At an Old Drawer

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1. My Vision Wherever my feet may wander Wherever I chance to be, There comes, with the coming of even’ time A vision sweet to me. I see my mother sitting In the old familiar place, And she rocks to the tune her needles sing, And thinks of an absent face. I can hear the roar of the […]...
2. Bridal Ballad The ring is on my hand, And the wreath is on my brow; Satin and jewels grand Are all at my command, And I am happy now. And my lord he loves me well; But, when first he breathed his vow, I felt my bosom swell – For the words rang as a knell, And […]...
3. Pearl Fog Open the door now. Go roll up the collar of your coat To walk in the changing scarf of mist. Tell your sins here to the pearl fog And know for once a deepening night Strange as the half-meanings Alurk in a wise woman’s mousey eyes. Yes, tell your sins And know how careless a […]...
4. Said The Poet To The Analyst My business is words. Words are like labels, Or coins, or better, like swarming bees. I confess I am only broken by the sources of things; As if words were counted like dead bees in the attic, Unbuckled from their yellow eyes and their dry wings. I must always forget who one words is able […]...
5. Going Away Walking to-day on the Common, I heard a stranger say To a friend who was standing near him, ‘Do you know I am going away? ‘ I had never seen their faces, May never see them again; Yet the words the stranger uttered, Stirred me with nameless pain. For I knew some heart would miss […]...
6. The Dons of Spain The Eagle screams at the beck of trade, so Spain, as the world goes round, Must wrestle the right to live or die from the sons of the land she found; For, as in the days when the buccaneer was abroad on the Spanish Main, The national honour is one thing dear to the hearts […]...
7. Be Not Weary Sometimes, when I am toil-worn and aweary, And tired out with working long and well, And earth is dark, and skies above are dreary, And heart and soul are all too sick to tell, These words have come to me like angel fingers Pressing the spirit’s eyelids down in sleep, ‘Oh let us not be […]...
8. Good-bye The last of last words spoken is, Good-bye – The last dismantled flower in the weed-grown hedge, The last thin rumour of a feeble bell far ringing, The last blind rat to spurn the mildewed rye. A hardening darkness glasses the haunted eye, Shines into nothing the watcher’s burnt-out candle, Wreathes into scentless nothing the […]...
9. "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 […]...
10. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
11. Oft, in the Stilly Night Oft, in the stilly night, Ere slumber’s chain has bound me, Fond memory brings the light Of other days around me; The smiles, the tears, Of boyhood’s years, The words of love then spoken; The eyes that shone, Now dimm’d and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken! Thus, in the stilly night, Ere slumber’s chain […]...
12. The Light of Other Days OFT, in the stilly night, Ere slumber’s chain has bound me, Fond Memory brings the light Of other days around me: The smiles, the tears Of boyhood’s years, The words of love then spoken; The eyes that shone, Now dimm’d and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken! Thus, in the stilly night, Ere slumber’s chain […]...
13. The City of Perth Beautiful Ancient City of Perth, One of the fairest on the earth, With your stately mansions and scenery most fine, Which seems very beautiful in the summer time; And the beautiful silvery Tay, Rolling smoothly on its way, And glittering like silver in the sunshine – And the Railway Bridge across it is really sublime. […]...
14. Talisman it is written The act of writing is Holy words are Sacred and your breath Brings out the God in them I write these words Quickly repeat them Softly to myself This talisman for you Fold this prayer Around your neck fortify Your back with these Whispers May you walk ever Loved and in love […]...
15. Anna Dalassené In the golden bull that Alexios Comnenos issued To prominently honor his mother, The very sagacious Lady Anna Dalassené- Distinguished in her works, in her ways- There are many words of praise: Here let us convey of them A beautiful, noble phrase “Those cold words ‘mine’ or ‘yours’ were never spoken.”...
16. The Line-Gang Here come the line-gang pioneering by, They throw a forest down less cut than broken. They plant dead trees for living, and the dead They string together with a living thread. They string an instrument against the sky Wherein words whether beaten out or spoken Will run as hushed as when they were a thought […]...
17. Soldier Boy My soldier boy has crossed the sea To fight the foeman; But he’ll come back to make of me And honest woman. So I am singing all day long, Despite blood-shedding; For though I know he’s done me wrong, We’ll end by wedding. My soldier boy is home again, So bold and scathless; But oh, […]...
18. Song of Hope O sweet To-morrow! – After to-day There will away This sense of sorrow. Then let us borrow Hope, for a gleaming Soon will be streaming, Dimmed by no gray – No gray! While the winds wing us Sighs from The Gone, Nearer to dawn Minute-beats bring us; When there will sing us Larks of a […]...
19. Shells from the Coast mistaking Shells from the Coast mistaking I cherished them for All Happening in After Ages To entertain a Pearl Wherefore so late I murmured My need of Thee be done Therefore the Pearl responded My Period begin...
20. To lose thee sweeter than to gain To lose thee sweeter than to gain All other hearts I knew. ‘Tis true the drought is destitute, But then, I had the dew! The Caspian has its realms of sand, Its other realm of sea. Without the sterile perquisite, No Caspian could be....
21. Questions From A Worker Who Reads Who built Thebes of the seven gates? In the books you will find the names of kings. Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock? And Babylon, many times demolished Who raised it up so many times? In what houses Of gold-glittering Lima did the builders live? Where, the evening that the Wall of […]...
22. Mowing There was never a sound beside the wood but one, And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground. What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself; Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun, Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound And that was why it whispered and did […]...
23. Dream Variations To fling my arms wide In some place of the sun, To whirl and to dance Till the white day is done. Then rest at cool evening Beneath a tall tree While night comes on gently, Dark like me- That is my dream! To fling my arms wide In the face of the sun, Dance! […]...
24. Hymn to Love We are thine, O Love, being in thee and made of thee, As théou, Léove, were the déep thought And we the speech of the thought; yea, spoken are we, Thy fires of thought out-spoken: But burn’d not through us thy imagining Like fiérce méood in a séong céaught, We were as clamour’d words a […]...
25. Elegy Let them bury your big eyes In the secret earth securely, Your thin fingers, and your fair, Soft, indefinite-colored hair,- All of these in some way, surely, From the secret earth shall rise; Not for these I sit and stare, Broken and bereft completely; Your young flesh that sat so neatly On your little bones […]...
26. Coal I Is the total black, being spoken From the earth’s inside. There are many kinds of open How a diamond comes into a knot of flame How sound comes into a words, coloured By who pays what for speaking. Some words are open like a diamond On glass windows Singing out within the crash of […]...
27. Lips and Eyes IN Celia’s face a question did arise, Which were more beautiful, her lips or eyes? ” We,” said the eyes, “send forth those pointed darts Which pierce the hardest adamantine hearts.” ” From us,” repli’d the lips, “proceed those blisses Which lovers reap by kind words and sweet kisses.” Then wept the eyes, and from […]...
28. Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride? Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my […]...
29. 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 […]...
30. The Things We Dare Not Tell The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun’s still shining there, But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear; Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we’re doing well, But we break our hearts, oh, we break our hearts! for the […]...
31. A St. Valentine's Day Tragedy Oh! Montmorency Vere de Vere, To think that one I held so dear Should use a base deceiver’s art To trifle with my loving heart. A brand new ten-cent valentine With lace and hearts and verses fine, I sent to show my love for thee And in return you send to me The one I […]...
32. It Is Not A Word It is not a word spoken, Few words are said; Nor even a look of the eyes Nor a bend of the head, But only a hush of the heart That has too much to keep, Only memories waking That sleep so light a sleep....
33. Independence Ode Columbia, fair queen in your glory! Columbia, the pride of the earth! We crown you with song – wreath and story; We honour the day of your birth! The wrath of a king and his minions You braved, to be free, on that day; And the eagle sailed up on strong pinions, And frightened the […]...
34. The Scribe What lovely things Thy hand hath made: The smooth-plumed bird In its emerald shade, The seed of the grass, The speck of the stone Which the wayfaring ant Stirs and hastes on! Though I should sit By some tarn in thy hills, Using its ink As the spirit wills To write of Earth’s wonders, Its […]...
35. Sympathy My Muse is simple, yet it’s nice To think you don’t need to think twice On words I write. I reckon I’ve a common touch And if you say I cuss too much I answer: ‘Quite!’ I envy not the poet’s lot; He has something I haven’t got, Alas, I know. But I have something […]...
36. An Expostulation to Lord King How can you, my Lord, thus delight to torment all The Peers of realm about cheapening their corn, When you know, if one hasn’t a very high rental, ‘Tis hardly worth while being very high born? Why bore them so rudely, each night of your life, On a question, my Lord, there’s so much to […]...
37. Blood Oranges In 1936, a child In Hitler’s Germany, What did I know about the war in Spain? Andalusia was a tango On a wind-up gramophone, Franco a hero’s face in the paper. No one told me about a poet For whose sake I might have learned Spanish Bleeding to death on a barren hill. All I […]...
38. Out of ideas If I don’t write something good tonight I will sleep Without the comforting Canopus of deep believers, If I sleep at all, and this light which ignites My enormous poetic conceit and guides my muse Will suffer and die, my hands be stilled. Tomorrow I might read these words and endure The bite of astral […]...
39. She Tells Her Love She tells her love while half asleep, In the dark hours, With half-words whispered low: As Earth stirs in her winter sleep And put out grass and flowers Despite the snow, Despite the falling snow....
40. Now At Liberty Little white love, your way you’ve taken; Now I am left alone, alone. Little white love, my heart’s forsaken. (Whom shall I get by telephone?) Well do I know there’s no returning; Once you go out, it’s done, it’s done. All of my days are gray with yearning. (Nevertheless, a girl needs fun.) Little white […]...