The Pike

Related poetry:

1. By the Pool of the Third Rosses I heard the sighing of the reed In the grey pool in the green land, The sea-wind in the long reeds sighing Between the green hill and the sand. I heard the sighing of the reeds Day after day, night after night; I heard the whirring wild ducks flying, I saw the sea-gull’s wheeling flight. […]...
2. By Loe Pool The pool glitters, the fishes leap in the sun With joyous fins, and dive in the pool again; I see the corn in sheaves, and the harvestmen, And the cows coming down to the water one by one. Dragon-flies mailed in lapis and malachite Flash through the bending reeds and blaze on the pool; Sea-ward, […]...
3. The Netherlands (fragment) Water and windmills, greenness, Islets green; Willows whose Trunks beside the shadows stood Of their own higher half, and willowy swamp: Farmhouses that at anchor seem’d in the inland sky The fog-transfixing Spires Water, wide water, greenness and green banks, And water seen...
4. Northern Pike All right. Try this, Then. Every body I know and care for, And every body Else is going To die in a loneliness I can’t imagine and a pain I don’t know. We had To go on living. We Untangled the net, we slit The body of this fish Open from the hinge of the […]...
5. Prairie Waters by Night CHATTER of birds two by two raises a night song joining a litany of running water-sheer waters showing the russet of old stones remembering many rains. And the long willows drowse on the shoulders of the running water, and sleep from much music; joined songs of day-end, feathery throats and stony waters, in a choir […]...
6. Cavalry Crossing a Ford A LINE in long array, where they wind betwixt green islands; They take a serpentine course-their arms flash in the sun-Hark to the musical clank; Behold the silvery river-in it the splashing horses, loitering, stop to drink; Behold the brown-faced men-each group, each person, a picture-the negligent rest on the saddles; Some emerge on the […]...
7. Bells, Pool And Sleep Bells overbrim with sound And spread from cupolas Out through the shaking air Endless unbreaking circles Cool and clear as water. A stone dropped in the water Opens the lips of the pool And starts the unovertaking Rings, till the pool is full Of waves as the air of bells. The deep-sea bell of sleep […]...
8. The Black Swan When the swans turned my sister into a swan I would go to the lake, at night, from milking: The sun would look out through the reeds like a swan, A swan’s red beak; and the beak would open And inside there was darkness, the stars and the moon. Out on the lake, a girl […]...
9. Daisy Fraser Did you ever hear of Editor Whedon Giving to the public treasury any of the money he received For supporting candidated for office? Or for writing up the canning factory To get people to invest? Or for suppressing the facts about the bank, When it was rotten and ready to break? Did you ever hear […]...
10. Dawn Opposite me two Germans snore and sweat. Through sullen swirling gloom we jolt and roar. We have been here for ever: even yet A dim watch tells two hours, two aeons, more. The windows are tight-shut and slimy-wet With a night’s foetor. There are two hours more; Two hours to dawn and Milan; two hours […]...
11. Hugo's "pool in the forest&quot How calm, how beauteous and how cool How like a sister to the skies, Appears the broad, transparent pool That in this quiet forest lies. The sunshine ripples on its face, And from the world around, above, It hath caught down the nameless grace Of such reflections as we love. But deep below its surface […]...
12. Encounter In The Chestnut Avenue He felt the entrance’s green darkness Wrapped cooly round him like a silken cloak That he was still accepting and arranging; When at the opposite transparent end, far off, Through green sunlight, as through green window panes, Whitely a solitary shape Flared up, long remaining distant And then finally, the downdriving light Boiling over it […]...
13. Wanting The Moon Not the moon. A flower On the other side of the water. The water sweeps past in flood, Dragging a whole tree by the hair, A barn, a bridge. The flower Sings on the far bank. Not a flower, a bird calling Hidden among the darkest trees, music Over the water, making a silence Out […]...
14. The Further Bank I long to go over there to the further bank of the river. Where those boats are tied to the bamboo poles in a line; Where men cross over in their boats in the morning with Ploughs on their shoulders to till their far-away fields; Where the cowherds make their lowing cattle swim across to […]...
15. The Boy The Boy from his bedroom-window Look’d over the little town, And away to the bleak black upland Under a clouded moon. The moon came forth from her cavern, He saw the sudden gleam Of a tarn in the swarthy moorland; Or perhaps the whole was a dream. For I never could find that water In […]...
16. To A Friend Concerning Several Ladies You know there is not much That I desire, a few chrysanthemums Half lying on the grass, yellow And brown and white, the Talk of a few people, the trees, An expanse of dried leaves perhaps With ditches among them. But there comes Between me and these things A letter Or even a look-well placed, […]...
17. Turtle Now I see it It nudges with its bulldog head The slippery stems of the lilies, making them tremble; And now it noses along in the wake of the little brown teal Who is leading her soft children From one side of the pond to the other; she keeps Close to the edge And they […]...
18. Reedy River Ten miles down Reedy River A pool of water lies, And all the year it mirrors The changes in the skies, And in that pool’s broad bosom Is room for all the stars; Its bed of sand has drifted O’er countless rocky bars. Around the lower edges There waves a bed of reeds, Where water […]...
19. Wei City Song Wei City morning rain Dampens the light dust. By this inn, green, Newly green willows. I urge you to drink Another cup of wine; West of Yang Pass Are no old friends....
20. Silver Slowly, silently, now the moon Walks the night in her silver shoon; This way, and that, she peers, and sees Silver fruit upon silver trees; One by one the casements catch Her beams beneath the silvery thatch; Couched in his kennel, like a log, With paws of silver sleeps the dog; From their shadowy cote […]...
21. Each small gleam was a voice Each small gleam was a voice, A lantern voice In little songs of carmine, violet, green, gold. A chorus of colours came over the water; The wondrous leaf-shadow no longer wavered, No pines crooned on the hills, The blue night was elsewhere a silence, When the chorus of colours came over the water, Little songs […]...
22. Villages and Plains the Streams Flow Through You too return, along with days gone, And flow again, my blue rivers, To carry on the songs of washerwomen, Fishermen’s nets and grey wooden bridges. Clear blue nights, smelling warm, Streams of thin mist off the meadow drift in With distinct hoof-stomps from a fettered horse. To carry off rioting spring thaws, Willows torn […]...
23. Arbolй, Arbolй Tree, tree Dry and green. The girl with the pretty face Is out picking olives. The wind, playboy of towers, Grabs her around the waist. Four riders passed by On Andalusian ponies, With blue and green jackets And big, dark capes. “Come to Cordoba, muchacha.” The girl won’t listen to them. Three young bullfighters passed, […]...
24. Venetian Morning Windows pampered like princes always see What on occasion deigns to trouble us: The city that, time and again, where a shimmer Of sky strikes a feeling of floodtide, Takes shape without once choosing to be. Each new morning must first show her the opals She wore yesterday, and pull rows Of reflections out of […]...
25. August Why should this Negro insolently stride Down the red noonday on such noiseless feet? Piled in his barrow, tawnier than wheat, Lie heaps of smouldering daisies, sombre-eyed, Their copper petals shriveled up with pride, Hot with a superfluity of heat, Like a great brazier borne along the street By captive leopards, black and burning pied. […]...
26. Thirst My spirit wails for water, water now! My tongue is aching dry, my throat is hot For water, fresh rain shaken from a bough, Or dawn dews heavy in some leafy spot. My hungry body’s burning for a swim In sunlit water where the air is cool, As in Trout Valley where upon a limb […]...
27. The Garden The garden admires you. For your sake it smears itself with green pigment, The ecstatic reds of the roses, So that you will come to it with your lovers. And the willows See how it has shaped these green Tents of silence. Yet There is still something you need, Your body so soft, so alive, […]...
28. Seaport Green sea-tarnished copper And sea-tarnished gold Of cupolas. Sea-runnelled streets Channelled by salt air That wears the white stone. The sunlight-filled cistern Of a dry-dock. Square shadows. Sun-slatted smoke above meticulous stooping of cranes. Water pressed up by ships’ prows Going, coming. City dust turned Back by the sea-wind’s Wall....
29. Summer Colours Long curls Lightest blond Like silver and gold In the saffron sun Summer dresses Cool white Show lots of skin Golden brown Painted toenails Fierce red In summer shoes Walk by And catch eyes Green and blue Behind black shades Against the gleam...
30. Study In Orange And White I knew that James Whistler was part of the Paris scene, But I was still surprised when I found the painting Of his mother at the Musée d’Orsay Among all the colored dots and mobile brushstrokes Of the French Impressionists. And I was surprised to notice After a few minutes of benign staring, How that […]...
31. For Once, Then, Something Others taught me with having knelt at well-curbs Always wrong to the light, so never seeing Deeper down in the well than where the water Gives me back in a shining surface picture Me myself in the summer heaven godlike Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs. Once, when trying with chin […]...
32. Correspondences Nature is a temple where the living pillars Let go sometimes a blurred speech- A Forest of symbols passes through a man’s reach And observes him with a familiar regard. Like the distant echoes that mingle and confound In a unity of darkness and quiet Deep as the night, clear as daylight The perfumes, the […]...
33. In a Garden Gushing from the mouths of stone men To spread at ease under the sky In granite-lipped basins, Where iris dabble their feet And rustle to a passing wind, The water fills the garden with its rushing, In the midst of the quiet of close-clipped lawns. Damp smell the ferns in tunnels of stone, Where trickle […]...
34. Lover's Gifts XVI: She Dwelt Here by the Pool She dwelt here by the pool with its landing-stairs in ruins. Many An evening she had watched the moon made dizzy by the shaking of Bamboo leaves, and on many a rainy day the smell of the wet earth Had come to her over the young shoots of rice. Her pet name is known here […]...
35. The house where I was born (02) I woke up, it was the house where I was born. It was raining softly in all the rooms, I went from one to another, looking at The water that shone on the mirrors Piled up everywhere, some broken or even Pushed between the furniture and the walls. It was from these reflections that sometimes […]...
36. The Voice of the Lobster ”Tis the voice of the Lobster: I heard him declare ‘You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.’ As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes. When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, […]...
37. The Jumblies I They went to sea in a Sieve, they did, In a Sieve they went to sea: In spite of all their friends could say, On a winter’s morn, on a stormy day, In a Sieve they went to sea! And when the Sieve turned round and round, And every one cried, ‘You’ll all be […]...
38. The Morning Star IN the black pool of the midnight Lu has slung the morning star, And its foam in rippling silver whitens into day afar Falling on the mountain rampart piled with pearl above our glen, Only you and I, beloved, moving in the fields of men. In the dark tarn of my spirit, love, the morning […]...
39. Penmaen Pool For the Visitors’ Book at the Inn Who long for rest, who look for pleasure Away from counter, court, or school O where live well your lease of leisure But here at, here at Penmaen Pool? You’ll dare the Alp? you’ll dart the skiff?- Each sport has here its tackle and tool: Come, plant the […]...
40. Under A Telephone Pole I AM a copper wire slung in the air, Slim against the sun I make not even a clear line of shadow. Night and day I keep singing humming and thrumming: It is love and war and money; it is the fighting and the Tears, the work and want, Death and laughter of men and […]...