Wilfred Owen – The Kind Ghosts

She sleeps on soft, last breaths; but no ghost looms
Out of the stillness of her palace wall,
Her wall of boys on boys and dooms on dooms.

She dreams of golden gardens and sweet glooms,
Not marvelling why her roses never fall
Nor what red mouths were torn to make their blooms.

The shades keep down which well might roam her hall.
Quiet their blood lies in her crimson rooms
And she is not afraid of their footfall.

They move not from her tapestries, their pall,
Nor pace her terraces, their hecatombs,
Lest aught she be disturbed, or grieved at all.

Charles Bukowski – Decline

naked along the side of the house,
8 a.m., spreading sesame seed oil
over my body, Jesus, have I come
to this?
I once battled in dark alleys for a
laugh.
now I'm not laughing.
I splash myself with oil and wonder,
how many years do you want?
how many days?
my blood is soiled and a dark
angel sits in my brain.
things are made of something and
go to nothing.
I understand the fall of cities, of
nations.
a small plane passes overhead.
I look upward as if it made sense to
look upward.
it's true, the sky has rotted:
it won't be long for any of
us.

Charlotte Mew – On the Road to the Sea

We passed each other, turned and stopped for half an hour, then went our way,

I who make other women smile did not make you--

But no man can move mountains in a day.

So this hard thing is yet to do.

But first I want your life:--before I die I want to see

The world that lies behind the strangeness of your eyes,

There is nothing gay or green there for my gathering, it may be,

Yet on brown fields there lies

A haunting purple bloom: is there not something in grey skies

And in grey sea?

I want what world there is behind your eyes,

I want your life and you will not give it me.

Now, if I look, I see you walking down the years,

Young, and through August fields--a face, a thought, a swinging dream

perched on a stile--;

I would have liked (so vile we are!) to have taught you tears

But most to have made you smile.

To-day is not enough or yesterday: God sees it all--

Your length on sunny lawns, the wakeful rainy nights--; tell me--;

(how vain to ask), but it is not a question--just a call--;

Show me then, only your notched inches climbing up the garden wall,

I like you best when you are small.

Is this a stupid thing to say

Not having spent with you one day?

No matter; I shall never touch your hair

Or hear the little tick behind your breast,

Still it is there,

And as a flying bird

Brushes the branches where it may not rest

I have brushed your hand and heard

The child in you: I like that best

So small, so dark, so sweet; and were you also then too grave and wise?

Always I think. Then put your far off little hand in mine;--

Oh! let it rest;

I will not stare into the early world beyond the opening eyes,

Or vex or scare what I love best.

But I want your life before mine bleeds away--

Here--not in heavenly hereafters--soon,--

I want your smile this very afternoon,

(The last of all my vices, pleasant people used to say,

I wanted and I sometimes got--the Moon!)

You know, at dusk, the last bird's cry,

And round the house the flap of the bat's low flight,

Trees that go black against the sky

And then--how soon the night!

No shadow of you on any bright road again,

And at the darkening end of this--what voice? whose kiss? As if you'd say!

It is not I who have walked with you, it will not be I who take away

Peace, peace, my little handful of the gleaner's grain

From your reaped fields at the shut of day.

Peace! Would you not rather die

Reeling,--with all the cannons at your ear?

So, at least, would I,

And I may not be here

To-night, to-morrow morning or next year.

Still I will let you keep your life a little while,

See dear?

I have made you smile.

Carl Sandburg – Chicago

Hog Butcher for the World,

   Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

   Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;

   Stormy, husky, brawling,

   City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.

And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.

And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.

And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:

Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,

   Bareheaded,

   Shoveling,

   Wrecking,

   Planning,

   Building, breaking, rebuilding,

Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,

Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,

Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,

Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,

                   Laughing!

Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

George Gordon Byron – January 22nd, Missolonghi

On this Day I Complete my Thirty-Sixth Year

'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,

       Since others it hath ceased to move:

Yet though I cannot be beloved,

                                    Still let me love!

   My days are in the yellow leaf;

       The flowers and fruits of Love are gone;

The worm—the canker, and the grief

                                    Are mine alone!

   The fire that on my bosom preys

       Is lone as some Volcanic Isle;

No torch is kindled at its blaze

                                    A funeral pile.

   The hope, the fear, the jealous care,

       The exalted portion of the pain

And power of Love I cannot share,

                                    But wear the chain.

   But 'tis not thus—and 'tis not here

       Such thoughts should shake my Soul, nor now,

Where Glory decks the hero's bier,

                                    Or binds his brow.

   The Sword, the Banner, and the Field,

       Glory and Greece around us see!

The Spartan borne upon his shield

                                    Was not more free.

   Awake (not Greece—she is awake!)

       Awake, my Spirit! Think through whom

Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake

                                    And then strike home!

   Tread those reviving passions down

       Unworthy Manhood—unto thee

Indifferent should the smile or frown

                                    Of beauty be.

   If thou regret'st thy Youth, why live?

       The land of honourable Death

Is here:—up to the Field, and give

                                    Away thy breath!

   Seek out—less often sought than found—

       A Soldier's Grave, for thee the best;

Then look around, and choose thy Ground,

                                    And take thy rest.