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by Coleman Barks (b. 1937)

Drink all your passion
Language: English 
There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight

of walking in the noisy street

and being the noise.

Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace.

Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.

Open your hands,
if you want to be held.

Sit down in the circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd’s love filling you.

At night, your beloved wanders.
Don’t accept consolations.

Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover’s mouth in yours.

You moan, “She left me.” “He left me.”
Twenty more will come.

Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!

Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.

Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.

Text Authorship:

  • by Coleman Barks (b. 1937) [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Linda Buckley (b. 1979), "Drink all your passion", 2011 [ voice and instrumental ensemble ], from I have five things to say, Dublin : Contemporary Music Centre
        Publisher: Contemporary Music Centre [external link]  [sung text not yet checked]

Researcher for this page: Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2025-12-08
Line count: 27
Word count: 138

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