Brass Keys

Related poetry:

1. The Keys of Morning While at her bedroom window once, Learning her task for school, Little Louisa lonely sat In the morning clear and cool, She slanted her small bead-brown eyes Across the empty street, And saw Death softly watching her In the sunshine pale and sweet. His was a long lean sallow face; He sat with half-shut eyes, […]...
2. The earth has many keys The earth has many keys, Where melody is not Is the unknown peninsula. Beauty is nature’s fact. But witness for her land, And witness for her sea, The cricket is her utmost Of elegy to me....
3. As the Team's Head – Brass As the team’s head-brass flashed out on the turn The lovers disappeared into the wood. I sat among the boughs of the fallen elm That strewed the angle of the fallow, and Watched the plough narrowing a yellow square Of charlock. Every time the horses turned Instead of treading me down, the ploughman leaned Upon […]...
4. Brass Kaleidoscope My daughter raises the smooth brass kaleidoscope and watches as coloured glass slivers conspire together. New worlds create themselves before her eyes. Garnet spires flirt with sapphire and turquoise. Topaz and amethyst meet in harmony, a selenic mystery. A melody of stars singing a tune only she can hear. Eclectic patterns shiver and shimmer then […]...
5. Sonnet 65: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o’ersways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days, When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor […]...
6. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
7. THE VIOLET UPON the mead a violet stood, Retiring, and of modest mood, In truth, a violet fair. Then came a youthful shepherdess, And roam’d with sprightly joyousness, And blithely woo’d With carols sweet the air “Ah!” thought the violet, “had I been For but the smallest moment e’en Nature’s most beauteous flower, ‘Till gather’d by my […]...
8. Medallion THE BRASS medallion profile of your face I keep always. It is not jingling with loose change in my pockets. It is not stuck up in a show place on the office wall. I carry it in a special secret pocket in the day And it is under my pillow at night. The brass came […]...
9. Rose Leaves When they shall close my careless eyes And look their last upon my face, I fear that some will say: “her lies A man of deep disgrace; His thoughts were bare, his words were brittle, He dreamed so much, he did so little. When they shall seal y coffin lid And this worn mask I […]...
10. Study Somewhere the long mellow note of the blackbird Quickens the unclasping hands of hazel, Somewhere the wind-flowers fling their heads back, Stirred by an impetuous wind. Some ways’ll All be sweet with white and blue violet. (Hush now, hush. Where am I?-Biuret-) On the green wood’s edge a shy girl hovers From out of the […]...
11. Peach Blossoms WHAT cry of peach blossoms let loose on the air today I heard with my face thrown in the pink-white of it all? in the red whisper of it all? What man I heard saying: Christ, these are beautiful! And Christ and Christ was in his mouth, over these peach blossoms?...
12. Circumstantial Evidence She does not mind a good cigar (The kind, that is, I smoke); She thinks all men quite stupid are, (But laughs whene’er I joke). She says she does not care for verse (But praises all I write); She says that punning is a curse, (But then mine are so bright!) She does not like […]...
13. Corn Hut Talk WRITE your wishes on the door and come in. Stand outside in the pools of the harvest moon. Bring in the handshake of the pumpkins. There’s a wish for every hazel nut? There’s a hope for every corn shock? There’s a kiss for every clumsy climbing shadow? Clover and the bumblebees once, High winds and […]...
14. To My Wife – With A Copy Of My Poems I can write no stately proem As a prelude to my lay; From a poet to a poem I would dare to say. For if of these fallen petals One to you seem fair, Love will waft it till it settles On your hair. And when wind and winter harden All the loveless land, It […]...
15. Manufactured Gods THEY put up big wooden gods. Then they burned the big wooden gods And put up brass gods and Changing their minds suddenly Knocked down the brass gods and put up A doughface god with gold earrings. The poor mutts, the pathetic slant heads, They didn’t know a little tin god Is as good as […]...
16. Over The Alley Here in my office I sit and write Hour on hour, and day on day, With no one to speak to from morn till night, Though I have a neighbour just over the way. Across the alley that yawns between A maiden sits sewing the whole day long; A face more lovely is seldom seen […]...
17. Violet De Vere You’ve heard of Violet de Vere, strip-teaser of renown, Whose sitting-base out-faired the face of any girl in town; Well, she was haled before the Bench for breachin’ of the Peace, Which signifies araisin’ Cain, an’ beatin’ up the police. So there she stood before the Court of ruddy Judge McGraw Whom folks called Old […]...
18. On Violet's Wafers, Sent Me When I Was Ill Fine-tissued as her finger-tips, and white As all her thoughts; in shape like shields of prize, As if before young Violet’s dreaming eyes Still blazed the two great Theban bucklers bright That swayed the random of that furious fight Where Palamon and Arcite made assize For Emily; fresh, crisp as her replies, That, not with […]...
19. Child The young child, Christ, is straight and wise And asks questions of the old men, questions Found under running water for all children And found under shadows thrown on still waters By tall trees looking downward, old and gnarled. Found to the eyes of children alone, untold, Singing a low song in the loneliness. And […]...
20. Yes, the Dead Speak to Us YES, the Dead speak to us. This town belongs to the Dead, to the Dead and to the Wilderness. Back of the clamps on a fireproof door they hold the papers of the Dead in a house here And when two living men fall out, when one says the Dead spoke a Yes, and the […]...
21. Remembered Women FOR a woman’s face remembered as a spot of quick light on the flat land of dark night, For this memory of one mouth and a forehead they go on in the gray rain and the mud, they go on among the boots and guns. The horizon ahead is a thousand fang flashes, it is […]...
22. Stars (For the Rev. James J. Daly, S. J.) Bright stars, yellow stars, flashing through the air, Are you errant strands of Lady Mary’s hair? As she slits the cloudy veil and bends down through, Do you fall across her cheeks and over heaven too? Gay stars, little stars, you are little eyes, Eyes of baby […]...
23. Mary, Pity Women! You call yourself a man, For all you used to swear, An’ Leave me, as you can, My certain shame to bear? I’ear! You do not care You done the worst you know. I ‘ate you, grinnin’ there…. Ah, Gawd, I love you so! Nice while it lasted, an’ now it is over Tear out […]...
24. The Frost-King – Song II Brighter shone the golden shadows; On the cool wind softly came The low, sweet tones of happy flowers, Singing little Violet’s name. ‘Mong the green trees was it whispered, And the bright waves bore it on To the lonely forest flowers, Where the glad news had not gone. Thus the Frost-King lost his kingdom, And […]...
25. Portrait Of A Lady Your thighs are appletrees Whose blossoms touch the sky. Which sky? The sky Where Watteau hung a lady’s Slipper. Your knees Are a southern breeze-or A gust of snow. Agh! what Sort of man was Fragonard? -As if that answered Anything.-Ah, yes. Below The knees, since the tune Drops that way, it is One of […]...
26. Mammy Hums THIS is the song I rested with: The right shoulder of a strong man I leaned on. The face of the rain that drizzled on the short neck of a canal boat. The eyes of a child who slept while death went over and under. The petals of peony pink that fluttered in a shot […]...
27. Martha “Once…Once upon a time…” Over and over again, Martha would tell us her stories, In the hazel glen. Hers were those clear gray eyes You watch, and the story seems Told by their beautifulness Tranquil as dreams. She’d sit with her two slim hands Clasped round her bended knees; While we on our elbows lolled, […]...
28. Sonnet XX A woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion; An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; A man in hue, all ‘hues’ in his controlling, […]...
29. Sonnet 20: A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted A woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion; An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; A man in hue, all hues in his controlling, […]...
30. Loin Cloth BODY of Jesus taken down from the cross Carved in ivory by a lover of Christ, It is a child’s handful you are here, The breadth of a man’s finger, And this ivory loin cloth Speaks an interspersal in the day’s work, The carver’s prayer and whim And Christ-love....
31. E TENEBRIS Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand, For I am drowning in a stormier sea Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee: The wine of life is spilt upon the sand, My heart is as some famine-murdered land Whence all good things have perished utterly, And well I know my soul in […]...
32. The Appology ‘Tis true I write and tell me by what Rule I am alone forbid to play the fool To follow through the Groves a wand’ring Muse And fain’d Idea’s for my pleasures chuse Why shou’d it in my Pen be held a fault Whilst Mira paints her face, to paint a thought Whilst Lamia to […]...
33. 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 […]...
34. Swing Song The blatant horns blare strident sound; Delighted, you laugh and seize My passive arm, but I have found Content in the harmonies. They sound, are silent; please or annoy, Are not clever, cruel, or coy Like human qualities. See agile fingers in frantic flight Along the smoking row Of piano keys cut from ebony night […]...
35. Women Washing Their Hair THEY have painted and sung The women washing their hair, And the plaits and strands in the sun, And the golden combs And the combs of elephant tusks And the combs of buffalo horn and hoof. The sun has been good to women, Drying their heads of hair As they stooped and shook their shoulders […]...
36. Timber Wings THERE was a wild pigeon came often to Hinkley’s timber. Gray wings that wrote their loops and triangles on the walnuts and the hazel. There was a wild pigeon. There was a summer came year by year to Hinkley’s timber. Rainy months and sunny and pigeons calling and one pigeon best of all who came. […]...
37. Oil And Blood In tombs of gold and lapis lazuli Bodies of holy men and women exude Miraculous oil, odour of violet. But under heavy loads of trampled clay Lie bodies of the vampires full of blood; Their shrouds are bloody and their lips are wet....
38. 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 […]...
39. Hymn 54 Electing grace; or, Saints beloved in Christ. Eph. 1:3ff. Jesus, we bless thy Father’s name; Thy God and ours are both the same; What heav’nly blessings from his throne Flow down to sinners through his Son! “Christ be my first elect,” he said, Then chose our souls in Christ our head, Before he gave the […]...
40. Hymn 108 Christ unseen and beloved. 1 Pet. 1:5. Now with our mortal eyes Have we beheld the Lord; Yet we rejoice to hear his name, And love him in his word. On earth we want the sight Of our Redeemer’s face; Yet, Lord, our inmost thoughts delight To dwell upon thy grace. And when we taste […]...