We learn it in Retreating

Related poetry:

1. To learn the Transport by the Pain To learn the Transport by the Pain As Blind Men learn the sun! To die of thirst suspecting That Brooks in Meadows run! To stay the homesick homesick feet Upon a foreign shore Haunted by native lands, the while And blue beloved air! This is the Sovereign Anguish! This the signal woe! These are the […]...
2. Escaping backward to perceive Escaping backward to perceive The Sea upon our place Escaping forward, to confront His glittering Embrace Retreating up, a Billow’s height Retreating blinded down Our undermining feet to meet Instructs to the Divine....
3. Learn To Like School yourself to savour most Joys that have but little cost; Prove the best of life is free, Sun and stars and sky and sea; Eager in your eyes to please, Proffer meadows, brooks and trees; Nature strives for your content, Never charging you a cent. Learn to love a garden gay, Flowers and fruit […]...
4. What Man May Learn, What Man May Do WHAT man may learn, what man may do, Of right or wrong of false or true, While, skipper-like, his course he steers Through nine and twenty mingled years, Half misconceived and half forgot, So much I know and practise not. Old are the words of wisdom, old The counsels of the wise and bold: To […]...
5. If I Should Learn, In Some Quite Casual Way IF I should learn, in some quite casual way, That you were gone, not to return again – Read from the back-page of a paper, say, Held by a neighbor in a subway train, How at the corner of this avenue And such a street (so are the papers filled) A hurrying man-who happened to […]...
6. When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; […]...
7. A Door just opened on a street A Door just opened on a street I lost was passing by An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed And Wealth and Company. The Door as instant shut And I I lost was passing by Lost doubly but by contrast most Informing misery...
8. Retreating Wind When I made you, I loved you. Now I pity you. I gave you all you needed: Bed of earth, blanket of blue air As I get further away from you I see you more clearly. Your souls should have been immense by now, Not what they are, Small talking things I gave you every […]...
9. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
10. Some say goodnight at night Some say goodnight at night I say goodnight by day Good-bye the Going utter me Goodnight, I still reply For parting, that is night, And presence, simply dawn Itself, the purple on the height Denominated morn....
11. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
12. Theme For English B The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here To this college on the hill above Harlem. I am […]...
13. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
14. Memory SO shuts the marigold her leaves At the departure of the sun; So from the honeysuckle sheaves The bee goes when the day is done; So sits the turtle when she is but one, And so all woe, as I since she is gone. To some few birds kind Nature hath Made all the summer […]...
15. On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour Give me a golden pen, and let me lean On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far; Bring me a tablet whiter than a star, Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen The silver strings of heavenly harp atween: And let there glide by many a pearly car Pink robes, and wavy hair, and […]...
16. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
17. The Gentian has a parched Corolla The Gentian has a parched Corolla Like azure dried ‘Tis Nature’s buoyant juices Beatified Without a vaunt or sheen As casual as Rain And as benign When most is part it comes Nor isolate it seems Its Bond its Friend To fill its Fringed career And aid an aged Year Abundant end Its lot were […]...
18. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
19. Poem (Faithful to your commands, o consciousness) Poem Faithful to your commands, o consciousness, o Beating wings, I studied The roses and the muses of reality, The deceptions and the deceptive elation of the redness of the growing morning, And all the greened and thomed variety of the vines of error, which begin by promising Everything and more than everything, and then […]...
20. Variation On A Theme By Rilke A certain day became a presence to me; There it was, confronting me a sky, air, light: A being. And before it started to descend From the height of noon, it leaned over And struck my shoulder as if with The flat of a sword, granting me Honor and a task. The day’s blow Rang […]...
21. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
22. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
23. The Soul that hath a Guest The Soul that hath a Guest Doth seldom go abroad Diviner Crowd at Home Obliterate the need And Courtesy forbid A Host’s departure when Upon Himself be visiting The Emperor of Men...
24. My young son asks me My young son asks me: Must I learn mathematics? What is the use, I feel like saying. That two pieces Of bread are more than one’s about all you’ll end up with. My young son asks me: Must I learn French? What is the use, I feel like saying. This State’s collapsing. And if you […]...
25. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
26. 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 […]...
27. At Cheyenne Young Lochinvar came in from the West, With fringe on his trousers and fur on his vest; The width of his hat-brim could nowhere be beat, His No. Brogans were chuck full of feet, His girdle was horrent with pistols and things, And he flourished a handful of aces on kings. The fair Mariana sate […]...
28. The Missing All prevented Me The Missing All prevented Me From missing minor Things. If nothing larger than a World’s Departure from a Hinge Or Sun’s extinction, be observed ‘Twas not so large that I Could lift my Forehead from my work For Curiosity....
29. A Mien to move a Queen A Mien to move a Queen Half Child Half Heroine An Orleans in the Eye That puts its manner by For humbler Company When none are near Even a Tear Its frequent Visitor A Bonnet like a Duke And yet a Wren’s Peruke Were not so shy Of Goer by And Hands so slight They […]...
30. Ah, Teneriffe! Ah, Teneriffe! Retreating Mountain! Purples of Ages pause for you Sunset reviews her Sapphire Regiment Day drops you her Red Adieu! Still Clad in your Mail of ices Thigh of Granite and thew of Steel Heedless alike of pomp or parting Ah, Teneriffe! I’m kneeling still...
31. Sweet is the swamp with its secrets Sweet is the swamp with its secrets, Until we meet a snake; ‘Tis then we sigh for houses, And our departure take At that enthralling gallop That only childhood knows. A snake is summer’s treason, And guile is where it goes....
32. Were natural mortal lady Were natural mortal lady Who had so little time To pack her trunk and order The great exchange of clime How rapid, how momentous What exigencies were But nature will be ready And have an hour to spare. To make some trifle fairer That was too fair before Enchanting by remaining, And by departure more....
33. I should have been too glad, I see I should have been too glad, I see Too lifted for the scant degree Of Life’s penurious Round My little Circuit would have shamed This new Circumference have blamed The homelier time behind. I should have been too saved I see Too rescued Fear too dim to me That I could spell the Prayer I […]...
34. Golden Days Another day of toil and strife, Another page so white, Within that fateful Log of Life That I and all must write; Another page without a stain To make of as I may, That done, I shall not see again Until the Judgment Day. Ah, could I, could I backward turn The pages of that […]...
35. Hail, Guest, And Enter Freely! HAIL, guest, and enter freely! All you see Is, for your momentary visit, yours; and we Who welcome you are but the guests of God, And know not our departure....
36. Hymn to the Night I heard the trailing garments of the Night Sweep through her marble halls! I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light From the celestial walls! I felt her presence, by its spell of might, Stoop o’er me from above; The calm, majestic presence of the Night, As of the one I love. I heard […]...
37. To The Students Of The Workers' And Peasants' Faculty So there you sit. And how much blood was shed That you might sit there. Do such stories bore you? Well, don’t forget that others sat before you Who later sat on people. Keep your head! Your science will be valueless, you’ll find And learning will be sterile, if inviting Unless you pledge your intellect […]...
38. Horses and Men in Rain LET us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter’s day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window, And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys. Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches-and talk about mail carriers and messenger boys slipping along the icy sidewalks. […]...
39. Mother, Among The Dustbins Mother, among the dustbins and the manure I feel the measure of my humanity, an allure As of the presence of God, I am sure In the dustbins, in the manure, in the cat at play, Is the presence of God, in a sure way He moves there. Mother, what do you say? I too […]...
40. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...