Answered Prayers

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1. Several Questions Answered What is it men in women do require? The lineaments of Gratified Desire. What is it women do in men require? The lineaments of Gratified Desire. The look of love alarms Because ’tis fill’d with fire; But the look of soft deceit Shall Win the lover’s hire. Soft Deceit & Idleness, These are Beauty’s sweetest […]...
2. Prayers After World War WANDERING oversea dreamer, Hunting and hoarse, Oh daughter and mother, Oh daughter of ashes and mother of blood, Child of the hair let down, and tears, Child of the cross in the south And the star in the north, Keeper of Egypt and Russia and France, Keeper of England and Poland and Spain, Make us […]...
3. The Great Fires Love is apart from all things. Desire and excitement are nothing beside it. It is not the body that finds love. What leads us there is the body. What is not love provokes it. What is not love quenches it. Love lays hold of everything we know. The passions which are called love Also change […]...
4. After Prayers, Lie Cold Arise my body, my small body, we have striven Enough, and He is merciful; we are forgiven. Arise small body, puppet-like and pale, and go, White as the bed-clothes into bed, and cold as snow, Undress with small, cold fingers and put out the light, And be alone, hush’d mortal, in the sacred night, -A […]...
5. Answered Good-bye – Yes, I am going, Sudden? Well, you are right. But a startling truth came home to me With sudden force last night. What is it? shall I tell you? – Nay, that is why I go. I am running away from the battlefield, Turning my back on the foe. Riddles? You think me […]...
6. Ave Maria Gratia Plena Was this His coming! I had hoped to see A scene of wondrous glory, as was told Of some great God who in a rain of gold Broke open bars and fell on Danae: Or a dread vision as when Semele Sickening for love and unappeased desire Prayed to see God’s clear body, and the […]...
7. Northern Pike All right. Try this, Then. Every body I know and care for, And every body Else is going To die in a loneliness I can’t imagine and a pain I don’t know. We had To go on living. We Untangled the net, we slit The body of this fish Open from the hinge of the […]...
8. The Witch I HAVE walked a great while over the snow, And I am not tall nor strong. My clothes are wet, and my teeth are set, And the way was hard and long. I have wandered over the fruitful earth, But I never came here before. Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in […]...
9. Room 4: The Painter Chap He gives me such a bold and curious look, That young American across the way, As if he’d like to put me in a book (Fancies himself a poet, so they say.) Ah well! He’ll make no “document” of me. I lock my door. Ha! ha! Now none shall see. . . . Pictures, just […]...
10. Virgin Youth Now and again All my body springs alive, And the life that is polarised in my eyes, That quivers between my eyes and mouth, Flies like a wild thing across my body, Leaving my eyes half-empty, and clamorous, Filling my still breasts with a flush and a flame, Gathering the soft ripples below my breast […]...
11. Emily Sparks Where is my boy, my boy In what far part of the world? The boy I loved best of all in the school? I, the teacher, the old maid, the virgin heart, Who made them all my children. Did I know my boy aright, Thinking of him as a spirit aflame, Active, ever aspiring? Oh, […]...
12. Prayers of Steel LAY me on an anvil, O God. Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar. Let me pry loose old walls. Let me lift and loosen old foundations. Lay me on an anvil, O God. Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike. Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together. Take […]...
13. A Portrait in Georgia Hair-braided chestnut, Coiled like a lyncher’s rope, Eyes-fagots, Lips-old scars, or the first red blisters, Breath-the last sweet scent of cane, And her slim body, white as the ash Of black flesh after flame....
14. My prayers must meet a brazen heaven My prayers must meet a brazen heaven And fail and scatter all away. Unclean and seeming unforgiven My prayers I scarcely call to pray. I cannot buoy my heart above; Above I cannot entrance win. I reckon precedents of love, But feel the long success of sin. My heaven is brass and iron my earth: […]...
15. For You THE PEACE of great doors be for you. Wait at the knobs, at the panel oblongs. Wait for the great hinges. The peace of great churches be for you, Where the players of loft pipe organs Practice old lovely fragments, alone. The peace of great books be for you, Stains of pressed clover leaves on […]...
16. The Breaking Point It was not when temptation came, Swiftly and blastingly as flame, And seared me white with burning scars; When I stood up for age-long wars And held the very Fiend at grips; When all my mutinous body rose To range itself beside my foes, And, like a greyhound in the slips, The Beast that dwells […]...
17. Fire-Caught The gold moth did not love him So, gorgeous, she flew away. But the gray moth circled the flame Until the break of day. And then, with wings like a dead desire, She fell, fire-caught, into the flame....
18. 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, […]...
19. Nothing is enough! No, though our all be spent Heart’s extremest love, Spirit’s whole intent, All that nerve can feel, All that brain invent, Still beyond appeal Will Divine Desire Yet more excellent Precious cost require Of this mortal stuff, Never be content Till ourselves be fire. Nothing is enough!...
20. I Love You I love your lips when they’re wet with wine And red with a wild desire; I love your eyes when the lovelight lies Lit with a passionate fire. I love your arms when the warm white flesh Touches mine in a fond embrace; I love your hair when the strands enmesh Your kisses against my […]...
21. The Furious Gun The furious gun in his raging ire, When that the bowl is rammed in too sore And that the flame cannot part from the fire, Cracketh in sunder, and in the air doth roar The shivered pieces; right so doth my desire, Whose flame increaseth from more to more, Which to let out I dare […]...
22. Life's Scars They say the world is round, and yet I often think it square, So many little hurts we get From corners here and there. But one great truth in life I’ve found, While journeying to the West- The only folks who really wound Are those we love the best. The man you thoroughly despise Can […]...
23. Sonnet CLIV The little Love-god lying once asleep Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, Whilst many nymphs that vow’d chaste life to keep Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand The fairest votary took up that fire Which many legions of true hearts had warm’d; And so the general of hot desire Was sleeping by […]...
24. Sonnet 154: The little Love-god lying once asleep The little love god lying once asleep Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand, The fairest votary took up that fire Which many legions of true hearts had warmed, And so the general of hot desire Was sleeping […]...
25. Love and Sleep Lying asleep between the strokes of night I saw my love lean over my sad bed, Pale as the duskiest lily’s leaf or head, Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite, Too wan for blushing and too warm for white, But perfect-colored without white or red. And her lips opened amorously, and said […]...
26. If you refuse me once, and think again If you refuse me once, and think again, I will complain. You are deceiv’d, love is no work of art, It must be got and born, Not made and worn, By every one that hath a heart. Or do you think they more than once can die, Whom you deny? Who tell you of a […]...
27. Communism When my blood flows calm as a purling river, When my heart is asleep and my brain has sway, It is then that I vow we must part for ever, That I will forget you, and put you away Out of my life, as a dream is banished Out of the mind when the dreamer […]...
28. Poor Devil! Well, I was tired of life; the silly folk, The tiresome noises, all the common things I loved once, crushed me with an iron yoke. I longed for the cool quiet and the dark, Under the common sod where louts and kings Lie down, serene, unheeding, careless, stark, Never to rise or move or feel […]...
29. Ice and Fire My love is like to ice, and I to fire: How comes it then that this her cold so great Is not dissolved through my so hot desire, But harder grows the more I her entreat? Or how comes it that my exceeding heat Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold, But that I burn […]...
30. The Sun Says His Prayers “The sun says his prayers,” said the fairy, Or else he would wither and die. “The sun says his prayers,” said the fairy, “For strength to climb up through the sky. He leans on invisible angels, And Faith is his prop and his rod. The sky is his crystal cathedral. And dawn is his altar […]...
31. The City's Love For one brief golden moment rare like wine, The gracious city swept across the line; Oblivious of the color of my skin, Forgetting that I was an alien guest, She bent to me, my hostile heart to win, Caught me in passion to her pillowy breast; The great, proud city, seized with a strange love, […]...
32. Psalm 120 Complaint of quarrelsome neighbors; or, A devout wish for peace. Thou God of love, thou ever-blest, Pity my suff’ring state; When wilt thou set my soul at rest From lips that love deceit? Hard lot of mine! my days are cast Among the sons of strife, Whose never-ceasing brawling waste My golden hours of life. […]...
33. Sonnet XXX: Those Priests To the Vestals Those priests which first the Vestal fire begun, Which might be borrow’d from no earthly flame, Devis’d a vessel to receive the Sun, Being steadfastly opposed to the same; Where, with sweet wood, laid curiously by art, On which the Sun might by reflection beat, Receiving strength from every secret part, The […]...
34. The Lute And The Lyre Deep desire, that pierces heart and spirit to the root, Finds reluctant voice in verse that yearns like soaring fire, Takes exultant voice when music holds in high pursuit Deep desire. Keen as burns the passion of the rose whose buds respire, Strong as grows the yearning of the blossom toward the fruit, Sounds the […]...
35. Sonnet 30 (Fire And Ice) My love is like to ice, and I to fire: How comes it then that this her cold so great Is not dissolv’d through my so hot desire, But harder grows, the more I her entreat? Or how comes it that my exceeding heat Is not delayed by her heart frozen cold, But that I […]...
36. Time's Revenges I’ve a Friend, over the sea; I like him, but he loves me. It all grew out of the books I write; They find such favour in his sight That he slaughters you with savage looks Because you don’t admire my books. He does himself though, – and if some vein Were to snap to-night […]...
37. Turns And Movies: Violet Moore And Bert Moore He thinks her little feet should pass Where dandelions star thickly grass; Her hands should lift in sunlit air Sea-wind should tangle up her hair. Green leaves, he says, have never heard A sweeter ragtime mockingbird, Nor has the moon-man ever seen, Or man in the spotlight, leering green, Such a beguiling, smiling queen. Her […]...
38. Love (II) Immortal Heat, O let thy greater flame Attract the lesser to it: let those fires Which shall consume the world, first make it tame, And kindle in our hearts such true desires, As may consume our lusts, and make thee way. Then shall our hearts pant thee; then shall our brain All her invention on […]...
39. Song: Eternity of Love Protested How ill doth he deserve a lover’s name, Whose pale weak flame Cannot retain His heat, in spite of absence or disdain; But doth at once, like paper set on fire, Burn and expire; True love can never change his seat, Nor did her ever love, that could retreat. That noble flame which my breast […]...
40. A Fragment of Seneca Translated After Death nothing is, and nothing, death, The utmost limit of a gasp of breath. Let the ambitious zealot lay aside His hopes of heaven, whose faith is but his pride; Let slavish souls lay by their fear Nor be concerned which way nor where After this life they shall be hurled. Dead, we become […]...