Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE WANDERER; A ROCOCO STUDY: THE STRIKE, by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: At the first peep of dawn she roused me Last Line: "I am at peace again, old queen, I listen clearer now." Subject(s): Wandering & Wanderers | ||||||||
At the first peep of dawn she roused me! I rose trembling at the change which the night saw! For there, wretchedly brooding in a corner From which her old eyes glittered fiercely -- "Go!" she said, and I hurried shivering Out into the deserted streets of Paterson. That night she came again, hovering In rags within the filmy ceiling -- "Great Queen, bless me with thy tatters!" "You are blest, go on!" "Hot for savagery, Sucking the air! I went into the city, Out again, baffled onto the mountain! Back into the city! Nowhere The subtle! Everywhere the electric! "A short bread-line before a hitherto empty tea shop: No questions -- all stood patiently, Dominated by one idea: something That carried them as they are always wanting to be carried, 'But what is it,' I asked those nearest me, 'This thing heretofore unobtainable That they seem so clever to have put on now!' "Why since I have failed them can it be anything but their own brood? Can it be anything but brutality? On that at least they're united! That at least Is their bean soup, their calm bread and a few luxuries! "But in me, more sensitive, marvelous old queen It sank deep into the blood, that I rose upon The tense air enjoying the dusty fight! Heavy drink where the low, sloping foreheads The flat skulls with the unkempt black or blond hair, The ugly legs of the young girls, pistons Too powerful for delicacy! The women's wrists, the men's arms red Used to heat and cold, to toss quartered beeves And barrels, and milk-cans, and crates of fruit! "Faces all knotted up like burls on oaks, Grasping, fox-snouted, thick-lipped, Sagging breasts and protruding stomachs, Rasping voices, filthy habits with the hands. "Nowhere you! Everywhere the electric! "Ugly, venomous, gigantic! Tossing me as a great father his helpless Infant till it shriek with ecstasy And its eyes roll and its tongue hangs out! -- "I am at peace again, old queen, I listen clearer now." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A FOLK SINGER OF THE THIRTIES by JAMES DICKEY WANDERER IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY by CLARENCE MAJOR THE WANDERER: A ROCOCO STUDY (FIRST VERSION) by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS THE WANDERER by WYSTAN HUGH AUDEN LONG GONE by STERLING ALLEN BROWN BLACK SHEEP by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON A CELEBRATION by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS |
|