To A Poor Old Woman

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1. The Sugar-Plum Tree Have you ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree? ‘T is a marvel of great renown! It blooms on the shore of the Lollipop sea In the garden of Shut-Eye Town; The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet (As those who have tasted it say) That good little children have only to eat Of […]...
2. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
3. Poor Cock Robin My garden robin in the Spring Was rapturous with glee, And followed me with wistful wing From pear to apple tree; His melodies the summer long He carolled with delight, As if he could with jewelled song Find favour in my sight. And now that Autumn’s in the air He’s singing singing still, And yet […]...
4. For the Poor When Hagar found the bottle spent And wept o’er Ishmael, A message from the Lord was sent To guide her to a well. Should not Elijah’s cake and cruse Convince us at this day, A gracious God will not refuse Provisions by the way? His saints and servants shall be fed, The promise is secure; […]...
5. A Woman Waking She wakens early remembering Her father rising in the dark Lighting the stove with a match Scraped on the floor. Then measuring Water for coffee, and later the smell Coming through. She would hear Him drying spoons, dropping Them one by one in the drawer. Then he was on the stairs Going for the milk. […]...
6. Poor Honest Men Your jar of Virginny Will cost you a guinea, Which you reckon too much by five shillings or ten; But light your churchwarden And judge it according, When I’ve told you the troubles of poor honest men. From the Capes of the Delaware, As you are well aware, We sail which tobacco for England-but then, […]...
7. The Truth of Woman Woman’s faith, and woman’s trust – Write the characters in the dust; Stamp them on the running stream, Print them on the moon’s pale beam, And each evanescent letter Shall be clearer, firmer, better, And more permanent, I ween, Than the thing those letters mean. I have strain’d the spider’s thread ‘Gainst the promise of […]...
8. Nature As a fond mother, when the day is o’er, Leads by the hand her little child to bed, Half willing, half reluctant to be led, And leave his broken playthings on the floor, Still gazing at them through the open door, Nor wholly reassured and comforted By promises of others in their stead, Which though […]...
9. The Gardener LIX: O Woman O woman, you are not merely the Handiwork of God, but also of men; These are ever endowing you with Beauty from their hearts. Poets are weaving for you a web With threads of golden imagery; Painters are giving your form ever New immortality. The sea gives its pearls, the mines Their gold, the summer […]...
10. The Poor Man's Lamb NOW spent the alter’d King, in am’rous Cares, The Hours of sacred Hymns and solemn Pray’rs: In vain the Alter waits his slow returns, Where unattended Incense faintly burns: In vain the whisp’ring Priests their Fears express, And of the Change a thousand Causes guess. Heedless of all their Censures He retires, And in his […]...
11. 27. The Death and Dying Words of Poor Mailie AS Mailie, an’ her lambs thegither, Was ae day nibbling on the tether, Upon her cloot she coost a hitch, An’ owre she warsl’d in the ditch: There, groaning, dying, she did lie, When Hughoc he cam doytin by. Wi’ glowrin een, and lifted han’s Poor Hughoc like a statue stan’s; He saw her days […]...
12. A Woman's Voice HIS head within my bosom lay, But yet his spirit slipped not through: I only felt the burning clay That withered for the cooling dew. It was but pity when I spoke And called him to my heart for rest, And half a mother’s love that woke Feeling his head upon my breast: And half […]...
13. The Joy Of Being Poor I Let others sing of gold and gear, the joy of being rich; But oh, the days when I was poor, a vagrant in a ditch! When every dawn was like a gem, so radiant and rare, And I had but a single coat, and not a single care; When I would feast right royally […]...
14. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
15. 28. Poor Mailie's Elegy LAMENT in rhyme, lament in prose, Wi’ saut tears trickling down your nose; Our bardie’s fate is at a close, Past a’ remead! The last, sad cape-stane o’ his woes; Poor Mailie’s dead! It’s no the loss o’ warl’s gear, That could sae bitter draw the tear, Or mak our bardie, dowie, wear The mourning […]...
16. Poor Marguerite Swift, o’er the wild and dreary waste A NUT-BROWN GIRL was seen to haste; Wide waving was her unbound hair, And sun-scorch’d was her bosom bare; For Summer’s noon had shed its beams While she lay wrapp’d in fev’rish dreams; While, on the wither’d hedge-row’s side, By turns she slept, by turns she cried, “Ah! […]...
17. At Home When I was dead, my spirit turned To seek the much-frequented house: I passed the door, and saw my friends Feasting beneath green orange boughs; From hand to hand they pushed the wine, They sucked the pulp of plum and peach; They sang, they jested, and they laughed, For each was loved of each. I […]...
18. Sonnet LXXXVI Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, Bound for the prize of all too precious you, That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew? Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead? No, neither […]...
19. When A Woman Loves A Man When she says Margarita she means Daiquiri. When she says quixotic she means mercurial. And when she says, “I’ll never speak to you again,” She means, “Put your arms around me from behind As I stand disconsolate at the window.” He’s supposed to know that. When a man loves a woman he is in New […]...
20. I SEE A WOMAN MAKING UP I see a woman any woman making up and change First she is thinking of something else (because when a woman Begins to make up she hasn’t yet separated this act from the rest of the day). But when arranging the various objects that the ceremony Preciously determines in the exact place around her hands […]...
21. The Lovers of the Poor arrive. The Ladies from the Ladies’ Betterment League Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag Of proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting Here, there, interrupting, all deep and debonair, The pink paint on the innocence of fear; Walk in a gingerly manner up the […]...
22. A Light Woman I. So far as our story approaches the end, Which do you pity the most of us three?- My friend, or the mistress of my friend With her wanton eyes, or me? II. My friend was already too good to lose, And seemed in the way of improvement yet, When she crossed his path with […]...
23. Françoise And The Fruit Farmer In town to sell his fruit, he saw her- Françoise in her summer slacks- Turning to him, coming back To feel the swelling plums, One held in each soft hand, breast-high, Above them her eyes enclosing him In quietness brushed up to colors, Urgings green, thrustings yellow. A vine-like touch, her promise seemed all profit, […]...
24. CHERRY RIPE Cherry-ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry, Full and fair ones; come, and buy: If so be you ask me where They do grow? I answer, there Where my Julia’s lips do smile; There’s the land, or cherry-isle; Whose plantations fully show All the year where cherries grow....
25. The Woman At The Washington Zoo The saris go by me from the embassies. Cloth from the moon. Cloth from another planet. They look back at the leopard like the leopard. And I. . . . this print of mine, that has kept its color Alive through so many cleanings; this dull null Navy I wear to work, and wear from […]...
26. The Woman So beautiful God himself quailed At her approach: the long body curved Like the horizon. Why had he made Her so? How would it be, she said, Leaning towards him, if instead of Quarreling over it, we divided it Between us? You can have all the credit For its invention, if you will leave the […]...
27. The Turning Unknown faces in the street And winter coming on. I Stand in the last moments of The city, no more a child, Only a man, one who has Looked upon his own nakedness Without shame, and in defeat Has seen nothing to bless. Touched once, like a plum, I turned Rotten in the meat, or […]...
28. This Is Just To Say I have eaten The plums That were in The icebox And which You were probably Saving For breakfast Forgive me They were delicious So sweet And so cold...
29. The Curse Oh, lay my ashes on the wind That blows across the sea. And I shall meet a fisherman Out of Capri, And he will say, seeing me, “What a Strange Thing! Like a fish’s scale or a Butterfly’s wing.” Oh, lay my ashes on the wind That blows away the fog. And I shall meet […]...
30. To a Childless Woman You think I cannot understand. Ah, but I do… I have been wrung with anger and compassion for you. I wonder if you’d loathe my pity, if you knew. But you shall know. I’ve carried in my heart too long This secret burden. Has not silence wrought your wrong— Brought you to dumb and wintry […]...
31. Tz'u No. 13 To the tune of “Song of Peace” Year by year, in the snow, I have often gathered plum flowers, Intoxicated with their beauty. Fondling them impudently I got my robe wet with their lucid tears. This year I have drifted to the corner Of the sea and the edge Of the horizon, My temples have […]...
32. A poor torn heart a tattered heart A poor torn heart a tattered heart That sat it down to rest Nor noticed that the Ebbing Day Flowed silver to the West Nor noticed Night did soft descend Nor Constellation burn Intent upon the vision Of latitudes unknown. The angels happening that way This dusty heart espied Tenderly took it up from toil […]...
33. Rich or Poor With thy true love I have more wealth Than Charon’s piled-up bank doth hold; Where he makes kings lay down their crowns And life-long misers leave their gold. Without thy love I’ve no more wealth Than seen upon that other shore; That cold, bare bank he rows them to – Those kings and misers made […]...
34. The Poor Relation No longer torn by what she knows And sees within the eyes of others, Her doubts are when the daylight goes, Her fears are for the few she bothers. She tells them it is wholly wrong Of her to stay alive so long; And when she smiles her forehead shows A crinkle that had been […]...
35. Rune of the Finland Woman For Sára Karig “You are so wise,” the reindeer said, “you can bind the winds of the world in a single strand.”-H. C. Andersen, “The Snow Queen” She could bind the world’s winds in a single strand. She could find the world’s words in a singing wind. She could lend a weird will to a […]...
36. Poor Earth It is not heaven: bitter seed Leavens its entrails with despair It is a star where dragons breed: Devils have a footing there. The sky has bent it out of shape; The sun has strapped it to his wheel; Its course is crooked to escape Traps and gins of stone and steel. It balances on […]...
37. Poor Peter Blind Peter Piper used to play All up and down the city; I’d often meet him on my way, And throw a coin for pity. But all amid his sparkling tones His ear was quick as any To catch upon the cobble-stones The jingle of my penny. And as upon a day that shone He […]...
38. Poor Kid Mumsie and Dad are raven dark And I am lily blonde. ”Tis strange,’ I once heard nurse remark, ‘You do not correspond.’ And yet they claim me as their own, Born of their flesh and bone. To doubt their parenthood I dread, But now to girlhood grown, The thought is haunting in my head That […]...
39. The Poor Children Take heed of this small child of earth; He is great; he hath in him God most high. Children before their fleshly birth Are lights alive in the blue sky. In our light bitter world of wrong They come; God gives us them awhile. His speech is in their stammering tongue, And his forgiveness in […]...
40. Poor little Heart! Poor little Heart! Did they forget thee? Then dinna care! Then dinna care! Proud little Heart! Did they forsake thee? Be debonnaire! Be debonnaire! Frail little Heart! I would not break thee Could’st credit me? Could’st credit me? Gay little Heart Like Morning Glory! Wind and Sun wilt thee array!...