Thomas Hardy, 'During Wind and Rain'

[duathir.livejournal.com]

During Wind and Rain

They sing their dearest songs--
He, she, all of them--yea,
Treble and tenor and bass.
And one to play;
With the candles mooning each face....
Ah, no; the years O!
How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!

They clear the creeping moss--
Elders and juniors--aye,
Making the pathways neat
And the garden gay;
And they build a shady seat....
Ah, no; the years, the years;
See, the white stormbirds wing across!

They are blithely breakfasting all--
Men and maidens--yea,
Under the summer tree,
With a glimpse of the bay,
While pet fowl come to the knee....
Ah, no; the years O!
And the rotten rose is ripped from the wall.

They change to a high new house,
He, she, all of them--aye,
Clocks and carpets and chairs
On the lawn all day,
And brightest things that are theirs....
Ah, no; the years, the years;
Down their carved names the raindrop plows.

by Thomas Hardy

"The Arrival of the Titanic" (William Dickey)

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

The Arrival of the Titanic
by William Dickey

Gashed, from her long immobility on the sea-bed
gravid with the dreams of invertebrates, only half
here in the sense of consciousness, she pulls,
grey on a grey morning into New York Harbor,
bearing all of the dead in their attitudes, the old dead
in dinner jackets, bare feet encrusted with barnacles,
their pearls eyes, their old assurance of conquest
over the negligent elements, and walking thin and
perplexed among them the new dead who
never realized on what crossing they had embarked.

We are the photograph's negative, made after
the color print, made after the abyssal waters
took color out of the Liberty scarves, the bright
upper atmosphere of tea dances, after the drift
downward, the pressures of winter. If it has been
abandoned, it is ours, it comes sailing silently
back with us. There were never enough
lifeboats, and never
enough gaiety to see us safely through past moonrise
and our monochrome exploration into the range of ice.

---

( Contextual note, for those who want it. )