Follies

Related poetry:

1. Roses You love the roses – so do I. I wish The sky would rain down roses, as they rain From off the shaken bush. Why will it not? Then all the valley would be pink and white And soft to tread on. They would fall as light As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be […]...
2. Under the Harvest Moon Under the harvest moon, When the soft silver Drips shimmering Over the garden nights, Death, the gray mocker, Comes and whispers to you As a beautiful friend Who remembers. Under the summer roses When the flagrant crimson Lurks in the dusk Of the wild red leaves, Love, with little hands, Comes and touches you With […]...
3. Poems Done on a Late Night Car I. CHICKENS I am The Great White Way of the city: When you ask what is my desire, I answer: “Girls fresh as country wild flowers, With young faces tired of the cows and barns, Eager in their eyes as the dawn to find my mysteries, Slender supple girls with shapely legs, Lure in the […]...
4. The Harbor PASSING through huddled and ugly walls By doorways where women Looked from their hunger-deep eyes, Haunted with shadows of hunger-hands, Out from the huddled and ugly walls, I came sudden, at the city’s edge, On a blue burst of lake, Long lake waves breaking under the sun On a spray-flung curve of shore; And a […]...
5. A Bunch of Roses Roses ruddy and roses white, What are the joys that my heart discloses? Sitting alone in the fading light Memories come to me here tonight With the wonderful scent of the big red roses. Memories come as the daylight fades Down on the hearth where the firelight dozes; Flicker and flutter the lights and shades, […]...
6. The Patriot An Old Story I It was roses, roses, all the way, With myrtle mixed in my path like mad. The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway, The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, A year ago on this very day! II The air broke into a mist with bells, The old walls rocked with the […]...
7. A Forsaken Garden IN a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland, At the sea-down’s edge between windward and lee, Walled round with rocks as an inland island, The ghost of a garden fronts the sea. A girdle of brushwood and thorn encloses The steep square slope of the blossomless bed Where the weeds that grew green […]...
8. Haze KEEP a red heart of memories Under the great gray rain sheds of the sky, Under the open sun and the yellow gloaming embers. Remember all paydays of lilacs and songbirds; All starlights of cool memories on storm paths. Out of this prairie rise the faces of dead men. They speak to me. I can […]...
9. Asking For Roses A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master, With doors that none but the wind ever closes, Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster; It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses. I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary; ‘I wonder,’ I say, ‘who the owner of those is.’ ‘Oh, […]...
10. The Return They turned him loose; he bowed his head, A felon, bent and grey. His face was even as the Dead, He had no word to say. He sought the home of his old love, To look on her once more; And where her roses breathed above, He cowered beside the door. She sat there in […]...
11. Little-oh dear See, what a wonderful garden is here, Planted and trimmed for my Little-Oh-Dear! Posies so gaudy and grass of such brown – Search ye the country and hunt ye the town And never ye’ll meet with a garden so queer As this one I’ve made for my Little-Oh-Dear! Marigolds white and buttercups blue, Lilies all […]...
12. Broken-face Gargoyles ALL I can give you is broken-face gargoyles. It is too early to sing and dance at funerals, Though I can whisper to you I am looking for an undertaker humming a lullaby and throwing his feet in a swift and mystic buck-and-wing, now you see it and now you don’t. Fish to swim a […]...
13. My Garden The world is sadly sick, they say, And plagued by woe and pain. But look! How looms my garden gay, With blooms in golden reign! With lyric music in the air, Of joy fulfilled in song, I can’t believe that anywhere Is hate and harm and wrong. A paradise my garden is, And there my […]...
14. They Will Say OF my city the worst that men will ever say is this: You took little children away from the sun and the dew, And the glimmers that played in the grass under the great sky, And the reckless rain; you put them between walls To work, broken and smothered, for bread and wages, To eat […]...
15. Storm Windows People are putting up storm windows now, Or were, this morning, until the heavy rain Drove them indoors. So, coming home at noon, I saw storm windows lying on the ground, Frame-full of rain; through the water and glass I saw the crushed grass, how it seemed to stream Away in lines like seaweed on […]...
16. Platonic I knew it the first of the summer, I knew it the same at the end, That you and your love were plighted, But couldn’t you be my friend? Couldn’t we sit in the twilight, Couldn’t we walk on the shore With only a pleasant friendship To bind us, and nothing more? There was not […]...
17. The Old Home Calls Come back to me, little dancing feet that roam the wide world o’er, I long for the lilt of your flying steps in my silent rooms once more; Come back to me, little voices gay with laughter and with song, Come back, little hearts beating high with hopes, I have missed and mourned you long. […]...
18. Rain Has Fallen All the Day Rain has fallen all the day. O come among the laden trees: The leaves lie thick upon the way Of memories. Staying a little by the way Of memories shall we depart. Come, my beloved, where I may Speak to your heart....
19. The Wind, One Brilliant Day The wind, one brilliant day, called To my soul with an odor of jasmine. “In return for the odor of my jasmine, I’d like all the odor of your roses.” “I have no roses; all the flowers In my garden are dead.” “Well then, I’ll take the withered petals And the yellow leaves and the […]...
20. The House on the Hill They are all gone away, The House is shut and still, There is nothing more to say. Through broken walls and gray The winds blow bleak and shrill: They are all gone away. Nor is there one to-day To speak them good or ill: There is nothing more to say. Why is it then we […]...
21. Salvage GUNS on the battle lines have pounded now a year Between Brussels and Paris. And, William Morris, when I read your old chapter on The great arches and naves and little whimsical Corners of the Churches of Northern France Brr-rr! I’m glad you’re a dead man, William Morris, I’m glad You’re down in the damp […]...
22. Night and Day When the golden day is done, Through the closing portal, Child and garden, Flower and sun, Vanish all things mortal. As the blinding shadows fall As the rays diminish, Under evening’s cloak they all Roll away and vanish. Garden darkened, daisy shut, Child in bed, they slumber Glow-worm in the hallway rut, Mice among the […]...
23. Fairyland If people came to know where my king’s palace is, it would vanish Into the air. The walls are of white silver and the roof of shining gold. The queen lives in a palace with seven courtyards, and she Wears a jewel that cost all the wealth of seven kingdoms. But let me tell you, […]...
24. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 01: As evening falls As evening falls, And the yellow lights leap one by one Along high walls; And along black streets that glisten as if with rain, The muted city seems Like one in a restless sleep, who lies and dreams Of vague desires, and memories, and half-forgotten pain. . . Along dark veins, like lights the quick […]...
25. Pasa Thalassa Thalassa “The sea is everywhere the sea.” I Gone-faded out of the story, the sea-faring friend I remember? Gone for a decade, they say: never a word or a sign. Gone with his hard red face that only his laughter could wrinkle, Down where men go to be still, by the old way of the sea. […]...
26. Wonderment Then a wind blew; And he who had forgot he moved Lonely amid the green and silver morning weather, Suddenly grew Aware of clouds and trees Gleaming and white and shafted, shaken together And blown to music by the ruffling breeze. Like flush of wings The moment passed: he stood Dazzled with blossom in the […]...
27. Faure's Second Piano Quartet On a day like this the rain comes Down in fat and random drops among The ailanthus leaves -“the tree Of Heaven” – the leaves that on moon- Lit nights shimmer black and blade- Shaped at this third-floor window. And there are bunches of small green Knobs, buds, crowded together. The Rapid music fills in […]...
28. The Widow's Lament In Springtime Sorrow is my own yard Where the new grass Flames as it has flamed Often before but not With the cold fire That closes round me this year. Thirtyfive years I lived with my husband. The plumtree is white today With masses of flowers. Masses of flowers Load the cherry branches And color some bushes […]...
29. Working Girls THE working girls in the morning are going to work Long lines of them afoot amid the downtown stores And factories, thousands with little brick-shaped Lunches wrapped in newspapers under their arms. Each morning as I move through this river of young- Woman life I feel a wonder about where it is all Going, so […]...
30. Edith Conant We stand about this place we, the memories; And shade our eyes because we dread to read: “June 17th, 1884, aged 21 years and 3 days.” And all things are changed. And we we, the memories, stand here for ourselves alone, For no eye marks us, or would know why we are here. Your husband […]...
31. Castile Orange blossoms blowing over Castile Children begging for coins I met my love under an orange tree Or was it an acacia tree Or was he not my love? I read this, then I dreamed this: Can waking take back what happened to me? Bells of San Miguel Ringing in the distance His hair in […]...
32. Gloire de Dijon When she rises in the morning I linger to watch her; She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the window And the sunbeams catch her Glistening white on the shoulders, While down her sides the mellow Golden shadow glows as She stoops to the sponge, and her swung breasts Sway like full-blown yellow Gloire de Dijon roses. […]...
33. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 06: Over the darkened city, the city of towers Over the darkened city, the city of towers, The city of a thousand gates, Over the gleaming terraced roofs, the huddled towers, Over a somnolent whisper of loves and hates, The slow wind flows, drearily streams and falls, With a mournful sound down rain-dark walls. On one side purples the lustrous dusk of the sea, […]...
34. Blue Roses Roses red and roses white Plucked I for my love’s delight. She would none of all my posies Bade me gather her blue roses. Half the world I wandered through, Seeking where such flowers grew. Half the world unto my quest Answered me with laugh and jest. Home I came at wintertide, But my silly […]...
35. Rain Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me Remembering again that I shall die And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks For washing me cleaner than I have been Since I was born into this solitude. Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon: […]...
36. Song VI: Cherish Life that Abideth Love is enough: cherish life that abideth, Lest ye die ere ye know him, and curse and misname him; For who knows in what ruin of all hope he hideth, On what wings of the terror of darkness he rideth? And what is the joy of man’s life that ye blame him For his bliss […]...
37. Woman with a Past THERE was a woman tore off a red velvet gown And slashed the white skin of her right shoulder And a crimson zigzag wrote a finger nail hurry. There was a woman spoke six short words And quit a life that was old to her For a life that was new. There was a woman […]...
38. On the Cliffs, Newport Tonight a shimmer of gold lies mantled o’er Smooth lovely Ocean. Through the lustrous gloom A savor steals from linden trees in bloom And gardens ranged at many a palace door. Proud walls rise here, and, where the moonbeams pour Their pale enchantment down the dim coast-line, Terrace and lawn, trim hedge and flowering vine, […]...
39. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 02: One, from his high bright window in a tower One, from his high bright window in a tower, Leans out, as evening falls, And sees the advancing curtain of the shower Splashing its silver on roofs and walls: Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city, And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea, Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark […]...
40. TO BRENDA WILLIAMS ON HER FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY The years become you as Oxford becomes you, As you became Oxford through the protest years; From Magdalen’s grey gargoyles to its bridge in May, From the cement buttresses of Wellington Square To Balliol, Balliol in the rain. The years become you as the Abbey Road becomes you, As you became that road through silent […]...