The Late Singer

Related poetry:

1. Late, Late, So Late Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill! Late, late, so late! but we can enter still. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. No light had we: for that we do repent; And learning this, the bridegroom will relent. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. No light: so late! […]...
2. 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 […]...
3. It was too late for Man It was too late for Man But early, yet, for God Creation impotent to help But Prayer remained Our Side How excellent the Heaven When Earth cannot be had How hospitable then the face Of our Old Neighbor God...
4. 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 […]...
5. The Wind that Shakes the Barley There’s music in my heart all day, I hear it late and early, It comes from fields are far away, The wind that shakes the barley. Above the uplands drenched with dew The sky hangs soft and pearly, An emerald world is listening to The wind that shakes the barley. Above the bluest mountain crest […]...
6. Late Leaves THE leaves are falling; so am I; The few late flowers have moisture in the eye; So have I too. Scarcely on any bough is heard Joyous, or even unjoyous, bird The whole wood through. Winter may come: he brings but nigher His circle (yearly narrowing) to the fire Where old friends meet. Let him; […]...
7. A Singer of the Bush There is waving of grass in the breeze And a song in the air, And a murmur of myriad bees That toil everywhere. There is scent in the blossom and bough, And the breath of the Spring Is as soft as a kiss on a brow And Spring-time I sing. There is drought on the […]...
8. Late Late have I called & Late my Beloved Was blessing me I was covering My breasts with my arms “Those doves” you said In the sun I took my arms away...
9. Late, O Miller LATE, O miller, The birds are silent, The darkness falls. In the house the lights are lighted. See, in the valley they twinkle, The lights of home. Late, O lovers, The night is at hand; Silence and darkness Clothe the land....
10. Late Ripeness Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year, I felt a door opening in me and I entered The clarity of early morning. One after another my former lives were departing, Like ships, together with their sorrow. And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas Assigned to my brush came closer, […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. 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 […]...
13. For The Future Planting trees early in spring, We make a place for birds to sing In time to come. How do we know? They are singing here now. There is no other guarantee That singing will ever be....
14. Songs For A Colored Singer I A washing hangs upon the line, but it’s not mine. None of the things that I can see belong to me. The neighbors got a radio with an aerial; we got a little portable. They got a lot of closet space; we got a suitcase. I say, “Le Roy, just how much are we […]...
15. A Singer That which he did not feel, he would not sing; What most he felt, religion it was to hide In a dumb darkling grotto, where the spring Of tremulous tears, arising unespied, Became a holy well that durst not glide Into the day with moil or murmuring; Whereto, as if to some unlawful thing, He […]...
16. "In White": Frost's Early Version Of Design A dented spider like a snow drop white On a white Heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of lifeless satin cloth – Saw ever curious eye so strange a sight? – Portent in little, assorted death and blight Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth? – The beady spider, the flower like […]...
17. Design I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth, And dead wings […]...
18. Sunday Afternoons I sit at home At my desk alone As I used to do On many sunday afternoons When you came back to me, Your arms ached for me, And your arms would close me in Though they smelled of other women. I think of you On Sunday afternoons. Your sweet head would bow, Like a […]...
19. 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 […]...
20. Village in Late Summer LIPS half-willing in a doorway. Lips half-singing at a window. Eyes half-dreaming in the walls. Feet half-dancing in a kitchen. Even the clocks half-yawn the hours And the farmers make half-answers....
21. The Master Singer A LAUGHTER in the diamond air, a music in the trembling grass; And one by one the words of light as joydrops through my being pass: “I am the sunlight in the heart, the silver moon-glow in the mind; My laughter runs and ripples through the wavy tresses of the wind. I am the fire […]...
22. Victory comes late Victory comes late And is held low to freezing lips Too rapt with frost To take it How sweet it would have tasted Just a Drop Was God so economical? His Table’s spread too high for Us Unless We dine on tiptoe Crumbs fit such little mouths Cherries suit Robbins The Eagle’s Golden Breakfast strangles […]...
23. Come Come, when the pale moon like a petal Floats in the pearly dusk of spring, Come with arms outstretched to take me, Come with lips pursed up to cling. Come, for life is a frail moth flying, Caught in the web of the years that pass, And soon we two, so warm and eager, Will […]...
24. Singer in the Prison, The 1 O sight of shame, and pain, and dole! O fearful thought-a convict Soul! RANG the refrain along the hall, the prison, Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above, Pouring in floods of melody, in tones so pensive, sweet and strong, the like whereof was never heard, Reaching the far-off sentry, and the […]...
25. Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint Methought I saw my late espoused Saint Brought to me like Alcestus from the grave, Who Jove’s great Son to her glad Husband gave, Rescu’d from death by force though pale and faint. Mine as whom washt from spot of child-bed taint Purification in the old Law did save, And such as yet once more […]...
26. Late Love How they strut about, people in love, How tall they grow, pleased with themselves, Their hair, glossy, their skin shining. They don’t remember who they have been. How filmic they are just for this time. How important they’ve become – secret, above The order of things, the dreary mundane. Every church bell ringing, a fresh […]...
27. The Funeral of the Late Ex-Provost Rough, Dundee ‘Twas in the year of 1888, and on the 19th of November, Which the friends of the late Ex-Provost Rough will long remember, Because ’twas on the 19th of November his soul took its flight To the happy land above, the land of pure delight. Take him for all in all, he was a very […]...
28. The Silver Lily The nights have grown cool again, like the nights Of early spring, and quiet again. Will Speech disturb you? We’re Alone now; we have no reason for silence. Can you see, over the garden-the full moon rises. I won’t see the next full moon. In spring, when the moon rose, it meant Time was endless. […]...
29. A Late Walk When I go up through the mowing field, The headless aftermath, Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew, Half closes the garden path. And when I come to the garden ground, The whir of sober birds Up from the tangle of withered weeds Is sadder than any words A tree beside the wall stands bare, […]...
30. 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 […]...
31. Japan Today I pass the time reading A favorite haiku, Saying the few words over and over. It feels like eating The same small, perfect grape Again and again. I walk through the house reciting it And leave its letters falling Through the air of every room. I stand by the big silence of the piano […]...
32. 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 […]...
33. 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 […]...
34. 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 […]...
35. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
36. The Fair Singer To make a final conquest of all me, Love did compose so sweet an Enemy, In whom both Beauties to my death agree, Joyning themselves in fatal Harmony; That while she with her Eyes my Heart does bind, She with her Voice might captivate my Mind. I could have fled from One but singly fair: […]...
37. Half Moon in a High Wind MONEY is nothing now, even if I had it, O mooney moon, yellow half moon, Up over the green pines and gray elms, Up in the new blue. Streel, streel, White lacey mist sheets of cloud, Streel in the blowing of the wind, Streel over the blue-and-moon sky, Yellow gold half moon. It is light […]...
38. O Singer in Brown O, singer in brown! O, bird o’ th’ morn! O, heart of delight In th’ deep o’ th’ thorn! Glad is thy song Thou joy o’ th’ morn, Thou palpitant throat In the heart o’ th’ thorn! Thy song of the nest, O, sweet o’ th’ morn! A nest and an egg In the thick […]...
39. French Quarter Singer Strumming your polished guitar with long, nail-lightened fingers, Where are you now, leaning forward a peasant-dressed arm – Lark on the near side of midnight, my crescent curb lady, Ear to your sound, dangling each with a silver folk charm? Sweet was your voice for an evening, amid the brash jazzy – Seamless soprano, your […]...
40. Room 5: The Concert Singer I’m one of these haphazard chaps Who sit in cafes drinking; A most improper taste, perhaps, Yet pleasant, to my thinking. For, oh, I hate discord and strife; I’m sadly, weakly human; And I do think the best of life Is wine and song and woman. Now, there’s that youngster on my right Who thinks […]...