The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me

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1. Mother, Summer, I My mother, who hates thunder storms, Holds up each summer day and shakes It out suspiciously, lest swarms Of grape-dark clouds are lurking there; But when the August weather breaks And rains begin, and brittle frost Sharpens the bird-abandoned air, Her worried summer look is lost, And I her son, though summer-born And summer-loving, none […]...
2. No Notice gave She, but a Change No Notice gave She, but a Change No Message, but a Sigh For Whom, the Time did not suffice That She should specify. She was not warm, though Summer shone Nor scrupulous of cold Though Rime by Rime, the steady Frost Upon Her Bosom piled Of shrinking ways she did not fright Though all the […]...
3. The Little Black Boy My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but O! my soul is white. White as an angel is the English child: But I am black as if bereav’d of light. My mother taught me underneath a tree And sitting down before the heat of day. She took me on her […]...
4. In the Black Forest I lay beneath the pine trees, And looked aloft, where, through The dusky, clustered tree-tops, Gleamed rent, gay rifts of blue. I shut my eyes, and a fancy Fluttered my sense around: “I lie here dead and buried, And this is churchyard ground. “I am at rest for ever; Ended the stress and strife.” Straight […]...
5. Patience, Hard Thing! The Hard Thing But To Pray Patience, hard thing! the hard thing but to pray, But bid for, Patience is! Patience who asks Wants war, wants wounds; weary his times, his tasks; To do without, take tosses, and obey. Rare patience roots in these, and, these away, Nowhere. Natural heart’s ivy, Patience masks Our ruins of wrecked past purpose. There she […]...
6. Men Improve With The Years I am worn out with dreams; A weather-worn, marble triton Among the streams; And all day long I look Upon this lady’s beauty As though I had found in a book A pictured beauty, Pleased to have filled the eyes Or the discerning ears, Delighted to be but wise, For men improve with the years; […]...
7. Black Bonnet A day of seeming innocence, A glorious sun and sky, And, just above my picket fence, Black Bonnet passing by. In knitted gloves and quaint old dress, Without a spot or smirch, Her worn face lit with peacefulness, Old Granny goes to church. Her hair is richly white, like milk, That long ago was fair […]...
8. Some Things The World Gave 1 Times in the morning early When it rained and the long gray Buildings came forward from darkness Offering their windows for light. 2 Evenings out there on the plains When sunset donated farms That yearned so far to the west that the world Centered there and bowed down. 3 A teacher at a country […]...
9. Black Swans As I lie at rest on a patch of clover In the Western Park when the day is done. I watch as the wild black swans fly over With their phalanx turned to the sinking sun; And I hear the clang of their leader crying To a lagging mate in the rearward flying, And they […]...
10. To Mother In the old Strauss waltz for the first time We had listened to your quiet call, Since then all the living things are alien And the knocking of the clock consoles. We, like you, are gladly greeting sunsets, And are drunk on nearness of the end. All, with which on better nights we’re wealthy Is […]...
11. Late Leaves THE leaves are falling; so am I; The few late flowers have moisture in the eye; So have I too. Scarcely on any bough is heard Joyous, or even unjoyous, bird The whole wood through. Winter may come: he brings but nigher His circle (yearly narrowing) to the fire Where old friends meet. Let him; […]...
12. The Oven Bird There is a singer everyone has heard, Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird, Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again. He says that leaves are old and that for flowers Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. He says the early petal-fall is past When pear and cherry bloom went down in […]...
13. Mother and sphinx (EGYPTIAN FOLK-SONG) Grim is the face that looks into the night Over the stretch of sands; A sullen rock in a sea of white A ghostly shadow in ghostly light, Peering and moaning it stands. “Oh, is it the king that rides this way Oh, is it the king that rides so free? I have […]...
14. June Light Your voice, with clear location of June days, Called me outside the window. You were there, Light yet composed, as in the just soft stare Of uncontested summer all things raise Plainly their seeming into seamless air. Then your love looked as simple and entire As that picked pear you tossed me, and your face […]...
15. A Prayer for a Mother's Birthday Lord Jesus, Thou hast known A mother’s love and tender care: And Thou wilt hear, while for my own Mother most dear I make this birthday prayer. Protect her life, I pray, Who gave the gift of life to me; And may she know, from day to day, The deepening glow of Life that comes […]...
16. The Black Swan When the swans turned my sister into a swan I would go to the lake, at night, from milking: The sun would look out through the reeds like a swan, A swan’s red beak; and the beak would open And inside there was darkness, the stars and the moon. Out on the lake, a girl […]...
17. Young Mother Her baby was so full of glee, And through the day It laughed and babbled on her knee In happy play. It pulled her hair all out of curl With noisy joy; So peppy she was glad her girl Was not a boy. Then as she longed for it to sleep, To her surprise It […]...
18. Dream Song 11: His mother goes. The mother comes & goes His mother goes. The mother comes & goes. Chen Lung’s too came, came and crampt & then That dragoner’s mother was gone. It seem we don’t have no good bed to lie on, Forever. While he drawing his first breath, While skinning his knees, While he was so beastly with love for Charlotte Coquet He […]...
19. Mother’s Day Proclamation Arise then…women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: “We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, For caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn […]...
20. A Calendar of Sonnets: August Silence again. The glorious symphony Hath need of pause and interval of peace. Some subtle signal bids all sweet sounds cease, Save hum of insects’ aimless industry. Pathetic summer seeks by blazonry Of color to conceal her swift decrease. Weak subterfuge! Each mocking day doth fleece A blossom, and lay bare her poverty. Poor middle-aged […]...
21. What shall I do with this body they gave me What shall I do with this body they gave me, So much my own, so intimate with me? For being alive, for the joy of calm breath, Tell me, who should I bless? I am the flower, and the gardener as well, And am not solitary, in earth’s cell. My living warmth, exhaled, you can […]...
22. To Clementina Black More blest than was of old Diogenes, I have not held my lantern up in vain. Not mine, at least, this evil to complain: “There is none honest among all of these.” Our hopes go down that sailed before the breeze; Our creeds upon the rock are rent in twain; Something it is, if at […]...
23. He gave away his Life He gave away his Life To Us Gigantic Sum A trifle in his own esteem But magnified by Fame Until it burst the Hearts That fancied they could hold When swift it slipped its limit And on the Heavens unrolled ‘Tis Ours to wince and weep And wonder and decay By Blossoms gradual process He […]...
24. I gave myself to Him I gave myself to Him And took Himself, for Pay, The solemn contract of a Life Was ratified, this way The Wealth might disappoint Myself a poorer prove Than this great Purchaser suspect, The Daily Own of Love Depreciate the Vision But till the Merchant buy Still Fable in the Isles of Spice The subtle […]...
25. The Black Cottage We chanced in passing by that afternoon To catch it in a sort of special picture Among tar-banded ancient cherry trees, Set well back from the road in rank lodged grass, The little cottage we were speaking of, A front with just a door between two windows, Fresh painted by the shower a velvet black. […]...
26. God gave a Loaf to every Bird God gave a Loaf to every Bird But just a Crumb to Me I dare not eat it tho’ I starve My poignant luxury To own it touch it Prove the feat that made the Pellet mine Too happy for my Sparrow’s chance For Ampler Coveting It might be Famine all around I could not […]...
27. Patience has a quiet Outer Patience has a quiet Outer Patience Look within Is an Insect’s futile forces Infinites between ‘Scaping one against the other Fruitlesser to fling Patience is the Smile’s exertion Through the quivering...
28. As if some little Arctic flower As if some little Arctic flower Upon the polar hem Went wandering down the Latitudes Until it puzzled came To continents of summer To firmaments of sun To strange, bright crowds of flowers And birds, of foreign tongue! I say, As if this little flower To Eden, wandered in What then? Why nothing, Only, your […]...
29. God Gave To Me A Child In Part GOD gave to me a child in part, Yet wholly gave the father’s heart: Child of my soul, O whither now, Unborn, unmothered, goest thou? You came, you went, and no man wist; Hapless, my child, no breast you kist; On no dear knees, a privileged babbler, clomb, Nor knew the kindly feel of home. […]...
30. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 04: Up high black walls, up sombre terraces Up high black walls, up sombre terraces, Clinging like luminous birds to the sides of cliffs, The yellow lights went climbing towards the sky. From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain, Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye. They trembled from coign to coign, and tower to tower, Along high terraces quicker […]...
31. At Half past Three, a single Bird At Half past Three, a single Bird Unto a silent Sky Propounded but a single term Of cautious melody. At Half past Four, Experiment Had subjugated test And lo, Her silver Principle Supplanted all the rest. At Half past Seven, Element Nor Implement, be seen And Place was where the Presence was Circumference between....
32. Sonnet 18 – I never gave a lock of hair away I never gave a lock of hair away To a man, Dearest, except this to thee, Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully, I ring out to the full brown length and say ‘Take it.’ My day of youth went yesterday; My hair no longer bounds to my foot’s glee, Nor plant I it from rose […]...
33. In Memory Of My Mother I do not think of you lying in the wet clay Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see You walking down a lane among the poplars On your way to the station, or happily Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday You meet me and you say: ‘Don’t forget to see about the cattle ‘ […]...
34. I stood musing in a black world I stood musing in a black world, Not knowing where to direct my feet. And I saw the quick stream of men Pouring ceaselessly, Filled with eager faces, A torrent of desire. I called to them, “Where do you go? What do you see?” A thousand voices called to me. A thousand fingers pointed. “Look! […]...
35. Nature the Gentlest Mother is Nature the Gentlest Mother is, Impatient of no Child The feeblest or the waywardest Her Admonition mild In Forest and the Hill By Traveller be heard Restraining Rampant Squirrel Or too impetuous Bird How fair Her Conversation A Summer Afternoon Her Household Her Assembly And when the Sun go down Her Voice among the Aisles […]...
36. Bee-attitudes in the shadow Of the flower Is the sting The bee driven by need Uses its painful gift To keep its sense of beauty In proportion It does its job with A thoughtless dedication Its honeyed world Excites no inner space Bees are not poets Who wade through words With too much brain Around their […]...
37. The Mother Here I lean over you, small son, sleeping Warm in my arms, And I con to my heart all your dew-fresh charms, As you lie close, close in my hungry hold. . . Your hair like a miser’s dream of gold, And the white rose of your face far fairer, Finer, and rarer Than all […]...
38. Gardening Pruning the rosebush The ache of the summer heat On my shoulders, The feel of the living stalk Between fingers, Petals – one, another, Then another Seek ground, life Not strong enough to hold on. Whether it’s blood Or petals, the gift Of time is a thread I stand on, Feet covered In the soft […]...
39. Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches Of other lives – Tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey, Hanging From the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning, Feel like? Do you think this world was only an entertainment for you? Never to enter the sea and […]...
40. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...