All my past life is mine no more,
The flying hours are gone,
Like transitory dreams given o'er,
Whose images are kept in store
By memory alone.
Whatever is to come is not;
How can it then be mine?
The present moment's all my lot;
And that, as fast as it is got,
Phyllis, is wholly thine.
Then talk not of inconstancy,
False hearts, and broken vows;
If I, by miracle, can be
This live-long minute true to thee,
'Tis all that heaven allows.
By John Wilmot ...
Midsummer and no moon. Low beams on the dry highway.
And that twang from a silver disk? It's Sister Rosetta Tharpe
On her gitbox, raw voice argufying for the Lord.
I no longer know what music suits me. For some moods,
The skeletal airs of oboe and bassoon. And then I give in
To a pigfoot piano, to the bark of a swollen saxophone.
Sometimes beauty becomes so neurotic it can't look at itself.
In the arc of the car, maybe I've taken the last wrong turn,
Gravel ...
Blue, blue is the sea to-day,
Warmly the light
Sleeps on St. Andrews Bay --
Blue, fringed with white.
That's no December sky!
Surely 'tis June
Holds now her state on high,
Queen of the noon.
Only the tree-tops bare
Crowning the hill,
Clear-cut in perfect air,
Warn us that still
Winter, the aged chief,
Mighty in power,
Exiles the tender leaf,
Exiles the flower.
Is there a heart to-day,
A heart that grieves
For flowers that fade away,
For fallen leaves?
Oh, not in leaves or flowers
Endures the charm
That clothes those naked towers
With love-light warm.
O dear St. Andrews Bay,
Winter ...