Apothecaries curse me, who of late

Was cursed by Kings for slaughtering French lords! Friendless and loverless is my estate,

Yet God be praised that Hell at least affords

An adversary worthy of my hate,

With whom the Angels deigned to measure swords!

PEGASUS LOST

And there I found a gray and ancient ass,
With dull glazed stare, and stubborn wrinkled smile,
Sardonic, mocking my wide-eyed amaze.

A clumsy hulking form in that white place
At odds with the small stable, cleanly, Greek,
The marble manger and the golden oats.
With loathing hands I felt the ass's side,
Solidly real and hairy to the touch.

Then knew I that I dreamed not, but saw truth;

And knowing, wished I still might hope I dreamed.

The door stood wide, I went into the air.

The day was blue and filled with rushing wind,

A day to ride high in the heavens and taste
The glory of the gods who tread the stars.
Up in the mighty purity I saw

A flashing shape that gladly sprang aloft-
My little Pegasus, like a far white bird
Seeking sun-regions, never to return.
Silently then I turned my steps about,
Entered the stable, saddled the slow ass;
Then on its back I journeyed dustily
Between sun-wilted hedgerows into town.

MADMAN'S SONG

Better to see your cheek grown hollow,

Better to see your temple worn,

Than to forget to follow, follow,

After the sound of a silver horn.

Better to bind your brow with willow

And follow, follow until you die,

Than to sleep with your head on a golden pillow,

Nor lift it up when the hunt goes by.

Better to see your cheek grown sallow

And your hair grown gray, so soon, so soon,

Than to forget to hallo, hallo,

After the milk-white hounds of the moon.

AUGUST

Why should this Negro insolently stride
Down the red noonday on such noiseless feet?
Piled in his barrow, tawnier than wheat,
Lie heaps of smoldering daisies, somber-eyed,
Their copper petals shriveled up with pride,
Hot with a superfluity of heat,

Like a great brazier borne along the street
By captive leopards, black and burning pied.

Are there no water-lilies, smooth as cream,
With long stems dripping crystal? Are there none
Like those white lilies, luminous and cool,

Plucked from some hemlock-darkened northern stream
By fair-haired swimmers, diving where the sun
Scarce warms the surface of the deepest pool?

PURITAN SONNET

Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones
There's something in this richness that I hate.
I love the look, austere, immaculate,

Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones.
There's something in my very blood that owns
Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate,

A thread of water, churned to milky spate
Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.

I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray,
Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meager sheaves;
That spring, briefer than apple-blossom's breath,
Summer, so much too beautiful to stay,

Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,

And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR

My body is weary to death of my mischievous brain;

I am weary forever and ever of being brave;

Therefore I crouch on my knees while the cool white rain Curves the clover over my head like a wave.

The stem and the frosty seed of the grass are ripe;

I have devoured their strength; I have drunk them deep; And the dandelion is gall in a thin green pipe,

But the clover is honey and sun and the smell of sleep.

"DESOLATION IS A DELICATE THING"

Sorrow lay upon my breast more heavily than winter clay
Lying ponderable upon the unmoving bosom of the dead;
Yet it was dissolved like a thin snowfall; it was softly withered away;
Presently like a single drop of dew it had trembled and fled.

This sorrow, which seemed heavier than a shovelful of loam,
Was gone like water, like a web of delicate frost;

It was silent and vanishing like smoke; it was scattered like foam;
Though my mind should desire to preserve it, nevertheless it is lost.

This sorrow was not like sorrow; it was shining and brief;

Even as I waked and was aware of its going, it was past and gone;

It was not earth; it was no more than a light leaf,
Or a snowflake in spring, which perishes upon stone.

This sorrow was small and vulnerable and short-lived;
It was neither earth nor stone; it was silver snow
Fallen from heaven, perhaps; it has not survived
An hour of the sun; it is sad it should be so.

This sorrow, which I believed a gravestone over my heart,
Is gone like a cloud; it eluded me as I woke;

Its crystal dust is suddenly broken and blown apart;

It was not my heart; it was this poor sorrow alone which broke.