Unit 3: Part 2 Vocabulary

I who did not die, who am still living,
still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,
clenching and opening one small hand.

He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely.

I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw

It weeps monotonously
As weeps the water,
As weeps the wind
Over snow.

Stricken with foreboding
They pleaded, got angry,
But still she was silent;
At last they gave up.

The glasses ring and clatter,
The toasting-cup is passed
From hand to hand in tumult,
The guests are drunk.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest

When I come down to sleep death’s endless night,
The threshold of the unknown dark to cross,
What to me then will be the keenest loss,
When this bright world blurs on my fading sight?

When I come down to sleep death’s endless night,
The threshold of the unknown dark to cross,
What to me then will be the keenest loss,
When this bright world blurs on my fading sight?

And so the moss flourishes, the seaweed
whips around,
the sea pushes through and rolls back—
the rocks seem motionless.

His Countenance—a Billow—
His Fingers, as He passed
Let go a music—as of tunes
Blown tremulous in Glass—

His Countenance—a Billow—
His Fingers, as He passed
Let go a music—as of tunes
Blown tremulous in Glass—

They were all Jackie Robinson
& Willie Mays, a touch of
Josh Gibson & Satchell Paige
In each stance & swing, a promise
Like a hesitation pitch always
At the edge of their lives,
Arms sharp as rifles.

Runners hit the dirt
& slid into homeplate,
Cleats catching light,
As they conjured escapes, outfoxing
Double plays.

And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.

Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway....

With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.

In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan—

I have lived what many would consider to be an unorthodox life, but it has always been an interesting one.

Would I find him to be naive, arrogant, simplistic, crude, noble, hopelessly idealistic?

all hope hedged with doubt,
all faith drowned in lamentation.

Not all the wings of dream are broken,
nor is all affection doomed
to wither in a desolate heart.