The Caterpillar

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1. How soft a Caterpillar steps How soft a Caterpillar steps I fond one on my Hand From such a velvet world it comes Such plushes at command Its soundless travels just arrest My slow terrestrial eye Intent upon its own career What use has it for me...
2. Beloved, Let Us Once More Praise The Rain Beloved, let us once more praise the rain. Let us discover some new alphabet, For this, the often praised; and be ourselves, The rain, the chickweed, and the burdock leaf, The green-white privet flower, the spotted stone, And all that welcomes the rain; the sparrow too,- Who watches with a hard eye from seclusion, Beneath […]...
3. THE HAWTHORN TREE ACROSS the shimmering meadows Ah, when he came to me! In the spring-time, In the night-time, In the starlight, Beneath the hawthorn tree. Up from the misty marsh-land Ah, when he climbed to me! To my white bower, To my sweet rest, To my warm breast, Beneath the hawthorn tree. Ask of me what the […]...
4. The Willow Who shall sing a simple ditty about the Willow, Dainty-fine and delicate as any bending spray That dandles high the dainty bird that flutters there to trill a Tremulously tender song of greeting to the May. Bravest, too, of all the trees! none to match your daring, First of greens to greet the Spring and […]...
5. Cradle Song FROM groves of spice, O’er fields of rice, Athwart the lotus-stream, I bring for you, Aglint with dew A little lovely dream. Sweet, shut your eyes, The wild fire-fiies Dance through the fairy neem; From the poppy-bole For you I stole A little lovely dream. Dear eyes, good-night, In golden light The stars around you […]...
6. Martha “Once…Once upon a time…” Over and over again, Martha would tell us her stories, In the hazel glen. Hers were those clear gray eyes You watch, and the story seems Told by their beautifulness Tranquil as dreams. She’d sit with her two slim hands Clasped round her bended knees; While we on our elbows lolled, […]...
7. At Baia I should have thought In a dream you would have brought Some lovely, perilous thing, Orchids piled in a great sheath, As who would say (in a dream), “I send you this, Who left the blue veins Of your throat unkissed.” Why was it that your hands (that never took mine), Your hands that I […]...
8. Nothing Gold Can Stay Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay....
9. In spring and summer winds may blow In spring and summer winds may blow, And rains fall after, hard and fast; The tender leaves, if beaten low, Shine but the more for shower and blast But when their fated hour arrives, When reapers long have left the field, When maidens rifle turn’d-up hives, And their last juice fresh apples yield, A leaf […]...
10. Night Stuff LISTEN a while, the moon is a lovely woman, a lonely woman, lost in a silver dress, lost in a circus rider’s silver dress. Listen a while, the lake by night is a lonely woman, a lovely woman, circled with birches and pines mixing their green and white among stars shattered in spray clear nights. […]...
11. Epilogue “Why can’t you say what you mean straight out in prose?” Well, say it yourself: then say “It’s that, but more, Or less perhaps, or not that way, or not That after all.” The meaning of a song Might be an undernote; this tree might mean That leaf as much as trunk, branch, other leaves. […]...
12. Gray Room Although you sit in a room that is gray, Except for the silver Of the straw-paper, And pick At your pale white gown; Or lift one of the green beads Of your necklace, To let it fall; Or gaze at your green fan Printed with the red branches of a red willow; Or, with one […]...
13. The Kingfisher It was the Rainbow gave thee birth, And left thee all her lovely hues; And, as her mother’s name was Tears, So runs it in my blood to choose For haunts the lonely pools, and keep In company with trees that weep. Go you and, with such glorious hues, Live with proud peacocks in green […]...
14. These Green-Going-to-Yellow This year, I’m raising the emotional ante, Putting my face In the leaves to be stepped on, Seeing myself among them, that is; That is, likening Leaf-vein to artery, leaf to flesh, The passage of a leaf in autumn To the passage of autumn, Branch-tip and winter spaces To possibilities, and possibility To God. Even […]...
15. Loch Ness Beautiful Loch Ness, The truth to express, Your landscapes are lovely and gay, Along each side of your waters, to Fort Augustus all the way, Your scenery is romantic… With rocks and hills gigantic… Enough to make one frantic, As they view thy beautiful heathery hills, And their clear crystal rills, And the beautiful woodlands […]...
16. Highland Mary Ye banks and braes and streams around The castle o’ Montgomery, Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, Your waters never drumlie! There simmer first unfauld her robes, And there the langest tarry; For there I took the last fareweel O’ my sweet Highland Mary. How sweetly bloomed the gay green birk, How rich […]...
17. A Song of Enchantment A song of Enchantment I sang me there, In a green-green wood, by waters fair, Just as the words came up to me I sang it under the wild wood tree. Widdershins turned I, singing it low, Watching the wild birds come and go; No cloud in the deep dark blue to be seen Under […]...
18. 384. Song-Highland Mary YE banks, and braes, and streams around The castle o’ Montgomery! Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, Your waters never drumlie: There Simmer first unfauld her robes, And there the langest tarry; For there I took the last Farewell O’ my sweet Highland Mary. How sweetly bloom’d the gay, green birk, How rich […]...
19. 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....
20. The Scribe What lovely things Thy hand hath made: The smooth-plumed bird In its emerald shade, The seed of the grass, The speck of the stone Which the wayfaring ant Stirs and hastes on! Though I should sit By some tarn in thy hills, Using its ink As the spirit wills To write of Earth’s wonders, Its […]...
21. Oh, the Shamrock Through Erin’s Isle To sport awhile As Love and Valour wander’d, With Wit, the sprite, Whose quiver bright A thousand arrows squander’d; Where’er they pass, A triple grass Shoots up, with dew-drops streaming, As softly green As emeralds seen Through purest crystal gleaming. Oh the Shamrock, the green, immortal Shamrock! Chosen leaf Of Bard and […]...
22. Papa above! Papa above! Regard a Mouse O’erpowered by the Cat! Reserve within thy kingdom A “Mansion” for the Rat! Snug in seraphic Cupboards To nibble all the day While unsuspecting Cycles Wheel solemnly away!...
23. 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 […]...
24. Wind in the Beechwood The glorying forest shakes and swings with glancing Of boughs that dip and strain; young, slanting sprays Beckon and shift like lissom creatures dancing, While the blown beechwood streams with drifting rays. Rooted in steadfast calm, grey stems are seen Like weather-beaten masts; the wood, unfurled, Seems as a ship with crowding sails of green […]...
25. A Pinch of Salt When a dream is born in you With a sudden clamorous pain, When you know the dream is true And lovely, with no flaw nor stain, O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch You’ll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much. Dreams are like a bird that mocks, Flirting the feathers of his […]...
26. Ballad of Another Ophelia Oh the green glimmer of apples in the orchard, Lamps in a wash of rain! Oh the wet walk of my brown hen through the stackyard, Oh tears on the window pane! Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples, Full of disappointment and of rain, Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow […]...
27. Trees In The Garden Ah in the thunder air How still the trees are! And the lime-tree, lovely and tall, every leaf silent Hardly looses even a last breath of perfume. And the ghostly, creamy coloured little tree of leaves White, ivory white among the rambling greens How evanescent, variegated elder, she hesitates on the green grass As if, […]...
28. Sonnet VIII: There's Nothing Grieves Me There’s nothing grieves me, but that Age should haste, That in my days I may not see thee old, That where those two clear sparkling eyes are plac’d Only two loop-holes then I might behold; That lovely, arched, ivory, polish’d brow Defac’d with wrinkles that I might but see; Thy dainty hair, so curl’d and […]...
29. The Faces of Memory DREAM faces bloom around your face Like flowers upon one stem; The heart of many a vanished race Sighs as I look on them. The sun rich face of Egypt glows, The eyes of Eire brood, With whom the golden Cyprian shows In lovely sisterhood. Your tree of life put forth these flowers In ages […]...
30. Moonrise I awoke in the Midsummer not to call night, in the white and the walk of the morning: The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe of a finger-nail held to the candle, Or paring of paradisaical fruit, lovely in waning but lustreless, Stepped from the stool, drew back from the barrow, of dark Maenefa […]...
31. HOLY WEEK AT GENOA I wandered through Scoglietto’s far retreat, The oranges on each o’erhanging spray Burned as bright lamps of gold to shame the day; Some startled bird with fluttering wings and fleet Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet Like silver moons the pale narcissi lay: And the curved waves that streaked the great green […]...
32. The Year of the Rose From the depths of the green garden-closes Where the summer in darkness dozes Till autumn pluck from his hand An hour-glass that holds not a sand; From the maze that a flower-belt encloses To the stones and sea-grass on the strand How red was the reign of the roses Over the rose-crowned land! The year […]...
33. Morning O’ER fallow plains and fertile meads, AURORA lifts the torch of day; The shad’wy brow of Night recedes, Cold dew-drops fall from every spray; Now o’er the thistle’s rugged head, Thin veils of filmy vapour fly, On ev’ry violet’s perfum’d bed The sparkling gems of Nature lie. The hill’s tall brow is crown’d with gold, […]...
34. The Wood Road If I were to walk this way Hand in hand with Grief, I should mark that maple-spray Coming into leaf. I should note how the old burrs Rot upon the ground. Yes, though Grief should know me hers While the world goes round, It could not if truth be said This was lost on me: […]...
35. Seascape This celestial seascape, with white herons got up as angels, Flying high as they want and as far as they want sidewise In tiers and tiers of immaculate reflections; The whole region, from the highest heron Down to the weightless mangrove island With bright green leaves edged neatly with bird-droppings Like illumination in silver, And […]...
36. The Weakest Thing Which is the weakest thing of all Mine heart can ponder? The sun, a little cloud can pall With darkness yonder? The cloud, a little wind can move Where’er it listeth? The wind, a little leaf above, Though sere, resisteth? What time that yellow leaf was green, My days were gladder; But now, whatever Spring […]...
37. A Dream In visions of the dark night I have dreamed of joy departed- But a waking dream of life and light Hath left me broken-hearted. Ah! what is not a dream by day To him whose eyes are cast On things around him with a ray Turned back upon the past? That holy dream – that […]...
38. Encounter Those who have touched it or been touched by it Or brushed by something that the vine has brushed, Or burning it, have stood where the sly smoke Has touched them-Know the meaning of its name. The leaf is smooth. Its green is innocence. A clean, unblemished leaf, glossy when young. A leaf the unobserving […]...
39. Seeking Beauty Cold winds can never freeze, nor thunder sour The cup of cheer that Beauty draws for me Out of those Azure heavens and this green earth I drink and drink, and thirst the more I see. To see the dewdrops thrill the blades of grass, Makes my whole body shake; for here’s my choice Of […]...
40. Blessings God bless the little orchard brown Where the sap stirs these quickening days. Soon in a white and rosy gown The trees will give great praise. God knows I have it in my mind, The white house with the golden eaves. God knows since it is left behind That something grieves and grieves. God keep […]...