Come With Me, I Said, And No One Knew (VII)

Related poetry:

1. I Knew A Woman I knew a woman, lovely in her bones, When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them; Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one: The shapes a bright container can contain! Of her choice virtues only gods should speak, Or English poets who grew up on Greek (I’d have them sing […]...
2. The Man Who Knew The Dreamer visioned Life as it might be, And from his dream forthright a picture grew, A painting all the people thronged to see, And joyed therein till came the Man Who Knew, Saying: “‘Tis bad! Why do ye gape, ye fools! He painteth not according to the schools.” The Dreamer probed Life’s mystery of […]...
3. Water It was a Maine lobster town- Each morning boatloads of hands Pushed off for granite Quarries on the islands, And left dozens of bleak White frame houses stuck Like oyster shells On a hill of rock, And below us, the sea lapped The raw little match-stick Mazes of a weir, Where the fish for bait […]...
4. A Note On Wyatt See her come bearing down, a tidy craft! Gaily her topsails bulge, her sidelights burn! There’s jigging in her rigging fore and aft, And beauty’s self, not name, limned on her stern. See at her head the Jolly Roger flutters! “God, is she fully manned? If she’s one short…” Cadet, bargee, longshoreman, shellback mutters; Drowned […]...
5. The Independent Man Now who could take you off to tiny life In one room or in two rooms or in three And cork you smartly, like the flask of wine You are? Not any woman. Not a wife. You’d let her twirl you, give her a good glee Showing your leaping ruby to a friend. Though twirling […]...
6. I Hardly Remember I hardly remember your voice, but the pain of you Floats in some remote current of my blood. I carry you in my depths, trapped in the sludge Like one of those corpses the sea refuses to give up. It was a spoiled remnant of the South. A beach Without fishing boats, where the sun […]...
7. If You Only Knew Far from me and like the stars, the sea and all the trappings of poetic myth, Far from me but here all the same without your knowing, Far from me and even more silent because I imagine you endlessly. Far from me, my lovely mirage and eternal dream, you cannot know. If you only knew. […]...
8. Peach Blossoms WHAT cry of peach blossoms let loose on the air today I heard with my face thrown in the pink-white of it all? in the red whisper of it all? What man I heard saying: Christ, these are beautiful! And Christ and Christ was in his mouth, over these peach blossoms?...
9. Now I knew I lost her Now I knew I lost her Not that she was gone But Remoteness travelled On her Face and Tongue. Alien, though adjoining As a Foreign Race Traversed she though pausing Latitudeless Place. Elements Unaltered Universe the same But Love’s transmigration Somehow this had come Henceforth to remember Nature took the Day I had paid so […]...
10. Refrain Of all the songs which poets sing The ones which are most sweet Are those which at close intervals A low refrain repeat; Some tender word, some syllable, Over and over, ever and ever, While the song lasts, Altering never, Music if sung, music if said, Subtle like some golden thread A shuttle casts, In […]...
11. Laughing Rose If I were gusty April now, How I would blow at laughing Rose; I’d make her ribbons slip their knots, And all her hair come loose. If I were merry April now, How I would pelt her cheeks with showers; I’d make carnations, rich and warm, Of her vermillion flowers. Since she will laugh in […]...
12. The Indifferent I can love both fair and brown, Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays, Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays, Her whom the country formed, and whom the town, Her who believes, and her who tries, Her who still weeps with spongy eyes, And her who is dry […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. 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 […]...
15. Celia Beeding, To the Surgeon Fond man, that canst believe her blood Will from those purple channels flow; Or that the pure untainted flood Can any foul distemper know; Or that thy weak steel can incise The crystal case wherein it lies: Know, her quick blood, proud of his seat, Runs dancing through her azure veins; Whose harmony no cold […]...
16. Guilty Of Dust up or down from the infinite C E N T E R B R I M M I N G at the winking rim of time The voice in my head said LOVE IS THE DISTANCE BETWEEN YOU AND WHAT YOU LOVE WHAT YOU LOVE IS YOUR FATE * Then I saw the parade of […]...
17. The Man Rock A man is a rock in a garden of chairs and waits For a longtime to be over. It is easier for a rock in a garden than a man Inside his mother. He decided to be a rock when He got outside. A rock asks only what is a rock. A rock waits to […]...
18. Introspection If you go deep Into the heart What do you find there? Fear, fear, Fear of the jaws of the rock, Fear of the teeth and splinters of iron that tear Flesh from the bone, and the moist Blood, running unfelt From the wound, and the hand Suddenly moist and red. If you go deep […]...
19. In Memory I Serene and beautiful and very wise, Most erudite in curious Grecian lore, You lay and read your learned books, and bore A weight of unshed tears and silent sighs. The song within your heart could never rise Until love bade it spread its wings and soar. Nor could you look on Beauty’s face before […]...
20. A Girl Sang a Song A girl sang a song in the temple’s chorus, About men, tired in alien lands, About the ships that left native shores, And all who forgot their joy to the end. Thus sang her clean voice, and flew up to the highness, And sunbeams shined on her shoulder’s white And everyone saw and heard from […]...
21. Charles Carville's Eyes A melanholy face Charles Carville had, But not so melancholy as it seemed, When once you knew him, for his mouth redeemed His insufficient eyes, forever sad: In them there was no life-glimpse, good or bad, Nor joy nor passion in them ever gleamed; His mouth was all of him that ever beamed, His eyes […]...
22. I Knew A Man By Sight I knew a man by sight, A blameless wight, Who, for a year or more, Had daily passed my door, Yet converse none had had with him. I met him in a lane, Him and his cane, About three miles from home, Where I had chanced to roam, And volumes stared at him, and he […]...
23. It knew no Medicine It knew no Medicine It was not Sickness then Nor any need of Surgery And therefore ’twas not Pain It moved away the Cheeks A Dimple at a time And left the Profile plainer And in the place of Bloom It left the little Tint That never had a Name You’ve seen it on a […]...
24. Sonnet 28 – My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! And yet they seem alive and quivering Against my tremulous hands which loose the string And let them drop down on my knee to-night. This said,-he wished to have me in his sight Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring To come and touch […]...
25. Before you knew you owned it Expect nothing. Live frugally On surprise. Become a stranger To need of pity Or, if compassion be freely Given out Take only enough Stop short of urge to plead Then purge away the need. Wish for nothing larger Than your own small heart Or greater than a star; Tame wild disappointment With caress unmoved and […]...
26. Psalm 136 Abridged God’s wonders of creation, providence, redemption, and salvation. Give to our God immortal praise; Mercy and truth are all his ways: Wonders of grace to God belong, Repeat his mercies in your song. Give to the Lord of lords renown, The King of kings with glory crown: His mercies ever shall endure, When lords and […]...
27. I could suffice for Him, I knew I could suffice for Him, I knew He could suffice for Me Yet Hesitating Fractions Both Surveyed Infinity “Would I be Whole” He sudden broached My syllable rebelled ‘Twas face to face with Nature forced ‘Twas face to face with God Withdrew the Sun to Other Wests Withdrew the furthest Star Before Decision stooped to […]...
28. I knew that I had gained I knew that I had gained And yet I knew not how By Diminution it was not But Discipline unto A Rigor unrelieved Except by the Content Another bear its Duplicate In other Continent....
29. I groped for him before I knew I groped for him before I knew With solemn nameless need All other bounty sudden chaff For this foreshadowed Food Which others taste and spurn and sneer Though I within suppose That consecrated it could be The only Food that grows...
30. We knew not that we were to live We knew not that we were to live Nor when we are to die Our ignorance our cuirass is We wear Mortality As lightly as an Option Gown Till asked to take it off By his intrusion, God is known It is the same with Life...
31. Nature and God I neither knew Nature and God I neither knew Yet Both so well knew me They startled, like Executors Of My identity. Yet Neither told that I could learn My Secret as secure As Herschel’s private interest Or Mercury’s affair...
32. Modern Love I: By This He Knew She Wept By this he knew she wept with waking eyes: That, at his hand’s light quiver by her head, The strange low sobs that shook their common bed Were called into her with a sharp surprise, And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes, Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away […]...
33. Once, I knew a fine song Once, I knew a fine song, It is true, believe me It was all of birds, And I held them in a basket; When I opened the wicket, Heavens! They all flew away. I cried, “Come back, little thoughts!” But they only laughed. They flew on Until they were as sand Thrown between me and […]...
34. 1861 AARM’D year! year of the struggle! No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year! Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas piano; But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing, carrying a rifle on your shoulder, With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands-with […]...
35. The doll's wooing The little French doll was a dear little doll Tricked out in the sweetest of dresses; Her eyes were of hue A most delicate blue And dark as the night were her tresses; Her dear little mouth was fluted and red, And this little French doll was so very well bred That whenever accosted her […]...
36. Elijah's Wagon knew no thill Elijah’s Wagon knew no thill Was innocent of Wheel Elijah’s horses as unique As was his vehicle Elijah’s journey to portray Expire with him the skill Who justified Elijah In feats inscrutable...
37. For largest Woman's Hearth I knew For largest Woman’s Hearth I knew ‘Tis little I can do And yet the largest Woman’s Heart Could hold an Arrow too And so, instructed by my own, I tenderer, turn Me to....
38. The most triumphant Bird I ever knew or met The most triumphant Bird I ever knew or met Embarked upon a twig today And till Dominion set I famish to behold so eminent a sight And sang for nothing scrutable But intimate Delight. Retired, and resumed his transitive Estate To what delicious Accident Does finest Glory fit!...
39. It knew no lapse, nor Diminuation It knew no lapse, nor Diminuation But large serene Burned on until through Dissolution It failed from Men I could not deem these Planetary forces Annulled But suffered an Exchange of Territory Or World...
40. Friendship Between Ephelia And Ardelia Eph. What Friendship is, ARDELIA shew. Ard. ‘Tis to love, as I love You. Eph. This Account, so short (tho’ kind) Suits not my enquiring Mind. Therefore farther now repeat; What is Friendship when complete? Ard. ‘Tis to share all Joy and Grief; ‘Tis to lend all due Relief From the Tongue, the Heart, the […]...