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Splendour in the Grass -- William Wordsworth

(Poem #212)Splendour in the Grass
 What though the radiance
 which was once so bright
 Be now for ever taken from my sight,
 Though nothing can bring back the hour
 Of splendour in the grass,
 of glory in the flower,
 We will grieve not, rather find
 Strength in what remains behind;
 In the primal sympathy
 Which having been must ever be;
 In the soothing thoughts that spring
 Out of human suffering;
 In the faith that looks through death,
 In years that bring the philosophic mind.
-- William Wordsworth

Lullaby -- Tom Waits

(Poem #211)Lullaby
 Sun is red; moon is cracked
 Daddy's never coming back
 Nothing's ever yours to keep
 Close your eyes, go to sleep
 If I die before you wake
 Don't you cry don't you weep
 
 Nothing's ever as it seems
 Climb the ladder to your dreams
 If I die before you wake
 Don't you cry; don't you weep
 Nothing's ever yours to keep
 Close your eyes; go to sleep
-- Tom Waits

A Good Son -- Miller Williams

(Poem #210)A Good Son
 He called home every once in a while
 to tell his mother,
 just so he could imagine how she would smile,
 something or other
 
 about a girlfriend
 or work or a new movie he might have seen,
 whatever was right.
 He lied some, but mostly he stayed between
 
 fantasy and fact.
 He was a good son. He loved his mother a lot
 and knew what she needed--
 to live through him whether he lived or not.
-- Miller Williams

Evening in the Sanitarium -- Louise Bogan

(Poem #209)Evening in the Sanitarium
 
 The free evening fades, outside the windows fastened 
 with decorative iron grilles.
 The lamps are lighted; the shades drawn; the nurses are watching a little.
 It is the hour of the complicated knitting on the safe bone needles; 
 of the games of anagrams and bridge;
 The deadly game of chess; the book held up like a mask.
 
 The period of the wildest weeping, the fiercest delusion, is over.
 The women rest their tired half-healed hearts; they are almost well.
 Some of them will stay almost well always: 
 the blunt-faced woman whose thinking dissolved
 Under academic discipline; the manic-depressive girl
 Now leveling off; one paranoiac afflicted with jealousy.
 Another with persecution. Some alleviation has been possible.
 
 O fortunate bride, who never again will become elated after childbirth!
 O lucky older wife, who has been cured of feeling unwanted!
 To the suburban railway station you will return, return,
 To meet forever Jim home on the 5:35.
 You will be again as normal and selfish and heartless as anybody else.
 
 There is life left: the piano says it with its octave smile.
 The soft carpets pad the thump and splinter of the suicide to be.
 Everything will be splendid: the grandmother will not drink habitually.
 The fruit salad will bloom on the plate like a bouquet
 And the garden produce the blue-ribbon aquilegia.
 
 The cats will be glad; the fathers feel justified; the mothers relieved.
 The sons and husbands will no longer need to pay the bills.
 Childhoods will be put away, the obscene nightmare abated.
 
 At the ends of the corridors the baths are running.
 Mrs. C. again feels the shadow of the obsessive idea.
 Miss R. looks at the mantel-piece, which must mean something.
-- Louise Bogan

This Room -- John Ashbery

(Poem #208)This Room
 The room I entered was a dream of this room.
 Surely all those feet on the sofa were mine.
 The oval portrait
 of a dog was me at an early age.
 Something shimmers, something is hushed up.
 
 We had macaroni for lunch every day
 except Sunday, when a small quail was induced
 to be served to us. Why do I tell you these things?
 You are not even here.
-- John Ashbery