Day's End
Oxen and sheep were brought back down
Long ago, and bramble gates closed. Over
Mountains and rivers, far from my old garden,
A windswept moon rises into clear night.
Springs trickle down dark cliffs, and autumn
Dew fills ridgeline grasses. My hair seems
Whiter in lamplight. The flame flickers
Good fortune over and over and for what?
(2 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Past Days I. Dead and gone, the days we had together, Shadow-stricken all the lights that shone Round them, flown as flies the blown foam’s feather, Dead and gone. Where we went, we twain, in time foregone, Forth by land and sea, and cared not whether, If I go again, I go alone. Bound am I with […]...
- Fire This life that we call our own Is neither strong nor free; A flame in the wind of death, It trembles ceaselessly. And this all we can do To use our little light Before, in the piercing wind, It flickers into night: To yield the heat of the flame, To grudge not, but to give […]...
- Golden Days Another day of toil and strife, Another page so white, Within that fateful Log of Life That I and all must write; Another page without a stain To make of as I may, That done, I shall not see again Until the Judgment Day. Ah, could I, could I backward turn The pages of that […]...
- Trickle, Drops TRICKLE, drops! my blue veins leaving! O drops of me! trickle, slow drops, Candid, from me falling-drip, bleeding drops, From wounds made to free you whence you were prison’d, From my face-from my forehead and lips, From my breast-from within where I was conceal’d-press forth, red drops-confession drops; Stain every page-stain every song I sing, […]...
- Honey At The Table It fills you with the soft Essence of vanished flowers, it becomes A trickle sharp as a hair that you follow From the honey pot over the table And out the door and over the ground, And all the while it thickens, Grows deeper and wilder, edged With pine boughs and wet boulders, Pawprints of […]...
- Rich Days Welcome to you rich Autumn days, Ere comes the cold, leaf-picking wind; When golden stocks are seen in fields, All standing arm-in-arm entwined; And gallons of sweet cider seen On trees in apples red and green. With mellow pears that cheat our teeth, Which melt that tongues may suck them in; With blue-black damsons, yellow […]...
- The best days of my life What is it about Bryan Adams and his song ‘Summer of 69’? Why do the lyrics linger? Was it 90° in the shade and the harbinger of the end Of the golden weather, or the impending closure Of a glorious decade? He should have called it ‘The best days of my life’, it would have […]...
- By A Swimming Pool Outside Syracusa All afternoon I have been struggling To communicate in Italian With Roberto and Giuseppe, who have begun To resemble the two male characters In my Italian for Beginners, The ones who are always shopping Or inquiring about the times of trains, And now I can hardly speak or write English. I have made important pronouncements […]...
- The Raven Days Our hearths are gone out and our hearts are broken, And but the ghosts of homes to us remain, And ghastly eyes and hollow sighs give token From friend to friend of an unspoken pain. O Raven days, dark Raven days of sorrow, Bring to us in your whetted ivory beaks Some sign out of […]...
- THE DAYS GO BY for Daniel Weissbort Some poems meant only for my eyes About a grief I can’t let go But I want to, want to throw It away like an old worn-out cloak Or screw up like a ball of over-written Trash and toss into the corner bin. I said it must come up or out I […]...
- In the Days of the Golden Rod Across the meadow in brooding shadow I walk to drink of the autumn’s wine The charm of story, the artist’s glory, To-day on these silvering hills is mine; On height, in hollow, where’er I follow, By mellow hillside and searing sod, Its plumes uplifting, in light winds drifting, I see the glimmer of golden-rod. In […]...
- The Source The sleep that flits on baby’s eyes-does anybody know from where It comes? Yes, there is a rumour that it has its dwelling where, In the fairy village among shadows of the forest dimly lit with Glow-worms, there hang two shy buds of enchantment. From there it Comes to kiss baby’s eyes. The smile that […]...
- In Three Days I. So, I shall see her in three days And just one night, but nights are short, Then two long hours, and that is morn. See how I come, unchanged, unworn! Feel, where my life broke off from thine, How fresh the splinters keep and fine, – Only a touch and we combine! II. Too […]...
- Pretty Halcyon Days How pleasant to sit on the beach, On the beach, on the sand, in the sun, With ocean galore within reach, And nothing at all to be done! No letters to answer, No bills to be burned, No work to be shirked, No cash to be earned, It is pleasant to sit on the beach […]...
- South of my Days South of my days’ circle, part of my blood’s country, Rises that tableland, high delicate outline Of bony slopes wincing under the winter, Low trees, blue-leaved and olive, outcropping granite – Clean, lean, hungry country. The creek’s leaf-silenced, Willow choked, the slope a tangle of medlar and crabapple Branching over and under, blotched with a […]...
- On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour Give me a golden pen, and let me lean On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far; Bring me a tablet whiter than a star, Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen The silver strings of heavenly harp atween: And let there glide by many a pearly car Pink robes, and wavy hair, and […]...
- A Gift See! I give myself to you, Beloved! My words are little jars For you to take and put upon a shelf. Their shapes are quaint and beautiful, And they have many pleasant colours and lustres To recommend them. Also the scent from them fills the room With sweetness of flowers and crushed grasses. When I […]...
- Exposed On The Cliffs Of The Heart Exposed on the cliffs of the heart. Look, how tiny down there, Look: the last village of words and, higher, (but how tiny) still one last Farmhouse of feeling. Can you see it? Exposed on the cliffs of the heart. Stoneground Under your hands. Even here, though, Something can bloom; on a silent cliff-edge An […]...
- La Bella Donna Della Mia Mente My limbs are wasted with a flame, My feet are sore with travelling, For, calling on my Lady’s name, My lips have now forgot to sing. O Linnet in the wild-rose brake Strain for my Love thy melody, O Lark sing louder for love’s sake, My gentle Lady passeth by. She is too fair for […]...
- Music To Me Is Like Days Once played to attentive faces Music has broken its frame Its bodice of always-weak laces The entirely promiscuous art Pours out in public spaces Accompanying everything, the selections Of sex and war, the rejections. To jeans-wearers in zipped sporrans It transmits an ideal body Continuously as theirs age. Warrens Of plastic tiles and mesh throats […]...
- Rain Roads not yet glistening, rain slight, Broken clouds darken after thinning away. Where they drift, purple cliffs blacken. And beyond white birds blaze in flight. Sounds of cold-river rain grown familiar, Autumn sun casts moist shadows. Below Our brushwood gate, out to dry at the village Mill: hulled rice, half-wet and fragrant...
- Through These Pale Cold Days Through these pale cold days What dark faces burn Out of three thousand years, And their wild eyes yearn, While underneath their brows Like waifs their spirits grope For the pools of Hebron again For Lebanon’s summer slope. They leave these blond still days In dust behind their tread They see with living eyes How […]...
- To a Child of Quality, Five Years Old, 1704. The Author then Forty LORDS, knights, and squires, the numerous band That wear the fair Miss Mary’s fetters, Were summoned by her high command To show their passions by their letters. My pen amongst the rest I took, Lest those bright eyes, that cannot read, Should dart their kindling fire, and look The power they have to be obey’d. […]...
- People at Night A night that cuts between you and you And you and you and you And me : jostles us apart, a man elbowing Through a crowd. We won’t Look for each other, either- Wander off, each alone, not looking In the slow crowd. Among sideshows Under movie signs, Pictures made of a million lights, Giants […]...
- A Day Off Let us put awhile away All the cares of work-a-day, For a golden time forget, Task and worry, toil and fret, Let us take a day to dream In the meadow by the stream. We may lie in grasses cool Fringing a pellucid pool, We may learn the gay brook-runes Sung on amber afternoons, And […]...
- Her face was in a bed of hair Her face was in a bed of hair, Like flowers in a plot Her hand was whiter than the sperm That feeds the sacred light. Her tongue more tender than the tune That totters in the leaves Who hears may be incredulous, Who witnesses, believes....
- Merry Autumn It’s all a farce,-these tales they tell About the breezes sighing, And moans astir o’er field and dell, Because the year is dying. Such principles are most absurd,- I care not who first taught ’em; There’s nothing known to beast or bird To make a solemn autumn. In solemn times, when grief holds sway With […]...
- Days of Pie and Coffee A motorist once said to me, And this was in the country, On a county lane, a motorist Slowed his vehicle as I was Walking my dear old collie, Sithney, by the side of the road, And the motorist came to a halt Mildly alarming both Sithney and myself, Not yet accustomed to automobiles, And […]...
- Silence and Stealth of Days Silence, and stealth of days! ’tis now Since thou art gone, Twelve hundred hours, and not a brow But clouds hang on. As he that in some cave’s thick damp Lockt from the light, Fixeth a solitary lamp, To brave the night, And walking from his sun, when past That glim’ring ray Cuts through the […]...
- Son-Days 1 Bright shadows of true Rest! some shoots of bliss, Heaven once a week; The next world’s gladness prepossest in this; A day to seek; Eternity in time; the steps by which We Climb above all ages; Lamps that light Man through his heap of dark days; and the rich, And full redemption of the […]...
- The Belltower the weighing is done in autumn And the sifting What is to be threshed Is threshed in autumn What is to be gathered is taken The wind does not die in autumn The moon Shifts endlessly thru flying clouds In autumn the sea is high & a golden light plays everywhere Making it harder To […]...
- 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 […]...
- Rise, O Days 1 RISE, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep! Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devour’d what the earth gave me; Long I roam’d the woods of the north-long I watch’d Niagara pouring; I travel’d the prairies over, and slept on their breast-I cross’d the Nevadas, I cross’d the plateaus; […]...
- Dining-Room Tea When you were there, and you, and you, Happiness crowned the night; I too, Laughing and looking, one of all, I watched the quivering lamplight fall On plate and flowers and pouring tea And cup and cloth; and they and we Flung all the dancing moments by With jest and glitter. Lip and eye Flashed […]...
- Tz'u No. 18 To the tune of “Intoxicated in the Shadow of Flowers” Thin mist, dense clouds, a grief-stricken day; Auspicious incense burns in the gold animal. Once again, it is the joyous mid-autumn festival, But a midnight chill Touches my jade pillow and silk bed-screen. I drink wine by the eastern fence in the yellow dusk. Now […]...
- My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
- Autumn Whoever has no house now will never have one. Whoever is alone will stay alone Will sit, read, write long letters through the evening And wander on the boulevards, up and down… – from Autumn Day, Rainer Maria Rilke Its stain is everywhere. The sharpening air Of late afternoon Is now the colour of tea. […]...
- An April Day When the warm sun, that brings Seed-time and harvest, has returned again, ‘T is sweet to visit the still wood, where springs The first flower of the plain. I love the season well, When forest glades are teeming with bright forms, Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell The coming-on of storms. From the earth’s loosened […]...
- The Choice He’d have given me rolling lands, Houses of marble, and billowing farms, Pearls, to trickle between my hands, Smoldering rubies, to circle my arms. You – you’d only a lilting song, Only a melody, happy and high, You were sudden and swift and strong- Never a thought for another had I. He’d have given me […]...
- Poet's Path My garden hath a slender path With ivy overgrown, A secret place where once would pace A pot all alone; I see him now with fretted brow, Plunged deep in thought; And sometimes he would write maybe, And sometimes he would not. A verse a day he used to say Keeps worry from the door; […]...