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“A child said, what is the grass?” by walt whitman

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 dropped, 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 and from women, and from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps, And here you are the mother's 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? What do you think has become of the women and children? They are alive and well somewhere; The smallest sprouts show 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 ceased the moment life appeared. All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

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Henceforth no more pictures of faces with the poems. 

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“Death be not proud, though some have called thee”

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so, For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow, Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee doe goe, Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie. Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well, And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then; One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally, And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

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“The Fly” by William Blake

Little Fly, Thy summer's play My thoughtless hand Has brushed away. Am not I A fly like thee? Or art not thou A man like me? For I dance And drink, and sing, Till some blind hand Shall brush my wing. If thought is life And strength and breath And the want Of thought is death; Then am I A happy fly, If I live, Or if I die.

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“To Wisdom” by Anna Laetitia Barbauld

O WISDOM ! if thy soft controul Can sooth the sickness of the soul, Can bid the warring passions cease, And breathe the balm of tender peace, WISDOM ! I bless thy gentle sway, And ever, ever will obey.  But if thou com'st with frown austere To nurse the brood of care and fear ; To bid our sweetest passions die, And leave us in their room a sigh ;

Of if thine aspect stern have power To wither each poor transient flower, That cheers the pilgrimage of woe, And dry the springs whence hope should flow ; WISDOM, thine empire I disclaim, Thou empty boast of pompous name ! In gloomy shade of cloisters dwell, But never haunt my chearful cell. Hail to pleasure's frolic train ; Hail to fancy's golden reign ; Festive mirth, and laughter wild, Free and sportful as the child ; Hope with eager sparkling eyes, And easy faith, and fond surprise : Let these, in fairy colours drest, Forever share my careless breast ; Then, tho' wise I may not be, The wise themselves shall envy me. 

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“No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief” by Gerard Manley Hopkins

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief, More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring. Comforter, where, where is your comforting? Mary, mother of us, where is your relief? My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief Woe, wórld-sorrow; on an áge-old anvil wince and sing — Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling-ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief."'

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep, Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all Life death does end and each day dies with sleep. 

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“I Am In Need Of Music” by Elizabeth Bishop

I am in need of music that would flow Over my fretful, feeling fingertips, Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips, With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow. Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low, Of some song sung to rest the tired dead, A song to fall like water on my head, And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow! There is a magic made by melody: A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep To the subaqueous stillness of the sea, And floats forever in a moon-green pool, Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

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“Table Talk” by Wallace Stevens

Granted, we die for good. Life, then, is largely a thing Of happens to like, not should. And that, too, granted, why Do I happen to like red bush, Grey grass and green-gray sky? What else remains? But red, Gray, green, why those of all? That is not what I said: Not those of all. But those. One likes what one happens to like. One likes the way red grows. It cannot matter at all. Happens to like is one Of the ways things happen to fall.

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“Alone” by Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were—I have not seen As others saw—I could not bring My passions from a common spring— From the same source I have not taken My sorrow—I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone— And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone— Then—in my childhood—in the dawn Of a most stormy life—was drawn From ev’ry depth of good and ill The mystery which binds me still— From the torrent, or the fountain— From the red cliff of the mountain— From the sun that ’round me roll’d In its autumn tint of gold— From the lightning in the sky As it pass’d me flying by— From the thunder, and the storm— And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view— 

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“I Am” by John Clare

I am—yet what I am none cares or knows; My friends forsake me like a memory lost: I am the self-consumer of my woes— They rise and vanish in oblivious host, Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, Into the living sea of waking dreams, Where there is neither sense of life or joys, But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems; Even the dearest that I loved the best Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod A place where woman never smiled or wept There to abide with my Creator, God, And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, Untroubling and untroubled where I lie The grass below—above the vaulted sky

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“Finish” by Charles Bukowski

the hearse comes through the room filled with the beheaded, the disappeared, the living mad. the flies are a glue of sticky paste their wings will not lift. I watch an old woman beat her cat with a broom. the weather is unendurable a dirty trick by God. the water has evaporated from the toilet bowl the telephone rings without sound the small limp arm petering against the bell. I see a boy on his bicycle the spokes collapse the tires turn into snakes and melt away. the newspaper is oven-hot men murder each other in the streets without reason. the worst men have the best jobs the best men have the worst jobs or are unemployed or locked in madhouses. I have 4 cans of food left. air-conditioned troops go from house to house from room to room jailing, shooting, bayoneting the people. we have done this to ourselves, we deserve this we are like roses that have never bothered to bloom when we should have bloomed and it is as if the sun has become disgusted with waiting it is as if the sun were a mind that has given up on us. I go out on the back porch and look across the sea of dead plants now thorns and sticks shivering in a windless sky. somehow I'm glad we're through finished-- the works of Art the wars the decayed loves the way we lived each day. when the troops come up here I don't care what they do for we already killed ourselves each day we got out of bed. I go back into the kitchen spill some hash from a soft can, almost cooked already and I sit eating, looking at my fingernails. the sweat comes from behind my ears and I hear the shooting in the streets and I chew and wait without wonder.

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Drawings by William Blake depicting scenes from Dante’s “Divine Comedy”. More here: http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/copy.xq?copyid=but812.1&java=no

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