Futurity

Related poetry:

1. The Meaning Of The Look I think that look of Christ might seem to say ‘Thou Peter! art thou then a common stone Which I at last must break my heart upon For all God’s charge to his high angels may Guard my foot better? Did I yesterday Wash thy feet, my beloved, that they should run Quick to deny […]...
2. A Song at Cock-Crow The first time that Peter denied his Lord He shrank from the cudgel, the scourge and the cord, But followed far off to see what they would do, Till the cock crew till the cock crew After Gethsemane, till the cock crew! The first time that Peter denied his Lord ‘Twas only a maid in […]...
3. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
4. Nymphs Where are ye now, O beautiful girls of the mountain, Oreads all? Nothing at all stirs here save the drip of the fountain; Answers our call Only the heart-glad thrush, in the Vale of Thrushes; Stirs in the brake But the dew-bright ear of the hare in his couch of rushes Listening, awake....
5. By the Spring, at Sunset Sometimes we remember kisses, Remember the dear heart-leap when they came: Not always, but sometimes we remember The kindness, the dumbness, the good flame Of laughter and farewell. Beside the road Afar from those who said “Good-by” I write, Far from my city task, my lawful load. Sun in my face, wind beside my shoulder, […]...
6. Small Is The Trust When Love Is Green SMALL is the trust when love is green In sap of early years; A little thing steps in between And kisses turn to tears. Awhile – and see how love be grown In loveliness and power! Awhile, it loves the sweets alone, But next it loves the sour. A little love is none at all […]...
7. Dream Song 90: Op. posth. no. 13 In the night-reaches dreamed he of better graces, Of liberations, and beloved faces, Such as now ere dawn he sings. It would not be easy, accustomed to these things, To give up the old world, but he could try; Let it all rest, have a good cry. Let Randall rest, whom your self-torturing Cannot restore […]...
8. In The Green And Gallant Spring IN the green and gallant Spring, Love and the lyre I thought to sing, And kisses sweet to give and take By the flowery hawthorn brake. Now is russet Autumn here, Death and the grave and winter drear, And I must ponder here aloof While the rain is on the roof....
9. Come In As I came to the edge of the woods, Thrush music hark! Now if it was dusk outside, Inside it was dark. Too dark in the woods for a bird By sleight of wing To better its perch for the night, Though it still could sing. The last of the light of the sun That […]...
10. The Life of Love XVI Spring Come, my beloved; let us walk amidst the knolls, For the snow is water, and Life is alive from its Slumber and is roaming the hills and valleys. Let us follow the footprints of Spring into the Distant fields, and mount the hilltops to draw Inspiration high above the cool green plains. Dawn of […]...
11. The Sunset Years of Samuel Shy Master I may be, But not of my fate. Now come the kisses, too many too late. Tell me, O Parcae, For fain would I know, Where were these kisses three decades ago? Girls there were plenty, Mint julep girls, beer girls, Gay younger married and headstrong career girls, The girls of my friends And […]...
12. Kin BROTHER, I am fire Surging under the ocean floor. I shall never meet you, brother Not for years, anyhow; Maybe thousands of years, brother. Then I will warm you, Hold you close, wrap you in circles, Use you and change you Maybe thousands of years, brother. Where the moon slants and wavers....
13. Withered Grave Forever yours My dearly beloved one Carved in stone, many years ago. Underneath those loving words, a resting body Far too young, left by it’s soul. A few lonely flowers come back every year, But it’s apparent, no living soul is tending here. From the date, by now, forever must also be gone. But where […]...
14. Chorus of Eden Spirits HEARKEN, oh hearken! let your souls behind you Turn, gently moved! Our voices feel along the Dread to find you, O lost, beloved! Through the thick-shielded and strong-marshalled angels, They press and pierce: Our requiems follow fast on our evangels,- Voice throbs in verse. We are but orphaned spirits left in Eden A time ago: […]...
15. 451. Epitaph on the same HERE lies, now a prey to insulting neglect, What once was a butterfly, gay in life’s beam: Want only of wisdom denied her respect, Want only of goodness denied her esteem....
16. The Mother Here I lean over you, small son, sleeping Warm in my arms, And I con to my heart all your dew-fresh charms, As you lie close, close in my hungry hold. . . Your hair like a miser’s dream of gold, And the white rose of your face far fairer, Finer, and rarer Than all […]...
17. Air Of Diabelli's CALL it to mind, O my love. Dear were your eyes as the day, Bright as the day and the sky; Like the stream of gold and the sky above, Dear were your eyes in the grey. We have lived, my love, O, we have lived, my love! Now along the silent river, azure Through […]...
18. The Reformers 1901 Not in the camp his victory lies Or triumph in the market-place, Who is his Nation’s sacrifice To turn the judgement from his race. Happy is he who, bred and taught By sleek, sufficing Circumstance Whose Gospel was the apparelled thought, Whose Gods were Luxury and Chance Seese, on the threshold of his days, […]...
19. The Red Son I LOVE your faces I saw the many years I drank your milk and filled my mouth With your home talk, slept in your house And was one of you. But a fire burns in my heart. Under the ribs where pulses thud And flitting between bones of skull Is the push, the endless mysterious […]...
20. Discordants I. (Bread and Music) Music I heard with you was more than music, And bread I broke with you was more than bread; Now that I am without you, all is desolate; All that was once so beautiful is dead. Your hands once touched this table and this silver, And I have seen your fingers […]...
21. 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 […]...
22. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
23. THE GHOST SOFTLY as brown-eyed Angels rove I will return to thy alcove, And glide upon the night to thee, Treading the shadows silently. And I will give to thee, my own, Kisses as icy as the moon, And the caresses of a snake Cold gliding in the thorny brake. And when returns the livid morn Thou […]...
24. A Precise Woman A precise woman with a short haircut brings order To my thoughts and my dresser drawers, Moves feelings around like furniture Into a new arrangement. A woman whose body is cinched at the waist and firmly divided Into upper and lower, With weather-forecast eyes Of shatterproof glass. Even her cries of passion follow a certain […]...
25. From the Bush The Channel fog has lifted – And see where we have come! Round all the world we’ve drifted, A hundred years from “home”. The fields our parents longed for – Ah! we shall ne’er know how – The wealth that they were wronged for We’ll see as strangers now! The Dover cliffs have passed on […]...
26. The Floods The rain it rains without a stay In the hills above us, in the hills; And presently the floods break way Whose strength is in the hills. The trees they suck from every cloud, The valley brooks they roar aloud Bank-high for the lowlands, lowlands, Lowlands under the hills! The first wood down is sere […]...
27. Exaggeration WE overstate the ills of life, and take Imagination (given us to bring down The choirs of singing angels overshone By God’s clear glory) down our earth to rake The dismal snows instead, flake following flake, To cover all the corn; we walk upon The shadow of hills across a level thrown, And pant like […]...
28. The Indian Serenade I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low, And the stars are shining bright. I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet Has led me – who knows how? To thy chamber-window, Sweet! The wandering airs they faint On the […]...
29. I Arise From Dreams Of Thee I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low, And the stars are shining bright I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet Has led me who knows how? To thy chamber-window, sweet! The wandering airs they faint On the dark, […]...
30. MY PERFECT ROSE At ten she came to me, three years ago, There was ‘something between us’ even then; Watching her write like Eliot every day, Turn prose into haiku in ten minutes flat, Write a poem in Greek three weeks from learning the alphabet; Then translate it as ‘Sun on a tomb, gold place, small sacred horse’. […]...
31. A Few Rules for Beginners Babies must not eat the coal And they must not make grimaces, Nor in party dresses roll And must never black their faces. They must learn that pointing’s rude, They must sit quite still at table, And must always eat the food Put before them if they’re able. If they fall, they must not cry, […]...
32. Population Drifts NEW-MOWN hay smell and wind of the plain made her A woman whose ribs had the power of the hills in Them and her hands were tough for work and there Was passion for life in her womb. She and her man crossed the ocean and the years that Marked their faces saw them haggling […]...
33. Child Margaret THE CHILD Margaret begins to write numbers on a Saturday morning, the first numbers formed under her wishing child fingers. All the numbers come well-born, shaped in figures assertive for a frieze in a child’s room. Both 1 and 7 are straightforward, military, filled with lunge and attack, erect in shoulder-straps. The 6 and 9 […]...
34. Do you know who is thinking of you? If you start out every day in the same old gloomy way It’s little wonder what other people think of you, but The ones who matter most are the ones who hold you close In their hearts, who’re always thinking of you; Do you know, do you know, Do you know who is thinking of […]...
35. Daybreak In Alabama When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent […]...
36. Faith HERE where the loves of others close The vision of my heart begins. The wisdom that within us grows Is absolution for our sins. We took forbidden fruit and ate Far in the garden of His mind. The ancient prophecies of hate We proved untrue, for He was kind. He does not love the bended […]...
37. Love came back at Fall o’ Dew Love came back at fall o’ dew, Playing his old part; But I had a word or two That would break his heart. “He who comes at candlelight, That should come before, Must betake him to the night From a barred door.” This the word that made us part In the fall o’ dew; This […]...
38. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
39. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
40. Plea Secrets, you said, would hold us two apart; You’d have me know of you your least transgression, And so the intimate places of your heart, Kneeling, you bared to me, as in confession. Softly you told of loves that went before- Of clinging arms, of kisses gladly given; Luxuriously clean of heart once more, You […]...