There is health in thy gray wing,
Health of nature's furnishing.
Say, thou modern-winged antique,
Was thy mistress ever sick?
In each heaving of thy wing
Thou dost health and leisure bring,
Thou dost waive disease and pain
And resume new life again.
My mind's a map. A mad sea-captain drew
it
Under a flowing moon until he knew it;
Winds with brass trumpets, puffy-cheeked
as jugs,
And states bright-patterned like Arabian
rugs.
"Here there be tygers." "Here we buried
Jim."
Here is the strait where eyeless fishes swim
About their buried idol, drowned so cold
He weeps away his eyes in salt and gold.
A country like the dark side of the moon,
A cider-apple country, harsh and boon,
A country savage as a chestnut-rind,
A land of hungry sorcerers.
Your mind?
--Your mind is water through an April
night,
A cherry-branch, plume-feathery with its
white,
A lavender as fragrant as your words,
A room where Peace and Honor talk like
birds,
Sewing bright coins upon the tragic cloth
Of heavy Fate, and Mockery, like a moth,
Flutters and beats about those lovely
things.
You are the soul, enchanted with its
wings,
The single voice that raises up the dead
To shake the pride of angels.
I have said.
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were -- I have not seen
As other 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 lightening 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 --
There once was a wee Asian Weaver Ant
Who lived on a big banana tree plant.
When they cut down his tree, a problem arose,
Moving to a rubber tree would be too on-the-nose.
The Blue Sheep must be ever so sad:
For of all the colors in which its clad --
None is blue; there're shades of brown, black, and white,
But blue must be symbolic, if judged by sight.
A Cheetah can beat a Porsche to a hundred.
(Imagine the tumble if a clumsy one blundered.)
In fact, Cheetah's are so very, very fast
that your future is way, way back in its past.
The Donkey 's known to be a stubborn beast,
But when one won't move - maybe wheels weren't greased.
I've seen angry humans push, pull, and tug,
But never give a peptalk or a hug.
The Pelican, when it has formed a group,
Is said to be a squadron, pouch, or scoop.
I find that naming scheme quite puzzling;
Isn't its "pouch" where it keeps soup for guzzling?
To fight aloud, is very brave --
But gallanter, I know
Who charge within the bosom
The Calvary of Wo --
Who win, and nations do not see --
Who fall -- and none observe --
Whose dying eyes, no Country
Regards with patriot love --
We trust, in plumed procession
For such, the Angels go --
Rank after Rank, with even feet --
And Uniforms of snow.
Gold-brown upon the sated flood
The rock-vine clusters lift and sway:
Vast wings above the lambent waters
brood
Of sullen day.
A waste of waters ruthlessly
Sways and uplifts its weedy mane,
Where brooding day stares down
upon the sea
In dull disdain.
Uplift and sway, O golden vine,
Thy clustered fruits to love's full
flood,
Lambent and vast and ruthless as is
thine
Incertitude.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 