Beauty
- SAY not of Beauty she is good,
- Or aught but beautiful,
- Or sleek to dove's wings of the wood
- Her wild wings of a gull.
- Call her not wicked; that word's touch
- Consumes her like a curse;
- But love her not too much, too much,
- For that is even worse.
- O, she is neither good nor bad,
- But innocent and wild!
- Enshrine her and she dies, who had
- The hard heart of a child.
The Eagle and the Mole
- AVOID the reeking herd,
- Shun the polluted flock,
- Live like that stoic bird,
- The eagle of the rock.
- The huddled warmth of crowds
- Begets and fosters hate;
- He keeps above the clouds
- His cliff inviolate.
- When flocks are folded warm,
- And herds to shelter run,
- He sails above the storm,
- He stares into the sun.
- If in the eagle's track
- Your sinews cannot leap,
- Avoid the lathered pack,
- Turn from the steaming sheep.
- If you would keep your soul
- From spotted sight or sound,
- Live like the velvet mole:
- Go burrow underground.
- And there hold intercourse
- With roots of trees and stones,
- With rivers at their source,
- And disembodied bones.
Madman's Song
- BETTER to see your cheek grown hollow,
- Better to see your temple worn,
- Than to forget to follow, follow,
- After the sound of a silver horn.
- Better to bind your brow with willow
- And follow, follow until you die,
- Than to sleep with your head on a golden pillow,
- Nor lift it up when the hunt goes by.
- Better to see your cheek grow sallow
- And your hair grown gray, so soon, so soon,
- Than to forget to hallo, hallo,
- After the milk-white hounds of the moon.
The Prinkin' Leddie
- "THE Hielan' lassies are a' for spinnin',
- The Lowlan' lassies for prinkin' and pinnin';
- My daddie w'u'd chide me, an' so w'u'd my minnie
- If I s'u'd bring hame sic a prinkin' leddie.
- Now haud your tongue, ye haverin' coward,
- For whilst I'm young I'll go flounced an' flowered,
- In lutestring striped like the strings o' a fiddle,
- Wi' gowden* girdles aboot my middle. [golden]
- In your Hielan' glen, where the rain pours steady,
- Ye'll be gay an' glad for a prinkin' leddie;
- Where the rocks are all bare an' the turf is all sodden,
- An' lassies gae sad in their homespun an' hodden.
- My silks are stiff wi' patterns o' siller*, [silver]
- I've an ermine hood like the hat o' a miller,
- I've chains o' coral like rowan berries,
- An' a cramoisie mantle that cam' frae Paris.
- Ye'll be glad for the glint o' its scarlet linin'
- When the larks are up an' the sun is shinin';
- When the winds are up an' ower the heather
- Your heart'll be gay wi' my gowden feather.
- When the skies are low an' the earth is frozen,
- Ye'll be gay an' glad for the leddie ye've chosen,
- When ower the snow I go prinkin' an' prancin'
- In my wee red slippers were made for dancin'.
- It's better a leddie like Solomon's lily
- Than one that'll run like a Hielan' gillie
- A-linkin' it ower the leas, my laddie,
- In a raggedy kilt an' a belted pladdie!
August
- WHY should this Negro insolently stride
- Down the red noonday on such noiseless feet?
- Piled in his barrow, tawnier than wheat,
- Lie heaps of smouldering daisies, sombre-eyed,
- Their copper petals shriveled up with pride,
- Hot with a superfluity of heat,
- Like a great brazier borne along the street
- By captive leopards, black and burning pied.
- Are there no water-lilies, smooth as cream,
- With long stems dripping crystal? Are there none
- Like those white lilies, luminous and cool,
- Plucked from some hemlock-darkened northern stream
- By fair-haired swimmers, diving where the sun
- Scarce warms the surface of the deepest pool?
The Crooked Stick
- First Traveller: WHAT'S that lying in the dust?
- Second Traveller: A crooked stick.
- First Traveller: What's it worth, if you can trust to arithmetic?
- Second Traveller: Isn't this a riddle?
- First Traveller: No, a trick.
- Second Traveller:It's worthless, leave it where it lies.
- First Traveller: Wait; count ten;
- Rub a little dust upon your eyes;
- Now, look again.
- Second Traveller: Well, and what the devil is it, then?
- First Traveller: It's the sort of crooked stick that shepherds know.
- Second Traveller: Someone's loss!
- First Traveller: Bend it, and you make of it a bow.
- Break it, a cross.
- Second Traveller: But it's all grown over with moss!
Atavism
- I WAS always afraid of Somes's Pond:
- Not the little pond, by which the willow stands,
- Where laughing boys catch alewives in their hands
- In brown, bright shallows; but the one beyond.
- There, where the frost makes all the birches burn
- Yellow as cow-lilies, and the pale sky shines
- Like a polished shell between black spruce and pines,
- Some strange thing tracks us, turning where we turn.
- You'll say I dreamed it, being the true daughter
- Of those who in old times endured this dread.
- Look! Where the lily-stems are showing red
- A silent paddle moves below the water,
- A sliding shape has stirred them like a breath;
- Tall plumes surmount a painted mask of death.
Wild Peaches
- 1
- WHEN the world turns completely upside down
- You say we'll emigrate to the Eastern Shore
- Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore;
- We'll live among wild peach trees, miles from town,
- You'll wear a coonskin cap, and I a gown
- Homespun, dyed butternut's dark gold colour.
- Lost, like your lotus-eating ancestor,
- We'll swim in milk and honey till we drown.
- The winter will be short, the summer long,
- The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot,
- Tasting of cider and of scuppernong;
- All seasons sweet, but autumn best of all.
- The squirrels in their silver fur will fall
- Like falling leaves, like fruit, before your shot.
- 2
- The autumn frosts will lie upon the grass
- Like bloom on grapes of purple-brown and gold.
- The misted early mornings will be cold;
- The little puddles will be roofed with glass.
- The sun, which burns from copper into brass,
- Melts these at noon, and makes the boys unfold
- Their knitted mufflers; full as they can hold
- Fat pockets dribble chestnuts as they pass.
- Peaches grow wild, and pigs can live in clover;
- A barrel of salted herrings lasts a year;
- The spring begins before the winter's over.
- By February you may find the skins
- Of garter snakes and water moccasins
- Dwindled and harsh, dead-white and cloudy-clear.
- 3
- When April pours the colours of a shell
- Upon the hills, when every little creek
- Is shot with silver from the Chesapeake
- In shoals new-minted by the ocean swell,
- When strawberries go begging, and the sleek
- Blue plums lie open to the blackbird's beak,
- We shall live well -- we shall live very well.
- The months between the cherries and the peaches
- Are brimming cornucopias which spill
- Fruits red and purple, sombre-bloomed and black;
- Then, down rich fields and frosty river beaches
- We'll trample bright persimmons, while you kill
- Bronze partridge, speckled quail, and canvasback.
- 4
- Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones
- There's something in this richness that I hate.
- I love the look, austere, immaculate,
- Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones.
- There's something in my very blood that owns
- Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate,
- A thread of water, churned to milky spate
- Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.
- I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray,
- Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meagre sheaves;
- That spring, briefer than apple-blossom's breath,
- Summer, so much too beautiful to stay,
- Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,
- And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.
Sanctuary
- THIS is the bricklayer; hear the thud
- Of his heavy load dumped down on stone.
- His lustrous bricks are brighter than blood,
- His smoking mortar whiter than bone.
- Set each sharp-edged, fire-bitten brick
- Straight by the plumb-line's shivering length;
- Make my marvelous wall so thick
- Dead nor living may shake its strength.
- Full as a crystal cup with drink
- Is my cell with dreams, and quiet, and cool. . . .
- Stop, old man! You must leave a chink;
- How can I breathe? You can't, you fool!
The Lion and the Lamb
- I SAW a Tiger's golden flank,
- I saw what food he ate,
- By a desert spring he drank;
- The Tiger's name was Hate.
- Then I saw a placid Lamb
- Lying fast asleep;
- Like a river from its dam
- Flashed the Tiger's leap.
- I saw a lion tawny-red,
- Terrible and brave;
- The Tiger's leap overhead
- Broke like a wave.
- In sand below or sun above
- He faded like a flame.
- The Lamb said, "I am Love;
- Lion, tell your name."
- The Lion's voice thundering
- Shook his vaulted breast,
- "I am Love. By this spring,
- Brother, let us rest."
The Church-Bell
- AS I was lying in my bed
- I heard the church-bell ring;
- Before one solemn word was said
- A bird began to sing.
- I heard a dog begin to bark
- And a bold crowing cock;
- The bell, between the cold and dark,
- Tolled. It was five o'clock.
- The church-bell tolled, and the bird sang,
- A clear true voice he had;
- The cock crew, and the church-bell rang,
- I knew it had gone mad.
- A hand reached down from the dark skies,
- It took the bell-rope thong,
- The bell cried "Look! Lift up your eyes!"
- The clapper shook to song.
- The iron clapper laughed aloud,
- Like clashing wind and wave;
- The bell cried out "Be strong and proud!"
- Then, with a shout, "Be brave!"
- The rumbling of the market-carts,
- The pounding of men's feet
- Were drowned in song; "Lift up your hearts!"
- The song was loud and sweet.
- Slow and slow the great bell swung,
- It hung in the steeple mute;
- And people tore its living tongue
- Out by the very root.
A Crowded Trolley Car
- THE rain's cold grains are silver-gray
- Sharp as golden sands,
- A bell is clanging, people sway
- Hanging by their hands.
- Supple hands, or gnarled and stiff,
- Snatch and catch and grope;
- That face is yellow-pale, as if
- The fellow swung from rope.
- Dull like pebbles, sharp like knives,
- Glances strike and glare,
- Fingers tangle, Bluebeard's wives
- Dangle by the hair.
- Orchard of the strangest fruits
- Hanging from the skies;
- Brothers, yet insensate brutes
- Who fear each other's eyes.
- One man stands as free men stand,
- As if his soul might be
- Brave, unbroken; see his hand
- Nailed to an oaken tree.
Bells in the Rain
- SLEEP falls, with limpid drops of rain,
- Upon the steep cliffs of the town.
- Sleep falls; men are at peace again
- While the small drops fall softly down.
- The bright drops ring like bells of glass
- Thinned by the wind, and lightly blown;
- Sleep cannot fall on peaceful grass
- So softly as it falls on stone.
- Peace falls unheeded on the dead
- Asleep; they have had deep peace to drink;
- Upon a live man's bloody head
- It falls most tenderly, I think.
Winter Sleep
- WHEN against earth a wooden heel
- Clicks as loud as stone on steel,
- When stone turns flour instead of flakes,
- And frost bakes clay as fire bakes,
- When the hard-bitten fields at last
- Crack like iron flawed in the cast,
- When the world is wicked and cross and old,
- I long to be quit of the cruel cold.
- Little birds like bubbles of glass
- Fly to other Americas,
- Birds as bright as sparkles of wine
- Fly in the nite to the Argentine,
- Birds of azure and flame-birds go
- To the tropical Gulf of Mexico:
- They chase the sun, they follow the heat,
- It is sweet in their bones, O sweet, sweet, sweet!
- It's not with them that I'd love to be,
- But under the roots of the balsam tree.
- Just as the spiniest chestnut-burr
- Is lined within with the finest fur,
- So the stoney-walled, snow-roofed house
- Of every squirrel and mole and mouse
- Is lined with thistledown, sea-gull's feather,
- Velvet mullein-leaf, heaped together
- With balsam and juniper, dry and curled,
- Sweeter than anything else in the world.
- O what a warm and darksome nest
- Where the wildest things are hidden to rest!
- It's there that I'd love to lie and sleep,
- Soft, soft, soft, and deep, deep, deep!
Village Mystery
- THE woman in the pointed hood
- And cloak blue-gray like a pigeon's wing,
- Whose orchard climbs to the balsam-wood,
- Has done a cruel thing.
- To her back door-step came a ghost,
- A girl who had been ten years dead,
- She stood by the granite hitching-post
- And begged for a piece of bread.
- Now why should I, who walk alone,
- Who am ironical and proud,
- Turn, when a woman casts a stone
- At a beggar in a shroud?
- I saw the dead girl cringe and whine,
- And cower in the weeping air--
- But, oh, she was no kin of mine,
- And so I did not care!
Sunset on the Spire
- ALL that I dream
- By day or night
- Lives in that stream
- Of lovely light.
- Here is the earth,
- And there is the spire;
- This is my hearth,
- And that is my fire.
- From the sun's dome
- I am shouted proof
- That this is my home,
- And that is my roof.
- Here is my food,
- And here is my drink,
- And I am wooed
- From the moon's brink.
- And the days go over,
- And the nights end;
- Here is my lover,
- Here is my friend.
- All that I
- Can ever ask
- Wears that sky
- Like a thin gold mask.
Escape
- WHEN foxes eat the last gold grape,
- And the last white antelope is killed,
- I shall stop fighting and escape
- Into a little house I'll build.
- But first I'll shrink to fairy size,
- With a whisper no one understands,
- Making blind moons of all your eyes,
- And muddy roads of all your hands.
- And you may grope for me in vain
- In hollows under the mangrove root,
- Or where, in apple-scented rain,
- The silver wasp-nests hang like fruit.
The Fairy Goldsmith
- 'HERE'S a wonderful thing,
- A humming-bird's wing
- In hammered gold,
- And store well chosen
- Of snowflakes frozen
- In crystal cold.
- Black onyx cherries
- And mistletoe berries
- Of chrysoprase,
- Jade buds, tight shut,
- All carven and cut
- In intricate ways.
- Here, if you please
- Are little gilt bees
- In amber drops
- Which look like honey,
- Translucent and sunny,
- From clover-tops.
- Here's an elfin girl
- Of mother-of-pearl
- And moonshine made,
- With tortise-shell hair
- Both dusky and fair
- In its light and shade.
- Here's lacquer laid thin,
- Like a scarlet skin
- On an ivory fruit;
- And a filigree frost
- Of frail notes lost
- From a fairy lute.
- Here's a turquoise chain
- Of sun-shower rain
- To wear if you wish;
- And glittering green
- With aquamarine,
- A silvery fish.
- Here are pearls all strung
- On a thread among
- Pretty pink shells;
- And bubbles blown
- From the opal stone
- Which ring like bells.
- Touch them and take them,
- But do not break them!
- Beneath your hand
- They will wither like foam
- If you carry them home
- Out of fairy-lannd.
- O, they never can last
- Though you hide them fast
- From moth and from rust;
- In your monstrous day
- They will crumble away
- Into quicksilver dust.
'Fire and Sleet and Candlelight'
- For this you've striven
- Daring, to fail:
- Your sky is riven
- Like a tearing veil.
- For this, you've wasted
- Wings of your youth;
- Divined, and tasted
- Bitter springs of truth.
- From sand unslakèd
- Twisted strong cords,
- And wandering naked
- Among trysted swords.
- There's a word unspoken,
- A knot untied.
- Whatever is broken
- The earth may hide.
- The road was jagged
- Over sharp stones:
- Your body's too ragged
- To cover your bones.
- The wind scatters
- Tears upon dust;
- Your soul's in tatters
- Where the spears thrust.
Blood Feud
- ONCE, when my husband was a child, there came
- To his father's table, one who called him kin,
- In sunbleached corduroys paler than his skin.
- His look was grave and kind; he bore the name
- Of the dead singer of Senlac, and his smile.
- Shyly and courteously he smiled and spoke;
- "I've been in the laurel since the winter broke;
- Four months, I reckon; yes, sir, quite a while."
- He'd killed a score of foemen in the past,
- In some blood feud, a dark and monstrous thing;
- To him it seemed his duty. At the last
- His enemies found him by a forest spring,
- Which, as he died, lay bright beneath his head,
- A silver shield that slowly turned to red.
Sea Lullaby
- THE old moon is tarnished
- With smoke of the flood,
- The dead leaves are varnished
- With colour like blood,
- A treacherous smiler
- With teeth white as milk,
- A savage beguiler
- In sheathings of silk,
- The sea creeps to pillage,
- She leaps on her prey;
- A child of the village
- Was murderd today.
- She came up to meet him
- In a smooth golden cloak,
- She choked him and beat him
- To death, for a joke.
- Her bright locks were tangled,
- She shouted for joy,
- With one hand she strangled
- A strong little boy.
- Now in silence she lingers
- Beside him all night
- To wash her long fingers
- In silvery light.
Nancy
- YOU are a rose, but set with sharpest spine;
- You are a pretty bird that pecks at me;
- You are a little squirrel on a tree,
- Pelting me with the prickly fruit of the pine;
- A diamond, torn from a crystal mine,
- Not like that milky treasure of the sea,
- A smooth, translucent pearl, but skilfully
- Carven to cut, and faceted to shine.
- If you are flame, it dances and burns blue;
- If you are light, it pierces like a star
- Intenser than a needlepoint of ice.
- The dextrous touch that shaped the soul of you,
- Mingled, to mix, and make you what you are,
- Magic between the sugar and the spice.
A Proud Lady
- HATE in the world's hand
- Can carve and set its seal
- Like the strong blast of sand
- Which cuts into steel.
- I have seen how the finger of hate
- Can mar and mould
- Faces burned passionate
- And frozen cold.
- Sorrowful faces worn
- As stone with rain,
- Faces writhing with scorn
- And sullen with pain.
- But you have a proud face
- Which the world cannot harm,
- You have turned the pain to a grace
- And the scorn to a charm.
- You have taken the arrows and slings
- Which prick and bruise
- And fashioned them into wings
- For the heels of your shoes.
- From the world's hand which tries
- To tear you apart
- You have stolen the falcon's eyes
- And the lion's heart.
- What has it done, this world,
- With hard finger-tips,
- But sweetly chiseled and curled
- Your inscrutable lips?
The Tortise in Eternity
- WITHIN my house of patterned horn
- I sleep in such a bed
- As men may keep before they're born
- And after when they're dead.
- Sticks and stones may break their bones,
- And words may make them bleed;
- There is not one of them who owns
- An armour to his need.
- Tougher than hide or lozenged bark,
- Snow-storm and thunder proof,
- And quick with sun, and thick with dark,
- Is this my darling roof.
- Men's troubled dreams of death and birth
- Puls mother-o'-pearl to black;
- I bear the rainbow bubble Earth
- Square on my scornful back.
Incantation
- A WHITE well
- In a black cave;
- A bright shell
- In a dark wave.
- A white rose
- Black brambles hood;
- Smooth bright snows
- In a dark wood.
- A flung white glove
- In a dark fight;
- A white dove
- On a wild black night.
- A white door
- In a dark lane;
- A bright core
- To bitter black pain.
- A white hand
- Waved from dark walls;
- In a burnt black land
- Bright waterfalls.
- A bright spark
- Where black ashes are;
- In the smothering dark
- One white star.
Silver Filigree
- THE icicles wreathing
- On trees in festoon
- Swing, swayed to our breathing:
- They're made of the moon.
- She's a pale, waxen taper;
- And these seem to drip
- Transparent as paper
- From the flame of her tip.
- Molten, smoking a little,
- Into crystal they pass;
- Falling, freezing, to brittle
- And delicate glass.
- Each a sharp-pointed flower,
- Each a brief stalactite
- Which hangs for an hour
- In the blue cave of night.
The Falcon
- WHY should my sleepy heart be taught
- To whistle mocking-bird replies?
- This is another bird you've caught,
- Soft-feathered, with a falcon's eyes.
- The bird Imagination,
- That flies so far, that dies so soon;
- Her wings are coloured like the sun,
- Her breast is coloured like the moon.
- Weave her a chain of silver twist,
- And a little hood of scarlet wool,
- And let her perch upon your wrist,
- And tell her she is beautiful.
Bronze Trumpets and Sea Water--On Turning Latin into English
- ALEMBICS turn to stranger things
- Strange things, but never while we live
- Shall magic turn this bronze that sings
- To singing water in a sieve.
- The trumpets of Cæsar's guard
- Salute his rigorous bastions
- With ordered bruit; the bronze is hard
- Though there is silver in the bronze.
- Our mutable tongue is like the sea,
- Curled wave and shattering thunder-fit;
- Dangle in strings of sand shall he
- Who smoothes the ripples out of it.
Spring Pastoral
- LIZA, go steep your long white hands
- In the cool waters of that spring
- Which bubbles up through shiny sands
- The colour of a wild-dove's wing.
- Dabble your hands, and steep them well
- Until those nails are pearly white
- Now rosier than a laurel bell;
- Then come to me at candlelight.
- Lay your cold hands across my brows,
- And I shall sleep, and I shall dream
- Of silver-pointed willow boughs
- Dipping their fingers in a stream.
Velvet Shoes
- LET us walk in the white snow
- In a soundless space;
- With footsteps quiet snd slow,
- At a tranquil pace,
- Under veils of white lace.
- I shall go shod in silk,
- And you in wool,
- White as white cow's milk,
- More beautiful
- Than the breast of a gull.
- We shall walk through the still town
- In a windless peace;
- We shall step upon white down,
- Upon silver fleece,
- Upon softer than these.
- We shall walk in velvet shoes:
- Wherever we go
- Silence will fall like dews
- On white silence below.
- We shall walk in the snow.
Valentine
- TOO high, too high to pluck
- My heart shall swing.
- A fruit no bee shall suck,
- No wasp shall sting.
- If on some night of cold
- It falls to ground
- In apple-leaves of gold
- I'll wrap it round.
- And I shall seal it up
- With spice and salt,
- In a carven silver cup,
- In a deep vault.
- Before my eyes are blind
- And my lips mute,
- I must eat core and rind
- Of that same fruit.
- Before my heart is dust
- By the end of all,
- Eat it I must, I must
- Were it bitter gall.
- But I shall keep it sweet
- By some strange art;
- Wild honey I shall eat
- When I eat my heart.
- O honey cool and chaste
- As clover's breath!
- Sweet Heaven I shall taste
- Before my death.
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