Home ⇒ 📌Carl Sandburg ⇒ The Year
The Year
IA STORM of white petals,
Buds throwing open baby fists
Into hands of broad flowers.
IIRed roses running upward,
Clambering to the clutches of life
Soaked in crimson.
IIIRabbles of tattered leaves
Holding golden flimsy hopes
Against the tramplings
Into the pits and gullies.
IVHoarfrost and silence:
Only the muffling
Of winds dark and lonesome-
Great lullabies to the long sleepers.
(2 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- No Brigadier throughout the Year No Brigadier throughout the Year So civic as the Jay A Neighbor and a Warrior too With shrill felicity Pursuing Winds that censure us A February Day, The Brother of the Universe Was never blown away The Snow and he are intimate I’ve often seem them play When Heaven looked upon us all With such […]...
- 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 […]...
- Midnight Mass for the Dying Year Yes, the Year is growing old, And his eye is pale and bleared! Death, with frosty hand and cold, Plucks the old man by the beard, Sorely, sorely! The leaves are falling, falling, Solemnly and slow; Caw! caw! the rooks are calling, It is a sound of woe, A sound of woe! Through woods and […]...
- My Love Is in a Light Attire My love is in a light attire Among the apple-trees, Where the gay winds do most desire To run in companies. There, where the gay winds stay to woo The young leaves as they pass, My love goes slowly, bending to Her shadow on the grass; And where the sky’s a pale blue cup Over […]...
- A New Year's Gift We are prevented; you whose Presence is A Publick New-yeares gift, a Common bliss To all that Love or Feare, give no man leave To vie a Gift but first he shall receave; Like as the Persian Sun with golden Eies First shines upon the Priest and Sacrifice. Ile on howere; May this yeare happier […]...
- A Year's Carols JANUARY HAIL, January, that bearest here On snowbright breasts the babe-faced year That weeps and trembles to be born. Hail, maid and mother, strong and bright, Hooded and cloaked and shod with white, Whose eyes are stars that match the morn. Thy forehead braves the storm’s bent bow, Thy feet enkindle stars of snow. FEBRUARY […]...
- Said Grenfell to my Spirit Said Grenfell to my spirit, “You’ve been writing very free Of the charms of other places, and you don’t remember me. You have claimed another native place and think it’s Nature’s law, Since you never paid a visit to a town you never saw: So you sing of Mudgee Mountains, willowed stream and grassy flat: […]...
- The Silence Though the air is full of singing My head is loud With the labor of words. Though the season is rich With fruit, my tongue Hungers for the sweet of speech. Though the beech is golden I cannot stand beside it Mute, but must say “It is golden,” while the leaves Stir and fall with […]...
- Sweethearts of the Year Sweetheart Spring Our Sweetheart, Spring, came softly, Her gliding hands were fire, Her lilac breath upon our cheeks Consumed us with desire. By her our God began to build, Began to sow and till. He laid foundations in our loves For every good and ill. We asked Him not for blessing, We asked Him not […]...
- To love thee Year by Year To love thee Year by Year May less appear Than sacrifice, and cease However, dear, Forever might be short, I thought to show And so I pieced it, with a flower, now....
- The Seasons of Her Year I Winter is white on turf and tree, And birds are fled; But summer songsters pipe to me, And petals spread, For what I dreamt of secretly His lips have said! II O ’tis a fine May morn, they say, And blooms have blown; But wild and wintry is my day, My birds make moan; […]...
- THE FIRST MONTH OF THE YEAR A page of the ‘Kelmscott’ Chaucer Seen through out cottage window When the Pennines were blind with snow Flurrying round the stones. The fire was low when I began to blow That single flicker to a flame, Was I too late, I wondered, the ‘poet in name’ Whose mind runs endlessly As fingers through an […]...
- 1914 IV: The Dead These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth. These had seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat […]...
- New Year's Morning Only a night from old to new! Only a night, and so much wrought! The Old Year’s heart all weary grew, But said: The New Year rest has brought.” The Old Year’s hopes its heart laid down, As in a grave; but trusting, said: “The blossoms of the New Year’s crown Bloom from the ashes […]...
- Hats HATS, where do you belong? what is under you? On the rim of a skyscraper’s forehead I looked down and saw: hats: fifty thousand hats: Swarming with a noise of bees and sheep, cattle and waterfalls, Stopping with a silence of sea grass, a silence of prairie corn. Hats: tell me your high hopes....
- A Year's Spinning 1 He listened at the porch that day, To hear the wheel go on, and on; And then it stopped, ran back away, While through the door he brought the sun: But now my spinning is all done. 2 He sat beside me, with an oath That love ne’er ended, once begun; I smiled believing […]...
- The Deluge Though giant rains put out the sun, Here stand I for a sign. Though earth be filled with waters dark, My cup is filled with wine. Tell to the trembling priests that here Under the deluge rod, One nameless, tattered, broken man Stood up, and drank to God. Sun has been where the rain is […]...
- When The Year Grows Old I cannot but remember When the year grows old- October-November- How she disliked the cold! She used to watch the swallows Go down across the sky, And turn from the window With a little sharp sigh. And often when the brown leaves Were brittle on the ground, And the wind in the chimney Made a […]...
- Fortitude Time, the Jester, jeers at you; Your life’s a fleeting breath; Your birthday’s flimsy I. O. U. To that old devil, Death. And though to glory you attain, Or be to beauty born, Your pomp and vanity are vain: Time ticks you off with scorn. Time, the Cynic, sneers at you, And stays you in […]...
- That time of year thou mayst in me behold (Sonnet 73) That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see’st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west; Which by and by […]...
- Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold That time of year thou mayst in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by […]...
- A Year's Burden 1870 Fire and wild light of hope and doubt and fear, Wind of swift change, and clouds and hours that veer As the storm shifts of the tempestuous year; Cry wellaway, but well befall the right. Hope sits yet hiding her war-wearied eyes, Doubt sets her forehead earthward and denies, But fear brought hand to hand […]...
- NEW YEAR POEM For Jeremy Reed Rejection doesn’t lead me to dejection But to inspiration via irritation Or at least to a bit of naughty new year wit- Oh isn’t it a shame my poetry’s not tame Like Rupert’s or Jay’s – I never could Get into their STRIDE just to much pride To lick the arses of […]...
- The Rapture of the Year While skies glint bright with bluest light Through clouds that race o’er fields and town, And leaves go dancing left and right, And orchard apples tumble down; While school-girls sweet, in lane or street, Lean ‘gainst the wind and feel and hear Its glad heart like a lover’s beat, So reigns the rapture of the […]...
- Sea Change “Goneys an’ gullies an’ all o’ the birds o’ the sea They ain’t no birds, not really”, said Billy the Dane. “Not mollies, nor gullies, nor goneys at all”, said he, “But simply the sperrits of mariners livin’ again. “Them birds goin’ fishin’ is nothin’ but the souls o’ the drowned, Souls o’ the drowned, […]...
- St. Martin's Summer AS swallows turning backward When half-way o’er the sea, At one word’s trumpet summons They came again to me – The hopes I had forgotten Came back again to me. I know not which to credit, O lady of my heart! Your eyes that bade me linger, Your words that bade us part – I […]...
- 299. Sketch-New Year's Day, 1790 THIS day, Time winds th’ exhausted chain; To run the twelvemonth’s length again: I see, the old bald-pated fellow, With ardent eyes, complexion sallow, Adjust the unimpair’d machine, To wheel the equal, dull routine. The absent lover, minor heir, In vain assail him with their prayer; Deaf as my friend, he sees them press, Nor […]...
- The Passing Of The Year My glass is filled, my pipe is lit, My den is all a cosy glow; And snug before the fire I sit, And wait to feel the old year go. I dedicate to solemn thought Amid my too-unthinking days, This sober moment, sadly fraught With much of blame, with little praise. Old Year! upon the […]...
- For The Year Of The Insane a prayer O Mary, fragile mother, Hear me, hear me now Although I do not know your words. The black rosary with its silver Christ Lies unblessed in my hand For I am the unbeliever. Each bead is round and hard between my fingers, A small black angel. O Mary, permit me this grace, This […]...
- New Year's Eve It’s cruel cold on the water-front, silent and dark and drear; Only the black tide weltering, only the hissing snow; And I, alone, like a storm-tossed wreck, on this night of the glad New Year, Shuffling along in the icy wind, ghastly and gaunt and slow. They’re playing a tune in McGuffy’s saloon, and it’s […]...
- "I Love You Sweatheart" A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
- The Year of the Rose From the depths of the green garden-closes Where the summer in darkness dozes Till autumn pluck from his hand An hour-glass that holds not a sand; From the maze that a flower-belt encloses To the stones and sea-grass on the strand How red was the reign of the roses Over the rose-crowned land! The year […]...
- The Fall There was a man who found two leaves and came Indoors holding them out saying to his parents That he was a tree. To which they said then go into the yard and do Not grow in the living room as your roots may Ruin the carpet. He said I was fooling I am not […]...
- In a Breath To the Williamson Brothers HIGH noon. White sun flashes on the Michigan Avenue Asphalt. Drum of hoofs and whirr of motors. Women trapsing along in flimsy clothes catching Play of sun-fire to their skin and eyes. Inside the playhouse are movies from under the sea. From the heat of pavements and the dust of sidewalks, […]...
- Gold Leaves Lo! I am come to autumn, When all the leaves are gold; Grey hairs and golden leaves cry out The year and I are old. In youth I sought the prince of men, Captain in cosmic wars, Our Titan, even the weeds would show Defiant, to the stars. But now a great thing in the […]...
- Horses and Men in Rain LET us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter’s day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window, And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys. Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches-and talk about mail carriers and messenger boys slipping along the icy sidewalks. […]...
- To Put One Brick Upon Another To put one brick upon another, Add a third and then a forth, Leaves no time to wonder whether What you do has any worth. But to sit with bricks around you While the winds of heaven bawl Weighing what you should or can do Leaves no doubt of it at all....
- The Silence of Love I COULD praise you once with beautiful words ere you came And entered my life with love in a wind of flame. I could lure with a song from afar my bird to its nest, But with pinions drooping together silence is best. In the land of beautiful silence the winds are laid, And life […]...
- Above Eurunderee There are scenes in the distance where beauty is not, On the desolate flats where gaunt appletrees rot. Where the brooding old ridge rises up to the breeze From his dark lonely gullies of stringy-bark trees, There are voice-haunted gaps, ever sullen and strange, But Eurunderee lies like a gem in the range. Still I […]...
- Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me Last night The rain Spoke to me Slowly, saying, What joy To come falling Out of the brisk cloud, To be happy again In a new way On the earth! That’s what it said As it dropped, Smelling of iron, And vanished Like a dream of the ocean Into the branches And the grass below. […]...