And Yet The Books

Related poetry:

1. Children Selecting Books In A Library With beasts and gods, above, the wall is bright. The child’s head, bent to the book-colored shelves, Is slow and sidelong and food-gathering, Moving in blind grace… yet from the mural, Care The grey-eyed one, fishing the morning mist, Seizes the baby hero by the hair And whispers, in the tongue of gods and children, […]...
2. My Hundred Books A thousand books my library Contains; And all are primed, it seems to me With brains. Mine are so few I scratch in thought My head; For just a hundred of the lot I’ve read. A hundred books, but of the best, I can With wisdom savour and digest And scan. Yet when afar from […]...
3. Picture-Books in Winter Summer fading, winter comes Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs, Window robins, winter rooks, And the picture story-books. Water now is turned to stone Nurse and I can walk upon; Still we find the flowing brooks In the picture story-books. All the pretty things put by, Wait upon the children’s eye, Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks, […]...
4. The Land of Story-Books At evening when the lamp is lit, Around the fire my parents sit; They sit at home and talk and sing, And do not play at anything. Now, with my little gun, I crawl All in the dark along the wall, And follow round the forest track Away behind the sofa back. There, in the […]...
5. HAPPY THIRTIETH BIRTHDAY CARCANET BOOKS Sorry, I almost forgot, but I don’t think Its worth the effort to become a Carcanet poet With my mug-shot on art gloss paper In your catalogue as big as Mont Blanc Easier to imagine, as Benjamin Peret did, A wind that would unscrew the mountain Or stars like apricot tarts strolling Aimlessly along the […]...
6. My Wars are laid away in Books My Wars are laid away in Books I have one Battle more A Foe whom I have never seen But oft has scanned me o’er And hesitated me between And others at my side, But chose the best Neglecting me till All the rest, have died How sweet if I am not forgot By Chums […]...
7. A Fountain, a Bottle, a Donkey's Ears, and Some Books Old Davis owned a solid mica mountain In Dalton that would someday make his fortune. There’d been some Boston people out to see it: And experts said that deep down in the mountain The mica sheets were big as plate-glass windows. He’d like to take me there and show it to me. “I’ll tell you […]...
8. Unto my Books so good to turn Unto my Books so good to turn Far ends of tired Days It half endears the Abstinence And Pain is missed in Praise As Flavors cheer Retarded Guests With Banquettings to be So Spices stimulate the time Till my small Library It may be Wilderness without Far feet of failing Men But Holiday excludes the […]...
9. Song-Books of the War In fifty years, when peace outshines Remembrance of the battle lines, Adventurous lads will sigh and cast Proud looks upon the plundered past. On summer morn or winter’s night, Their hearts will kindle for the fight, Reading a snatch of soldier-song, Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong; And through the angry marching rhymes Of blind […]...
10. May and the Poets There is May in books forever; May will part from Spenser never; May’s in Milton, May’s in Prior, May’s in Chaucer, Thomson, Dyer; May’s in all the Italian books: She has old and modern nooks, Where she sleeps with nymphs and elves, In happy places they call shelves, And will rise and dress your rooms […]...
11. The Golden Age WHEN the morning breaks above us And the wild sweet stars have fled, By the faery hands that love us Wakened you and I will tread Where the lilacs on the lawn Shine with all their silver dews, In the stillness of a dawn Wrapped in tender primrose hues. We will hear the strange old […]...
12. A Library Of Skulls Shelves and stacks and shelves of skulls, a Dewey Decimal number inked on each unfurrowed forehead. Here’s a skull Who, before he lost his fleshy parts And lower bones, once Walked beside a river (we’re in the poetry section Now) his head full of love And loneliness; and this smaller skull, In the sociology stacks, […]...
13. Jane My daughter Jane makes dresses For beautiful Princesses; But though she’s plain is Jane, Of needlework she’s vain, And makes such pretty things For relatives of Kings. She reads the picture papers Where Royalties cut capers, And often says to me: ‘How wealthy they must be, That nearly every day A new robe they can […]...
14. His Books MY days among the Dead are past; Around me I behold, Where’er these casual eyes are cast, The mighty minds of old: My never-failing friends are they, With whom I converse day by day. With them I take delight in weal And seek relief in woe; And while I understand and feel How much to […]...
15. Book Lover I keep collecting books I know I’ll never, never read; My wife and daughter tell me so, And yet I never head. “Please make me,” says some wistful tome, “A wee bit of yourself.” And so I take my treasure home, And tuck it in a shelf. And now my very shelves complain; They jam […]...
16. A Baby's Death A little soul scarce fledged for earth Takes wing with heaven again for goal Even while we hailed as fresh from birth A little soul. Our thoughts ring sad as bells that toll, Not knowing beyond this blind world’s girth What things are writ in heaven’s full scroll. Our fruitfulness is there but dearth, And […]...
17. Band Concert BAND concert public square Nebraska city. Flowing and circling dresses, summer-white dresses. Faces, flesh tints flung like sprays of cherry blossoms. And gigglers, God knows, gigglers, rivaling the pony whinnies of the Livery Stable Blues. Cowboy rags and nigger rags. And boys driving sorrel horses hurl a cornfield laughter at the girls in dresses, summer-white […]...
18. A Singing Lesson Far-fetched and dear-bought, as the proverb rehearses, Is good, or was held so, for ladies: but nought In a song can be good if the turn of the verse is Far-fetched and dear-bought. As the turn of a wave should it sound, and the thought Ring smooth, and as light as the spray that disperses […]...
19. Robinson The dog stops barking after Robinson has gone. His act is over. The world is a gray world, Not without violence, and he kicks under the grand piano, The nightmare chase well under way. The mirror from Mexico, stuck to the wall, Reflects nothing at all. The glass is black. Robinson alone provides the image […]...
20. Song in a Minor Key There’s a place I know where the birds swing low, And wayward vines go roaming, Where the lilacs nod, and a marble god Is pale, in scented gloaming. And at sunset there comes a lady fair Whose eyes are deep with yearning. By an old, old gate does the lady wait Her own true love’s […]...
21. Villeggiature My window, framed in pear-tree bloom, White-curtained shone, and softly lighted: So, by the pear-tree, to my room Your ghost last night climbed uninvited. Your solid self, long leagues away, Deep in dull books, had hardly missed me; And yet you found this Romeo’s way, And through the blossom climbed and kissed me. I watched […]...
22. The Abortion Somebody who should have been born Is gone. Just as the earth puckered its mouth, Each bud puffing out from its knot, I changed my shoes, and then drove south. Up past the Blue Mountains, where Pennsylvania humps on endlessly, Wearing, like a crayoned cat, its green hair, Its roads sunken in like a gray […]...
23. Christmas Bells “I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old familiar carols play, And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom Had rolled along The unbroken song Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Till, ringing, singing […]...
24. Song's Eternity What is song’s eternity? Come and see. Can it noise and bustle be? Come and see. Praises sung or praises said Can it be? Wait awhile and these are dead – Sigh, sigh; Be they high or lowly bred They die. What is song’s eternity? Come and see. Melodies of earth and sky, Here they […]...
25. Sonnet (II) Sure Lord, there is enough in thee to dry Oceans of Ink ; for, as the Deluge did Cover the Earth, so doth thy Majesty : Each Cloud distills thy praise, and doth forbid Poets to turn it to another use. Roses and Lillies speak thee ; and to make A pair of Cheeks of […]...
26. Television The most important thing we’ve learned, So far as children are concerned, Is never, NEVER, NEVER let Them near your television set Or better still, just don’t install The idiotic thing at all. In almost every house we’ve been, We’ve watched them gaping at the screen. They loll and slop and lounge about, And stare […]...
27. "Mike Teavee…&quot The most important thing we’ve learned, So far as children are concerned, Is never, NEVER, NEVER let Them near your television set Or better still, just don’t install The idiotic thing at all. In almost every house we’ve been, We’ve watched them gaping at the screen. They loll and slop and lounge about, And stare […]...
28. Sacrifice I gave an eye to save from night A babe born blind; And now with eager semi-sight Vast joy I find To think a child can share with me Earth ecstasy! Delight of dawn with dewy gleam On damask rose; Crimson and gold as pennons stream Where sunset flows; And sight most nigh to paradise, […]...
29. 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. […]...
30. De Amicitiis Though care and strife Elsewhere be rife, Upon my word I do not heed ’em; In bed I lie With books hard by, And with increasing zest I read ’em. Propped up in bed, So much I’ve read Of musty tomes that I’ve a headful Of tales and rhymes Of ancient times, Which, wife declares, […]...
31. On Angels All was taken away from you: white dresses, Wings, even existence. Yet I believe you, Messengers. There, where the world is turned inside out, A heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts, You stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seems. Shorts is your stay here: Now and then at a matinal hour, if the sky is clear, […]...
32. THANKS HER griefs were the hours When my struggle was sore, Her joys were the powers That the climber upbore. Her home is the boundless Free ocean that seems To rock, calm and soundless, My galleon of dreams. Half hers are the glancing Creations that throng With pageant and dancing The ways of my song. My […]...
33. Reading Moby-Dick at 30,000 Feet At this height, Kansas Is just a concept, A checkerboard design of wheat and corn No larger than the foldout section Of my neighbor’s travel magazine. At this stage of the journey I would estimate the distance Between myself and my own feelings Is roughly the same as the mileage From Seattle to New York, […]...
34. THE PHILOSOPHERS Lavender musk rose from the volume I was reading through, The college crest impressed in gold, tooled gold lettering on the spine. It was not mine but my son’s, jammed in the corner of a cardboard box With dozens more; just one box of a score, stored in a heap Across my ex-wife’s floor, our […]...
35. Talking In Bed Talking in bed ought to be easiest Lying together there goes back so far An emblem of two people being honest. Yet more and more time passes silently. Outside the wind’s incomplete unrest Builds and disperses clouds about the sky. And dark towns heap up on the horizon. None of this cares for us. Nothing […]...
36. Inscription 05 – For A Monument At Silbury-Hill This mound in some remote and dateless day Rear’d o’er a Chieftain of the Age of Hills, May here detain thee Traveller! from thy road Not idly lingering. In his narrow house Some Warrior sleeps below: his gallant deeds Haply at many a solemn festival The Bard has harp’d, but perish’d is the song Of […]...
37. Book Borrower I am a mild man, you’ll agree, But red my rage is, When folks who borrow books from me Turn down their pages. Or when a chap a book I lend, And find he’s loaned it Without permission to a friend – As if he owned it. But worst of all I hate those crooks […]...
38. My Library Like prim Professor of a College I primed my shelves with books of knowledge; And now I stand before them dumb, Just like a child that sucks its thumb, And stares forlorn and turns away, With dolls or painted bricks to play. They glour at me, my tomes of learning. “You dolt!” they jibe; “you […]...
39. Heredity I am the family face; Flesh perishes, I live on, Projecting trait and trace Through time to times anon, And leaping from place to place Over oblivion. The years-heired feature that can In curve and voice and eye Despise the human span Of durance that is I; The eternal thing in man, That heeds no […]...
40. Suspense is Hostiler than Death Suspense is Hostiler than Death Death tho’soever Broad, Is Just Death, and cannot increase Suspense does not conclude But perishes to live anew But just anew to die Annihilation plated fresh With Immortality...