Tomorrow’s but a dream, dear Alice, 
In truth, it never appears; 
The past, a tenantless old palace, 
Where hope lies tombed in tears; 
The urn is broken, Alice, 
Whence incense rose above; 
But you may see, if you will, today, 
The magical haunts of love.

My fancy sees a chalice, 
A harp all strung, attuned, 
A famed, enchanted palace, 
Where Cupid oft communed; 
The theme of his dreaming, Alice, 
In waking or sleeping the same, 
A glory that ever dazzles, 
Till it sets the soul a-flame.

Like the burning bush on Horeb, 
Or lit phosphoric seas, 
The dream is metamorphosed, 
And Cupid makes wild pleas, 
For a glance of your dark eyes, Alice, 
And a touch of your lips, my dear, 
For all the bliss of caressing, 
Laughter, and song, and cheer.

’Tis to you and none other, Alice, 
My thought reverts in its flight, 
A little perhaps out of ballas’, 
Perhaps with too much delight; 
So crude, so humble and callous 
That a message it scarce can bear, 
From a heart that wears your image, 
And the passion that fixed it there.

Come thou with me, dear Alice, 
To where there’s building for thee 
A loved, charmed, magical palace, 
Hard by the Mexic sea; 
Where date, and spice and lemon 
Doth blow perpetually, 
By that enchanted palace 
That looks out over the sea.

Tomorrow? That’s cruel, Alice, 
Why speak of a day that is not? 
That spoils the bliss of living, 
Makes mine a miserable lot, 
And love’s enchanted palace 
A wild and desolate place; 
No land of dates and flowers 
Wert blessed without thy grace.

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.

When in the morning’s misty hour,
When the sun beams gently o’er each flower;
When thou dost cease to smile benign,
And think each heart responds with thine,
When seeking rest among divine,
                                    Forget me not.

When the last rays of twilight fall,
And thou art pacing yonder hall;
When mists are gathering on the hill,
Nor sound is heard save mountain rill,
When all around bids peace be still,
                                    Forget me not.

When the first star with brilliance bright,
Gleams lonely o’er the arch of night;
When the bright moon dispels the gloom,
And various are the stars that bloom,
And brighten as the sun at noon,
                                    Forget me not.

When solemn sighs the hollow wind,
And deepen’d thought enraps the mind;
If e’er thou doest in mournful tone,
E’er sigh because thou feel alone,
Or wrapt in melancholy prone,
                                    Forget me not. 

When bird does wait thy absence long,
Nor tend unto its morning song;
While thou art searching stoic page,
Or listening to an ancient sage,
Whose spirit curbs a mournful rage,
                                    Forget me not.

Then when in silence thou doest walk,
Nor being round with whom to talk;
When thou art on the mighty deep,
And do in quiet action sleep;
If we no more on earth do meet,
                                    Forget me not.

When brightness round thee long shall bloom,
And knelt remembering those in gloom;
And when in deep oblivion's shade,
This breathless, mouldering form is laid,
And thy terrestrial body staid,
                                     Forget me not.

“Should sorrow cloud thy coming years,
And bathe thy happiness in tears,
Remember, though we’re doom’d to part,
There lives one fond and faithful heart,
                        That will forget thee not.”

I cannot hold my peace, John Keats;
There never was a spring like this;
It is an echo, that repeats
My last year’s song and next year’s bliss.
I know, in spite of all men say
Of Beauty, you have felt her most.
Yea, even in your grave her way
Is laid. Poor, troubled, lyric ghost,
Spring never was so fair and dear
As Beauty makes her seem this year.

I cannot hold my peace, John Keats;
I am as helpless in the toil
Of spring as any lamb that bleats
To feel the solid earth recoil
Beneath his puny legs. Spring beats
Her tocsin call to those who love her,
And lo! the dogwood petals cover
Her breast with drifts of snow, and sleek
White gulls fly screaming to her, and hover
About her shoulders, and kiss her cheek,
While white and purple lilacs muster
A strength that bears them to a cluster
Of color and odor; for her sake
All things that slept are now awake.

And you and I, shall we lie still,
John Keats, while Beauty summons us?
Somehow I feel your sensitive will
Is pulsing up some tremulous
Sap road of a maple tree, whose leaves
Grow music as they grow, since your
Wild voice is in them, a harp that grieves
For life that opens death’s dark door.
Though dust, your fingers still can push
The Vision Splendid to a birth,
Though now they work as grass in the hush
Of the night on the broad sweet page of the earth.

“John Keats is dead,” they say, but I
Who hear your full insistent cry
In bud and blossom, leaf and tree,
Know John Keats still writes poetry.
And while my head is earthward bowed
To read new life sprung from your shroud,
Folks seeing me must think it strange
That merely spring should so derange
My mind. They do not know that you,
John Keats, keep revel with me, too.

Come, “Will,” let’s be good friends again, 

     Our wrongs let’s be forgetting, 

For words bring only useless pain, 

     So wherefore then be fretting. 

Let’s lay aside imagined wrongs, 

    And ne’er give way to grieving,

Life should be filled with joyous songs, 

    No time left for deceiving. 

I’ll try and not give way to wrath, 

    Nor be so often crying; 

There must some thorns be in our path, 

    Let’s move them now by trying. 

How, like a foolish pair were we, 

    To fume about a letter; 

Time is so precious, you and me; 

    Must spend ours doing better.

A hint of gold where the moon will be; 

Through the flocking clouds just a star or two; 

Leaf sounds, soft and wet and hushed, 

And oh! the crying want of you. 

We ask for peace. We, at the bound  
O life, are weary of the round  
In search of Truth. We know the quest  
Is not for us, the vision blest  
Is meant for other eyes. Uncrowned,  
We go, with heads bowed to the ground,  
And old hands, gnarled and hard and browned.  
Let us forget the past unrest,— 
               We ask for peace.

Our strainéd ears are deaf,—no sound 
May reach them more; no sight may wound 
Our worn-out eyes. We gave our best,  
And, while we totter down the West,  
Unto that last, that open mound,— 
               We ask for peace.

Tell me is there anything lovelier, 
Anything more quieting 
Than the green of little blades of grass
And the green of little leaves? 

Is not each leaf a cool green hand, 
Is not each blade of grass a mothering green finger, 
Hushing the heart that beats and beats and beats?

Tumbling through the
city in my
mind without once
looking up
the racket in
the lugwork probably
rehearsing some
stupid thing I
said or did
some crime or
other the city they
say is a lonely
place until yes
the sound of sweeping
and a woman
yes with a
broom beneath
which you are now
too the canopy
of a fig its
arms pulling the
September sun to it
and she
has a hose too
and so works hard
rinsing and scrubbing
the walk
lest some poor sod
slip on the
silk of a fig
and break his hip
and not probably
reach over to gobble up
the perpetrator
the light catches
the veins in her hands
when I ask about
the tree they
flutter in the air and
she says take
as much as
you can
help me
so I load my
pockets and mouth
and she points
to the step-ladder against
the wall to
mean more but
I was without a
sack so my meager
plunder would have to
suffice and an old woman
whom gravity
was pulling into
the earth loosed one
from a low slung
branch and its eye
wept like hers
which she dabbed
with a kerchief as she
cleaved the fig with
what remained of her
teeth and soon there were
eight or nine
people gathered beneath
the tree looking into
it like a
constellation pointing
do you see it
and I am tall and so
good for these things
and a bald man even
told me so
when I grabbed three
or four for
him reaching into the
giddy throngs of
yellow-jackets sugar
stoned which he only
pointed to smiling and
rubbing his stomach
I mean he was really rubbing his stomach
like there was a baby
in there
it was hot his
head shone while he
offered recipes to the
group using words which
I couldn’t understand and besides
I was a little
tipsy on the dance
of the velvety heart rolling
in my mouth
pulling me down and
down into the
oldest countries of my
body where I ate my first fig
from the hand of a man who escaped his country
by swimming through the night
and maybe
never said more than
five words to me
at once but gave me
figs and a man on his way
to work hops twice
to reach at last his
fig which he smiles at and calls
baby, c’mere baby,
he says and blows a kiss
to the tree which everyone knows
cannot grow this far north
being Mediterranean
and favoring the rocky, sun-baked soils
of Jordan and Sicily
but no one told the fig tree
or the immigrants
there is a way
the fig tree grows
in groves it wants,
it seems, to hold us,
yes I am anthropomorphizing
goddammit I have twice
in the last thirty seconds
rubbed my sweaty
forearm into someone else’s
sweaty shoulder
gleeful eating out of each other’s hands
on Christian St.
in Philadelphia a city like most
which has murdered its own
people
this is true
we are feeding each other
from a tree
at the corner of Christian and 9th
strangers maybe
never again.

It is really something when a kid who has a hard time becomes a kid who’s having a good time in no small part thanks to you throwing that kid in the air again and again on a mile long walk home from the Indian joint as her mom looks sideways at you like you don’t need to keep doing this because you’re pouring with sweat and breathing a little bit now you’re getting a good workout but because the kid laughs like a horse up there laughs like a kangaroo beating her wings against the light because she laughs like a happy little kid and when coming down and grabbing your forearm to brace herself for the time when you will drop her which you don’t and slides her hand into yours as she says for the fortieth time the fiftieth time inexhaustible her delight again again again and again and you say give me til the redbud tree or give me til the persimmon tree because she knows the trees and so quiet you almost can’t hear through her giggles she says ok til the next tree when she explodes howling yanking your arm from the socket again again all the wolves and mourning doves flying from her tiny throat and you throw her so high she lives up there in the tree for a minute she notices the ants organizing on the bark and a bumblebee carousing the little unripe persimmon in its beret she laughs and laughs as she hovers up there like a bumblebee like a hummingbird up there giggling in the light like a giddy little girl up there the world knows how to love.