Poems
Date: 2020-08-03T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: American poetry -- 20th century

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Poems

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Poems

Author: Marianne Moore

Release date: August 3, 2020 [eBook #62833]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Paul Marshall, Tim Lindell and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***

POEMS

BY MARIANNE MOORE

LONDON
THE EGOIST PRESS
2 Robert Street, Adelphi, W.C.

1921

Several of these poems appeared in The Egoist;
others in The Dial, Others and Contact.

CONTENTS

PEDANTIC LITERALIST | 5
TO A STEAM ROLLER | 6
DILIGENCE IS TO MAGIC AS PROGRESS IS TO FLIGHT | 6
THOSE VARIOUS SCALPELS | 7
FEED ME, ALSO, RIVER GOD, | 8
TO WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS ON TAGORE | 8
HE MADE THIS SCREEN | 9
TALISMAN | 9
BLACK EARTH | 10
“HE WROTE THE HISTORY BOOK,” IT SAID | 12
YOU ARE LIKE THE REALISTIC PRODUCT OF AN IDEALISTIC |
SEARCH FOR GOLD AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW | 12
REINFORCEMENTS | 13
ROSES ONLY | 13
IN THIS AGE OF HARD TRYING NONCHALANCE IS GOOD, AND | 14
THE FISH | 14
MY APISH COUSINS | 16
WHEN I BUY PICTURES | 17
PICKING AND CHOOSING | 18
ENGLAND | 19
DOCK RATS | 20
RADICAL | 21
POETRY | 22
IN THE DAYS OF PRISMATIC COLOR | 23
IS YOUR TOWN NINEVEH? | 24

POEMS

BY MARIANNE MOORE

PEDANTIC LITERALIST

Prince Rupert’s drop, paper muslin ghost, white torch—“with pow’r to say unkind things with kindness, and the most irritating things in the midst of love and tears,” you invite destruction.

You are like the meditative man with the perfunctory heart; its carved cordiality ran to and fro at first, like an inlaid and roy’l immutable production;
then afterward “neglected to be painful” and “deluded him with loitering formality, doing its duty as if it did it not,” presenting an obstruction
to the motive that it served. What stood erect in you, has withered. A little “palm-tree of turned wood” informs your once spontaneous core in its immutable reduction.

TO A STEAM ROLLER

The illustration is nothing to you without the application. You lack half wit. You crush all the particles down into close conformity, and then walk back and forth on them.

Sparkling chips of rock are crushed down to the level of the parent block. Were not “impersonal judgment in æsthetic matters, a metaphysical impossibility,” you
might fairly achieve it. As for butterflies, I can hardly conceive of one’s attending upon you, but to question the congruence of the complement is vain, if it exists.

DILIGENCE IS TO MAGIC AS
PROGRESS IS TO FLIGHT

With an elephant to ride upon—“with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,” she shall outdistance calamity anywhere she goes. Speed is not in her mind inseparable from carpets. Locomotion arose in the shape of an elephant, she clambered up and chose to travel laboriously. So far as magic carpets are concerned, she knows that although the semblance of speed may attach to scarecrows of æsthetic procedure, the substance of it is embodied in such of those tough-grained animals as have outstripped man’s whim to suppose them ephemera, and have earned that fruit of their ability to endure blows, which dubs them prosaic necessities—not curios.

THOSE VARIOUS SCALPELS

Those various sounds consistently indistinct, like intermingled echoes struck from thin glass successively at random—the inflection disguised: your hair, the tails of two fighting-cocks head to head in stone—like sculptured scimitars re- peating the curve of your ears in reverse order: your eyes, flowers of ice
and snow sown by tearing winds on the cordage of disabled ships: your raised hand an ambiguous signature: your cheeks, those rosettes of blood on the stone floors of French châteaux, with regard to which guides are so affirmative: your other hand
a bundle of lances all alike, partly hid by emeralds from Persia and the fractional magnificence of Florentine goldwork—a collection of half a dozen little objects made fine with enamel in gray, yellow, and dragonfly blue: a lemon, a
pear and three bunches of grapes, tied with silver: your dress, a magnificent square cathedral of uniform and at the same time, diverse appearance—a species of vertical vineyard rustling in the storm of conventional opinion. Are they weapons or scalpels? Whetted
to brilliance by the hard majesty of that sophistication which is su- perior to opportunity, these things are rich instruments with which to experiment but surgery is not tentative: why dissect destiny with instruments which are more highly specialized than the tissues of destiny itself?

FEED ME, ALSO, RIVER GOD,

lest by diminished vitality and abated vigilance, I become food for crocodiles—for that quicksand of gluttony which is legion. It is there—close at hand— on either side of me. You remember the Israelites who said in pride
and stoutness of heart: “The bricks are fallen down, we will build with hewn stone, the sycamores are cut down, we will change to cedars”? I am not ambitious to dress stones, to renew forts, nor to match my value in action, against their ability to catch
up with arrested prosperity. I am not like them, indefatigable, but if you are a god you will not discriminate against me. Yet—if you may fulfil none but prayers dressed as gifts in return for your gifts—disregard the request.

TO WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS ON TAGORE

It is made clear by the phrase, even the mood—by virtue of which he says
the thing he thinks—that it pays, to cut gems even in these conscience-less days;
but the jewel that always outshines ordinary jewels, is your praise.

HE MADE THIS SCREEN

not of silver nor of coral, but of weatherbeaten laurel.

Here, he introduced a sea uniform like tapestry;
here, a fig-tree; there, a face; there, a dragon circling space—
designating here, a bower; there, a pointed passion-flower.

TALISMAN

Under a splintered mast, torn from ship and cast near her hull,
a stumbling shepherd found embedded in the ground, a sea-gull
of lapis lazuli, a scarab of the sea, with wings spread—
curling its coral feet, parting its beak to greet men long dead.

BLACK EARTH

Openly, yes, with the naturalness of the hippopotamus or the alligator when it climbs out on the bank to experience the
sun, I do these things which I do, which please no one but myself. Now I breathe and now I am sub- merged; the blemishes stand up and shout when the object
in view was a renaissance; shall I say the contrary? The sediment of the river which encrusts my joints, makes me very gray but I am used
to it, it may remain there; do away with it and I am myself done away with, for the patina of circumstance can but enrich what was
there to begin with. This elephant skin which I inhabit, fibred over like the shell of the coco-nut, this piece of black glass through which no light
can filter—cut into checkers by rut upon rut of unpreventable experience— it is a manual for the peanut-tongued and the
hairy toed. Black but beautiful, my back is full of the history of power. Of power? What is powerful and what is not? My soul shall never
be cut into by a wooden spear; through- out childhood to the present time, the unity of life and death has been expressed by the circumference
described by my trunk; nevertheless, I perceive feats of strength to be inexplicable after all; and I am on my guard; external poise, it
has its centre well nurtured—we know where—in pride, but spiritual poise, it has its centre where? My ears are sensitized to more than the sound of
the wind. I see and I hear, unlike the wandlike body of which one hears so much, which was made to see and not to see; to hear and not to hear;
that tree trunk without roots, accustomed to shout its own thoughts to itself like a shell, maintained intact by who knows what strange pressure of the atmosphere; that
spiritual brother to the coral plant, absorbed into which, the equable sapphire light becomes a nebulous green. The I of each is to
the I of each, a kind of fretful speech which sets a limit on itself; the elephant is? Black earth preceded by a tendril? It is to that
phenomenon the above formation, translucent like the atmosphere—a cortex merely— that on which darts cannot strike decisively the first
time, a substance needful as an instance of the indestructibility of matter; it has looked at the electricity and at the earth-
quake and is still here; the name means thick. Will depth be depth, thick skin be thick, to one who can see no beautiful element of unreason under it?

“HE WROTE THE HISTORY BOOK,” IT SAID

There! You shed a ray of whimsicality on a mask of profundity so terrific that I have been dumbfounded by it oftener than I care to say. The book? Titles are chaff.

Authentically brief and full of energy, you contribute to your father’s legibility and are sufficiently synthetic. Thank you for showing me your father’s autograph.

YOU ARE LIKE THE REALISTIC PRODUCT
OF AN IDEALISTIC SEARCH FOR GOLD
AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW

Hid by the august foliage and fruit of the grape vine, twine your anatomy round the pruned and polished stem, chameleon. Fire laid upon an emerald as long as the Dark King’s massy one, could not snap the spectrum up for food as you have done.

REINFORCEMENTS

The vestibule to experience is not to be exalted into epic grandeur. These men are going to their work with this idea, advancing like a school of fish through
still water—waiting to change the course or dismiss the idea of movement, till forced to. The words of the Greeks ring in our ears, but they are vain in comparison with a sight like this.

The pulse of intention does not move so that one can see it, and moral machinery is not labelled, but the future of time is determined by the power of volition.

ROSES ONLY

You do not seem to realise that beauty is a liability rather than an asset—that in view of the fact that spirit creates form we are justified in supposing that you must have brains. For you, a symbol of the unit, stiff and sharp, conscious of surpassing by dint of native superiority and liking for everything self-dependent, anything an
ambitious civilisation might produce: for you, unaided to attempt through sheer reserve, to confute presumptions resulting from observation, is idle. You cannot make us think you a delightful happen-so. But rose, if you are brilliant, it is not because your petals are the without-which-nothing of pre-eminence. You would look, minus thorns—like a what-is-this, a mere
peculiarity. They are not proof against a worm, the elements, or mildew but what about the predatory hand? What is brilliance without co-ordination? Guarding the infinitesimal pieces of your mind, compelling audience to the remark that it is better to be forgotten than to be remembered too violently, your thorns are the best part of you.

IN THIS AGE OF HARD TRYING
NONCHALANCE IS GOOD, AND

really, it is not the business of the gods to bake clay pots. They did not do it in this instance. A few revolved upon the axes of their worth as if excessive popularity might be a pot;
they did not venture the profession of humility. The polished wedge that might have split the firmament was dumb. At last it threw itself away and falling down, conferred on some poor fool, a privilege.

Taller by the length of a conversation of five hundred years than all the others, there was one, whose tales of what could never have been actual— were better than the haggish, uncompanionable drawl
of certitude; his by- play was more terrible in its effectiveness than the fiercest frontal attack. The staff, the bag, the feigned inconsequence of manner, best bespeak that weapon, self protectiveness.

THE FISH

wade through black jade. Of the crow-blue mussel shells, one keeps adjusting the ash heaps; opening and shutting itself like
an injured fan. The barnacles which encrust the side of the wave, cannot hide there for the submerged shafts of the
sun, split like spun glass, move themselves with spotlike swift- ness into the crevices— in and out, illuminating
the turquoise sea of bodies. The water drives a wedge of iron through the iron edge of the cliff, whereupon the stars,
pink rice grains, ink bespattered jelly-fish, crabs like green lilies and submarine toadstools, slide each on the other.

All external marks of abuse are present on this defiant edifice— all the physical features of
ac- cident—lack of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns and hatchet strokes, these things stand out on it; the chasm side is
dead. Repeated evidence has proved that it can live on what cannot revive its youth. The sea grows old in it.

MY APISH COUSINS

winked too much and were afraid of snakes. The zebras, supreme in their abnormality; the elephants with their fog-colored skin and strictly practical appendages were there, the small cats and the parrakeet— trivial and humdrum on examination, destroying bark and portions of the food it could not eat.

I recall their magnificence, now not more magnificent than it is dim. It is difficult to recall the ornament, speech, and precise manner of what one might call the minor acquaintances twenty years back; but I shall never forget—that Gilgamesh among the hairy carnivora—that cat with the
wedge-shaped, slate-gray marks on its forelegs and the resolute tail, astringently remarking: “They have imposed on us with their pale, half fledged protestations, trembling about in inarticulate frenzy, saying it is not for all of us to understand art, finding it all so difficult, examining the thing
as if it were something inconceivably arcanic, as symmetrically frigid as something carved out of chrysopras or marble—strict with tension, malignant in its power over us and deeper than the sea when it proffers flattery in exchange for hemp, rye, flax, horses, platinum, timber and fur.”

WHEN I BUY PICTURES

or what is closer to the truth, when I look at that of which I may regard myself as the imaginary possessor, I fix upon that which would give me pleasure in my average moments: the satire upon curiosity, in which no more is discernible than the intensity of the mood;
or quite the opposite—the old thing, the medi- æval decorated hat box, in which there are hounds with waists diminishing like the waist of the hour-glass and deer, both white and brown, and birds and seated people; it may be no more than a square of parquetry; the literal biography perhaps—in letters stand-
ing well apart upon a parchment-like expanse; or that which is better without words, which means just as much or just as little as it is understood to mean by the observer—the grave of Adam, prefigured by himself; a bed of beans or artichokes in six varieties of blue; the snipe-legged hiero—
glyphic in three parts; it may be anything. Too stern an intellectual emphasis, i- ronic or other—upon this quality or that, detracts from one’s enjoyment; it must not wish to disarm anything; nor may the approved tri- umph easily be honoured—that which is great because something else is small.

It comes to this: of whatever sort it is, it must make known the fact that it has been displayed to acknowledge the spiritual forces which have made it; and it must admit that it is the work of X, if X produced it; of Y, if made by Y. It must be a voluntary gift with the name written on it.

PICKING AND CHOOSING

Literature is a phase of life: if one is afraid of it, the situation is irremediable; if one approaches it familiarly, what one says of it is worthless. Words are constructive when they are true; the opaque allusion—the simulated flight
upward—accomplishes nothing. Why cloud the fact that Shaw is selfconscious in the field of sentiment but is otherwise re- warding? that James is all that has been said of him but is not profound? It is not Hardy the distinguished novelist and Hardy the poet, but one man

“interpreting life through the medium of the emotions.” If he must give an opinion, it is permissible that the critic should know what he likes. Gordon Craig with his “this is I” and “this is mine,” with his three wise men, his “sad French greens” and his Chinese cherries—Gordon Craig, so
inclinational and unashamed—has carried the precept of being a good critic, to the last extreme. And Burke is a psychologist—of acute, raccoon- like curiosity. Summa diligentia; to the humbug, whose name is so amusing—very young and ve-
ry rushed, Cæsar crossed the Alps on the “top of a diligence.” We are not daft about the meaning but this familiarity with wrong meanings puzzles one. Humming- bug, the candles are not wired for electricity. Small dog, going over the lawn, nipping the linen and saying
that you have a badger—remember Xenophon; only the most rudimentary sort of behaviour is necessary to put us on the scent; a “right good salvo of barks,” a few “strong wrinkles” puckering the skin between the ears, are all we ask.

ENGLAND

with its baby rivers and little towns, each with its abbey or its cathedral; with voices—one voice perhaps, echoing through the transept—the criterion of suitability and convenience; and Italy with its equal shores—contriving an epicureanism from which the grossness has been
extracted; and Greece with its goats and its gourds, the nest of modified illusions: and France, the “chrysalis of the nocturnal butterfly” in whose products, mystery of construction diverts one from what was originally one’s object—substance at the core: and the East with its snails, its emotional
shorthand and jade cockroaches, its rock crystal and its imperturbability, all of museum quality: and America where there is the little old ramshackle victoria in the south, where cigars are smoked on the street in the north; where there are no proof readers, no silkworms, no digressions;
the wild man’s land; grass-less, links-less, language-less country—in which letters are written not in Spanish, not in Greek, not in Latin, not in shorthand but in plain American which cats and dogs can read! The letter “a” in psalm and calm when pronounced with the sound of “a” in candle, is very noticeable but
why should continents of misapprehension have to be accounted for by the fact? Does it follow that because there are poisonous toadstools which resemble mushrooms, both are dangerous? In the case of mettlesomeness which may be mistaken for appetite, of heat which may appear to be haste, no con-
clusions may be drawn. To have misapprehended the matter, is to have confessed that one has not looked far enough. The sublimated wisdom of China, Egyptian discernment, the cataclysmic torrent of emotion compressed in the verbs of the Hebrew language, the books of the man who is able
to say, “I envy nobody but him and him only, who catches more fish than I do,”—the flower and fruit of all that noted superi- ority—should one not have stumbled upon it in America, must one imagine that it is not there? It has never been confined to one locality.

DOCK RATS

There are human beings who seem to regard the place as craftily as we do—who seem to feel that it is a good place to come home to. On what a river; wide—twinkling like a chopped sea under some of the finest shipping in the
world: the square-rigged four-master, the liner, the battleship, like the two- thirds submerged section of an iceberg; the tug—strong moving thing, dipping and pushing, the bell striking as it comes; the steam yacht, lying like a new made arrow on the
stream; the ferry-boat—a head assigned, one to each compartment, making a row of chessmen set for play. When the wind is from the east, the smell is of apples; of hay, the aroma increased and decreased suddenly as the wind changes;
of rope; of mountain leaves for florists. When it is from the west, it is an elixir. There is occasionally a parrakeet arrived from Brazil, clasping and clawing; or a monkey—tail and feet in readiness for an over-
ture. All palms and tail; how delightful! There is the sea, moving the bulk- head with its horse strength; and the multiplicity of rudders and propellers; the signals, shrill, questioning, peremptory, diverse; the wharf cats and the barge dogs—it
is easy to overestimate the value of such things. One does not live in such a place from motives of expediency but because to one who has been accustomed to it, shipping is the most congenial thing in the world.

RADICAL

Tapering to a point, conserving everything, this carrot is predefined to be thick. The world is but a circumstance, a mis- erable corn-patch for its feet. With ambition, imagination, outgrowth,
nutriment, with everything crammed belligerent- ly inside itself, its fibres breed mon- opoly— a tail-like, wedge-shaped engine with the secret of expansion, fused with intensive heat to the color of the set-
ting sun and stiff. For the man in the straw hat, stand- ing still and turning to look back at it— as much as to say my happiest moment has been funereal in comparison with this, the con- ditions of life pre-
determined slavery to be easy and freedom hard. For it? Dismiss agrarian lore; it tells him this: that which it is impossible to force, it is impossible to hinder.

POETRY

I too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle. Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers that there is in it after all, a place for the genuine. Hands that can grasp, eyes that can dilate, hair that can rise if it must, these things are important not because a
high sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because they are useful; when they become so derivative as to become unintelligible, the same thing may be said for all of us—that we do not admire what we cannot understand. The bat, holding on upside down or in quest of something to
eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf under a tree, the immovable critic twinkling his skin like a horse that feels a flea, the base- ball fan, the statistician—case after case could be cited did one wish it; nor is it valid to discriminate against “business documents and
school-books”; all these phenomena are important. One must make a distinction however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry, nor till the autocrats among us can be “literalists of the imagination”—above insolence and triviality and can present
for inspection, imaginary gardens with real toads in them, shall we have it. In the meantime, if you demand on one hand, in defiance of their opinion— the raw material of poetry in all its rawness and that which is, on the other hand, genuine then you are interested in poetry.

IN THE DAYS OF PRISMATIC COLOR

not in the days of Adam and Eve but when Adam was alone; when there was no smoke and color was fine, not with the fineness of early civilization art but by virtue of its originality, with nothing to modify it but the
mist that went up, obliqueness was a varia- tion of the perpendicular, plain to see and to account for: it is no longer that; nor did the blue red yellow band of incandescence that was color, keep its stripe: it also is one of
those things into which much that is peculiar can be read; complexity is not a crime but carry it to the point of murki- ness and nothing is plain. A complexity moreover, that has been committed to darkness, instead of granting it-
self to be the pestilence that it is, moves all a- bout as if to bewilder with the dismal fallacy that insistence is the measure of achievement and that all truth must be dark. Principally throat, sophistication is as it al-
ways has been—at the antipodes from the init- ial great truths. “Part of it was crawling, part of it was about to crawl, the rest was torpid in its lair.” In the short legged, fit- ful advance, the gurgling and all the minutiæ—we have the classic
multitude of feet. To what purpose! Truth is no Apollo Belvedere, no formal thing. The wave may go over it if it likes. Know that it will be there when it says: “I shall be there when the wave has gone by.”

IS YOUR TOWN NINEVEH?

Why so desolate? And why multiply in phantasmagoria about fishes, what disgusts you? Could not all personal upheaval in the name of freedom, be tabood?

Is it Nineveh and are you Jonah in the sweltering east wind of your wishes? I, myself have stood there by the aquarium, looking at the Statue of Liberty.

Printed at the Pelican Press, 2 Carmelite Street, E.C.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Typographical errors have been silently corrected.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works provided that:

- • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”

- • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.

- • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work.

- • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

Table of Contents

- POEMS
- PEDANTIC LITERALIST
- TO A STEAM ROLLER

- DILIGENCE IS TO MAGIC AS PROGRESS IS TO FLIGHT

- THOSE VARIOUS SCALPELS
- FEED ME, ALSO, RIVER GOD,
- TO WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS ON TAGORE
- HE MADE THIS SCREEN
- TALISMAN
- BLACK EARTH
- “HE WROTE THE HISTORY BOOK,” IT SAID

- YOU ARE LIKE THE REALISTIC PRODUCT OF AN IDEALISTIC SEARCH FOR GOLD AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW

- REINFORCEMENTS

- ROSES ONLY

- IN THIS AGE OF HARD TRYING NONCHALANCE IS GOOD, AND

- THE FISH
- MY APISH COUSINS
- WHEN I BUY PICTURES
- PICKING AND CHOOSING
- ENGLAND
- DOCK RATS
- RADICAL
- POETRY
- IN THE DAYS OF PRISMATIC COLOR
- IS YOUR TOWN NINEVEH?
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE