Home ⇒ 📌Edgar Lee Masters ⇒ Arlo Will
Arlo Will
Did you ever see an alligator
Come up to the air from the mud,
Staring blindly under the full glare of noon?
Have you seen the stabled horses at night
Tremble and start back at the sight of a lantern?
Have you ever walked in darkness
When an unknown door was open before you
And you stood, it seemed, in the light of a thousand candles
Of delicate wax?
Have you walked with the wind in your ears
And the sunlight about you
And found it suddenly shine with an inner splendor?
Out of the mud many times,
Before many doors of light,
Through many fields of splendor,
Where around your steps a soundless glory scatters
Like new-fallen snow,
Will you go through earth, O strong of soul,
And through unnumbered heavens
To the final flame!
(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Intorduction to the Songs of Experience Hear the voice of the Bard, Who present, past, and future, sees; Whose ears have heard The Holy Word That walked among the ancient tree; Calling the lapsed soul, And weeping in the evening dew; That might control The starry pole, And fallen, fallen light renew! ‘O Earth, O Earth, return! Arise from out the […]...
- God Scatters Beauty God scatters beauty as he scatters flowers O’er the wide earth, and tells us all are ours. A hundred lights in every temple burn, And at each shrine I bend my knee in turn....
- Last Invocation, The 1 AT the last, tenderly, From the walls of the powerful, fortress’d house, From the clasp of the knitted locks-from the keep of the well-closed doors, Let me be wafted. 2 Let me glide noiselessly forth; With the key of softness unlock the locks-with a whisper, Set ope the doors, O Soul! 3 Tenderly! be […]...
- A Winter's Tale Yesterday the fields were only grey with scattered snow, And now the longest grass-leaves hardly emerge; Yet her deep footsteps mark the snow, and go On towards the pines at the hills’ white verge. I cannot see her, since the mist’s white scarf Obscures the dark wood and the dull orange sky; But she’s waiting, […]...
- A Ninth Birthday Three times thrice hath winter’s rough white wing Crossed and curdled wells and streams with ice Since his birth whose praises love would sing Three times thrice. Earth nor sea bears flower nor pearl of price Fit to crown the forehead of my king, Honey meet to please him, balm, nor spice. Love can think […]...
- The Light and Glory of the Word The Spirit breathes upon the word, And brings the truth to sight; Precepts and promises afford A sanctifying light. A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic like the sun; It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none. The hand that gave it still supplies The gracious light and heat; His truths […]...
- Flood-Tide of Flowers IN HOLLAND The laggard winter ebbed so slow With freezing rain and melting snow, It seemed as if the earth would stay Forever where the tide was low, In sodden green and watery gray. But now from depths beyond our sight, The tide is turning in the night, And floods of color long concealed Come […]...
- Ichabod So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn Which once he wore! The glory from his gray hairs gone Forevermore! Revile him not, the Tempter hath A snare for all; And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath, Befit his fall! Oh, dumb be passion’s stormy rage, When he who might Have lighted up and led his […]...
- Russell Kincaid In the last spring I ever knew, In those last days, I sat in the forsaken orchard Where beyond fields of greenery shimmered The hills at Miller’s Ford; Just to muse on the apple tree With its ruined trunk and blasted branches, And shoots of green whose delicate blossoms Were sprinkled over the skeleton tangle, […]...
- Fire and Sleet and Candlelight For this you’ve striven Daring, to fail: Your sky is riven Like a tearing veil. For this, you’ve wasted Wings of your youth; Divined, and tasted Bitter springs of truth. From sand unslakèd Twisted strong cords, And wandering naked Among trysted swords. There’s a word unspoken, A knot untied. Whatever is broken The earth may […]...
- Songs Of Experience: Introduction Hear the voice of the Bard! Who Present, Past, & Future sees Whose ears have heard The Holy Word, That walk’d among the ancient trees. Calling the lapsed Soul And weeping in the evening dew; That might controll. The starry pole; And fallen fallen light renew! O Earth O Earth return! Arise from out the […]...
- Hear the Voice HEAR the voice of the Bard, Who present, past, and future, sees; Whose ears have heard The Holy Word That walk’d among the ancient trees; Calling the lapsed soul, And weeping in the evening dew; That might control The starry pole, And fallen, fallen light renew! ‘O Earth, O Earth, return! Arise from out the […]...
- Our Blessings Sitting to-day in the sunshine, That touched me with fingers of love, I thought of the manifold blessings God scatters on earth, from above; And they seemed, as I numbered them over, Far more than we merit, or need, And all that we lack is the angels To make earth a heaven indeed. The winter […]...
- How soft a Caterpillar steps How soft a Caterpillar steps I fond one on my Hand From such a velvet world it comes Such plushes at command Its soundless travels just arrest My slow terrestrial eye Intent upon its own career What use has it for me...
- Despondency I have gone backward in the work, The labour has not sped, Drowsy and dark my spirit lies, Heavy and dull as lead. How can I rouse my sinking soul From such a lethargy? How can I break these iron chains, And set my spirit free? There have been times when I have mourned, In […]...
- Light Light, my light, the world-filling light, The eye-kissing light, Heart-sweetening light! Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the center of my life; The light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love; The sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth. The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light. […]...
- Butterfly Butterfly, the wind blows sea-ward, strong beyond the garden-wall! Butterfly, why do you settle on my shoe, and sip the dirt on my shoe, Lifting your veined wings, lifting them? big white butterfly! Already it is October, and the wind blows strong to the sea From the hills where snow must have fallen, the wind […]...
- Villanelle of Change Since Persia fell at Marathon, The yellow years have gathered fast: Long centuries have come and gone. And yet (they say) the place will don A phantom fury of the past, Since Persia fell at Marathon; And as of old, when Helicon Trembled and swayed with rapture vast (Long centuries have come and gone), This […]...
- Poem (Remember midsummer: the fragrance of box) Remember midsummer: the fragrance of box, of white roses And of phlox. And upon a honeysuckle branch Three snails hanging with infinite delicacy Clinging like tendril, flake and thread, as self-tormented And self-delighted as any ballerina, just as in the orchard, Near the apple trees, in the over-grown grasses Drunken wasps clung to over-ripe pears […]...
- An Argument I. THE VOICE OF THE MAN IMPATIENT WITH VISIONS AND UTOPIAS We find your soft Utopias as white As new-cut bread, and dull as life in cells, O, scribes who dare forget how wild we are How human breasts adore alarum bells. You house us in a hive of prigs and saints Communal, frugal, clean […]...
- March The sun is hotter than the top ledge in a steam bath; The ravine, crazed, is rampaging below. Spring that corn-fed, husky milkmaid Is busy at her chores with never a letup. The snow is wasting (pernicious anemia See those branching veinlets of impotent blue?) Yet in the cowbarn life is burbling, steaming, And the […]...
- The Christian Honor and happiness unite To make the Christian’s name a praise; How fair the scene, how clear the light, That fills the remnant of His days! A kingly character He bears, No change His priestly office knows; Unfading is the crown He wears, His joys can never reach a close. Adorn’d with glory from on […]...
- Oh, Ye Dead! Oh, ye Dead! oh, ye Dead! whom we know by the light you give From your cold gleaming eyes, though you move like men who live, Why leave you thus your graves, In far off fields and waves, Where the worm and the sea-bird only know your bed, To haunt this spot where all Those […]...
- From This Hour the Pledge is Given From this hour the pledge is given, From this hour my soul is thine: Come what will, from earth of heaven, Weal or woe, thy fate be mine. When the proud and great stood by thee, None dared thy rights to spurn; And if now they’re false and fly thee, Shall I, too, falsely turn? […]...
- Sonnet III There was a youth around whose early way White angels hung in converse and sweet choir, Teaching in summer clouds his thought to stray, In cloud and far horizon to desire. His life was nursed in beauty, like the stream Born of clear showers and the mountain dew, Close under snow-clad summits where they gleam […]...
- Answer THE WARMTH of life is quenched with bitter frost; Upon the lonely road a child limps by Skirting the frozen pools: our way is lost: Our hearts sink utterly. But from the snow-patched moorland chill and drear, Lifting our eyes beyond the spirëd height, With white-fire lips apart the dawn breathes clear Its soundless hymn […]...
- Reliance Not to the swift, the race: Not to the strong, the fight: Not to the righteous, perfect grace: Not to the wise, the light. But often faltering feet Come surest to the goal; And they who walk in darkness meet The sunrise of the soul. A thousand times by night The Syrian hosts have died; […]...
- Gustav Richter After a long day of work in my hot-houses Sleep was sweet, but if you sleep on your left side Your dreams may be abruptly ended. I was among my flowers where some one Seemed to be raising them on trial, As if after-while to be transplanted To a larger garden of freer air. And […]...
- The Hill Maples Here on a hill of the occident stand we shoulder to shoulder, Comrades tried and true through a mighty swath of the years! Spring harps glad laughter through us, and ministrant rains of the autumn Sing us again the songs of ancient dolor and tears. The glory of sunrise smites on our fair, free brows […]...
- Memory Brightly the sun of summer shone, Green fields and waving woods upon, And soft winds wandered by; Above, a sky of purest blue, Around, bright flowers of loveliest hue, Allured the gazer’s eye. But what were all these charms to me, When one sweet breath of memory Came gently wafting by? I closed my eyes […]...
- Milkweed Remember how unimportant They seemed, growing loosely In the open fields we crossed On the way to school. We Would carve wooden swords And slash at the luscious trunks Until the white milk started And then flowed. Then we’d Go on to the long day After day of the History of History Or the tables […]...
- REQUIESCAT Tread lightly, she is near Under the snow, Speak gently, she can hear The daisies grow. All her bright golden hair Tarnished with rust, She that was young and fair Fallen to dust. Lily-like, white as snow, She hardly knew She was a woman, so Sweetly she grew. Coffin-board, heavy stone, Lie on her breast, […]...
- To One Coming North At first you’ll joy to see the playful snow, Like white moths trembling on the tropic air, Or waters of the hills that softly flow Gracefully falling down a shining stair. And when the fields and streets are covered white And the wind-worried void is chilly, raw, Or underneath a spell of heat and light […]...
- Psalm 24 Dwelling with God. The earth for ever is the Lord’s, With Adam’s num’rous race; He raised its arches o’er the floods, And built it on the seas. But who among the sons of men May visit thine abode? He that has hands from mischief clean, Whose heart is right with God. This is the man […]...
- Progress Let there be many windows to your soul, That all the glory of the universe May beautify it. Not the narrow pane Of one poor creed can catch the radiant rays That shine from countless sources. Tear away The blinds of superstition; let the light Pour through fair windows broad as truth itself And high […]...
- Velvet Shoes Let us walk in the white snow In a soundless space; With footsteps quiet snd slow, At a tranquil pace, Under veils of white lace. I shall go shod in silk, And you in wool, White as white cow’s milk, More beautiful Than the breast of a gull. We shall walk through the still town […]...
- The Faithless Shadows The faithless shadows of day are running And high and clear is the call of bells, Steps of the church are blazed as with the lightning, Their stones are alive and wait for your light steps. You’ll here pass and touch the chilly stone, That’s dressed in awful sanity of span, And let the flower […]...
- October The green elm with the one great bough of gold Lets leaves into the grass slip, one by one, The short hill grass, the mushrooms small milk-white, Harebell and scabious and tormentil, That blackberry and gorse, in dew and sun, Bow down to; and the wind travels too light To shake the fallen birch leaves […]...
- Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat? Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat? Then crouch within the door Red is the Fire’s common tint But when the vivid Ore Has vanquished Flame’s conditions, It quivers from the Forge Without a color, but the light Of unanointed Blaze. Least Village has its Blacksmith Whose Anvil’s even ring Stands symbol for […]...
- Stars How countlessly they congregate O’er our tumultuous snow, Which flows in shapes as tall as trees When wintry winds do blow! As if with keeness for our fate, Our faltering few steps on To white rest, and a place of rest Invisible at dawn, And yet with neither love nor hate, Those starts like somw […]...