
By this harmonious action on her pow’rs,
Becomes herself harmonious: wont so long
In outward things to meditate the charm
Of sacred order, soon she seeks at home
To find a kindred order, to exert
Within herself this elegance of love,
This fair-inspir’d delight: her temper’d pow’rs
Refine at length, and every passion wears
A chaster, milder, more attractive mien.
But if to ampler prospects, if to gaze
On nature’s form where negligent of all
These lesser graces, she assumes the port
Of that eternal majesty that weigh’d
The world’s foundations, if to these the mind
Exalt her daring eye; then mightier far
Will be the change, and nobler. Would the forms
Of servile custom cramp her generous pow’rs?
Would sordid policies, the barb’rous growth
Of ignorance and rapine, bow her down
To tame pursuits, to indolence and fear?
Lo! she appeals to nature, to the winds
And rowling waves, the sun’s unwearied course,
The elements and seasons: all declare
For what th’ eternal maker has ordain’d
The pow’rs of man: we feel within ourselves
His energy divine: he tells the heart,
He meant, he made us to behold and love
What he beholds and loves, the general orb
Of life and being; to be great like him,
Beneficent and active. Thus the men
Whom nature’s works can charm, with GOD himself
Hold converse; grow familiar, day by day,
With his conceptions; act upon his plan;
And form to his, the relish of their souls.