The Withdrawal

Related poetry:

1. To Willie and Henrietta If two may read aright These rhymes of old delight And house and garden play, You too, my cousins, and you only, may. You in a garden green With me were king and queen, Were hunter, soldier, tar, And all the thousand things that children are. Now in the elders’ seat We rest with quiet […]...
2. Houses (For Aline) When you shall die and to the sky Serenely, delicately go, Saint Peter, when he sees you there, Will clash his keys and say: “Now talk to her, Sir Christopher! And hurry, Michelangelo! She wants to play at building, And you’ve got to help her play!” Every architect will help erect A palace […]...
3. Felix Schmidt It was only a little house of two rooms Almost like a child’s play-house With scarce five acres of ground around it; And I had so many children to feed And school and clothe, and a wife who was sick From bearing children. One day lawyer Whitney came along And proved to me that Christian […]...
4. The red man says hello the red man says hello The green tree says i’m here All grown-ups are sleeping Only the children hear Decorations are delighted Presents hug the floor The room in its festive hat Hides behind the door Through the glittering day Two worlds split the one Grown-ups lose their tempers Children have the fun The red […]...
5. Nurses Song (Experience) When the voices of children. are heard on the green And whisprings are in the dale: The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind, My face turns green and pale. Then come home my children. the sun is gone down And the dews of night arise Your spring & your day. are wasted […]...
6. Nurse's Song (Innocence) When voices of children are heard on the green And laughing is heard on the hill, My heart is at rest within my breast And everything else is still Then come home my children the sun is gone down And the dews of night arise Come come leave off play, and let us away Till […]...
7. Happiness I ASKED the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell Me what is happiness. And I went to famous executives who boss the work of Thousands of men. They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with them And then one Sunday afternoon I […]...
8. I worked for chaff and earning Wheat I worked for chaff and earning Wheat Was haughty and betrayed. What right had Fields to arbitrate In matters ratified? I tasted Wheat and hated Chaff And thanked the ample friend Wisdom is more becoming viewed At distance than at hand....
9. Johnnie Sayre Father, thou canst never know The anguish that smote my heart For my disobedience, the moment I felt The remorseless wheel of the engine Sink into the crying flesh of my leg. As they carried me to the home of widow Morris I could see the school-house in the valley To which I played truant […]...
10. Tom Beatty I was a lawyer like Harmon Whitney Or Kinsey Keene or Garrison Standard, For I tried the rights of property, Although by lamp-light, for thirty years, In that poker room in the opera house. And I say to you that Life’s a gambler Head and shoulders above us all. No mayor alive can close the […]...
11. Firelight Playing in the fire and twilight together, My little son and I, Suddenly woefully I stoop to catch him. “Try, mother, try!” Old Nurse Silence lifts a silent finger: “Hush! cease your play!” What happened? What in that tiny moment Flew away?...
12. Living The fire in leaf and grass So green it seems Each summer the last summer. The wind blowing, the leaves Shivering in the sun, Each day the last day. A red salamander So cold and so Easy to catch, dreamily Moves his delicate feet And long tail. I hold My hand open for him to […]...
13. Little World Children – are staring of eyes so frightful, Mischievous legs on a wooden floor, Children – is sun in the gloomy motives, Hypotheses’ of happy sciences world. Eternal disorder in the ring’s gold, Tender word’s whispers in semi-sleep, On the wall in a cozy child’s room, the dreaming Peaceful pictures of birds and sheep. Children […]...
14. The Unseen Playmate When children are playing alone on the green, In comes the playmate that never was seen. When children are happy and lonely and good, The Friend of the Children comes out of the wood. Nobody heard him, and nobody saw, His is a picture you never could draw, But he’s sure to be present, abroad […]...
15. Hotel Insomnia I liked my little hole, Its window facing a brick wall. Next door there was a piano. A few evenings a month A crippled old man came to play “My Blue Heaven.” Mostly, though, it was quiet. Each room with its spider in heavy overcoat Catching his fly with a web Of cigarette smoke and […]...
16. My Holiday I love the cheery bustle Of children round the house, The tidy maids a-hustle, The chatter of my spouse; The laughter and the singing, The joy on every face: With frequent laughter ringing, O, Home’s a happy place! Aye, Home’s a bit of heaven; I love it every day; My line-up of eleven Combine to […]...
17. All My Past Life All my past life is mine no more, The flying hours are gone, Like transitory dreams given o’er, Whose images are kept in store By memory alone. What ever is to come is not, How can it then be mine? The present moment’s all my lot, And that as fast as it is got, Phyllis, […]...
18. Squatter's Children On the unbreathing sides of hills They play, a specklike girl and boy, Alone, but near a specklike house. The Sun’s suspended eye Blinks casually, and then they wade Gigantic waves of light and shade. A dancing yellow spot, a pup, Attends them. Clouds are piling up; A storm piles up behind the house. The […]...
19. Welcome if you believe nothing is always what’s left After a while, as I did, If you believe you have this collection Of ungiven gifts, as I do (right here Behind the silence and the averted eyes) If you believe an afternoon can collapse Into strange privacies- How in your backyard, for example, The shyness of […]...
20. A Minute She plucked a blossom fair to see; Upon my coat I let her pin it; And thus we stood beneath the tree A minute. She turned her smiling face to me; I saw a roguish sweetness in it; I kissed her once;-it took, maybe, A minute. The time was paltry, you’ll agree; It took but […]...
21. Henry C. Calhoun I reached the highest place in Spoon River, But through what bitterness of spirit! The face of my father, sitting speechless, Child-like, watching his canaries, And looking at the court-house window Of the county judge’s room, And his admonitions to me to seek My own in life, and punish Spoon River To avenge the wrong […]...
22. HIS LAST REQUEST TO JULIA I have been wanton, and too bold, I fear, To chafe o’er-much the virgin’s cheek or ear; Beg for my pardon, Julia! he doth win Grace with the gods who’s sorry for his sin. That done, my Julia, dearest Julia, come, And go with me to chuse my burial room: My fates are ended; when […]...
23. Cocoon above! Cocoon below! Cocoon above! Cocoon below! Stealthy Cocoon, why hide you so What all the world suspect? An hour, and gay on every tree Your secret, perched in ecstasy Defies imprisonment! An hour in Chrysalis to pass, Then gay above receding grass A Butterfly to go! A moment to interrogate, Then wiser than a “Surrogate,” The Universe […]...
24. Envoy For "A Child's Garden Of Verses&quot WHETHER upon the garden seat You lounge with your uplifted feet Under the May’s whole Heaven of blue; Or whether on the sofa you, No grown up person being by, Do some soft corner occupy; Take you this volume in your hands And enter into other lands, For lo! (as children feign) suppose You, hunting […]...
25. There's something quieter than sleep There’s something quieter than sleep Within this inner room! It wears a sprig upon its breast And will not tell its name. Some touch it, and some kiss it Some chafe its idle hand It has a simple gravity I do not understand! I would not weep if I were they How rude in one […]...
26. Fading All in the beautiful Autumn weather One thought lingers with me and stays; Death and winter are coming together, Though both are veiled by the amber haze I look on the forest of royal splendour! I look on the face in my quiet room; A face all beautiful, sad and tender, And both are stamped […]...
27. The Quarrel Our quarrel seemed a giant thing, It made the room feel mean and small, The books, the lamp, the furniture, The very pictures on the wall Crowded upon us as we sat Pale and terrified, face to face. “Why do you stay?” she said, “my room Can never be your resting place.” “Katinka, ere we […]...
28. A Little Girl's Prayer Grant me the moment, the lovely moment That I may lean forth to see The other buds, the other blooms, The other leaves on the tree: That I may take into my bosom The breeze that is like his brother, But stiller, lighter, whose faint laughter Exhoes the joy of the other. Above on the […]...
29. The Moment The moment when, after many years Of hard work and a long voyage You stand in the centre of your room, House, half-acre, square mile, island, country, Knowing at last how you got there, And say, I own this, Is the same moment when the trees unloose Their soft arms from around you, The birds […]...
30. Cartoon Physics, Part 1 Children under, say, ten, shouldn’t know That the universe is ever-expanding, Inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxies Swallowed by galaxies, whole Solar systems collapsing, all of it Acted out in silence. At ten we are still learning The rules of cartoon animation, That if a man draws a door on a rock Only he can […]...
31. Acrostic Little maidens, when you look On this little story-book, Reading with attentive eye Its enticing history, Never think that hours of play Are your only HOLIDAY, And that in a HOUSE of joy Lessons serve but to annoy: If in any HOUSE you find Children of a gentle mind, Each the others pleasing ever Each […]...
32. Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day Calmly we walk through this April’s day, Metropolitan poetry here and there, In the park sit pauper and rentier, The screaming children, the motor-car Fugitive about us, running away, Between the worker and the millionaire Number provides all distances, It is Nineteen Thirty-Seven now, Many great dears are taken away, What will become of you […]...
33. The Return Suddenly the window will open And Mother will call It’s time to come in The wall will part I will enter heaven in muddy shoes I will come to the table And answer questions rudely I am all right leave me Alone. Head in hand I Sit and sit. How can I tell them About […]...
34. ENTANGLEMENTS Why is it that in dreams I have visited – As teacher or pupil – almost every college and school In our once so green and pleasant land? Hardly a subject from art to anthropology I have not In dream seminar or floating spinning classroom Studied or tried my prentice hand at, or learned At […]...
35. Pictures of Home In the red-roofed stucco house Of my childhood, the dining room Was screened off by folding doors With small glass panes. Our neighbors The Bertins, who barely escaped Hitler, Often joined us at table. One night Their daughter said, In Vienna Our dining room had doors like these. For a moment, we all sat quite […]...
36. Love In The Asylum A stranger has come To share my room in the house not right in the head, A girl mad as birds Bolting the night of the door with her arm her plume. Strait in the mazed bed She deludes the heaven-proof house with entering clouds Yet she deludes with walking the nightmarish room, At large […]...
37. The Armadillo For Robert Lowell This is the time of year When almost every night The frail, illegal fire balloons appear. Climbing the mountain height, Rising toward a saint Still honored in these parts, The paper chambers flush and fill with light That comes and goes, like hearts. Once up against the sky it’s hard To tell […]...
38. At the door I thought myself indeed secure, So fast the door, so firm the lock; But, lo! he toddling comes to lure My parent ear with timorous knock. My heart were stone could it withstand The sweetness of my baby’s plea, That timorous, baby knocking and “Please let me in, it’s only me.” I threw aside the […]...
39. Seashore On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. The infinite sky is motionless overhead And the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds The children meet with shouts and dances. They build their houses with sand And they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats And smilingly float […]...
40. Hamlet Micure In a lingering fever many visions come to you: I was in the little house again With its great yard of clover Running down to the board-fence, Shadowed by the oak tree, Where we children had our swing. Yet the little house was a manor hall Set in a lawn, and by the lawn was […]...