The Surprise

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1. It did not surprise me It did not surprise me So I said or thought She will stir her pinions And the nest forgot, Traverse broader forests Build in gayer boughs, Breathe in Ear more modern God’s old fashioned vows This was but a Birdling What and if it be One within my bosom Had departed me? This was but […]...
2. The Rebel Surprise Near Tamai ‘Twas on the 22nd of March, in the year 1885, That the Arabs rushed like a mountain torrent in full drive, And quickly attacked General M’Neill’s transport-zereba, But in a short time they were forced to withdraw. And in the suddenness of surprise the men were carried away, Also camels, mules, and horses were thrown […]...
3. Surprise My heart went fluttering with fear Lest you should go, and leave me here To beat my breast and rock my head And stretch me sleepless on my bed. Ah, clear they see and true they say That one shall weep, and one shall stray For such is Love’s unvarying law…. I never thought, I […]...
4. Apparently with no surprise Apparently with no surprise To any happy Flower The Frost beheads it at its play In accidental power The blonde Assassin passes on The Sun proceeds unmoved To measure off another Day For an Approving God....
5. Lottery Ticket ‘A ticket for the lottery I’ve purchased every week,’ said she ‘For years a score Though desperately poor am I, Oh how I’ve scrimped and scraped to buy One chance more. Each week I think I’ll gain the prize, And end my sorrows and my sighs, For I’ll be rich; Then nevermore I’ll eat bread […]...
6. On A Journey Don’t be downcast, soon the night will come, When we can see the cool moon laughing in secret Over the faint countryside, And we rest, hand in hand. Don’t be downcast, the time will soon come When we can have rest. Our small crosses will stand On the bright edge of the road together, And […]...
7. A Subaltern He turned to me with his kind, sleepy gaze And fresh face slowly brightening to the grin That sets my memory back to summer days, With twenty runs to make, and last man in. He told me he’d been having a bloody time In trenches, crouching for the crumps to burst, While squeaking rats scampered […]...
8. The Pity of the Leaves Vengeful across the cold November moors, Loud with ancestral shame there came the bleak Sad wind that shrieked, and answered with a shriek, Reverberant through lonely corridors. The old man heard it; and he heard, perforce, Words out of lips that were no more to speak – Words of the past that shook the old […]...
9. The Song of the Shirt With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the “Song of the Shirt.” “Work! work! work! While the cock is crowing aloof! And work […]...
10. Transformations Portion of this yew Is a man my grandsire knew, Bosomed here at its foot: This branch may be his wife, A ruddy human life Now turned to a green shoot. These grasses must be made Of her who often prayed, Last century, for repose; And the fair girl long ago Whom I often tried […]...
11. Domination Of Black At night, by the fire, The colors of the bushes And of the fallen leaves, Repeating themselves, Turned in the room, Like the leaves themselves Turning in the wind. Yes: but the color of the heavy hemlocks Came striding. And I remembered the cry of the peacocks. The colors of their tails Were like the […]...
12. Dedication To A Book Of Stories Selected From The Irish Novelists There was a green branch hung with many a bell When her own people ruled this tragic Eire; And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery, A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell. It charmed away the merchant from his guile, And turned the farmer’s memory from his cattle, And hushed in sleep the roaring […]...
13. Sonnet XX IN vaine I seeke and sew to her for grace, And doe myne humbled hart before her poure: The whiles her foot she in my necke doth place, And tread my life downe in the lowly floure. And yet the Lyon that is Lord of power, And reigneth ouer euery beast in field: In his […]...
14. At Home When I was dead, my spirit turned To seek the much-frequented house: I passed the door, and saw my friends Feasting beneath green orange boughs; From hand to hand they pushed the wine, They sucked the pulp of plum and peach; They sang, they jested, and they laughed, For each was loved of each. I […]...
15. Speedboats when One summer Everything opened out And nobody close by Was quick enough With needle and gut To stitch the blue sky away From all that fresh flesh How we splashed about In the red lake Daggers skimmed in and out Of each other’s wake Like speedboats Thirsting for death...
16. City Dead-House, The BY the City Dead-House, by the gate, As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor, I curious pause-for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought; Her corpse they deposit unclaim’d-it lies on the damp brick pavement; The divine woman, her body-I see the Body-I look on it alone, That house once full […]...
17. Pan liveth They told me once that Pan was dead, And so, in sooth, I thought him; For vainly where the streamlets led Through flowery meads I sought him Nor in his dewy pasture bed Nor in the grove I caught him. “Tell me,” ’twas so my clamor ran “Tell me, oh, where is Pan?” But, once, […]...
18. Remembrance A red berry grows In the south country The boughs are full of them When spring arrives. Gather some, I pray, And fill your pockets These are the best Forget-me-knots!...
19. Evening in a Sugar Orchard From where I lingered in a lull in march Outside the sugar-house one night for choice, I called the fireman with a careful voice And bade him leave the pan and stoke the arch: ‘O fireman, give the fire another stoke, And send more sparks up chimney with the smoke.’ I thought a few might […]...
20. JOY AND SORROW As a fisher-boy I fared To the black rock in the sea, And, while false gifts I prepared. Listen’d and sang merrily, Down descended the decoy, Soon a fish attack’d the bait; One exultant shout of joy, And the fish was captured straight. Ah! on shore, and to the wood Past the cliffs, o’er stock […]...
21. Mysterious doings As once I rambled in the woods I chanced to spy amid the brake A huntsman ride his way beside A fair and passing tranquil lake; Though velvet bucks sped here and there, He let them scamper through the green Not one smote he, but lustily He blew his horn what could it mean? As […]...
22. 71. Second Epistle to Davie AULD NEIBOUR, I’m three times doubly o’er your debtor, For your auld-farrant, frien’ly letter; Tho’ I maun say’t I doubt ye flatter, Ye speak sae fair; For my puir, silly, rhymin clatter Some less maun sair. Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle, Lang may your elbuck jink diddle, To cheer you thro’ the […]...
23. Breadth And Depth Full many a shining wit one sees, With tongue on all things well conversing; The what can charm, the what can please, In every nice detail rehearsing. Their raptures so transport the college, It seems one honeymoon of knowledge. Yet out they go in silence where They whilom held their learned prate; Ah! he who […]...
24. The Apple Tree When first we saw the apple tree The boughs were dark and straight, But never grief to give had we, Though Spring delayed so late. When last I came away from there The boughs were heavy hung, But little grief had I to spare For Summer, perished young....
25. Leisure What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass. No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full […]...
26. To J. W Set not thy foot on graves; Hear what wine and roses say; The mountain chase, the summer waves, The crowded town, thy feet may well delay. Set not thy foot on graves; Nor seek to unwind the shroud Which charitable time And nature have allowed To wrap the errors of a sage sublime. Set not […]...
27. The Smile on the Face of a Kouros This boy, of course, was dead, whatever that Might mean. And nobly dead. I think we should feel He was nobly dead. He fell in battle, perhaps, And this carved stone remembers him Not as he may have looked, but as if to define The naked virtue the stone describes as his. One foot is […]...
28. The Withering Of The Boughs I cried when the moon was mutmuring to the birds: ‘Let peewit call and curlew cry where they will, I long for your merry and tender and pitiful words, For the roads are unending, and there is no place to my mind.’ The honey-pale moon lay low on the sleepy hill, And I fell asleep […]...
29. The Shadowy Waters: The Harp of Aengus Edain came out of Midhir’s hill, and lay Beside young Aengus in his tower of glass, Where time is drowned in odour-laden winds And Druid moons, and murmuring of boughs, And sleepy boughs, and boughs where apples made Of opal and ruhy and pale chrysolite Awake unsleeping fires; and wove seven strings, Sweet with all […]...
30. Spring Quiet Gone were but the Winter, Come were but the Spring, I would go to a covert Where the birds sing; Where in the whitethorn Singeth a thrush, And a robin sings In the holly-bush. Full of fresh scents Are the budding boughs Arching high over A cool green house: Full of sweet scents, And whispering […]...
31. 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 […]...
32. This Night Slip, In His Honor (after Komachi) This night slip, in his honor Flipped inside out – of lace- Edged netting – is the color Of Shaka Zulu’s face; Of panther flower at midnight Where crow and boa doze; Of vertigo and stage fright In frail Ophelia’s clothes. I wear it as a symbol. Its ripped, Chantilly trim I fixed without a […]...
33. Is Bliss then, such Abyss Is Bliss then, such Abyss, I must not put my foot amiss For fear I spoil my shoe? I’d rather suit my foot Than save my Boot For yet to buy another Pair Is possible, At any store But Bliss, is sold just once. The Patent lost None buy it any more Say, Foot, decide […]...
34. The Indian To His Love The island dreams under the dawn And great boughs drop tranquillity; The peahens dance on a smooth lawn, A parrot sways upon a tree, Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea. Here we will moor our lonely ship And wander ever with woven hands, Murmuring softly lip to lip, Along the grass, along […]...
35. A Book Full of Pictures Father studied theology through the mail And this was exam time. Mother knitted. I sat quietly with a book Full of pictures. Night fell. My hands grew cold touching the faces Of dead kings and queens. There was a black raincoat in the upstairs bedroom Swaying from the ceiling, But what was it doing there? […]...
36. The Girt Woak Tree The girt woak tree that’s in the dell! There’s noo tree I do love so well; Vor times an’ times when I wer young I there’ve a-climb’d, an’ there’ve a-zwung, An’ pick’d the eacorns green, a-shed In wrestlen storms from his broad head, An’ down below’s the cloty brook Where I did vish with line […]...
37. The Poet in the Nursery The youngest poet down the shelves was fumbling In a dim library, just behind the chair From which the ancient poet was mum-mumbling A song about some Lovers at a Fair, Pulling his long white beard and gently grumbling That rhymes were beastly things and never there. And as I groped, the whole time I […]...
38. The Little Match Girl It was biting cold, and the falling snow, Which filled a poor little match girl’s heart with woe, Who was bareheaded and barefooted, as she went along the street, Crying, “Who’ll buy my matches? for I want pennies to buy some meat!” When she left home she had slippers on; But, alas! poor child, now […]...
39. A Dream I dreamed that I ws dead and crossed the heavens, Heavens after heavens with burning feet and swift, And cried: “O God, where art Thou?” I left one On earth, whose burden I would pray Thee lift.” I was so dead I wondered at no thing, Not even that the angels slowly turned Their faces, […]...
40. Garden-Spot God’s acre was her garden-spot, she said; She sat there often, of the Summer days, Little and slim and sweet, among the dead, Her hair a fable in the leveled rays. She turned the fading wreath, the rusted cross, And knelt to coax about the wiry stem. I see her gentle fingers on the moss […]...