To a friend too kind

Asking the question most unanswerable

And unforgiven, "What is on your mind?"

I said or did not say,

So flamed within me hope of' overhearing truth,

So died. within me love, dying of' too much love,

I said, "I ran away".

Leaving the red of bittersweet forever rising

Against the wall, the carpets flat upon the floor,

The man whose dull appointment came at four,

The black electric clock with swimming hand.

That pours the modern hours away like sand,

And on my desk a list of things to do,

Send home for book-plates, buy some soap,

Call up Mr. H., remind. the others too,

And shall I come on Tuesday, did I lend

Or lose my Shakespeare, letters I must send-

And so I ran away not far nor did I leave myself behind,

But took myself and I was on my mind.

There in the tearoom with the tables gray

The color of that eventful day

I ate the toast alone, and praised the tea,

Considered the death of Edison, and carefully,

Spreading the paper down where I could see

I lit the pipe that I had run away,

I thought, to light, and come what may.

Then oh but the world keeps close to us,

Taps on the shoulder, though we hunch the mind,

The world, dear unbeloved, hugs us tight,

And cannot bear its being left behind.

For here the paper matches in the tray

Bore not the name of taxi, laxative, hotel,

But Christmas, red and green,

A pine-tree, snow-white coaching scene,

October not yet over, nor the first frost here

But we must hasten on the hurrying year

Ache toward the end

With tense and forward will that time shall send

Another twelve months wherein we may do

The things we did last year

But surely this time better, surely this is true.

Outside the women's footsteps in the street

Brought always not the girl to look at twice,

Always the quick hard hurrying feet

Bore disappointment by, perhaps their own,

But always mine who sat concealed alone.

And. now goodbye goodbye return I dare not.

I have been here far too long.

Oh staying past the time I did a wrong

Not easy to erase. I ate my heart for food.

I wanted New Year's and. the cleanly snow.

I watched the walkers going where they go,

And all the world and I

We hid ourselves and pierced the heart for food.

In order not to live and. neither die.

But sure as last December others too

Noticed a something in the air I do not lie

Saying we knew felicity awhile and moved in light

There runs a deep abiding stream, .

Surely there runs a stream,

Then feed on that and not the heart.

Go westward take the Indian passage north and west

And find the stream again and fling YOU down

Drink deep and so again be blest.

I have stayed too long in the south

Tasting meanness in my mouth,

Eating smallness every day and silence

I have lived on dusty hearts beside my own

And I have known

The shaking anger come that leaves me weak

Anger against the men I know

Who clutch their passions close and will not speak.

Dark and true and tender is the north.

And I will turn my face

Travelling in my mind until I find

That stream - go now - start now - alone,

And drink the vital food of dreams and grace.

I asked myself what hour and day what year

My joy and faith departed left me here.

It was the year I knew the hardest task

Was not so difficult, the cost not half so dear

As I had thought. It was the year I knew

That even I could live despair quite through

And, come out on the other side

And suffer all the light that fell

Upon that future stretching wide

Finding it mattered little after hell.

So when I knew the line was crossed,

And none could answer questions but myself',

Then I was confident and did not care,

Safe in the knowledge I had not been lost.

Then all went well as heart could think

As any heart could think except my own

And no one knew when I was quite alone

Or knew how heavily my heart could sink.

This is enough, the strength to keep

The secret while I work and stay awake,

That while I live I will not break

Although with desperate hurt and deep

The subtlety of lire has bent my sleep.

In that same hour I crossed the boundary line

found repeatedly the sign

That pointed toward the northern stream,

And told me I had lived

the direction of my dream.

And all my tasks are simple now and plain

As everything lies equal under rain.

I need not suffer fools

Nor starve on meagerness.

Time goes by to clear the way

For more and more, not less.

And always far away

Like surf beyond the sight

I hear Truth waiting

Terrible and white.

I had a hunger once

And nothing I could do.

Daily now I eat

And have the hunger too.

And still the answer to the question is

It is myself is on my mind

And all I ran away to lose

I could not leave behind.

I shall not now forget thee 0 Jerusalem.

Once known the secret is forgotten never

O dark and true and tender is the North

And I was strong again and I went forth

To lay my lips upon that river.

For now my faith and joy are this:

That both are possible to find.

My trust is in the true and fiery

Spirit of mankind.

So when I left the tearoom and the tables gray,

The scattered crumbs, the napkin crumpled up,

Burnt matches in the tray, and coins for tip,

And melted sugar in the bottom of the cup,

I left the earlier color of a day,

And crumbs of heart I did not eat

And ashes of a thought used up and burned away,

In pitiful self-pity, and the heat

That glazed the dark blue coffee pot

I left there turned to coolness in the air,

Also I left there Mr. Edison now dead

And what the minister from France had said,

And books, births, deaths and clothes to wear

Great weddings made, and murderers caught:

In short, I left my morning there.

And said goodbye. Return I will not,

For I remembered I had drunk the stream

And seen the other world as bright as heaven

Known my senses were not five but seven

And felt my veins with grace and dream

And adoration running hot.

So I came back to where the spray of bittersweet

Stood in the black vase on the mantel piece

Inevitably right as fountains fall, graceful

As water that has found release.

If I should add one spray of bittersweet

I know the upward curve would still be right

I know that rightness is not far, but near

And possible; not darkly in a glass, but light.

So I came back and smelt the apples in the room

And somewhere they were burning leaves.

I smelt the strata that a closed room weaves

To make the fabric of the feeling this is home

Unlocked the door and stood there very still

And listened hearing the clock

And hearing footsteps overhead

And distant voices talk

Heard motors in the street and music

Heard dogs barking and the trumpeter across the way

And I was home and glad to be and home to stay.

I touched the polished table top,

Felt the rough plaster of the wall

Scraped a blue candle with a fingernail

Shook the long curtains up and let them fall To their accustomed folds,

Lifted the yellow pitcher then and felt its weight

Sat down and gripped the chair's flat arm

And leaning touched the carpet's pile

Then holding all my fingers up a while

I gazed upon the lines that line the palm,

The cunning knuckles and the branching veins

The single thumbs, considering my hands,

And I was thankful for my hands.

There was a round delicious orange

I peeled by biting at the skin

And I could taste before I tasted it

The juices swollen sweet therein.

But all this time all during this delight

I had the miracle of sight.

The furniture had stood

In patient silence all the day

I wondered how I could have gone away

From this familiar and domestic wood

That by its shape had something kind to say.

Sit down in me. Lay something on my top.

Light me and let me shine for you.

Look at me hanging on your wall.

Open and read me. Walk upon me, do.

Swing shut and lock me and be in, in, in.

We are your servants, we are here for you.

My eyes were following every line

Slowly and lightly lightly as an aeroplane

Traces a curve in some immense design

And every edge of every shape was plain

Was sharp was right as if it too rejoiced

In knowing it was right had seen original

And unforgotten patterns, or had known my stream.

For every edge was bright

And rushed with light as in a wordless dream.

And every shape speaks out Take notice

Look at me consider how I front the air.

Take notice of me think the lovely thing

I might have been is really standing there.

The way a window knows, or divans understand,

The way a wall is wall - but mark me well-

These have no mind no will no memory like men

But as themselves they have ideals to tell.

All day they wait

And their essential state

Is furniturehood, their own, and. quite unhuman.

Nevertheless at night when I come in alone

And light the lamp and draw the curtains close,

I choose one chair and choose a book to read,

And looking up I think the samovar, the couch,

The coffee table and the empty chairs

Regard me whom they do not need

Or else I light the largest candlesticks

The seven branches lifting each its flame,

The shadows falling sevenfold from everything

And every object all but cries aloud its name.

I am the trestle table. I the rug.

I am the woodcut on the wall. And I the door.

This is most right that we should be

And be the things we are and nothing more.

In pride and silence we deserve this light.

I am the carven mantle piece. I am the floor.

This was the thing to do, this hour was right.

My sight is clear because they are not mine.

I am an eager foreigner in a charming place.

So are we all come lately, gladly, where we are,

Love and surprise alight on every face.

So have we all drunk once upon a time like me

Far in the north the slowly swirling stream.

I say you understand me now. I say you do,

You know all things are more than all they seem.

You have been living west

You have been thinking south

You have been all bewitched.

Silence is in your mouth.

Think north. Speak truth. Touch wood and see

With your eyes, and hear the world's sweet sound.

You stood there once you lie if you've forgotten.

You've murdered kings and let the state go rotten

You've let the heart be bound

You've eaten heart pretending to be fed.

I swear by daylight and by body's white and red,

By touch, taste, sight, and sound and smell

That all would still be well

If you would think Why all's not lost.

Why all I once thought true and possible

Is not denied me though I've crossed

And scratched away erased blanked out

Such memories as gods would love.

Surely as once I tasted deep I may again.

Surely I'm full as tall as other men.

Once while I was not watching I grew old.

But I know best the skeleton of gold

So straight and strong within this individual flesh.

I have remembered what lam.

Lover of living, radiant free and bold.

I needed two things only, one the friend too kind

To ask me what was on my mind,

The other the surging pain that leaves me weak,

The stark necessity to speak.

The world is so full of a number of things

For God's sake come and sit upon the ground

And tell old stories of the death of kings.

And did you once see Shelley plain

Or any things that seared the brain

With pity O the pity of it or with tenderness

Or feel the heart within you press

Its rapture hard upon your ribs?

Then speak. O speak. Unlock the tongue

As once you did when you were young.

Surely the sods are sharp like this,

Sharpened by grief so great

It feels the same as joy

And love that feels the same as hate.

If you go far enough in grief

If you go deep enough in love

There is no longer either good bad

No longer in or out, below, above,

But only awareness like the gods'

Through some earth-spurning power

Then back to our mortality

After the sweet immortal hour.

But I remember and I am not old

The apple trees the singing and the gold.

So in the common light of day

Sometimes I am dizzy, sick and shaken

With ironic salt comparisons.

That men can live and not awaken!

They endure the fools they do

Who say the things they listen to.

That in their eyes I'm one of them,

Citizen of the dust, and loyal, too,

Though in this irony I taste

Again excitement and the sting

Of recognizing absolute perfection

In the absolutely futile thing,

Perfectly useless, empty, dull

And thought important by the fools

Who think I think with them and so

Are crystal-clearly double fools.

For I have heard the chimes at midnight

Eaten the fruit of Eden Tree

And it is a marvelous thing

That fools can be.

The spirits of earth came out

And danced around a record in a phonograph.

The ceiling light was out and in the glow

Of a floor lamp sat four men who heard and so

The spirits disappeared back in the earth.

Bolero whips the blood

I mean after all

Things that have no feet

Will stand up tall.

Sometime I will try to show Ravel

Began the piece at normal heartbeat slow

And just before the end of record one

Faster and faster the heart begins to go.

These four had drunk a brandy of the peach

Uniquely this beguiled the blood of each,

New Englanders should drink, said one

Being a native there himself, but in the end

Thought better of this and would amend

The axiom to include All Southerners,

And south and middle westerners, too.

Drinking is something everyone should do.

It makes us gods if there's a spark

Of clean divinity in the temperamental dark.

Then stepped this diverse f our

Becoming diverse more and more

Through the Victor's double door

Into the austere world of Bach

Where armies drill precisely on a narrow field,

Advance and execute their turns

In satisfaction hard and born of skill

Where companies come on and. will not yield

Until the final foreknown footstep has been done

And all the army back where this

Sheer pitiless and. drillwork was begun.

But string quartettes are understood by hearts

That follow deep into the quarter parts.

Now Caesar Franck at the Academy

Transposed at sight key and. a half below

The music placed before him as a test

Saying he thought it sounded better so.

He wrote one violin sonata and the French

And German critics likewise call him great

And Lee said Franck was hurt and. died

By a horsecar back in 1888,

And Ted says Saginaw in Michigan

Produced its biggest lumber crop that year

And therefore Saginaw is also great.

Nevertheless says Lee not he himself

But French and German critics call

The final movement the greatest canon done

The modern music - nor is that all -

For Clement asks to make the picture whole,

But has he a beautiful soul?

Yes Caesar Franck has a beautiful soul,

If you must look at it that way

But when you face St. Peter and hear him say

How did you like the world? You must begin

By saying I liked the Franck Sonata

And Peter will let you in.

And. so we heard the password into heaven

All four movements over far too soon

And Ted insisted. German motherhood

Was Cesar Franck's, emphatically not Walloon.

Still full of distillation of the peach

And certain our grasp would not exceed our reach

Back to the club we went we three

Clement in search of beautiful souls

Already gone and. left us free,

To drink more brandy and to bay the moon

Proclaiming greatness not Walloon,

But born of the peach and greatness in the heart

And music's lesser and its greater part.

The lesser now, but of its kind. superlative,

Caused. us to make these ballads live

A little while in voices variously lyric

I Love Louisa manfully Teutonic

Little White Lies, St. Louis Blues,

And here it was I called on wisdom of the kind.

That when the song of songs is played

I never want to hear, wisely sings it through

So that in song the ghost of song is laid..

Marvelling at the skill

Swift-handed. on the keys

That played despite the wound.

And could. as ever please

I did not see at first

That the bandage on the hand.

Was moon a strip of moonlight

A narrow silver band.