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1. A Description of the Morning Now hardly here and there a hackney-coach Appearing, show’d the ruddy morn’s approach. Now Betty from her master’s bed had flown, And softly stole to discompose her own. The slip-shod ‘prentice from his master’s door Had par’d the dirt, and sprinkled round the floor. Now Moll had whirl’d her mop with dext’rous airs, Prepar’d to […]...
2. Young Sea The sea is never still. It pounds on the shore Restless as a young heart, Hunting. The sea speaks And only the stormy hearts Know what it says: It is the face of a rough mother speaking. The sea is young. One storm cleans all the hoar And loosens the age of it. I hear […]...
3. The Thought-Fox I imagine this midnight moment’s forest: Something else is alive Beside the clock’s loneliness And this blank page where my fingers move. Through the window I see no star: Something more near Though deeper within darkness Is entering the loneliness: Cold, delicately as the dark snow, A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf; Two eyes serve […]...
4. Sonnet XIII: Letters and Lines To the Shadow Letters and lines we see are soon defac’d, Metals do waste and fret with canker’s rust, The diamond shall once consume to dust, And freshest colors with foul stains disgrac’d; Paper and ink can paint but naked words, To write with blood of force offends the sight; And if with tears I […]...
5. 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 […]...
6. In A Dark Time In a dark time, the eye begins to see, I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; I hear my echo in the echoing wood A lord of nature weeping to a tree, I live between the heron and the wren, Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den. What’s madness but nobility of […]...
7. A Description of a City Shower Careful Observers may fortel the Hour (By sure Prognosticks) when to dread a Show’r: While Rain depends, the pensive Cat gives o’er Her Frolicks, and pursues her Tail no more. Returning Home at Night, you’ll find the Sink Strike your offended Sense with double Stink. If you be wise, then go not far to Dine, […]...
8. 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 […]...
9. His Wife, The Painter There are sketches on the walls of men and women and ducks, And outside a large green bus swerves through traffic like Insanity sprung from a waving line; Turgenev, Turgenev, Says the radio, and Jane Austin, Jane Austin, too. “I am going to do her portrait on the 28th, while you are At work.” He […]...
10. XVII (I do not love you…) I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, Or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, In secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms But carries in itself the light […]...
11. Love Sonnet XVII I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz Or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, In secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms But carries in itself […]...
12. Lightning The oaks shone Gaunt gold On the lip Of the storm before The wind rose, The shapeless mouth Opened and began Its five-hour howl; The lights Went out fast, branches Sidled over The pitch of the roof, bounced Into the year That grew black Within minutes, except For the lightening – the landscape Bulging forth […]...
13. Humdrum IF I had a million lives to live and a million deaths to die in a million humdrum worlds, I’d like to change my name and have a new house number to go by each and every time I died and started life all over again. I wouldn’t want the same name every time and […]...
14. Summer Sun Great is the sun, and wide he goes Through empty heaven with repose; And in the blue and glowing days More thick than rain he showers his rays. Though closer still the blinds we pull To keep the shady parlour cool, Yet he will find a chink or two To slip his golden fingers through. […]...
15. Answer To A Sonnet By J. H. Reynolds “Dark eyes are dearer far Than those that mock the hyacinthine bell.” Blue! ‘Tis the life of heaven,-the domain Of Cynthia,-the wide palace of the sun,- The tent of Hesperus, and all his train,- The bosomer of clouds, gold, gray, and dun. Blue! ‘Tis the life of waters:-Ocean And all its vassal streams, pools numberless, […]...
16. Grand-Pa's Whim While for me gapes the greedy grave It don’t make sense That I should have a crazy crave To paint our fence. Yet that is what I aim to do, Though dim my sight: Jest paint them aged pickets blue, Or green or white. Jest squat serenely in the sun Wi’ brush an’ paint, An’ […]...
17. Sandpipers Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes. Homes for sandpipers-the script of their feet is on the sea shingles-they write in the morning, it is gone at noon-they write at noon, it is gone at night. Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper’s wire legs and […]...
18. Cold Poem Cold now. Close to the edge. Almost Unbearable. Clouds Bunch up and boil down From the north of the white bear. This tree-splitting morning I dream of his fat tracks, The lifesaving suet. I think of summer with its luminous fruit, Blossoms rounding to berries, leaves, Handfuls of grain. Maybe what cold is, is the […]...
19. 161. Epigram Addressed to an Artist DEAR -, I’ll gie ye some advice, You’ll tak it no uncivil: You shouldna paint at angels mair, But try and paint the devil. To paint an Angel’s kittle wark, Wi’ Nick, there’s little danger: You’ll easy draw a lang-kent face, But no sae weel a stranger.-R. B....
20. Reproach Had I but known yesterday, Helen, you could discharge the ache Out of the cloud; Had I known yesterday you could take The turgid electric ache away, Drink it up with your proud White body, as lovely white lightning Is drunk from an agonised sky by the earth, I might have hated you, Helen. But […]...
21. Killers I AM singing to you Soft as a man with a dead child speaks; Hard as a man in handcuffs, Held where he cannot move: Under the sun Are sixteen million men, Chosen for shining teeth, Sharp eyes, hard legs, And a running of young warm blood in their wrists. And a red juice runs […]...
22. I Keep Six Honest I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who. I send them over land and sea, I send them east and west; But after they have worked for me, I give them all a rest. I let them rest […]...
23. Blue The earth again like a ship steams out of the dark sea over The edge of the blue, and the sun stands up to see us glide Slowly into another day; slowly the rover Vessel of darkness takes the rising tide. I, on the deck, am startled by this dawn confronting Me who am issued […]...
24. Wolf Knife In the mid August, in the second year Of my First Polar Expedition, the snow and ice of winter Almost upon us, Kantiuk and I Attempted to dash the sledge Along Crispin Bay, searching again for relics Of the Frankline Expedition. Now a storm blew, And we turned back, and we struggled slowly In snow, […]...
25. Homer's Seeing-Eye Dog Most of the time he worked, a sort of sleep With a purpose, so far as I could tell. How he got from the dark of sleep To the dark of waking up I’ll never know; The lax sprawl sleep allowed him Began to set from the edges in, Like a custard, and then he […]...
26. The Forgotten Dialect Of The Heart How astonishing it is that language can almost mean, And frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say, God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words Get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according To which nation. French has no word for home, And we have no word […]...
27. For Lucy, Who Came First She simply settled down in one piece right where she was, in the sand of a long-vanished lake edge or stream and died. -Donald C. Johanson, paleoanthropologist When I put my hand up to my face I can trace her heavy jawbone and the sockets Of her eyes under my skin. And in the dark […]...
28. THE PAGE AND THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER PAGE. WHERE goest thou? Where? Miller’s daughter so fair! Thy name, pray? MILLER’S DAUGHTER. ‘Tis Lizzy. PAGE. Where goest thou? Where? With the rake in thy hand? MILLER’S DAUGHTER. Father’s meadows and land To visit, I’m busy. PAGE. Dost go there alone? MILLER’S DAUGHTER. By this rake, sir, ’tis shown That we’re making the hay; […]...
29. Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed Lie still, sleep becalmed, sufferer with the wound In the throat, burning and turning. All night afloat On the silent sea we have heard the sound That came from the wound wrapped in the salt sheet. Under the mile off moon we trembled listening To the sea sound flowing like blood from the loud wound […]...
30. Amidst the Flowers a Jug of Wine Amidst the flowers a jug of wine, I pour alone lacking companionship. So raising the cup I invite the Moon, Then turn to my shadow which makes three of us. Because the Moon does not know how to drink, My shadow merely follows the movement of my body. The moon has brought the shadow to […]...
31. Adelaide Crapsey AMONG the bumble-bees in red-top hay, a freckled field of brown-eyed Susans dripping yellow leaves in July, I read your heart in a book. And your mouth of blue pansy-I know somewhere I have seen it rain-shattered. And I have seen a woman with her head flung between her naked knees, and her head held […]...
32. 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. Beyond, a garden, There, in insolent ease The lead and marble figures watch the show Of yet another summer loath to […]...
33. The Kiss My mouth blooms like a cut. I’ve been wronged all year, tedious Nights, nothing but rough elbows in them And delicate boxes of Kleenex calling crybaby Crybaby, you fool! Before today my body was useless. Now it’s tearing at its square corners. It’s tearing old Mary’s garments off, knot by knot And see Now it’s […]...
34. I Have Dreamed of You so Much I have dreamed of you so much that you are no longer real. Is there still time for me to reach your breathing body, to kiss your mouth and make Your dear voice come alive again? I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed on my Chest as […]...
35. Midnight The stars are soft as flowers, and as near; The hills are webs of shadow, slowly spun; No separate leaf or single blade is here- All blend to one. No moonbeam cuts the air; a sapphire light Rolls lazily. and slips again to rest. There is no edged thing in all this night, Save in […]...
36. Refrain The air is dark, the night is sad, I lie sleepless and I groan. Nobody cares when a man goes mad: He is sorry, God is glad. Shadow changes into bone. Every shadow has a name; When I think of mine I moan, I hear rumors of such fame. Not for pride, but only shame, […]...
37. The Simple Truth I bought a dollar and a half’s worth of small red potatoes, Took them home, boiled them in their jackets And ate them for dinner with a little butter and salt. Then I walked through the dried fields On the edge of town. In middle June the light Hung on in the dark furrows at […]...
38. "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 […]...
39. Even Because Because it all just breaks apart, and the pieces scatter and rearrange without much fanfare or notice. Because you can’t and don’t remember the step that kicked up dust and left this planet-you’d give up even more now. Because the body itself-the heart’s Not dead but deeper, wrapped up in curtains, a different color, among […]...
40. The Last of the Light Brigade 1891 There were thirty million English who talked of England’s might, There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night. They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade; They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade. They felt that life was fleeting; they kuew not […]...