Vocation

Related poetry:

1. The Gardener XIV: I Was Walking by the Road I was walking by the road, I do not Know why, when the noonday was past And bamboo branches rustled in the Wind. The prone shadows with their out- Stretched arms clung to the feet of The hurrying light. The koels were weary of their Songs. I was walking by the road, I do not […]...
2. Love's Lantern (For Aline) Because the road was steep and long And through a dark and lonely land, God set upon my lips a song And put a lantern in my hand. Through miles on weary miles of night That stretch relentless in my way My lantern burns serene and white, An unexhausted cup of day. O […]...
3. THE STORK'S VOCATION THE stork who worms and frogs devours That in our ponds reside, Why should he dwell on high church-towers, With which he’s not allied? Incessantly he chatters there, And gives our ears no rest; But neither old nor young can dare To drive him from his nest. I humbly ask it, how can he Give […]...
4. The Last Bargain “Come and hire me,” I cried, while in the morning I was walking on the stone-paved road. Sword in hand, the King came in his chariot. He held my hand and said, “I will hire you with my power.” But his power counted for nought, and he went away in his chariot. In the heat […]...
5. The Fear A lantern light from deeper in the barn Shone on a man and woman in the door And threw their lurching shadows on a house Near by, all dark in every glossy window. A horse’s hoof pawed once the hollow floor, And the back of the gig they stood beside Moved in a little. The […]...
6. Kore As I was walking I came upon Chance walking the same road upon. As I sat down by chance to move Later if and as I might, Light the wood was, light and green, And what I saw before I had not seen. It was a lady accompanied By goat men leading her. Her hair […]...
7. The Lane Some day, I think, there will be people enough In Froxfield to pick all the blackberries Out of the hedges of Green Lane, the straight Broad lane where now September hides herself In bracken and blackberry, harebell and dwarf gorse. To-day, where yesterday a hundred sheep Were nibbling, halcyon bells shake to the sway Of […]...
8. Acquainted With the Night I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. I have stood still and stopped […]...
9. Snow Day Today we woke up to a revolution of snow, Its white flag waving over everything, The landscape vanished, Not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness, And beyond these windows The government buildings smothered, Schools and libraries buried, the post office lost Under the noiseless drift, The paths of trains softly blocked, The world fallen […]...
10. Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave? “Ah, are you digging on my grave, My loved one? planting rue?” “No: yesterday he went to wed One of the brightest wealth has bred. ‘It cannot hurt her now,’ he said, ‘That I should not be true.'” “Then who is digging on my grave, My nearest dearest kin?” “Ah, no: they sit and think, […]...
11. In Memory Of My Mother I do not think of you lying in the wet clay Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see You walking down a lane among the poplars On your way to the station, or happily Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday You meet me and you say: ‘Don’t forget to see about the cattle ‘ […]...
12. In a Garden When the gardener has gone this garden Looks wistful and seems waiting an event. It is so spruce, a metaphor of Eden And even more so since the gardener went, Quietly godlike, but of course, he had Not made me promise anything and I Had no one tempting me to make the bad Choice. Yet […]...
13. Through lane it lay through bramble Through lane it lay through bramble Through clearing and through wood Banditti often passed us Upon the lonely road. The wolf came peering curious The owl looked puzzled down The serpent’s satin figure Glid stealthily along The tempests touched our garments The lightning’s poinards gleamed Fierce from the Crag above us The hungry Vulture screamed […]...
14. The Plough Of Time Night closed my windows and The sky became a crystal house The crystal windows glowed The moon Shown through them Through the whole house of crystal A single star beamed down Its crystal cable And drew a plough through the earth Unearthing bodies clasped together Couples embracing Around the earth They clung together everywhere Emitting […]...
15. Brown's Descent Brown lived at such a lofty farm That everyone for miles could see His lantern when he did his chores In winter after half-past three. And many must have seen him make His wild descent from there one night, ‘Cross lots, ‘cross walls, ‘cross everything, Describing rings of lantern light. Between the house and barn […]...
16. The Song of the Garden-Toad Down, down beneath the daisy beds, O hear the cries of pain! And moaning on the cinder-path They’re blind amid the rain. Can murmurs of the worms arise To higher hearts than mine? I wonder if that gardener hears Who made the mold all fine And packed each gentle seedling down So carefully in line? […]...
17. Monte Carlo Memories We took turns Watching seagulls there Walking on A tilted shore Of ancient waves And modern ships Sparkling in a Merchant’s breeze- Holding hands And getting wet In Monte Carlo Memories: You and I washing In a crystal sunset....
18. Out in the Garden Out in the garden, Out in the windy, swinging dark, Under the trees and over the flower-beds, Over the grass and under the hedge border, Someone is sweeping, sweeping, Some old gardener. Out in the windy, swinging dark, Someone is secretly putting in order, Someone is creeping, creeping....
19. A Work Of Artifice The bonsai tree In the attractive pot Could have grown eighty feet tall On the side of a mountain Till split by lightning. But a gardener Carefully pruned it. It is nine inches high. Every day as he Whittles back the branches The gardener croons, It is your nature To be small and cozy, Domestic […]...
20. The Seven Of Pentacles Under a sky the color of pea soup She is looking at her work growing away there Actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans As things grow in the real world, slowly enough. If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water, If you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter […]...
21. September 1961 This is the year the old ones, The old great ones Leave us alone on the road. The road leads to the sea. We have the words in our pockets, Obscure directions. The old ones Have taken away the light of their presence, We see it moving away over a hill Off to one side. […]...
22. The Gardener The gardener does not love to talk, He makes me keep the gravel walk; And when he puts his tools away, He locks the door and takes the key. Away behind the currant row Where no one else but cook may go, Far in the plots, I see him dig Old and serious, brown and […]...
23. Wherein Obscurely On the road with billowing poplars, In a country flat and desolate To the far-off gray horizon, wherein obscurely, A man and a woman went on foot, Each carrying a small suitcase. They were tired and had taken off Their shoes and were walking on Their toes, staring straight ahead. Every time a car passed […]...
24. The Rolling English Road Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode, The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road. A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire, And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire; A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread The […]...
25. Mother to Son Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor— Bare. But all the time I’se been a-climbin’ on, And reachin’ landin’s, And turnin’ corners, And sometimes goin’ in the dark Where there […]...
26. Bob's Lane Women he liked, did shovel-bearded Bob, Old Farmer Hayward of the Heath, but he Loved horses. He himself was like a cob And leather-coloured. Also he loved a tree. For the life in them he loved most living things, But a tree chiefly. All along the lane He planted elms where now the stormcock sings […]...
27. Incantation A white well In a black cave; A bright shell In a dark wave. A white rose Black brambles hood; Smooth bright snows In a dark wood. A flung white glove In a dark fight; A white dove On a wild black night. A white door In a dark lane; A bright core To bitter […]...
28. Digging Between my finger and my thumb The squat pin rest; snug as a gun. Under my window, a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: My father, digging. I look down Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds Bends low, comes up twenty years away Stooping in rhythm through potato drills Where […]...
29. The Perch There is a fork in a branch Of an ancient, enormous maple, One of a grove of such trees, Where I climb sometimes and sit and look out Over miles of valleys and low hills. Today on skis I took a friend To show her the trees. We set out Down the road, turned in […]...
30. The Path RUNNING along a bank, a parapet That saves from the precipitous wood below The level road, there is a path. It serves Children for looking down the long smooth steep, Between the legs of beech and yew, to where A fallen tree checks the sight: while men and women Content themselves with the road and […]...
31. Roadways ONE road leads to London, One road leads to Wales, My road leads me seawards To the white dipping sails. One road leads to the river, And it goes singing slow; My road leads to shipping, Where the bronzed sailors go. Leads me, lures me, calls me To salt green tossing sea; A road without […]...
32. The Road I, too, would ease my old car to a stop On the side of some country road And count the stars or admire a sunset Or sit quietly through an afternoon…. I’d open the door and go walking Like James Wright across a meadow, Where I might touch a pony’s ear and Break into blossom; […]...
33. The Traveller-Heart (To a Man who maintained that the Mausoleum is the Stateliest Possible Manner of Interment) I would be one with the dark, dark earth: Follow the plough with a yokel tread. I would be part of the Indian corn, Walking the rows with the plumes o’erhead. I would be one with the lavish earth, Eating […]...
34. No Road Since we agreed to let the road between us Fall to disuse, And bricked our gates up, planted trees to screen us, And turned all time’s eroding agents loose, Silence, and space, and strangers – our neglect Has not had much effect. Leaves drift unswept, perhaps; grass creeps unmown; No other change. So clear it […]...
35. End Of The World When I was young in school in Switzerland, about the time of the Boer War, We used to take it for known that the human race Would last the earth out, not dying till the planet died. I wrote a schoolboy poem About the last man walking in stoic dignity along the dead shore Of […]...
36. Long highway blues highway dancing During a long day Of running My thumb, Carrying me nowhere Grew tired, A sunset and beauty Carved the sky Her eyes and hair A tattoo upon my soul Wouldn’t let go I had nowhere to run And so, Highway dancing And nowhere To call home. Walking the long black road Alone Believing […]...
37. The Importance Of Elsewhere Lonely in Ireland, since it was not home, Strangeness made sense. The salt rebuff of speech, Insisting so on difference, made me welcome: Once that was recognised, we were in touch Their draughty streets, end-on to hills, the faint Archaic smell of dockland, like a stable, The herring-hawker’s cry, dwindling, went To prove me separate, […]...
38. The Hawthorn Tree Not much to me is yonder lane Where I go every day; But when there’s been a shower of rain And hedge-birds whistle gay, I know my lad that’s out in France With fearsome things to see Would give his eyes for just one glance At our white hawthorn tree. . . . . Not […]...
39. Marigolds With a fork drive Nature out, She will ever yet return; Hedge the flowerbed all about, Pull or stab or cut or burn, She will ever yet return. Look: the constant marigold Springs again from hidden roots. Baffled gardener, you behold New beginnings and new shoots Spring again from hidden roots. Pull or stab or […]...
40. The Chilterns Your hands, my dear, adorable, Your lips of tenderness Oh, I’ve loved you faithfully and well, Three years, or a bit less. It wasn’t a success. Thank God, that’s done! and I’ll take the road, Quit of my youth and you, The Roman road to Wendover By Tring and Lilley Hoo, As a free man […]...