Four Haiku

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1. Desespoir The seasons send their ruin as they go, For in the spring the narciss shows its head Nor withers till the rose has flamed to red, And in the autumn purple violets blow, And the slim crocus stirs the winter snow; Wherefore yon leafless trees will bloom again And this grey land grow green with […]...
2. From "THE TALK OF FLOWERS&quot I do not know, whether the sun Accomplished it, The rain or wind – But I was missing so The whiteness and the snow. I listened to the rustling Of spring rain, Washing the reddish buds Of chestnut-trees, – And a tiny spring ran down Into the valley from the hill – And I was […]...
3. Distressed Haiku In a week or ten days The snow and ice Will melt from Cemetery Road. I’m coming! Don’t move! Once again it is April. Today is the day We would have been married Twenty-six years. I finished with April Halfway through March. You think that their Dying is the worst Thing that could happen. Then […]...
4. Falling Asleep Voices moving about in the quiet house: Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors: Everyone yawning. Only the clocks are alert. Out in the night there’s autumn-smelling gloom Crowded with whispering trees; across the park A hollow cry of hounds like lonely bells: And I know that the clouds are moving across the […]...
5. Ode To a Chestnut on the Ground From bristly foliage You fell Complete, polished wood, gleaming mahogany, As perfect As a violin newly Born of the treetops, That falling Offers its sealed-in gifts, The hidden sweetness That grew in secret Amid birds and leaves, A model of form, Kin to wood and flour, An oval instrument That holds within it Intact delight, […]...
6. Ye Mariners of England 1 Ye Mariners of England 2 That guard our native seas, 3 Whose flag has braved, a thousand years, 4 The battle and the breeze 5 Your glorious standard launch again 6 To match another foe! 7 And sweep through the deep, 8 While the stormy winds do blow, 9 While the battle rages loud […]...
7. London Poets (In Memoriam.) They trod the streets and squares where now I tread, With weary hearts, a little while ago; When, thin and grey, the melancholy snow Clung to the leafless branches overhead; Or when the smoke-veiled sky grew stormy-red In autumn; with a re-arisen woe Wrestled, what time the passionate spring winds blow; And paced […]...
8. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
9. Five Haiku The wind Undecided Rolls a cigarette of air The mute girl talks: It is art’s imperfection. This impenetrable speech. The motor car is truly launched: Four martyrs’ heads Roll under the wheels. Ah! a thousand flames, a fire, The light, a shadow! The sun is following me. A feather gives to a hat A touch […]...
10. Haiku (Never Published) Drinking my tea Without sugar- No difference. The sparrow shits upside down ah! my brain & eggs Mayan head in a Pacific driftwood bole Someday I’ll live in N. Y. Looking over my shoulder My behind was covered With cherry blossoms. Winter Haiku I didn’t know the names Of the flowers now My garden is […]...
11. Luna Lake Haiku New moon on the lake. Your voice and the nightingale Serenade springtime. Full moon on the lake. Your voice and the waterbirds Celebrate summer. Old moon on the lake. Owls hunting autumnal food – Your voice still singing....
12. Petropolis From a fearful height, a wandering light, But does a star glitter like this, crying? Transparent star, wandering light Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. From a fearful height, earthly dreams are alight, And a green star is crying. Oh star, if you are the brother of water and light, Your brother, Petropolis, is dying. A […]...
13. Autumn River Song The moon shimmers in green water. White herons fly through the moonlight. The young man hears a girl gathering water-chestnuts: Into the night, singing, they paddle home together....
14. Thoughts of Li Po from the World's End Here at the world’s end the cold winds are beginning to blow. What messages Have you for me, my master? When will the poor wandering goose arrive? The Rivers and lakes are swollen with autumn’s waters. Art detests a too successful Life; and the hungry goblins await you with welcoming jaws. You had better have […]...
15. The Fires Men make them fires on the hearth Each under his roof-tree, And the Four Winds that rule the earth They blow the smoke to me. Across the high hills and the sea And all the changeful skies, The Four Winds blow the smoke to me Till the tears are in my eyes. Until the tears […]...
16. Doubt 1 They bade me cast the thing away, 2 They pointed to my hands all bleeding, 3 They listened not to all my pleading; 4 The thing I meant I could not say; 5 I knew that I should rue the day 6 If once I cast that thing away. 7 I grasped it firm, […]...
17. Colors Passing Through Us Purple as tulips in May, mauve Into lush velvet, purple As the stain blackberries leave On the lips, on the hands, The purple of ripe grapes Sunlit and warm as flesh. Every day I will give you a color, Like a new flower in a bud vase On your desk. Every day I will paint […]...
18. Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere LIKE souls that balance joy and pain, With tears and smiles from heaven again The maiden Spring upon the plain Came in a sun-lit fall of rain. In crystal vapour everywhere Blue isles of heaven laugh’d between, And far, in forest-deeps unseen, The topmost elm-tree gather’d green From draughts of balmy air. Sometimes the linnet […]...
19. Chorus from Atalanta in Calydon When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain; And the brown bright nigthingale amorous Is half assuaged for Itylus, For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces, The […]...
20. A Solitary Chestnut Il buon tempo verrà! A solitary chestnut, Bold in the cold, Hibernating under A gigantic white sheet Is perseverance Keeping busy To welcome The coming Of Spring...
21. Baccalaureate A year or two, and grey Euripides, And Horace and a Lydia or so, And Euclid and the brush of Angelo, Darwin on man, Vergilius on bees, The nose and Dialogues of Socrates, Don Quixote, Hudibras and Trinculo, How worlds are spawned and where the dead gods go, All shall be shard of broken memories. […]...
22. The Soul's distinct connection The Soul’s distinct connection With immortality Is best disclosed by Danger Or quick Calamity As Lightning on a Landscape Exhibits Sheets of Place Not yet suspected but for Flash And Click and Suddenness....
23. As Winds That Blow Against A Star (For Aline) Now by what whim of wanton chance Do radiant eyes know sombre days? And feet that shod in light should dance Walk weary and laborious ways? But rays from Heaven, white and whole, May penetrate the gloom of earth; And tears but nourish, in your soul, The glory of celestial mirth. The darts […]...
24. A Birthday Song. To S. G For ever wave, for ever float and shine Before my yearning eyes, oh! dream of mine Wherein I dreamed that time was like a vine, A creeping rose, that clomb a height of dread Out of the sea of Birth, all filled with dead, Up to the brilliant cloud of Death o’erhead. This vine bore […]...
25. In The Green And Gallant Spring IN the green and gallant Spring, Love and the lyre I thought to sing, And kisses sweet to give and take By the flowery hawthorn brake. Now is russet Autumn here, Death and the grave and winter drear, And I must ponder here aloof While the rain is on the roof....
26. Alone From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were; I have not seen As others saw; I could not bring My passions from a common spring. From the same source I have not taken My sorrow; I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone; And all I loved, I loved […]...
27. The Belltower the weighing is done in autumn And the sifting What is to be threshed Is threshed in autumn What is to be gathered is taken The wind does not die in autumn The moon Shifts endlessly thru flying clouds In autumn the sea is high & a golden light plays everywhere Making it harder To […]...
28. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 11. Calm is the morn without a sound Calm is the morn without a sound, Calm as to suit a calmer grief, And only thro’ the faded leaf The chestnut pattering to the ground: Calm and deep peace on this high wold, And on these dews that drench the furze. And all the silvery gossamers That twinkle into green and gold: Calm and […]...
29. In Excelsis It is half winter, half spring, And Barbara and I are standing Confronting the ocean. Its mouth is open very wide, And it has dug up its green, Throwing it, throwing it at the shore. You say it is angry. I say it is like a kicked Madonna. Its womb collapses, drunk with its fever. […]...
30. The Machine The little biplane that has the river-meadow for landing-field And carries passengers brief rides, Buzzed overhead on the tender blue above the orange of sundown. Below it five troubled night-herons Turned short over the shore from its course, four east, one northward. Beyond them Swam the new moon in amber. I don’t know why, but […]...
31. In the Days of the Golden Rod Across the meadow in brooding shadow I walk to drink of the autumn’s wine­ The charm of story, the artist’s glory, To-day on these silvering hills is mine; On height, in hollow, where’er I follow, By mellow hillside and searing sod, Its plumes uplifting, in light winds drifting, I see the glimmer of golden-rod. In […]...
32. Morning Worship I wake and hearing it raining. Were I dead, what would I give Lazily to lie here, Like this, and live? Or better yet: birdsong, Brightening and spreading How far would I come then To be at the world’s wedding? Now that I lie, though, Listening, living, (Oh, but not forever, Oh, end arriving) How […]...
33. The Everlasting Battle WHEN in my shadowy hours I pierce the hidden heart of hopes and fears, They change into immortal joys or end in immemorial tears. Moytura’s battle still endures and in this human heart of mine The golden sun powers with the might of demon darkness intertwine. I think that every teardrop shed still flows from […]...
34. Atmosphere Inscription for a Garden Wall Winds blow the open grassy places bleak; But where this old wall burns a sunny cheek, They eddy over it too toppling weak To blow the earth or anything self-clear; Moisture and color and odor thicken here. The hours of daylight gather atmosphere....
35. To Whom It May Concern In Autumn, As in Spring, The sap flows, The sap wishes to race Against heartbeats Before the winter, Before the winter Buries us In her usual shroud of ice. I turn to you Knowing that Unrequited love Is good For poetry, Knowing that pain Will nudge the muse As well as anything, Knowing that you […]...
36. A Gravestone Far from the churchyard dig his grave, On some green mound beside the wave; To westward, sea and sky alone, And sunsets. Put a mossy stone, With mortal name and date, a harp And bunch of wild flowers, carven sharp; Then leave it free to winds that blow, And patient mosses creeping; slow, And wandering […]...
37. Remorse Lost in the swamp and welter of the pit, He flounders off the duck-boards; only he knows Each flash and spouting crash, each instant lit When gloom reveals the streaming rain. He goes Heavily, blindly on. And, while he blunders, “Could anything be worse than this?” he wonders, Remembering how he saw those Germans run, […]...
38. A Japanese Wood-Carving High up above the open, welcoming door It hangs, a piece of wood with colours dim. Once, long ago, it was a waving tree And knew the sun and shadow through the leaves Of forest trees, in a thick eastern wood. The winter snows had bent its branches down, The spring had swelled its buds […]...
39. Men At Thirty Thirty today, I saw The trees flare briefly like The candles upon a cake As the sun went down the sky, A momentary flash Yet there was time to wish Before the break light could die If I had known what to wish As once I must have known Bending above the clean candlelit tablecloth […]...
40. A Spring Piece Left In The Middle Taut, thick fingers punch The teeth of my typewriter. Three words are down on paper in capitals: SPRING SPRING SPRING… And me poet, proofreader, The man who’s forced to read Two thousand bad lines every day for two liras Why, since spring has come, am I still sitting here like a ragged black chair? My […]...