Read Online Collected Earlier Poems by Anthony Hecht - Free Book Online Page B

the fall?
    Who has not, in the oil and heat of youth,
    Thought of the flourishing of the almond tree,
    The grasshopper, and the failing of desire,
    And thought his tongue might pierce the secrecy
    Of the six-pointed starlight, and might choir
    A secret-voweled, unutterable truth?
    The heart is ramified with an old force
    (Outlingering the blood, out of the sway
    Of its own fleshy trap) that finds its source
    Deep in the phosphorous waters of the bay,
    Or in the wind, or pointing cedar tree,
    Or its own ramified complexity.
CHRISTMAS IS COMING
    Darkness is for the poor, and thorough cold,
    As they go wandering the hills at night,
    Gunning for enemies. Winter locks the lake;
    The rocks are harder for it. What was grass
    Is fossilized and brittle; it can hurt,
    Being a torture to the kneeling knee,
    And in the general pain of cold, it sticks
    Particular pain where crawling is required.
    Christmas is coming. The goose is getting fat.

Please put a penny in the Old Man’s hat
.
    Where is the warmth of blood? The enemy
    Has ears that can hear clearly in the cold,
    Can hear the shattering of fossil grass,
    Can hear the stiff cloth rub against itself,
    Making a sound. Where is the blood? It lies
    Locked in the limbs of some poor animal
    In a diaspora of crimson ice.
    The skin freezes to metal. One must crawl
    Quietly in the dark. Where is the warmth?
    The lamb has yielded up its fleece and warmth
    And woolly life, but who shall taste of it?
    Here on the ground one cannot see the stars.
    The lamb is killed.
The goose is getting fat
.
    A wind blows steadily against the trees,
    And somewhere in the blackness they are black.
    Yet crawling one encounters bits of string,
    Pieces of foil left by the enemy.
    (A rifle takes its temper from the cold.)
    Where is the pain? The sense has frozen up,
    And fingers cannot recognize the grass,
    Cannot distinguish their own character,
    Being blind with cold, being stiffened by the cold;
    Must find out thistles to remember pain.
    Keep to the frozen ground or else be killed.
    Yet crawling one encounters in the dark
    The frosty carcasses of birds, their feet
    And wings all glazed. And still we crawl to learn
    Where pain was lost, how to recover pain.
    Reach for the brambles, crawl to them and reach,
    Clutching for thorns, search carefully to feel
    The point of thorns, life’s crown,
the Old Man’s hat
.
    Yet quietly. Do not disturb the brambles.
    Winter has taught the air to clarify
    All noises, and the enemy can hear
    Perfectly in the cold. Nothing but sound
    Is known. Where is the warmth and pain?
    Christmas is coming
. Darkness is for the poor.
    If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do
,
If you haven’t got a ha’penny, God bless you.
IMITATION
    Let men take note of her, touching her shyness,
    How grace informs and presses the brocade
    Wherein her benefits are whitely stayed,
    And think all glittering enterprise, and highness
    Of blood or deed were yet in something minus
    Lacking the wide approval of her mouth,
    And to betoken every man his drouth,
    Drink, in her name, all tankards to their dryness.
    Wanting her clear perfection, how may tongues
    Manifest what no language understands?
    Yet as her beauty evermore commands
    Even the tanager with tiny lungs
    To flush all silence, may she by these songs
    Know it was love I looked for at her hands.
THE GARDENS OF THE VILLA D’ESTE
                             This is Italian. Here
                   Is cause for the undiminished bounce
        Of sex, cause for the lark, the animal spirit
    To rise, aerated, but not beyond our reach, to spread
    Friction upon the air, cause to sing loud for the bed
        Of jonquils, the linen bed, and established merit
                   Of love, and grandly to pronounce
                             Pleasure without peer.
                             Goddess, be with me now;
                   Commend my