✦ Poetry Reader ✦

The night pours ink across the sleeping hills, each star a syllable the ancients left behind. And I, a wanderer with open palms, catch the echoes of forgotten psalms. "Listen," the quiet says, "to the hum of silver dust — your bones are made of galaxies and trust."

If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again. Far or forgot to me is near; Shadow and sunlight are the same; The vanished gods to me appear; And one to me are shame and fame. They reckon ill who leave me out; When me they fly, I am the wings; I am the doubter and the doubt, I am the hymn the Brahmin sings. The strong gods pine for my abode, And pine in vain the sacred Seven; But thou, meek lover of the good! Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.

Let the bird of loudest lay On the sole Arabian tree Herald sad and trumpet be, To whose sound chaste wings obey. But thou shrieking harbinger, Foul precurrer of the fiend, Augur of the fever's end, To this troop come thou not near. From this session interdict Every fowl of tyrant wing, Save the eagle, feather'd king; Keep the obsequy so strict. Let the priest in surplice white, That defunctive music can, Be the death-divining swan, Lest the requiem lack his right. And thou treble-dated crow, That thy sable gender mak'st With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st, 'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go. Here the anthem doth commence: Love and constancy is dead; Phoenix and the Turtle fled In a mutual flame from hence. So they lov'd, as love in twain Had the essence but in one; Two distincts, division none: Number there in love was slain. Hearts remote, yet not asunder; Distance and no space was seen 'Twixt this Turtle and his queen: But in them it were a wonder. So between them love did shine That the Turtle saw his right Flaming in the Phoenix' sight: Either was the other's mine. Property was thus appalled That the self was not the same; Single nature's double name Neither two nor one was called. Reason, in itself confounded, Saw division grow together, To themselves yet either neither, Simple were so well compounded; That it cried, "How true a twain Seemeth this concordant one! Love has reason, reason none, If what parts can so remain." Whereupon it made this threne To the Phoenix and the Dove, Co-supremes and stars of love, As chorus to their tragic scene: threnos Beauty, truth, and rarity, Grace in all simplicity, Here enclos'd, in cinders lie. Death is now the Phoenix' nest, And the Turtle's loyal breast To eternity doth rest, Leaving no posterity: 'Twas not their infirmity, It was married chastity. Truth may seem but cannot be; Beauty brag but 'tis not she; Truth and beauty buried be. To this urn let those repair That are either true or fair; For these dead birds sigh a prayer.

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To 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 there Had worn them really about the same. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere 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.

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But 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 wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise.

This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.

Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality. We slowly drove – He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility – We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess – in the Ring – We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – We passed the Setting Sun – Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity –