And what are you that, wanting you, I should be kept awake As many nights as there are days With weeping for your sake? And what are you that, missing you, As many days

I The first rose on my rose-tree Budded, bloomed, and shattered, During sad days when to me Nothing mattered. Grief of grief has drained me clean; Still it seems a pity No one saw,-it

If I were to walk this way Hand in hand with Grief, I should mark that maple-spray Coming into leaf. I should note how the old burrs Rot upon the ground. Yes, though Grief

IF I should learn, in some quite casual way, That you were gone, not to return again – Read from the back-page of a paper, say, Held by a neighbor in a subway train,

I knew her for a little ghost That in my garden walked; The wall is high-higher than most- And the green gate was locked. And yet I did not think of that Till after

There will be rose and rhododendron When you are dead and under ground; Still will be heard from white syringas Heavy with bees, a sunny sound; Still will the tamaracks be raining After the

My heart is what it was before, A house where people come and go; But it is winter with your love, The sashes are beset with snow. I light the lamp and lay the

I had a little Sorrow, Born of a little Sin, I found a room all damp with gloom And shut us all within; And, “Little Sorrow, weep,” said I, “And, Little Sin, pray God

Strong sun, that bleach The curtains of my room, can you not render Colourless this dress I wear?- This violent plaid Of purple angers and red shames; the yellow stripe Of thin but valid

No matter what I say, All that I really love Is the rain that flattens on the bay, And the eel-grass in the cove; The jingle-shells that lie and bleach At the tide-line, and

OH, Prue she has a patient man, And Joan a gentle lover, And Agatha’s Arth’ is a hug-the-hearth,­ But my true love’s a rover! Mig, her man’s as good as cheese And honest as

Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,-no, Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair Than small white single poppies,-I can bear Thy beauty; though I bend before thee, though From left to right, not knowing

I know what my heart is like Since your love died: It is like a hollow ledge Holding a little pool Left there by the tide, A little tepid pool, Drying inward from the

Death devours all lovely things; Lesbia with her sparrow Shares the darkness,-presently Every bed is narrow. Unremembered as old rain Dries the sheer libation, And the little petulant hand Is an annotation. After all,

Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind Blow over me-I am so tired, so tired Of passing pleasant places! All my life,

Sorrow like a ceaseless rain Beats upon my heart. People twist and scream in pain,- Dawn will find them still again; This has neither wax nor wane, Neither stop nor start. People dress and

Let us abandon then our gardens and go home And sit in the sitting-room Shall the larkspur blossom or the corn grow under this cloud? Sour to the fruitful seed Is the cold earth

What should I be but a prophet and a liar, Whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar? Teethed on a crucifix and cradled under water, What should I be but the

So, art thou feahered, art thou flown, Thou naked thing?-and canst alone Upon the unsolid summer air Sustain thyself, and prosper there? Shall no more with anxious note Advise thee through the happy day,

I could not bring this splendid world nor any trading beast In charge of it, to defer, no, not to give ear, not in the least Appearance, to my handsome prophecies, Which here I

Once from a big, big building, When I was small, small, The queer folk in the windows Would smile at me and call. And in the hard wee gardens Such pleasant men would hoe:

“Wolf!” cried my cunning heart At every sheep it spied, And roused the countryside. “Wolf! Wolf!”-and up would start Good neighbours, bringing spade And pitchfork to my aid. At length my cry was known:

When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes, And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes, Stripped

Only until this cigarette is ended, A little moment at the end of all, While on the floor the quiet ashes fall, And in the firelight to a lance extended, Bizarrely with the jazzing