From The Graveyard By The Sea
(After Valery) This hushed surface where the doves parade Amid the pines vibrates, amid the graves; Here the noon’s justice unites all fires when The sea aspires forever to begin again and again. O
Spiders
Is the spider a monster in miniature? His web is a cruel stair, to be sure, Designed artfully, cunningly placed, A delicate trap, carefully spun To bind the fly (innocent or unaware) In a
The Greatest Thing In North America
This is the greatest thing in North America: Europe is the greatest thing in North America! High in the sky, dark in the heart, and always there Among the natural powers of sunlight and
The Beautiful American Word, Sure
The beautiful American word, Sure, As I have come into a room, and touch The lamp’s button, and the light blooms with such Certainty where the darkness loomed before, As I care for what
Albert Einstein To Archibald Macleish
I should have been a plumber fixing drains. And mending pure white bathtubs for the great Diogenes (who scorned all lies, all liars, and all tyrannies), And then, perhaps, he would bestow on me
The Spring
(After Rilke) Spring has returned! Everything has returned! The earth, just like a schoolgirl, memorizes Poems, so many poems. … Look, she has learned So many famous poems, she has earned so many prizes!
Sonnet On Famous And Familiar Sonnets And Experiences
(With much help from Robert Good, William Shakespeare, John Milton, and little Catherine Schwartz) Shall I compare her to a summer play? She is too clever, too devious, too subtle, too dark: Her lies
Socrates Ghost Must Haunt Me Now
Socrates ghost must haunt me now, Notorious death has let him go, He comes to me with a clumsy bow, Saying in his disused voice, That I do not know I do not know,
From: A King Of Kings, A King Among The Kings
Come, let us rejoice in James Joyce, in the greatness of this poet, king, and king of poets For he is our poor dead king, he is the monarch and Caesar of English, he
The Choir And Music Of Solitude And Silence
Silence is a great blue bell Swinging and ringing, tinkling and singing, In measure’s pleasure, and in the supple symmetry of the soaring of the immense intense wings glinting against All the blue radiance
What Is To Be Given
What is to be given, Is spirit, yet animal, Colored, like heaven, Blue, yellow, beautiful. The blood is checkered by So many stains and wishes, Between it and the sky You could not choose,
The Sin Of Hamlet
The horns in the harbor booming, vaguely, Fog, forgotten, yesterday, conclusion, Nostalgic, noising dim sorrow, calling To sleep is it? I think so, and childhood, Not the door opened and the stair descended, The
To Helen
(After Valery) O Sea! … ‘Tis I, risen from death once more To hear the waves’ harmonious roar And see the galleys, sharp, in dawn’s great awe Raised from the dark by the rising
Faust In Old Age
“Poet and veteran of childhood, look! See in me the obscene, for you have love, For you have hatred, you, you must be judge, Deliver judgement, Delmore Schwartz. Well-known wishes have been to war,
The Journey Of A Poem Compared To All The Sad Variety Of Travel
A poem moves forward, Like the passages and percussions of trains in progress A pattern of recurrence, a hammer of repetetiveoccurrence A slow less and less heard Low thunder under all passengers Steel sounds