The Complete Poems
Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the Barrel
[But shake hands & kiss him & thered be no more hell]
But kiss him & give him both [food] drink & apparel
*
THE QUESTION ANSWERD
What is it men [of] in women do require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.
What is it women do [of] in men require?
The lineaments of Gratified Desire.
*
LACEDEMONIAN INSTRUCTION
Come hither my boy tell me what thou seest there
A fool tangled in a religious snare
*
RICHES
The [weal] countless gold of a merry heart
The rubies & pearls of a loving eye
The [idle man] indolent never can bring to the mart
Nor the [cunning] secret hoard up in his treasury
*
AN ANSWER TO THE PARSON
Why of the sheep do you not learn peace
Because I dont want you to shear my fleece
*
HOLY THURSDAY
Is this a holy thing to see
In a rich & fruitful land
Babes reducd to misery
Fed with cold & usurous hand
Is that trembling cry a song
Can it be a song of joy
And so great a number poor
Tis a land of poverty
And their sun does never shine
10 And their fields are bleak & bare
And their ways are filld with thorns
Tis eternal winter there
But whereeer the sun does shine
And whereeer the rain does fall
Babe can never hunger there
Nor poverty the mind appall
*
[THE ANGEL]
I dreamt a dream what can it mean
And that I was a maiden queen
Guarded by an angel mild
Witless woe was neer beguild
And I wept both night and day
And he wiped my tears away
And I wept both day & night
And hid from him my hearts delight
So he took his wings & fled
10 Then the morn blushd rosy red
I dried my tears & armd my fears
With ten thousand shields & spears
Soon my angel came again
I was armd he came in vain
[But] For the time of youth was fled
And grey hairs were on my head
*
The look of love alarms
Because tis filld with fire
But the look of soft deceit
Shall win the lovers hire
*
[Which are beauties sweetest dress]
Soft deceit & idleness
These are beauties sweetest dress
*
[Woe alas my guilty hand
Brushed across thy summer joy
All thy gilded painted pride
Shatterd fled]
1 Little fly
Thy summer play
My [guilty hand] thoughtless hand
Hath brushd away
10 [The cut worm
Forgives the plow
And dies in peace
And so do thou]
2 Am not I
A fly like thee
Or art not thou
A man like me
3 For I dance
And drink & sing
Till some blind hand
20 Shall brush my wing
5 Then am I
A happy fly
If I live
Or if I die
[4 Thought is life
30 And strength & breath
But the want (of)
Of Thought is death]
4 If thought is life
30 And strength & breath
And the want [of]
Of Thought is death
*
MOTTO TO THE SONGS OF INNOCENCE & OF EXPERIENCE
The Good are attracted by Mens perceptions
And Think not for themselves
Till Experience teaches them to catch
And to cage the Fairies & Elves
And then the Knave begins to snarl
And the Hypocrite to howl
And all his good Friends shew their private ends
And the Eagle is known from the Owl
*
Her whole Life is an Epigram smack smooth & neatly pend
Platted quite neat to catch applause with a sliding noose at the end
An old maid early eer I knew
Ought but the love that on me grew
And now Im coverd oer & oer
And wish that I had been a Whore
O I cannot cannot find
The undaunted courage of a Virgin Mind
For Early I in love was crost
Before my flower of love was lost
*
SEVERAL QUESTIONS ANSWERD
He who binds to himself a joy
Doth the winged life destroy
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in Eternitys sun rise
—————
The look of love alarms
Because tis filld with fire
But the look of soft deceit
Shall Win the lovers hire
—————
Soft deceit & Idleness
These are Beautys sweetest dress
—————
What is it men in women do require
The lineaments of Gratified Desire
What is it women do in men require
The lineaments of Gratified Desire
*
AN ANCIENT PROVERB
Remove away that blackning church
Remove away that marriage hearse
Remove away that – of blood
Youll quite remove the ancient curse
*
1 1 Let the Brothels of Paris be opened
2 With many an alluring dance
3 To awake the [Pestilence] Physicians thro the city
4 Said the beautiful Queen of France
4 9 The King awoke on his couch of gold
10 As soon as he heard these tidings told
11 Arise & come both fife & drum
12 And the [Famine] shall eat both crust & crumb
[2 Then old Nobodaddy aloft
Farted & belchd & coughd
10 7 And said I love hanging & drawing & quartering
8 Every bit as well as war & slaughtering
(Damn praying & singing
Unless they will bring in
The blood often thousand by fighting or swinging)
3 5 Then he swore a great & solemn Oath
6 To kill the people I am loth
But If they rebel they must go to hell
They shall have a Priest & a passing bell]
20 The Queen of France just touchd this Globe
And the Pestilence darted from her robe
[But the bloodthirsty people across the water
Will not submit to the gibbet & halter]
But our good Queen quite grows to the ground
[There is just such a tree at Java found]
And a great many suckers grow all around
*
[Fayette beside King Lewis stood
He saw him sign his hand
And soon he saw the famine rage
About the fruitful land
Fayette beheld the Queen to smile
And wink her lovely eye
And soon he saw the pestilence
From street to street to fly]
Fayette beheld the King & Queen
10 In tears & iron bound
But mute Fayette wept tear for tear
And guarded them around
[Fayette Fayette thourt bought & sold
For well I see thy tears
Of Pity are exchanged for those
Of selfish slavish f
ears]
[Fayette beside his banner stood
His captains false around
Thourt bought & sold]
20 3 Who will exchange his own fire side
For the steps of anothers door
Who will exchange his wheaten loaf
For the links of a dungeon floor
[Who will exchange his own hearts blood
For the drops of a harlots eye]
2 [Will the mother exchange her new born babe
For the dog at the wintry door
Yet thou dost exchange thy pitying tears
For the links of a dungeon floor
30 1 Fayette Fayette thourt bought & sold
And sold is thy happy morrow
Thou gavest the tears of Pity away
In exchange for the tears of sorrow]
2 Fayette beheld the King & Queen
In [tears] curses & iron bound
But mute Fayette wept tear for tear
And guarded them around
1 Who will exchange his own fire side
For the [steps] stone of anothers door
40 Who will exchange his wheaten loaf
For the links of a dungeon floor
3 O who would smile on the wintry seas
[Or] & Pity the stormy roar
Or who will exchange his new born child
For the dog at the wintry door
*
When a Man has Married a Wife
he finds out whether
Her knees & elbows are only
glued together
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
A Poem, in Seven Books
PAGE[iii]
ADVERTISEMENT
The remaining Books of this Poem are finished, and will be published in their Order.
PAGE [1]
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
BOOK THE FIRST
The dead brood over Europe, the cloud and vision descends over chearful France;
O cloud well appointed! Sick, sick: the Prince on his couch, wreath’d in dim
And appalling mist; his strong hand outstretch’d, from his shoulder down the bone
Runs aching cold into the scepter too heavy for mortal grasp. No more
To be swayed by visible hand, nor in cruelty bruise the mild flourishing mountains.
Sick the mountains, and all their vineyards weep, in the eyes of the kingly mourner;
Pale is the morning cloud in his visage. Rise, Necker: the ancient dawn calls us
To awake from slumbers of five thousand years. I awake, but my soul is in dreams;
From my window I see the old mountains of France, like aged men, fading away.
PAGE 2
10 Troubled, leaning on Necker, descends the King, to his chamber of council; shady mountains
In fear, utter voices of thunder; the woods of France embosom the sound;
Clouds of wisdom prophetic reply, and roll over the palace roof heavy.
Forty men: each conversing with woes in the infinite shadows of his soul,
Like our ancient fathers in regions of twilight, walk, gathering round the King;
Again the loud voice of France cries to the morning, the morning prophecies to its clouds.
For the Commons convene in the Hall of the Nation. France shakes! And the heavens of France
Perplex’d vibrate round each careful countenance! Darkness of old times around them
Utters loud despair, shadowing Paris; her grey towers groan, and the Bastile trembles.
In its terrible towers the Governor stood, in dark fogs list’ning the horror;
20 A thousand his soldiers, old veterans of France, breathing red clouds of power and dominion,
Sudden seiz’d with howlings, despair, and black night, he stalk’d like a lion from tower
To tower, his howlings were heard in the Louvre; from court to court restless he dragg’d
His strong limbs; from court to court curs’d the fierce torment unquell’d,
Howling and giving the dark command; in his soul stood the purple plague,
Tugging his iron manacles, and piercing through the seven towers dark and sickly,
Panting over the prisoners like a wolf gorg’d; and the den nam’d Horror held a man
Chain’d hand and foot, round his neck an iron band, bound to the impregnable wall.
In his soul was the serpent coil’d round in his heart, hid from the light, as in a cleft rock;
And the man was confin’d for a writing prophetic: in the tower nam’d Darkness, was a man
30 Pinion’d down to the stone floor, his strong bones scarce cover’d with sinews; the iron rings
Were forg’d smaller as the flesh decay’d, a mask of iron on his face hid the lineaments
PAGE 3
Of ancient Kings, and the frown of the eternal lion was hid from the oppressed earth.
In the tower named Bloody, a skeleton yellow remained in its chains on its couch
Of stone, once a man who refus’d to sign papers of abhorrence; the eternal worm
Crept in the skeleton. In the den nam’d Religion, a loathsome sick woman, bound down
To a bed of straw; the seven diseases of earth, like birds of prey, stood on the couch,
And fed on the body. She refus’d to be whore to the Minister, and with a knife smote him.
In the tower nam’d Order, an old man, whose white beard cover’d the stone floor like weeds
On margin of the sea, shrivel’d up by heat of day and cold of night; his den was short
40 And narrow as a grave dug for a child, with spiders webs wove, and with slime
Of ancient horrors cover’d, for snakes and scorpions are his companions; harmless they breathe
His sorrowful breath: he, by conscience urg’d, in the city of Paris rais’d a pulpit,
And taught wonders to darken’d souls. In the den nam’d Destiny a strong man sat,
His feet and hands cut off, and his eyes blinded; round his middle a chain and a band
Fasten’d into the wall; fancy gave him to see an image of despair in his den,
Eternally rushing round, like a man on his hands and knees, day and night without rest:
He was friend to the favourite. In the seventh tower, nam’d the tower of God, was a man
Mad, with chains loose, which he dragg’d up and down; fed with hopes year by year, he pined
For liberty; vain hopes: his reason decay’d, and the world of attraction in his bosom
50 Center’d, and the rushing of chaos overwhelm’d his dark soul. He was confin’d
For a letter of advice to a King, and his ravings in winds are heard over Versailles.
But the dens shook and trembled, the prisoners look up and assay to shout; they listen,
Then laugh in the dismal den, then are silent, and a light walks round the dark towers.
PAGE 4
For the Commons convene in the Hall of the Nation; like spirits of fire in the beautiful
Porches of the Sun, to plant beauty in the desart craving abyss, they gleam
On the anxious city; all children new-born first behold them; tears are fled,
And they nestle in earth-breathing bosoms. So the city of Paris, their wives and children,
Look up to the morning Senate, and visions of sorrow leave pensive streets.
But heavy brow’d jealousies lower o’er the Louvre, and terrors of ancient Kings
60 Descend from the gloom and wander thro’ the palace and weep round the King and his Nobles.
While loud thunders roll, troubling the dead, Kings are sick throughout all the earth,
The voice ceas’d: the Nation sat: And the triple forg’d fetters of times were unloos’d.
The voice ceas’d: the Nation sat: but ancient darkness and trembling wander thro’ the palace.
As in day of havock and routed battle, among thick shades of discontent,
On the soul-skirting mountains of sorrow cold waving: the Nobles fold round the King,
Each stern visage lock’d up as with strong bands of iron, each strong limb bound down as with marble,
In flames of red wrath burning, bound in astonishment a quarter of an hour.
Then the King glow’d: his Nobles fold round, like the sun of old time quench’d in clouds;
In their darkness the King stood, his heart flam’d, and utter’d a with’ring heat, and these words burst forth:
70 ‘The nerves of five thousand years ancestry tremble, shaking the heavens of France;
‘Throbs of anguish beat on brazen war foreheads, they descend and look into their graves.
PAGE 5
‘I see thro’ darkness, thro’ clouds rolling round me, the spirits of ancient Kings
‘Shivering over their bleached bones; round them their counsellors look up from the dust,
‘Crying: “Hide from the living! Our b[a]nds and our prisoners shout in the open field,
‘“Hide in the nether earth! Hide in the bones! Sit obscured in the hollow scull.
‘“Our flesh is corrupted, and we [wear] away. We are not numbered among the living. Let us hide
‘“In stones, among roots of trees. The prisoners have burst their dens,
‘“Let us hide; let us hide in the dust; and plague and wrath and tempest shall cease.”’
He ceas’d, silent pond’ring, his brows folded heavy, his forehead was in affliction,
80 Like the central fire: from the window he saw his vast armies spread over the hills,
Breathing red fires from man to man, and from horse to horse; then his bosom
Expanded like starry heaven, he sat down: his Nobles took their ancient seats.
Then the ancientest Peer, Duke of Burgundy, rose from the Monarch’s right hand, red as wines
From his mountains, an odor of war, like a ripe vineyard, rose from his garments,
And the chamber became as a clouded sky; o’er the council he stretch’d his red limbs,
Cloth’d in flames of crimson, as a ripe vineyard stretches over sheaves of corn,
The fierce Duke hung over the council; around him croud, weeping in his burning robe,
A bright cloud of infant souls; his words fall like purple autumn on the sheaves.
‘Shall this marble built heaven become a clay cottage, this earth an oak stool, and these mowers
90 ‘From the Atlantic mountains, mow down all this great starry harvest of six thousand years?
‘And shall Necker, the hind of Geneva, stretch out his crook’d sickle o’er fertile France,
PAGE 6
‘Till our purple and crimson is faded to russet, and the kingdoms of earth bound in sheaves,
‘And the ancient forests of chivalry hewn, and the joys of the combat burnt for fuel;
‘Till the power and dominion is rent from the pole, sword and scepter from sun and moon,