I AM WITH YOU

PRETEND THIS POEM IS ME,

AND I AM WITH YOU

Pretend this poem is me, and I am with you;

I hold you in the circle of my fire.

Come into me, and time and space will vanish,

You and I alone, joined at the root.

There is a special room where I am with you;

I close the door and you are in my arms.

You become my skin, my self, my world,

Till I go back to sleep in lonely darkness.

So we defeat the miles and months between us;

We make love in our hearts if not in touch.

You are more to me in hope and passion

Than any man who brushes by my day

Fade far away

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-ey'd despairs,

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Ere I was old

Ere I was old.

Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere,

Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!

O Youth! for years so many and sweet

'Tis known, that Thou and I were one,

I'll think it but a fond conceit--

It cannot be, that Thou art gone!

Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd:--

And thou wert aye a masker bold!

What strange disguise hast now put on,

To make believe, that Thou art gone?

I see these locks in silvery slips,

This drooping gait, this altered size:

But springtide blossoms on thy lips,

And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!

Life is but thought: so think I will

That Youth and I are house-mates still.

Dew-drops are the gems of morning,

But the tears of mournful eve!

Where no hope is, life's a warning

That only serves to make us grieve,

When we are old:

That only serves to make us grieve

With oft and tedious taking-leave,

Like some poor nigh-related guest,

That may not rudely be dismist.

Yet hath outstay'd his welcome while,

And tells the jest without the smile.

Deep in my soul

Deep in my soul that tender secret dwells,

Lonely and lost to light for evermore,

Save when to thine my heart responsive swells,

Then trembles into silence as before.

There, in its centre, a sepulchral lamp

Burns the slow flame, eternal--but unseen;

Which not the darkness of Despair can damp,

Though vain its ray as it had never been.

 Remember me--Oh! pass not thou my grave

Without one thought whose relics there recline:

The only pang my bosom dare not brave

Must be to find forgetfulness in thine.

My fondest--faintest--latest accents hear--

Grief for the dead not Virtue can reprove;

Then give me all I ever asked--a tear,

The first--last--sole reward of so much love!

DO NOT LOVE ME YET

Do not love me yet, for I

Am still a slender moon,

A scimitar about the heart

Too sharp to touch too soon.

Before I’m touched I need to grow

More full in golden light;

I need to smile upon my earth

And rule some patch of night.

I need to know what roads and fields

Lie in my domain

And dull my brand new ecstasies

With sophomoric pain.

I need the love of some blank boy

As cold and dark as me,

That we might grope in ignorance

And fear of what might be.

And then, when I’m a silver bowl

And know what I can hold,

Then, then, perhaps, we could try love

If you are not too old

America the Beautiful Revisited

America the Beautiful Revisited

America, while breathing gaseous skies,

Converts her amber waves of grain to gold.

She logs her mountains’ purple majesty

And risks her fruited plains in futures sold.

How could the selfless pilgrims have foreseen

The fiscal dust their sturdy feet would raise?

When did their quest for freedom of belief

Become obsessed with how much interest pays?

The early heroes’ hearts were filled with fire,

Replaced of late by nuclear doomsday fear.

When greed fails in these days to get its way,

Then hired generals flatten all that’s dear.

Those patriot dreamers failed to forecast years

Of lotteries and bets on football games,

Nor could they know what poverty and fears

Would lurk in cities bearing brave men’s names.

America! My poor America!

Thy crown of brotherhood is hard to see.

Thy god is Gold; thy goodness yields to law,

And lawyers fight from fee to shining fee.

NIGHT COMES TO ME

NIGHT COMES TO ME

THROUGHOUT THE DAY

Night comes to me throughout the day

And closes my external door.

I know that I am in for more

Unhappiness, and yet I stay.

The pain of missing you is less

Than that of missing thoughts of you.

And so I’d rather suffer through

This torture than face emptiness.

I want you with me, even though

You’re not with me. You are the light

That gets me through this awful night

Yet brings the darkness where I go.