Home ⇒ 📌Richard Wilbur ⇒ June Light
June Light
Your voice, with clear location of June days,
Called me outside the window. You were there,
Light yet composed, as in the just soft stare
Of uncontested summer all things raise
Plainly their seeming into seamless air.
Then your love looked as simple and entire
As that picked pear you tossed me, and your face
As legible as pearskin’s fleck and trace,
Which promise always wine, by mottled fire
More fatal fleshed than ever human grace.
And your gay gift-Oh when I saw it fall
Into my hands, through all that naïve light,
It seemed as blessed with truth and new delight
As must have been the first great gift of all.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Self-Congratulation Ellen, you were thoughtless once Of beauty or of grace, Simple and homely in attire, Careless of form and face; Then whence this change? and wherefore now So often smooth your hair? And wherefore deck your youthful form With such unwearied care? Tell us - and cease to tire our ears With that familiar strain […]...
- A Fragment ‘Maiden, thou wert thoughtless once Of beauty or of grace, Simple and homely in attire Careless of form and face. Then whence this change, and why so oft Dost smooth thy hazel hair? And wherefore deck thy youthful form With such unwearied care? ‘Tell us - and cease to tire our ears With yonder hackneyed […]...
- All in June A week ago I had a fire To warm my feet, my hands and face; Cold winds, that never make a friend, Crept in and out of every place. Today the fields are rich in grass, And buttercups in thousands grow; I’ll show the world where I have been With gold-dust seen on either shoe. […]...
- A Calendar of Sonnets: June O month whose promise and fulfilment blend, And burst in one! it seems the earth can store In all her roomy house no treasure more; Of all her wealth no farthing have to spend On fruit, when once this stintless flowering end. And yet no tiniest flower shall fall before It hath made ready at […]...
- A Light Woman I. So far as our story approaches the end, Which do you pity the most of us three?- My friend, or the mistress of my friend With her wanton eyes, or me? II. My friend was already too good to lose, And seemed in the way of improvement yet, When she crossed his path with […]...
- A Toad, can die of Light A Toad, can die of Light Death is the Common Right Of Toads and Men Of Earl and Midge The privilege Why swagger, then? The Gnat’s supremacy is large as Thine Life is a different Thing So measure Wine Naked of Flask Naked of Cask Bare Rhine Which Ruby’s mine?...
- June 19 What is it about the Abyss That tempts the young poet to kiss The air and head for the nearest cliff? This Unreasonable attachment to the bliss Of falling what accounts for it? Unlike the hiss Announcing a reptilian presence, the word Abyss Creates the object of our dread: it exists, it is, Widening like […]...
- June I gazed upon the glorious sky And the green mountains round, And thought that when I came to lie At rest within the ground, “Twere pleasant, that in flowery June, When brooks send up a cheerful tune, And groves a joyous sound, The sexton’s hand, my grave to make, The rich, green mountain-turf should break. […]...
- June Last June I saw your face three times; Three times I touched your hand; Now, as before, May month is o’er, And June is in the land. O many Junes shall come and go, Flow’r-footed o’er the mead; O many Junes for me, to whom Is length of days decreed. There shall be sunlight, scent […]...
- Long Point Light Long Pont’s apparitional This warm spring morning, The strand a blur of sandy light, And the square white Of the lighthouse-separated from us By the bay’s ultramarine As if it were nowhere We could ever go-gleams Like a tower’s ghost, hazing Into the rinsed blue of March, Our last outpost in the huge Indetermination of […]...
- Light Light, my light, the world-filling light, The eye-kissing light, Heart-sweetening light! Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the center of my life; The light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love; The sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth. The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light. […]...
- The Rain Was Ending, And Light The rain was ending, and light Lifting the leaden skies. It shone upon ceiling and floor And dazzled a child’s eyes. Pale after fever, a captive Apart from his schoolfellows, He stood at the high room’s window With face to the pane pressed close, And beheld an immense glory Flooding with fire the drops Spilled […]...
- Clear, with Light, Variable Winds The fountain bent and straightened itself In the night wind, Blowing like a flower. It gleamed and glittered, A tall white lily, Under the eye of the golden moon. From a stone seat, Beneath a blossoming lime, The man watched it. And the spray pattered On the dim grass at his feet. The fountain tossed […]...
- There is a June when Corn is cut There is a June when Corn is cut And Roses in the Seed A Summer briefer than the first But tenderer indeed As should a Face supposed the Grave’s Emerge a single Noon In the Vermilion that it wore Affect us, and return Two Seasons, it is said, exist The Summer of the Just, And […]...
- JUNE SHE behind yon mountain lives, Who my love’s sweet guerdon gives. Tell me, mount, how this can be! Very glass thou seem’st to me, And I seem to be close by, For I see her drawing nigh; Now, because I’m absent, sad, Now, because she sees me, glad! Soon between us rise to sight Valleys […]...
- LIFE IS THE BODY'S LIGHT Life is the body’s light; which, once declining, Those crimson clouds i’ th’ cheeks and lips leave shining:- Those counter-changed tabbies in the air, The sun once set, all of one colour are: So, when death comes, fresh tinctures lose their place, And dismal darkness then doth smutch the face....
- When The Light Appears Lento You’ll bare your bones you’ll grow you’ll pray you’ll only know When the light appears, boy, when the light appears You’ll sing & you’ll love you’ll praise blue heavens above When the light appears, boy, when the light appears You’ll whimper & you’ll cry you’ll get yourself sick and sigh You’ll sleep & you’ll […]...
- Light Hearted Author The birches are mad with green points The wood’s edge is burning with their green, Burning, seething-No, no, no. The birches are opening their leaves one By one. Their delicate leaves unfold cold And separate, one by one. Slender tassels Hang swaying from the delicate branch tips – Oh, I cannot say it. There is […]...
- June Dreams, In January “So pulse, and pulse, thou rhythmic-hearted Noon That liest, large-limbed, curved along the hills, In languid palpitation, half a-swoon With ardors and sun-loves and subtle thrills; “Throb, Beautiful! while the fervent hours exhale As kisses faint-blown from thy finger-tips Up to the sun, that turn him passion-pale And then as red as any virgin’s lips. […]...
- Light HAIL holy light, ofspring of Heav’n first-born, Or of th’ Eternal Coeternal beam May I express thee unblam’d? since God is light, And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate. Or hear’st thou rather pure Ethereal stream, Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the […]...
- Song of the Flower XXIII I am a kind word uttered and repeated By the voice of Nature; I am a star fallen from the Blue tent upon the green carpet. I am the daughter of the elements With whom Winter conceived; To whom Spring gave birth; I was Reared in the lap of Summer and I Slept in the […]...
- LAST SUPPER Botticelli grinned With egg tempera congealed At the hinge of his lips Velasquez licked Shine from an aubergine blackened In the shadows Vermeer picked Pearls from a jar labelled ‘silverskin onions’ Turner stirred Through the steam mist risen Above Venetian chicken soup Monet decorated A blue plate with sliced Cucumber and radishes Gauguin sniffed A […]...
- The Light Wraps You The light wraps you in its mortal flame. Abstracted pale mourner, standing that way Against the old propellers of the twighlight That revolves around you. Speechless, my friend, Alone in the loneliness of this hour of the dead And filled with the lives of fire, Pure heir of the ruined day. A bough of fruit […]...
- The light was always you In the beginning there was light, Abundant light that truly lit the way, Time was never lost in dodging flights Of feckless shadows and darkness seldom Ever blight the brightness of our days. And when the shadows came at night And stretched into the weary dawn, tangled In the sleepers’ eyes and yawning in their […]...
- A Song: When June is Past, the Fading Rose Ask me no more where Jove bestows, When June is past, the fading rose; For in your beauty’s orient deep These flowers as in their causes, sleep. Ask me no more whither doth stray The golden atoms of the day; For in pure love heaven did prepare Those powders to enrich your hair. Ask me […]...
- The Poets light but Lamps The Poets light but Lamps Themselves go out The Wicks they stimulate If vital Light Inhere as do the Suns Each Age a Lens Disseminating their Circumference...
- The Testimony Of Light Our life is a fire dampened, or a fire shut up in stone. Jacob Boehme, De Incarnatione Verbi Outside everything visible and invisible a blazing maple. Daybreak: a seam at the curve of the world. The trousered legs of the women shimmered. They held their arms in front of them like ghosts. The coal bones […]...
- The Light and Glory of the Word The Spirit breathes upon the word, And brings the truth to sight; Precepts and promises afford A sanctifying light. A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic like the sun; It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none. The hand that gave it still supplies The gracious light and heat; His truths […]...
- Under the Light, yet under Under the Light, yet under, Under the Grass and the Dirt, Under the Beetle’s Cellar Under the Clover’s Root, Further than Arm could stretch Were it Giant long, Further than Sunshine could Were the Day Year long, Over the Light, yet over, Over the Arc of the Bird Over the Comet’s chimney Over the Cubit’s […]...
- Especially For You This poem is a special gift especially For you, All I ask is that you read it often And every time you do I want you to see the person who Gave you this special gift… And I want their image to fill you With love and give your heart a lift. Then I want […]...
- Making Light Of It I call out a secret name, the name Of the angel who guards my sleep, And light grows in the east, a new light Like no other, as soft as the petals Of the blown rose in late summer. Yes, it is late summer in the West. Even the grasses climbing the Sierras Reach for […]...
- The Fingers of the Light The Fingers of the Light Tapped soft upon the Town With “I am great and cannot wait So therefore let me in.” “You’re soon,” the Town replied, “My Faces are asleep But swear, and I will let you by, You will not wake them up.” The easy Guest complied But once within the Town The […]...
- Ode To Wine Day-colored wine, Night-colored wine, Wine with purple feet Or wine with topaz blood, Wine, Starry child Of earth, Wine, smooth As a golden sword, Soft As lascivious velvet, Wine, spiral-seashelled And full of wonder, Amorous, Marine; Never has one goblet contained you, One song, one man, You are choral, gregarious, At the least, you must […]...
- The Light of Other Days OFT, in the stilly night, Ere slumber’s chain has bound me, Fond Memory brings the light Of other days around me: The smiles, the tears Of boyhood’s years, The words of love then spoken; The eyes that shone, Now dimm’d and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken! Thus, in the stilly night, Ere slumber’s chain […]...
- More Light! More Light! For Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt Composed in the Tower before his execution These moving verses, and being brought at that time Painfully to the stake, submitted, declaring thus: “I implore my God to witness that I have made no crime.” Nor was he forsaken of courage, but the death was horrible, The sack of […]...
- The Light of Stars The night is come, but not too soon; And sinking silently, All silently, the little moon Drops down behind the sky. There is no light in earth or heaven But the cold light of stars; And the first watch of night is given To the red planet Mars. Is it the tender star of love? […]...
- Villeggiature My window, framed in pear-tree bloom, White-curtained shone, and softly lighted: So, by the pear-tree, to my room Your ghost last night climbed uninvited. Your solid self, long leagues away, Deep in dull books, had hardly missed me; And yet you found this Romeo’s way, And through the blossom climbed and kissed me. I watched […]...
- The Light By The Barn The light by the barn that shines all night Pales at dawn when a little breeze comes. A little breeze comes breathing the fields From their sleep and waking the slow windmill. The slow windmill sings the long day About anguish and loss to the chickens at work. The little breeze follows the slow windmill […]...
- Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines Light breaks where no sun shines; Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart Push in their tides; And, broken ghosts with glowworms in their heads, The things of light File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones. A candle in the thighs Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of […]...
- The Light o' the Moon [How different people and different animals look upon the moon: showing that each creature finds in it his own mood and disposition] The Old Horse in the City The moon’s a peck of corn. It lies Heaped up for me to eat. I wish that I might climb the path And taste that supper sweet. […]...