Where The Mind Is Without Fear

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Mind Vs. Brain

The mind, after all, is generally regarded as synonymous with our thoughts, feelings, memories, and beliefs, and as the source of our behaviors. It’s not made of material, but we think of it as quite powerful, or even as who we are. 

One case for mind talk is that we have access to our mind. We can recognize and describe what we know, remember, and think. 

Let’s try a little experiment. Using your right index finger, point to your brain. Now using the same finger, point to your mind. Not so easy. We don’t necessarily think of our brain and mind as being exactly the same thing. One is not as easy to pinpoint, and this has led to two distinct ways we have of talking about mental activity: mind talk and brain talk.

To those of us without a degree in neurobiology, it seems completely natural to refer to the mind. We talk about feeling this way and thinking of that, of remembering one thing and dreaming of another. Those verbs are examples of mind talk. Using mind talk, we would say, “I recognized my first-grade teacher in the crowd because she was wearing the necklace with the beetle scarab, which was so unusual I still remembered it after all these years.”

We would not say, “A barrage of photons landed on my retina, exciting the optic nerve so that it carried an electrical signal to my lateral geniculate body and thence to my primary visual cortex, from which signals raced to my striate cortex to determine the image’s color and orientation, and to my prefrontal cortex and inferotemporal cortex for object recognition and memory retrieval—causing me to recognize Mrs. McKelvey.”

That’s brain talk. That there is an interplay between mind and brain may seem unremarkable. The mind, after all, is generally regarded as synonymous with our thoughts, feelings, memories, and beliefs, and as the source of our behaviors. It’s not made of material, but we think of it as quite powerful, or even as who we are. [Read Article]

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Do not stand at my grave and weep;

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there, I did not die.

Mary Frye  (1905-2004)

"You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor."

                   -- Aristotle

Árbol Adentro - A Tree Within

Octavio Paz (1914 - 1998)

Creció en mi frente un árbol,

creció hacia dentro.

sus raíces son venas,

nervios sus ramas,

sus confusos follajes pensamientos.

tus miradas lo encienden

y tus frutos de sombras

son naranjas de sangre,

son granadas de lumbre.


Amanece

en la noche del cuerpo.

Allá adentro, en mi frente,

el árbol habla.


Acércate, ¿lo oyes? 

In my forehead grew a tree,

it grew inwards,

its roots are veins,

its branches nerves,

its tangled foliage are thoughts ,

your looks light it up,

and your fruits of shadows

are blood oranges,

are flaming pomegranates.


Day breaks

in the night of my body.

Within, in my forehead,

the tree speaks.


Come closer, can you hear it?

Todo Es Muy Simple - Everything Is So Simple

Idea Vilariño (1920 - 2009)

Todo es muy simple mucho

más simple y sin embargo

aun así hay momentos

en que es demasiado para mí

en que no entiendo

y no sé si reírme a carcajadas

o si llorar de miedo

o estarme aquí sin llanto

sin risas

en silencio

asumiendo mi vida

mi tránsito

mi tiempo. 

Everything is so simple so

much simpler and yet

even so there are times

when it is too much for me

when I don't understand

and I don't know if I should laugh out loud

or cry out of fear

or be here without tears

without laughter

in silence

accepting my life

my path

my time. 

If

Rudyard Kipling  (1865-1936)

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;


If you can dream, and not make dreams your master;

If you can think,  and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;


If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"


If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings , nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And which is more: you'll be a Man, my son!

The Raven

By Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849)

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore -

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door -

Only this and nothing more.”


Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow

From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore -

Nameless here for evermore.


And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating

“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door - 

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; - 

This it is and nothing more.”


Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

That I scarce was sure I heard you” - here I opened wide the door; - 

Darkness there and nothing more.


Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!” -

Merely this and nothing more.


Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;

Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -

’Tis the wind and nothing more!”


Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;

Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;

But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -

Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -

Perched, and sat, and nothing more.


Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,

Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore -

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”


Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

Though its answer little meaning -little relevancy bore;

For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door -

Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,

With such name as “Nevermore.”


But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

Nothing farther then he uttered -not a feather then he fluttered -

Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before -

On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”

Then the bird said “Nevermore.”


Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store

Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster

Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore -

Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore

Of ‘Never - nevermore’.”


But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,

Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;

Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking

Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore -

What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore

Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”


This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;

This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,

But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,

She shall press, ah, nevermore!


Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he hath sent thee

Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”


“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! -

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -

On this home by Horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore -

Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”


“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -

Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore -

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”


“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting -

“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”


And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted - nevermore!

Song of Myself (1892 version)
By Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

1

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.


I loafe and invite my soul,

I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.


My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,

Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,

I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,

Hoping to cease not till death.


Creeds and schools in abeyance,

Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,

I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,

Nature without check with original energy.


2

Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,

I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,

The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.


The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless,

It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,

I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,

I am mad for it to be in contact with me.


The smoke of my own breath,

Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine,

My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs,

The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,

The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of the wind,

A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,

The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,

The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides,

The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun.


Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much?

Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?

Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?


Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,

You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)

You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,

You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,

You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.


3

I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end,

But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.


There was never any more inception than there is now,

Nor any more youth or age than there is now,

And will never be any more perfection than there is now,

Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.


Urge and urge and urge,

Always the procreant urge of the world.


Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and increase, always sex,

Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life.


To elaborate is no avail, learn’d and unlearn’d feel that it is so.


Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well entretied, braced in the beams,

Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,

I and this mystery here we stand.


Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.


Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,

Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.


Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,

Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.


Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean,

Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest.


I am satisfied—I see, dance, laugh, sing;

As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy tread,

Leaving me baskets cover’d with white towels swelling the house with their plenty,

Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes,

That they turn from gazing after and down the road,

And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,

Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is ahead?


4

Trippers and askers surround me,

People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation,

The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,

My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,

The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,

The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,

Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events;

These come to me days and nights and go from me again,

But they are not the Me myself.


Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,

Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,

Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,

Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,

Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.


Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders,

I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.


5

I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you,

And you must not be abased to the other.


Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,

Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best,

Only the lull I like, the hum of your valvèd voice.


I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,

How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over upon me,

And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,

And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my feet.


Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth,

And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,

And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,

And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers,

And that a kelson of the creation is love,

And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,

And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,

And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap’d stones, elder, mullein and poke-weed.


6

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.


I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.


Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,

Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?


Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.


Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,

Growing among black folks as among white,

Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.


And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.


Tenderly will I use you curling grass,

It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,

It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,

It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out of their mothers’ laps,

And here you are the mothers’ laps.


This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,

Darker than the colorless beards of old men,

Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.


O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,

And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.


I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,

And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.


What do you think has become of the young and old men?

And what do you think has become of the women and children?


They are alive and well somewhere,

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,

And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,

And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.


All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,

And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.


7

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?

I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.


I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and am not contain’d between my hat and boots,

And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,

The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.


I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,

I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself,

(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)


Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female,

For me those that have been boys and that love women,

For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted,

For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the mothers of mothers,

For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,

For me children and the begetters of children.


Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,

I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,

And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be shaken away.

8

The little one sleeps in its cradle,

I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flies with my hand.


The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill,

I peeringly view them from the top.


The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom,

I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair, I note where the pistol has fallen.


The blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of the promenaders,

The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the clank of the shod horses on the granite floor,

The snow-sleighs, clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-balls,

The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous’d mobs,

The flap of the curtain’d litter, a sick man inside borne to the hospital,

The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall,

The excited crowd, the policeman with his star quickly working his passage to the centre of the crowd,

The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes,

What groans of over-fed or half-starv’d who fall sunstruck or in fits,

What exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry home and give birth to babes,

What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what howls restrain’d by decorum,

Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, acceptances, rejections with convex lips,

I mind them or the show or resonance of them—I come and I depart.


9

The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready,

The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon,

The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged,

The armfuls are pack’d to the sagging mow.


I am there, I help, I came stretch’d atop of the load,

I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other,

I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy,

And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps.


10

Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,

Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,

In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,

Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-kill’d game,

Falling asleep on the gather’d leaves with my dog and gun by my side.


The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle and scud,


My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously from the deck.


The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me,

I tuck’d my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time;

You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.


I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west, the bride was a red girl,

Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly smoking, they had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets hanging from their shoulders,

On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins, his luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held his bride by the hand,

She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach’d to her feet.


The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,

I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,

Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak,

And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him,

And brought water and fill’d a tub for his sweated body and bruis’d feet,

And gave him a room that enter’d from my own, and gave him some coarse clean clothes,

And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,

And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;

He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass’d north,

I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean’d in the corner.


11

Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,

Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;

Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.


She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,

She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.


Which of the young men does she like the best?

Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.


Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,

You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.


Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather,

The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.


The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their long hair,

Little streams pass’d all over their bodies.


An unseen hand also pass’d over their bodies,

It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.


The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them,

They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch,

They do not think whom they souse with spray.


12

The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market,

I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and break-down.


Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil,

Each has his main-sledge, they are all out, there is a great heat in the fire.


From the cinder-strew’d threshold I follow their movements,

The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms,

Overhand the hammers swing, overhand so slow, overhand so sure,

They do not hasten, each man hits in his place.


13

The negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses, the block swags underneath on its tied-over chain,

The negro that drives the long dray of the stone-yard, steady and tall he stands pois’d on one leg on the string-piece,

His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over his hip-band,

His glance is calm and commanding, he tosses the slouch of his hat away from his forehead,

The sun falls on his crispy hair and mustache, falls on the black of his polish’d and perfect limbs.


I behold the picturesque giant and love him, and I do not stop there,

I go with the team also.


In me the caresser of life wherever moving, backward as well as forward sluing,

To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or object missing,

Absorbing all to myself and for this song.


Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy shade, what is that you express in your eyes?

It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.


My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant and day-long ramble,

They rise together, they slowly circle around.


I believe in those wing’d purposes,

And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within me,

And consider green and violet and the tufted crown intentional,

And do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not something else,

And the jay in the woods never studied the gamut, yet trills pretty well to me,

And the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of me.


14

The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night,

Ya-honk he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation,

The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listening close,

Find its purpose and place up there toward the wintry sky.


The sharp-hoof’d moose of the north, the cat on the house-sill, the chickadee, the prairie-dog,

The litter of the grunting sow as they tug at her teats,

The brood of the turkey-hen and she with her half-spread wings,

I see in them and myself the same old law.


The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections,

They scorn the best I can do to relate them.


I am enamour’d of growing out-doors,

Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods,

Of the builders and steerers of ships and the wielders of axes and mauls, and the drivers of horses,

I can eat and sleep with them week in and week out.


What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me,

Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns,

Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me,

Not asking the sky to come down to my good will,

Scattering it freely forever.


15

The pure contralto sings in the organ loft,

The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp,

The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner,

The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm,

The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are ready,


The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches,

The deacons are ordain’d with cross’d hands at the altar,

The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel,

The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a First-day loafe and looks at the oats and rye,

The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm’d case,

(He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother’s bed-room;)

The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case,

He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr with the manuscript;

The malform’d limbs are tied to the surgeon’s table,

What is removed drops horribly in a pail;

The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard nods by the bar-room stove,

The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman travels his beat, the gate-keeper marks who pass,

The young fellow drives the express-wagon, (I love him, though I do not know him;)

The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race,

The western turkey-shooting draws old and young, some lean on their rifles, some sit on logs,

Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels his piece;

The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee,

As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them from his saddle,

The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their partners, the dancers bow to each other,

The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof’d garret and harks to the musical rain,

The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron,

The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemm’d cloth is offering moccasins and bead-bags for sale,

The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut eyes bent sideways,

As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat the plank is thrown for the shore-going passengers,

The young sister holds out the skein while the elder sister winds it off in a ball, and stops now and then for the knots,

The one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week ago borne her first child,

The clean-hair’d Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine or in the factory or mill,

The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer, the reporter’s lead flies swiftly over the note-book, the sign-painter is lettering with blue and gold,

The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper counts at his desk, the shoemaker waxes his thread,

The conductor beats time for the band and all the performers follow him,

The child is baptized, the convert is making his first professions,

The regatta is spread on the bay, the race is begun, (how the white sails sparkle!)

The drover watching his drove sings out to them that would stray,

The pedler sweats with his pack on his back, (the purchaser higgling about the odd cent;)

The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the clock moves slowly,

The opium-eater reclines with rigid head and just-open’d lips,

The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy and pimpled neck,

The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink to each other,

(Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you;)

The President holding a cabinet council is surrounded by the great Secretaries,

On the piazza walk three matrons stately and friendly with twined arms,

The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in the hold,

The Missourian crosses the plains toting his wares and his cattle,

As the fare-collector goes through the train he gives notice by the jingling of loose change,

The floor-men are laying the floor, the tinners are tinning the roof, the masons are calling for mortar,

In single file each shouldering his hod pass onward the laborers;

Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is gather’d, it is the fourth of Seventh-month, (what salutes of cannon and small arms!)

Seasons pursuing each other the plougher ploughs, the mower mows, and the winter-grain falls in the ground;

Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole in the frozen surface,

The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter strikes deep with his axe,

Flatboatmen make fast towards dusk near the cotton-wood or pecan-trees,

Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river or through those drain’d by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansas,

Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahooche or Altamahaw,


Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great-grandsons around them,

In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers after their day’s sport,

The city sleeps and the country sleeps,

The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time,

The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife;

And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,

And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,

And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.


16

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,

Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,

Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,

Stuff’d with the stuff that is coarse and stuff’d with the stuff that is fine,

One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the largest the same,

A Southerner soon as a Northerner, a planter nonchalant and hospitable down by the Oconee I live,

A Yankee bound my own way ready for trade, my joints the limberest joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth,

A Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deer-skin leggings, a Louisianian or Georgian,

A boatman over lakes or bays or along coasts, a Hoosier, Badger, Buckeye;

At home on Kanadian snow-shoes or up in the bush, or with fishermen off Newfoundland,

At home in the fleet of ice-boats, sailing with the rest and tacking,

At home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine, or the Texan ranch,

Comrade of Californians, comrade of free North-Westerners, (loving their big proportions,)

Comrade of raftsmen and coalmen, comrade of all who shake hands and welcome to drink and meat,

A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest,

A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of seasons,

Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion,

A farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker,

Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest.


I resist any thing better than my own diversity,

Breathe the air but leave plenty after me,

And am not stuck up, and am in my place.


(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,

The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their place,

The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.)


17

These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me,

If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing,

If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing,

If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.


This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,

This the common air that bathes the globe.


18

With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums,

I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for conquer’d and slain persons.


Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?

I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.


I beat and pound for the dead,

I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.


Vivas to those who have fail’d!

And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!

And to those themselves who sank in the sea!

And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes!

And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known!


19

This is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger,

It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous, I make appointments with all,

I will not have a single person slighted or left away,

The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited,

The heavy-lipp’d slave is invited, the venerealee is invited;

There shall be no difference between them and the rest.


This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of hair,

This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning,

This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,

This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.


Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?

Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has.


Do you take it I would astonish?

Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart twittering through the woods?

Do I astonish more than they?


This hour I tell things in confidence,

I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.


20

Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude;

How is it I extract strength from the beef I eat?


What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?


All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,

Else it were time lost listening to me.


I do not snivel that snivel the world over,

That months are vacuums and the ground but wallow and filth.


Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids, conformity goes to the fourth-remov’d,

I wear my hat as I please indoors or out.


Why should I pray? why should I venerate and be ceremonious?


Having pried through the strata, analyzed to a hair, counsel’d with doctors and calculated close,

I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.


In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less,

And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.


I know I am solid and sound,

To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,

All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.


I know I am deathless,

I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter’s compass,

I know I shall not pass like a child’s carlacue cut with a burnt stick at night.


I know I am august,

I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,

I see that the elementary laws never apologize,

(I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by, after all.)


I exist as I am, that is enough,

If no other in the world be aware I sit content,

And if each and all be aware I sit content.


One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,

And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years,

I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.


My foothold is tenon’d and mortis’d in granite,

I laugh at what you call dissolution,

And I know the amplitude of time.


21

I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,

The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,

The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a new tongue.


I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,

And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,

And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.


I chant the chant of dilation or pride,

We have had ducking and deprecating about enough,

I show that size is only development.


Have you outstript the rest? are you the President?

It is a trifle, they will more than arrive there every one, and still pass on.


I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,

I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.


Press close bare-bosom’d night—press close magnetic nourishing night!

Night of south winds—night of the large few stars!

Still nodding night—mad naked summer night.


Smile O voluptuous cool-breath’d earth!

Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!

Earth of departed sunset—earth of the mountains misty-topt!

Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!

Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!

Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!

Far-swooping elbow’d earth—rich apple-blossom’d earth!

Smile, for your lover comes.


Prodigal, you have given me love—therefore I to you give love!

O unspeakable passionate love.

22

You sea! I resign myself to you also—I guess what you mean,

I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers,

I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me,

We must have a turn together, I undress, hurry me out of sight of the land,

Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse,

Dash me with amorous wet, I can repay you.


Sea of stretch’d ground-swells,

Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths,

Sea of the brine of life and of unshovell’d yet always-ready graves,

Howler and scooper of storms, capricious and dainty sea,

I am integral with you, I too am of one phase and of all phases.


Partaker of influx and efflux I, extoller of hate and conciliation,

Extoller of amies and those that sleep in each others’ arms.


I am he attesting sympathy,

(Shall I make my list of things in the house and skip the house that supports them?)


I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also.


What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?

Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand indifferent,

My gait is no fault-finder’s or rejecter’s gait,

I moisten the roots of all that has grown.


Did you fear some scrofula out of the unflagging pregnancy?

Did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be work’d over and rectified?


I find one side a balance and the antipodal side a balance,

Soft doctrine as steady help as stable doctrine,

Thoughts and deeds of the present our rouse and early start.


This minute that comes to me over the past decillions,

There is no better than it and now.


What behaved well in the past or behaves well to-day is not such a wonder,

The wonder is always and always how there can be a mean man or an infidel.


23

Endless unfolding of words of ages!

And mine a word of the modern, the word En-Masse.


A word of the faith that never balks,

Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely.


It alone is without flaw, it alone rounds and completes all,

That mystic baffling wonder alone completes all.


I accept Reality and dare not question it,

Materialism first and last imbuing.


Hurrah for positive science! long live exact demonstration!

Fetch stonecrop mixt with cedar and branches of lilac,

This is the lexicographer, this the chemist, this made a grammar of the old cartouches,

These mariners put the ship through dangerous unknown seas.

This is the geologist, this works with the scalpel, and this is a mathematician.


Gentlemen, to you the first honors always!

Your facts are useful, and yet they are not my dwelling,

I but enter by them to an area of my dwelling.


Less the reminders of properties told my words,

And more the reminders they of life untold, and of freedom and extrication,

And make short account of neuters and geldings, and favor men and women fully equipt,

And beat the gong of revolt, and stop with fugitives and them that plot and conspire.


24

Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son,

Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding,

No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them,

No more modest than immodest.


Unscrew the locks from the doors!

Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!


Whoever degrades another degrades me,

And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.


Through me the afflatus surging and surging, through me the current and index.


I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy,

By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.


Through me many long dumb voices,

Voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves,

Voices of the diseas’d and despairing and of thieves and dwarfs,

Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion,

And of the threads that connect the stars, and of wombs and of the father-stuff,

And of the rights of them the others are down upon,

Of the deform’d, trivial, flat, foolish, despised,

Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung.


Through me forbidden voices,

Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil’d and I remove the veil,

Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur’d.


I do not press my fingers across my mouth,

I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart,

Copulation is no more rank to me than death is.


I believe in the flesh and the appetites,

Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.


Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from,

The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,

This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.


If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body, or any part of it,

Translucent mould of me it shall be you!

Shaded ledges and rests it shall be you!

Firm masculine colter it shall be you!

Whatever goes to the tilth of me it shall be you!

You my rich blood! your milky stream pale strippings of my life!

Breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you!

My brain it shall be your occult convolutions!

Root of wash’d sweet-flag! timorous pond-snipe! nest of guarded duplicate eggs! it shall be you!

Mix’d tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be you!

Trickling sap of maple, fibre of manly wheat, it shall be you!

Sun so generous it shall be you!

Vapors lighting and shading my face it shall be you!

You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you!

Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you!

Broad muscular fields, branches of live oak, loving lounger in my winding paths, it shall be you!

Hands I have taken, face I have kiss’d, mortal I have ever touch’d, it shall be you.


I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious,

Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy,

I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my faintest wish,

Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of the friendship I take again.


That I walk up my stoop, I pause to consider if it really be,

A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.


To behold the day-break!

The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows,

The air tastes good to my palate.


Hefts of the moving world at innocent gambols silently rising freshly exuding,

Scooting obliquely high and low.


Something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs,

Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven.


The earth by the sky staid with, the daily close of their junction,

The heav’d challenge from the east that moment over my head,

The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be master!


25

Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me,

If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me.


We also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun,

We found our own O my soul in the calm and cool of the daybreak.


My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach,

With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes of worlds.


Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself,

It provokes me forever, it says sarcastically,

Walt you contain enough, why don’t you let it out then?


Come now I will not be tantalized, you conceive too much of articulation,

Do you not know O speech how the buds beneath you are folded?

Waiting in gloom, protected by frost,

The dirt receding before my prophetical screams,

I underlying causes to balance them at last,

My knowledge my live parts, it keeping tally with the meaning of all things,

Happiness, (which whoever hears me let him or her set out in search of this day.)


My final merit I refuse you, I refuse putting from me what I really am,

Encompass worlds, but never try to encompass me,

I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you.


Writing and talk do not prove me,

I carry the plenum of proof and every thing else in my face,

With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the skeptic.


26

Now I will do nothing but listen,

To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute toward it.


I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames, clack of sticks cooking my meals,

I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,

I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following,

Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the day and night,

Talkative young ones to those that like them, the loud laugh of work-people at their meals,

The angry base of disjointed friendship, the faint tones of the sick,

The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pronouncing a death-sentence,

The heave’e’yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves, the refrain of the anchor-lifters,

The ring of alarm-bells, the cry of fire, the whirr of swift-streaking engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles and color’d lights,

The steam whistle, the solid roll of the train of approaching cars,

The slow march play’d at the head of the association marching two and two,

(They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.)


I hear the violoncello, (’tis the young man’s heart’s complaint,)

I hear the key’d cornet, it glides quickly in through my ears,

It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast.


I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera,

Ah this indeed is music—this suits me.


A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me,

The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full.


I hear the train’d soprano (what work with hers is this?)

The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies,

It wrenches such ardors from me I did not know I possess’d them,

It sails me, I dab with bare feet, they are lick’d by the indolent waves,

I am cut by bitter and angry hail, I lose my breath,

Steep’d amid honey’d morphine, my windpipe throttled in fakes of death,


At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles,

And that we call Being.


27

To be in any form, what is that?

(Round and round we go, all of us, and ever come back thither,)

If nothing lay more develop’d the quahaug in its callous shell were enough.


Mine is no callous shell,

I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop,

They seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me.


I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and am happy,

To touch my person to some one else’s is about as much as I can stand.


28

Is this then a touch? quivering me to a new identity,

Flames and ether making a rush for my veins,

Treacherous tip of me reaching and crowding to help them,

My flesh and blood playing out lightning to strike what is hardly different from myself,

On all sides prurient provokers stiffening my limbs,

Straining the udder of my heart for its withheld drip,

Behaving licentious toward me, taking no denial,

Depriving me of my best as for a purpose,

Unbuttoning my clothes, holding me by the bare waist,

Deluding my confusion with the calm of the sunlight and pasture-fields,

Immodestly sliding the fellow-senses away,

They bribed to swap off with touch and go and graze at the edges of me,

No consideration, no regard for my draining strength or my anger,

Fetching the rest of the herd around to enjoy them a while,

Then all uniting to stand on a headland and worry me.


The sentries desert every other part of me,

They have left me helpless to a red marauder,

They all come to the headland to witness and assist against me.


I am given up by traitors,

I talk wildly, I have lost my wits, I and nobody else am the greatest traitor,

I went myself first to the headland, my own hands carried me there.


You villain touch! what are you doing? my breath is tight in its throat,

Unclench your floodgates, you are too much for me.


29

Blind loving wrestling touch, sheath’d hooded sharp-tooth’d touch!

Did it make you ache so, leaving me?


Parting track’d by arriving, perpetual payment of perpetual loan,

Rich showering rain, and recompense richer afterward.


Sprouts take and accumulate, stand by the curb prolific and vital,

Landscapes projected masculine, full-sized and golden.


30

All truths wait in all things,

They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,

They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,

The insignificant is as big to me as any,

(What is less or more than a touch?)


Logic and sermons never convince,

The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.


(Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so,

Only what nobody denies is so.)


A minute and a drop of me settle my brain,

I believe the soggy clods shall become lovers and lamps,

And a compend of compends is the meat of a man or woman,

And a summit and flower there is the feeling they have for each other,

And they are to branch boundlessly out of that lesson until it becomes omnific,

And until one and all shall delight us, and we them.


31

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,

And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,

And the tree-toad is a chef-d’œuvre for the highest,

And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,

And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,

And the cow crunching with depress’d head surpasses any statue,

And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.


I find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long-threaded moss, fruits, grains, esculent roots,

And am stucco’d with quadrupeds and birds all over,

And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons,

But call any thing back again when I desire it.


In vain the speeding or shyness,

In vain the plutonic rocks send their old heat against my approach,

In vain the mastodon retreats beneath its own powder’d bones,

In vain objects stand leagues off and assume manifold shapes,

In vain the ocean settling in hollows and the great monsters lying low,

In vain the buzzard houses herself with the sky,

In vain the snake slides through the creepers and logs,

In vain the elk takes to the inner passes of the woods,

In vain the razor-bill’d auk sails far north to Labrador,

I follow quickly, I ascend to the nest in the fissure of the cliff.


32

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d,

I stand and look at them long and long.


They do not sweat and whine about their condition,

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,

Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,

Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,

Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.


So they show their relations to me and I accept them,

They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their possession.


I wonder where they get those tokens,

Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?


Myself moving forward then and now and forever,

Gathering and showing more always and with velocity,

Infinite and omnigenous, and the like of these among them,

Not too exclusive toward the reachers of my remembrancers,

Picking out here one that I love, and now go with him on brotherly terms.


A gigantic beauty of a stallion, fresh and responsive to my caresses,

Head high in the forehead, wide between the ears,

Limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground,

Eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears finely cut, flexibly moving.


His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him,

His well-built limbs tremble with pleasure as we race around and return.


I but use you a minute, then I resign you, stallion,

Why do I need your paces when I myself out-gallop them?

Even as I stand or sit passing faster than you.


33

Space and Time! now I see it is true, what I guess’d at,

What I guess’d when I loaf’d on the grass,

What I guess’d while I lay alone in my bed,

And again as I walk’d the beach under the paling stars of the morning.


My ties and ballasts leave me, my elbows rest in sea-gaps,

I skirt sierras, my palms cover continents,

I am afoot with my vision.


By the city’s quadrangular houses—in log huts, camping with lumbermen,

Along the ruts of the turnpike, along the dry gulch and rivulet bed,

Weeding my onion-patch or hoeing rows of carrots and parsnips, crossing savannas, trailing in forests,

Prospecting, gold-digging, girdling the trees of a new purchase,

Scorch’d ankle-deep by the hot sand, hauling my boat down the shallow river,

Where the panther walks to and fro on a limb overhead, where the buck turns furiously at the hunter,

Where the rattlesnake suns his flabby length on a rock, where the otter is feeding on fish,

Where the alligator in his tough pimples sleeps by the bayou,

Where the black bear is searching for roots or honey, where the beaver pats the mud with his paddle-shaped tail;

Over the growing sugar, over the yellow-flower’d cotton plant, over the rice in its low moist field,

Over the sharp-peak’d farm house, with its scallop’d scum and slender shoots from the gutters,

Over the western persimmon, over the long-leav’d corn, over the delicate blue-flower flax,

Over the white and brown buckwheat, a hummer and buzzer there with the rest,

Over the dusky green of the rye as it ripples and shades in the breeze;

Scaling mountains, pulling myself cautiously up, holding on by low scragged limbs,

Walking the path worn in the grass and beat through the leaves of the brush,

Where the quail is whistling betwixt the woods and the wheat-lot,

Where the bat flies in the Seventh-month eve, where the great gold-bug drops through the dark,

Where the brook puts out of the roots of the old tree and flows to the meadow,

Where cattle stand and shake away flies with the tremulous shuddering of their hides,

Where the cheese-cloth hangs in the kitchen, where andirons straddle the hearth-slab, where cobwebs fall in festoons from the rafters;

Where trip-hammers crash, where the press is whirling its cylinders,

Wherever the human heart beats with terrible throes under its ribs,

Where the pear-shaped balloon is floating aloft, (floating in it myself and looking composedly down,)

Where the life-car is drawn on the slip-noose, where the heat hatches pale-green eggs in the dented sand,

Where the she-whale swims with her calf and never forsakes it,

Where the steam-ship trails hind-ways its long pennant of smoke,

Where the fin of the shark cuts like a black chip out of the water,

Where the half-burn’d brig is riding on unknown currents,

Where shells grow to her slimy deck, where the dead are corrupting below;

Where the dense-starr’d flag is borne at the head of the regiments,

Approaching Manhattan up by the long-stretching island,

Under Niagara, the cataract falling like a veil over my countenance,

Upon a door-step, upon the horse-block of hard wood outside,

Upon the race-course, or enjoying picnics or jigs or a good game of base-ball,

At he-festivals, with blackguard gibes, ironical license, bull-dances, drinking, laughter,

At the cider-mill tasting the sweets of the brown mash, sucking the juice through a straw,

At apple-peelings wanting kisses for all the red fruit I find,

At musters, beach-parties, friendly bees, huskings, house-raisings;

Where the mocking-bird sounds his delicious gurgles, cackles, screams, weeps,

Where the hay-rick stands in the barn-yard, where the dry-stalks are scatter’d, where the brood-cow waits in the hovel,

Where the bull advances to do his masculine work, where the stud to the mare, where the cock is treading the hen,

Where the heifers browse, where geese nip their food with short jerks,

Where sun-down shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome prairie,

Where herds of buffalo make a crawling spread of the square miles far and near,

Where the humming-bird shimmers, where the neck of the long-lived swan is curving and winding,

Where the laughing-gull scoots by the shore, where she laughs her near-human laugh,

Where bee-hives range on a gray bench in the garden half hid by the high weeds,

Where band-neck’d partridges roost in a ring on the ground with their heads out,

Where burial coaches enter the arch’d gates of a cemetery,

Where winter wolves bark amid wastes of snow and icicled trees,

Where the yellow-crown’d heron comes to the edge of the marsh at night and feeds upon small crabs,

Where the splash of swimmers and divers cools the warm noon,

Where the katy-did works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree over the well,

Through patches of citrons and cucumbers with silver-wired leaves,

Through the salt-lick or orange glade, or under conical firs,

Through the gymnasium, through the curtain’d saloon, through the office or public hall;

Pleas’d with the native and pleas’d with the foreign, pleas’d with the new and old,

Pleas’d with the homely woman as well as the handsome,

Pleas’d with the quakeress as she puts off her bonnet and talks melodiously,

Pleas’d with the tune of the choir of the whitewash’d church,

Pleas’d with the earnest words of the sweating Methodist preacher, impress’d seriously at the camp-meeting;

Looking in at the shop-windows of Broadway the whole forenoon, flatting the flesh of my nose on the thick plate glass,

Wandering the same afternoon with my face turn’d up to the clouds, or down a lane or along the beach,

My right and left arms round the sides of two friends, and I in the middle;

Coming home with the silent and dark-cheek’d bush-boy, (behind me he rides at the drape of the day,)

Far from the settlements studying the print of animals’ feet, or the moccasin print,

By the cot in the hospital reaching lemonade to a feverish patient,

Nigh the coffin’d corpse when all is still, examining with a candle;

Voyaging to every port to dicker and adventure,

Hurrying with the modern crowd as eager and fickle as any,

Hot toward one I hate, ready in my madness to knife him,

Solitary at midnight in my back yard, my thoughts gone from me a long while,

Walking the old hills of Judæa with the beautiful gentle God by my side,

Speeding through space, speeding through heaven and the stars,

Speeding amid the seven satellites and the broad ring, and the diameter of eighty thousand miles,

Speeding with tail’d meteors, throwing fire-balls like the rest,

Carrying the crescent child that carries its own full mother in its belly,

Storming, enjoying, planning, loving, cautioning,

Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing,

I tread day and night such roads.


I visit the orchards of spheres and look at the product,

And look at quintillions ripen’d and look at quintillions green.


I fly those flights of a fluid and swallowing soul,

My course runs below the soundings of plummets.


I help myself to material and immaterial,

No guard can shut me off, no law prevent me.


I anchor my ship for a little while only,

My messengers continually cruise away or bring their returns to me.


I go hunting polar furs and the seal, leaping chasms with a pike-pointed staff, clinging to topples of brittle and blue.


I ascend to the foretruck,

I take my place late at night in the crow’s-nest,

We sail the arctic sea, it is plenty light enough,

Through the clear atmosphere I stretch around on the wonderful beauty,

The enormous masses of ice pass me and I pass them, the scenery is plain in all directions,

The white-topt mountains show in the distance, I fling out my fancies toward them,

We are approaching some great battle-field in which we are soon to be engaged,

We pass the colossal outposts of the encampment, we pass with still feet and caution,

Or we are entering by the suburbs some vast and ruin’d city,

The blocks and fallen architecture more than all the living cities of the globe.


I am a free companion, I bivouac by invading watchfires,

I turn the bridegroom out of bed and stay with the bride myself,

I tighten her all night to my thighs and lips.


My voice is the wife’s voice, the screech by the rail of the stairs,

They fetch my man’s body up dripping and drown’d.


I understand the large hearts of heroes,

The courage of present times and all times,

How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the steam-ship, and Death chasing it up and down the storm,

How he knuckled tight and gave not back an inch, and was faithful of days and faithful of nights,

And chalk’d in large letters on a board, Be of good cheer, we will not desert you;

How he follow’d with them and tack’d with them three days and would not give it up,

How he saved the drifting company at last,

How the lank loose-gown’d women look’d when boated from the side of their prepared graves,

How the silent old-faced infants and the lifted sick, and the sharp-lipp’d unshaved men;

All this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it becomes mine,

I am the man, I suffer’d, I was there.


The disdain and calmness of martyrs,

The mother of old, condemn’d for a witch, burnt with dry wood, her children gazing on,

The hounded slave that flags in the race, leans by the fence, blowing, cover’d with sweat,

The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck, the murderous buckshot and the bullets,

All these I feel or am.


I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs,

Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen,

I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn’d with the ooze of my skin,

I fall on the weeds and stones,

The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close,

Taunt my dizzy ears and beat me violently over the head with whip-stocks.


Agonies are one of my changes of garments,

I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person,

My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.


I am the mash’d fireman with breast-bone broken,

Tumbling walls buried me in their debris,

Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades,

I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels,

They have clear’d the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth.


I lie in the night air in my red shirt, the pervading hush is for my sake,

Painless after all I lie exhausted but not so unhappy,

White and beautiful are the faces around me, the heads are bared of their fire-caps,

The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches.


Distant and dead resuscitate,

They show as the dial or move as the hands of me, I am the clock myself.


I am an old artillerist, I tell of my fort’s bombardment,

I am there again.


Again the long roll of the drummers,

Again the attacking cannon, mortars,

Again to my listening ears the cannon responsive.


I take part, I see and hear the whole,

The cries, curses, roar, the plaudits for well-aim’d shots,

The ambulanza slowly passing trailing its red drip,

Workmen searching after damages, making indispensable repairs,

The fall of grenades through the rent roof, the fan-shaped explosion,

The whizz of limbs, heads, stone, wood, iron, high in the air.


Again gurgles the mouth of my dying general, he furiously waves with his hand,

He gasps through the clot Mind not me—mind—the entrenchments.


34

Now I tell what I knew in Texas in my early youth,

(I tell not the fall of Alamo,

Not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo,

The hundred and fifty are dumb yet at Alamo,)

’Tis the tale of the murder in cold blood of four hundred and twelve young men.


Retreating they had form’d in a hollow square with their baggage for breastworks,

Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemy’s, nine times their number, was the price they took in advance,

Their colonel was wounded and their ammunition gone,

They treated for an honorable capitulation, receiv’d writing and seal, gave up their arms and march’d back prisoners of war.


They were the glory of the race of rangers,

Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courtship,

Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and affectionate,

Bearded, sunburnt, drest in the free costume of hunters,

Not a single one over thirty years of age.


The second First-day morning they were brought out in squads and massacred, it was beautiful early summer,

The work commenced about five o’clock and was over by eight.


None obey’d the command to kneel,

Some made a mad and helpless rush, some stood stark and straight,

A few fell at once, shot in the temple or heart, the living and dead lay together,

The maim’d and mangled dug in the dirt, the new-comers saw them there,

Some half-kill’d attempted to crawl away,

These were despatch’d with bayonets or batter’d with the blunts of muskets,

A youth not seventeen years old seiz’d his assassin till two more came to release him,

The three were all torn and cover’d with the boy’s blood.


At eleven o’clock began the burning of the bodies;

That is the tale of the murder of the four hundred and twelve young men.


35

Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight?

Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?

List to the yarn, as my grandmother’s father the sailor told it to me.


Our foe was no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,)

His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be;

Along the lower’d eve he came horribly raking us.


We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touch’d,

My captain lash’d fast with his own hands.


We had receiv’d some eighteen pound shots under the water,

On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire, killing all around and blowing up overhead.


Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark,

Ten o’clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain, and five feet of water reported,

The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after-hold to give them a chance for themselves.


The transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels,

They see so many strange faces they do not know whom to trust.


Our frigate takes fire,

The other asks if we demand quarter?

If our colors are struck and the fighting done?


Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain,

We have not struck, he composedly cries, we have just begun our part of the fighting.


Only three guns are in use,

One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy’s mainmast,

Two well serv’d with grape and canister silence his musketry and clear his decks.


The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially the main-top,

They hold out bravely during the whole of the action.


Not a moment’s cease,

The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the powder-magazine.


One of the pumps has been shot away, it is generally thought we are sinking.


Serene stands the little captain,

He is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low,

His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns.


Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon they surrender to us.


36

Stretch’d and still lies the midnight,

Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness,

Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking, preparations to pass to the one we have conquer’d,

The captain on the quarter-deck coldly giving his orders through a countenance white as a sheet,

Near by the corpse of the child that serv’d in the cabin,

The dead face of an old salt with long white hair and carefully curl’d whiskers,

The flames spite of all that can be done flickering aloft and below,

The husky voices of the two or three officers yet fit for duty,

Formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves, dabs of flesh upon the masts and spars,

Cut of cordage, dangle of rigging, slight shock of the soothe of waves,

Black and impassive guns, litter of powder-parcels, strong scent,

A few large stars overhead, silent and mournful shining,

Delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy grass and fields by the shore, death-messages given in charge to survivors,

The hiss of the surgeon’s knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw,

Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and long, dull, tapering groan,

These so, these irretrievable.


37

You laggards there on guard! look to your arms!

In at the conquer’d doors they crowd! I am possess’d!

Embody all presences outlaw’d or suffering,

See myself in prison shaped like another man,

And feel the dull unintermitted pain.


For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep watch,

It is I let out in the morning and barr’d at night.


Not a mutineer walks handcuff’d to jail but I am handcuff’d to him and walk by his side,

(I am less the jolly one there, and more the silent one with sweat on my twitching lips.)


Not a youngster is taken for larceny but I go up too, and am tried and sentenced.


Not a cholera patient lies at the last gasp but I also lie at the last gasp,

My face is ash-color’d, my sinews gnarl, away from me people retreat.


Askers embody themselves in me and I am embodied in them,

I project my hat, sit shame-faced, and beg.


38

Enough! enough! enough!

Somehow I have been stunn’d. Stand back!

Give me a little time beyond my cuff’d head, slumbers, dreams, gaping,

I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake.


That I could forget the mockers and insults!

That I could forget the trickling tears and the blows of the bludgeons and hammers!

That I could look with a separate look on my own crucifixion and bloody crowning.


I remember now,

I resume the overstaid fraction,

The grave of rock multiplies what has been confided to it, or to any graves,

Corpses rise, gashes heal, fastenings roll from me.


I troop forth replenish’d with supreme power, one of an average unending procession,

Inland and sea-coast we go, and pass all boundary lines,

Our swift ordinances on their way over the whole earth,

The blossoms we wear in our hats the growth of thousands of years.


Eleves, I salute you! come forward!

Continue your annotations, continue your questionings.


39

The friendly and flowing savage, who is he?

Is he waiting for civilization, or past it and mastering it?


Is he some Southwesterner rais’d out-doors? is he Kanadian?

Is he from the Mississippi country? Iowa, Oregon, California?

The mountains? prairie-life, bush-life? or sailor from the sea?


Wherever he goes men and women accept and desire him,

They desire he should like them, touch them, speak to them, stay with them.


Behavior lawless as snow-flakes, words simple as grass, uncomb’d head, laughter, and naiveté,

Slow-stepping feet, common features, common modes and emanations,

They descend in new forms from the tips of his fingers,

They are wafted with the odor of his body or breath, they fly out of the glance of his eyes.


40

Flaunt of the sunshine I need not your bask—lie over!

You light surfaces only, I force surfaces and depths also.


Earth! you seem to look for something at my hands,

Say, old top-knot, what do you want?


Man or woman, I might tell how I like you, but cannot,

And might tell what it is in me and what it is in you, but cannot,

And might tell that pining I have, that pulse of my nights and days.


Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity,

When I give I give myself.


You there, impotent, loose in the knees,

Open your scarf’d chops till I blow grit within you,

Spread your palms and lift the flaps of your pockets,

I am not to be denied, I compel, I have stores plenty and to spare,

And any thing I have I bestow.


I do not ask who you are, that is not important to me,

You can do nothing and be nothing but what I will infold you.


To cotton-field drudge or cleaner of privies I lean,

On his right cheek I put the family kiss,

And in my soul I swear I never will deny him.


On women fit for conception I start bigger and nimbler babes.

(This day I am jetting the stuff of far more arrogant republics.)


To any one dying, thither I speed and twist the knob of the door.

Turn the bed-clothes toward the foot of the bed,

Let the physician and the priest go home.


I seize the descending man and raise him with resistless will,

O despairer, here is my neck,

By God, you shall not go down! hang your whole weight upon me.


I dilate you with tremendous breath, I buoy you up,

Every room of the house do I fill with an arm’d force,

Lovers of me, bafflers of graves.


Sleep—I and they keep guard all night,

Not doubt, not decease shall dare to lay finger upon you,

I have embraced you, and henceforth possess you to myself,

And when you rise in the morning you will find what I tell you is so.

41

I am he bringing help for the sick as they pant on their backs,

And for strong upright men I bring yet more needed help.


I heard what was said of the universe,

Heard it and heard it of several thousand years;

It is middling well as far as it goes—but is that all?


Magnifying and applying come I,

Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters,

Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah,

Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson,

Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha,

In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix engraved,

With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli and every idol and image,

Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more,

Admitting they were alive and did the work of their days,

(They bore mites as for unfledg’d birds who have now to rise and fly and sing for themselves,)

Accepting the rough deific sketches to fill out better in myself, bestowing them freely on each man and woman I see,

Discovering as much or more in a framer framing a house,

Putting higher claims for him there with his roll’d-up sleeves driving the mallet and chisel,

Not objecting to special revelations, considering a curl of smoke or a hair on the back of my hand just as curious as any revelation,

Lads ahold of fire-engines and hook-and-ladder ropes no less to me than the gods of the antique wars,

Minding their voices peal through the crash of destruction,

Their brawny limbs passing safe over charr’d laths, their white foreheads whole and unhurt out of the flames;

By the mechanic’s wife with her babe at her nipple interceding for every person born,

Three scythes at harvest whizzing in a row from three lusty angels with shirts bagg’d out at their waists,

The snag-tooth’d hostler with red hair redeeming sins past and to come,

Selling all he possesses, traveling on foot to fee lawyers for his brother and sit by him while he is tried for forgery;

What was strewn in the amplest strewing the square rod about me, and not filling the square rod then,

The bull and the bug never worshipp’d half enough,

Dung and dirt more admirable than was dream’d,

The supernatural of no account, myself waiting my time to be one of the supremes,

The day getting ready for me when I shall do as much good as the best, and be as prodigious;

By my life-lumps! becoming already a creator,

Putting myself here and now to the ambush’d womb of the shadows.


42

A call in the midst of the crowd,

My own voice, orotund sweeping and final.


Come my children,

Come my boys and girls, my women, household and intimates,

Now the performer launches his nerve, he has pass’d his prelude on the reeds within.


Easily written loose-finger’d chords—I feel the thrum of your climax and close.


My head slues round on my neck,

Music rolls, but not from the organ,

Folks are around me, but they are no household of mine.


Ever the hard unsunk ground,

Ever the eaters and drinkers, ever the upward and downward sun, ever the air and the ceaseless tides,

Ever myself and my neighbors, refreshing, wicked, real,

Ever the old inexplicable query, ever that thorn’d thumb, that breath of itches and thirsts,

Ever the vexer’s hoot! hoot! till we find where the sly one hides and bring him forth,

Ever love, ever the sobbing liquid of life,

Ever the bandage under the chin, ever the trestles of death.


Here and there with dimes on the eyes walking,

To feed the greed of the belly the brains liberally spooning,

Tickets buying, taking, selling, but in to the feast never once going,

Many sweating, ploughing, thrashing, and then the chaff for payment receiving,

A few idly owning, and they the wheat continually claiming.


This is the city and I am one of the citizens,

Whatever interests the rest interests me, politics, wars, markets, newspapers, schools,

The mayor and councils, banks, tariffs, steamships, factories, stocks, stores, real estate and personal estate.


The little plentiful manikins skipping around in collars and tail’d coats,

I am aware who they are, (they are positively not worms or fleas,)

I acknowledge the duplicates of myself, the weakest and shallowest is deathless with me,

What I do and say the same waits for them,

Every thought that flounders in me the same flounders in them.


I know perfectly well my own egotism,

Know my omnivorous lines and must not write any less,

And would fetch you whoever you are flush with myself.


Not words of routine this song of mine,

But abruptly to question, to leap beyond yet nearer bring;

This printed and bound book—but the printer and the printing-office boy?

The well-taken photographs—but your wife or friend close and solid in your arms?

The black ship mail’d with iron, her mighty guns in her turrets—but the pluck of the captain and engineers?

In the houses the dishes and fare and furniture—but the host and hostess, and the look out of their eyes?

The sky up there—yet here or next door, or across the way?

The saints and sages in history—but you yourself?

Sermons, creeds, theology—but the fathomless human brain,

And what is reason? and what is love? and what is life?


43

I do not despise you priests, all time, the world over,

My faith is the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths,

Enclosing worship ancient and modern and all between ancient and modern,

Believing I shall come again upon the earth after five thousand years,

Waiting responses from oracles, honoring the gods, saluting the sun,

Making a fetich of the first rock or stump, powowing with sticks in the circle of obis,

Helping the llama or brahmin as he trims the lamps of the idols,

Dancing yet through the streets in a phallic procession, rapt and austere in the woods a gymnosophist,

Drinking mead from the skull-cup, to Shastas and Vedas admirant, minding the Koran,

Walking the teokallis, spotted with gore from the stone and knife, beating the serpent-skin drum,

Accepting the Gospels, accepting him that was crucified, knowing assuredly that he is divine,

To the mass kneeling or the puritan’s prayer rising, or sitting patiently in a pew,

Ranting and frothing in my insane crisis, or waiting dead-like till my spirit arouses me,

Looking forth on pavement and land, or outside of pavement and land,

Belonging to the winders of the circuit of circuits.

One of that centripetal and centrifugal gang I turn and talk like a man leaving charges before a journey.

Down-hearted doubters dull and excluded,

Frivolous, sullen, moping, angry, affected, dishearten’d, atheistical,

I know every one of you, I know the sea of torment, doubt, despair and unbelief.

How the flukes splash!

How they contort rapid as lightning, with spasms and spouts of blood!

Be at peace bloody flukes of doubters and sullen mopers,

I take my place among you as much as among any,

The past is the push of you, me, all, precisely the same,

And what is yet untried and afterward is for you, me, all, precisely the same.

I do not know what is untried and afterward,

But I know it will in its turn prove sufficient, and cannot fail.

Each who passes is consider’d, each who stops is consider’d, not a single one can it fail.

It cannot fail the young man who died and was buried,

Nor the young woman who died and was put by his side,

Nor the little child that peep’d in at the door, and then drew back and was never seen again,

Nor the old man who has lived without purpose, and feels it with bitterness worse than gall,

Nor him in the poor house tubercled by rum and the bad disorder,

Nor the numberless slaughter’d and wreck’d, nor the brutish koboo call’d the ordure of humanity,

Nor the sacs merely floating with open mouths for food to slip in,

Nor any thing in the earth, or down in the oldest graves of the earth,

Nor any thing in the myriads of spheres, nor the myriads of myriads that inhabit them,

Nor the present, nor the least wisp that is known.


44

It is time to explain myself—let us stand up.

What is known I strip away,

I launch all men and women forward with me into the Unknown.

The clock indicates the moment—but what does eternity indicate?

We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers,

There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them.

Births have brought us richness and variety,

And other births will bring us richness and variety.

I do not call one greater and one smaller,

That which fills its period and place is equal to any.

Were mankind murderous or jealous upon you, my brother, my sister?

I am sorry for you, they are not murderous or jealous upon me,

All has been gentle with me, I keep no account with lamentation,

(What have I to do with lamentation?)

I am an acme of things accomplish’d, and I an encloser of things to be.

My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs,

On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the steps,

All below duly travel’d, and still I mount and mount.

Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me,

Afar down I see the huge first Nothing, I know I was even there,

I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist,

And took my time, and took no hurt from the fetid carbon.

Long I was hugg’d close—long and long.

Immense have been the preparations for me,

Faithful and friendly the arms that have help’d me.

Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen,

For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings,

They sent influences to look after what was to hold me.

Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me,

My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it.

For it the nebula cohered to an orb,

The long slow strata piled to rest it on,

Vast vegetables gave it sustenance,

Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and deposited it with care.

All forces have been steadily employ’d to complete and delight me,

Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul.


45

O span of youth! ever-push’d elasticity!

O manhood, balanced, florid and full.

My lovers suffocate me,

Crowding my lips, thick in the pores of my skin,

Jostling me through streets and public halls, coming naked to me at night,

Crying by day Ahoy! from the rocks of the river, swinging and chirping over my head,

Calling my name from flower-beds, vines, tangled underbrush,

Lighting on every moment of my life,

Bussing my body with soft balsamic busses,

Noiselessly passing handfuls out of their hearts and giving them to be mine.

Old age superbly rising! O welcome, ineffable grace of dying days!

Every condition promulges not only itself, it promulges what grows after and out of itself,

And the dark hush promulges as much as any.

I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems,

And all I see multiplied as high as I can cipher edge but the rim of the farther systems.

Wider and wider they spread, expanding, always expanding,

Outward and outward and forever outward.

My sun has his sun and round him obediently wheels,

He joins with his partners a group of superior circuit,

And greater sets follow, making specks of the greatest inside them.

There is no stoppage and never can be stoppage,

If I, you, and the worlds, and all beneath or upon their surfaces, 

were this moment reduced back to a pallid float, it would not avail in the long run,

We should surely bring up again where we now stand,

And surely go as much farther, and then farther and farther.

A few quadrillions of eras, a few octillions of cubic leagues, do not hazard the span or make it impatient,

They are but parts, any thing is but a part.

See ever so far, there is limitless space outside of that,

Count ever so much, there is limitless time around that.

My rendezvous is appointed, it is certain,

The Lord will be there and wait till I come on perfect terms,

The great Camerado, the lover true for whom I pine will be there.


46

I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured and never will be measured.

I tramp a perpetual journey, (come listen all!)

My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods,

No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair,

I have no chair, no church, no philosophy,

I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange,

But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll,

My left hand hooking you round the waist,

My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road.

Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,

You must travel it for yourself.

It is not far, it is within reach,

Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know,

Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land.

Shoulder your duds dear son, and I will mine, and let us hasten forth,

Wonderful cities and free nations we shall fetch as we go.

If you tire, give me both burdens, and rest the chuff of your hand on my hip,

And in due time you shall repay the same service to me,

For after we start we never lie by again.

This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look’d at the crowded heaven,

And I said to my spirit When we become the enfolders of those orbs, 

and the pleasure and knowledge of every thing in them, shall we be fill’d and satisfied then?

And my spirit said No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond.

You are also asking me questions and I hear you,

I answer that I cannot answer, you must find out for yourself.

Sit a while dear son,

Here are biscuits to eat and here is milk to drink,

But as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes, I kiss you with a good-by kiss and open the gate for your egress hence.

Long enough have you dream’d contemptible dreams,

Now I wash the gum from your eyes,

You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life.

Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore,

Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,

To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout, and laughingly dash with your hair.


47

I am the teacher of athletes,

He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own,

He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.

The boy I love, the same becomes a man not through derived power, but in his own right,

Wicked rather than virtuous out of conformity or fear,

Fond of his sweetheart, relishing well his steak,

Unrequited love or a slight cutting him worse than sharp steel cuts,

First-rate to ride, to fight, to hit the bull’s eye, to sail a skiff, to sing a song or play on the banjo,

Preferring scars and the beard and faces pitted with small-pox over all latherers,

And those well-tann’d to those that keep out of the sun.

I teach straying from me, yet who can stray from me?

I follow you whoever you are from the present hour,

My words itch at your ears till you understand them.

I do not say these things for a dollar or to fill up the time while I wait for a boat,

(It is you talking just as much as myself, I act as the tongue of you,

Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen’d.)

I swear I will never again mention love or death inside a house,

And I swear I will never translate myself at all, only to him or her who privately stays with me in the open air.

If you would understand me go to the heights or water-shore,

The nearest gnat is an explanation, and a drop or motion of waves a key,

The maul, the oar, the hand-saw, second my words.

No shutter’d room or school can commune with me,

But roughs and little children better than they.

The young mechanic is closest to me, he knows me well,

The woodman that takes his axe and jug with him shall take me with him all day,

The farm-boy ploughing in the field feels good at the sound of my voice,

In vessels that sail my words sail, I go with fishermen and seamen and love them.

The soldier camp’d or upon the march is mine,

On the night ere the pending battle many seek me, and I do not fail them,

On that solemn night (it may be their last) those that know me seek me.

My face rubs to the hunter’s face when he lies down alone in his blanket,

The driver thinking of me does not mind the jolt of his wagon,

The young mother and old mother comprehend me,

The girl and the wife rest the needle a moment and forget where they are,

They and all would resume what I have told them.


48

I have said that the soul is not more than the body,

And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,

And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is,

And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud,

And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth,

And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times,

And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero,

And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel’d universe,

And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.

And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,

For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,

(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.)

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,

Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?

I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,

In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,

I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign’d by God’s name,

And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe’er I go,

Others will punctually come for ever and ever.


49

And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm me.

To his work without flinching the accoucheur comes,

I see the elder-hand pressing receiving supporting,

I recline by the sills of the exquisite flexible doors,

And mark the outlet, and mark the relief and escape.

And as to you Corpse I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me,

I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing,

I reach to the leafy lips, I reach to the polish’d breasts of melons.

And as to you Life I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths,

(No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.)

I hear you whispering there O stars of heaven,

O suns—O grass of graves—O perpetual transfers and promotions,

If you do not say any thing how can I say any thing?

Of the turbid pool that lies in the autumn forest,

Of the moon that descends the steeps of the soughing twilight,

Toss, sparkles of day and dusk—toss on the black stems that decay in the muck,

Toss to the moaning gibberish of the dry limbs.

I ascend from the moon, I ascend from the night,

I perceive that the ghastly glimmer is noonday sunbeams reflected,

And debouch to the steady and central from the offspring great or small.


50

There is that in me—I do not know what it is—but I know it is in me.

Wrench’d and sweaty—calm and cool then my body becomes,

I sleep—I sleep long.

I do not know it—it is without name—it is a word unsaid,

It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol.

Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on,

To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me.

Perhaps I might tell more. Outlines! I plead for my brothers and sisters.

Do you see O my brothers and sisters?

It is not chaos or death—it is form, union, plan—it is eternal life—it is Happiness.


51

The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them,

And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?

Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,

(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.

Who has done his day’s work? who will soonest be through with his supper?

Who wishes to walk with me?

Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?


52

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,

I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,

It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,

It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,

I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,

If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,

But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,

And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,

Missing me one place search another,

I stop somewhere waiting for you.

Good Timber

By Douglas Malloch (1877 - 1938)

The tree that never had to fight

For sun and sky and air and light,

But stood out in the open plain

And always got its share of rain,

Never became a forest king

But lived and died a scrubby thing.


The man who never had to toil

To gain and farm his patch of soil,

Who never had to win his share

Of sun and sky and light and air,

Never became a manly man

But lived and died as he began.


Good timber does not grow with ease,

The stronger wind, the stronger trees,

The further sky, the greater length,

The more the storm, the more the strength.

By sun and cold, by rain and snow,

In trees and men good timbers grow.


Where thickest lies the forest growth

We find the patriarchs of both.

And they hold counsel with the stars

Whose broken branches show the scars

Of many winds and much of strife.

This is the common law of life.

God The Artist

By Angela Morgan (1875 - 1957)

God, when you thought of a pine tree,

How did you think of a star?

How did you dream of the Milky Way

To guide us from afar.

How did you think of a clean brown pool

Where flecks of shadows are?


God, when you thought of a cobweb,

How did you think of dew?

How did you know a spider's house

Had shingles bright and new?

How did you know the human folk

Would love them like they do?


God, when you patterned a bird song,

Flung on a silver string,

How did you know the ecstasy

That crystal call would bring?

How did you think of a bubbling throat

And a darling speckled wing?


God, when you chiseled a raindrop,

How did you think of a stem,

Bearing a lovely satin leaf

To hold the tiny gem?

How did you know a million drops

Would deck the morning's hem?


Why did you mate the moonlit night

With the honeysuckle vines?

How did you know Madeira bloom

Distilled ecstatic wines?

How did you weave the velvet disk

Where tangled perfumes are?

God, when you thought of a pine tree,

How did you think of a star?

A Happy Man

By Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869 - 1935)

When these graven lines you see,

Traveller, do not pity me;

Though I be among the dead,

Let no mournful word be said.


Children that I leave behind,

And their children, all were kind;

Near to them and to my wife,

I was happy all my life.


My three sons I married right,

And their sons I rocked at night;

Death nor sorrow never brought

Cause for one unhappy thought.


Now, and with no need of tears,

Here they leave me, full of years,--

Leave me to my quiet rest

In the region of the blest.

Solitude

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 - 1919)

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;

Weep, and you weep alone;

For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,

But has trouble enough of its own.

Sing, and the hills will answer;

Sigh, it is lost on the air;

The echoes bound to a joyful sound,

But shrink from voicing care.


Rejoice, and men will seek you;

Grieve, and they turn and go;

They want full measure of all your pleasure,

But they do not need your woe.

Be glad, and your friends are many;

Be sad, and you lose them all,

There are none to decline your nectared wine,

But alone you must drink life's gall.


Feast, and your halls are crowded;

Fast, and the world goes by.

Succeed and give, and it helps you live,

But no man can help you die.

There is room in the halls of pleasure

For a large and lordly train,

But one by one we must all file on

Through the narrow aisles of pain.

Be

By John Keats (1795-1821)

When I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,

Before high piled books, in charactry,

Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;

When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,

That I shall never look upon thee more,

Never have relish in the faery power

Of unreflecting love; -- then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink. 

Phenomenal Woman

By Maya Angelou (1928 - 2014)

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size

But when I start to tell them,

They think I'm telling lies.

I say,

It's in the reach of my arms

The span of my hips,

The stride of my step,

The curl of my lips.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.


I walk into a room

Just as cool as you please,

And to a man,

The fellows stand or

Fall down on their knees.

Then they swarm around me,

A hive of honey bees.

I say,

It's the fire in my eyes,

And the flash of my teeth,

The swing in my waist,

And the joy in my feet.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.


Men themselves have wondered

What they see in me.

They try so much

But they can't touch

My inner mystery.

When I try to show them

They say they still can't see.

I say,

It's in the arch of my back,

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I'm a woman


Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.


Now you understand

Just why my head's not bowed.

I don't shout or jump about

Or have to talk real loud.

When you see me passing

It ought to make you proud.

I say,

It's in the click of my heels,

The bend of my hair,

the palm of my hand,

The need of my care,

'Cause I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Lover's Secret

By William Blake (1757-1827)

Never seek to tell thy love, 

Love that never told can be;

For the gentle wind does move

Silently, invisibly.


I told my love, I told my love,

I told her all my heart;

Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears,

Ah! she did depart!


Soon as she was gone from me,

A traveller came by,

Silently, invisibly

He took her with a sigh. 

Ozymandias

By Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) 

I met a traveler from an antique land

Who said: two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,

half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal these words appear

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that collossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away. 

Mirror

By Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.

Whatever I see I swallow immediately

Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.

I am not cruel, only truthful ‚

The eye of a little god, four-cornered.

Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.

It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long

I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.

Faces and darkness separate us over and over.


Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,

Searching my reaches for what she really is.

Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.

I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.

She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.

I am important to her. She comes and goes.

Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.

In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman

Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish. 

Remember

Christina G. Rossetti  (1830-1894)

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you planned;

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve;

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

Sensation (Bodh)

By Jibanananda Das (1899-1954)

Into the half light and shadow I go. Within my head

Not a dream, but some sensation is at work.

Not a dream, not peace, not love,

Inside my heart a sensation is born.

I cannot escape it

For it places its hand in mine,

And all else pales to insignificance-futile so it seems.

All thought, an eternity of prayer,

Seems empty.

Empty.


Who can go on like the simple folk?

Who can pause in this half light and darkness

Like the simple people? Who can speak

Like them, anymore? Who can know

For certain anymore?-Who seeks to understand

The carnal savors anymore?-Who knows the joys

of life again, like everyman?

And sows seeds like everyman anymore?

Where is that relish? And who, hungry for harvest,

Has smeared himself with the scent of earth,

Has anointed himself with the scent of water,

Has gazed toward light with rapt attention,

Has gained a peasant heart,

Who would any longer remain awake upon his earth?

Not a dream-not peace-but some sensation is at work

Within my head.


When I walk along the beach, or cross from shore to shore

I try to ignore it.

I seize it as I would a dead man's skull

And wish to smash it on the ground. Yet it spins like a living head

All around my head,

All about my eyes,

All about my chest.

I move, it too comes along with me.

I stop-

It too comes to a halt.


As I take my place among other beings

Am I becoming estranged and alone

Because of my mannerisms?

Is there just an optical illusion?

Are there only obstacles in my path?


Those who were born to this world

As children,

Those who spent their time

Giving birth to children,

or those who must give birth to children

Today, or those who come to the sown fields of this world,

For to give birth-to give birth-

Is not my heart

Like theirs, their heart and head? Is not their mind

Like my mind?

Then why am I so alone?

Yet I am all alone.

Did I not raise my hand to see it hold a peasant's plough?

Have I not drawn water in a pail?

Have I not often gone with sickle to the fields?

How many wharfs and rivers have I been to

Like those who fish?

Algae from a pond, the smell of fish

Engulfed my body.

-All these tastes,

-All these I've had. My life has flowed

Like unchecked winds.

My mind slept as I lay beneath the stars

one day.

All these desires

I knew once-unchecked-unbounded.

Then I left them all behind.

I have looked upon woman with love.

I have looked upon woman with apathy.

I have looked upon woman with hate.


She has loved me,

And come near.

She has paid no heed to me.

She has despised me and gone away when I called her time and again,

Loving her.

Yet it was actually practiced one day-this love.

I paid no attention to her words of contempt,

No attention to the wrath of her hate,

And went my own way. I have forgotten

That star-the sinister influence of which

Blocked my path of love over and over again.

Still, this love-this dust and mud.


Within my head

Not a dream, not love, but some sensation is at work.

I leave all gods behind

And come close to my heart-

I speak to this heart.

Why does it mumble to itself alone like churning waters?

Is it never weary? Does it never have a moment's peace?

Will it never ever sleep? Will it not enjoy just

Resting calmly? or not know the joy

of gazing at the face of man?

of gazing at the face of woman?

of gazing at children's faces?


This sensation-only this desire

What does it gain, immense-profound?

Does it not wish to leave the beaten paths

And seek the starry span of the sky? Has it vowed

To look upon that man's face?

To look upon that woman's face?

To look upon those children's faces?

Those sickly shadows under eyes,

The ears that cannot hear,

The hunchback-a goiter that arose upon the flesh,

A spoiled cucumber-chancred pumpkin,

All that is within man's heart

-All that. 

There will come soft rain

By Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

There will come soft rain and the smell of the ground,And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;And frogs in the pools singing at night,And wild plum trees in tremulous white;Robins will wear their feathery fire,Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;And not one will know of the war, not oneWill care at last when it is done.Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,If mankind perished utterly;And Spring herself, when she woke at dawnWould scarcely know that we were gone.

Better Than Heaven

By Swami Yogananda Paramhansa (1893-1952)

Better than Heaven or ArcadiaI love thee, O my India!And thy love I shall giveTo every brother nation that lives.God made the Earth;Man made confining countriesAnd their fancy-frozen boundaries.But with unfound boundless loveI behold the borderland of my IndiaExpanding into the World.Hail, mother of religions, lotus, scenic beauty,and sages!Thy wide doors are open,Welcoming God's true sons through all ages.Where Ganges, woods, Himalayan caves, andmen dream God -I am hallowed; my body touched that sod. 

The Gift of India

By Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949) 

Is there ought you need that my hands withhold,Rich gifts of raiment or grain or gold?Lo ! I have flung to the East and the WestPriceless treasures torn from my breast,And yielded the sons of my stricken wombTo the drum-beats of the duty, the sabers of doom.Gathered like pearls in their alien gravesSilent they sleep by the Persian waves,Scattered like shells on Egyptian sands,They lie with pale brows and brave, broken hands,they are strewn like blossoms mown down by chanceOn the blood-brown meadows of Flanders and France.Can ye measure the grief of the tears I weepOr compass the woe of the watch I keep?Or the pride that thrills thro' my heart's despairAnd the hope that comforts the anguish of prayer?And the far sad glorious vision I seeOf the torn red banners of victory?when the terror and the tumult of hate shall ceaseAnd life be refashioned on anvils of peace,And your love shall offer memorial thanksTo the comrades who fought on the dauntless ranks,And you honour the deeds of the dauntless ones,Remember the blood of my martyred sons! 

The Bluebirds

By Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)

There's a bluebird in my heart thatwants to get outbut I'm too tough for him,I say, stay in there, I'm not goingto let anybody seeyou.there's a bluebird in my heart thatwants to get outbut I pour whiskey on him and inhalecigarette smokeand the whores and the bartendersand the grocery clerksnever know thathe'sin there.there's a bluebird in my heart that .wants to get out.but I'm too tough for him,.I say,.stay down, do you want to mess.me up?.you want to screw up the.works?.you want to blow my book sales in .Europe?.there's a bluebird in my heart that.wants to get out.but I'm too clever, I only let him out.at night sometimes.when everybody's asleep..I say, I know that you're there,.so don't be .sad..then I put him back,but he's singing a littlein there, I haven't quite let himdieand we sleep together likethatwith oursecret pactand it's nice enough tomake a manweep, but I don'tweep, doyou?

If You Forget Me

By Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

I want you to knowone thing.
You know how this is:if I lookat the crystal moon, at the red branchof the slow autumn at my window,if I touchnear the firethe impalpable ashor the wrinkled body of the log,everything carries me to you,as if everything that exists,aromas, light, metals,were little boatsthat sailtoward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,if little by little you stop loving meI shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenlyyou forget medo not look for me,for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,the wind of bannersthat passes through my life,and you decideto leave me at the shoreof the heart where I have roots,rememberthat on that day,at that hour,I shall lift my armsand my roots will set offto seek another land.
Butif each day,each hour,you feel that you are destined for mewith implacable sweetness,if each day a flowerclimbs up to your lips to seek me,ah my love, ah my own,in me all that fire is repeated,in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,my love feeds on your love, beloved,and as long as you live it will be in your armswithout leaving mine. 

This Be The Verse

By Philip Larkin (1922–1985)

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   They may not mean to, but they do.   They fill you with the faults they hadAnd add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turnBy fools in old-style hats and coats,   Who half the time were soppy-sternAnd half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.It deepens like a coastal shelf.Get out as early as you can,And don’t have any kids yourself.

A Lover's Complaint

By William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

From off a hill whose concave womb rewordedA plaintful story from a sistering vale,My spirits to attend this double voice accorded,And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale;Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.
Upon her head a platted hive of straw,Which fortified her visage from the sun,Whereon the thought might think sometime it sawThe carcass of beauty spent and done:Time had not scythed all that youth begun,Nor youth all quit; but, spite of heaven's fell rage,Some beauty peep'd through lattice of sear'd age.
Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,Which on it had conceited characters,Laundering the silken figures in the brineThat season'd woe had pelleted in tears,And often reading what contents it bears;As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe,In clamours of all size, both high and low.
Sometimes her levell'd eyes their carriage ride,As they did battery to the spheres intend;Sometime diverted their poor balls are tiedTo the orbed earth; sometimes they do extendTheir view right on; anon their gazes lendTo every place at once, and, nowhere fix'd,The mind and sight distractedly commix'd.
Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat,Proclaim'd in her a careless hand of prideFor some, untuck'd, descended her sheaved hat,Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside;Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,And true to bondage would not break from thence,Though slackly braided in loose negligence.
A thousand favours from a maund she drewOf amber, crystal, and of beaded jet,Which one by one she in a river threw,Upon whose weeping margent she was set;Like usury, applying wet to wet,Or monarch's hands that let not bounty fallWhere want cries some, but where excess begs all.
Of folded schedules had she many a one,Which she perused, sigh'd, tore, and gave the flood;Crack'd many a ring of posied gold and boneBidding them find their sepulchres in mud;Found yet moe letters sadly penn'd in blood,With sleided silk feat and affectedlyEnswathed, and seal'd to curious secrecy.
These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes,And often kiss'd, and often 'gan to tear:Cried 'O false blood, thou register of lies,What unapproved witness dost thou bear!Ink would have seem'd more black and damned here!'This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,Big discontent so breaking their contents.
A reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh--Sometime a blusterer, that the ruffle knewOf court, of city, and had let go byThe swiftest hours, observed as they flew--Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew,And, privileged by age, desires to knowIn brief the grounds and motives of her woe.
So slides he down upon his grained bat,And comely-distant sits he by her side;When he again desires her, being sat,Her grievance with his hearing to divide:If that from him there may be aught appliedWhich may her suffering ecstasy assuage,'Tis promised in the charity of age.
'Father,' she says, 'though in me you beholdThe injury of many a blasting hour,Let it not tell your judgment I am old;Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power:I might as yet have been a spreading flower,Fresh to myself, If I had self-appliedLove to myself and to no love beside.
'But, woe is me! too early I attendedA youthful suit--it was to gain my grace--Of one by nature's outwards so commended,That maidens' eyes stuck over all his face:Love lack'd a dwelling, and made him her place;And when in his fair parts she did abide,She was new lodged and newly deified.
'His browny locks did hang in crooked curls;And every light occasion of the windUpon his lips their silken parcels hurls.What's sweet to do, to do will aptly find:Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind,For on his visage was in little drawnWhat largeness thinks in Paradise was sawn.
'Small show of man was yet upon his chin;His phoenix down began but to appearLike unshorn velvet on that termless skinWhose bare out-bragg'd the web it seem'd to wear:Yet show'd his visage by that cost more dear;And nice affections wavering stood in doubtIf best were as it was, or best without.
'His qualities were beauteous as his form,For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free;Yet, if men moved him, was he such a stormAs oft 'twixt May and April is to see,When winds breathe sweet, untidy though they be.His rudeness so with his authorized youthDid livery falseness in a pride of truth.
'Well could he ride, and often men would say'That horse his mettle from his rider takes:Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stophe makes!'And controversy hence a question takes,Whether the horse by him became his deed,Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.
'But quickly on this side the verdict went:His real habitude gave life and graceTo appertainings and to ornament,Accomplish'd in himself, not in his case:All aids, themselves made fairer by their place,Came for additions; yet their purposed trimPieced not his grace, but were all graced by him.
'So on the tip of his subduing tongueAll kinds of arguments and question deep,All replication prompt, and reason strong,For his advantage still did wake and sleep:To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,He had the dialect and different skill,Catching all passions in his craft of will:
'That he did in the general bosom reignOf young, of old; and sexes both enchanted,To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remainIn personal duty, following where he haunted:Consents bewitch'd, ere he desire, have granted;And dialogued for him what he would say,Ask'd their own wills, and made their wills obey.
'Many there were that did his picture get,To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind;Like fools that in th' imagination setThe goodly objects which abroad they findOf lands and mansions, theirs in thought assign'd;And labouring in moe pleasures to bestow themThan the true gouty landlord which doth owe them:
'So many have, that never touch'd his hand,Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart.My woeful self, that did in freedom stand,And was my own fee-simple, not in part,What with his art in youth, and youth in art,Threw my affections in his charmed power,Reserved the stalk and gave him all my flower.
'Yet did I not, as some my equals did,Demand of him, nor being desired yielded;Finding myself in honour so forbid,With safest distance I mine honour shielded:Experience for me many bulwarks buildedOf proofs new-bleeding, which remain'd the foilOf this false jewel, and his amorous spoil.
'But, ah, who ever shunn'd by precedentThe destined ill she must herself assay?Or forced examples, 'gainst her own content,To put the by-past perils in her way?Counsel may stop awhile what will not stay;For when we rage, advice is often seenBy blunting us to make our wits more keen.
'Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood,That we must curb it upon others' proof;To be forbod the sweets that seem so good,For fear of harms that preach in our behoof.O appetite, from judgment stand aloof!The one a palate hath that needs will taste,Though Reason weep, and cry, 'It is thy last.'
'For further I could say 'This man's untrue,'And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling;Heard where his plants in others' orchards grew,Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling;Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling;Thought characters and words merely but art,And bastards of his foul adulterate heart.
'And long upon these terms I held my city,Till thus he gan besiege me: 'Gentle maid,Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity,And be not of my holy vows afraid:That's to ye sworn to none was ever said;For feasts of love I have been call'd unto,Till now did ne'er invite, nor never woo.
''All my offences that abroad you seeAre errors of the blood, none of the mind;Love made them not: with acture they may be,Where neither party is nor true nor kind:They sought their shame that so their shame did find;And so much less of shame in me remains,By how much of me their reproach contains.
''Among the many that mine eyes have seen,Not one whose flame my heart so much as warm'd,Or my affection put to the smallest teen,Or any of my leisures ever charm'd:Harm have I done to them, but ne'er was harm'd;Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free,And reign'd, commanding in his monarchy.
''Look here, what tributes wounded fancies sent me,Of paled pearls and rubies red as blood;Figuring that they their passions likewise lent meOf grief and blushes, aptly understoodIn bloodless white and the encrimson'd mood;Effects of terror and dear modesty,Encamp'd in hearts, but fighting outwardly.
''And, lo, behold these talents of their hair,With twisted metal amorously impleach'd,I have received from many a several fair,Their kind acceptance weepingly beseech'd,With the annexions of fair gems enrich'd,And deep-brain'd sonnets that did amplifyEach stone's dear nature, worth, and quality.
''The diamond,--why, 'twas beautiful and hard,Whereto his invised properties did tend;The deep-green emerald, in whose fresh regardWeak sights their sickly radiance do amend;The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blendWith objects manifold: each several stone,With wit well blazon'd, smiled or made some moan.
''Lo, all these trophies of affections hot,Of pensived and subdued desires the tender,Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not,But yield them up where I myself must render,That is, to you, my origin and ender;For these, of force, must your oblations be,Since I their altar, you enpatron me.
''O, then, advance of yours that phraseless hand,Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise;Take all these similes to your own command,Hallow'd with sighs that burning lungs did raise;What me your minister, for you obeys,Works under you; and to your audit comesTheir distract parcels in combined sums.
''Lo, this device was sent me from a nun,Or sister sanctified, of holiest note;Which late her noble suit in court did shun,Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote;For she was sought by spirits of richest coat,But kept cold distance, and did thence remove,To spend her living in eternal love.
''But, O my sweet, what labour is't to leaveThe thing we have not, mastering what not strives,Playing the place which did no form receive,Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves?She that her fame so to herself contrives,The scars of battle 'scapeth by the flight,And makes her absence valiant, not her might.
''O, pardon me, in that my boast is true:The accident which brought me to her eyeUpon the moment did her force subdue,And now she would the caged cloister fly:Religious love put out Religion's eye:Not to be tempted, would she be immured,And now, to tempt, all liberty procured.
''How mighty then you are, O, hear me tell!The broken bosoms that to me belongHave emptied all their fountains in my well,And mine I pour your ocean all among:I strong o'er them, and you o'er me being strong,Must for your victory us all congest,As compound love to physic your cold breast.
''My parts had power to charm a sacred nun,Who, disciplined, ay, dieted in grace,Believed her eyes when they to assail begun,All vows and consecrations giving place:O most potential love! vow, bond, nor space,In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine,For thou art all, and all things else are thine.
''When thou impressest, what are precepts worthOf stale example? When thou wilt inflame,How coldly those impediments stand forthOf wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame!Love's arms are peace, 'gainst rule, 'gainst sense,'gainst shame,And sweetens, in the suffering pangs it bears,The aloes of all forces, shocks, and fears.
''Now all these hearts that do on mine depend,Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine;And supplicant their sighs to you extend,To leave the battery that you make 'gainst mine,Lending soft audience to my sweet design,And credent soul to that strong-bonded oathThat shall prefer and undertake my troth.'
'This said, his watery eyes he did dismount,Whose sights till then were levell'd on my face;Each cheek a river running from a fountWith brinish current downward flow'd apace:O, how the channel to the stream gave grace!Who glazed with crystal gate the glowing rosesThat flame through water which their hue encloses.
'O father, what a hell of witchcraft liesIn the small orb of one particular tear!But with the inundation of the eyesWhat rocky heart to water will not wear?What breast so cold that is not warmed here?O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath,Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath.
'For, lo, his passion, but an art of craft,Even there resolved my reason into tears;There my white stole of chastity I daff'd,Shook off my sober guards and civil fears;Appear to him, as he to me appears,All melting; though our drops this difference bore,His poison'd me, and mine did him restore.
'In him a plenitude of subtle matter,Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,Of burning blushes, or of weeping water,Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,In either's aptness, as it best deceives,To blush at speeches rank to weep at woes,Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows.
'That not a heart which in his level cameCould 'scape the hail of his all-hurting aim,Showing fair nature is both kind and tame;And, veil'd in them, did win whom he would maim:Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;When he most burn'd in heart-wish'd luxury,He preach'd pure maid, and praised cold chastity.
'Thus merely with the garment of a GraceThe naked and concealed fiend he cover'd;That th' unexperient gave the tempter place,Which like a cherubin above them hover'd.Who, young and simple, would not be so lover'd?Ay me! I fell; and yet do question makeWhat I should do again for such a sake.
'O, that infected moisture of his eye,O, that false fire which in his cheek so glow'd,O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly,O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestow'd,O, all that borrow'd motion seeming owed,Would yet again betray the fore-betray'd,And new pervert a reconciled maid!'

She Walks in Beauty

By Lord Byron (1788-1824)

She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that’s best of dark and brightMeet in her aspect and her eyes;Thus mellowed to that tender lightWhich heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,Had half impaired the nameless graceWhich waves in every raven tress,Or softly lightens o’er her face;Where thoughts serenely sweet express,How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,The smiles that win, the tints that glow,But tell of days in goodness spent,A mind at peace with all below,A heart whose love is innocent!

Stopping by Woods

By Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Whose woods these are I think I know.   His house is in the village though;   He will not see me stopping here   To watch his woods fill up with snow.   
My little horse must think it queer   To stop without a farmhouse near   Between the woods and frozen lake   The darkest evening of the year.   
He gives his harness bells a shake   To ask if there is some mistake.   The only other sound’s the sweep   Of easy wind and downy flake.   
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   But I have promises to keep,   And miles to go before I sleep,   And miles to go before I sleep.

Benediction

By Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880–1966)

Go forth, my son,Winged by my heart’s desire!Great reaches, yet unknown,AwaitFor your possession.I may not, if I would,Retrace the way with you,My pilgrimage is through,But life is calling you!Fare high and far, my son,A new day has begun,Thy star-ways must be won! 

A Lady

By Amy Lowell (1874-1925)

You are beautiful and faded,Like an old opera tunePlayed upon a harpsichord;Or like the sun-flooded silksOf an eighteenth-century boudoir. In your eyesSmoulder the fallen roses of outlived minutes,And the perfume of your soulIs vague and suffusing,With the pungence of sealed spice-jars.Your half-tones delight me,And I grow mad with gazingAt your blent colors.My vigor is a new-minted penny,Which I cast at your feet.Gather it up from the dustThat its sparkle may amuse you.

All The World's A Stage

William Shakespeare  (1564-1616)

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail


Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,


With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes


And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Renascence

By Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

All I could see from where I stoodWas three long mountains and a wood;I turned and looked another way,And saw three islands in a bay.So with my eyes I traced the lineOf the horizon, thin and fine,Straight around till I was comeBack to where I'd started from;And all I saw from where I stoodWas three long mountains and a wood. Over these things I could not see;These were the things that bounded me;And I could touch them with my hand,Almost, I thought, from where I stand.And all at once things seemed so smallMy breath came short, and scarce at all. But, sure, the sky is big, I said;Miles and miles above my head;So here upon my back I'll lieAnd look my fill into the sky.And so I looked, and, after all,The sky was not so very tall.The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,And—sure enough!—I see the top!The sky, I thought, is not so grand;I 'most could touch it with my hand!And reaching up my hand to try,I screamed to feel it touch the sky. I screamed, and—lo!—InfinityCame down and settled over me;Forced back my scream into my chest,Bent back my arm upon my breast,And, pressing of the UndefinedThe definition on my mind,Held up before my eyes a glassThrough which my shrinking sight did passUntil it seemed I must beholdImmensity made manifold;Whispered to me a word whose soundDeafened the air for worlds around,And brought unmuffled to my earsThe gossiping of friendly spheres,The creaking of the tented sky,The ticking of Eternity. I saw and heard, and knew at lastThe How and Why of all things, past,And present, and forevermore.The Universe, cleft to the core,Lay open to my probing senseThat, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thenceBut could not,—nay! But needs must suckAt the great wound, and could not pluckMy lips away till I had drawnAll venom out.—Ah, fearful pawn!For my omniscience paid I tollIn infinite remorse of soul. All sin was of my sinning, allAtoning mine, and mine the gallOf all regret. Mine was the weightOf every brooded wrong, the hateThat stood behind each envious thrust,Mine every greed, mine every lust. And all the while for every grief,Each suffering, I craved reliefWith individual desire,-Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fireAbout a thousand people crawl;Perished with each,-then mourned for all! A man was starving in Capri;He moved his eyes and looked at me;I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,And knew his hunger as my own.I saw at sea a great fog bankBetween two ships that struck and sank;A thousand screams the heavens smote;And every scream tore through my throat. No hurt I did not feel, no deathThat was not mine; mine each last breathThat, crying, met an answering cryFrom the compassion that was I.All suffering mine, and mine its rod;Mine, pity like the pity of God. Ah, awful weight! InfinityPressed down upon the finite Me!My anguished spirit, like a bird,Beating against my lips I heard;Yet lay the weight so close aboutThere was no room for it without.And so beneath the weight lay IAnd suffered death, but could not die. Long had I lain thus, craving death,When quietly the earth beneathGave way, and inch by inch, so greatAt last had grown the crushing weight,Into the earth I sank till IFull six feet under ground did lie,And sank no more,-there is no weightCan follow here, however great.From off my breast I felt it roll,And as it went my tortured soulBurst forth and fled in such a gustThat all about me swirled the dust. Deep in the earth I rested now;Cool is its hand upon the browAnd soft its breast beneath the headOf one who is so gladly dead.And all at once, and over allThe pitying rain began to fall;I lay and heard each pattering hoofUpon my lowly, thatched roof,And seemed to love the sound far moreThan ever I had done before.For rain it hath a friendly soundTo one who's six feet underground;And scarce the friendly voice or face:A grave is such a quiet place. The rain, I said, is kind to comeAnd speak to me in my new home.I would I were alive againTo kiss the fingers of the rain,To drink into my eyes the shineOf every slanting silver line,To catch the freshened, fragrant breezeFrom drenched and dripping apple-trees.For soon the shower will be done,And then the broad face of the sunWill laugh above the rain-soaked earthUntil the world with answering mirthShakes joyously, and each round dropRolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top. How can I bear it; buried here,While overhead the sky grows clearAnd blue again after the storm?O, multi-colored, multiform,Beloved beauty over me,That I shall never, never seeAgain! Spring-silver, autumn-gold,That I shall never more behold!Sleeping your myriad magics through,Close-sepulchred away from you!O God, I cried, give me new birth,And put me back upon the earth!Upset each cloud's gigantic gourdAnd let the heavy rain, down-pouredIn one big torrent, set me free,Washing my grave away from me! I ceased; and through the breathless hushThat answered me, the far-off rushOf herald wings came whisperingLike music down the vibrant stringOf my ascending prayer, and-crash!Before the wild wind's whistling lashThe startled storm-clouds reared on highAnd plunged in terror down the sky,And the big rain in one black waveFell from the sky and struck my grave. I know not how such things can be;I only know there came to meA fragrance such as never clingsTo aught save happy living things;A sound as of some joyous elfSinging sweet songs to please himself,And, through and over everything,A sense of glad awakening.The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear,Whispering to me I could hear;I felt the rain's cool finger-tipsBrushed tenderly across my lips,Laid gently on my sealed sight,And all at once the heavy nightFell from my eyes and I could see,-A drenched and dripping apple-tree,A last long line of silver rain,A sky grown clear and blue again.And as I looked a quickening gustOf wind blew up to me and thrustInto my face a miracleOf orchard-breath, and with the smell,-I know not how such things can be!-I breathed my soul back into me. Ah! Up then from the ground sprang IAnd hailed the earth with such a cryAs is not heard save from a manWho has been dead, and lives again.About the trees my arms I wound; Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;I raised my quivering arms on high;I laughed and laughed into the sky,Till at my throat a strangling sobCaught fiercely, and a great heart-throbSent instant tears into my eyes;O God, I cried, no dark disguiseCan e'er hereafter hide from meThy radiant identity! Thou canst not move across the grassBut my quick eyes will see Thee pass,Nor speak, however silently,But my hushed voice will answer Thee.I know the path that tells Thy wayThrough the cool eve of every day;God, I can push the grass apartAnd lay my finger on Thy heart! The world stands out on either sideNo wider than the heart is wide;Above the world is stretched the sky,-No higher than the soul is high.The heart can push the sea and landFarther away on either hand;The soul can split the sky in two,And let the face of God shine through.But East and West will pinch the heartThat can not keep them pushed apart;And he whose soul is flat-the skyWill cave in on him by and by.

One Art

By Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)  

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;so many things seem filled with the intentto be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the flusterof lost door keys, the hour badly spent.The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:places, and names, and where it was you meantto travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, ornext-to-last, of three loved houses went.The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
Even losing you (the joking voice, a gestureI love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evidentthe art of losing’s not too hard to masterthough it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

We Wear the Mask

By Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

We wear the mask that grins and lies,It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—This debt we pay to human guile;With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,In counting all our tears and sighs?Nay, let them only see us, whileWe wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our criesTo thee from tortured souls arise.We sing, but oh the clay is vileBeneath our feet, and long the mile;But let the world dream otherwise,We wear the mask!

The Answer

 By Anne Finch (1661–1720)

Disarmed with so genteel an air,The contest I give o’er;Yet, Alexander, have a care,And shock the sex no more.We rule the world our life’s whole race,Men but assume that right;First slaves to ev’ry tempting face,Then martyrs to our spite.You of one Orpheus sure have read,Who would like you have writHad he in London town been bred,And polished too his wit;But he poor soul thought all was well,And great should be his fame,When he had left his wife in hell,And birds and beasts could tame.Yet venturing then with scoffing rhymesThe women to incense,Resenting heroines of those timesSoon punished his offense.And as the Hebrus rolled his skull,And harp besmeared with blood,They clashing as the waves grew full,Still harmonized the flood.But you our follies gently treat,And spin so fine the thread,You need not fear his awkward fate,The lock won’t cost the head.Our admiration you commandFor all that’s gone before;What next we look for at your handCan only raise it more.Yet sooth the ladies I advise(As me too pride has wrought)We’re born to wit, but to be wiseBy admonitions taught.

Walking Around

 By Pablo Neruda  (1904-1973)

It so happens I am sick of being a man.And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie housesdried up, waterproof, like a swan made of feltsteering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse sobs.The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool.The only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens,no more goods, no spectacles, no elevators.It so happens I am sick of my feet and my nailsand my hair and my shadow.It so happens I am sick of being a man.Still it would be marvelousto terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.It would be greatto go through the streets with a green knifeletting out yells until I died of the cold.I don’t want to go on being a root in the dark,insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep,going on down, into the moist guts of the earth,taking in and thinking, eating every day.I don’t want so much misery.I don’t want to go on as a root and a tomb,alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,half frozen, dying of grief.That’s why Monday, when it sees me comingwith my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night.And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist houses,into hospitals where the bones fly out the window,into shoeshops that smell like vinegar,and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin.There are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestineshanging over the doors of houses that I hate,and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,there are mirrorsthat ought to have wept from shame and terror,there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical cords.I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,my rage, forgetting everything,I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic shops,and courtyards with washing hanging from the line:underwear, towels and shirts from which slowdirty tears are falling.

The Sun Has Long Been Set

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

The sun has long been set,

The stars are out by twos and threes,

The little birds are piping yet

Among the bushes and trees;

There's a cuckoo, and one or two thrushes,

And a far-off wind that rushes,

And a sound of water that gushes,

And the cuckoo's sovereign cry

Fills all the hollow of the sky.

Who would "go parading"

In London, "and masquerading,"

On such a night of June

With that beautiful soft half-moon,

And all these innocent blesses?

On such a night as this is!

Apology

By Amy Lowell (1874-1925)

Be not angry with me that I bearYour colours everywhere,All through each crowded street,And meetThe wonder-light in every eye,As I go by.
Each plodding wayfarer looks up to gaze,Blinded by rainbow haze,The stuff of happiness,No less,Which wraps me in its glad-hued foldsOf peacock golds.
Before my feet the dusty, rough-paved wayFlushes beneath its gray.My steps fall ringed with light,So bright,It seems a myriad suns are strownAbout the town.
Around me is the sound of steepled bells,And rich perfumed smellsHang like a wind-forgotten cloud,And shroudMe from close contact with the world.I dwell impearled.
You blazon me with jewelled insignia.A flaming nebulaRims in my life. And yetYou setThe word upon me, unconfessedTo go unguessed. 

No Man Is An Island

 By John Donne (1572–1631)

No man is an island,Entire of itself,Every man is a piece of the continent,A part of the main.If a clod be washed away by the sea,Europe is the less.As well as if a promontory were.As well as if a manor of thy friend’sOr of thine own were:Any man’s death diminishes me,Because I am involved in mankind,And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;It tolls for thee.

Paradise Lost: Book 1

By John Milton (1608–1674)

OF Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit

Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast

Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,

With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,

Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top

Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,

In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth

Rose out of Chaos: or if Sion Hill

Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flow'd

Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence

Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,

That with no middle flight intends to soar

Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues

Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime.

And chiefly Thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer

Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,

Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first

Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread

Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss

And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark

Illumin, what is low raise and support;

That to the highth of this great Argument

I may assert Eternal Providence,

And justifie the wayes of God to men.


Say first, for Heav'n hides nothing from thy view

Nor the deep Tract of Hell, say first what cause

Mov'd our Grand Parents in that happy State,

Favour'd of Heav'n so highly, to fall off

From thir Creator, and transgress his Will

For one restraint, Lords of the World besides?

Who first seduc'd them to that foul revolt?

Th' infernal Serpent; he it was, whose guile

Stird up with Envy and Revenge, deceiv'd

The Mother of Mankind, what time his Pride

Had cast him out from Heav'n, with all his Host

Of Rebel Angels, by whose aid aspiring

To set himself in Glory above his Peers,

He trusted to have equal'd the most High,

If he oppos'd; and with ambitious aim

Against the Throne and Monarchy of God

Rais'd impious War in Heav'n and Battel proud

With vain attempt.   Him the Almighty Power

Hurld headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Skie

With hideous ruine and combustion down

To bottomless perdition, there to dwell

In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire,

Who durst defie th' Omnipotent to Arms.

Nine times the Space that measures Day and Night

To mortal men, he with his horrid crew

Lay vanquisht, rowling in the fiery Gulfe

Confounded though immortal: But his doom

Reserv'd him to more wrath; for now the thought

Both of lost happiness and lasting pain

Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes

That witness'd huge affliction and dismay

Mixt with obdurate pride and stedfast hate:

At once as far as Angels kenn he views

The dismal Situation waste and wilde,

A Dungeon horrible, on all sides round

As one great Furnace flam'd, yet from those flames

No light, but rather darkness visible

Serv'd onely to discover sights of woe,

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace

And rest can never dwell, hope never comes

That comes to all; but torture without end

Still urges, and a fiery Deluge, fed

With ever-burning Sulphur unconsum'd:

Such place Eternal Justice had prepar'd

For those rebellious, here thir prison ordained

In utter darkness, and thir portion set

As far remov'd from God and light of Heav'n

As from the Center thrice to th' utmost Pole.

O how unlike the place from whence they fell!

There the companions of his fall, o'rewhelm'd

With Floods and Whirlwinds of tempestuous fire,

He soon discerns, and weltring by his side

One next himself in power, and next in crime,

Long after known in Palestine, and nam'd

Beelzebub.   To whom th' Arch-Enemy,

And thence in Heav'n call'd Satan, with bold words

Breaking the horrid silence thus began.


If thou beest he; But O how fall'n! how chang'd

From him, who in the happy Realms of Light

Cloth'd with transcendent brightness didst out-shine

Myriads though bright: If he whom mutual league,

United thoughts and counsels, equal hope

And hazard in the Glorious Enterprize,

Joynd with me once, now misery hath joynd

In equal ruin: into what Pit thou seest

From what highth fall'n, so much the stronger prov'd

He with his Thunder: and till then who knew

The force of those dire Arms?   yet not for those,

Nor what the Potent Victor in his rage

Can else inflict, do I repent or change,

Though chang'd in outward lustre; that fixt mind

And high disdain, from sence of injur'd merit,

That with the mightiest rais'd me to contend,

And to the fierce contention brought along

Innumerable force of Spirits arm'd

That durst dislike his reign, and me preferring,

His utmost power with adverse power oppos'd

In dubious Battel on the Plains of Heav'n,

And shook his throne.   What though the field be lost?

All is not lost; the unconquerable Will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield:

And what is else not to be overcome?

That Glory never shall his wrath or might

Extort from me.   To bow and sue for grace

With suppliant knee, and deifie his power,

Who from the terrour of this Arm so late

Doubted his Empire, that were low indeed,

That were an ignominy and shame beneath

This downfall; since by Fate the strength of Gods

And this Empyreal substance cannot fail,

Since through experience of this great event

In Arms not worse, in foresight much advanc't,

We may with more successful hope resolve

To wage by force or guile eternal Warr

Irreconcileable, to our grand Foe,

Who now triumphs, and in th' excess of joy

Sole reigning holds the Tyranny of Heav'n.


So spake th' Apostate Angel, though in pain,

Vaunting aloud, but rackt with deep despare:

And him thus answer'd soon his bold Compeer.


O Prince, O Chief of many Throned Powers,

That led th' imbattelld Seraphim to Warr

Under thy conduct, and in dreadful deeds

Fearless, endanger'd Heav'ns perpetual King;

And put to proof his high Supremacy,

Whether upheld by strength, or Chance, or Fate,

Too well I see and rue the dire event,

That with sad overthrow and foul defeat

Hath lost us Heav'n, and all this mighty Host

In horrible destruction laid thus low,

As far as Gods and Heav'nly Essences

Can perish: for the mind and spirit remains

Invincible, and vigour soon returns,

Though all our Glory extinct and happy state

Here swallow'd up in endless misery.

But what if he our Conquerour, (whom I now

Of force believe Almighty, since no less

Then such could hav orepow'rd such force as ours)

Have left us this our spirit and strength intire

Strongly to suffer and support our pains,

That we may so suffice his vengeful ire,

Or do him mightier service as his thralls

By right of Warr, what e're his business be

Here in the heart of Hell to work in Fire,

Or do his Errands in the gloomy Deep;

What can it then avail though yet we feel

Strength undiminisht, or eternal being

To undergo eternal punishment?

Whereto with speedy words th' Arch-fiend reply'd.


Fall'n Cherube, to be weak is miserable

Doing or Suffering: but of this be sure,

To do ought good never will be our task,

But ever to do ill our sole delight,

As being the contrary to his high will

Whom we resist.   If then his Providence

Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,

Our labour must be to pervert that end,

And out of good still to find means of evil;

Which oft times may succeed, so as perhaps

Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb

His inmost counsels from thir destind aim.

But see the angry Victor hath recall'd

His Ministers of vengeance and pursuit

Back to the Gates of Heav'n: the Sulphurous Hail

Shot after us in storm, oreblown hath laid

The fiery Surge, that from the Precipice

Of Heav'n receiv'd us falling, and the Thunder,

Wing'd with red Lightning and impetuous rage,

Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now

To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep.

Let us not slip th' occasion, whether scorn,

Or satiate fury yield it from our Foe.

Seest thou yon dreary Plain, forlorn and wilde,

The seat of desolation, voyd of light,

Save what the glimmering of these livid flames

Casts pale and dreadful?   Thither let us tend

From off the tossing of these fiery waves,

There rest, if any rest can harbour there,

And reassembling our afflicted Powers,

Consult how we may henceforth most offend

Our Enemy, our own loss how repair,

How overcome this dire Calamity,

What reinforcement we may gain from Hope,

If not what resolution from despare.


Thus Satan to his neerest Mate

With Head up-lift above the wave, and Eyes

That sparkling blaz'd, his other Parts besides

Prone on the Flood, extended long and large

Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge

As whom the Fables name of monstrous size,

Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove,

Briareos or Typhon, whom the Den

By ancient Tarsus held, or that Sea-beast

Leviathan, which God of all his works

Created hugest that swim th' Ocean stream:

Him haply slumbring on the Norway foam

The Pilot of some small night-founder'd Skiff,

Deeming some Island, oft, as Sea-men tell,

With fixed Anchor in his skaly rind

Moors by his side under the Lee, while Night

Invests the Sea, and wished Morn delayes:

So stretcht out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay

Chain'd on the burning Lake, nor ever thence

Had ris'n or heav'd his head, but that the will

And high permission of all-ruling Heaven

Left him at large to his own dark designs,

That with reiterated crimes he might

Heap on himself damnation, while he sought

Evil to others, and enrag'd might see

How all his malice serv'd but to bring forth

Infinite goodness, grace and mercy shewn

On Man by him seduc't, but on himself

Treble confusion, wrath and vengeance pour'd.

Forthwith upright he rears from off the Pool

His mighty Stature; on each hand the flames

Drivn backward slope thir pointing spires, and rowld

In billows, leave i'th'midst a horrid Vale.

Then with expanded wings he stears his flight

Aloft, incumbent on the dusky Air

That felt unusual weight, till on dry Land

He lights, as if it were Land that ever burn'd

With solid, as the Lake with liquid fire;

And such appear'd in hue, as when the force

Of subterranean wind transports a Hill

Torn from Pelorus, or the shatter'd side

Of thundring Aetna, whose combustible

And fewel'd entrals thence conceiving Fire,

Sublim'd with Mineral fury, aid the Winds,

And leave a singed bottom all involv'd

With stench and smoak: Such resting found the sole

Of unblest feet.   Him followed his next Mate,

Both glorying to have scap't the Stygian flood

As Gods, and by thir own recover'd strength,

Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.


Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime,

Said then the lost Arch-Angel, this the seat

That we must change for Heav'n, this mournful gloom

For that celestial light?   Be it so, since he

Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid

What shall be right: fardest from him his best

Whom reason hath equald, force hath made supream

Above his equals.   Farewel happy Fields

Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail

Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell

Receive thy new Possessor:   One who brings

A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.

The mind is its own place, and in it self

Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.

What matter where, if I be still the same,

And what I should be, all but less then he

Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least

We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built

Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:

Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce

To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:

Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.

But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,

Th' associates and copartners of our loss

Lye thus astonisht on th' oblivious Pool,

And call them not to share with us their part

In this unhappy Mansion, or once more

With rallied Arms to try what may be yet

Regaind in Heav'n, or what more lost in Hell?


So Satan spake, and him Beelzebub

Thus answer'd.   Leader of those Armies bright,

Which but th' Omnipotent none could have foyld,

If once they hear that voyce, thir liveliest pledge

Of hope in fears and dangers, heard so oft

In worst extreams, and on the perilous edge

Of battel when it rag'd, in all assaults

Thir surest signal, they will soon resume

New courage and revive, though now they lye

Groveling and prostrate on yon Lake of Fire,

As we erewhile, astounded and amaz'd,

No wonder, fall'n such a pernicious highth.


He scarce had ceas't when the superiour Fiend

Was moving toward the shoar; his ponderous shield

Ethereal temper, massy, large and round,

Behind him cast; the broad circumference

Hung on his shoulders like the Moon, whose Orb

Through Optic Glass the Tuscan Artist views

At Ev'ning from the top of Fesole,

Or in Valdarno, to descry new Lands,

Rivers or Mountains in her spotty Globe.

His Spear, to equal which the tallest Pine

Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the Mast

Of some great Ammiral, were but a wand,

He walkt with to support uneasie steps

Over the burning Marle, not like those steps

On Heavens Azure, and the torrid Clime

Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with Fire;

Nathless he so endur'd, till on the Beach

Of that inflamed Sea, he stood and call'd

His Legions, Angel Forms, who lay intrans't

Thick as Autumnal Leaves that strow the Brooks

In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades

High overarch't imbowr; or scatterd sedge

Afloat, when with fierce Winds Orion arm'd

Hath vext the Red-Sea Coast, whose waves orethrew

Busirus and his Memphian Chivalry,

While with perfidious hatred they pursu'd

The Sojourners of Goshen, who beheld

From the safe shore thir floating Carkases

And broken Chariot Wheels, so thick bestrown

Abject and lost lay these, covering the Flood,

Under amazement of thir hideous change.

He call'd so loud, that all the hollow Deep

Of Hell resounded. Princes, Potentates

Warriers, the Flowr of Heav'n, once yours, now lost,

If such astonishment as this can sieze

Eternal spirits; or have ye chos'n this place

After the toyl of Battel to repose

Your wearied vertue, for the ease you find

To slumber here, as in the Vales of Heav'n?

Or in this abject posture have ye sworn

To adore the Conquerour?   who now beholds

Cherube and Seraph rowling in the Flood

With scatter'd Arms and Ensigns, till anon

His swift pursuers from Heav'n Gates discern

Th' advantage, and descending tread us down

Thus drooping, or with linked Thunderbolts

Transfix us to the bottom of this Gulfe.

Awake, arise, or be for ever fall'n.


They heard, and were abasht, and up they sprung

Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch

On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread,

Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.

Nor did they not perceave the evil plight

In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel;

Yet to thir Generals Voyce they soon obeyd

Innumerable.   As when the potent Rod

Of Amrams Son in Egypts evill day

Wav'd round the Coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud

Of Locusts, warping on the Eastern Wind,

That ore the Realm of impious Pharaoh hung

Like Night, and darken'd all the Land of Nile:

So numberless were those bad Angels seen

Hovering on wind under the Cope of Hell

'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding Fires;

Till, as a signal giv'n, th' uplifted Spear

Of thir great Sultan waving to direct

Thir course, in even ballance down they light

On the firm brimstone, and fill all the Plain;

A multitude, like which the populous North

Pour'd never from her frozen loyns, to pass

Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous Sons

Came like a Deluge on the South, and spread

Beneath Gibralter to the Lybian sands.

Forthwith from every Squadron and each Band

The Heads and Leaders thither hast where stood

Thir great Commander; Godlike shapes and forms

Excelling human, Princely Dignities,

And Powers that earst in Heaven sat on Thrones;

Though of thir Names in heav'nly Records now

Be no memorial blotted out and ras'd

By thir Rebellion, from the Books of Life.

Nor had they yet among the Sons of Eve

Got them new Names, till wandring ore the Earth,

Through Gods high sufferance for the tryal of man,

By falsities and lyes the greatest part

Of Mankind they corrupted to forsake

God thir Creator, and th' invisible

Glory of him that made them, to transform

Oft to the Image of a Brute, adorn'd

With gay Religions full of Pomp and Gold,

And Devils to adore for Deities:

Then were they known to men by various Names,

And various Idols through the Heathen World.

Say, Muse, the Names then known, who first, who last,

Rous'd from the slumber, on that fiery Couch,

At thir great Emperors call, as next in worth

Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,

While the promiscuous croud stood yet aloof?

The chief were those who from the Pit of Hell

Roaming to seek thir prey on earth, durst fix

Thir Seats long after next the Seat of God,

Thir Altars by his Altar, Gods ador'd

Among the Nations round, and durst abide

Jehovah thundring out of Sion, thron'd

Between the Cherubim; yea, often plac'd

Within his Sanctuary it self thir Shrines,

Abominations; and with cursed things

His holy Rites, and solemn Feasts profan'd,

And with thir darkness durst affront his light.

First Moloch, horrid King besmear'd with blood

Of human sacrifice, and parents tears,

Though for the noyse of Drums and Timbrels loud

Thir childrens cries unheard, that past through fire

To his grim Idol.   Him the Ammonite

Worshipt in Rabba and her watry Plain,

In Argob and in Basan, to the stream

Of utmost Arnon.   Not content with such

Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart

Of Solomon he led by fraud to build

His Temple right against the Temple of God

On that opprobrious Hill, and made his Grove

The pleasant Vally of Hinnom, Tophet thence

And black Gehenna call'd, the Type of Hell.

Next Chemos, th' obscene dread of Moabs Sons,

From Aroar to Nebo, and the wild

Of Southmost Abarim; in Hesebon

And Heronaim, Seons Realm, beyond

The flowry Dale of Sibma clad with Vines,

And Eleale to th' Asphaltick Pool.

Peor his other Name, when he entic'd

Israel in Sittim on thir march from Nile

To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.

Yet thence his lustful Orgies he enlarg'd

Even to that Hill of scandal, but the Grove

Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate;

Till good Josiah drove them hence to Hell.

With these cam they, who from the bordring flood

Of old Euphrates to the Brook that parts

Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names

Of Baalim and Ashtaroth, those male,

These Feminine.   For Spirits when they please

Can either Sex assume, or both; so soft

And uncompounded is thir Essence pure,

Nor ti'd or manacl'd with joynt or limb,

Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,

Like cumbrous flesh; but in what shape they choose

Dilated or condens't, bright or obscure,

Can execute thir aerie purposes,

And works of love or enmity fulfill.

For those the Race of Israel oft forsook

Thir living strength, and unfrequented left

His righteous Altar, bowing lowly down

To bestial Gods; for which thir heads as low

Bow'd down in Battel, sunk before the Spear

Of despicable foes.   With these in troop

Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians call'd

Astarte, Queen of Heav'n, with crescent Horns;

To whose bright Image nightly by the Moon

Sidonian Virgins paid thir Vows and Songs,

In Sion also not unsung, where stood

Her Temple on th' offensive Mountain, built

By that uxorious King, whose heart though large,

Beguil'd by fair Idolatresses, fell

To idols foul.   Thammuz came next behind,

Whose annual wound in Lebanon allur'd

The Syrian Damsels to lament his fate

In amorous dittyes all a Summers day,

While smooth Adonis from his native Rock

Ran purple to the Sea, suppos'd with blood

Of Thammuz yearly wounded; the Love-tale

Infected Sions daughters with like heat,

Whose wanton passions in the sacred Porch

Ezekial saw, when by the Vision led

His eye survay'd the dark Idolatries

Of alienated Judah.   Next came one

Who mourn'd in earnest, when the Captive Ark

Maim'd his brute Image, head and hands lopt off

In his own Temple, on the grunsel edge,

Where he fell flat, and sham'd his Worshipers:

Dagon his Name, Sea Monster, upward Man

And downward Fish: yet had his Temple high

Rear'd in Azotus, dreaded through the Coast

Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon

And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds.

Him follow'd Rimmon, whose delightful Seat

Was fair Damascus, on the fertil Banks

Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams.

He also against the house of God was bold:

A Leper once he lost and gain'd a King,

Ahaz his sottish Conquerour, whom he drew

Gods Altar to disparage and displace

For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn

His odious offrings, and adore the Gods

Whom he had vanquisht.   After these appear'd

A crew who under Names of old Renown,

Osiris, Isis, Orus and thir Train

With monstrous shapes and sorceries abus'd

Fanatic Egypt and her Priests, to seek

Thir wandring Gods Disguis'd in brutish forms

Rather then human.   Nor did Israel scape

Th' infection when thir borrow'd Gold compos'd

The Calf in Oreb: and the Rebel King

Doubl'd that sin in Bethel and in Dan,

Lik'ning his Maker to the Grazed Ox,

Jehovah, who in one Night when he pass'd

From Egypt marching, equal'd with one stroke

Both her first born and all her bleating Gods

Belial came last, then whom a Spirit more lewd

Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love

Vice for it self: To him no Temple stood

Or Altar smoak'd; yet who more oft then hee

In Temples and at Altars, when the Priest

Turns Atheist, as did Ely's Sons, who fill'd

With lust and violence the house of God.

In Courts and Palaces he also Reigns

And in luxurious Cities, where the noyse

Of riot ascends above thir loftiest Towrs,

And injury and outrage: And when Night

Darkens the Streets, then wander forth the Sons

Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.

Witness the Streets of Sodom, and that night

In Gibeah, when the hospitable door

Expos'd a Matron to avoid worse rape.

These were the prime in order and in might;

The rest were long to tell, though far renown'd,

Th' Ionian Gods, of Javans issue held

Gods, yet confest later then Heav'n and Earth

Thir boasted Parents; Titan Heav'ns first born

With his enormous brood, and birthright seis'd

By younger Saturn, he from mightier Jove

His own and Rhea's Son like measure found;

So Jove usurping reign'd: these first in Creet

And Ida known, thence on the Snowy top

Of cold Olympus rul'd the middle Air

Thir highest Heav'n; or on the Delphian Cliff,

Or in Dodona, and through all the bounds

Of Doric Land; or who with Saturn old

Fled over Adria to th' Hesperian Fields,

And ore the Celtic roam'd the utmost Isles.

All these and more came flocking; but with looks

Down cast and damp, yet such wherein appear'd

Obscure some glimps of joy, to have found thir chief

Not in despair, to have found themselves not lost

In loss itself; which on his count'nance cast

Like doubtful hue: but he his wonted pride

Soon recollecting, with high words, that bore

Semblance of worth, not substance, gently rais'd

Thir fanting courage, and dispel'd thir fears.

Then strait commands that at the warlike sound

Of Trumpets loud and Clarions be upreard

His mighty Standard; that proud honour claim'd

Azazel as his right, a Cherube tall:

Who forthwith from the glittering Staff unfurld

Th' Imperial Ensign, which full high advanc't

Shon like a Meteor streaming to the Wind

With Gemms and Golden lustre rich imblaz'd,

Seraphic arms and Trophies: all the while

Sonorous mettal blowing Martial sounds:

At which the universal Host upsent

A shout that tore Hells Concave, and beyond

Frighted the Reign of Chaos and old Night.

All in a moment through the gloom were seen

Ten thousand Banners rise into the Air

With Orient Colours waving: with them rose

A Forrest huge of Spears: and thronging Helms

Appear'd, and serried Shields in thick array

Of depth immeasurable: Anon they move

In perfect Phalanx to the Dorian mood

Of Flutes and soft Recorders; such as rais'd

To hight of noblest temper Hero's old

Arming to Battel, and in stead of rage

Deliberate valour breath'd, firm and unmov'd

With dread of death to flight or foul retreat,

Nor wanting power to mitigate and swage

With solemn touches, troubl'd thoughts, and chase

Anguish and doubt and fear and sorrow and pain

From mortal or immortal minds.   Thus they

Breathing united force with fixed thought

Mov'd on in silence to soft Pipes that charm'd

Thir painful steps o're the burnt soyle; and now

Advanc't in view, they stand, a horrid Front

Of dreadful length and dazling Arms, in guise

Of Warriers old with order'd Spear and Shield,

Awaiting what command thir mighty Chief

Had to impose: He through the armed Files

Darts his experienc't eye, and soon traverse

The whole Battalion views, thir order due,

Thir visages and stature as of Gods,

Thir number last he summs.   And now his heart

Distends with pride, and hardning in his strength

Glories: For never since created man,

Met such imbodied force, as nam'd with these

Could merit more then that small infantry

Warr'd on by Cranes: though all the Giant brood

Of Phlegra with th' Heroic Race were joyn'd

That fought at Theb's and Ilium, on each side

Mixt with auxiliar Gods;   and what resounds

In Fable or Romance of Uthers Sons

Begirt with British and Armoric Knights;

And all who since Baptiz'd or Infidel

Jousted in Aspramont or Montalban,

Damasco, or Marocco, or Trebisond

Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore

When Charlemain with all his Peerage fell

By Fontarabbia.   Thus far these beyond

Compare of mortal prowess, yet observ'd

Thir dread commander: he above the rest

In shape and gesture proudly eminent

Stood like a Towr; his form had yet not lost

All her Original brightness, nor appear'd

Less then Arch Angel ruind, and th' excess

Of Glory obscur'd;   As when the Sun new ris'n

Looks through the Horizontal misty Air

Shorn of his Beams, or from behind the Moon

In dim Eclips disastrous twilight sheds

On half the Nations, and with fear of change

Perplexes Monarch.   Dark'n'd so, yet shon

Above them all th' Arch Angel; but his face

Deep scars of Thunder had intrencht, and care

Sat on his faded cheek, but under Browes

Of dauntless courage, and considerate Pride

Waiting revenge: cruel his eye, but cast

Signs of remorse and passion to behold

The fellows of his crime, the followers rather

(Far other once beheld in bliss) condemn'd

For ever now to have thir lot in pain,

Millions of Spirits for his fault amerc't

Of Heav'n, and from Eternal Splendors flung

For his revolt, yet faithfull how they stood,

Thir Glory witherd.   As when Heavens Fire

Hath scath'd the Forrest Oaks, or Mountain Pines,

With singed top thir stately growth though bare

Stands on the blasted Heath.   He now prepar'd

To speak; whereat thir doubl'd Ranks they bend

From wing to wing, and half enclose him round

With all his Peers: attention held them mute.

Thrice he assayd, and thrice in spight of scorn,

Tears such as Angels weep, burst forth: at last

Words interwove with sighs found out thir way.


O Myriads of immortal Spirits, O Powers

Matchless, but with th' Almighty, and that strife

Was not inglorious, though th' event was dire,

As this place testifies, and this dire change

Hateful to utter: but what power of mind

Foreseeing or presaging, from the Depth

Of knowledge past or present, could have fear'd,

How such united force of Gods, how such

As stood like these, could ever know repulse?

For who can yet beleeve, though after loss,

That all these puissant Legions, whose exile

Hath emptied Heav'n, shall fail to re-ascend

Self-rais'd, and repossess thir native seat?

For mee be witness all the Host of Heav'n,

If counsels different, or danger shun'd

By mee, have lost our hopes.   But he who reigns

Monarch in Heav'n, till then as one secure

Sat on his Throne, upheld by old repute,

Consent or custome, and his Regal State

Put forth at full, but still his strength conceal'd,

Which tempted our attempt, and wrought our fall.

Henceforth his might we know, and know our own

So as not either to provoke, or dread

New warr, provok't; our better part remains

To work in close design, by fraud or guile

What force effected not: that he no less

At length from us may find, who overcomes

By force, hath overcome but half his foe.

Space may produce new Worlds; whereof so rife

There went a fame in Heav'n that he ere long

Intended to create, and therein plant

A generation, whom his choice regard

Should favour equal to the Sons of Heaven:

Thither, if but to pry, shall be perhaps

Our first eruption, thither or elsewhere:

For this Infernal Pit shall never hold

Caelestial Spirits in Bondage, nor th' Abyss

Long under darkness cover.   But these thoughts

Full Counsel must mature: Peace is despaird,

For who can think Submission? Warr then, Warr

Open or understood must be resolv'd.


He spake: and to confirm his words, out-flew

Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs

Of mighty Cherubim; the sudden blaze

Far round illumin'd hell: highly they rag'd

Against the Highest, and fierce with grasped Arms

Clash'd on thir sounding Shields the din of war,

Hurling defiance toward the Vault of Heav'n.


There stood a hill not far whose griesly top

Belch'd fire and rowling smoak; the rest entire

Shon with a glossie scurff, undoubted sign

That in his womb was hid metallic Ore,

The work of Sulphur.   Thither wing'd with speed

A numerous Brigad hasten'd.   As when Bands

Of Pioners with Spade and Pickax arm'd

Forerun the Royal Camp, to trench a Field,

Or cast a Rampart.   Mammon led them on,

Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell

From heav'n, for ev'n in heav'n his looks and thoughts

Were always downward bent, admiring more

The riches of Heav'ns pavement, trod'n Gold,

Then aught divine or holy else enjoy'd

In vision beatific: by him first

Men also, and by his suggestion taught

Ransack'd the Center, and with impious hands

Rifl'd the bowels of thir mother Earth

For Treasures better hid.   Soon had his crew

Op'nd into the Hill a spacious wound

And dig'd out ribs of Gold.   Let none admire

That riches grow in Hell; that soyle may best

Deserve the precious bane.   And here let those

Who boast in mortal things, and wond'ring tell

Of Babel, and the works of Memphian Kings

Learn how thir greatest Monuments of Fame,

And Strength and Art are easily out-done

By Spirits reprobate, and in an hour

What in an age they with incessant toyle

And hands innumerable scarce perform.

Nigh on the Plain in many cells prepar'd

That underneath had veins of liquid fire

Sluc'd from the Lake, a second multitude

With wond'rous Art found out the massie Ore,

Severing each kind, and scum'd the Bullion dross:

A third as soon had form'd within the ground

A various mould, and from the boyling cells

By strange conveyance fill'd each hollow nook,

As in an Organ from one blast of wind

To many a row of Pipes the sound-board breaths.

Anon out of the earth a Fabrick huge

Rose like an Exhalation, with the sound

Of Dulcet Symphonies and voices sweet,

Built like a Temple, where Pilasters round

Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid

With Golden Architrave; nor did there want

Cornice or Freeze, with bossy Sculptures grav'n,

The Roof was fretted Gold.   Not Babilon,

Nor great Alcairo such magnificence

Equal'd in all thir glories, to inshrine

Belus or Serapis thir Gods, or seat

Thir Kings, when Aegypt with Assyria strove

In wealth and luxurie.   Th' ascending pile

Stood fixt her stately highth, and strait the dores

Op'ning thir brazen foulds discover wide

Within, her ample spaces, o're the smooth

And level pavement: from the arched roof

Pendant by suttle Magic many a row

Of Starry Lamps and blazing Cressets fed

With Naphtha and Asphaltus yeilded light

As from a sky.   The hasty multitude

Admiring enter'd, and the work some praise

And some the Architect: his hand was known

In Heav'n by many a Towred structure high,

Where Scepter'd Angels held thir residence,

And sat as Princes, whom the supreme King

Exalted to such power, and gave to rule,

Each in his Hierarchie, the Orders bright.

Nor was his name unheard or unador'd

In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land

Men call'd him Mulciber; and how he fell

From Heav'n, they fabl'd, thrown by angry Jove

Sheer o're the Chrystal Battlements; from Morn

To Noon he fell, from Noon to dewy Eve,

A Summers day; and with the setting Sun

Dropt from the Zenith like a falling Star,

On Lemnos th' Aegaean Ile: thus they relate,

Erring; for he with this rebellious rout

Fell long before; nor aught avail'd him now

To have built in Heav'n high Towrs; nor did he scape

By all his Engins, but was headlong sent

With his industrious crew to build in hell.

Mean while the winged Haralds by command

Of Sovran power, with awful Ceremony

And Trumpets sound throughout the Host proclaim

A solemn Councel forthwith to be held

At Pandaemonium, the high Capital

Of Satan and his Peers: thir summons call'd

From every Band and squared Regiment

By place or choice the worthiest; they anon

With hunderds and with thousands trooping came

Attended: all access was throng'd, the Gates

And Porches wide, but chief the spacious Hall

(Though like a cover'd field, where Champions bold

Wont ride in arm'd, and at the Soldans chair

Defi'd the best of Panim chivalry

To mortal combat or carreer with Lance)

Thick swarm'd, both on the ground and in the air,

Brusht with the hiss of russling wings.   As Bees

In spring time, when the Sun with Taurus rides,

Pour forth thir populous youth about the Hive

In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers

Flie to and fro, or on the smoothed Plank,

The suburb of thir Straw-built Cittadel,

New rub'd with Baum, expatiate and confer

Thir State affairs.   So thick the aerie crowd

Swarm'd and were straitn'd; till the Signal giv'n

Behold a wonder! they but now who seemd

In bigness to surpass Earths Giant Sons

Now less then smallest Dwarfs, in narrow room

Throng numberless, like that Pigmean Race

Beyond the Indian Mount, or Faerie Elves,

Whose midnight Revels, by a Forrest side

Or Fountain some belated Peasant sees,

Or dreams he sees, while over-head the Moon

Sits Arbitress, and neerer to the Earth

Wheels her pale course, they on thir mirth and dance

Intent, with jocond Music charm his ear;

At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.

Thus incorporeal Spirits to smallest forms

Reduc'd thir shapes immense, and were at large,

Though without number still amidst the Hall

Of that infernal Court.   But far within

And in thir own dimensions like themselves

The great Seraphic Lords and Cherubim

In close recess and secret conclave sat

A thousand Demy-Gods on golden seat's,

Frequent and full.   After short silence then

And summons read, the great consult began.

Search for Modernized Version of Paradise Lost [Here]

Paradise Lost: Book 2

 By John Milton (1608–1674)

HIgh on a Throne of Royal State, which far

Outshon the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,

Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand

Showrs on her Kings Barbaric Pearl and Gold,

Satan exalted sat, by merit rais'd

To that bad eminence; and from despair

Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires

Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue

Vain Warr with Heav'n, and by success untaught

His proud imaginations thus displaid.


Powers and Dominions, Deities of Heav'n,

For since no deep within her gulf can hold

Immortal vigor, though opprest and fall'n,

I give not Heav'n for lost.   From this descent

Celestial vertues rising, will appear

More glorious and more dread then from no fall,

And trust themselves to fear no second fate:

Mee though just right, and the fixt Laws of Heav'n

Did first create your Leader, next free choice,

With what besides, in Counsel or in Fight,

Hath bin achievd of merit, yet this loss

Thus farr at least recover'd, hath much more

Establisht in a safe unenvied Throne

Yielded with full consent.   The happier state

In Heav'n, which follows dignity, might draw

Envy from each inferior; but who here

Will envy whom the highest place exposes

Formost to stand against the Thunderers aim

Your bulwark, and condemns to greatest share

Of endless pain? where there is then no good

For which to strive, no strife can grow up there

From Faction; for none sure will claim in Hell

Precedence, none, whose portion is so small

Of present pain, that with ambitious mind

Will covet more.   With this advantage then

To union, and firm Faith, and firm accord,

More then can be in Heav'n, we now return

To claim our just inheritance of old,

Surer to prosper then prosperity

Could have assur'd us; and by what best way,

Whether of open Warr or covert guile,

We now debate; who can advise, may speak.


He ceas'd, and next him Moloc, Scepter'd King

Stood up, the strongest and the fiercest Spirit

That fought in Heav'n; now fiercer by despair:

His trust was with th' Eternal to be deem'd

Equal in strength, and rather then be less

Car'd not to be at all; with that care lost

Went all his fear: of God, or Hell, or worse

He reck'd not, and these words thereafter spake.


My sentence is for open Warr: Of Wiles,

More unexpert, I boast not: them let those

Contrive who need, or when they need, not now.

For while they sit contriving, shall the rest,

Millions that stand in Arms, and longing wait

The Signal to ascend, sit lingring here

Heav'ns fugitives, and for thir dwelling place

Accept this dark opprobrious Den of shame,

The Prison of his Tyranny who Reigns

By our delay? no, let us rather choose

Arm'd with Hell flames and fury all at once

O're Heav'ns high Towrs to force resistless way,

Turning our Tortures into horrid Arms

Against the Torturer; when to meet the noise

Of his Almighty Engin he shall hear

Infernal Thunder, and for Lightning see

Black fire and horror shot with equal rage

Among his Angels; and his Throne it self

Mixt with Tartarean Sulphur, and strange fire,

His own invented Torments.   But perhaps

The way seems difficult and steep to scale

With upright wing against a higher foe.

Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench

Of that forgetful Lake benumm not still,

That in our proper motion we ascend

Up to our native seat: descent and fall

To us is adverse.   Who but felt of late

When the fierce Foe hung on our brok'n Rear

Insulting, and pursu'd us through the Deep,

With what compulsion and laborious flight

We sunk thus low?   Th' ascent is easie then;

Th' event is fear'd; should we again provoke

Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find

To our destruction: if there be in Hell

Fear to be worse destroy'd: what can be worse

Then to dwell here, driv'n out from bliss, condemn'd

In this abhorred deep to utter woe;

Where pain of unextinguishable fire

Must exercise us without hope of end

The Vassals of his anger, when the Scourge

Inexorably, and the torturing hour

Calls us to Penance?   More destroy'd then thus

We should be quite abolisht and expire.

What fear we then? what doubt we to incense

His utmost ire? which to the highth enrag'd,

Will either quite consume us, and reduce

To nothing this essential, happier farr

Then miserable to have eternal being:

Or if our substance be indeed Divine,

And cannot cease to be, we are at worst

On this side nothing; and by proof we feel

Our power sufficient to disturb his Heav'n,

And with perpetual inrodes to Allarme,

Though inaccessible, his fatal Throne:

Which if not Victory is yet Revenge.


He ended frowning, and his look denounc'd

Desperate revenge, and Battel dangerous

To less then Gods.   On th' other side up rose

Belial, in act more graceful and humane;

A fairer person lost not Heav'n; he seemd

For dignity compos'd and high exploit:

But all was false and hollow; though his Tongue

Dropt Manna, and could make the worse appear

The better reason, to perplex and dash

Maturest Counsels: for his thoughts were low;

To vice industrious, but to Nobler deeds

Timorous and slothful: yet he pleas'd the ear,

And with perswasive accent thus began.


I should be much for open Warr, O Peers,

As not behind in hate; if what was urg'd

Main reason to perswade immediate Warr,

Did not disswade me most, and seem to cast

Ominous conjecture on the whole success:

When he who most excels in fact of Arms,

In what he counsels and in what excels

Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair

And utter dissolution, as the scope

Of all his aim, after some dire revenge.

First, what Revenge? the Towrs of Heav'n are fill'd

With Armed watch, that render all access

Impregnable; oft on the bordering Deep

Encamp thir Legions, or with obscure wing

Scout farr and wide into the Realm of night,

Scorning surprize.   Or could we break our way

By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise

With blackest Insurrection, to confound

Heav'ns purest Light, yet our great Enemy

All incorruptible would on his Throne

Sit unpolluted, and th' Ethereal mould

Incapable of stain would soon expel

Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire

Victorious.   Thus repuls'd, our final hope

Is flat despair: we must exasperate

Th' Almighty Victor to spend all his rage,

And that must end us, that must be our cure,

To be no more; sad cure; for who would loose,

Though full of pain, this intellectual being,

Those thoughts that wander through Eternity,

To perish rather, swallowd up and lost

In the wide womb of uncreated night,

Devoid of sense and motion? and who knows,

Let this be good, whether our angry Foe

Can give it, or will ever? how he can

Is doubtful; that he never will is sure.

Will he, so wise, let loose at once his ire,

Belike through impotence, or unaware,

To give his Enemies thir wish, and end

Them in his anger, whom his anger saves

To punish endless? wherefore cease we then?

Say they who counsel Warr, we are decreed,

Reserv'd and destin'd to Eternal woe;

Whatever doing, what can we suffer more,

What can we suffer worse? is this then worst,

Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in Arms?

What when we fled amain, pursu'd and strook

With Heav'ns afflicting Thunder, and besought

The Deep to shelter us? this Hell then seem'd

A refuge from those wounds: or when we lay

Chain'd on the burning Lake? that sure was worse.

What if the breath that kindl'd those grim fires

Awak'd should blow them into sevenfold rage

And plunge us in the flames? or from above

Should intermitted vengeance arm again

His red right hand to plague us? what if all

Her stores were open'd, and this Firmament

Of Hell should spout her Cataracts of Fire

Impendent horrors, threatning hideous fall

One day upon our heads; while we perhaps

Designing or exhorting glorious warr,

Caught in a fierie Tempest shall be hurl'd

Each on his rock transfixt, the sport and prey

Of racking whirlwinds, or for ever sunk

Under yon boyling Ocean, wrapt in Chains;

There to converse with everlasting groans,

Unrespited, unpitied, unrepreevd,

Ages of hopeless end; this would be worse.

Warr therefore, open or conceal'd, alike

My voice disswades; for what can force or guile

With him, or who deceive his mind, whose eye

Views all things at one view? he from heav'ns highth

All these our motions vain, sees and derides;

Not more Almighty to resist our might

Then wise to frustrate all our plots and wiles.

Shall we then live thus vile, the Race of Heav'n

Thus trampl'd, thus expell'd to suffer here

Chains and these Torments? better these then worse

By my advice; since fate inevitable

Subdues us, and Omnipotent Decree,

The Victors will.   To suffer, as to doe,

Our strength is equal, nor the Law unjust

That so ordains: this was at first resolv'd,

If we were wise, against so great a foe

Contending, and so doubtful what might fall.

I laugh, when those who at the Spear are bold

And vent'rous, if that fail them, shrink and fear

What yet they know must follow, to endure

Exile, or ignominy, or bonds, or pain,

The sentence of thir Conquerour: This is now

Our doom; which if we can sustain and bear,

Our Supream Foe in time may much remit

His anger, and perhaps thus farr remov'd

Not mind us not offending, satisfi'd

With what is punish't; whence these raging fires

Will slack'n, if his breath stir not thir flames.

Our purer essence then will overcome

Thir noxious vapour, or enur'd not feel,

Or chang'd at length, and to the place conformd

In temper and in nature, will receive

Familiar the fierce heat, and void of pain;

This horror will grow milde, this darkness light,

Besides what hope the never-ending flight

Of future dayes may bring, what chance, what change

Worth waiting, since our present lot appeers

For happy though but ill, for ill not worst,

If we procure not to our selves more woe.


Thus Belial with words cloath'd in reasons garb

Counsel'd ignoble ease, and peaceful sloath,

Not peace: and after him thus Mammon spake.


Either to disinthrone the King of Heav'n

We warr, if warr be best, or to regain

Our own right lost: him to unthrone we then

May hope when everlasting Fathe shall yeild

To fickle Chance and Chaos judge the strife:

The former vain to hope argues as vain

The latter: for what place can be for us

Within Heav'ns bound, unless Heav'ns Lord supream

We overpower?   Suppose he should relent

And publish Grace to all, on promise made

Of new Subjection; with what eyes could we

Stand in his presence humble, and receive

Strict Laws impos'd, to celebrate his Throne

With warbl'd Hymns, and to his God head sing

Forc't Halleluia's; while he Lordly sits

Our envied Sovran, and his Altar breathes

Ambrosial Odours and Ambrosial Flowers,

Our servile offerings.   This must be our task

In Heav'n this our delight; how wearisom

Eternity so spent in worship paid

To whom we hate.   Let us not then pursue

By force impossible, by leave obtain'd

Unacceptable, though in Heav'n, our state

Of splendid vassalage, but rather seek

Our own good from our selves, and from our own

Live to our selves, though in this vast recess,

Free, and to none accountable, preferring

Hard liberty before the easie yoke

Of servile Pomp.   Our greatness will appeer

Then most conspicuous, when great things of small,

Useful of hurtful, prosperous of adverse

We can create, and in what place so e're

Thrive under evil, and work ease out of pain

Through labour and indurance.   This deep world

Of darkness do we dread? How oft amidst

Thick clouds and dark doth Heav'ns all-ruling Sire

Choose to reside, his Glory unobscur'd,

And with the Majesty of darkness round

Covers his Throne; from whence deep thunders roar

Must'ring thir rage, and Heav'n resembles Hell?

As he our darkness, cannot we his Light

Imitate when we please? This Desart soile

Wants not her hidden lustre, Gemms and Gold;

Nor want we skill or Art, from whence to raise

Magnificence; and what can Heav'n shew more?

Our torments also may in length of time

Become our Elements, these piercing Fires

As soft as now severe, our temper chang'd

Into their temper; which must needs remove

The sensible of pain.   All things invite

To peaceful Counsels, and the settl'd State

Of order, how in safety best we may

Compose our present evils, with regard

Of what we are and were, dismissing quite

All thoughts of warr: ye have what I advise.


He scarce had finisht, when such murmur filld

Th' Assembly, as when hollow Rocks retain

The sound of blustring winds, which all night long

Had rous'd the Sea, now with hoarse cadence lull

Sea-faring men orewatcht, whose Bark by chance

Or Pinnace anchors in a craggy Bay

After the Tempest:   Such applause was heard

As Mammon ended, and his Sentence pleas'd,

Advising peace: for such another Field

They dreaded worse then Hell: so much the fear

Of Thunder and the Sword of Michael

Wrought still within them; and no less desire

To found this nether Empire, which might rise

By pollicy, and long process of time,

In emulation opposite to Heav'n.

Which when Beelzebub perceiv'd, then whom,

Satan except, none higher sat, with grave

Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd

A Pillar of State; deep on his Front engraven

Deliberation sat and public care;

And Princely counsel in his face yet shon,

Majestic though in ruin: sage he stood

With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear

The weight of mightiest Monarchies; his look

Drew audience and attention still as Night

Or Summers Noon-tide air, while thus he spake.


Thrones and Imperial Powers, off-spring of heav'n

Ethereal Vertues; or these Titles now

Must we renounce, and changing stile be call'd

Princes of Hell? for so the popular vote

Inclines, here to continue, and build up here

A growing Empire; doubtless; while we dream,

And know not that the King of Heav'n hath doom'd

This place our dungeon, not our safe retreat

Beyond his Potent arm, to live exempt

From Heav'ns high jurisdiction, in new League

Banded against his Throne, but to remaine

In strictest bondage, though thus far remov'd,

Under th' inevitable curb, reserv'd

His captive multitude: For he, be sure

In heighth or depth, still first and last will Reign

Sole King, and of his Kingdom loose no part

By our revolt, but over Hell extend

His Empire, and with Iron Scepter rule

Us here, as with his Golden those in Heav'n.

What sit we then projecting peace and Warr?

Warr hath determin'd us, and foild with loss

Irreparable; tearms of peace yet none

Voutsaf't or sought; for what peace will be giv'n

To us enslav'd, but custody severe,

And stripes, and arbitrary punishment

Inflicted? and what peace can we return,

But to our power hostility and hate,

Untam'd reluctance, and revenge though slow,

Yet ever plotting how the Conqueror least

May reap his conquest, and may least rejoyce

In doing what we most in suffering feel?

Nor will occasion want, nor shall we need

With dangerous expedition to invade

Heav'n, whose high walls fear no assault or Siege,

Or ambush from the Deep.   What if we find

Some easier enterprize? There is a place

(If ancient and prophetic fame in Heav'n

Err not) another World, the happy seat

Of some new Race call'd Man, about this time

To be created like to us, though less

In power and excellence, but favour'd more

Of him who rules above; so was his will

Pronounc'd among the Gods, and by an Oath,

That shook Heav'ns whol circumference, confirm'd.

Thither let us bend all our thoughts, to learn

What creatures there inhabit, of what mould,

Or substance, how endu'd, and what thir Power,

And where thir weakness, how attempted best,

By force or suttlety: Though Heav'n be shut,

And Heav'ns high Arbitrator sit secure

In his own strength, this place may lye expos'd

The utmost border of his Kingdom, left

To their defence who hold it: here perhaps

Som advantagious act may be achiev'd

By sudden onset, either with Hell fire

To waste his whole Creation, or possess

All as our own, and drive as we were driven,

The punie habitants, or if not drive,

Seduce them to our Party, that thir God

May prove thir foe, and with repenting hand

Abolish his own works.   This would surpass

Common revenge, and interrupt his joy

In our Confusion, and our joy upraise

In his disturbance; when his darling Sons

HurI'd headlong to partake with us, shall curse

Thir frail Original, and faded bliss,

Faded so soon.   Advise if this be worth

Attempting, or to sit in darkness here

Hatching vain Empires. Thus Beelzebub

Pleaded his devilish Counsel, first devis'd

By Satan, and in part propos'd: for whence,

But from the Author of all ill could Spring

So deep a malice, to confound the race

Of mankind in one root, and Earth with Hell

To mingle and involve, done all to spite

The great Creatour?   But thir spite still serves

His glory to augment.   The bold design

Pleas'd highly those infernal States, and joy

Sparkl'd in all thir eyes; with full assent

They vote: whereat his speech he thus renews.


Well have ye judg'd, well ended long debate,

Synod of Gods, and like to what ye are,

Great things resolv'd; which from the lowest deep

Will once more lift us up, in spight of Fate,

Neerer our ancient Seat; perhaps in view

Of those bright confines, whence with neighbouring Arms

And opportune excursion we may chance

Re-enter Heav'n; or else in some milde Zone

Dwell not unvisited of Heav'ns fair Light

Secure, and at the brightning Orient beam

Purge off this gloom; the soft delicious Air,

To heal the scarr of these corrosive Fires

Shall breathe her balme.   But first whom shall we send

In search of this new world, whom shall we find

Sufficient? who shall tempt with wandring feet

The dark unbottom'd infinite Abyss

And through the palpable obscure find out

His uncouth way, or spread his aerie flight

Upborn with indefatigable wings

Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive

The happy Ile; what strength, what art can then

Suffice, or what evasion bear him safe

Through the strict Senteries and Stations thick

Of Angels watching round?   Here he had need

All circumspection, and we now no less

Choice in our suffrage; for on whom we send,

The weight of all and our last hope relies.


This said, he sat; and expectation held

His look suspence, awaiting who appeer'd

To second, or oppose, or undertake

The perilous attempt: but all sat mute,

Pondering the danger with deep thoughts; and each

In others count'nance read his own dismay

Astonisht: none among the choice and prime

Of those Heav'n-warring Champions could be found

So hardie as to proffer or accept

Alone the dreadful voyage; till at last

Satan, whom now transcendent glory rais'd

Above his fellows, with Monarchal pride

Conscious of highest worth, unmov'd thus spake.


O Progeny of Heav'n, Empyreal Thrones,

With reason hath deep silence and demurr

Seis'd us, though undismaid: long is the way

And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light;

Our prison strong, this huge convex of Fire,

Outrageous to devour, immures us round

Ninefold, and gates of burning Adamant

Barr'd over us prohibit all egress.

These past, if any pass, the void profound

Of unessential Night receives him next

Wide gaping, and with utter loss of being

Threatens him, plung'd in that abortive gulf.

If thence he scape into whatever world,

Or unknown Region, what remains him less

Then unknown dangers and as hard escape.

But I should ill become this Throne, O Peers,

And this Imperial Sov'ranty, adorn'd

With splendor, arm'd with power, if aught propos'd

And judg'd of public moment, in the shape

Of difficulty or danger could deterr

Mee from attempting.   Wherefore do I assume

These Royalties, and not refuse to Reign,

Refusing to accept as great a share

Of hazard as of honour, due alike

To him who Reigns, and so much to him due

Of hazard more, as he above the rest

High honourd sits? Go therfore mighty Powers,

Terror of Heav'n, though fall'n; intend at home,

While here shall be our home, what best may ease

The present misery, and render Hell

More tollerable; if there be cure or charm

To respite or deceive, or slack the pain

Of this ill Mansion: intermit no watch

Against a wakeful Foe, while I abroad

Through all the Coasts of dark destruction seek

Deliverance for us all: this enterprize

None shall partake with me.   Thus saying rose

The Monarch, and prevented all reply,

Prudent, least from his resolution rais'd

Others among the chief might offer now

(Certain to be refus'd) what erst they feard;

And so refus'd might in opinion stand

His Rivals, winning cheap the high repute

Which he through hazard huge must earn.   But they

Dreaded not more th' adventure then his voice

Forbidding; and at once with him they rose;

Thir rising all at once was as the sound

Of Thunder heard remote. Towards him they bend

With awful reverence prone; and as a God

Extoll him equal to the highest in Heav'n:

Nor fail'd they to express how much they prais'd,

That for the general safety he despis'd

His own: for neither do the Spirits damn'd

Loose all thir virtue; least bad men should boast

Thir specious deeds on earth, which glory excites,

Or clos ambition varnisht o're with zeal.

Thus they thir doubtful consultations dark

Ended rejoycing in thir matchless Chief:

As when from mountain tops the dusky clouds

Ascending, while the North wind sleeps, o'respread

Heav'ns chearful face, the lowring Element

Scowls ore the dark'nd lantskip Snow, or showre;

If chance the radiant Sun with farewell sweet

Extend his ev'ning beam, the fields revive,

The birds thir notes renew, and bleating herds

Attest thir joy, that hill and valley rings.

O shame to men!   Devil with Devil damn'd

Firm concord holds, men onely disagree

Of Creatures rational, though under hope

Of heavenly Grace: and God proclaiming peace,

Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife

Among themselves, and levie cruel warres,

Wasting the Earth, each other to destroy:

As if (which might induce us to accord)

Man had not hellish foes anow besides,

That day and night for his destruction waite.


The Stygian Counsel thus dissolv'd; and forth

In order came the grand infernal Peers,

Midst came thir mighty Paramount, and seemd

Alone th' Antagonist of Heav'n, nor less

Than Hells dread Emperour with pomp Supream,

And God-like imitated State; him round

A Globe of fierie Seraphim inclos'd

With bright imblazonrie, and horrent Arms.

Then of thir Session ended they bid cry

With Trumpets regal sound the great result:

Toward the four winds four speedy Cherubim

Put to thir mouths the sounding Alchymie

By Haralds voice explain'd: the hollow Abyss

Heard farr and wide, and all the host of Hell

With deafning shout, return'd them loud acclaim.

Thence more at ease thir minds and somwhat rais'd

By false presumptuous hope, the ranged powers

Disband, and wandring, each his several way

Pursues, as inclination or sad choice

Leads him perplext, where he may likeliest find

Truce to his restless thoughts, and entertain

The irksom hours, till this great Chief return.

Part on the Plain, or in the Air sublime

Upon the wing, or in swift Race contend,

As at th' Olympian Games or Pythian fields;

Part curb thir fierie Steeds, or shun the Goal

With rapid wheels, or fronted Brigads form.

As when to warn proud Cities warr appears

Wag'd in the troubl'd Skie, and Armies rush

To Battel in the Clouds, before each Van

Prick forth the Aerie Knights, and couch thir Spears

Till thickest Legions close; with feats of Arms

From either end of Heav'n the welkin burns.

Others with vast Typhoean rage more fell

Rend up both Rocks and Hills, and ride the Air

In whirlwind; Hell scarce holds the wilde uproar.

As when Alcides from Oechalia Crown'd

With conquest, felt th' envenom'd robe, and tore

Through pain up by the roots Thessalian Pines,

And Lichas from the top of Oeta threw

Into th' Euboic Sea.   Others more milde,

Retreated in a silent valley, sing

With notes Angelical to many a Harp

Thir own Heroic deeds and hapless fall

By doom of Battel; and complain that Fate

Free Vertue should enthrall to Force or Chance.

Thir Song was partial, but the harmony

(What could it less when Spirits immortal sing?)

Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment

The thronging audience.   In discourse more sweet

(For Eloquence the Soul, Song charms the Sense,)

Others apart sat on a Hill retir'd,

In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high

Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will and Fate,

Fixt Fate, free will, foreknowledg absolute,

And found no end, in wandring mazes lost.

Of good and evil much they argu'd then,

Of happiness and final misery,

Passion and Apathie, and glory and shame,

Vain wisdom all, and false Philosophie:

Yet with a pleasing sorcerie could charm

Pain for a while or anguish, and excite

Fallacious hope, or arm th' obdured brest

With stubborn patience as with triple steel.

Another part in Squadrons and gross Bands,

On bold adventure to discover wide

That dismal world, if any Clime perhaps

Might yield them easier habitation, bend

Four ways thir flying March, along the Banks

Of four infernal Rivers that disgorge

Into the burning Lake thir baleful streams;

Abhorred Styx the flood of deadly hate,

Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;

Cocytus, nam'd of lamentation loud

Heard on the ruful stream; fierce Phlegeton

Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.

Farr off from these a slow and silent stream,

Lethe the River of Oblivion roules

Her watrie Labyrinth, whereof who drinks,

Forthwith his former state and being forgets,

Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.

Beyond this flood a frozen Continent

Lies dark and wilde, beat with perpetual storms

Of Whirlwind and dire Hail, which on firm land

Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems

Of ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice,

A gulf profound as that Serbonian Bog

Betwixt Damiata and mount Casius old,

Where Armies whole have sunk: the parching Air

Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of Fire.

Thither by harpy-footed Furies hail'd,

At certain revolutions all the damn'd

Are brought: and feel by turns the bitter change

Of fierce extreams, extreams by change more fierce,

From Beds of raging Fire to starve in Ice

Thir soft Ethereal warmth, and there to pine

Immovable, infixt, and frozen round,

Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire.

They ferry over this Lethean Sound

Both to and fro, thir sorrow to augment,

And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach

The tempting stream, with one small drop to loose

In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe,

All in one moment, and so neer the brink;

But Fate withstands, and to oppose th' attempt

Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards

The Ford, and of it self the water flies

All taste of living wight, as once it fled

The lip of Tantalus.   Thus roving on

In confus'd march forlorn, th' adventrous Bands

With shuddring horror pale, and eyes agast

View'd first thir lamentable lot, and found

No rest: through many a dark and drearie Vaile

They pass'd, and many a Region dolorous,

O're many a Frozen, many a fierie Alpe,

Rocks, Caves, Lakes, Fens, Bogs, Dens, and shades of death,

A Universe of death, which God by curse

Created evil, for evil only good,

Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds,

Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,

Abominable, inutterable, and worse

Than Fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd,

Gorgons and Hydra's, and Chimera's dire.


Mean while the Adversary of God and Man,

Satan with thoughts inflam'd of highest design,

Puts on swift wings, and towards the Gates of Hell

Explores his solitary flight; som times

He scours the right hand coast, som times the left,

Now shaves with level wing the Deep, then soares

Up to the fiery Concave touring high.

As when farr off at Sea a Fleet descri'd

Hangs in the Clouds, by Aequinoctial Winds

Close sailing from Bengala, or the Iles

Of Ternate and Tidore, whence Merchants bring

Thir spicie Drugs: they on the Trading Flood

Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape

Ply stemming nightly toward the Pole.   So seem'd

Farr off the flying Fiend: at last appeer

Hell bounds high reaching to the horrid Roof,

And thrice threefold the Gates; three folds were Brass,

Three Iron, three of Adamantine Rock,

Impenetrable, impal'd with circling fire,

Yet unconsum'd.   Before the Gates there sat

On either side a formidable shape;

The one seem'd Woman to the waste, and fair,

But ended foul in many a scaly fould

Voluminous and vast, a Serpent arm'd

With mortal sting: about her middle round

A cry of Hell Hounds never ceasing bark'd

With wide Cerberian mouths full loud, and rung

A hideous Peal: yet, when they list, would creep,

If aught disturb'd thir noyse, into her woomb,

And kennel there, yet there still bark'd and howl'd,

Within unseen.   Farr less abhorrd than these

Vex'd Scylla bathing in the Sea that parts

Calabria from the hoarce Trinacrian shore:

Nor uglier follow the Night-Hag, when call'd

In secret, riding through the Air she comes

Lur'd with the smell of infant blood, to dance

With Lapland Witches, while the labouring Moon

Eclipses at thir charms.   The other shape,

If shape it might be call'd that shape had none

Distinguishable in member, joynt, or limb,

Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,

For each seem'd either; black it stood as Night,

Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell,

And shook a dreadful Dart; what seem'd his head

The likeness of a Kingly Crown had on.

Satan was now at hand, and from his seat

The Monster moving onward came as fast

With horrid strides, Hell trembled as he strode.

Th' undaunted Fiend what this might be admir'd,

Admir'd, not fear'd; God and his Son except,

Created thing naught valu'd he nor shun'd;

And with disdainful look thus first began.


Whence and what art thou, execrable shape,

That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance

Thy miscreated Front athwart my way

To yonder Gates? through them I mean to pass,

That be assur'd, without leave askt of thee:

Retire, or taste thy folly, and learn by proof,

Hell-born, not to contend with Spirits of Heav'n.


To whom the Goblin full of wrauth reply'd,

Art thou that Traitor Angel, art thou hee,

Who first broke peace in Heav'n and Faith, till then

Unbrok'n, and in proud rebellious Arms

Drew after him the third part of Heav'ns Sons

Conjur'd against the highest, for which both Thou

And they outcast from God, are here condemn'd

To waste Eternal dayes in woe and pain?

And reck'n'st thou thy self with Spirits of Heav'n,

Hell-doom'd, and breath'st defiance here and scorn

Where I reign King, and to enrage thee more,

Thy King and Lord?   Back to thy punishment,

False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings,

Least with a whip of Scorpions I pursue

Thy lingring, or with one stroke of this Dart

Strange horror seise thee, and pangs unfelt before.


So spake the grieslie terrour, and in shape,

So speaking and so threatning, grew tenfold

More dreadful and deform: on th' other side

Incenst with indignation Satan stood

Unterrifi'd, and like a Comet burn'd,

That fires the length of Ophiucus huge

In th' Artick Sky, and from his horrid hair

Shakes Pestilence and Warr.   Each at the Head

Level'd his deadly aime; thir fatall hands

No second stroke intend, and such a frown

Each cast at th' other, as when two black Clouds

With Heav'ns Artillery fraught, come rattling on

Over the Caspian, then stand front to front

Hov'ring a space, till Winds the signal blow

To joyn thir dark Encounter in mid air:

So frownd the mighty Combatants, that Hell

Grew darker at thir frown, so matcht they stood;

For never but once more was either like

To meet so great a foe: and now great deeds

Had been achiev'd, whereof all Hell had rung,

Had not the Snakie Sorceress that sat

Fast by Hell Gate, and kept the fatal Key,

Ris'n, and with hideous outcry rush'd between.


O Father, what intends thy hand, she cry'd,

Against thy only Son?   What fury O Son,

Possesses thee to bend that mortal Dart

Against thy Fathers head? and know'st for whom;

For him who sits above and laughs the while

At thee ordain'd his drudge, to execute

What e're his wrath, which he calls justice, bids,

His wrath which one day will destroy ye both.


She spake, and at her words the hellish Pest

Forbore, then these to her Satan return'd:


So strange thy outcry, and thy words so strange

Thou interposest, that my sudden hand

Prevented spares to tell thee yet by deeds

What it intends; till first I know of thee,

What thing thou art, thus double-form'd, and why

In this infernal Vaile first met thou call'st

Me Father, and that Fantasm ca11'st my Son?

I know thee not, nor ever saw till now

Sight more detestable then him and thee.


T' whom thus the Portress of Hell Gate reply'd;

Hast thou forgot me then, and do I seem

Now in thine eyes so foul, once deemd so fair

In Heav'n, when at th' Assembly, and in sight

Of all the Seraphim with thee combin'd

In bold conspiracy against Heav'ns King,

All on a sudden miserable pain

Surpris'd thee, dim thine eyes, and dizzie swumm

In darkness, while thy head flames thick and fast

Threw forth, till on the left side op'ning wide,

Likest to thee in shape and count'nance bright,

Then shining heav'nly fair, a Goddess arm'd

Out of thy head I sprung: amazement seis'd

All th' Host of Heav'n; back they recoild affraid

At first, and call'd me Sin, and for a Sign

Portentous held me; but familiar grown,

I pleas'd, and with attractive graces won

The most averse, thee chiefly, who full oft

Thy self in me thy perfect image viewing

Becam'st enamour'd, and such joy thou took'st

With me in secret, that my womb conceiv'd

A growing burden.   Mean while Warr arose,

And fields were fought in Heav'n; wherein remaind

(For what could else) to our Almighty Foe

Cleer Victory, to our part loss and rout

Through all the Empyrean: down they fell

Driv'n headlong from the Pitch of Heaven, down

Into this Deep, and in the general fall

I also; at which time this powerful Key

Into my hand was giv'n, with charge to keep

These Gates for ever shut, which none can pass

Without my op'ning.   Pensive here I sat

Alone, but long I sat not, till my womb

Pregnant by thee, and now excessive grown

Prodigious motion felt and rueful throes.

At last this odious offspring whom thou seest

Thine own begotten, breaking violent way

Tore through my entrails, that with fear and pain

Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew

Transform'd: but he my inbred enemie

Forth issu'd, brandishing his fatal Dart

Made to destroy: I fled, and cry'd out Death;

Hell trembl'd at the hideous Name, and sigh'd

From all her Caves, and back resounded Death.

I fled, but he pursu'd (though more, it seems,

Inflam'd with lust then rage) and swifter far,

Mee overtook his mother all dismaid,

And in embraces forcible and foule

Ingendring with me, of that rape begot

These yelling Monsters that with ceasless cry

Surround me, as thou sawst, hourly conceiv'd

And hourly born, with sorrow infinite

To me, for when they list into the womb

That bred them they return, and howle and gnaw

My Bowels, thir repast; then bursting forth

A fresh with conscious terrours vex me round,

That rest or intermission none I find.

Before mine eyes in opposition sits

Grim Death my Son and foe, who sets them on,

And me his Parent would full soon devour

For want of other prey, but that he knows

His end with mine involvd; and knows that I

Should prove a bitter Morsel, and his bane,

When ever that shall be; so Fate pronounc'd.

But thou O Father, I forewarn thee, shun

His deadly arrow; neither vainly hope

To be invulnerable in those bright Arms,

Though temper'd heav'nly, for that mortal dint,

Save he who reigns above, none can resist.


She finish'd, and the suttle Fiend his lore

Soon learnd, now milder, and thus answerd smooth.

Dear Daughter, since thou claim'st me for thy Sire,

And my fair Son here showst me, the dear pledge

Of dalliance had with thee in Heav'n, and joys

Then sweet, now sad to mention, through dire change

Befalln us unforeseen, unthought of, know

I come no enemie, but to set free

From out this dark and dismal house of pain,

Both him and thee, and all the heav'nly Host

Of Spirits that in our just pretenses arm'd

Fell with us from on high: from them I go

This uncouth errand sole, and one for all

My self expose, with lonely steps to tread

Th' unfounded deep, and through the void immense

To search with wandring quest a place foretold

Should be, and, by concurring signs, ere now

Created vast and round, a place of bliss

In the Pourlieues of Heav'n, and therein plac't

A race of upstart Creatures, to supply

Perhaps our vacant room, though more remov'd,

Least Heav'n surcharg'd with potent multitude

Might hap to move new broiles: Be this or aught

Then this more secret now design'd, I haste

To know, and this once known, shall soon return,

And bring ye to the place where Thou and Death

Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen

Wing silently the buxom Air, imbalm'd

With odours; there ye shall be fed and fill'd

Immeasurably, all things shall be your prey.

He ceas'd, for both seemd highly pleasd, and Death

Grinnd horrible a gastly smile, to hear

His famine should be fill'd, and blest his mawe

Destin'd to that good hour: no less rejoyc'd

His mother bad, and thus bespake her Sire.


The key of this infernal Pit by due,

And by command of Heav'ns all-powerful King

I keep, by him forbidden to unlock

These Adamantine Gates; against all force

Death ready stands to interpose his dart,

Fearless to be o'rmatcht by living might.

But what ow I to his commands above

Who hates me, and hath hither thrust me down

Into this gloom of Tartarus profound,

To sit in hateful Office here confin'd,

Inhabitant of Heav'n, and heav'nlie-born,

Here in perpetual agonie and pain,

With terrors and with clamors compasst round

Of mine own brood, that on my bowels feed:

Thou art my Father, thou my Author, thou

My being gav'st me; whom should I obey

But thee, whom follow? thou wilt bring me soon

To that new world of light and bliss, among

The Gods who live at ease, where I shall Reign

At thy right hand voluptuous, as beseems

Thy daughter and thy darling, without end.


Thus saying, from her side the fatal Key,

Sad instrument of all our woe, she took;

And towards the Gate rouling her bestial train,

Forthwith the huge Porcullis high up drew,

Which but her self not all the Stygian powers

Could once have mov'd; then in the key-hole turns

Th' intricate wards, and every Bolt and Bar

Of massie Iron or sollid Rock with ease

Unfast'ns: on a sudden op'n flie

With impetuous recoile and jarring sound

Th' infernal dores, and on thir hinges grate

Harsh Thunder, that the lowest bottom shook

Of Erebus.   She op'nd, but to shut

Excel'd her power; the Gates wide op'n stood,

That with extended wings a Bannerd Host

Under spread Ensigns marching might pass through

With Horse and Chariots rankt in loose array;

So wide they stood, and like a Furnace mouth

Cast forth redounding smoak and ruddy flame.

Before thir eyes in sudden view appear

The secrets of the hoarie deep, a dark

Illimitable Ocean without bound,

Without dimension, where length, breadth, & highth,

And time and place are lost; where eldest Night

And Chaos.   Ancestors of Nature, hold

Eternal Anarchie, amidst the noise

Of endless Warrs, and by confusion stand.

For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four Champions fierce

Strive here for Maistrie, and to Battel bring

Thir embryon Atoms; they around the flag

Of each his Faction, in thir several Clanns,

Light-arm'd or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift or slow,

Swarm populous, unnumber'd as the Sands

Of Barca or Cyrene's torrid soil,

Levied to side with warring Winds, and poise

Thir lighter wings.   To whom these most adhere,

Hee rules a moment; Chaos Umpire sits,

And by decision more imbroiles the fray

By which he Reigns: next him high Arbiter

Chance governs all.   Into this wilde Abyss,

The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave,

Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,

But all these in thir pregnant causes mixt

Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight,

Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordain

His dark materials to create more Worlds,

Into this wild Abyss the warie fiend

Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while,

Pondering his Voyage; for no narrow frith

He had to cross.   Nor was his eare less peal'd

With noises loud and ruinous (to compare

Great things with small) then when Bellona storms,

With all her battering Engines bent to rase

Som Capital City; or less then if this frame

Of Heav'n were falling, and these Elements

In mutinie had from her Axle torn

The stedfast Earth.   At last his Sail-broad Vannes

He spreads for flight, and in the surging smoak

Uplifted spurns the ground, thence many a League

As in a cloudy Chair ascending rides

Audacious, but that seat soon failing, meets

A vast vacuitie: all unawares

Fluttring his pennons vain plumb down he drops

Ten thousand fadom deep, and to this hour

Down had been falling, had not by ill chance

The strong rebuff of som tumultuous cloud

Instinct with Fire and Nitre hurried him

As many miles aloft: that furie stay'd,

Quencht in a Boggie Syrtis, neither Sea,

Nor good dry Land: nigh founderd on he fares,

Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,

Half flying; behoves him now both Oare and Saile.

As when a Gryfon through the Wilderness

With winged course ore Hill or moarie Dale,

Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stelth

Had from his wakeful custody purloind

The guarded Gold: So eagerly the fiend

Ore bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,

With head, hands, wings or feet pursues his way,

And swims or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flyes:

At length a universal hubbub wilde

Of stunning sounds and voices all confus'd

Born through the hollow dark assaults his eare

With loudest vehemence: thither he plyes,

Undaunted to meet there what ever power

Or Spirit of the nethermost Abyss

Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask

Which way the neerest coast of darkness lyes

Bordering on light; when strait behold the Throne

Of Chaos, and his dark Pavilion spread

Wide on the wasteful Deep; with him Enthron'd

Sat Sable-vested Night, eldest of things,

The Consort of his Reign; and by them stood

Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name

Of Demogorgon; Rumor next and Chance,

And Tumult and Confusion all imbroild,

And Discord with a thousand various mouths.


T' whom Satan turning boldly, thus. Ye Powers

And Spirits of this nethermost Abyss,

Chaos and ancient Night, I come no Spy,

With purpose to explore or to disturb

The secrets of your Realm, but by constraint

Wandring this darksome Desart, as my way,

Lies through your spacious Empire up to light,

Alone, and without guide, half lost, I seek

What readiest path leads where your gloomie bounds

Confine with Heav'n; or if som other place

From your Dominion won, th' Ethereal King

Possesses lately, thither to arrive

I travel this profound, direct my course;

Directed no mean recompence it brings

To your behoof, if I that Region lost,

All usurpation thence expell'd, reduce

To her original darkness and your sway

(Which is my present journey) and once more

Erect the Standard there of ancient Night;

Yours be th' advantage all, mine the revenge.


Thus Satan; and him thus the Anarch old

With faultring speech and visage incompos'd

Answer'd. I know thee, stranger, who thou art,

That mighty leading Angel, who of late

Made head against Heav'ns King, though overthrown.

I saw and heard, for such a numerous Host

Fled not in silence through the frighted deep

With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,

Confusion worse confounded; and Heav'n Gates

Pourd out by millions her victorious Bands

Pursuing.   I upon my Frontieres here

Keep residence; if all I can will serve,

That little which is left so to defend,

Encroacht on still through our intestine broiles

Weakning the Scepter of old Night: first Hell

Your dungeon stretching far and wide beneath;

Now lately Heaven and Earth, another World

Hung ore my Realm, link'd in a golden Chain

To that side Heav'n from whence your Legions fell:

If that way be your walk, you have not farr;

So much the neerer danger; go and speed;

Havock and spoil and ruin are my gain.


He ceas'd; and Satan staid not to reply,

But glad that now his Sea should find a shore,

With fresh alacritie and force renew'd

Springs upward like a Pyramid of fire

Into the wilde expanse, and through the shock

Of fighting Elements, on all sides round

Environ'd wins his way; harder beset

And more endanger'd, then when Argo pass'd

Through Bosporus betwixt the justling Rocks:

Or when Ulysses on the Larbord shunnd

Charybdis, and by th' other whirlpool steard.

So he with difficulty and labour hard

Mov'd on, with difficulty and labour hee;

But hee once past, soon after when man fell,

Strange alteration!   Sin and Death amain

Following his track, such was the will of Heav'n,

Pav'd after him a broad and beat'n way

Over the dark Abyss, whose boiling Gulf

Tamely endur'd a Bridge of wondrous length

From Hell continu'd reaching th' utmost Orbe

Of this frail World; by which the Spirits perverse

With easie intercourse pass to and fro

To tempt or punish mortals, except whom

God and good Angels guard by special grace.

But now at last the sacred influence

Of light appears, and from the walls of Heav'n

Shoots farr into the bosom of dim Night

A glimmering dawn; here Nature first begins

Her fardest verge, and Chaos to retire

As from her outmost works a brok'd foe

With tumult less and with less hostile din,

That Satan with less toil, and now with ease

Wafts on the calmer wave by dubious light

And like a weather-beaten Vessel holds

Gladly the Port, though Shrouds and Tackle torn;

Or in the emptier waste, resembling Air,

Weighs his spread wings, at leasure to behold

Farr off th' Empyreal Heav'n, extended wide

In circuit, undetermind square or round,

With Opal Towrs and Battlements adorn'd

Of living Saphire, once his native Seat;

And fast by hanging in a golden Chain

This pendant world, in bigness as a Starr

Of smallest Magnitude close by the Moon.

Thither full fraught with mischievous revenge,

Accurst, and in a cursed hour he hies.

Search for Modernized Version of Paradise Lost [Here]

Paradise Lost: Book 3

 By John Milton (1608–1674)

HAil holy Light, ofspring of Heav'n first-born,

Or of th' Eternal Coeternal beam

May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light,

And never but in unapproached light

Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee,

Bright effluence of bright essence increate.

Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal stream,

Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the Sun,

Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice

Of God, as with a Mantle didst invest

The rising world of waters dark and deep,

Won from the void and formless infinite.

Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing,

Escap't the Stygian Pool, though long detain'd

In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight

Through utter and through middle darkness borne

With other notes then to th' Orphean Lyre

I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night,

Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down

The dark descent, and up to reascend,

Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,

And feel thy sovran vital Lamp; but thou

Revisit'st not these eyes, that rowle in vain

To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;

So thick a drop serene hath quencht thir Orbs,

Or dim suffusion veild.   Yet not the more

Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt

Cleer Spring, or shadie Grove, or Sunnie Hill,

Smit with the love of sacred Song; but chief

Thee Sion and the flowrie Brooks beneath

That wash thy hallowd feet, and warbling flow,

Nightly I visit: nor somtimes forget

Those other two equal'd with me in Fate,

So were I equal'd with them in renown,

Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides,

And Tiresias and Phineus Prophets old.

Then feed on thoughts, that voluntarie move

Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful Bird

Sings darkling, and in shadiest Covert hid

Tunes her nocturnal Note.   Thus with the Year

Seasons return, but not to me returns

Day, or the sweet approach of Ev'n or Morn,

Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summers Rose,

Or flocks, or heards, or human face divine;

But cloud in stead, and ever-during dark

Surrounds me, from the chearful wayes of men

Cut off, and for the Book of knowledg fair

Presented with a Universal blanc

Of Natures works to mee expung'd and ras'd,

And wisdome at one entrance quite shut out.

So much the rather thou Celestial light

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers

Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence

Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell

Of things invisible to mortal sight.


Now had the Almighty Father from above,

From the pure Empyrean where he sits

High Thron'd above all highth, bent down his eye,

His own works and their works at once to view:

About him all the Sanctities of Heaven

Stood thick as Starrs, and from his sight receiv'd

Beatitude past utterance; on his right

The radiant image of his Glory sat,

His onely Son; On Earth he first beheld

Our two first Parents, yet the onely two

Of mankind, in the happie Garden plac't,

Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,

Uninterrupted joy, unrivald love

In blissful solitude; he then survey'd

Hell and the Gulf between, and Satan there

Coasting the wall of Heav'n on this side Night

In the dun Air sublime, and ready now

To stoop with wearied wings, and willing feet

On the bare outside of this World, that seem'd

Firm land imbosom'd without Firmament,

Uncertain which, in Ocean or in Air.

Him God beholding from his prospect high,

Wherein past, present, future he beholds,

Thus to his onely Son foreseeing spake.


Onely begotten Son, seest thou what rage

Transports our adversarie, whom no bounds

Prescrib'd, no barrs of Hell, nor all the chains

Heapt on him there, nor yet the main Abyss

Wide interrupt can hold; so bent he seems

On desparate reveng, that shall redound

Upon his own rebellious head.   And now

Through all restraint broke loose he wings his way

Not farr off Heav'n, in the Precincts of light,

Directly towards the new created World,

And Man there plac't, with purpose to assay

If him by force he can destroy, or worse,

By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert

For man will hark'n to his glozing lyes,

And easily transgress the sole Command,

Sole pledge of his obedience: So will fall,

Hee and his faithless Progenie: whose fault?

Whose but his own? ingrate, he had of mee

All he could have; I made him just and right,

Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.

Such I created all th' Ethereal Powers

And Spirits, both them who stood and them who faild;

Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.

Not free, what proof could they have givn sincere

Of true allegiance, constant Faith or Love,

Where onely what they needs must do, appeard,

Not what they would? what praise could they receive?

What pleasure I from such obedience paid,

When Will and Reason (Reason also is choice)

Useless and vain, of freedom both despoild,

Made passive both, had servd necessitie,

Not mee.   They therefore as to right belongd,

So were created, nor can justly accuse

Thir maker, or thir making, or thir Fate,

As if predestination over-rul'd

Thir will, dispos'd by absolute Decree

Or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed

Thir own revolt, not I: if I foreknew,

Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,

Which had no less prov'd certain unforeknown.

So without least impulse or shadow of Fate,

Or aught by me immutablie foreseen,

They trespass, Authors to themselves in all

Both what they judge and what they choose; for so

I formd them free, and free they must remain,

Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change

Thir nature, and revoke the high Decree

Unchangeable, Eternal, which ordain'd

Thir freedom, they themselves ordain'd thir fall.

The first sort by thir own suggestion fell,

Self-tempted, self-deprav'd: Man falls deceiv'd

By the other first: Man therefore shall find grace,

The other none: in Mercy and Justice both,

Through Heav'n and Earth, so shall my glorie excel,

But Mercy first and last shall brightest shine.


Thus while God spake, ambrosial fragrance fill'd

All Heav'n, and in the blessed Spirits elect

Sense of new joy ineffable diffus'd:

Beyond compare the Son of God was seen

Most glorious, in him all his Father shon

Substantially express'd, and in his face

Divine compassion visibly appeerd,

Love without end, and without measure Grace,

Which uttering thus he to his Father spake.


O Father, gracious was that word which clos'd

Thy sovran sentence, that Man should find grace;

For which both Heav'n and Earth shall high extoll

Thy praises, with th' innumerable sound

Of Hymns and sacred Songs, wherewith thy Throne

Encompass'd shall resound thee ever blest.

For should Man finally be lost, should Man

Thy creature late so lov'd, thy youngest Son

Fall circumvented thus by fraud, though joynd

With his own folly? that be from thee farr,

That farr be from thee, Father, who art Judg

Of all things made, and judgest onely right.

Or shall the Adversarie thus obtain

His end, and frustrate thine, shall he fulfill

His malice, and thy goodness bring to naught,

Or proud return though to his heavier doom,

Yet with revenge accomplish't and to Hell

Draw after him the whole Race of mankind,

By him corrupted? or wilt thou thy self

Abolish thy Creation, and unmake,

For him, what for thy glorie thou hast made?

So should thy goodness and thy greatness both

Be questiond and blaspheam'd without defence.


To whom the great Creatour thus reply'd.

O Son, in whom my Soul hath chief delight,

Son of my bosom, Son who art alone

My word, my wisdom, and effectual might,

All hast thou spok'n as my thoughts are, all

As my Eternal purpose hath decreed:

Man shall not quite be lost, but sav'd who will,

Yet not of will in him, but grace in me

Freely voutsaft; once more I will renew

His lapsed powers, though forfeit and enthrall'd

By sin to foul exorbitant desires;

Upheld by me, yet once more he shall stand

On even ground against his mortal foe,

By me upheld, that he may know how frail

His fall'n condition is, and to me ow

All his deliv'rance, and to none but me.

Some I have chosen of peculiar grace

Elect above the rest; so is my will:

The rest shall hear me call, and oft be warnd

Thir sinful state, and to appease betimes

Th' incensed Deitie, while offerd grace

Invites; for I will cleer thir senses dark,

What may sufflce, and soft'n stonie hearts

To pray, repent, and bring obedience due.

To Prayer, repentance, and obedience due,

Though but endevord with sincere intent,

Mine ear shall not be slow, mine eye not shut.

And I will place within them as a guide

My Umpire Conscience, whom if they will hear,

Light after light well us'd they shall attain,

And to the end persisting, safe arrive.

This my long sufferance and my day of grace

They who neglect and scorn, shall never taste;

But hard be hard'nd, blind be blinded more,

That they may stumble on, and deeper fall;

And none but such from mercy I exclude.

But yet all is not don; Man disobeying,

Disloyal breaks his fealtie, and sinns

Against the high Supremacie of Heav'n,

Affecting God-head, and so loosing all,

To expiate his Treason hath naught left,

But to destruction sacred and devote,

He with his whole posteritie must dye,

Dye hee or Justice must; unless for him

Som other able, and as willing, pay

The rigid satisfaction, death for death.

Say Heav'nly powers, where shall we find such love,

Which of ye will be mortal to redeem

Mans mortal crime, and just th' unjust to save,

Dwels in all Heaven charitie so deare?


He ask'd, but all the Heav'nly Quire stood mute,

And silence was in Heav'n: on mans behalf

Patron or Intercessor none appeerd,

Much less that durst upon his own head draw

The deadly forfeiture, and ransom set.

And now without redemption all mankind

Must have bin lost, adjudg'd to Death and Hell

By doom severe, had not the Son of God,

In whom the fulness dwels of love divine,

His dearest mediation thus renewd.


Father, thy word is past, man shall find grace;

And shall grace not find means, that finds her way,

The speediest of thy winged messengers,

To visit all thy creatures, and to all

Comes unprevented, unimplor'd, unsought,

Happie for man, so coming; he her aide

Can never seek, once dead in sins and lost;

Attonement for himself or offering meet,

Indebted and undon, hath none to bring:

Behold mee then, mee for him, life for life

I offer, on mee let thine anger fall;

Account mee man; I for his sake will leave

Thy bosom, and this glorie next to thee

Freely put off, and for him lastly dye

Well pleas'd, on me let Death wreck all his rage;

Under his gloomie power I shall not long

Lie vanquisht; thou hast givn me to possess

Life in my self for ever, by thee I live,

Though now to Death I yield, and am his due

All that of me can die, yet that debt paid,

Thou wilt not leave me in the loathsom grave

His prey, nor suffer my unspotted Soule

For ever with corruption there to dwell;

But I shall rise Victorious, and subdue

My vanquisher, spoild of his vanted spoile;

Death his deaths wound shall then receive, and stoop

Inglorious, of his mortall sting disarm'd.

I through the ample Air in Triumph high

Shall lead Hell Captive maugre Hell, and show

The powers of darkness bound.   Thou at the sight

Pleas'd, out of Heaven shalt look down and smile,

While by thee rais'd I ruin all my Foes,

Death last, and with his Carcass glut the Grave:

Then with the multitude of my redeemd

Shall enter Heaven long absent, and returne,

Father, to see thy face, wherein no cloud

Of anger shall remain, but peace assur'd,

And reconcilement; wrauth shall be no more

Thenceforth, but in thy presence joy entire.


His words here ended, but his meek aspect

Silent yet spake, and breath'd immortal love

To mortal men, above which only shon

Filial obedience: as a sacrifice

Glad to be offer'd, he attends the will

Of his great Father.   Admiration seis'd

All Heav'n, what this might mean, and whither tend

Wondring; but soon th' Almighty thus reply'd:


O thou in Heav'n and Earth the only peace

Found out for mankind under wrauth, O thou

My sole complacence! well thou know'st how dear,

To me are all my works, nor Man the least

Though last created, that for him I spare

Thee from my bosom and right hand, to save,

By loosing thee a while, the whole Race lost.

Thou therefore whom thou only canst redeem,

Thir Nature also to thy Nature joyn;

And be thy self Man among men on Earth,

Made flesh, when time shall be, of Virgin seed,

By wondrous birth: Be thou in Adams room

The Head of all mankind, though Adams Son.

As in him perish all men, so in thee

As from a second root shall be restor'd,

As many as are restor'd, without thee none.

His crime makes guiltie all his Sons, thy merit

Imputed shall absolve them who renounce

Thir own both righteous and unrighteous deeds,

And live in thee transplanted, and from thee

Receive new life.   So Man, as is most just,

Shall satisfie for Man, be judg'd and die,

And dying rise, and rising with him raise

His Brethren, ransomd with his own dear life.

So Heav'nly love shall outdoo Hellish hate

Giving to death, and dying to redeeme,

So dearly to redeem what Hellish hate

So easily destroy'd, and still destroyes

In those who, when they may, accept not grace.

Nor shalt thou by descending to assume

Mans Nature, less'n or degrade thine owne.

Because thou hast, though Thron'd in highest bliss

Equal to God, and equally enjoying

God-like fruition, quitted all to save

A World from utter loss, and hast been found

By Merit more then Birthright Son of God,

Found worthiest to be so by being Good,

Farr more then Great or High; because in thee

Love hath abounded more then Glory abounds,

Therefore thy Humiliation shall exalt

With thee thy Manhood also to this Throne;

Here shalt thou sit incarnate, here shalt Reign

Both God and Man, Son both of God and Man,

Anointed universal King, all Power

I give thee, reign for ever, and assume

Thy Merits; under thee as Head Supream

Thrones, Princedoms, Powers, Dominions I reduce:

All knees to thee shall bow, of them that bide

In Heaven, or Earth, or under Earth in Hell;

When thou attended gloriously from Heav'n

Shalt in the Sky appeer, and from thee send

The summoning Arch-Angels to proclaime

Thy dread Tribunal: forthwith from all Windes

The living, and forthwith the cited dead

Of all past Ages to the general Doom

Shall hast'n, such a peal shall rouse thir sleep.

Then all thy Saints assembl'd, thou shalt judge

Bad men and Angels, they arraignd shall sink

Beneath thy Sentence; Hell, her numbers full,

Thenceforth shall be for ever shut.   Mean while

The World shall burn, and from her ashes spring

New Heav'n and Earth, wherein the just shall dwell,

And after all thir tribulations long

See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds,

With Joy and Love triumphing, and fair Truth.

Then thou thy regal Scepter shalt lay by,

For regal Scepter then no more shall need,

God shall be All in All.   But all ye Gods,

Adore him, who to compass all this dies,

Adore the Son, and honour him as mee.


No sooner had th' Almighty ceas't, but all

The multitude of Angels with a shout

Loud as from numbers without number, sweet

As from blest voices, uttering joy, Heav'n rung

With Jubilee, and loud Hosanna's filld

Th' eternal Regions: lowly reverent

Towards either Throne they bow, and to the ground

With solemn adoration down they cast

Thir Crowns inwove with Amarant and Gold,

Immortal Amarant, a Flour which once

In Paradise, fast by the Tree of Life

Began to bloom, but soon for mans offence

To Heav'n remov'd where first it grew, there grows,

And flours aloft shading the Fount of Life,

And where the river of Bliss through midst of Heavn

Rowls o're Elisian Flours her Amber stream;

With these that never fade the Spirits elect

Bind thir resplendent locks inwreath'd with beams,

Now in loose Garlands thick thrown off, the bright

Pavement that like a Sea of Jasper shon

Impurpl'd with Celestial Roses smil'd.

Then Crown'd again thir gold'n Harps they took,

Harps ever tun'd, that glittering by thir side

Like Quivers hung, and with Praeamble sweet

Of charming symphonie they introduce

Thir sacred Song, and waken raptures high;

No voice exempt, no voice but well could joine

Melodious part, such concord is in Heav'n.


Thee Father first they sung Omnipotent,

Immutable, Immortal, Infinite,

Eternal King; thee Author of all being,

Fountain of Light, thy self invisible

Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sit'st

Thron'd inaccessible, but when thou shad'st

The full blaze of thy beams, and through a cloud

Drawn round about thee like a radiant Shrine,

Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appeer,

Yet dazle Heav'n, that brightest Seraphim

Approach not, but with both wings veil thir eyes.

Thee next they sang of all Creation first,

Begotten Son, Divine Similitude,

In whose conspicuous count'nance, without cloud

Made visible, th' Almighty Father shines,

Whom else no Creature can behold; on thee

Impresst the effulgence of his Glorie abides,

Transfus'd on thee his ample Spirit rests.

Hee Heav'n of Heavens and all the Powers therein

By thee created, and by thee threw down

Th' aspiring Dominations: thou that day

Thy Fathers dreadful Thunder didst not spare,

Nor stop thy flaming Chariot wheels, that shook

Heav'ns everlasting Frame, while o're the necks

Thou drov'st of warring Angels disarraid.

Back from pursuit thy Powers with loud acclaime

Thee only extoll'd, Son of thy Fathers might,

To execute fierce vengeance on his foes,

Not so on Man; him through their malice fall'n,

Father of Mercie and Grace, thou didst not doome

So strictly, but much more to pitie encline:

No sooner did thy dear and onely Son

Perceive thee purpos'd not to doom frail Man

So strictly, but much more to pitie enclin'd,

He to appease thy wrauth, and end the strife

Of Mercy and justice in thy face discern'd,

Regardless of the Bliss wherein hee sat

Second to thee, offerd himself to die

For mans offence.   O unexampl'd love,

Love no where to be found less then Divine!

Hail Son of God, Saviour of Men, thy Name

Shall be the copious matter of my Song

Henceforth, and never shall my Harp thy praise

Forget, nor from thy Fathers praise disjoine.


Thus they in Heav'n, above the starry Sphear,

Thir happie hours in joy and hymning spent.

Mean while upon the firm opacous Globe

Of this round World, whose first convex divides

The luminous inferior Orbs, enclos'd

From Chaos and th' inroad of Darkness old,

Satan alighted walks: a Globe farr off

It seem'd, now seems a boundless Continent

Dark, waste, and wild, under the frown of Night

Starless expos'd, and ever-threatning storms

Of Chaos blustring round, inclement skie;

Save on that side which from the wall of Heav'n

Though distant farr som small reflection gaines

Of glimmering air less vext with tempest loud:

Here walk'd the Fiend at large in spacious field.

As when a Vultur on Imaus bred,

Whose snowie ridge the roving Tartar bounds,

Dislodging from a Region scarce of prey

To gorge the flesh of Lambs or yeanling Kids

On Hills where Flocks are fed, flies toward the Springs

Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams;

But in his way lights on the barren Plaines

Of Sericana, where Chineses drive

With Sails and Wind thir canie Waggons light:

So on this windie Sea of Land, the Fiend

Walk'd up and down alone bent on his prey,

Alone, for other Creature in this place

Living or liveless to be found was none,

None yet, but store hereafter from the earth

Up hither like Aereal vapours flew

Of all things transitorie and vain, when Sin

With vanity had filld the works of men:

Both all things vain, and all who in vain things

Built thir fond hopes of Glorie or lasting fame,

Or happiness in this or th' other life;

All who have thir reward on Earth, the fruits

Of painful Superstition and blind Zeal,

Naught seeking but the praise of men, here find

Fit retribution, emptie as thir deeds;

All th, unaccomplisht works of Natures hand,

Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mixt,

Dissolvd on Earth, fleet hither, and in vain,

Till final dissolution, wander here,

Not in the neighbouring Moon, as some have dreamd;

Those argent Fields more likely habitants,

Translated Saints, or middle Spirits hold

Betwixt th' Angelical and Human kinde:

Hither of ill-joynd Sons and Daughters born

First from the ancient World those Giants came

With many a vain exploit, though then renownd:

The builders next of Babel on the Plain

Of Sennaar, and still with vain designe

New Babels, had they wherewithall, would build:

Others came single; he who to be deemd

A God, leap'd fondly into Aetna flames,

Empedocles, and hee who to enjoy

Plato's Elysium, leap'd into the Sea,

Cleombrotus, and many more too long,

Embryo's and Idiots, Eremits and Friers

White, Black and Grey, with all thir trumperie.

Here Pilgrims roam, that stray'd so farr to seek

In Golgotha him dead, who lives in Heav'n;

And they who to be sure of Paradise

Dying put on the weeds of Dominic,

Or in Franciscan think to pass disguis'd;

They pass the Planets seven, and pass the fixt,

And that Crystalline Sphear whose ballance weighs

The Trepidation talkt, and that first mov'd;

And now Saint Peter at Heav'ns Wicket seems

To wait them with his Keys, and now at foot

Of Heav'ns ascent they lift thir Feet, when loe

A violent cross wind from either Coast

Blows them transverse ten thousand Leagues awry

Into the devious Air; then might ye see

Cowles, Hoods and Habits with thir wearers tost

And flutterd into Raggs, then Reliques, Beads,

Indulgences, Dispenses, Pardons, Bulls,

The sport of Winds: all these upwhirld aloft

Fly o're the backside of the World farr off

Into a Limbo large and broad, since calld

The Paradise of Fools, to few unknown

Long after, now unpeopl'd, and untrod;

All this dark Globe the Fiend found as he pass'd,

And long he wanderd, till at last a gleame

Of dawning light turnd thither-ward in haste

His travell'd steps; farr distant he descries

Ascending by degrees magnificent

Up to the wall of Heaven a Structure high,

At top whereof, but farr more rich appeerd

The work as of a Kingly Palace Gate

With Frontispice of Diamond and Gold

Imbellisht, thick with sparkling orient Gemmes

The Portal shon, inimitable on Earth

By Model, or by shading Pencil drawn.

The Stairs were such as whereon Jacob saw

Angels ascending and descending, bands

Of Guardians bright, when he from Esau fled

To Padan-Aram in the field of Luz,

Dreaming by night under the open Skie,

And waking cri'd, This is the Gate of Heav'n.

Each Stair mysteriously was meant, nor stood

There alwayes, but drawn up to Heav'n somtimes

Viewless, and underneath a bright Sea flow'd

Of Jasper, or of liquid Pearle, whereon

Who after came from Earth, sayling arriv'd,

Wafted by Angels, or flew o're the Lake

Rapt in a Chariot drawn by fiery Steeds.

The Stairs were then let down, whether to dare

The Fiend by easie ascent, or aggravate

His sad exclusion from the dores of Bliss.

Direct against which op'nd from beneath,

Just o're the blissful seat of Paradise,

A passage down to th' Earth, a passage wide,

Wider by farr then that of after-times

Over Mount Sion, and, though that were large,

Over the Promis'd Land to God so dear,

By which, to visit oft those happy Tribes,

On high behests his Angels to and fro

Pass'd frequent, and his eye with choice regard

From Paneas the fount of Jordans flood

To Beersaba, where the Holy Land

Borders on Aegypt and the Arabian shoare;

So wide the op'ning seemd, where bounds were set

To darkness, such as bound the Ocean wave.

Satan from hence now on the lower stair

That scal'd by steps of Gold to Heav'n Gate

Looks down with wonder at the sudden view

Of all this World at once.   As when a Scout

Through dark and desart wayes with peril gone

All night; at last by break of chearful dawne

Obtains the brow of some high-climbing Hill,

Which to his eye discovers unaware

The goodly prospect of some forein land

First-seen, or some renown'd Metropolis

With glistering Spires and Pinnacles adornd,

Which now the Rising Sun guilds with his beams.

Such wonder seis'd, though after Heaven seen,

The Spirit maligne, but much more envy seis'd

At sight of all this World beheld so faire.

Round he surveys, and well might, where he stood

So high above the circling Canopie

Of Nights extended shade; from Eastern Point

Of Libra to the fleecie Starr that bears

Andromeda farr off Atlantic Seas

Beyond th' Horizon; then from Pole to Pole

He views in bredth, and without longer pause

Down right into the Worlds first Region throws

His flight precipitant, and windes with ease

Through the pure marble Air his oblique way

Amongst innumerable Starrs, that shon

Stars distant, but nigh hand seemd other Worlds,

Or other Worlds they seemd, or happy Iles,

Like those Hesperian Gardens fam'd of old,

Fortunate Fields, and Groves and flourie Vales,

Thrice happy Iles, but who dwelt happy there

He stayd not to enquire: above them all

The golden Sun in splendor likest Heaven

Allur'd his eye: Thither his course he bends

Through the calm Firmament; but up or downe

By center, or eccentric, hard to tell,

Or Longitude, where the great Luminarie

Alooff the vulgar Constellations thick,

That from his Lordly eye keep distance due,

Dispenses Light from farr; they as they move

Thir Starry dance in numbers that compute

Days, months, & years, towards his all-chearing Lamp

Turn swift thir various motions, or are turnd

By his Magnetic beam, that gently warms

The Univers, and to each inward part

With gentle penetration, though unseen,

Shoots invisible vertue even to the deep:

So wondrously was set his Station bright.

There lands the Fiend, a spot like which perhaps

Astronomer in the Sun's lucent Orbe

Through his glaz'd Optic Tube yet never saw.

The place he found beyond expression bright,

Compar'd with aught on Earth, Medal or Stone;

Not all parts like, but all alike informd

With radiant light, as glowing Iron with fire;

If mettal, part seemd Gold, part Silver cleer;

If stone, Carbuncle most or Chrysolite,

Rubie or Topaz, to the Twelve that shon

In Aarons Brest-plate, and a stone besides

Imagind rather oft then elsewhere seen,

That stone, or like to that which here below

Philosophers in vain so long have sought,

In vain, though by thir powerful Art they binde

Volatil Hermes, and call up unbound

In various shapes old Proteus from the Sea,

Draind through a Limbec to his Native forme.

What wonder then if fields and regions here

Breathe forth Elixir pure, and Rivers run

Potable Gold, when with one vertuous touch

Th' Arch-chimic Sun so farr from us remote

Produces with Terrestrial Humor mixt

Here in the dark so many precious things

Of colour glorious and effect so rare?

Here matter new to gaze the Devil met

Undazl'd, farr and wide his eye commands,

For sight no obstacle found here, nor shade,

But all Sun-shine, as when his Beams at Noon

Culminate from th' Aequator, as they now

Shot upward still direct, whence no way round

Shadow from body opaque can fall, and the Aire,

No where so cleer, sharp'nd his visual ray

To objects distant farr, whereby he soon

Saw within kenn a glorious Angel stand,

The same whom John saw also in the Sun:

His back was turnd, but not his brightness hid;

Of beaming sunnie Raies, a golden tiar

Circl'd his Head, nor less his Locks behind

Illustrious on his Shoulders fledge with wings

Lay waving round; on som great charge imploy'd

He seemd, or fixt in cogitation deep.

Glad was the Spirit impure as now in hope

To find who might direct his wandring flight

To Paradise the happie seat of Man,

His journies end and our beginning woe.

But first he casts to change his proper shape,

Which else might work him danger or delay:

And now a stripling Cherube he appeers,

Not of the prime, yet such as in his face

Youth smil'd Celestial, and to every Limb

Sutable grace diffus'd, so well he feignd;

Under a Coronet his flowing haire

In curles on either cheek plaid, wings he wore

Of many a colourd plume sprinkl'd with Gold,

His habit fit for speed succinct, and held

Before his decent steps a Silver wand.

He drew not nigh unheard, the Angel bright,

Ere he drew nigh, his radiant visage turnd,

Admonisht by his ear, and strait was known

Th' Arch-Angel Uriel, one of the seav'n

Who in Gods presence, neerest to his Throne

Stand ready at command, and are his Eyes

That run through all the Heav'ns, or down to th' Earth

Bear his swift errands over moist and dry,

O're Sea and Land: him Satan thus accostes;


Uriel, for thou of those seav'n Spirits that stand

In sight of God's high Throne, gloriously bright,

The first art wont his great authentic will

Interpreter through highest Heav'n to bring,

Where all his Sons thy Embassie attend;

And here art likeliest by supream decree

Like honour to obtain, and as his Eye

To visit oft this new Creation round;

Unspeakable desire to see, and know

All these his wondrous works, but chiefly Man,

His chief delight and favour, him for whom

All these his works so wondrous he ordaind,

Hath brought me from the Quires of Cherubim

Alone thus wandring.   Brightest Seraph tell

In which of all these shining Orbes hath Man

His fixed seat, or fixed seat hath none,

But all these shining Orbes his choice to dwell;

That I may find him, and with secret gaze,

Or open admiration him behold

On whom the great Creator hath bestowd

Worlds, and on whom hath all these graces powrd;

That both in him and all things, as is meet,

The Universal Maker we may praise;

Who justly hath drivn out his Rebell Foes

To deepest Hell, and to repair that loss

Created this new happie Race of Men

To serve him better: wise are all his wayes.


So spake the false dissembler unperceivd;

For neither Man nor Angel can discern

Hypocrisie, the onely evil that walks

Invisible, except to God alone,

By his permissive will, through Heav'n and Earth:

And oft though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps

At wisdoms Gate, and to simplicitie

Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill

Where no ill seems: Which now for once beguil'd

Uriel, though Regent of the Sun, and held

The sharpest sighted Spirit of all in Heav'n;

Who to the fraudulent Impostor foule

In his uprightness answer thus returnd.

Fair Angel, thy desire which tends to know

The works of God, thereby to glorifie

The great Work-Maister, leads to no excess

That reaches blame, but rather merits praise

The more it seems excess, that led thee hither

From thy Empyreal Mansion thus alone,

To witness with thine eyes what some perhaps

Contented with report hear onely in heav'n:

For wonderful indeed are all his works,

Pleasant to know, and worthiest to be all

Had in remembrance alwayes with delight;

But what created mind can comprehend

Thir number, or the wisdom infinite

That brought them forth, but hid thir causes deep.

I saw when at his Word the formless Mass,

This worlds material mould, came to a heap:

Confusion heard his voice, and wilde uproar

Stood rul'd, stood vast infinitude confin'd;

Till at his second bidding darkness fled,

Light shon, and order from disorder sprung:

Swift to thir several Quarters hasted then

The cumbrous Elements, Earth, Flood, Aire, Fire,

And this Ethereal quintessence of Heav'n

Flew upward, spirited with various forms,

That rowld orbicular, and turnd to Starrs

Numberless, as thou seest, and how they move;

Each had his place appointed, each his course,

The rest in circuit walles this Universe.

Look downward on that Globe whose hither side

With light from hence, though but reflected, shines;

That place is Earth the seat of Man, that light

His day, which else as th' other Hemisphere

Night would invade, but there the neighbouring Moon

(So call that opposite fair Starr) her aide

Timely interposes, and her monthly round

Still ending, still renewing, through mid Heav'n;

With borrowd light her countenance triform

Hence fills and empties to enlighten th' Earth,

And in her pale dominion checks the night.

That spot to which I point is Paradise,

Adams abode, those loftie shades his Bowre.

Thy way thou canst not miss, me mine requires.


Thus said, he turnd, and Satan bowing low,

As to superior Spirits is wont in Heaven,

Where honour due and reverence none neglects,

Took leave, and toward the coast of Earth beneath,

Down from th' Ecliptic, sped with hop'd success,

Throws his steep flight in many an Aerie wheele,

Nor staid, till on Niphates top he lights.

Search for Modernized Version of Paradise Lost [Here]

"Calmly We Walk Through This April’s Day

By Delmore Schwartz (1913–1966)

Calmly we walk through this April’s day,Metropolitan poetry here and there,In the park sit pauper and rentier,The screaming children, the motor-carFugitive about us, running away,Between the worker and the millionaireNumber provides all distances,It is Nineteen Thirty-Seven now,Many great dears are taken away,What will become of you and me(This is the school in which we learn ...)Besides the photo and the memory?(... that time is the fire in which we burn.)
(This is the school in which we learn ...)What is the self amid this blaze?What am I now that I was thenWhich I shall suffer and act again,The theodicy I wrote in my high school daysRestored all life from infancy,The children shouting are bright as they run(This is the school in which they learn ...)Ravished entirely in their passing play!(... that time is the fire in which they burn.)
Avid its rush, that reeling blaze!Where is my father and Eleanor?Not where are they now, dead seven years,But what they were then?No more? No more?From Nineteen-Fourteen to the present day,Bert Spira and Rhoda consume, consumeNot where they are now (where are they now?)But what they were then, both beautiful;
Each minute bursts in the burning room,The great globe reels in the solar fire,Spinning the trivial and unique away.(How all things flash! How all things flare!)What am I now that I was then?May memory restore again and againThe smallest color of the smallest day: Time is the school in which we learn, Time is the fire in which we burn.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Dylan Thomas  (1914-1953)

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.


Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.


Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

"Over The Green and Yellow

By Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

Over the green and yellow rice fields sweep the shadows of the autumn clouds,followed by the swift-chasing sun.The bees forget to sip their honey; drunken with the lightthey foolishly hum and hover;and the ducks in the sandy riverbank clamour in joy for mere nothing.None shall go back home, brothers, this morning, none shall go to work.We will take the blue sky by storm and plunder the space as we run.Laughters fly floating in the airlike foams in the flood.Brothers, we shall squander our morning in futile songs.

The Slave Auction

By Frances Harper (1825–1911)

The sale began—young girls were there,   Defenseless in their wretchedness,Whose stifled sobs of deep despair   Revealed their anguish and distress.
And mothers stood, with streaming eyes,And saw their dearest children sold;Unheeded rose their bitter cries,While tyrants bartered them for gold.
And woman, with her love and truthFor these in sable forms may dwellGazed on the husband of her youth,With anguish none may paint or tell.
And men, whose sole crime was their hue,The impress of their Maker’s hand,And frail and shrinking children too,Were gathered in that mournful band.
Ye who have laid your loved to rest,And wept above their lifeless clay,Know not the anguish of that breast,Whose loved are rudely torn away.
Ye may not know how desolateAre bosoms rudely forced to part,And how a dull and heavy weightWill press the life-drops from the heart.

Ghazal

By Agha Shahid Ali (1949-2001)

I’ll do what I must if I’m bold in real time.   A refugee, I’ll be paroled in real time.
Cool evidence clawed off like shirts of hell-fire?   A former existence untold in real time.
The one you would choose: Were you led then by him?
What longing, O Yaar, is controlled in real time?
Each syllable sucked under waves of our earthThe funeral love comes to hold in real time!
They left him alive so that he could be lonelyThe god of small things is not consoled in real time.
Please afterwards empty my pockets of keysIt’s hell in the city of gold in real time.
God’s angels again are-for Satan! forlorn.   Salvation was bought but sin sold in real time.
And who is the terrorist, who the victim?We’ll know if the country is polled in real time.
“Behind a door marked DANGER” are being unwoundthe prayers my friend had en-scrolled in real time.
The throat of the rear-view and sliding down it   the Street of Farewell’s now unrolled in real time.
I heard the incessant dissolving of silkI felt my heart growing so old in real time.
Her heart must be ash where her body lies burned.   What hope lets your hands rake the cold in real time?
Now Friend, the Beloved has stolen your wordsRead slowly: The plot will unfold in real time.

Death

By Percy Bysshe Shelley  (1792 - 1822)

They die, the dead return not, MiserySits near an open grave and calls them over,A Youth with hoary hair and haggard eyeThey are the names of kindred, friend and lover,Which he so feebly call, they all are goneFond wretch, all dead! those vacant names alone,This most familiar scene, my painThese tombs alone remain.
Misery, my sweetest friend, oh, weep no more!Thou wilt not be consoled, I wonder not!For I have seen thee from thy dwelling’s doorWatch the calm sunset with them, and this spotWas even as bright and calm, but transitory,And now thy hopes are gone, thy hair is hoary;This most familiar scene, my painThese tombs, alone remain.

Alone In The Woods

By Stevie Smith (1902-1971)

Alone in the woods I feltThe bitter hostility of the sky and the treesNature has taught her creatures to hateMan that fusses and fumesUnquiet manAs the sap rises in the treesAs the sap paints the trees a violent greenSo rises the wrath of Nature's creaturesAt manSo paints the face of Nature a violent green.Nature is sick at manSick at his fuss and fumeSick at his agoniesSick at his gaudy mindThat drives his bodyEver more quicklyMore and moreIn the wrong direction. 

Still I Rise

By Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

You may write me down in historyWith your bitter, twisted lies,You may trod me in the very dirtBut still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?Why are you beset with gloom?’Cause I walk like I've got oil wellsPumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,With the certainty of tides,Just like hopes springing high,Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?Bowed head and lowered eyes?Shoulders falling down like teardrops,Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?Don't you take it awful hard’Cause I laugh like I've got gold minesDiggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,You may cut me with your eyes,You may kill me with your hatefulness,But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?Does it come as a surpriseThat I dance like I've got diamondsAt the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shameI riseUp from a past that’s rooted in painI riseI'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fearI riseInto a daybreak that’s wondrously clearI riseBringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,I am the dream and the hope of the slave.I riseI riseI rise.

After the Winter

By Claude McKay (1889 - 1948)

Some day, when trees have shed their leavesAnd against the morning’s whiteThe shivering birds beneath the eavesHave sheltered for the night,We’ll turn our faces southward, love,Toward the summer isleWhere bamboos spire the shafted groveAnd wide-mouthed orchids smile.
And we will seek the quiet hillWhere towers the cotton tree,And leaps the laughing crystal rill,And works the droning bee.And we will build a cottage thereBeside an open glade,With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,And ferns that never fade.

"The Road Not Taken

By Robert Frost (1874-1963 )

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I kept the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back.I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.

A Mile With Me

By Henry Van Dyke ( 1852-1933 )

O who will walk a mile with meAlong life's merry way?A comrade blithe and full of glee,Who dares to laugh out loud and free,And let his frolic fancy play,Like a happy child, through the flowers gayThat fill the field and fringe the wayWhere he walks a mile with me.
And who will walk a mile with meAlong life's weary way?A friend whose heart has eyes to seeThe stars shine out o'er the darkening lea,And the quiet rest at the end o' the day,—A friend who knows, and dares to say,The brave, sweet words that cheer the wayWhere he walks a mile with me.
With such a comrade, such a friend,I fain would walk till journeys end,Through summer sunshine, winter rain,And then?—Farewell, we shall meet again!
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