Psalm 45 Publications

No, I shall not now weep. –
E’en tears are a comfort that I scarce can bear,
So deeply do I grieve; profound despair
I will sit and savor to its bitterest drop:
And while the calm and weary hours creep,
I will ask of them nothing, – save not to stop. Continue Reading

Fall gently, Christmas flakes,
Upon my form too cold, too cold to care;
It matters not my poor heart breaks;
It matters not the chill is in the air:
Fall gently, Christmas flakes, on me alone: –
For she is gone. Continue Reading

Gone are the moments, fall’n to Time’s great slaughter!
Only a few sad memories remain:
Only dead hope, like puddles after rain,
Dissolving as a snowflake on the water;
But still one bond not Time or Chance may strain: –
Yes! though our lesser, earthly ties must end,
En Cristo hen esmen [i]. Good bye, my friend.

[i] Greek: “In Christ we are one”

Oh! the moon is in the sky,
And the glow is on the lake,
And the coyote’s lonely howl
Shivers in the starry wake; –
And you are in my soul,
And your name is on my sigh. Continue Reading

Then come away, my love,
Let the world rush on by;
While the heavens are fleeting above,
Come away, you and I: Continue Reading

Ask me not, my love,
To tell you how I love you. Can the sun
Tell how he pours out radiance from above?
The leopard tell you how he has each spot?
Can greyhounds tell you how they run?
Then ask me not. Continue Reading

See daylight leap to western skies?
See all the glories of the night
Spring up in raptured evening sighs
To tangle in a soft delight?
How dull that passioned red romance,
Those mingled shafts of night and day!
Ah, but a memory of a glance
Dissolves their beauty fast away. Continue Reading

How still is the hour!
As numbingly the shades of darkness creep,
Passionlessly upon each nodding flower
The night-dews weep. Continue Reading

Darla! it’s time to rest those bloodshot eyes;
Are you not drowsy? go on, take your rest.
Relax – it matters not the daylight flies:
Let it fly on without you, time-oppressed!
All of your senses thicken to a crawl;
Listen to Mr. Phil’s low-droning voice, –
Yes! is it not a most relaxing drawl?
Now is the moment – sleep is your best choice –
Nighttime is far off – let those eyelids fall.

Cease! here a dry-tongued, weeping child sucks his dead mother’s empty breast;
Here a soot-blackened street-waif labors, hollow-eyed for want of rest; Continue Reading

As serpent-charmers suck from deadly fangs
The antidote sought by the world’s snake-bit,
And bitten themselves, cast into racking pangs,
In seeking the world’s cure give their lives for it,
So I: my pen cast forth a sacred flame,
Blossoming red and healing from the start:
– But touching my hand, the deadly gall became
A festering sore that ate away my heart.

[i] Greek: “A Poet’s Struggle”. Transliterated: “Agon Poietou”.

The Poet dipped his quill into the flame,
And wrought a fair and finely-crafted thing;
But no one cared until the Singer came,
And took it up, and set the truth a-wing.

Am I sad?
In this life only:
Faith apprehends what the heart cannot feel.

Heart-blows add
To the hopeful lonely
Bruises Eternity hastens to heal.

Well met, well met, good gentleman,
Why haste you on your way?
Oh, I flee the scene of a bloody crime,
A crime done but today. Continue Reading

Blood-leaches, swollen grossly fat
On vital fluids not their own;
The carrion-crow, who strips the bone
Of rotten flesh; the sewer rat Continue Reading

When died the beautiful? Above the din
Of modern mock and clamor, Truth’s lone voice,
Once sad and lovely, now but adds the noise
Of banal chatter – now the poet’s pen
Is silenced by the chatty screen – oh, when
Did regal Truth, once crowned with solemn joys,
Go walking out dressed as the peasant boys,
And royal Right take on the hue of Sin?
When died the beautiful? Do they not know,
Nor understand that Truth turned trivial
Is thus less true by half – that the great Foe
Of right religion is the cretin soul
Who damns the truth with jest? When came it so?
When failed man’s heart? When died the beautiful?

There is a joy that is akin to madness,
And there is a wisdom far removed from mirth;
But who would trade the giddy lie of gladness
For all the wretched knowledge on the earth?

‘This is all I know of human nature:
Men have always labored to build walls,
Definite angles and straight lines,
Always regular designs,
Mass-replicated bricks, a singular plural feature;
It really doesn’t matter if one falls,
For wallness matters more than any wall,
And humanness is that they build at all. Continue Reading

Of tyrants, the most fearsome class of all
Is those who, leaving goods and bodies whole,
Usurp dominion in the human soul,
And slowly kill through means unseen; of these,
What tyrant is more fierce than sad Regret?
What power stronger? save that it be Love,
Which conquers at the last; – but when Regret
Gives birth to Love – when joining hand-in-hand
They two hold sway in one unhappy breast,
What must that be? Ah, saddest fate of all,
And yet most blessed, for in the final sum
Love proves as strong as Death – but of that score,
The reader may decide. I heard this tale
From one in whom Regret and late Love strove,
A widow, whom I saw all dressed in black,
Adorning in routine display of love
A simple grave site with a single rose.
I asked her (for in truth I had been drawn
Inexorably, by her sad mystique)
The reason for her long devotion. Thus,
In broken tones, she, faltering, replied: Continue Reading

In the greenest vale of a lovely wood
A pleasant little cottage stood,
And no place on earth was more good and fair
Than the modest hut in the valley there. Continue Reading

Remember this red leaf?
You gave it to me one time, long ago;
(I think you never knew that I would care;
But I did care, my dearest: now you know –
See it lying there?)
I pressed it fondly; (it grew darker though –
Such red is always brief.) Continue Reading