And if you stacked them up,
the poems I have not written
would sway like a silent
Tower of Babel, saying nothing

and everything in a thousand
different tongues. So moving, so
filled with and emptied of suffering,
so steeped in the music of a voice

speechless before the truth,
the poems I have not written
would break the hearts of every
woman who’s ever left me,

make them eye their husbands
with a sharp contempt and hate
themselves for turning their backs
on the very source of beauty.

The poems I have not written
would compel all other poets
to ask of God: “Why do you
let me live? I am worthless.

please strike me dead at once,
destroy my works and cleanse
the earth of all my ghastly
imperfections.” Trees would

bow their heads before the poems
I have not written. “Take me,”
they would say, “and turn me
into your pages so that I

might live forever as the ground
from which your words arise.”
The wind itself, about which
I might have written so eloquently,

praising its slick and intersecting
rivers of air, its stately calms
and furious interrogations,
its flutelike lingerings and passionate

reproofs, would divert its course
to sweep down and then pass over
the poems I have not written,
and the life I have not lived, the life

And the dusk gathered low,
And the silver moon and stars
On the frozen snow
Drew taper bars,
Kindled winking fires
In the hooded briers.

This is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heaven’s eternal King,
Of wedded maid and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
   That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II

That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,
Wherewith he wont at Heaven’s high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
He laid aside, and, here with us to be,
   Forsook the Courts of everlasting Day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

III

Say, Heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,
Now while the heaven, by the Sun’s team untrod,
   Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

IV

      It was the winter wild,
      While the heaven-born child
   All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
      Nature, in awe to him,
      Had doffed her gaudy trim,
   With her great Master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the Sun, her lusty Paramour.

II

      Only with speeches fair
      She woos the gentle air
   To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,
      And on her naked shame,
      Pollute with sinful blame,
   The saintly veil of maiden white to throw;
Confounded, that her Maker’s eyes
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

III

      But he, her fears to cease,
      Sent down the meek-eyed Peace:
   She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding
      Down through the turning sphere,
      His ready Harbinger,
   With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;
And, waving wide her myrtle wand,
She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.

IV

      No war, or battail’s sound,
      Was heard the world around;
   The idle spear and shield were high uphung;
      The hookèd chariot stood,
      Unstained with hostile blood;
   The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng;
And Kings sat still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

V

      But peaceful was the night
      Wherein the Prince of Light
   His reign of peace upon the earth began.
      The winds, with wonder whist,
      Smoothly the waters kissed,
   Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

VI

      The stars, with deep amaze,
      Stand fixed in steadfast gaze,
   Bending one way their precious influence,
      And will not take their flight,
      For all the morning light,
   Or Lucifer that often warned them thence;
But in their glimmering orbs did glow,
Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

VII

      And, though the shady gloom
      Had given day her room,
   The Sun himself withheld his wonted speed,
      And hid his head of shame,
      As his inferior flame
   The new-enlightened world no more should need:
He saw a greater Sun appear
Than his bright Throne or burning axletree could bear.

VIII

      The Shepherds on the lawn,
      Or ere the point of dawn,
   Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;
      Full little thought they than
      That the mighty Pan
   Was kindly come to live with them below:
Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,
Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

IX

      When such music sweet
      Their hearts and ears did greet
   As never was by mortal finger strook,
      Divinely-warbled voice
      Answering the stringèd noise,
   As all their souls in blissful rapture took:
The air, such pleasure loth to lose,
With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.

X

      Nature, that heard such sound
      Beneath the hollow round
   Of Cynthia’s seat the airy Region thrilling,
      Now was almost won
      To think her part was done,
   And that her reign had here its last fulfilling:
She knew such harmony alone
Could hold all Heaven and Earth in happier union.

XI

      At last surrounds their sight
      A globe of circular light,
   That with long beams the shamefaced Night arrayed;
      The helmèd Cherubim
      And sworded Seraphim
   Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed,
Harping in loud and solemn quire,     
With unexpressive notes, to Heaven’s newborn Heir.

XII

      Such music (as ’tis said)
      Before was never made,
   But when of old the Sons of Morning sung,
      While the Creator great
      His constellations set,
   And the well-balanced World on hinges hung,
And cast the dark foundations deep,
And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.

XIII

      Ring out, ye crystal spheres!
      Once bless our human ears,
   If ye have power to touch our senses so;
      And let your silver chime
      Move in melodious time;
   And let the bass of heaven’s deep organ blow;
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort of the angelic symphony.

XIV

      For, if such holy song
      Enwrap our fancy long,
   Time will run back and fetch the Age of Gold;
      And speckled Vanity
      Will sicken soon and die,
   And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould;
And Hell itself will pass away,
And leave her dolorous mansions of the peering day.

XV

      Yes, Truth and Justice then
      Will down return to men,
   The enamelled arras of the rainbow wearing;
      And Mercy set between,
      Throned in celestial sheen,  
   With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;
And Heaven, as at some festival,
Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall.

XVI

      But wisest Fate says No,
      This must not yet be so;
   The Babe lies yet in smiling infancy
      That on the bitter cross
      Must redeem our loss,
   So both himself and us to glorify:
Yet first, to those chained in sleep,
The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep,

XVII

      With such a horrid clang
      As on Mount Sinai rang,
   While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake:
      The aged Earth, aghast     
      With terror of that blast,
   Shall from the surface to the centre shake,
When, at the world’s last sessiön,
The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

XVIII

      And then at last our bliss
      Full and perfect is,
   But now begins; for from this happy day
      The Old Dragon under ground,
      In straiter limits bound,
   Not half so far casts his usurpèd sway,
And, wroth to see his Kingdom fail,
Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

XIX

      The Oracles are dumb;
      No voice or hideous hum
   Runs through the archèd roof in words deceiving.
      Apollo from his shrine
      Can no more divine,
   Will hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance, or breathèd spell,
Inspires the pale-eyed Priest from the prophetic cell.

XX

      The lonely mountains o’er,
      And the resounding shore,
   A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;
      Edgèd with poplar pale,
      From haunted spring, and dale     
   The parting Genius is with sighing sent;
With flower-inwoven tresses torn
The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

XXI

      In consecrated earth,
      And on the holy hearth,     
   The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint;
      In urns, and altars round,
      A drear and dying sound
   Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;
And the chill marble seems to sweat,  
While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.

XXII

      Peor and Baälim
      Forsake their temples dim,
   With that twice-battered god of Palestine;
      And moonèd Ashtaroth,     
      Heaven’s Queen and Mother both,
   Now sits not girt with tapers’ holy shine:
The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn;
In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.

XXIII

      And sullen Moloch, fled,  
      Hath left in shadows dread
   His burning idol all of blackest hue;
      In vain with cymbals’ ring
      They call the grisly king,
   In dismal dance about the furnace blue;  
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,
Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.

XXIV

      Nor is Osiris seen
      In Memphian grove or green,
   Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud;
      Nor can he be at rest
      Within his sacred chest;
   Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud;
In vain, with timbreled anthems dark,
The sable-stolèd Sorcerers bear his worshiped ark.     

XXV

      He feels from Juda’s land
      The dreaded Infant’s hand;
   The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;
      Nor all the gods beside
      Longer dare abide,     
   Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:
Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,
Can in his swaddling bands control the damnèd crew.

XXVI

      So, when the Sun in bed,
      Curtained with cloudy red,
   Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,
      The flocking shadows pale
      Troop to the infernal jail,
   Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave,
And the yellow-skirted Fays
Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.

XXVII

Not this sterile air-conditioned chill
or the Arizona hell in which they sway becomingly.
Every time I return to Phoenix I see these palms

as a child’s height marks on a kitchen wall,
taller now than the yuccas they were planted with,
taller than the Texas sage trimmed

to a perfect gray-green globe with pointillist
lavender blooms, taller than I,
who stopped growing years ago and commenced instead

my slow, almost imperceptible slouch
to my parents’ old age:
Father’s painful bend- really a bending of a bend-

to pick up the paper at the end of the sidewalk;
Mother, just released from Good Samaritan,
curled sideways on a sofa watching the soaps,

an unwanted tear inching down
at the plight of some hapless Hilary or Tiffany.
How she’d rail against television as a waste of time!

Now, with one arthritis-mangled hand,
she aims the remote control at the set
and flicks it off in triumph, turning to me

as I turn to the trees framed in the Arcadia door.
Her smile of affection melts into the back of my head,
a throb that presses me forward,

hand pressed to glass. I feel the desert heat
and see the beautiful shudders of the palms in the yard
and wonder why I despised this place so,

why I moved from city to temperate city, anywhere
without palms and cactus trees.
I found no paradise, as my parents know,

but neither did they, with their eager sprinklers
and scrawny desert plants pumped up to artificial splendor,
and their lives sighing away, exhaling slowly,

In drear-nighted December,
    Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne’er remember
    Apollo’s summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
    About the frozen time.