I.
The midnight hours are old and gray,
and there by my own heart of pale lusty spring fades tuneless sounds.
O folly of ethereal grandeur,
O morbid sweet pleasure of dreaming! Adieu and farewell,
for the spring that hath burst joy’s quiet breath
dwells hooded and baffled with dim aching silence.
Phantoms whose strenuous tongues touch sweet unrest
shall taste deep shades of summer breezes,
and I shall never know
that dreary happiness that thaws my veins and clouds my fearful senses.
Shutting now the skies
and still more sweetly than secrets,
the night doth not fade meekly but makes warm my mind.
II.
Sweet unrest and delicious sigh,
with flowers for wings and antique pain,
her hair as soft as downy frost,
sweet as a valley stream are her lips.
From budding warmth and muffled tears,
soundless and strange her heart does drum.
And with patient look upon my eyes,
some old and baffled question lies:
From where thy warm and kind embrace--
and still more rooted in thy soul--
did grace my fearful breast to calm
and fretting breath to still?
III.
Of heaven and water I have never mingled,
and with the deep stars that steal sweet slumber I am not familiar.
Like restless serpents upon jagged hills of thorns,
my straining body is fettered and sore.
From the celestial depths and silent dark waters
there comes no sense of paused suffering,
and down from the dim night sky I see no fair moon.
Oh, come soon and silently,
you who are dancing and pale like a ghost from the seas.
And when some hidden dream that waits struggling in my bloodless heart
shall flee on high winds,
lead me to your vacant realms,
then will I pass through the white dawn
and move on warm breezes to your endless hallowed halls.
IV.
That heavy sound of hatred oft repeats the name forsaken.
The strife of dark and intense pity spent in goodness
sighs of fate divine and dead.
One shade of stony silence speaks
but does not hear of days in mercy spent
with bright and wretched power.
A troubled stream of chilled reflection
looks to all their godlike crimes,
and chilled then forms the nameless tone my soul that shudders still.
V.
The earth is gay
and in her joy
she sings of human suffering.
VI.
Surely all my knights must sing of death so great and strangely earned,
where boundless cruel gods moved from out of time and drew their swords,
and looking down upon the earth they came slowly in the rain,
to test my knights who on the field stood frightened and unsung.
Such a cry arose and lightly filled that summer noon,
and gods to them looked ever on to reap without a breath.
And to this day my knights do sing of all their fallen brothers
who still lie between the grass and sky while gods withdraw and hunger.
VII.
Moon and sea slumber
in the gloam of pale cold wailful light.
Then shifting 'round to see the spring,
the skies disguised in sparkling mist
light upon my fearful breast--enshade
and (still more mighty in pleasant unreflecting
with the voice of fair youth),
awake drowsily in honied morning. Melancholy it whispers
like a dry wind in drought.
VIII.
With those shadowy recollections that flow on sullen ships
I travel as Charon in the shaded seat behind them.
I lift my shadow into all shades of grey.
The river, green with algae, pushes me onward
to that sunken vaulted structure
where the smoking vistas glow
against the back-light of luminescent plankton,
moving on swelling murky tidal waves.
This is the nether.
The ship rocks and tilts,
and I cling to the shadows behind me.
The water reclaims me.
It's warm on my skin.
Soon I will be grey as well.
IX.
What ails thee, friend? Thy hue is pale.
Great wounds, I ken, do weary thee;
thy helm is sliced, thy spear is snapped:
at an end is now thy life!
More tears never so well wept,
howled, or wailed, have been!
Nigh unto the bridge will I draw
and apply to thy withered arms
the balm of my words.
Where art thou? Knowest thou me? I knew thy name:
I saw thee in my heart's bliss,
and tried thy powers of tongues.
Yet, when I heard thy shrill voice
and saw thy eye shine
like stars in a clear sky,
Then, the spark in my heart ran low
but warmed my soul when beheld I thy face:
it hath kindled my life as heaven's touch.
Take thee with me, O man, my brother, O friend;
I’ll stay the night and nigh your pyre will be aflame,
and all your little songs I’ll sing ‘til morn,
when death doth take you from my sight.
X.
You looked at me
and my heart leapt
as a butterfly from a flower.
How wonderful it is
to be worthy of your gaze.
The moment you took my hand
no words came out of your mouth.
The sort of silence
which happens when no words are needed.
This is the soul of love.
I do not doubt it now.
Let your love flow through me
and feel it first with my hand.
Be tender and understanding,
you have the grace and power to do it.
For my part, I am ready
to make you comfortable
as you make me.
XI.
He rose from his bed
with thoughts of sadness
and idolized the dead.
Facing the day was never so bleak.
I hadn't even noticed when he took
the ribbon off the graves
and made a bow.
He returned to bed
and lay like a dead leopard curled up in his sleep.
The outline of his back was smooth and sharp,
like a frozen seed, hardened like stone.
A cold wind shocked his bones.
His eye turned painfully.
His sigh smelled like death.
"There are times when I feel so lonely," he said.
I told him, "Tomorrow will come.”
These are things I keep in mind.
Today I will continue my journey.
XII.
dimly rise his thoughts of frail mirth
toward untrodden paths he sways
(like the sodden shadow on the moon)
then he sits beside still waters
(icy with forgotten boring youth)
honied with a sweet low sigh
(wanders towards a wronged sinner, oh yes)
he leans near, but does not touch
nursing at his cheek a weary tear
(green like the bright holly he sent)
(he said goodbye to love and heard a wrong note
raised in a fair grove
in which time has gone)
he meets in the tangled boughs the gnarled chestnut tree
and high overhead the sound of song fills his nest
he listens with care
knowing that a youth lost could be free again
XIII.
In the deep seclusion of a creature thrice vagrant
(of him must I now sing)
a shrivelled hand full of foam
knocks a window from its frame.
The sound disturbs the bated flight
of a hunter or a couple of small birds,
then with an inscrutable grimace, the dervish pulls
his filthy clothes away from his damp skin.
He opens the window and death's gentle breeze
blows through the shabby chamber.
A newborn phantasm emerges
from this demon-slumber.
It is one of those gnawed-off hands,
it is one of those torn faces
that stinks from the lies and hypocrisy,
tossed on the floor like confetti.
XIV.
I hear in an earthly tune
the heavens unfettered, untrodden.
And when I bow to her blue-winged face
I come to her from above.
However she sails, I cannot tell.
Though if you could find me
I know I'd be beside her,
she my lover, me to love.
XV.
I found a man in a quiet home
where self still longed to meet with his silent fullness.
He said: "Through pastures and fields thou has come to me, O evil historian.
Splendour unremembered ever runs dreary.
Eddying and babbling, the earth runs wild and horrid.
Great men! What use are they?
Know this: that we are lost in the wilds of death,
roaming like cattle without herds."
I said, "I think I know too much. What shall I do?
Soon I shall lose my mind."
"I cannot tell you," told the man,
"for if I gave you the secret of death,
in a thousand years you would not say to another man
that a thing was a secret,
though it were as certain as this is."
XVI.
O knight vagrant, thou wanderer, thou slave,
hold thy twofold shout: a foul pagan curse;
swallow thy half-devil, the vile gout;
lay down thy heart for the sacred place,
Though you are lost in the ways of this world,
the same shall be thy refuge.
Thy brothers shall covet the holy body,
having sold their own souls to the worship of old gods,
and shall have abandoned the law of love to your rule,
and shed for the good of the world their tears with which to bless thee,
and become a friend to the damned.
O knight errant, thou vagabond, thou bard,
stay thy double edged sword!
For ye were a beggar;
now ye possess the world and the life of a king.
Never shall ye have peace in your soul until thou,
by opening the doors of thy heart,
display thyself to your world like stargleam.
I see thee no longer hidden,
and the world sees thee
who were invisible to all men before.
And after this, thou wilt then smile at me
and say that thou art free,
that all men are free,
all living creatures in life and in death, henceforth,
can live and breathe.
XVII.
To the old age so well borne
I look on with dim dreams never known.
With faith's cloven tongue I watch the years melt
and find not a path through pain and loss.
The story's done, the music's gone, the race is won.
Rising tide upon me now, my only home
is saltwater and the blue skies of peace and rest.
XVIII.
Mountains steep and rosy in the icy silver sky
oft whisper the anthem long kept beneath its roots:
a song of wolves and autumn skies,
livid clouds and rising stars,
owls with wings that beat softer than sleep,
the rustle of aspen branches
before a soft glowing moon.
XIX.
Time is a thief, a charmer, the taker of truth,
bearer of ashes, a ship in the fog,
the water, the darkness,
the sound between echoes,
and the space between stars.
