High Windows

The Trees



The trees are coming into leaf

Like something almost being said;

The recent buds relax and spread,

Their greenness is a kind of grief.



Is it that they are born again

And we grow old? No, they die too.

Their yearly trick of looking new

Is written down in rings of grain.



Yet still the unresting castles thresh

In fullgrown thickness every May.

Last year is dead, they seem to say,

Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

When I see a couple of kids
And guess he's fucking her and she's
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives--
Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, That'll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. He
And his lot will all go down the long slide
Like free bloody birds. And immediately

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

Ode de la bibliothèque


De nouveaux yeux chaque année
Trouvez de vieux livres ici,
Et de nouveaux livres aussi, De
vieux yeux se renouvellent;
Alors la jeunesse et l'âge
Comme l'encre et la page
Dans cette maison se joignent,
Frappe nouvelle pièce.

Library Ode


New eyes each year
Find old books here,
And new books,too,
Old eyes renew;
So youth and age
Like ink and page
In this house join,
Minting new coin.

Une étude des habitudes de lecture


Lors de l' obtention de mon nez dans un livre
Guéri la plupart des choses à court de l' école,
il valait la peine de ruiner mes yeux
pour savoir que je pouvais encore garder au frais,
et de traiter le vieux crochet droit
à des chiens sales deux fois ma taille.

Plus tard, avec des spécifications d'un pouce d'épaisseur, le
mal était juste mon alouette:
moi et ma cape et mes crocs
Avions déchiré les temps dans le noir.
Les femmes que j'ai matraquées avec le sexe!
Je les ai cassés comme des meringues.

Ne lisez pas beaucoup maintenant: le mec
qui laisse tomber la fille avant que
le héros n'arrive, le type
qui est jaune et tient le magasin
Semble beaucoup trop familier. Faites-vous cuire: les
livres sont un tas de merde.

A Study Of Reading Habits
When getting my nose in a book
Cured most things short of school,
It was worth ruining my eyes
To know I could still keep cool,
And deal out the old right hook
To dirty dogs twice my size.

Later, with inch-thick specs,
Evil was just my lark:
Me and my cloak and fangs
Had ripping times in the dark.
The women I clubbed with sex!
I broke them up like meringues.

Don't read much now: the dude
Who lets the girl down before
The hero arrives, the chap
Who's yellow and keeps the store
Seem far too familiar. Get stewed:
Books are a load of crap.