Variation On A Theme By Rilke

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1. On a Theme by Frost Amherst never had a witch O Coos or of Grafton But once upon a time There were three old women. One wore a small beard And carried a big umbrella. One stood in the middle Of the road hailing cars. One drove an old cart All over the town collecting junk. They were not weird […]...
2. Theme In Yellow I spot the hills With yellow balls in autumn. I light the prairie cornfields Orange and tawny gold clusters And I am called pumpkins. On the last of October When dusk is fallen Children join hands And circle round me Singing ghost songs And love to the harvest moon; I am a jack-o’-lantern With terrible […]...
3. Variation On The Word Sleep I would like to watch you sleeping, Which may not happen. I would like to watch you, Sleeping. I would like to sleep With you, to enter Your sleep as its smooth dark wave Slides over my head And walk with you through that lucent Wavering forest of bluegreen leaves With its watery sun & […]...
4. Variations on an Elizabethan Theme Long days, short nights, this Southern summer Fixes the mind within its timeless place. Athwart pale limbs the brazen hummer Hangs and is gone, warm sound its quickened space. Butterfly weed and cardinal flower, Orange and red, with indigo the band, Perfect themselves unto the hour. And blood suffused within the sunlit hand, Within the […]...
5. On a Theme by Thomas Merton “Adam, where are you?” God’s hands Palpate darkness, the void That is Adam’s inattention, His confused attention to everything, Impassioned by multiplicity, his despair. Multiplicity, his despair; God’s hands Enacting blindness. Like a child At a barbaric fairgrounds Noise, lights, the violent odors Adam fragments himself. The whirling rides! Fragmented Adam stares. God’s hands Unseen, […]...
6. I Heard You, Solemn-sweet Pipes of the Organ I HEARD you, solemn-sweet pipes of the organ, as last Sunday morn I pass’d the church; Winds of autumn!-as I walk’d the woods at dusk, I heard your long-stretch’d sighs, up above, so mournful; I heard the perfect Italian tenor, singing at the opera-I heard the soprano in the midst of the quartet singing; … […]...
7. To E I have remembered beauty in the night, Against black silences I waked to see A shower of sunlight over Italy And green Ravello dreaming on her height; I have remembered music in the dark, The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach’s, And running water singing on the rocks When once in English woods […]...
8. A New Theme I FAIN would leave the tender songs I sang to you of old, Thinking the oft-sung beauty wrongs The magic never told. And touch no more the thoughts, the moods, That win the easy praise; But venture in the untrodden woods To carve the future ways. Though far or strange or cold appear The shadowy […]...
9. Theme with Variations I never loved a dear Gazelle Nor anything that cost me much: High prices profit those who sell, But why should I be fond of such? To glad me with his soft black eye My son comes trotting home from school; He’s had a fight but can’t tell why He always was a little fool! […]...
10. On a Theme in the Greek Anthology Thy petals yet are closely curled, Rose of the world, Around their scented, golden core; Nor yet has Summer purpled o’er Thy tender clusters that begin To swell within The dewy vine-leaves’ early screen Of sheltering green. O hearts that are Love’s helpless prey, While yet you may, Fly, ere the shaft is on the […]...
11. Theme For English B The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here To this college on the hill above Harlem. I am […]...
12. The Valley's Singing Day The sound of the closing outside door was all. You made no sound in the grass with your footfall, As far as you went from the door, which was not far; But had awakened under the morning star The first song-bird that awakened all the rest. He could have slept but a moment more at […]...
13. Variations On A Theme By William Carlos Williams 1 I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer. I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do And its wooden beams were so inviting. 2 We laughed at the hollyhocks together And then I sprayed them with lye. Forgive me. I simply do […]...
14. Supremacy There is a drear and lonely tract of hell From all the common gloom removed afar: A flat, sad land it is, where shadows are, Whose lorn estate my verse may never tell. I walked among them and I knew them well: Men I had slandered on life’s little star For churls and sluggards; and […]...
15. THE SINGING I was walking home down a hill near our house on a balmy afternoon Under the blossoms Of the pear trees that go flamboyantly mad here every spring with Their burgeoning forth When a young man turned in from a corner singing no it was more of A cadenced shouting Most of which I couldn’t […]...
16. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
17. Lean Out of the Window Lean out of the window, Goldenhair, I hear you singing A merry air. My book was closed, I read no more, Watching the fire dance On the floor. I have left my book, I have left my room, For I heard you singing Through the gloom. Singing and singing A merry air, Lean out of […]...
18. The Opening of the Piano IN the little southern parlor of tbe house you may have seen With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green, At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right, Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night! Ah me! how I remember the evening when it came! What […]...
19. I Hear America Singing I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear; Those of mechanics-each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong; The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work; The boatman singing what belongs to him in […]...
20. 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 […]...
21. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
22. There was a Child Once There was a child once. He came to play in my garden; He was quite pale and silent. Only when he smiled I knew everything about him, I knew what he had in his pockets, And I knew the feel of his hands in my hands And the most intimate tones of his voice. I […]...
23. It came at last but prompter Death It came at last but prompter Death Had occupied the House His pallid Furniture arranged And his metallic Peace Oh faithful Frost that kept the Date Had Love as punctual been Delight had aggrandized the Gate And blocked the coming in....
24. The Source There in the fringe of trees between The upper field and the edge of the one Below it that runs above the valley One time I heard in the early Days of summer the clear ringing Six notes that I knew were the opening Of the Fingal’s Cave Overture I heard them again and again […]...
25. Nocturne Always I knew that it could not last (Gathering clouds, and the snowflakes flying), Now it is part of the golden past (Darkening skies, and the night-wind sighing); It is but cowardice to pretend. Cover with ashes our love’s cold crater- Always I’ve known that it had to end Sooner or later. Always I knew […]...
26. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
27. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
28. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
29. 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 […]...
30. The Sewing-Girl The humble garret where I dwell Is in that Quarter called the Latin; It isn’t spacious truth to tell, There’s hardly room to swing a cat in. But what of that! It’s there I fight For food and fame, my Muse inviting, And all the day and half the night You’ll find me writing, writing, […]...
31. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
32. A Song at Cock-Crow The first time that Peter denied his Lord He shrank from the cudgel, the scourge and the cord, But followed far off to see what they would do, Till the cock crew till the cock crew After Gethsemane, till the cock crew! The first time that Peter denied his Lord ‘Twas only a maid in […]...
33. Christmas treasures I count my treasures o’er with care. The little toy my darling knew, A little sock of faded hue, A little lock of golden hair. Long years ago this holy time, My little one my all to me Sat robed in white upon my knee And heard the merry Christmas chime. “Tell me, my little […]...
34. The Idea Of Order At Key West She sang beyond the genius of the sea. The water never formed to mind or voice, Like a body wholly body, fluttering Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry, That was not ours although we understood, Inhuman, of the veritable ocean. The sea was not a mask. […]...
35. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
36. That after Horror that 'twas us That after Horror that ’twas us That passed the mouldering Pier Just as the Granite Crumb let go Our Savior, by a Hair A second more, had dropped too deep For Fisherman to plumb The very profile of the Thought Puts Recollection numb The possibility to pass Without a Moment’s Bell Into Conjecture’s presence Is […]...
37. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
38. A Baby In The House I knew that a baby was hid in that house, Though I saw no cradle and heard no cry; But the husband was tip-toeing ’round like a mouse, And the good wife was humming a soft lullaby; And there was a look on the face of the mother, That I knew could mean only one […]...
39. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
40. In A Museum I Here’s the mould of a musical bird long passed from light, Which over the earth before man came was winging; There’s a contralto voice I heard last night, That lodges with me still in its sweet singing. II Such a dream is Time that the coo of this ancient bird Has perished not, but […]...