SHORTY'S EVEN

inside me,
raving & wide-eyed,
incomprehensible
staring upon the burning Globe

in the diadems of clouds
too near my eye for me to notice how near they really are
how distant in the Sun

running away, &
"Everything will be forever
lost! forever lonely--"
amongst the night beasts
many-huddled against
Th'Cold
& quite forgotten
in self-pity

the small eyes within the tiny brain
of some Neanderthal Man
awe-struck & frightened
right our of his wits
within Th'Ancestral Memory

I, Nineteen Hundred & Seventy One
here standing
like some silent Stone
by the window opened to The Night
approaching & approaching, O

I can't help Shuddering! at
the Colling beautiful Dusk: ^[sic]

TRANSLATION of Sorts / from Collins

If anything of oaten stop or of pastoral Song
may hope to soothe your modest ear, chaste Eve,
now teach me, O maid composed,
to breathe some softened Strain

whose numbers stealing across your darkened Vale
may (not too unseemly) suit with stillness
your Beloved Return
I hail, low-musingly
like your own solemn Springs dying gale & gush, for
when your folding Star arising shows us his circlet
upon its Lamp, so pale,
warning all of The Fragrant

(hours & elves who slept the day in the buds
and many a nymph who wreathes her brow
with the sedge) shedding
the freshening dews...

O reserved Nymph, now while the bright-haired Sun
sits in his West-tent, whose clouds-skirts
with their ethereal woven braid
overhanging his wavy bed

& lovelier still: all of the pensive & sweet pleasures
which your shadowy Stage prepares
Calm Votaress, do lead me then
where some lake, sheeted, cheers

(the Heath alone) or some Time-hallowed pile, or grey fallows
upland reflect the last cool gleam, or if chill winds then
blustering, or the driving rains
prevent my willing feet: Allow

a hut that from some mountainside views swelling floods
& The Wilds, and the brown hamlets (be mine!) whose spires
but dim-discovered still require
their simple bells... all masking

--Now air is hushed! save where the bat, weak-eyed
with his short shrill Shriek flits up-
on his leathered Wings, or
where the beetle winds his

tiny sullen horn as it arises often amid the twilights-
Path against The Pilgrim borne upon the heedless Hum
--Then must your dewy fingers
draw that gradual dusky veil

while Spring (as he will) pours his Plash, if but
to bathe your breathing tresses, meekest Eve,
Summer loving to sport under
your lingering Light, or

the sallow Autumn filling up your laps (All) amply
with the leaves, or the Winter yelling
through the troublous air
frightening your withering train

& rudely rending All (your robes): That long, regardful
of your quiet Rule, that long Science & Friendship, Fancy
& rose-lipped Health shall own your gentlest
influence & Hymn! your (favorite) name!