Adonis
1.
Each of us like you
Has died once,
Has passed through drift of wood-leaves,
Cracked and bent
And tortured and unbent
In the winter-frost,
The burnt into gold points,
Lighted afresh,
Crisp amber, scales of gold-leaf,
Gold turned and re-welded
In the sun;
Each of us like you
Has died once,
Each of us has crossed an old wood-path
And found the winter-leaves
So golden in the sun-fire
That even the live wood-flowers
Were dark.
2.
Not the gold on the temple-front
Where you stand
Is as gold as this,
Not the gold that fastens your sandals,
Nor thee gold reft
Through your chiselled locks,
Is as gold as this last year’s leaf,
Not all the gold hammered and wrought
And beaten
On your lover’s face.
Brow and bare breast
Is as golden as this:
Each of us like you
Has died once,
Each of us like you
Stands apart, like you
Fit to be worshipped.





Related poetry:
- Gold Leaves Lo! I am come to autumn, When all the leaves are gold; Grey hairs and golden leaves cry out The […]...
- Corn Hut Talk WRITE your wishes on the door and come in. Stand outside in the pools of the harvest moon. Bring in […]...
- From Venus and Adonis But, lo! from forth a copse that neighbours by, A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud, Adonis’ trampling courser doth […]...
- Goddess In The Wood, The In a flowered dell the Lady Venus stood, Amazed with sorrow. Down the morning one Far golden horn in the […]...
- Venus and Adonis Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest, From his moist cabinet mounts up on high, And wakes the morning, […]...
- Nothing Gold Can Stay Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. […]...
- The Leaf And The Tree When will you learn, myself, to be A dying leaf on a living tree? Budding, swelling, growing strong, Wearing green, […]...
- Sestina I have come, alas, to the great circle of shadow, To the short day and to the whitening hills, When […]...
- Leaves Compared With Flowers A tree’s leaves may be ever so good, So may its bar, so may its wood; But unless you put […]...
- Choriambics II Here the flame that was ash, shrine that was void, Lost in the haunted wood, I have tended and loved, […]...
- Golden Days Another day of toil and strife, Another page so white, Within that fateful Log of Life That I and all […]...
- Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled […]...
- The Death of the Flowers The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and […]...
- Brooding Grief A yellow leaf from the darkness Hops like a frog before me. Why should I start and stand still? I […]...
- These Green-Going-to-Yellow This year, I’m raising the emotional ante, Putting my face In the leaves to be stepped on, Seeing myself among […]...
- Suggested by the Cover of a Volume of Keats's Poems Wild little bird, who chose thee for a sign To put upon the cover of this book? Who heard thee […]...
- Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. […]...
- The Ungrateful Garden Midas watched the golden crust That formed over his steaming sores, Hugged his agues, loved his lust, But damned to […]...
- Sea Poppies Amber husk Fluted with gold, Fruit on the sand Marked with a rich grain, Treasure Spilled near the shrub-pines To […]...
- My Piney Wood I have a tiny piney wood; My trees are only fifty, Yet give me shade and solitude For they are […]...
- Chorus from Atalanta in Calydon When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces, The mother of months in meadow or […]...
- Good Friday O my chief good, How shall I measure out thy blood? How shall I count what thee befell, And each […]...
- The Eve of Crecy Gold on her head, and gold on her feet, And gold where the hems of her kirtle meet, And a […]...
- The Daughter Of The Year Nature, when she made thee, dear, Begged the treasures of the year. For thy cheeks, all pink and white, Spring […]...
- Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If […]...
- The Woods Entry So old is the wood, so old, Old as Fear. Wrinkled roots; great stems; hushed leaves; No sound near. Shadows […]...
- 321. Song-Craigieburn Wood SWEET closes the ev’ning on Craigieburn Wood, And blythely awaukens the morrow; But the pride o’ the spring in the […]...
- Tampa Robins The robin laughed in the orange-tree: “Ho, windy North, a fig for thee: While breasts are red and wings are […]...
- Twinkletoes When the sun Shines through the leaves of the apple-tree, When the sun Makes shadows of the leaves of the […]...
- A Little Budding Rose It was a little budding rose, Round like a fairy globe, And shyly did its leaves unclose Hid in their […]...
- The Foolish Fir-Tree A tale that the poet Rückert told To German children, in days of old; Disguised in a random, rollicking rhyme […]...
- Sonnet 29 – I think of thee!-my thoughts do twine and bud I think of thee!-my thoughts do twine and bud About thee, as wild vines, about a tree, Put out broad […]...
- Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and […]...
- TO ROBIN RED-BREAST Laid out for dead, let thy last kindness be With leaves and moss-work for to cover me; And while the […]...
- United Front Song And because a man is human He’ll want to eat, and thanks a lot But talk can’t take the place […]...
- Face To Face Day after day, O lord of my life, Shall I stand before thee face to face. With folded hands, O […]...
- Flowers in Winter How strange to greet, this frosty morn, In graceful counterfeit of flower, These children of the meadows, born Of sunshine […]...
- If It Is True What the Prophets Write If it is true, what the Prophets write, That the heathen gods are all stocks and stones, Shall we, for […]...
- There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a Temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to […]...
- On Going Unnoticed As vain to raise a voice as a sigh In the tumult of free leaves on high. What are you […]...