The Blackbird Of Derrycairn

Related poetry:

1. To a Blackbird and His Mate Who Died in the Spring (For Kenton) An iron hand has stilled the throats That throbbed with loud and rhythmic glee And dammed the flood of silver notes That drenched the world in melody. The blosmy apple boughs are yearning For their wild choristers’ returning, But no swift wings flash through the tree. Ye that were glad and fleet and […]...
2. A Blackbird Singing It seems wrong that out of this bird, Black, bold, a suggestion of dark Places about it, there yet should come Such rich music, as though the notes’ Ore were changed to a rare metal At one touch of that bright bill. You have heard it often, alone at your desk In a green April, […]...
3. Every Man Should have a Rifle So I sit and write and ponder, while the house is deaf and dumb, Seeing visions “over yonder” of the war I know must come. In the corner – not a vision – but a sign for coming days Stand a box of ammunition and a rifle in green baize. And in this, the living […]...
4. Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird I Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the black bird. II I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds. III The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It was a small part of the pantomime. IV A man and a woman Are one. […]...
5. For The Moment Life is simple and gay The bright sun rings with a quiet sound The sound of the bells has quieted down This morning the light hits it all The footlights of my head are lit again And the room I live in is finally bright Just one beam is enough Just one burst of laughter […]...
6. Starling a starling sat on the roof (i don’t know how young) Croaking in an old man’s voice Cross with the dapper world After five minutes or so It flew away – its grouse over It was like its feathers Rough and unperturbed I don’t suppose it was educated The other birds ignored it It was […]...
7. The plane and the blackbird a cold bright sun Two days to christmas A first-quarter moon At a good vantage-point A small white coffin Driven slowly uphill From the cemetery gate To the minimal grave Fifty people attending Unexpected collection Of nettle-stung hearts At a barely-lived dying A shuffling past yews Thoughts finding rhythm A lightness that bred From a […]...
8. Nocturne of the Wharves All night they whine upon their ropes and boom Against the dock with helpless prows: These little ships that are too worn for sailing Front the wharf but do not rest at all. Tugging at the dim gray wharf they think No doubt of China and of bright Bombay, And they remember islands of the […]...
9. Pencils PENCILS Telling where the wind comes from open a story. Pencils Telling where the wind goes end a story. These eager pencils Come to a stop .. only.. when the stars high over Come to a stop. Out of cabalistic to-morrows Come cryptic babies calling life A strong and a lovely thing. I have seen […]...
10. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
11. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
12. Limitations If you could crowd them into forty lines! Yes; you can do it, once you get a start; All that you want is waiting in your head, For long-ago you’ve learnt it off by heart. . . . . Begin: your mind’s the room where you have slept, (Don’t pause for rhymes), till twilight woke […]...
13. The Little Black Boy My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but O! my soul is white. White as an angel is the English child: But I am black as if bereav’d of light. My mother taught me underneath a tree And sitting down before the heat of day. She took me on her […]...
14. There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a Temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest. For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the World. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I Cover her against any hurt. Using the pen of rivers and […]...
15. Will there really be a "Morning"? Will there really be a “Morning”? Is there such a thing as “Day”? Could I see it from the mountains If I were as tall as they? Has it feet like Water lilies? Has it feathers like a Bird? Is it brought from famous countries Of which I have never heard? Oh some Scholar! Oh […]...
16. Such Singing in the Wild Branches It was spring And finally I heard him Among the first leaves – Then I saw him clutching the limb In an island of shade With his red-brown feathers All trim and neat for the new year. First, I stood still And thought of nothing. Then I began to listen. Then I was filled with […]...
17. The Valley's Singing Day The sound of the closing outside door was all. You made no sound in the grass with your footfall, As far as you went from the door, which was not far; But had awakened under the morning star The first song-bird that awakened all the rest. He could have slept but a moment more at […]...
18. 239. Song-My Bonie Mary GO, fetch to me a pint o’ wine, And fill it in a silver tassie; That I may drink before I go, A service to my bonie lassie. The boat rocks at the pier o’ Leith; Fu’ loud the wind blaws frae the Ferry; The ship rides by the Berwick-law, And I maun leave my […]...
19. It Is A Spring Afternoon Everything here is yellow and green. Listen to its throat, its earthskin, The bone dry voices of the peepers As they throb like advertisements. The small animals of the woods Are carrying their deathmasks Into a narrow winter cave. The scarecrow has plucked out His two eyes like diamonds And walked into the village. The […]...
20. The Children The children are all crying in their pens And the surf carries their cries away. They are old men who have seen too much, Their mouths are full of dirty clothes, The tongues poverty, tears like puss. The surf pushes their cries back. Listen. They are bewitched. They are writing down their life On the […]...
21. Lightning The oaks shone Gaunt gold On the lip Of the storm before The wind rose, The shapeless mouth Opened and began Its five-hour howl; The lights Went out fast, branches Sidled over The pitch of the roof, bounced Into the year That grew black Within minutes, except For the lightening – the landscape Bulging forth […]...
22. The Fury Of Flowers And Worms Let the flowers make a journey On Monday so that I can see Ten daisies in a blue vase With perhaps one red ant Crawling to the gold center. A bit of the field on my table, Close to the worms Who struggle blinding, Moving deep into their slime, Moving deep into God’s abdomen, Moving […]...
23. Sonnet CXXVII In the old age black was not counted fair, Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name; But now is black beauty’s successive heir, And beauty slander’d with a bastard shame: For since each hand hath put on nature’s power, Fairing the foul with art’s false borrow’d face, Sweet beauty hath no name, no […]...
24. Voyages Pond snipe, bleached pine, rue weed, wart I walk by sedge and brown river rot To where the old lake boats went daily out. All the ships are gone, the gray wharf fallen In upon itself. Even the channel’s Grown over. Once we set sail here For Bob-Lo, the Brewery Isles, Cleveland. We would have […]...
25. Daybreak In Alabama When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent […]...
26. Still Here I been scared and battered. My hopes the wind done scattered. Snow has friz me, Sun has baked me, Looks like between ’em they done Tried to make me Stop laughin’, stop lovin’, stop livin’ But I don’t care! I’m still here!...
27. Sonnet 127: In the old age black was not counted fair In the old age black was not counted fair, Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name; But now is black beauty’s successive heir, And beauty slandered with a bastard shame. For since each hand hath put on nature’s power, Fairing the foul with art’s false borrowed face, Sweet beauty hath no name no […]...
28. Invitation To Miss Marianne Moore From Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge, on this fine morning, please come flying. In a cloud of fiery pale chemicals, please come flying, To the rapid rolling of thousands of small blue drums Descending out of the mackerel sky Over the glittering grandstand of harbor-water, please come flying. Whistles, pennants and smoke are blowing. The […]...
29. Listen, Lord: A Prayer O Lord, we come this morning Knee-bowed and body-bent Before Thy throne of grace. O Lord this morning Bow our hearts beneath our knees, And our knees in some lonesome valley. We come this morning Like empty pitchers to a full fountain, With no merits of our own. O Lord open up a window of […]...
30. Humming Bird Woman WHY should I be wondering How you would look in black velvet and yellow? in orange and green? I who cannot remember whether it was a dash of blue Or a whirr of red under your willow throat- Why do I wonder how you would look in humming-bird feathers?...
31. The Scrutiny Why should you swear I am forsworn, Since thine I vowed to be? Lady, it is already morn, And ’twas last night I swore to thee That fond impossibility. Have I not loved thee much and long, A tedious twelve hours’ space? I must all other beauties wrong, And rob thee of a new embrace, […]...
32. Good-by and Keep Cold This saying good-by on the edge of the dark And the cold to an orchard so young in the bark Reminds me of all that can happen to harm An orchard away at the end of the farm All winter, cut off by a hill from the house. I don’t want it girdled by rabbit […]...
33. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
34. Beginning The moon drops one or two feathers into the fiels. The dark wheat listens. Be still. Now. There they are, the moon’s young, trying Their wings. Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone Wholly, into the air. I […]...
35. Two spanish poems (a) orihuela-time The sun in orihuela calms the dust And people glide about the streets at ease (problems left indoors to cool themselves) Time has grown fat and no one cares To pin each minute to its proper place The day is long tomorrow’s not yet real Doves and old men occupy the squares Nattering […]...
36. Black Oaks Okay, not one can write a symphony, or a dictionary, Or even a letter to an old friend, full of remembrance And comfort. Not one can manage a single sound though the blue jays Carp and whistle all day in the branches, without The push of the wind. But to tell the truth after a […]...
37. Mockingbirds This morning Two mockingbirds In the green field Were spinning and tossing The white ribbons Of their songs Into the air. I had nothing Better to do Than listen. I mean this Seriously. In Greece, A long time ago, An old couple Opened their door To two strangers Who were, It soon appeared, Not men […]...
38. Sandpipers Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes. Homes for sandpipers-the script of their feet is on the sea shingles-they write in the morning, it is gone at noon-they write at noon, it is gone at night. Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper’s wire legs and […]...
39. Farewell FAREWELL, and when forth I through the Golden Gates to Golden Isles Steer without smiling, through the sea of smiles, Isle upon isle, in the seas of the south, Isle upon island, sea upon sea, Why should I sail, why should the breeze? I have been young, and I have counted friends. A hopeless sail […]...
40. Dusty Doors CHILD of the Aztec gods, How long must we listen here, How long before we go? The dust is deep on the lintels. The dust is dark on the doors. If the dreams shake our bones, what can we say or do? Since early morning we waited. Since early, early morning, child. There must be […]...