Time poems
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Dream Song 19: Here, whence
© John Berryman
Here, whence
all have departed orwill do, here airless, where
that witchy ball
wanted, fought toward, dreamed of, all a green living
drops limply into one's hands
without pleasure or interest
Raphael
© John Greenleaf Whittier
I shall not soon forget that sight
The glow of Autumn's westering day,
A hazy warmth, a dreamy light,
On Raphael's picture lay.
Dream Song 119: Fresh-shaven, past months & a picture in New York
© John Berryman
Fresh-shaven, past months & a picture in New York
of Beard Two, I did have Three took off. Well. .
Shadow & act, shadow & act,
Better get white or you' get whacked,
or keep so-called black
& raise new hell.
The Ring And The Book - Chapter VII - Pompilia
© Robert Browning
There,
Strength comes already with the utterance!
I will remember once more for his sake
The sorrow: for he lives and is belied.
Could he be here, how he would speak for me!
The Voices Of Hellas
© Robert Laurence Binyon
Time, that has crumbled to impotent nothingness
Empire on empire, towering in arrogance,
Time, at whose finger invisibly commanding
Their bannered battalions marched to oblivion,
Dream Song 134: Sick at 6 & sick again at 9
© John Berryman
Sick at 6 & sick again at 9
was Henry's gloomy Monday morning oh.
Still he had to lecture.
They waited, his little children, for stricken Henry
to rise up yet once more again and come oh.
They figured he was a fixture,
The Touchstone
© Edith Nesbit
There was a garden, very strange and fair
With all the roses summer never brings.
The snowy blossom of immortal Springs
Lighted its boughs, and I, even I, was there.
There were new heavens, and the earth was new,
And still I told my heart the dream was true.
Argentile and Curan. - extracted from Albion's England
© William Warner
The Brutons thus departed hence, seaven kingdoms here begonne,
Where diversly in divers broyls the Saxons lost and wonne.
Dream Song 44: Tell it to the forest fire, tell it to the moon
© John Berryman
Tell it to the forest fire, tell it to the moon,
mention it in general to the moon
on the way down,
he's about to have his lady, permanent;
and this is the worst of all came ever sent
writhing Henry's way.
Dream Song 111: I miss him. When I get back to camp
© John Berryman
I miss him. When I get back to camp
I'll dig him up. Well, he can prop & watch,
can't he, pink or blue,
and I will talk to him. I miss him. Slams,
grand or any, aren't for the tundra much.
One face-card will do.
Dream Song 79: Op. posth. no. 2
© John Berryman
Whence flew the litter whereon he was laid?
Of what heroic stuff was warlock Henry made?
and questions of that sort
perplexed the bulging cosmos, O in short
was sandalwood in good supply when he
flared out of history
Dream Song 52: Silent Song
© John Berryman
Bright-eyed & bushy tailed woke not Henry up.
Bright though upon his workshop shone a vise
central, moved in
while he was doing time down hospital
and growing wise.
He gave it the worst look he had left.
Fuji In A Saucer: The Poem
© Mikhail Alekseevich Kuzmin
Through tannic steam I catch a glimpse of Fuji:
Against a yellow sky volcanic gold
Dream Song 105: As a kid I believed in democracy: I
© John Berryman
As a kid I believed in democracy: I
'saw no alternative'âteaching at The Big Place I ah
put it in practice:
we'd time for one long novel: to a voteâ
Gone with the Wind they voted: I crunched 'No'
and we sat down with War & Peace.
Dream Song 26: The glories of the world struck me
© John Berryman
The glories of the world struck me, made me aria, once.
âWhat happen then, Mr Bones?
if be you cares to say.
âHenry. Henry became interested in women's bodies,
his loins were & were the scene of stupendous achievement.
Stupor. Knees, dear. Pray.
Dream Song 176: All that hair flashing over
© John Berryman
All that hair flashing over the Atlantic,
Henry's girl's gone. She'll find Paris a sweet place
as many times he did.
She's there now, having left yesterday. I held
her cousin's hand, all innocence, on the climb to the tower.
Her cousin is if possible more beautiful than she is.
Dream Song 131: Come touch me baby in his waking dream
© John Berryman
Come touch me baby in his waking dream
disordered Henry murmured. I'll read you Hegel
and that will hurt your mind
I can't remember when you were unkind
but I will clear that block, I'll set you on fire
along with our babies
Dream Song 61: Full moon. Our Narragansett gales subside
© John Berryman
Full moon. Our Narragansett gales subside
and the land is celebrating men of war
more or less, less or more.
In valleys, thin on headlands, narrow & wide
our targets rest. In us we trust. Far, near,
the bivouacs of fear
Sonnet 96
© John Berryman
An instant there is, Sophoclean, true,
When Oedipus must understand: his head
When Oedipus believestilts like a wave,
And will not break, only iov iov
Wells from his dreadful mouth, the love he led:
Prolong to Procyon this. This begins my grave.
