Poetry Platform - the largest database of poetry, save it to read later!

Poems

A Crowded Trolley-Car Read Poem

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.

A Proud Lady Read Poem

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?

A Strange Story Read Poem

When I died on Berners Street
I remember well
That I had lights at head and feet
And a passing bell.

But when I died in Houndsditch
There came to lay me out
A washerwoman and a witch;
The rats ran about.

When I died in Holborn
In an old house and tall
I know the tapestry was torn
And hanging from the wall.

When I died in Marylebone
I was saying my prayers;
there I died all alone
Up four flights of stairs.

But when I died near Lincoln's Inn
The small gold I had
Surrounded me with kith and kin
I died stark mad.

When I died in Bloomsbury
In the bend of your arm
At the end I died merry
And comforted and warm.

published in 'Trivial Breath', 1928
private collection

Address to My Soul Read Poem

My soul, be not disturbed
By planetary war;
Remain securely orbed
In this contracted star.

Fear not, pathetic flame;
Your sustenance is doubt:
Glassed in translucent dream
They cannot stuff you out.

Wear water, or a mask
Of unapparent cloud;
Be brave and never ask
A more defunctive shroud.

The universal points
Are shrunk into a flower;
Between in delicate joints
Chaos keeps no power.

The pure integral form,
Austere and silver-dark,
Is balanced on the storm
In its predestined arc.

Small as a sphere of rain
It slides along the groove
Whose path is furrowed plain
Among the suns that move.

The shapes of April buds
Outlive the phantom year:
Upon the void at odds
The dewdrop falls severe.

Five-petalled flame, be cold:
Be firm, dissolving star:
Accept the stricter mould
That makes you singular.

published in \Trivial Breath\ 1928
poem found at
Expansive Poetry and Music Online

Atavism Read Poem

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.

An alewife is a fish (Alosa pseudoharengus) that is closely related to the herring, and like the salmon migrate back from the ocean to the lakes and streams where they were born to lay their own eggs.

"Somes's Pond" is located on Mt.

Desert Island, best known for its magnificent Acadia National Park.

August Read Poem

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?

Beauty Read Poem

Say not of beauty she is good,
Or aught but beautiful,
Or sleek to doves' 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.

Bells in the Rain Read Poem

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.

Blood Feud Read Poem

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.

Bronze Trumpets and Sea Water - On Turning Latin into English Read Poem

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.

Cold-Blooded Creatures Read Poem

Man, the egregious egoist
(In mystery the twig is bent)
Imagines, by some mental twist,
That he alone is sentient
Of the intolerable load
That on all living creatures lies,
Nor stoops to pity in the toad
The speechless sorrow of his eyes.

He asks no questions of the snake,
Nor plumbs the phosphorescent gloom
Where lidless fishes, broad awake,
Swim staring at a nightmare doom.

Curious Circumstance Read Poem

The sailorman's child
And the girl of the witch—
They can't be defiled
By touching pitch.

The sailorman's son
Had a ship for a nursery;
The other one
Was baptised by sorcery.

Although he's shipped
To the Persian Gulf, her
Body's been dipped
In burning sulphur.

Death and the Maiden Read Poem

BARCAROLE ON THE STYX
Fair youth with the rose at your lips,
A riddle is hid in your eyes;
Discard conversational quips,
Give over elaborate disguise.

The rose's funeral breath
Confirms by intuitive fears;
To prove your devotion, Sir Death,
Avaunt for a dozen of years.

But do not forget to array
Your terror in juvenile charms;
I shall deeply regret my delay
If I sleep in a skeleton's arms.

Drowned Woman Read Poem

He shall be my jailer
Who sets me free
From shackles frailer
Then the wind spun sea.

He shall be my teacher
Who cries "Be brave,"
To a weeping creature
In a glass-walled cave
But he shall be my brother
Whose mocking despair
Dives headlong to smother
in the weeds of my hair.

Published in Black Armour, 1929
from personal collection

Epitaph Read Poem

For this she starred her eyes with salt
And scooped her temples thin,
Until her face shone pure of fault
From the forehead to the chin.

In coldest crucibles of pain
Her shrinking flesh was fired
And smoothed into a finer grain
To make it more desired.

Pain left her lips more clear than glass;
It colored and cooled her hand.

She lay a field of scented grass
Yielded as pasture land.

For this her loveliness was curved
And carved as silver is:
For this she was brave: but she deserved
A better grave than this.

Escape Read Poem

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.

Felo De Se Read Poem

My heart's delight, I must for love forget you;
I must put you from my heart, the better to please you;
I must make the power of the spirit set you
Beyond the power of the mind to seize you.

My dearest heart, in this last act of homage,
I must reject you; I must unlearn to love you;
I must make my eyes give up your adorable image
And from the inner chamber of my soul remove you.

Heart of my heart, the heart alone has courage
Thus to relinquish; it is yourself that stills you
In all my pulses, and dissolves the marriage
Of soul and soul, and at the heart's core kills you.

Fire and Sleet and Candlelight Read Poem

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.

Incantation Read Poem

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.

Innocent Landscape Read Poem

Here is no peace, although the air has fainted,
And footfalls die and are buried in deep grass,
And reverential trees are softly painted
Like saints upon an oriel of glass.

The pattern of the atmosphere is spherical
A bubble in the silence of the sun,
Blown thinner by the very breath of miracle
Around a core of loud confusion
Here is no virtue; here is nothing blessèd
Save this foredoomed suspension of the end;
Faith is the blossom, but the fruit is cursèd;
Go hence, for it is useless to pretend
published in 'Trivial Breath', 1928
from private collection

King's Ransom Read Poem

About the Emperor's thumb revolving,
Mouthed by Manchu's enamelled dragon;
Upon the damasked barge, dissolving
Within the deep Egyptian flagon;
Downcast before the swine of Circe;
Poised between double diamond prisms;
Clipped by the horseshoe nail that hearsay
Declares a cure for rheumatisms;
If the artificer be Vulcan
Or microscopical Cellini
To set an eyeball for a falcon
Or carve a button for a genie;
And whether cupped in gold or copper,
In frigid silver or the burly
Embrace of bronze; stained by the upper
Cloud colours, or profound sea-pearly
Whether consuming or congealing
In fire or salt; O never shall you
Find an enchantment for concealing
This little moon's enormous value!
Published in Trivial Breath, 1928
from private collection

Les Lauriers Sont Coupée Read Poem

Ah, love, within the shadow of the wood
The laurels are cut down; some other brows
May bear the classic wreath which Fame allows
And find the burden honorable and good.

Have we not passed the laurels as they stood—
Soft in the veil with which Spring endows
The wintry glitter of their woven boughs—
Nor stopped to break the branches while we could?

Ah, love, for other brows they are cut down.

Thornless and scentless are their stems and flowers,
And cold as death their twisted coronal.

Sweeter to us the sharpness of this crown;
Sweeter the wildest roses which are ours;
Sweeter the petals, even when they fall.

The title roughly translates to: The Bay-Tree's are Cut

Little Elegy Read Poem

Withouten you
No rose can grow;
No leaf be green
If never seen
Your sweetest face;
No bird have grace
Or power to sing;
Or anything
Be kind, or fair,
And you nowhere.

Little Joke Read Poem

Stripping an almond tree in flower
The wise apothecary's skill
A single drop of lethal power
From perfect sweetness can distill
From bitterness in efflorescence,
With murderous poisons packed therein;
The poet draws pellucid essence
Pure as a drop of metheglin.

Love Song Read Poem

Lovers eminent in love
Ever diversities combine;
The vocal chords of the cushat-dove,
The snake's articulated spine.

Such elective elements
Educate the eye and lip
With one's refreshing innocence,
The other's claim to scholarship.

The serpent's knowledge of the world
Learn, and the dove's more naïve charm;
Whether your ringlets should be curled,
And why he likes his claret warm.

Madman's Song Read Poem

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.

Nadir Read Poem

If we must cheat ourselves with any dream,
Then let it be a dream of nobleness:
Since it is necessary to express
Gall from black grapes—to sew an endless seam
With a rusty needle—chase a spurious gleam
Narrowing to the nothing through the less—
Since life's no better than a bitter guess,
And love's a stranger—let us change the theme.

Let us at least pretend—it may be true—
That we can close our lips on poisonous
Dark wine diluted by the Stygean wave;
And let me dream sublimity in you,
And courage, liberal for the two of us:
Let us at least pretend we can be brave.

Nancy Read Poem

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.

Now let no charitable hope Read Poem

Now let no charitable hope
Confuse my mind with images
Of eagle and of antelope:
I am by nature none of these.

I was, being human, born alone;
I am, being woman, hard beset;
I live by squeezing from a stone
What little nourishment I get.

In masks outrageous and austere
The years go by in single file;
But none has merited my fear,
And none has quite escaped my smile.

October Read Poem

Beauty has a tarnished dress,
And a patchwork cloak of cloth
Dipped deep in mournfulness,
Striped like a moth.

Wet grass where it trails
Dyes it green along the hem;
She has seven silver veils
With cracked bells on them.

She is tired of all these—
Grey gauze, translucent lawn;
The broad cloak of Herakles.

Is tangled flame and fawn.

Water and light are wearing thin:
She has drawn above her head
The warm enormous lion skin
Rough red and gold.

Ophelia Read Poem

My locks are shorn for sorrow
Of love which may not be;
Tomorrow and tomorrow
Are plotting cruelty.

The winter wind tangles
These ringlets half-grown,
The sun sprays with spangles
And rays like his own.

Oh, quieter and colder
Is the stream; he will wait;
When my curls touch my shoulder
He will comb them straight.

Parting Gift Read Poem

I cannot give you the Metropolitan Tower;
I cannot give you heaven;
Nor the nine Visigoth crowns in the Cluny Museum;
Nor happiness, even.

But I can give you a very small purse
Made out of field-mouse skin,
With a painted picture of the universe
And seven blue tears therein.

I cannot give you the Island of Capri;
I cannot give you beauty;
Nor bake you marvellous crusty cherry pies
With love and duty.

But I can give you a  very little locket
Made out of wildcat hide:
Put it in your left-hand pocket
And never look inside.

Published in Black Armour 1923
poem found at
Expansive Poetry and Music Online

Phases of the Moon Read Poem

Once upon a time I heard
That the flying moon was a Phoenix bird;
Thus she sails through windy skies,
Thus in the willow's arms she lies;
Turn to the East or turn to the West
In many trees she makes her nest.

When she's but a pearly thread
Look among birch leaves overhead;
When she dies in yellow smoke
Look in a thunder-smitten oak;
But in May when the moon is full,
Bright as water and white as wool,
Look for her where she loves to be,
Asleep in a high magnolia tree.

Poor Earth Read Poem

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 air, and spins
Snared by strong transparent space;
I forgive it all its sins;
I kiss the scars upon its face.

Preference Read Poem

These to me are beautiful people;
Thick hair sliding in a ripple
A tall throat, round as a column;
A mournful mouth, small and solemn,
Having to confound the mourner
Irony in either corner;
the limbs fine, narrow and strong;
Like the wind they walk along,
Like the whirlwind, bad to follow;
the cheekbones high, the cheeks hollow,
The eyes large and wide apart.

They carry a dagger in the heart
So clean and keen it never rankles.

.

.

They wear small bones in wrists and ankles.

Published in Black Armour, 1929
from private collection

Pretty Words Read Poem

Poets make pets of pretty, docile words:
I love smooth words, like gold-enamelled fish
Which circle slowly with a silken swish,
And tender ones, like downy-feathered birds:
Words shy and dappled, deep-eyed deer in herds,
Come to my hand, and playful if I wish,
Or purring softly at a silver dish,
Blue Persian kittens fed on cream and curds.

I love bright words, words up and singing early;
Words that are luminous in the dark, and sing;
Warm lazy words, white cattle under trees;
I love words opalescent, cool, and pearly,
Like midsummer moths, and honied words like bees,
Gilded and sticky, with a little sting.

Primavera in the North Read Poem

She has danced for leagues and leagues,
Over thorns and thistles,
Prancing to a tune of Griegg's
Performed on willow whistles.

Antelopes behold her, dazed,
Velvet-eyed, and furry;
Polar flowers, crackle-glazed,
Snap beneath her hurry.

In a wig of copper wire,
A gown of scalloped gauzes,
She capers like a flame of fire
Over Arctic mosses.

All her tears have turned to birds,
All her thoughts of dolour
Paint the snow with scarlet words
And traceries of colour.

Prophecy Read Poem

I shall die hidden in a hut
In the middle of an alder wood,
With the back door blind and bolted shut,
And the front door locked for good.

I shall lie folded like a saint,
Lapped in a scented linen sheet,
On a bedstead striped with bright-blue paint,
Narrow and cold and neat.

The midnight will be glassy black
Behind the panes, with wind about
To set his mouth against a crack
And blow the candle out.

Quarrel Read Poem

Let us quarrel for these reasons:
You detest the salt which seasons
My speech .

.

.

and all my lights go out
In the cold poison of your doubt.

I love Shelley .

.

.

you love Keats
Something parts and something meets.

I love salads .

.

.

you love chops;
Something goes and something stops.

Something hides its face and cries;
Something shivers; something dies.

I love blue ribbons brought from fairs;
You love sitting splitting hairs.

I love truth, and so do you .

.

.

Tell me, is it truly true?

Sanctuary Read Poem

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!

Sea Lullaby Read Poem

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 murdered 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.

Silver Filigree Read Poem

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.

Song Read Poem

It is my thoughts that colour
My soul which slips between;
Thoughts lunar and solar
And gold and sea-green
Tint the pure translucence
Of the crystal thread;
A rainbow nuisance
It runs through my head.

When I am dead, or sleeping
Without any pain,
My soul will stop creeping
Through my jeweled brain
With no brightness to dye it
None will see where
It flows clear and quiet
As a river of air;
Watering dark places
Without sparkle or sound;
Kissing dumb faces
And the dusty ground.

Published in Black Armour 1923
from personal collection

Sonnet X Read Poem

SONNET X
From One Person
When I perceive the sable of your hair
Silvered, and deep within those caverns are
Your eyesockets, a double-imaged star,
And your fine substance fretted down with care,
Then do I marvel that a woman dare
Prattle of mortal matters near and far
To one so wounded in demonic war
Against some prince of Sirius or Altair.

How is it possible that this hand of clay,
Though white as porcelain, can contrive a touch
So delicate it shall not hurt too much?

What voice can my invention find to say
So soft, precise, and scrupulous a word
You shall not take it for another sword?

published in Angels and Other earthly Creatures 1929
poem found at
http://www.

geocities.

com/juscurious/ewylienewadditions.

html

Speed The Parting— Read Poem

I shall not sprinkle with dust
A creature so clearly lunar;
You must die—but of course you must—
And better later than sooner.

But if it should be in a year
That year itself must perish;
How dingy a thing is fear,
And sorrow, how dull to cherish!
And if it should be in a day
That day would be dark by evening,
But the morning might still be gay
And the noon have golden leavening.

And beauty’s a moonlight grist
That comes to the mills of dying;
The silver grain may be missed
But there’s no great good in crying.

Though luminous things are mould
They survive in a glance that crossed them,
And it’s not very kind to scold
The empty air that has lost them.

The limpid blossom of youth
Turns into a poison berry;
Having perceived this truth
I shall not weep but be merry.

Therefore die when you please;
It’s not very wise to worry;
I shall not shiver and freeze;
I shall not even be sorry.

Beautiful things are wild;
They are gone, and you go after;
Therefore I mean, my child,
To charm your going with laughter.

Love and pity are strong,
But wisdom is happily greater;
You will die, I suppose, before long,
Oh, worser sooner than later!

Spring Pastoral Read Poem

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.

Sunset on the Spire Read Poem

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.

The Child on the Curbstone Read Poem

The headlights raced; the moon, death-faced,
Stared down on that golden river.

I saw through the smoke the scarlet cloak
Of a boy who could not shiver.

His father's hand forced him to stand,
The traffic thundered slaughter;
One foot he thrust in the whirling dust
As it were running water.

As in a dream I saw the stream
Scatter in drops that glistened;
They flamed, they flashed, his brow they splashed,
And danger's son was christened.

The portent passed; his fate was cast,
Sea-farer, desert-ranger.

Tearless I smiled on that fearless child
Dipping his foot in Danger.

The Church-Bell Read Poem

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.

The Crooked Stick Read Poem

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!

The Eagle and the Mole Read Poem

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.

The Fairy Goldsmith Read Poem

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.

The Falcon Read Poem

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.

The Lion and the Lamb Read Poem

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 Little Clock Read Poem

Half-past-four and the first bird waking,
Falling on my heart like a thin green leaf.

If you are alive, your heart is breaking,
If you are dead, you are done with grief.

Half-past-five and the birds singing sweetly,
World washed silver with the rain and the wind.

If you are a saint, you have lived discreetly,
If you are a sinner, you have surely sinned.

Half-past-seven and the birds singing madly;
Sun flames up in the sky like a lark,
If there are things to remember sadly,
Wait and remember them after dark.

written for an English friend, Edith Olivier

The Lost Path Read Poem

The garden's full of scented wallflowers,
And, save that these stir faintly, nothing stirs;
Only a distant bell in hollow chime
Cried out just now for far-forgotten time,
And three reverberate words the great bell spoke.

The knocker's made of brass, the door of oak,
And such a clamor must be loosed on air
By the knocker's blow that knock I do not dare.

The silence is a spell, and if it break,
What things, that now lie sleeping, will awake?

Are simple creatures lying there in cool
Sweet linen sheets, in slumber like the pool
Of moonlight white as water on the floor?

Will they come down laughing and unlock the door?

And will they draw me in, and let me sit
On the tall settle while the lamp is lit?

And shall I see their innocent clean lives
Shining as plainly as the plates and knives,
The blue bowls, and the brass cage with its bird?

But listen! listen! surely something stirred
Within the house, and creeping down the halls
Draws close to me with sinister footfalls.

Will long pale fingers softly lift the latch,
And lead me up, under the osier thatch,
To a little room, a little secret room,
Hung with green arras picturing the doom,
The most disasterous death of some proud knight?

And shall I search the room by candle-light
And see, behind the curtains of my bed,
A murdered man who sleeps as sleep the dead?

Or will my clamorous knocking shake the trees
With lonely thunder through the stillnesses,
And then lie down—the coldest fear of all—
To nothing, and deliberate silence fall
On the house deep in the silence, and no one come
To door or window, staring blind and dumb?

The Pekingese Read Poem

For a picture
This Pekingese, that makes the sand-grains spin,
Is digging little tunnels to Pekin:
Dream him emerging in a porcelain cave
Where wounded dragons stain a pearly wave.

The Poor Old Cannon Read Poem

Upbroke the sun
In red-gold foam;
Thus spoke the gun
At the Soldier's Home:
"Whenever I hear
Blue thunder speak
My voice sounds clear
But little and weak.

"And when the proud
Young cockerels crow
My voice sounds loud,
But gentle and low.

"When the mocking-bird
Prolongs his note
I cannot be heard
Though I split my throat.

"

The Prinkin' Leddie Read Poem

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.

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,
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!

The Puritan's Ballad Read Poem

My love came up from Barnegat,
The sea was in his eyes;
He trod as softly as a cat
And told me terrible lies.

His hair was yellow as new-cut pine
In shavings curled and feathered;
I thought how silver it would shine
By cruel winters weathered.

But he was in his twentieth year,
Tis time I'm speaking of;
We were head over heels in love with fear
And half a-feared of love.

My hair was piled in a copper crown —
A devilish living thing —
And the tortoise-shell pins fell down, fell down,
When that snake uncoiled to spring.

His feet were used to treading a gale
And balancing thereon;
His face was as brown as a foreign sail
Threadbare against the sun.

His arms were thick as hickory logs
Whittled to little wrists;
Strong as the teeth of a terrier dog
Were the fingers of his fists.

Within his arms I feared to sink
Where lions shook their manes,
And dragons drawn in azure ink
Lept quickened by his veins.

Dreadful his strength and length of limb
As the sea to foundering ships;
I dipped my hands in love for him
No deeper than the tips.

But our palms were welded by a flame
The moment we came to part,
And on his knuckles I read my name
Enscrolled with a heart.

And something made our wills to bend,
As wild as trees blown over;
We were no longer friend and friend,
But only lover and lover.

"In seven weeks or seventy years —
God grant it may be sooner! —
I'll make a handkerchief for you
From the sails of my captain's schooner.

We'll wear our loves like wedding rings
Long polished to our touch;
We shall be busy with other things
And they cannot bother us much.

When you are skimming the wrinkled cream
And your ring clinks on the pan,
You'll say to yourself in a pensive dream,
'How wonderful a man!'
When I am slitting a fish's head
And my ring clanks on the knife,
I'll say with thanks as a prayer is said,
'How beautiful a wife!'
And I shall fold my decorous paws
In velvet smooth and deep,
Like a kitten that covers up its claws
To sleep and sleep and sleep.

Like a little blue pigeon you shall bow
Your bright alarming crest;
In the crook of my arm you'll lay your brow
To rest and rest and rest.

Will he never come back from Barnegat
With thunder in his eyes,
Treading as soft as a tiger cat,
To tell me terrible lies?

The Tortoise in Eternity Read Poem

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.

To a Blackbird Singing Read Poem

TO A BLACKBIRD SINGING
Marcus Argentarius
Where the poisonous mistletoe
Over the oak her magic weaves,
Sign no more, O blackbird! go
To safer shade of silver leaves.

Sing, and set your little foot
On golden grape and silver vine:
The Wine-God loves your song: the fruit
Will cool your lovely throat with wine.

Published in 'Black Armour', 1923
private collection

To Aphrodite, with a Talisman Read Poem

This graven charm, that leads a girl unkisssed
From bridal-bed; that knows to draw a man
Far over-seas; carved out of amethyst,
Chased with fine gold; accept, O Cyprian!
See where it lies, translucent, beautiful:
Oh, take it for your very own! and see
How it is bound with violet-coloured wool,
Gift of a sorceress from Thessaly.

Published in 'Black Armour', 1923
from private collection

Valentine Read Poem

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
At 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.

Velvet Shoes Read Poem

Let us walk in the white snow
In a soundless space;
With footsteps quiet and 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.

Venetian Interior Read Poem

Allegra, rising from her canopied dreams,
Slides both white feet across the slanted beams
Which lace the peacock jalousies: behold
An idol of fine clay, with feet of gold

Village Mystery Read Poem

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!

Wild Peaches Read Poem

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 acoonskin capcoonskin capA cap made from a raccoon pelt, and I a gown
Homespun, dyedbutternutbutternutA shade of yellow similar to khaki.

In the Civil War, some Confederate soldiers wore butternut-colored uniforms, leading them to be nicknamed Butternuts.

Southern sympathizers in the North were also referred to as Butternuts.

’s dark gold color.

Lost, like yourlotus-eating ancestorlotus-eating ancestorAn allusion to the Lotos (Lotus) Eaters of Homer’sOdyssey.

Odysseus’ men who ate the lotos lost the desire to return home.

In Robert Fitzgerald’s translation: “but those who ate this honeyed plant, the Lotos / never cared to report, nor to return: / they longed to stay forever, browsing on / that native bloom, forgetful of their homeland” (Book IX, lines 101-104).

,
We’ll swim inmilk and honeymilk and honeyAttributes of the Promised Land mentioned several times in the Bible, first at Exodus 3.

8, where God promises the Israelites “a land flowing with milk and honey” (New Revised Standard Version)till we drown.

The winter will be short, the summer long,
The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot,
Tasting of cider and ofscuppernongscuppernongA type of wine made from the scuppernong grape, native to the surrounding area of the Scuppernong River in North Carolina;
All seasons sweetAll seasons sweetEchoes Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s lines, “Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee”, from his poem “Frost at Midnight”, but autumn best of all.

The squirrels in their silver fur will fall
Like falling leaves, like fruit, before your shot.

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 knittedmufflersmufflersHeavy scarves; 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 andwater moccasinswater moccasinsA venomous water snake, also known as cottonmouth
Dwindled and harsh, dead-white and cloudy-clear.

When April pours the colors of a shell
Upon the hills, when every little creek
Is shot with silver from theChesapeakeChesapeakeThe Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and Maryland
InshoalsshoalsSandbarsnew-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, andcanvasbackcanvasbackA wild duck “so called from the color of the back” (A Dictionary of Americanisms, 1951).

Down to thePuritan marrow of my bonesPuritan marrow of my bonesThe Puritans were a persecuted religious group of English Protestants, in the 16th and 17th centuries that wanted to reform or “purify” the Church of England from within.

Some Puritans eventually came to New England in the 1630s and 40s, supporting the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

“Puritan” has been used as a pejorative term to describe strict moralists against all worldly pleasures.

Marrow is a fatty substance found in the cavities of bones, where blood cells are produced.

Marrow provides moisture to bones, which give them further strength.

“Marrow of my bones” is a phrase common back to the Bible, referring less literally to the center or core of a thing or issue.

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 milkyspateSpateFreshet or flood
Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.

I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray,
Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meagresheavesSheavesA bundle of cut stalks of grain tied together after reaping;
That spring, briefer than apple-blossom’s breath,
Summer, so much too beautiful to stay,
Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,
Andsleepy wintersleepy winterIn the same volume,Nets to Catch the Wind, Wylie published the poem “Winter Sleep.

”, like the sleep of death.

Winter Sleep Read Poem

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!

XVII Read Poem

Upon your heart, which is the heart of all
My late discovered earth and early sky,
Give me the dearest privilege to die;
Your pity for the velvet of my pall;
Your patience for my grave's inviolate wall;
And for my passing bell, in passing by,
Your voice itself, diminished to a sigh
Above all other sounds made musical.

Meanwhile I swear to you I am content
To live without a sorrow to my name;
To live triumphant, and to die the same,
Upon the fringes of this continent,
This map of Paradise, this scrap of earth
Whereon you burn like flame upon a hearth.

Cold Blooded Creatures Read Poem

Man, the egregious egoist,
(In mystery the twig is bent,)
Imagines, by some mental twist,
That he alone is sentient

Of the intolerable load
Which on all living creatures lies,
Nor stoops to pity in the toad
The speechless sorrow of its eyes.

He asks no questions of the snake,
Nor plumbs the phosphorescent gloom
Where lidless fishes, broad awake,
Swim staring at a night-mare doom.

A Crowded Trolley Car Read Poem

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 others’ eyes.

One man stands as free men stand
As if his soul might be
Brave, unbroken; see his hand
Nailed to an oaken tree.

Full Moon Read Poem

My bands of silk and miniver
Momently grew heavier;
The black gauze was beggarly thin;
The ermine muffled mouth and chin;
I could not suck the moonlight in.

Harlequin in lozenges
Of love and hate, I walked in these
Striped and ragged rigmaroles;
Along the pavement my footsoles
Trod warily on living coals.

Shouldering the thoughts I loathed,
In their corrupt disguises clothed,
Mortality I could not tear
From my ribs, to leave them bare
Ivory in silver air.

There I walked, and there I raged;
The spiritual savage caged
Within my skeleton, raged afresh
To feel, behind a carnal mesh,
The clean bones crying in the flesh.

Speed the Parting— Read Poem

I shall not sprinkle with dust
A creature so clearly lunar;
You must die—but of course you must—
And better later than sooner.

But if it should be in a year
That year itself must perish;
How dingy a thing is fear,
And sorrow, how dull to cherish!
And if it should be in a day
That day would be dark by evening,
But the morning might still be gay
And the moon have golden leavening.

And beauty’s a moonlight grist
That comes to the mills of dying;
The silver grain may be missed
But there’s no great good in crying.

Though luminous things are mould
They survive in a glance that crossed them,
And it’s not very kind to scold
The empty air that has lost them.

The limpid blossom of youth
Turns into a poison berry;
Having perceived this truth
I shall not weep but be merry.

Therefore die when you please;
It’s not very wise to worry;
I shall not shiver and freeze;
I shall not even be sorry.

Beautiful things are wild;
They are gone, and you go after;
Therefore I mean, my child,
To charm your going with laughter.

Love and pity are strong,
But wisdom is happily greater;
You will die, I suppose, before long,
Oh, worser sooner than later!

Poems by Elinor Wylie

Elinor Morton Wylie (September 7, 1885 – December 16, 1928) was an American poet and novelist popular in the 1920s and 1930s. 'She was famous during her life almost as much for her ethereal beauty and personality as for her melodious, sensuous poetry.'

Poems