Poems: Hypertext Collages

                                  Anonymous

How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear

(a cento)

On with the giddy circle, chasing Time,

I bear a basket lined with grass.

I who have sat by Thebes below the wall

there, at the foot of yonder nodding beech.

The long day wanes, the slow moon climbs the deep.

Unto the weary and all-watched night.

Children, who early range these slopes and late,

and Marian's nose looks red and raw,

out-did the sparkling waves in glee.

O look at the trees! they cried, O look at the trees!

But most through midnight streets I hear

through caverns measureless to man,

that ugly imp that shall outwear my wrath,

and a hive of silvery bees

on daily visits through the air.

Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see

this is the cow with the crumpled horn.

All the birds of the air:

One has false curls, another too much paint.

What is it that you do, how is it that you live?

Your love by ours we measure

seem chiming haycocks

where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles.

And ever as the minutes flew,

and schoolboys lag with satchels in their hands,

and silver whistles to control the winds,

one moment through thy soul the soft surprise.

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

to Brig o' Dread thou com'st at last.

Like golden lamps in a green night,

the happy highways where I went

to a land all covered with trees.

Where are you going, my pretty maid?

Northward he turneth through a little door,

O dear what can the matter be?

For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:

Let the winds of dawn that blow

their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails outspread

through all the Realms of Non-sense, absolute,

seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied,

say, my heart's sister, wilt thou sail with me

waters on a starry night?

Though inland far we be.

Exit Ghost

And when the sun went down.

Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades

in the dead vast and middle of the night.

As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair.

And as to shape, a nightmare has as much. Under the poke and the  


muff-box, that makest my blood cold and my hair to stare.

As when, upon a tranced Summer night

which here enamels everything,

and wrought him mickle woe on sea and land,

almost to jelly with the act of fear.

Till Beppo should return from his long cruise,

come with a Whoop! Come with a call,

with a packet on his back.

Anonymous lives in New York City.