Pauline Barrett

Related poetry:

1. The Three Bushes An incident from the ‘Historia mei Temporis’ Of the Abbe Michel de Bourdeille Said lady once to lover, ‘None can rely upon A love that lacks its proper food; And if your love were gone How could you sing those songs of love? I should be blamed, young man. O my dear, O my dear. […]...
2. Paradise Motel Millions were dead; everybody was innocent. I stayed in my room. The President Spoke of war as of a magic love potion. My eyes were opened in astonishment. In a mirror my face appeared to me Like a twice-canceled postage stamp. I lived well, but life was awful. There were so many soldiers that day, […]...
3. Moments Of Vision That mirror Which makes of men a transparency, Who holds that mirror And bids us such a breast-bare spectacle see Of you and me? That mirror Whose magic penetrates like a dart, Who lifts that mirror And throws our mind back on us, and our heart, Until we start? That mirror Works well in these […]...
4. Corona Autunm eats its leaf out of my hand: we are friends. From the nuts we shell time and we teach it to walk: Then time returns to the shell. In the mirror it’s Sunday, In dream there is room for sleeping, Our mouths speak the truth. My eye moves down to the sex of my […]...
5. From 'Pauline&#039 O God, where does this tend-these struggling aims? What would I have? What is this ‘sleep’, which seems To bound all? can there be a ‘waking’ point Of crowning life? The soul would never rule – It would be first in all things-it would have Its utmost pleasure filled,-but that complete Commanding for commanding sickens […]...
6. Elizabeth Barrett Browning Elizabeth Barrett Browning Sat gossiping with Robert. (She was really a raving beauty in her day. With Mary Pickford curls in clouds and whirls.) She was trying to think of something nice to say, So she pointed to a page by her fellow star and sage, And said: “I wish that I could write that […]...
7. A Death-Bed 1918 This is the State above the Law. The State exists for the State alone.” [This is a gland at the back of the jaw, And an answering lump by the collar-bone.], Some die shouting in gas or fire; Some die silent, by shell and shot. Some die desperate, caught on the wire – Some […]...
8. A Musician's Wife Between the visits to the shock ward The doctors used to let you play On the old upright Baldwin Donated by a former patient Who is said to be quite stable now. And all day long you played Chopin, Badly and hauntingly, when you weren’t Screaming on the porch that looked Like an enormous birdcage. […]...
9. Raw With Love little dark girl with Kind eyes When it comes time to Use the knife I won’t flinch and I won’t blame You, As I drive along the shorealone As the palms wave, The ugly heavy palms, As the living does not arrive As the dead do notleave, I won’tblame you, Insteaad I will remeber the […]...
10. The Last Evening And night and distant rumbling; now the army’s Carrier-train was moving out, to war. He looked up from the harpsichord, and as He went on playing, he looked across at her Almost as one might gaze into a mirror: So deeply was her every feature filled With his young features, which bore his pain and […]...
11. Bluefish the bluefish was surprised I was there to greet it This world it said is mine It feeds on blueness For the first time in my life I felt i’d found my truth Bluefish i cried in joy You are my deepest mirror The bluefish gawped in pain It saw no blue in me I […]...
12. Non Dolet It does not hurt. She looked along the knife Smiling, and watched the thick drops mix and run Down the sheer blade; not that which had been done Could hurt the sweet sense of the Roman wife, But that which was to do yet ere the strife Could end for each for ever, and the […]...
13. The Mountain And The Lake I know a mountain thrilling to the stars, Peerless and pure, and pinnacled with snow; Glimpsing the golden dawn o’er coral bars, Flaunting the vanisht sunset’s garnet glow; Proudly patrician, passionless, serene; Soaring in silvered steeps where cloud-surfs break; Virgin and vestal Oh, a very Queen! And at her feet there dreams a quiet lake. […]...
14. Villa Pauline But, ah! before he came You were only a name: Four little rooms and a cupboard Without a bone, And I was alone! Now with your windows wide Everything from outside Of sun and flower and loveliness Comes in to hide, To play, to laugh on the stairs, To catch unawares Our childish happiness, And […]...
15. The Dead Heart After I wrote this, a friend scrawled on this page, “Yes.” And I said, merely to myself, “I wish it could be for a Different seizure as with Molly Bloom and her ‘and Yes I said yes I will Yes.” It is not a turtle Hiding in its little green shell. It is not a […]...
16. Drugs Made Pauline Vague Drugs made Pauline vague. She sat one day at the breakfast table Fingering in a baffled way The fronds of the maidenhair plant. Was it the salt you were looking for dear? Said Dulcie, exchanging a glance with the Brigadier. Chuff chuff Pauline what’s the matter? Said the Brigadier to his wife Who did not […]...
17. Epitaph on her Son H. P WHat on Earth deserves our trust? Youth and Beauty both are dust. Long we gathering are with pain, What one moment calls again. Seven years childless, marriage past, A Son, a son is born at last : So exactly lim’d and fair. Full of good Spirits, Meen, and Air, As a long life promised, Yet, […]...
18. Dawn in New York The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes Out of the low still skies, over the hills, Manhattan’s roofs and spires and cheerless domes! The Dawn! My spirit to its spirit thrills. Almost the mighty city is asleep, No pushing crowd, no tramping, tramping feet. But here and there a few cars groaning creep Along, above, […]...
19. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 08: The Box With Silver Handles Well,-it was two days after my husband died- Two days! And the earth still raw above him. And I was sweeping the carpet in their hall. In number four-the room with the red wall-paper- Some chorus girls and men were singing that song ‘They’ll soon be lighting candles Round a box with silver handles’-and hearing […]...
20. Her Eyes Up from the street and the crowds that went, Morning and midnight, to and fro, Still was the room where his days he spent, And the stars were bleak, and the nights were slow. Year after year, with his dream shut fast, He suffered and strove till his eyes were dim, For the love that […]...
21. New Year's Morning Only a night from old to new! Only a night, and so much wrought! The Old Year’s heart all weary grew, But said: The New Year rest has brought.” The Old Year’s hopes its heart laid down, As in a grave; but trusting, said: “The blossoms of the New Year’s crown Bloom from the ashes […]...
22. Look not in my eyes, for fear Look not in my eyes, for fear Thy mirror true the sight I see, And there you find your face too clear And love it and be lost like me. One the long nights through must lie Spent in star-defeated sighs, But why should you as well as I Perish? gaze not in my eyes. […]...
23. Litany You are the bread and the knife, The crystal goblet and the wine… – Jacques Crickillon You are the bread and the knife, The crystal goblet and the wine. You are the dew on the morning grass And the burning wheel of the sun. You are the white apron of the baker, And the marsh […]...
24. A Strange Wild Song He thought he saw an Elephant That practised on a fife: He looked again, and found it was A letter from his wife. “At length I realize,” he said, “The bitterness of life!” He thought he saw a Buffalo Upon the chimney-piece: He looked again, and found it was His Sister’s Husband’s Niece. “Unless you […]...
25. Silence I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea, And the silence of the city when it pauses, And the silence of a man and a maid, And the silence of the sick When their eyes roam about the room. And I ask: For the depths, Of what use is language? A […]...
26. Missis Moriarty's Boy Missis Moriarty called last week, and says she to me, says she: “Sure the heart of me’s broken entirely now it’s the fortunate woman you are; You’ve still got your Dinnis to cheer up your home, but me Patsy boy where is he? Lyin’ alone, cold as a stone, kilt in the weariful wahr. Oh, […]...
27. Love and a Question A stranger came to the door at eve, And he spoke the bridegroom fair. He bore a green-white stick in his hand, And, for all burden, care. He asked with the eyes more than the lips For a shelter for the night, And he turned and looked at the road afar Without a window light. […]...
28. The Kiss The snow is white on wood and wold, The wind is in the firs, So dead my heart is with the cold, No pulse within it stirs, Even to see your face, my dear, Your face that was my sun; There is no spring this bitter year, And summer’s dreams are done. The snakes that […]...
29. Love After Love The time will come When, with elation You will greet yourself arriving At your own door, in your own mirror And each will smile at the other’s welcome, And say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart To itself, to the […]...
30. The Dreamer The lone man gazed and gazed upon his gold, His sweat, his blood, the wage of weary days; But now how sweet, how doubly sweet to hold All gay and gleamy to the campfire blaze. The evening sky was sinister and cold; The willows shivered, wanly lay the snow; The uncommiserating land, so old, So […]...
31. Window I looked out the window at dawn and saw a young apple tree Translucent in brightness. And when I looked out at dawn once again, an apple tree laden with Fruit stood there. Many years had probably gone by but I remember nothing of what Happened in my sleep....
32. Vulture I had walked since dawn and lay down to rest on a bare hillside Above the ocean. I saw through half-shut eyelids a vulture wheeling high up in heaven, And presently it passed again, but lower and nearer, its orbit narrowing, I understood then That I was under inspection. I lay death-still and heard the […]...
33. Ernest Hyde My mind was a mirror: It saw what it saw, it knew what it knew. In youth my mind was just a mirror In a rapidly flying car, Which catches and loses bits of the landscape. Then in time Great scratches were made on the mirror, Letting the outside world come in, And letting my […]...
34. 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, […]...
35. The Mad Gardener's Song He thought he saw an Elephant, That practised on a fife: He looked again, and found it was A letter from his wife. ‘At length I realise,’ he said, The bitterness of Life!’ He thought he saw a Buffalo Upon the chimney-piece: He looked again, and found it was His Sister’s Husband’s Niece. ‘Unless you […]...
36. The Art Of Poetry To gaze at a river made of time and water And remember Time is another river. To know we stray like a river And our faces vanish like water. To feel that waking is another dream That dreams of not dreaming and that the death We fear in our bones is the death That every […]...
37. Sea Shell Sea Shell, Sea Shell, Sing me a song, O Please! A song of ships, and sailor men, And parrots, and tropical trees, Of islands lost in the Spanish Main Which no man ever may find again, Of fishes and corals under the waves, And seahorses stabled in great green caves. Sea Shell, Sea Shell, Sing […]...
38. With The Face With the face goes a mirror As with the mind a world. Likeness tells the doubting eye That strangeness is not strange. At an early hour and knowledge Identity not yet familiar Looks back upon itself from later, And seems itself. To-day seems now. With reality-to-be goes time. With the mind goes a world. Wit […]...
39. A Day Like Any Other Such insignificance: a glance At your record on the doctor’s desk Or a letter not meant for you. How could you have known? It’s not true That your life passes before you In rapid motion, but your watch Suddenly ticks like an amplified heart, The hands freezing against a white That is a judgment. Otherwise […]...
40. An Answer If all the year was summer-time, And all the aim of life Was just to lilt on like a rhyme – Then I would be your wife. If all the days were August days, And crowned with golden weather, How happy then through green-clad ways We two could stray together! If all the nights were […]...