To Dorothy

Related poetry:

1. The Self and the Mulberry I wanted to see the self, so I looked at the mulberry. It had no trouble accepting its limits, Yet defining and redefining a small area So that any shape was possible, any movement. It stayed put, but was part of all the air. I wanted to learn to be there and not there Like […]...
2. To Dorothy Wellesley Stretch towards the moonless midnight of the trees, As though that hand could reach to where they stand, And they but famous old upholsteries Delightful to the touch; tighten that hand As though to draw them closer yet. Rammed full Of that most sensuous silence of the night (For since the horizon’s bought strange dogs […]...
3. Dorothy Q GRANDMOTHER’s mother: her age, I guess, Thirteen summers, or something less; Girlish bust, but womanly air; Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair; Lips that lover has never kissed; Taper fingers and slender wrist; Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade; So they painted the little maid. On her hand a parrot green Sits unmoving and broods serene. […]...
4. IMPOSSIBILITIES: TO HIS FRIEND My faithful friend, if you can see The fruit to grow up, or the tree; If you can see the colour come Into the blushing pear or plum; If you can see the water grow To cakes of ice, or flakes of snow; If you can see that drop of rain Lost in the wild […]...
5. Subject to Change A reflection on my students They are so beautiful, and so very young They seem almost to glitter with perfection, These creatures that I briefly move among. I never get to stay with them for long, But even so, I view them with affection: They are so beautiful, and so very young. Poised or clumsy, […]...
6. Justice Denied In Massachusetts Let us abandon then our gardens and go home And sit in the sitting-room Shall the larkspur blossom or the corn grow under this cloud? Sour to the fruitful seed Is the cold earth under this cloud, Fostering quack and weed, we have marched upon but cannot Conquer; We have bent the blades of our […]...
7. A Girl The tree has entered my hands, The sap has ascended my arms, The tree has grown in my breast – Downward, The branches grow out of me, like arms. Tree you are, Moss you are, You are violets with wind above them. A child – so high – you are, And all this is folly […]...
8. A Joyful Song Of Five Come, let us all sing very high And all sing very loud And keep on singing in the street Until there’s quite a crowd; And keep on singing in the house And up and down the stairs; Then underneath the furniture Let’s all play Polar bears; And crawl about with doormats on, And growl and […]...
9. Tree When the sun goes down I have my first drink Standing in the yard, Talking to my neighbor About the alder tree Rising between our houses, A lowly tree that prospered From our steady inattention And shot up quick as a weed To tower over our rooftops, Where it now brandishes A rich, luxuriant crown. […]...
10. To His Two Children In the land of Wu the mulberry leaves are green, And thrice the silkworms have gone to sleep. In East Luh where my family stay, I wonder who is sowing those fields of ours. I cannot be back in time for the spring doings, Yet I can help nothing, traveling on the river. The south […]...
11. Speaking To You (From Rock Bottom) Speaking to you This hour These days when I have lost the feather of poetry And the rains Of separation Surround us tock Tock like Go tablets Everyone has learned To move carefully ‘Dancing’ ‘laughing’ ‘bad taste’ Is a memory A tableau behind trees of law In the midst of love for you My wife’s […]...
12. Adolescence There was a time when in late afternoon The four-o’clocks would fold up at day’s close Pink-white in prayer, and ‘neath the floating moon I lay with them in calm and sweet repose. And in the open spaces I could sleep, Half-naked to the shining worlds above; Peace came with sleep and sleep was long […]...
13. Charm, The In darkness the loud sea makes moan; And earth is shaken, and all evils creep About her ways. Oh, now to know you sleep! Out of the whirling blinding moil, alone, Out of the slow grim fight, One thought to wing to you, asleep, In some cool room that’s open to the night Lying half-forward, […]...
14. The Conversation Of Prayer The conversation of prayers about to be said By the child going to bed and the man on the stairs Who climbs to his dying love in her high room, The one not caring to whom in his sleep he will move And the other full of tears that she will be dead, Turns in […]...
15. Sonnet 10 – Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright, Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed: And love is fire. And when I say at need I love thee. . . mark! . . . I love thee-in thy sight I […]...
16. Norse lullaby The sky is dark and the hills are white As the storm-king speeds from the north to-night, And this is the song the storm-king sings, As over the world his cloak he flings: “Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;” He rustles his wings and gruffly sings: “Sleep, little one, sleep.” On yonder mountain-side a vine Clings […]...
17. Beautiful City Beautiful city Beautiful city, the centre and crater of European confusion, O you with your passionate shriek for the rights of an equal Humanity, How often your Re-volution has proven but E-volution Roll’d again back on itself in the tides of a civic insanity!...
18. Long-Legged Fly That civilisation may not sink, Its great battle lost, Quiet the dog, tether the pony To a distant post; Our master Caesar is in the tent Where the maps ate spread, His eyes fixed upon nothing, A hand under his head. Like a long-legged fly upon the stream His mind moves upon silence. That the […]...
19. The Cottage Hospital At the end of a long-walled garden in a red provincial town, A brick path led to a mulberry – scanty grass at its feet. I lay under blackening branches where the mulberry leaves hung down Sheltering ruby fruit globes from a Sunday-tea-time heat. Apple and plum espaliers basked upon bricks of brown; The air […]...
20. The Chanpa Flower Supposing I became a chanpa flower, just for fun, and grew on a Branch high up that tree, and shook in the wind with laughter and Danced upon the newly budded leaves, would you know me, mother? You would call, “Baby, where are you?” and I should laugh to Myself and keep quite quiet. I […]...
21. Song of the Little White Girl Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, what is the matter? Why are you shaking so? Why do you chatter? Because it is just a white baby you see, And it’s the black ones you like, cabbage tree? Cabbage tree, cabbage tree, you’re a strange fellow With your green hair and your legs browny-yellow. Wouldn’t you like to […]...
22. Lenten Flowers Primrose, anemone, bluebell, moss Grow in the Kingdom of the Cross And the ash-tree’s purple bud Dresses the spear that sheds his blood. With the thorns that pierce his brow Soft encircling petals grow For in each flower the secret lies Of the tree that crucifies. Garden by the water clear All must die who […]...
23. Beauty WHAT does it mean? Tired, angry, and ill at ease, No man, woman, or child alive could please Me now. And yet I almost dare to laugh Because I sit and frame an epitaph “Here lies all that no one loved of him And that loved no one.” Then in a trice that whim Has […]...
24. The Happy Child I saw this day sweet flowers grow thick But not one like the child did pick. I heard the packhounds in green park But no dog like the child heard bark. I heard this day bird after bird But not one like the child has heard. A hundred butterflies saw I But not one like […]...
25. Rain Or Shine the vultures at the zoo (all three of the) Sit very quietly in their Caged tree And below On the ground Are chunks of rotten meat. The vultures are over-full. Our taxes have fed them Well. We move on to the next Cage. A man is in there Sitting on the ground Eating His own […]...
26. WITH A WATER-LILY SEE, dear, what thy lover brings; ‘Tis the flower with the white wings. Buoyed upon the quiet stream In the spring it lay adream. Homelike to bestow this guest, Lodge it, dear one, in thy breast; There its leaves the secret keep Of a wave both still and deep. Child, beware the tarn-fed stream; Danger, […]...
27. Sicilian Lullaby Hush, little one, and fold your hands; The sun hath set, the moon is high; The sea is singing to the sands, And wakeful posies are beguiled By many a fairy lullaby: Hush, little child, my little child! Dream, little one, and in your dreams Float upward from this lowly place, Float out on mellow, […]...
28. A Weed is a flower in the wrong place A weed is a flower in the wrong place, A flower is a weed in the right place, If you were a weed in the right place You would be a flower; But seeing as you’re a weed in the wrong place You’re only a weed – Its high time someone pulled you out....
29. Ultima Thule: Dedication to G. W. G With favoring winds, o’er sunlit seas, We sailed for the Hesperides, The land where golden apples grow; But that, ah! that was long ago. How far, since then, the ocean streams Have swept us from that land of dreams, That land of fiction and of truth, The lost Atlantis of our youth! Whither, ah, whither? […]...
30. Slow Spring O year, grow slowly. Exquisite, holy, The days go on With almonds showing the pink stars blowing And birds in the dawn. Grow slowly, year, like a child that is dear, Or a lamb that is mild, By little steps, and by little skips, Like a lamb or a child....
31. I Am Not Yours I am not yours, not lost in you, Not lost, although I long to be Lost as a candle lit at noon, Lost as a snowflake in the sea. You love me, and I find you still A spirit beautiful and bright, Yet I am I, who long to be Lost as a light is […]...
32. Retrospect In your arms was still delight, Quiet as a street at night; And thoughts of you, I do remember, Were green leaves in a darkened chamber, Were dark clouds in a moonless sky. Love, in you, went passing by, Penetrative, remote, and rare, Like a bird in the wide air, And, as the bird, it […]...
33. Soldier, Soldier “Soldier, soldier come from the wars, Why don’t you march with my true love?” “We’re fresh from off the ship an’ ‘e’s maybe give the slip, An’ you’d best go look for a new love.” New love! True love! Best go look for a new love, The dead they cannot rise, an’ you’d better dry […]...
34. The Hour of the King WHO would think this quiet breather From the world had taken flight? Yet within the form we see there Wakes the Golden King to-night. Out upon the face of faces He looked forth before his sleep: Now he knows the starry races Haunters of the ancient deep. On the Bird of Diamond Glory Floats in […]...
35. When Orpheus Sweetly Did Complayne When Orpheus sweetly did complayne Upon his lute with heavy strayne How his Euridice was slayne, The trees to heare Obtayn’d an eare, And after left it off againe. At every stroake and every stay The boughs kept time, and nodding lay, And listened bending all one way: The aspen tree As well as hee […]...
36. Sonnet XXVII: Is Not Love Here Is not Love here as ’tis in other climes, And differeth it, as do the several nations? Or hath it lost the virtue with the times, Or in this island altereth with the fashions? Or have our passions lesser power than theirs, Who had less art them lively to express? Is Nature grown less powerful […]...
37. A Song I had wanted a quiet testament And I had wanted, among other things, A song. That was to be Of a like monotony. (A grace Simply. Very very quiet. A murmur of some lost Thrush, though I have never seen one. Which was you then. Sitting And so, at peace, so very much now this […]...
38. The Primrose Upon this Primrose hill, Where, if Heav’n would distil A shower of rain, each several drop might go To his own primrose, and grow manna so; And where their form and their infinity Make a terrestrial Galaxy, As the small stars do in the sky: I walk to find a true Love; and I see […]...
39. If I were dead ‘IF I were dead, you’d sometimes say, Poor Child!’ The dear lips quiver’d as they spake, And the tears brake From eyes which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled. Poor Child, poor Child! I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song. It is not true that Love will do no wrong. Poor Child! […]...
40. French Leave No servile little fear shall daunt my will This morning. I have courage steeled to say I will be lazy, conqueringly still, I will not lose the hours in toil this day. The roaring world without, careless of souls, Shall leave me to my placid dream of rest, My four walls shield me from its […]...