Patrilineal
Mostly for pleasure, the rabble can rouse.
The boys will be trolls and have some nicknames -
They'll be just like what children are like.
Jack's a bright name, a useful substitute,
A brand for the father. But he needs some help -
That gentle nurture, and it's freely supplied.
So praise our careful Jack who's merely human,
Whose land is rife in terms of a garden.
He has his way of being productive :
Come the fine toddlers, hasten the toddlers,
Without innocence, without the worst curse.
Then there's Jack of the river and the woods.
He'll be censured without being conquered.
He's a bumpkin, but he's a legend,
Having mercy on dogs and barbarians.
They say he growls at neighbors by night -
Those victors, those men dividing the spoils.
They think they're in a final heaven.
But it's our land with some storms regrettable -
That awful bane of the broken families.
Well good for Jack, he doesn't marry too soon.
He doesn't marry till he has Venus.
Cape Resignation
Speakers and teachers were gabbing,
Tasting more work the time we met.
The chill and the sandy lookout -
Some place for you to climb in rank
The way you did, or to make friends
Or to think the restless main's harmless,
And that the beach must enlighten!
I tolerated your gruff goodness
And studied your clear attainment.
The books they loved may have been dark,
But no one there could hope to hide
What I could so quickly see.
It's that you've read something I've read.
The next is a fine thereafter :
Change in your harnessed life, or mine.
Now that you're over the clear top
And making much way around,
So do I sort of circulate,
With no more comparison than that.
I don't blame your hopes or your colleagues
Or anything but what's natural
For your vanishing in effect.
Since then the big lodge is quite drab.
I could wish for one much better,
That's fashioned from limestone or granite
And proof against windstorms of grit.
Setting Out
I like to think some way is clear -
A further path, if people know it,
Fresh and grand and open.
It's my old preference,
Not like city main streets
For a thousand human marches
Where some persons are foes,
But like flatlands under sky
With a ceiling very vast.
I like to look for what comes home :
Devotion scarce expected.
In leaving your lands
You part with old company.
When you're ousted
You're explorers.
Fresh and grand and open,
How the life might spring from clay -
Welcome newborn so glad,
So fresh and grand and open
That they're avid.
But I'm the least blazoned.
If you summon me
You get the softest kind -
One who fears the worst of heat and cold.
I can be panicky
If lost in adverse water.
Do you understand people
Who say with regret
That they can't compete against God,
Against man or the least tempest?
Fresh and grand and open
Lies the road that's out before,
When there's never thought of stalling.
That's the wayfarer's need.
You take a cautious little walk, then -
A person's greatest journey.
The Landowner
In the city you can see grave sports
And the strangest, eastern cults' costumes.
There my master tends to hold his nose.
With a taste of new Roman chaos -
Here and there brash calls for this and that,
And the sight of hulking northeners,
Small wonder one might settle outside.
He who keeps the wide field and its hush
In his thoughts, avoids a busy place
Or at least holds his nose when he goes there.
Who holds his nose when he goes to Rome?
My master, Tromentinus Pius.
He was never at the mob's mercy
Or much fearful of plague or fire,
That that would be given as reason.
And he has reveling with friends there.
But he holds his nose when he goes to Rome -
My master, Tromentinus Pius.
Sheltered Life
From the path's other side they come -
Those finches that are quickly through.
To the north of the brook's north edge
They're calm as they cross.
Not all's wet or green or dusty
That's on that border.
Rocks would seem to have been crafted,
Set for amphibians to rest on.
The field's a fine site someone purchased.
Its works of change as yet are few -
The close neighbors never teeming
Or displacing.
The yards are quite dear in sunlight
And fragrances.
If there's a high price for all this,
Fine, you come to look and you pay it.
The largest parcel has a fence,
A ditch and curb that flank the woods.
Through the trees you'll see the city -
The well-built center.
Exceptional and still alive,
The day still pleases.
Harsh groups are kept from coming here
By a benevolent power.
The time creeps along -
The merciful time.
Acknowledge The Season
I guess it's the right time again -
These few weeks of the observance.
We're set to celebrate in style,
Still worshiping a foreigner.
Sometimes when I listen to truth,
I have to guess at the message.
We celebrate because he threatens.
He does more than simply chastise.
Dare we eat, drink and be merry?
That's a thing to be sure about.
The date of his birth? I'm just guessing.
But here's a display for the children,
A strong flavor of decorations.
Wistful, hungry boy that I am,
I like the fantastic promise -
The guarantee that things work out,
That he lets his kind have what they want.
I know it's true, not just a vain guess.
Now on the dark holiday nights,
These weeks of song and official feast,
I've not rid myself of craving.
Tame as we are, weak as we are,
It makes sense that we're the merry sort.
I guess this time of year will do.