Louise Bogan
Betrothed
You have put your two hands upon me, and your mouth, You have said my name as a prayer. Here where trees are planted by the water I have watched your eyes, cleansed from
Last Hill In A Vista
Come, let us tell the weeds in ditches How we are poor, who once had riches, And lie out in the sparse and sodden Pastures that the cows have trodden, The while an autumn
Words For Departure
Nothing was remembered, nothing forgotten. When we awoke, wagons were passing on the warm summer pavements, The window-sills were wet from rain in the night, Birds scattered and settled over chimneypots As among grotesque
Sonnet
Since you would claim the sources of my thought Recall the meshes whence it sprang unlimed, The reedy traps which other hands have times To close upon it. Conjure up the hot Blaze that
Portrait
She has no need to fear the fall Of harvest from the laddered reach Of orchards, nor the tide gone ebbing From the steep beach. Nor hold to pain’s effrontery Her body’s bulwark, stern
Men Loved Wholly Beyond Wisdom
Men loved wholly beyond wisdom Have the staff without the banner. Like a fire in a dry thicket Rising within women’s eyes Is the love men must return. Heart, so subtle now, and trembling,
Epitaph For A Romantic Woman
She has attained the permanence She dreamed of, where old stones lie sunning. Untended stalks blow over her Even and swift, like young men running. Always in the heart she loved Others had lived,
Medusa
I had come to the house, in a cave of trees, Facing a sheer sky. Everything moved, a bell hung ready to strike, Sun and reflection wheeled by. When the bare eyes were before
The Alchemist
I burned my life, that I may find A passion wholly of the mind, Thought divorced from eye and bone Ecstasy come to breath alone. I broke my life, to seek relief From the
Knowledge
Now that I know How passion warms little Of flesh in the mould, And treasure is brittle, I’ll lie here and learn How, over their ground Trees make a long shadow And a light
Song For The Last Act
Now that I have your face by heart, I look Less at its features than its darkening frame Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame, Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd’s crook.
The Dream
O God, in the dream the terrible horse began To paw at the air, and make for me with his blows, Fear kept for thirty-five years poured through his mane, And retribution equally old,
Juan's Song
When beauty breaks and falls asunder I feel no grief for it, but wonder. When love, like a frail shell, lies broken, I keep no chip of it for token. I never had a
Women
Women have no wilderness in them, They are provident instead, Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts To eat dusty bread. They do not see cattle cropping red winter grass, They do
Tears In Sleep
All night the cocks crew, under a moon like day, And I, in the cage of sleep, on a stranger’s breast, Shed tears, like a task not to be put away – In the