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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THE POET by HAYDEN CARRUTH

Poet Analysis

First Line: ALL NIGHT HIS WINDOW
Last Line: Of the poet's light
Subject(s): POETRY & POETS;

All night his window
shines in the woods
shadowed under the hills
where the gray owl

is hunting. He hears
the woodmouse scream --
so small a sound
in the great darkness

entering his pain.
For he is all and all
of pain, attracting
every new injury

to be taken and borne
as he must take
and bear it. He is
nothing; he is

his admiration. So
they seem almost
to know -- the woodmouse
and the roving owl,

the woods and hills.
All night they move
around the stillness
of the poet's light.


Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA
98368-0271, www.cc.press.org



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