A Late Walk

Related poetry:

1. MORNING WALK For Barbara I step off the pavement Like a precipice Engage the darting sunshafts In a duel In the wall’s shadow I web My prints to pattern The moist stone virgins. The lawns are white-coated Their throats red With berries and bird-song; In petrified gardens Hyacinth tongues lip the wall. Leaf mould muffles my heel-taps […]...
2. Late Autumn October – and the skies are cool and gray O’er stubbles emptied of their latest sheaf, Bare meadow, and the slowly falling leaf. The dignity of woods in rich decay Accords full well with this majestic grief That clothes our solemn purple hills to-day, Whose afternoon is hush’d, and wintry brief Only a robin sings […]...
3. My Mother On An Evening In Late Summer 1 When the moon appears And a few wind-stricken barns stand out In the low-domed hills And shine with a light That is veiled and dust-filled And that floats upon the fields, My mother, with her hair in a bun, Her face in shadow, and the smoke From their cigarette coiling close To the faint […]...
4. Late Moon 2 a. m. December, and still no mon Rising from the river. My mother Home from the beer garden Stands before the open closet Her hands still burning. She smooths the fur collar, The scarf, opens the gloves Crumpled like letters. Nothing is lost She says to the darkness, nothing. The moon finally above the […]...
5. A Bird came down the Walk A Bird came down the Walk He did not know I saw He bit an Angleworm in halves And ate the fellow, raw, And then he drank a Dew From a convenient Grass And then hopped sidewise to the Wall To let a Beetle pass He glanced with rapid eyes That hurried all around They […]...
6. Poems Done on a Late Night Car I. CHICKENS I am The Great White Way of the city: When you ask what is my desire, I answer: “Girls fresh as country wild flowers, With young faces tired of the cows and barns, Eager in their eyes as the dawn to find my mysteries, Slender supple girls with shapely legs, Lure in the […]...
7. TO THE MAIDS, TO WALK ABROAD Come, sit we under yonder tree, Where merry as the maids we’ll be; And as on primroses we sit, We’ll venture, if we can, at wit; If not, at draw-gloves we will play, So spend some minutes of the day; Or else spin out the thread of sands, Playing at questions and commands: Or tell […]...
8. Tezcotzinco Though thou art now a ruin bare and cold, Thou wert sometime the garden of a king. The birds have sought a lovelier place to sing. The flowers are few. It was not so of old. It was not thus when hand in hand there strolled Through arbors perfumed with undying Spring Bare bodies beautiful, […]...
9. Late September Tang of fruitage in the air; Red boughs bursting everywhere; Shimmering of seeded grass; Hooded gentians all a’mass. Warmth of earth, and cloudless wind Tearing off the husky rind, Blowing feathered seeds to fall By the sun-baked, sheltering wall. Beech trees in a golden haze; Hardy sumachs all ablaze, Glowing through the silver birches. How […]...
10. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
11. To The Right Honourable The Lady Penelope Dowager Of The Late Vis-Count Bayning Great Lady, Humble partners of like griefe In bringing Comfort may deserve beliefe, Because they Feele and Feyne not: Thus we say Unto Ourselves, Lord Bayning, though away, Is still of Christ-Church; somewhat out of sight, As when he travel’d, or did bid good night, And was not seen long after; now he stands Remov’d […]...
12. Evening in a Sugar Orchard From where I lingered in a lull in march Outside the sugar-house one night for choice, I called the fireman with a careful voice And bade him leave the pan and stoke the arch: ‘O fireman, give the fire another stoke, And send more sparks up chimney with the smoke.’ I thought a few might […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. Late Afternoon: The Onslaught Of Love For William and Emily Maxwell At this time of day One could hear the caulking irons sound Against the hulls in the dockyard. Tar smoke rose between trees And large oily patches floated on the water, Undulating unevenly In the purple sunlight Like the surfaces of Florentine bronze. At this time of day Sounds carried […]...
15. The Little Ghost I knew her for a little ghost That in my garden walked; The wall is high-higher than most- And the green gate was locked. And yet I did not think of that Till after she was gone- I knew her by the broad white hat, All ruffled, she had on. By the dear ruffles round […]...
16. Before you thought of Spring Before you thought of Spring Except as a Surmise You see God bless his suddenness A Fellow in the Skies Of independent Hues A little weather worn Inspiriting habiliments Of Indigo and Brown With specimens of Song As if for you to choose Discretion in the interval With gay delays he goes To some superior […]...
17. Late Spring I Ah, who will tell me, in these leaden days, Why the sweet Spring delays, And where she hides, the dear desire Of every heart that longs For bloom, and fragrance, and the ruby fire Of maple-buds along the misty hills, And that immortal call which fills The waiting wood with songs? The snow-drops came […]...
18. To the Thawing Wind COME with rain. O loud Southwester! Bring the singer, bring the nester; Give the buried flower a dream; Make the settled snowbank steam; Find the brown beneath the white; But whate’er you do tonight, Bath my window, make it flow, Melt it as the ice will go; Melt the glass and leave the sticks Like […]...
19. Late Light Rain filled the streets Once a year, rising almost To door and window sills, Battering walls and roofs Until it cleaned away the mess We’d made. My father told Me this, he told me it ran Downtown and spilled into The river, which in turn Emptied finally into the sea. He said this only once […]...
20. Lover's Gifts II: Come to My Garden Walk Come to my garden walk, my love. Pass by the fervid flowers that Press themselves on your sight. Pass them by, stopping at some Chance joy, which like a sudden wonder of sunset illumines, yet Elude. For lover’s gift is shy, it never tells its name, it flits Across the shade, spreading a shiver of […]...
21. The Leaf And The Tree When will you learn, myself, to be A dying leaf on a living tree? Budding, swelling, growing strong, Wearing green, but not for long, Drawing sustenance from air, That other leaves, and you not there, May bud, and at the autumn’s call Wearing russet, ready to fall? Has not this trunk a deed to do […]...
22. Little-oh dear See, what a wonderful garden is here, Planted and trimmed for my Little-Oh-Dear! Posies so gaudy and grass of such brown – Search ye the country and hunt ye the town And never ye’ll meet with a garden so queer As this one I’ve made for my Little-Oh-Dear! Marigolds white and buttercups blue, Lilies all […]...
23. The Late Singer Here it is spring again And I still a young man! I am late at my singing. The sparrow with the black rain on his breast Has been at his cadenzas for two weeks past: What is it that is dragging at my heart? The grass by the back door Is stiff with sap. The […]...
24. The Rattling Boy from Dublin I’m a rattling boy from Dublin town, I courted a girl called Biddy Brown, Her eyes they were as black as sloes, She had black hair and an aquiline nose. Chorus Whack fal de da, fal de darelido, Whack fal de da, fal de darelay, Whack fal de da, fal de darelido, Whack fal de […]...
25. 312. Elegy on the late Miss Burnet of Monboddo LIFE ne’er exulted in so rich a prize, As Burnet, lovely from her native skies; Nor envious death so triumph’d in a blow, As that which laid th’ accomplish’d Burnet low. Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget? In richest ore the brightest jewel set! In thee, high Heaven above was truest shown, […]...
26. The Task: Book V, The Winter Morning Walk (excerpts) ‘Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb Ascending, fires th’ horizon: while the clouds, That crowd away before the driving wind, More ardent as the disk emerges more, Resemble most some city in a blaze, Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale, And, tinging all with his […]...
27. Old St David's at Radnor What an image of peace and rest Is this little church among its graves! All is so quiet; the troubled breast, The wounded spirit, the heart oppressed, Here may find the repose it craves. See, how the ivy climbs and expands Over this humble hermitage, And seems to caress with its little hands The rough, […]...
28. Approach Of Winter The half-stripped trees Struck by a wind together, Bending all, The leaves flutter drily And refuse to let go Or driven like hail Stream bitterly out to one side And fall Where the salvias, hard carmine- Like no leaf that ever was – Edge the bare garden....
29. Late Autumn In Venice (After Rilke) The city floats no longer like a bait To hook the nimble darting summer days. The glazed and brittle palaces pulsate and radiate And glitter. Summer’s garden sways, A heap of marionettes hanging down and dangled, Leaves tired, torn, turned upside down and strangled: Until from forest depths, from bony leafless trees A […]...
30. Late Summer Fires The paddocks shave black With a foam of smoke that stays, Welling out of red-black wounds. In the white of a drought This happens. The hardcourt game. Logs that fume are mostly cattle, Inverted, stubby. Tree stumps are kilns. Walloped, wiped, hand-pumped, Even this day rolls over, slowly. At dusk, a family drives sheep Out […]...
31. The Morning Walk When Anne and I go out a walk, We hold each other’s hand and talk Of all the things we mean to do When Anne and I are forty-two. And when we’ve thought about a thing, Like bowling hoops or bicycling, Or falling down on Anne’s balloon, We do it in the afternoon....
32. Noon Walk On The Asylum Lawn The summer sun ray Shifts through a suspicious tree. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow It sucks the air And looks around for me. The grass speaks. I hear green chanting all day. I will fear no evil, fear no evil The blades extend And reach my way. The sky breaks. It […]...
33. Tho' I get home how late how late Tho’ I get home how late how late So I get home – ’twill compensate Better will be the Ecstasy That they have done expecting me When Night descending dumb and dark They hear my unexpected knock Transporting must the moment be Brewed from decades of Agony! To think just how the fire will burn […]...
34. A Youth Mowing There are four men mowing down by the Isar; I can hear the swish of the scythe-strokes, four Sharp breaths taken: yea, and I Am sorry for what’s in store. The first man out of the four that’s mowing Is mine, I claim him once and for all; Though it’s sorry I am, on his […]...
35. A Sea-Side Walk We walked beside the sea, After a day which perished silently Of its own glory – like the Princess weird Who, combating the Genius, scorched and seared, Uttered with burning breath, ‘Ho! victory!’ And sank adown, an heap of ashes pale; So runs the Arab tale. The sky above us showed An universal and unmoving […]...
36. At The Window Every morning, as I walk down From my dreary lodgings, toward the town, I see at a window, near the street, The face of a woman, fair and sweet, With soft brown eyes and chestnut hair, And red lips, warm with the kisses left there. And she stands there as long as she can see […]...
37. It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon The Flower distinct and Red I, passing, thought another Noon Another in its stead Will equal glow, and thought no More But came another Day To find the Species disappeared The Same Locality The Sun in place no other fraud On Nature’s perfect Sum Had I but lingered […]...
38. The Walk Hail to thee, mountain beloved, with thy glittering purple-dyed summit! Hail to thee also, fair sun, looking so lovingly on! Thee, too, I hail, thou smiling plain, and ye murmuring lindens, Ay, and the chorus so glad, cradled on yonder high boughs; Thee, too, peaceably azure, in infinite measure extending Round the dusky-hued mount, over […]...
39. The Swing How do you like to go up in a swing, Up in the air so blue? Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing Ever a child can do! Up in the air and over the wall, Till I can see so wide, River and trees and cattle and all Over the countryside Till I […]...
40. Dryads When meadows are grey with the morn In the dusk of the woods it is night: The oak and the birch and the pine War with the glimmer of light. Dryads brown as the leaf Move in the gloom of the glade; When meadows are grey with the morn Dim night in the wood has […]...