Primavera in the North

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1. Under A Telephone Pole I AM a copper wire slung in the air, Slim against the sun I make not even a clear line of shadow. Night and day I keep singing humming and thrumming: It is love and war and money; it is the fighting and the Tears, the work and want, Death and laughter of men and […]...
2. Afternoon When I am old, and comforted, And done with this desire, With Memory to share my bed And Peace to share my fire, I’ll comb my hair in scalloped bands Beneath my laundered cap, And watch my cool and fragile hands Lie light upon my lap. And I will have a sprigged gown With lace […]...
3. The North Star Whispers to the Blacksmith's Son THE North Star whispers: “You are one Of those whose course no chance can change. You blunder, but are not undone, Your spirit-task is fixed and strange. “When here you walk, a bloodless shade, A singer all men else forget. Your chants of hammer, forge and spade Will move the prarie-village yet. “That young, stiff-necked, […]...
4. The North Ship Legend I saw three ships go sailing by, Over the sea, the lifting sea, And the wind rose in the morning sky, And one was rigged for a long journey. The first ship turned towards the west, Over the sea, the running sea, And by the wind was all possessed And carried to a rich […]...
5. 90 North At home, in my flannel gown, like a bear to its floe, I clambered to bed; up the globe’s impossible sides I sailed all night-till at last, with my black beard, My furs and my dogs, I stood at the northern pole. There in the childish night my companions lay frozen, The stiff fur knocked […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. Outside Fargo, North Dakota Along the sprawled body of the derailed Great Northern freight car, I strike a match slowly and lift it slowly. No wind. Beyond town, three heavy white horses Wade all the way to their shoulders In a silo shadow. Suddenly the freight car lurches. The door slams back, a man with a flashlight Calls me […]...
8. A Return WE turned back mad from the mystic mountains, All foamed with red and with elfin gold: Up from the heart of the twilight’s fountains The fires enchanted were starward rolled. We turned back mad: we thought of the morrow, The iron clang of the far-away town: We could not weep in our bitter sorrow, But […]...
9. Snowbanks North of the House Those great sweeps of snow that stop suddenly six Feet from the house… Thoughts that go so far. The boy gets out of high school and reads no more Books; The son stops calling home. The mother puts down her rolling pin and makes no More bread. And the wife looks at her husband one […]...
10. Melmillo Three and thirty birds there stood In an elder in a wood; Called Melmillo flew off three, Leaving thirty in the tree; Called Melmillo nine now gone, And the boughs held twenty-one; Called Melmillo and eighteen Left but three to nod and preen; Called Melmillo three two one Now of birds were feathers none. Then […]...
11. A City's Death By Fire After that hot gospeller has levelled all but the churched sky, I wrote the tale by tallow of a city’s death by fire; Under a candle’s eye, that smoked in tears, I Wanted to tell, in more than wax, of faiths that were snapped like wire. All day I walked abroad among the rubbled tales, […]...
12. Beautiful North Berwick North Berwick is a watering-place with golfing links green, With a fine bathing beach most lovely to be seen; And there’s a large number of handsome villas also, And often it’s called the Scarborough of Scotland, as Portobello. The greatest attraction is Tantallon Castle, worthy of regard, About three miles distant to the eastward; Which […]...
13. The North Wind That wind is from the North, I know it well; No other breeze could have so wild a swell. Now deep and loud it thunders round my cell, The faintly dies, And softly sighs, And moans and murmurs mournfully. I know its language; thus is speaks to me ‘I have passed over thy own mountains […]...
14. Sandpipers Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes. Homes for sandpipers-the script of their feet is on the sea shingles-they write in the morning, it is gone at noon-they write at noon, it is gone at night. Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper’s wire legs and […]...
15. North Haven I can make out the rigging of a schooner A mile off; I can count The new cones on the spruce. It is so still The pale bay wears a milky skin; the sky No clouds except for one long, carded horse№s tail. The islands haven’t shifted since last summer, Even if I like to […]...
16. Sumach and Birds IF you never came with a pigeon rainbow purple Shining in the six o’clock September dusk: If the red sumach on the autumn roads Never danced on the flame of your eyelashes: If the red-haws never burst in a million Crimson fingertwists of your heartcrying: If all this beauty of yours never crushed me Then […]...
17. The Need of Being Versed in Country Things The house had gone to bring again To the midnight sky a sunset glow. Now the chimney was all of the house that stood, Like a pistil after the petals go. The barn opposed across the way, That would have joined the house in flame Had it been the will of the wind, was left […]...
18. The Shroud Death, I say, my heart is bowed Unto thine,-O mother! This red gown will make a shroud Good as any other! (I, that would not wait to wear My own bridal things, In a dress dark as my hair Made my answerings. I, to-night, that till he came Could not, could not wait, In a […]...
19. Harp of the North, Farewell! Harp of the North, farewell! The hills grow dark, On purple peaks a deeper shade descending; In twilight copse the glow-worm lights her spark, The deer, half-seen, are to the covert wending. Resume thy wizard elm! the fountain lending, And the wild breeze, thy wilder minstrelsy; Thy numbers sweet with nature’s vespers blending, With distant […]...
20. Good Friday 2001, Riding North Yellow makes a play for green among The rows of some poor farmer’s field outside The Memphis city limits’ northern edge. A D. J. plays The Day He Wore My Crown, Not knowing it entices into tears This woman never once disposed to travel The holiday before. My children squander Unleavened bread brought forth from […]...
21. The White Birds I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea! We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee; And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky, Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness […]...
22. Came the Great Popinjay CAME the great Popinjay Smelling his nosegay: In cages like grots The birds sang gavottes. ‘Herodiade’s flea Was named sweet Amanda, She danced like a lady From here to Uganda. Oh, what a dance was there! Long-haired, the candle Salome-like tossed her hair To a dance tune by Handel.’ . . . Dance they still? […]...
23. Men Of The High North Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing; Islands of opal float on silver seas; Swift splendors kindle, barbaric, amazing; Pale ports of amber, golden argosies. Ringed all around us the proud peaks are glowing; Fierce chiefs in council, their wigwam the sky; Far, far below us the big Yukon flowing, Like threaded […]...
24. To a Lady on Her Coming to North-America Indulgent muse! my grov’ling mind inspire, And fill my bosom with celestial fire. See from Jamaica’s fervid shore she moves, Like the fair mother of the blooming loves, When from above the Goddess with her hand Fans the soft breeze, and lights upon the land; Thus she on Neptune’s wat’ry realm reclin’d Appear’d, and thus […]...
25. On The Wire O God, take the sun from the sky! It’s burning me, scorching me up. God, can’t You hear my cry? Water! A poor, little cup! It’s laughing, the cursed sun! See how it swells and swells Fierce as a hundred hells! God, will it never have done? It’s searing the flesh on my bones; It’s […]...
26. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
27. Metro North Over the terminal, the arms and chest of the god Brightened by snow. Formerly mercury, formerly silver, Surface yellowed by atmospheric sulphurs acid exhalations, And now the shining thing’s descendant. Obscure passages, Dim apertures: these clouded windows show a few faces Or some empty car’s filmstrip of lit flames remember them From school, how they […]...
28. Sea Change “Goneys an’ gullies an’ all o’ the birds o’ the sea They ain’t no birds, not really”, said Billy the Dane. “Not mollies, nor gullies, nor goneys at all”, said he, “But simply the sperrits of mariners livin’ again. “Them birds goin’ fishin’ is nothin’ but the souls o’ the drowned, Souls o’ the drowned, […]...
29. 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 […]...
30. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
31. Horse Fiddle FIRST I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind. Next I would like to write one for you to sit on a hill and read down the river valley on a late summer afternoon, reading it in less than a whisper to Jack on […]...
32. To a Child of Quality, Five Years Old, 1704. The Author then Forty LORDS, knights, and squires, the numerous band That wear the fair Miss Mary’s fetters, Were summoned by her high command To show their passions by their letters. My pen amongst the rest I took, Lest those bright eyes, that cannot read, Should dart their kindling fire, and look The power they have to be obey’d. […]...
33. 8 Count from my bed I watch 3 birds On a telephone Wire. One flies Off. Then Another. One is left, Then It too Is gone. My typewriter is Tombstone Still. And I am Reduced to bird Watching. Just thought I’d Let you Know, Fucker....
34. The Bight [On my birthday] At low tide like this how sheer the water is. White, crumbling ribs of marl protrude and glare And the boats are dry, the pilings dry as matches. Absorbing, rather than being absorbed, The water in the bight doesn’t wet anything, The color of the gas flame turned as low as possible. […]...
35. Sonnet XL: My Heart the Anvil My heart the anvil where my thoughts do beat; My words the hammers fashioning my desire; My breast the forge including all the heat; Love is the fuel which maintains the fire; My sighs the bellows which the flame increaseth, Filling mine ears with noise and nightly groaning; Toiling with pain, my labor never ceaseth, […]...
36. North Atlantic WHEN the sea is everywhere From horizon to horizon.. when the salt and blue fill a circle of horizons.. I swear again how I know The sea is older than anything else And the sea younger than anything else. My first father was a landsman. My tenth father was a sea-lover, a gipsy sea-boy, a […]...
37. Winter Sleep When against earth a wooden heel Clicks as loud as stone on steel, When stone turns flour instead of flakes, And frost bakes clay as fire bakes, When the hard-bitten fields at last Crack like iron flawed in the cast, When the world is wicked and cross and old, I long to be quit of […]...
38. North and South O sweet are tropic lands for waking dreams! There time and life move lazily along. There by the banks of blue-and-silver streams Grass-sheltered crickets chirp incessant song, Gay-colored lizards loll all through the day, Their tongues outstretched for careless little flies, And swarthy children in the fields at play, Look upward laughing at the smiling […]...
39. Heart O' The North And when I come to the dim trail-end, I who have been Life’s rover, This is all I would ask, my friend, Over and over and over: A little space on a stony hill With never another near me, Sky o’ the North that’s vast and still, With a single star to cheer me; Star […]...
40. To The Man Of The High North My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhyming I’ve drifted, silver-sailed, on seas of dream, Hearing afar the bells of Elfland chiming, Seeing the groves of Arcadie agleam. I was the thrall of Beauty that rejoices From peak snow-diademed to regal star; Yet to mine aerie ever pierced the voices, The pregnant voices of […]...