When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with the golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
NOTE: This poem is also sometimes entitled, “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.”
There once was a player of the banjo
Who took out his act as a roadshow.
A tour by demand,
(The demand of his band.)
Crowds felt the same and suggested he bongo.
There once was a Taoist from Taipei,
Who knew all one could know of the Way.
When asked for directions,
He'd state his objections,
"The way that can be stated is not The Way."
Sometime not too distant,
There will come a day
When you will return to
A frequent state of play.
When that day comes around,
You'll have lost all concern
For the adults' belief that
Frivolity must be spurned.
You'll take to tossing balls
And climbing up the walls,
Just like you used to do
When you were one or two --
Before that human zoo
Got its hooks in you.
Slowly, silently, the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws, and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.
At noisy readings an angry old poet
Would pick up one of his books and bestow it.
When they would snicker
He'd wish his book thicker,
For it would flutter in air when he'd throw it.
There was an up-and-coming modern artist
Who went by the pseudonym "Arthur Fartist."
He painted with flair
From his derriere,
'Til critics judged his work, "not the smartest."
The thirsty Earth soaks up the Rain,
And drinks, and gapes for drink again.
The Plants suck in the Earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and faire.
The Sea itself, which one would think
Should have but little need of Drink,
Drinks ten thousand Rivers up,
So fill'd that they o'erflow the Cup.
The busy Sun (and one would guess
By 's drunken fiery face no less)
Drinks up the Sea, and when he's done,
The Moon and Stars drink up the Sun.
They drink and dance by their own light,
They drink and revel all the night.
Nothing in Nature 's Sober found,
But an eternal Health goes round.
Fill up the Bowl then, fill it high,
Fill all the Glasses there, for why
Should every creature drink but I,
Why, Man of Morals, tell me why?
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
