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Elegy XVII. He Indulges the Suggestions of Spleen.-- An Elegy to the Winds

AEole! namque tibi divûm Pater atque hominum rex,
Et mulcere dedit mentes et tollere vento.

Imitation.

O AEolus! to thee the Sire supreme
Of gods and men the mighty power bequeath'd
To rouse or to assuage the human mind.

Stern Monarch of the winds! admit my prayer;
Awhile thy fury check, thy storms confine;
No trivial blast impels the passive air,
But brews a tempest in a breast like mine.

What bands of black ideas spread their wings!
The peaceful regions of Content invade!
With deadly poison taint the crystal springs!
With noisome vapour blast the verdant shade!

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poem by William Shenstone
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Cocoons

Weary of lies and the soap operas of fruit on the verge
of their due dates, weary of men and women and breezy friends
with smiles like illegal fishing nets across a river, bored
with the multiple personalities of stale bread growing pools
of blue-green bacteria like a bad imitation of the moon, the people
who landed safely from a long way up
but drowned in their parachutes, the earth-bound
curb-worn excuses that never learned how
to park a star without getting burnt; and nowhere to go
with all of this unspooling of an old documentary
that isn't me anymore than the echo of a diamond is;
sick of approaching the vital signs of every oceanic dilemma
with the heart of a well, the mind of a winch
and the balls of a bucket, without malice
and I repeat it, without malice
because my mind is not a shoe full of interrogative scorpions
and my blood has never gone white long enough
to call itself an ice-age and there's always a clown
to warm things up with sad defeats and comic thawings
and most things are just old bottles in a barn anyway,

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poem by Patrick White
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Elegy VII. He Describes His Vision to An Acquaintance

Caetera per terras omnes animalia, &c. ~ Virg.

Imitation.

All animals beside, o'er all the earth, &c.

On distant heaths, beneath autumnal skies,
Pensive I saw the circling shade descend;
Weary and faint I heard the storm arise,
While the sun vanish'd, like a faithless friend.

No kind companion led my steps aright;
No friendly planet lent its glimmering ray;
Even the lone cot refused its wonted light,
Where Toil in peaceful slumber closed the day.

Then the dull bell had given a pleasing sound;
The village cur 'twere transport then to hear;
In dreadful silence all was hush'd around,

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poem by William Shenstone
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Flyaway Woman

Flyaway woman with a blue ladybug for a heart,
I am not your firetruck, or the glass wishbone you break
in case of an apple emergency when you split
like the seedcase of an eyelid into the angelic smear
of an orchid of smoke with dangerous doves for hands.
Leave me alone to the night that goes on in the depths
of the praeternatural river that threads the eye of the bridge;
and the fish that brain the darkness with the constancy
of thoughts and emotional lightbulbs
that keep tripping over their hairtrigger traplines
trying to illuminate their destiny
in the palm of the sceptical lightning
who does a bad imitation of God. Flyaway woman,
I could love the way you smile as if
you had a mouthful of coffin nails
and wanted to board the world up with plywood
so you could live like a rose in a hurricane
without blowing the sandbox cities
of the peninsular children away. Flyaway woman, tell me,
is your heart an orange in the fridge with green sunspots,

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poem by Patrick White
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Full Moon And The Mournful Thunder Of A Train

Full moon and the mournful thunder of a train
passing through town. Venus, Jupiter, Mercury
long gone down for the rest of the night.
Orion a pale imitation of itself in the west.
Mars near Regulus, the little king with the heart of the lion,
and Saturn off to the east. Like water returned
to the river it came from, everything immersed
in the fluidity of silence
swimming through the trees
as if virgins were older than fish at the spring equinox.

A habit of wandering when no one else is around
walks me out of town like some unknown journey
stringing my feet along with a line
and two minutes with a lunar hook dangling
in the effluvial plains of the moon's volcanic seas
as if I needed to be played into it by the sacred syllables
of ancient starmaps talking in tongues like oceans of awareness
into the ears of the seashells who can repeat
every word they say to themselves in secret.

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poem by Patrick White
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An Irregular Ode, After Sickness

-Melius, bunny venerit ipsa, canemus.
-Virg.
Imitation.

His wish'd-for presence will improve the song.

Too long a stranger to repose,
At length from Pain's abhorred couch I rose,
And wander'd forth alone,
To court once more the balmy breeze,
And catch the verdure of the trees,
Ere yet their charms were flown.

'Twas from a bank with pansies gay,
I hail'd once more the cheerful day,
The sun's forgotten beams
O Sun! how pleasing were thy rays,
Reflected from the polish'd face
Of yon refulgent streams!

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poem by William Shenstone
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Mercian Hymns

I

King of the perennial holly-groves, the riven sandstone: overlord of the M5: architect of the historic rampart and ditch, the citadel at Tamworth, the summer hermitage in Holy Cross: guardian of the Welsh Bridge and the Iron Bridge: contractor to the desirable new estates: saltmaster: moneychanger: commissioner for oaths: martyrologist: the friend of Charlemagne.

‘I liked that,’ said Offa, ‘sing it again.’

IV

I was invested in mother-earth, the crypt of roots and endings. Child’s-play. I abode there, bided my time: where the mole

shouldered the clogged wheel, his gold solidus; where dry-dust badgers thronged the Roman flues, the long-unlooked-for mansions of our tribe.

V

So much for the elves’ wergild, the true governance of England, the gaunt warrior-gospel armoured in engraved stone. I wormed my way heavenward for ages amid barbaric ivy, scrollwork of fern.

Exile or pilgrim set me once more upon that ground: my rich and desolate childhood. Dreamy, smug-faced, sick on outings—I who was taken to be a king of some kind, a prodigy, a maimed one.

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poem by Geoffrey Hill
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Great Sex In A Bower Of Razorwire

Great sex in a bower of razorwire
and every kiss the splash
of an electrical rose
that just fell into the jacuzzi
as if it were committing suicide.
I remember you like the proof
of some mathematical theorem
I learned in school.
You were certain proof
I was a fool.
Foolproof then you said
but by then I was so screwed up
feeling like the Antichrist of Zen
I just wanted to be
as simple and lucid
as a horned skull that had fallen
like a chunk of the moon
into an unnamed desert
and let the stars crawl in and out of my eyes
salvaging whatever insights they could.

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poem by Patrick White
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To My Father (Translated From Milton)

Oh that Pieria's spring would thro' my breast
Pour its inspiring influence, and rush
No rill, but rather an o'erflowing flood!
That, for my venerable Father's sake
All meaner themes renounced, my Muse, on wings
Of Duty borne, might reach a loftier strain.
For thee, my Father! howsoe'er it please,
She frames this slender work, nor know I aught,
That may thy gifts more suitably requite;
Though to requite them suitably would ask
Returns much nobler, and surpassing far
The meagre stores of verbal gratitude.
But, such as I possess, I send thee all.
This page presents thee in their full amount
With thy son's treasures, and the sum is nought;
Naught, save the riches that from airy dreams
In secret grottos and in laurel bow'rs,
I have, by golden Clio's gift, acquir'd.
Verse is a work divine; despise not thou
Verse therefore, which evinces (nothing more)

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poem by William Cowper
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Friendship

What virtue, or what mental grace
But men unqualified and base
Will boast it their possession?
Profusion apes the noble part
Of liberality of heart,
And dulness of discretion.

If every polish’d gem we find,
Illuminating heart or mind,
Provoke to imitation;
No wonder friendship does the same,
That jewel of the purest flame,
Or rather constellation.

No knave but boldly will pretend
The requisites that form a friend,
A real and a sound one;
Nor any fool, he would deceive,
But prove as ready to believe,
And dream that he had found one.

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poem by William Cowper
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