Torch, The

Related poetry:

1. Gannets I am watching the white gannets Blaze down into the water With the power of blunt spears And a stunning accuracy Even though the sea is riled and boiling And gray with fog And the fish Are nowhere to be seen, They fall, they explode into the water Like white gloves, Then they vanish, Then […]...
2. Leaning Into The Afternoons Leaning into the afternoons, I cast my sad nets towards your oceanic eyes. There, in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames; Its arms turning like a drowning man’s. I send out red signals across your absent eyes That wave like the sea, or the beach by a lighthouse. You keep only darkness my […]...
3. Bavarian Gentians Not every man has gentians in his house In Soft September, at slow, Sad Michaelmas. Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark Darkening the daytime torchlike with the smoking blueness of Pluto’s gloom, Ribbed and torchlike, with their blaze of darkness spread blue Down flattening into points, flattened under the sweep of white day Torch-flower […]...
4. Autumn Movement I CRIED over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts. The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds. The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit […]...
5. Hayeswater A region desolate and wild. Black, chafing water: and afloat, And lonely as a truant child In a waste wood, a single boat: No mast, no sails are set thereon; It moves, but never moveth on: And welters like a human thing Amid the wild waves weltering. Behind, a buried vale doth sleep, Far down […]...
6. Lighthouse in the Night The sky a black sphere, The sea a black disk. The lighthouse opens Its solar fan on the coast. Spinning endlessly at night, Whom is it searching for When the mortal heart Looks for me in the chest? Look at the black rock Where it is nailed down. A crow digs endlessly But no longer […]...
7. Hiawatha's Departure By the shore of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, At the doorway of his wigwam, In the pleasant Summer morning, Hiawatha stood and waited. All the air was full of freshness, All the earth was bright and joyous, And before him, through the sunshine, Westward toward the neighboring forest Passed in golden swarms the […]...
8. Death Of The Kapowsin Tavern I can’t ridge it back again from char. Not one board left. Only ash a cat explores And shattered glass smoked black and strung About from the explosion I believe In the reports. The white school up for sale For years, most homes abandoned to the rocks Of passing boys the fire, helped by wind […]...
9. The Lake The yard half a yard, Half a lake blue as a corpse. The lake will tell things you long to hear: Get away from here. Three o’clock. Dry leaves rat-tat like maracas. Whisky-colored grass Breaks at every step and trees Are slowly realizing they are nude. How long will you stay? For the lake asks […]...
10. Memoriam A. H. H.: 67. When on my bed the moonlight fall When on my bed the moonlight falls, I know that in thy place of rest By that broad water of the west, There comes a glory on the walls: Thy marble bright in dark appears, As slowly steals a silver flame Along the letters of thy name, And o’er the number of thy years. The […]...
11. The Lifeguard In a stable of boats I lie still, From all sleeping children hidden. The leap of a fish from its shadow Makes the whole lake instantly tremble. With my foot on the water, I feel The moon outside Take on the utmost of its power. I rise and go our through the boats. I set […]...
12. Kicks The fishermen on Lake Michigan, sometimes, For kicks, they spit two hunks of bait on hooks At either end of a single length of line And toss that up among the scavenging gulls, Who go for it so fast that often two of them Make the connection before it hits the water. Hooked and hung […]...
13. The power of the Lake The power of the Lake lingers still So many years beyond its fascination Ending; it was there in the beginning, An unveiling of towering sensitivities, A flowering of gentle obsession. The town that grew in the lee Of the Lake expressed the same Thoughts although hard head bastards Bartered and fought for land, Trying to […]...
14. The Snowflake Which Is Now And Hence Forever Will it last? he says. Is it a masterpiece? Will generation after generation Turn with reverence to the page? Birdseye scholar of the frozen fish, What would he make of the sole, clean, clear Leap of the salmon that has disappeared? To be, yes! whether they like it or not! But not to last when […]...
15. The Squaw Man The cow-moose comes to water, and the beaver’s overbold, The net is in the eddy of the stream; The teepee stars the vivid sward with russet, red and gold, And in the velvet gloom the fire’s a-gleam. The night is ripe with quiet, rich with incense of the pine; From sanctuary lake I hear the […]...
16. To An Isle In The Water Shy one, shy one, Shy one of my heart, She moves in the firelight Pensively apart. She carries in the dishes, And lays them in a row. To an isle in the water With her would I go. With catries in the candles, And lights the curtained room, Shy in the doorway And shy in […]...
17. Voyages Pond snipe, bleached pine, rue weed, wart I walk by sedge and brown river rot To where the old lake boats went daily out. All the ships are gone, the gray wharf fallen In upon itself. Even the channel’s Grown over. Once we set sail here For Bob-Lo, the Brewery Isles, Cleveland. We would have […]...
18. The Lake In spring of youth it was my lot To haunt of the wide world a spot The which I could not love the less- So lovely was the loneliness Of a wild lake, with black rock bound, And the tall pines that towered around. But when the Night had thrown her pall Upon that spot, […]...
19. At Lord's It is little I repair to the matches of the Southron folk, Though my own red roses there may blow; It is little I repair to the matches of the Southron folk, Though the red roses crest the caps, I know. For the field is full of shades as I near the shadowy coast, And […]...
20. SONNET OF AUTUMN THEY say to me, thy clear and crystal eyes: “Why dost thou love me so, strange lover mine?” Be sweet, be still! My heart and soul despise All save that antique brute-like faith of thine; And will not bare the secret of their shame To thee whose hand soothes me to slumbers long, Nor their […]...
21. The Black Swan When the swans turned my sister into a swan I would go to the lake, at night, from milking: The sun would look out through the reeds like a swan, A swan’s red beak; and the beak would open And inside there was darkness, the stars and the moon. Out on the lake, a girl […]...
22. On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year Missolonghi, Jan. 22, 1824 ‘Tis time this heart should be unmoved, Since others it hath ceased to move: Yet, though I cannot be beloved, Still let me love! My days are in the yellow leaf; The flowers and fruits of love are gone; The worm, the canker, and the grief, Are mine alone! The fire […]...
23. Daybreak In Alabama When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent […]...
24. Canto XLIX For the seven lakes, and by no man these verses: Rain; empty river; a voyage, Fire from frozen cloud, heavy rain in the twilight Under the cabin roof was one lantern. The reeds are heavy; bent; And the bamboos speak as if weeping. Autumn moon; hills rise about lakes Against sunset Evening is like a […]...
25. The Cat in the Kitchen (For Donald Hall) Have you heard about the boy who walked by The black water? I won’t say much more. Let’s wait a few years. It wanted to be entered. Sometimes a man walks by a pond, and a hand Reaches out and pulls him in. There was no Intention, exactly. The pond was lonely, […]...
26. Sandpipers Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes. Homes for sandpipers-the script of their feet is on the sea shingles-they write in the morning, it is gone at noon-they write at noon, it is gone at night. Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper’s wire legs and […]...
27. THE SKY WHERE’ER he be, on water or on land, Under pale suns or climes that flames enfold; One of Christ’s own, or of Cythera’s band, Shadowy beggar or Crњsus rich with gold; Citizen, peasant, student, tramp; whate’er His little brain may be, alive or dead; Man knows the fear of mystery everywhere, And peeps, with trembling […]...
28. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
29. This Is A Photograph Of Me It was taken some time ago. At first it seems to be A smeared Print: blurred lines and grey flecks Blended with the paper; Then, as you scan It, you see in the left-hand corner A thing that is like a branch: part of a tree (balsam or spruce) emerging And, to the right, halfway […]...
30. Luna Lake Haiku New moon on the lake. Your voice and the nightingale Serenade springtime. Full moon on the lake. Your voice and the waterbirds Celebrate summer. Old moon on the lake. Owls hunting autumnal food – Your voice still singing....
31. An Autumn Sunset I Leaguered in fire The wild black promontories of the coast extend Their savage silhouettes; The sun in universal carnage sets, And, halting higher, The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats, Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned, That, balked, yet stands at bay. Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline, A wan […]...
32. WHEN THE FOX DIES, HIS SKIN COUNTS.* (* The name of a game, known in English as “Jack’s Alight.”) WE young people in the shade Sat one sultry day; Cupid came, and “Dies the Fox” With us sought to play. Each one of my friends then sat By his mistress dear; Cupid, blowing out the torch, Said: “The taper’s here!” Then we […]...
33. Water Lilies If you have forgotten water lilies floating On a dark lake among mountains in the afternoon shade, If you have forgotten their wet, sleepy fragrance, Then you can return and not be afraid. But if you remember, then turn away forever To the plains and the prairies where pools are far apart, There you will […]...
34. Dream Song 92: Room 231: the fourth week Something black somewhere in the vistas of his heart. Tulips from Tates teazed Henry in the mood To be a tulip and desire no more But water, but light, but air. Yet his nerves rattled blackly, unsubdued, & suffocation called, dream-whiskey’d pour Sirening. Rosy there Too fly my Phil & Ellen roses, pal. Flesh-coloured men […]...
35. Climbing You I want to understand the steep thing That climbs ladders in your throat. I can’t make sense of you. Everywhere I look you’re there A vast landmark, a volcano Poking its head through the clouds, Gulliver sprawled across Lilliput. I climb into your eyes, looking. The pupils are black painted stage flats. They can be […]...
36. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
37. Homeward Bound Home, for my heart still calls me; Home, through the danger zone; Home, whatever befalls me, I will sail again to my own! Wolves of the sea are hiding Closely along the way, Under the water biding Their moment to rend and slay. Black is the eagle that brands them, Black are their hearts as […]...
38. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
39. A GENERAL SUMMARY We are very slightly changed From the semi-apes who ranged India’s Prehistoric clay; He that drew the longest bow Ran his brother down, you know, As we run men down to-tday. “Dowb,” the first of all his race, Met the Mammoth face to face On the lake or in the cave: Stole the steadiest canoe, […]...
40. I know of people in the Grave I know of people in the Grave Who would be very glad To know the news I know tonight If they the chance had had. ‘Tis this expands the least event And swells the scantest deed My right to walk upon the Earth If they this moment had....