1. Home
  2. In Dust I Sing — First Line Index

In Dust I Sing — First Line Index

Click on a linked In Dust I Sing ghazal number to go to that ghazal.

This page is currently under construction …

Ghazal First Line
52 After all, who are the worse off—the warm-housed heart-poor
53 After the night’s rain the sky was an inverted bowl of crystal
147 All lovers are poets: only some have voices and some do not.
128 All that I have proved up to now is that I have as much
7 All the world loves a lover; from his lips their song is sung.
14 A poet is a man condemned to exile
20 A scientist is an immigrant from outer space
40 Because you are the way as well as the goal, we rejoice;
15 Being in mid-ocean it’s no good bleating like a ruddy goat;
62 Dawn is a friend who comes to rouse the lover from grief.
93 Do not feel too secure in your houses. Though they keep
104 Don’t talk to us about science and spirituality;
22 Drunk again! cried the hag Respectability.
143 Even after obtaining residence in Love Street
27 Everyone thinks he is the burden-bearing title-holder.
87 Eyeless are we in Gaza, chained as slaves to the wheel
56 From the bush of our burning grief comes the voice of your singing,
84 God is all-merciful—but don’t expect from him
130 How at young Dawn’s clear call my spirit used to leap!
12 How can you even think of yourself as a poet
16 How easy was wayfaring with the crackling fire mocking
139 How simple this business of love seemed to us at first!
18 How simple was this matter of love in the beginning—
134 I am being killed by millions of beaks of words pecking at my brain.
83 I dwell in dust and sing, and my song is most sweet;
48 If anyone asks for proof that God exists—let him disprove
112 I had never reckoned on the Beloved’s infinite courtesies
111 I have not yet met one who had not grief engraved on his face,
114 I leave those to desire union who have taken leave of their senses—
73 In Love Street there is the Church of the Sacred Vine
79 Instead of hand-outs wouldn’t it be better not to have any poor?
67 In the matter of love and art I have never been a niggard:
66 In the Street of Barefoot Lovers there are peddlers of song, clowns,
70 In this drought all has died except our crop of griefs;
68 In this game of love don’t think that you can take a trick.
50 I remember distinctly the beginnings of this love
37 Iron plains, and then sea-stretch to new desert lands—grief’s growth.
76 I suppose my gallows-humor will not be much relished
118 It is cold under a rag blanket in the early hours—
136 It is not for memorial’s sake alone
23 It is the season of tiredness. Even the stones
65 It’s a queer lot that fortune has brought together round this camp fire
31 It turns-out that in one thing anyway the Bible is right;
140 It was my heart and hands that brought me to the wineshop door;
49 I was fishing in the deep pools where the big fish loiter,
131 I who was one of the sons of God now dwell in dust;
57 I wish every man the love of a woman beautiful and tender.
45 I wish that young swagman Rimbaud could have met this divine Juggler
75 I would never have troubled about love if love had not troubled me;
135 I would wander at night along a wide, white empty beach
106 Just before sunset a beautiful blue cloud snapped the gold chain
80 Last evening there was a crescent moon telling me
96 Last night while we slept gentle rain fell over the land.
120 Long before the morning stars sang together I started my journey.
26 Long hair or shaved head, clown’s paint, tongs, bowls and rosaries
41 Love delights in green places, in the songs of birds and fountains;
42 Love is lovely and lowly: it runs from high places
4 Love loves not those whom love fattens, but makes destitute.
86 Materialistic progress is our present Pharaoh;
74 Misfortune is the ingredient in my food that nourishes;
142 My grief is so deep and my trouble is so wide that one tear
58 Nearly fourteen hundred years since the orchard of desire was inspected—
146 No one knows the pain of stone—its dull dream and slow lust.
61 Nowadays men are concerned with structures of bones,
144 Now am I also with my face to a wall, Raferty, aplaying music unto empty
71 Now am I a resident in the street called Love Street,
123 Oh, for that grand day when the bones of mind have crumbled to dust,
117 One can muddle along with a sort of catch-as-catch-can,
63 Our tears are a fountain of self-deception, a waterfall
11 Poets are queer fellows who go to a lot of trouble
64 Put a pig in a drawing-room, they say, and it remains a swine;
17 Seeing us downcast the Master said, Twelve years of depression isn’t much
148 Since I cannot remember one moment of my immense journey,
21 Since it is the Beloved’s breath which sustains the creation,
10 Since sleeplessness has befriended me I have begun to admire the stars—
121 Since we slew that lecherous old man Hope one nostril
113 Sometimes I wonder how it was that I wandered into this street
39 The beauty we see around us is a reflection
24 The Beloved is kindness itself, he grants every prayer.
107 The burden of dust is the hardest burden to bear—
43 The dark still sea of night breaks into motion and its foam
44 The days wash over one another like waves towards a beach,
90 The destination of all roads is the wineshop door.
99 The eternal Awakener of lovely spring
35 The evening pianos have faltered into silence—because of love.
122 The glory of God is expressed in the lover’s sigh,
85 The income from an industrial complex cannot buy
126 The light of poetry has lit all language-camps;
109 The Lord protect us from the false saints of God, all those who slit
59 The men of God are kingly men indeed—
28 Then there is the Law—the Law of unlove which binds;
81 The poverty which is wealth. The darkness full of light.
95 The pre-dawn wind billowed my blanket, and I awoke.
91 The promise that was in ‘Tomorrows’ is fulfilled tonight.
55 The rains have come and the earth has put out fresh tender shoots;
6 There are many gods and one God. How shall we find him?
77 There are men and women. And there is the third sex who wear robes
102 There are two things that concern all men: tomorrow’s bread
133 There is a high lake in the snowy mountains to which I would airlift
116 There was brave singing in the street last night for the vintner declared
150 There will come the day when I shall go forth in love and trust
69 These are mature men gathered round the camp-fire tonight,
29 These are not the times for the clean word, the straight sentence;
92 These down-at-heel companions of mine whose beat
94 These rags have become too thin to keep out the wind that blows
125 These songs I sing I assure you are not of my choice,
127 The ship is sinking, but no one can tell the captain,
54 The tracks we follow lead back to the place from where we came.
46 The trouble with this business of illusion is its bright seeming—
103 The wells are drying up, but the mercy of God flows on;
141 The whale-way is unending, and the nights on the wide plain are harsh;
132 The world is being run on vogue words, clichés and outright lies;
105 They have taken us away to a desolate land
78 Think of all the desire-heated branding-irons of lips that sear
97 This morning the dust in Love-Street was a stream of flags,
145 This piece of ground that I have cultivated with much sweat
36 This salt waste, and a sky that is the mirror of our grief—
38 Those whom we love now soon we will have to be leaving;
5 Though fate a thousand times makes you a pawn in its game—do not give up:
124 Though winter has caught the world and your heart in its iron grip,
30 Though you have remained aloof we have not sought other shrines;
119 Though your Joseph has gone away and your cheeks with hot tears burn,
60 Today I looked in the mirror, and saw a dead man’s eyes.
13 To love is something other than what the word-mongers say.
100 Unless one takes up the matter of apprenticeship
47 Water, by being in love with death, gives life to all things;
88 We are the displaced persons of the world, the dispossessed.
137 We have all been faithful to Cynara in our fashion:
34 We have climbed up out of the pit of stone, of worm, fish, bird and beast
33 We have come to understand that whomever God loves he ruins.
8 We have stolen our eyes to admire the passing clouds,
1 We have waited all night for you, and now the dawn is come.
3 Well have you called yourself the Ocean of Mercy—
89 We sat down by the River of Dust and made a new song
82 We urge on our endeavor to conquer the world of the senses,
2 What God or gods or men will care to hear our tale—
32 When a man pursues the secrets of the things contained in space
98 When Dawn tended her rose garden in the eastern sky
110 Whenever our Master speaks to us millions of flags are unfurled
129 When in the Great Darkness the desire for knowledge surged,
51 When my Beloved’s face first appeared over the rim of my world,
72 When, one day, the Master looked at me sideways I saw
115 When one’s Beloved is truly so, there is no need
138 When the screen of day was slid aside revealing night’s peacock-eyed
149 When the sun flew his flag from my house-top, the bird of my throat
108 When the wheel of fortune stopped at my number I did not ask
101 When we have become tired of the mind’s shiny new toys
19 Who can gauge the mind of God, or sound the depths of love?
25 Worldly man or wanderer are the same to us
9 You warned us that on this path was nothing but pain,

This page is currently under construction …

SEARCH