The Dark House

Related poetry:

1. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 7. Dark house, by which once more I s Dark house, by which once more I stand Here in the long unlovely street, Doors, where my heart was used to beat So quickly, waiting for a hand, A hand that can be clasp’d no more Behold me, for I cannot sleep, And like a guilty thing I creep At earliest morning to the door. […]...
2. The Door in the Dark In going from room to room in the dark, I reached out blindly to save my face, But neglected, however lightly, to lace My fingers and close my arms in an arc. A slim door got in past my guard, And hit me a blow in the head so hard I had my native simile […]...
3. Dream Song 62: That dark brown rabbit, lightness in his ears That dark brown rabbit, lightness in his ears & underneath, gladdened our afternoon Munching a crab-‘. That rabbit was a fraud, like a black bull Prudent I admired in Zaragoza, who Certainly was brave as a demon But would not charge, being willing not to die. The rabbit’s case, a little different, Consisted in alert […]...
4. The Dark House Dusk in the rain-soaked garden, And dark the house within. A door creaked: someone was early To watch the dawn begin. But he stole away like a thief In the chilly, star-bright air: Though the house was shuttered for slumber, He had left one wakeful there. Nothing moved in the garden. Never a bird would […]...
5. The house where I was born (08) I open my eyes, yes, it’s the house where I was born, Exactly as it was and nothing more. The same small dining room whose window Gives onto a peach tree that never grows. A man and a woman are seated At this window, facing one another, They are talking, for once. And the child […]...
6. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 06: Portrait Of One Dead This is the house. On one side there is darkness, On one side there is light. Into the darkness you may lift your lanterns- O, any number-it will still be night. And here are echoing stairs to lead you downward To long sonorous halls. And here is spring forever at these windows, With roses on […]...
7. The House Of Dust: Part 04: 04: Counterpoint: Two Rooms He, in the room above, grown old and tired, She, in the room below-his floor her ceiling- Pursue their separate dreams. He turns his light, And throws himself on the bed, face down, in laughter. . . . She, by the window, smiles at a starlight night, His watch-the same he has heard these cycles […]...
8. The House This poem has a door, a locked door, And curtains drawn against the day, But at night the lights come on, one In each room, and the neighbors swear They hear music and the sound of dancing. These days the neighbors will swear To anything, but that is not why The house is locked up […]...
9. Bad for ears the song wasn’t up to the task Of getting through the double-glazing Into the ears pressed on the outside pane The rest of their bodies had faded away but The ears were straining still towards the music In order to know the good times being had in the room Night fell the cold grew and […]...
10. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 01: As evening falls As evening falls, And the yellow lights leap one by one Along high walls; And along black streets that glisten as if with rain, The muted city seems Like one in a restless sleep, who lies and dreams Of vague desires, and memories, and half-forgotten pain. . . Along dark veins, like lights the quick […]...
11. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 03: Interlude The warm sun dreams in the dust, the warm sun falls On bright red roofs and walls; The trees in the park exhale a ghost of rain; We go from door to door in the streets again, Talking, laughing, dreaming, turning our faces, Recalling other times and places. . . We crowd, not knowing why, […]...
12. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 08: Coffins: Interlude Wind blows. Snow falls. The great clock in its tower Ticks with reverberant coil and tolls the hour: At the deep sudden stroke the pigeons fly. . . The fine snow flutes the cracks between the flagstones. We close our coats, and hurry, and search the sky. We are like music, each voice of it […]...
13. Dark August So much rain, so much life like the swollen sky Of this black August. My sister, the sun, Broods in her yellow room and won’t come out. Everything goes to hell; the mountains fume Like a kettle, rivers overrun; still, She will not rise and turn off the rain. She is in her room, fondling […]...
14. 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 […]...
15. The House Of Dust: Part 04: 06: Cinema As evening falls, The walls grow luminous and warm, the walls Tremble and glow with the lives within them moving, Moving like music, secret and rich and warm. How shall we live to-night, where shall we turn? To what new light or darkness yearn? A thousand winding stairs lead down before us; And one by […]...
16. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 05: Retrospect Round white clouds roll slowly above the housetops, Over the clear red roofs they flow and pass. A flock of pigeons rises with blue wings flashing, Rises with whistle of wings, hovers an instant, And settles slowly again on the tarnished grass. And one old man looks down from a dusty window And sees the […]...
17. Demon A young man is afraid of his demon and puts his hand Over the demon’s mouth sometimes… D. H. Lawrence I mentioned my demon to a friend And the friend swam in oil and came forth to me Greasy and cryptic And said, “I’m thinking of taking him out of hock. I pawned him years […]...
18. An Angel in the House How sweet it were, if without feeble fright, Or dying of the dreadful beauteous sight, An angel came to us, and we could bear To see him issue from the silent air At evening in our room, and bend on ours His divine eyes, and bring us from his bowers News of dear friends, and […]...
19. The Deserted House Life and Thought have gone away Side by side, Leaving door and windows wide. Careless tenants they! All within is dark as night: In the windows is no light; And no murmur at the door, So frequent on its hinge before. Close the door; the shutters close; Or through the windows we shall see The […]...
20. The house where I was born (05) In the same dream I am lying in the hollow of a boat, My forehead and eyes against the curved planks Where I can hear the undercurrents Striking the bottom of the boat. All at once, the prow rises up, And I think that we’ve come to the estuary, But I keep my eyes against […]...
21. Chant For Dark Hours Some men, some men Cannot pass a Book shop. (Lady, make your mind up, and wait your life away.) Some men, some men Cannot pass a Crap game. (He said he’d come at moonrise, and here’s another day!) Some men, some men Cannot pass a Bar-room. (Wait about, and hang about, and that’s the way […]...
22. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 03: Haunted Chambers The lamplit page is turned, the dream forgotten; The music changes tone, you wake, remember Deep worlds you lived before,-deep worlds hereafter Of leaf on falling leaf, music on music, Rain and sorrow and wind and dust and laughter. Helen was late and Miriam came too soon. Joseph was dead, his wife and children starving. […]...
23. The New House NOW first, as I shut the door, I was alone In the new house; and the wind Began to moan. Old at once was the house, And I was old; My ears were teased with the dread Of what was foretold, Nights of storm, days of mist, without end; Sad days when the sun Shone […]...
24. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 13: The half-shut doors through which we heard that music The half-shut doors through which we heard that music Are softly closed. Horns mutter down to silence. The stars whirl out, the night grows deep. Darkness settles upon us. A vague refrain Drowsily teases at the drowsy brain. In numberless rooms we stretch ourselves and sleep. Where have we been? What savage chaos of music […]...
25. Hymn 31 part 2 The Christian’s hidden life. Col. 3:3. O happy soul that lives on high While men lie grov’lling here His hopes are fixed above the sky, And faith forbids his fear. His conscience knows no secret stings, While peace and joy combine To form a life whose holy springs Are hidden and divine. He waits in […]...
26. The Dark Cavalier I am the Dark Cavalier; I am the Last Lover: My arms shall welcome you when other arms are tired; I stand to wait for you, patient in the darkness, Offering forgetfulness of all that you desired. I ask no merriment, no pretense of gladness, I can love heavy lids and lips without their rose; […]...
27. The House Of Dust: Part 04: 05: The Bitter Love-Song No, I shall not say why it is that I love you- Why do you ask me, save for vanity? Surely you would not have me, like a mirror, Say ‘yes,-your hair curls darkly back from the temples, Your mouth has a humorous, tremulous, half-shy sweetness, Your eyes are April grey. . . .with jonquils […]...
28. The House In The Woods At the back of the houses there is the wood. While there is a leaf of summer left, the wood Makes sounds I can put somewhere in my song, Has paths I can walk, when I wake, to good Or evil: to the cage, to the oven, to the House In the Wood. It is […]...
29. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 01: The round red sun heaves darkly out of the sea The round red sun heaves darkly out of the sea. The walls and towers are warmed and gleam. Sounds go drowsily up from streets and wharves. The city stirs like one that is half in dream. And the mist flows up by dazzling walls and windows, Where one by one we wake and rise. We […]...
30. Interior Her mind lives in a quiet room, A narrow room, and tall, With pretty lamps to quench the gloom And mottoes on the wall. There all the things are waxen neat And set in decorous lines; And there are posies, round and sweet, And little, straightened vines. Her mind lives tidily, apart From cold and […]...
31. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 07: Two Lovers: Overtones Two lovers, here at the corner, by the steeple, Two lovers blow together like music blowing: And the crowd dissolves about them like a sea. Recurring waves of sound break vaguely about them, They drift from wall to wall, from tree to tree. ‘Well, am I late?’ Upward they look and laugh, They look at […]...
32. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 02: One, from his high bright window in a tower One, from his high bright window in a tower, Leans out, as evening falls, And sees the advancing curtain of the shower Splashing its silver on roofs and walls: Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city, And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea, Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark […]...
33. When the Dark Comes Down When the dark comes down, oh, the wind is on the sea With lisping laugh and whimper to the red reef’s threnody, The boats are sailing homeward now across the harbor bar With many a jest and many a shout from fishing grounds afar. So furl your sails and take your rest, ye fisher folk […]...
34. Inscriptions for a Friend's House THE HOUSE The cornerstone in Truth is laid, The guardian walls of Honour made, The roof of Faith is built above, The fire upon the hearth is Love: Though rains descend and loud winds call, This happy house shall never fall. THE DOORSTEAD The lintel low enough to keep out pomp and pride: The threshold […]...
35. I Wake And Feel The Fell Of Dark, Not Day I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. What hours, O what black hours we have spent This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went! And more must, in yet longer light’s delay. With witness I speak this. But where I say Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament […]...
36. The House with Nobody in It Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black. I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for A minute And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in It. I never have seen […]...
37. The House Of Dust: Part 04: 03: Palimpsest: A Deceitful Portrait Well, as you say, we live for small horizons: We move in crowds, we flow and talk together, Seeing so many eyes and hands and faces, So many mouths, and all with secret meanings,- Yet know so little of them; only seeing The small bright circle of our consciousness, Beyond which lies the dark. Some […]...
38. The house where I was born (01) I woke up, it was the house where I was born, Sea foam splashed against the rock, Not a single bird, only the wind to open and close the wave, Everywhere on the horizon the smell of ashes, As if the hills were hiding a fire That somewhere else was burning up a universe. I […]...
39. Elysium is as far as to Elysium is as far as to The very nearest Room If in that Room a Friend await Felicity or Doom What fortitude the Soul contains, That it can so endure The accent of a coming Foot The opening of a Door...
40. The house where I was born (03) I woke up, it was the house where I was born, It was night, trees were crowding On all sides around our door, I was alone on the doorstep in the cold wind, No, not alone, for two huge beings Were speaking to each other above me, through me. One, behind, an old woman, stooped, […]...