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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: riding, laura Matches Found: 408 Riding, Laura Poet's Biography Alternate Author Name(s): Jackson, Laura Riding 408 poems available by this author A PAIR Poem Text First Line: Those two had sewed themselves a dignity Last Line: Even had they encompassed a success. Subject(s): Togetherness ABSTAINER First Line: Only enough scum Last Line: That pays a piddling toll for what it is afraid entirely not to be ACROSS A HEDGE First Line: She smiled to me behind a hawthorn hedge Last Line: That could be still with her and run with me ADDRESSES: 1 First Line: Mother, you say Last Line: By then my cloud will have grown strange to me ADDRESSES: 2 First Line: Father, I have begun to think Last Line: A dark house is to have a darker grave ADDRESSES: 3 First Line: Wife, wife, you re too much at my side Last Line: Me to my line and my self to the dust ADDRESSES: 4 First Line: Child, what you do insanely criticize Last Line: For a dream too supernaturally fulfilled ADDRESSES: 5 First Line: Outlive me, ghost, along my liveliest ways Last Line: My resurrection sheds to the antipodes ADJUSTMENT First Line: You thought our arms were to pertly Last Line: And bravely bolstered jollity ADORNED First Line: Too high here on this quiet crag Last Line: And crown of death ADVENTURE IN A TRAIN First Line: Iron jaws, devourers of space Last Line: We would rather wake up at home AFTER SO MUCH LOSS First Line: After so much loss -- %seeming of gain Last Line: That is the difficult decorum. %nor are the primroses unwelcome AFTERNOON First Line: The fever of afternoon %is called afternoon Last Line: But the slow fever is called afternoon AGAINST ADVENTURE First Line: I went away one day Last Line: But where none can die old AGELESS BROW First Line: This resolve: with trouble's brow Last Line: Of itself, a resolve of calm, %of never, never, and now, now ALL NOTHING, NOTHING First Line: The standing-stillness, %the from foot-to-foot Last Line: And least purposeful %possible purpose AMMON'S GRIEF First Line: For which of your bloody deeds, ammon Last Line: A good-humored wickedness ANCIENT REVISITS First Line: They told me, when I lived, because my art Last Line: Perhaps, once, in my sleep, I dreamed such things? ANGELICA First Line: Dirty bugger, swells around the corner Last Line: May she survive even utopia ANNIVERSARY First Line: We are old, we are old Last Line: It ws all on the road, on the road ANOTHER APPLE First Line: Take care what piece of me you take to taste Last Line: Short wit to who make their last meal of me ANOTHER KIND OF BIRD Last Line: Not till then will it fly away with me ANOTHER'S TONGUE First Line: The tongue of another Last Line: How it is fastened APPEARANCES First Line: Let me stand wondering on a hilltop Last Line: Whether I am awake or asleep ARS MORTIS First Line: Listen for the voices to cry danger Last Line: And we are all muses AS MANY QUESTIONS AS ANSWERS First Line: What is to start? %it is to have feet to start with Last Line: What is to answer? %is it to find a question? AS TO A FRONTISPIECE First Line: If you will choose the portrait %I will write the word accordingly Last Line: We may between us illustrate %this subsequent identity AS WELL AS ANY OTHER First Line: As well as any other, erato Last Line: Construe the word and let the meaning lie %that rarely may be found AUSPICE OF JEWELS First Line: They have connived at those jewelled fascinations BACCHUS First Line: Pandio wove the laughing leaf in his hair Last Line: Hearing songs across his dreams BACK TO THE MOTHER BREAST First Line: Back to the mother breast %in another place Last Line: Out of the part %where there is no heart BALLAD OF THE LITTLE OLD WOMEN OF ROME First Line: The pope is dead! And quickly then Last Line: For a pope to take them home BASKET First Line: On my maiden arm swinging Last Line: Its own day and night BE GRAVE, WOMAN First Line: Be grave, woman for love Last Line: Story, on the sense to ponder %thou alone, stark mind BEAUTY IS KIND Last Line: If she forgot %to decorate BECAUSE OF CLOTHES First Line: Without dressmakers to connect Last Line: We pause between sense and foolishness, %and live BED-EASE First Line: When no more wonderful is misery a horror Last Line: Close with comfort very sad BELAGUNA First Line: In belaguna, in belaguna Last Line: In one beloved %in one fair form BEREAVEMENT First Line: Who will there be, life, when I am gone Last Line: Yet will it be too late to call me back BEYOND First Line: Pain is impossible to describe Last Line: But pain beyond but here beyond BIOGRAPHY First Line: You were born Last Line: Tomorrow I shall plant another tree BIRD SPEAKS First Line: You think I am a pretty little bird, don't you Last Line: And the little eggs home on the nest BOY WITH VIOLETS First Line: The bouquet in his hands Last Line: Under her slight bosom BRING ME YOUR PASSION Last Line: Till you are limpid BROTHERS First Line: The first denies his nature lives at all Last Line: Yet tells them all the son of the same mother BUT LIES First Line: Oh, I've never had much good of telling the truth Last Line: Has no soul to save BUT WHAT OF TREES First Line: There are no jewels now to cover up Last Line: Might come of their embrace, could they once meet BUT WICKEDNESS First Line: It is not for itself Last Line: But wickedness has such sweet ways CADENCE FOR AN ELEGY First Line: If you pass my house at night Last Line: And I have no need of them now CALL First Line: I have lived too tirelessly Last Line: But only bury deeper these sunken eyes CALLANDO First Line: Every day I went to hear callando speak Last Line: And I have forgotten all that you told me yesterday CALLED DEATH First Line: Limp he hung in the flabby forestate Last Line: Called death CALLERS First Line: They come in suave demureness sunday afternoon Last Line: Leaving the grace of entertainment to a priest CALOTTE'S LADY First Line: She laughed at all her wounds since they were wounds Last Line: I love, I double love, I am enough CAN LIPS BE LAID ASIDE Last Line: It is false to sight with seeing %name with knowing CARNIVAL First Line: How can a carnival be wearier than a plain day Last Line: Among the living and a dead man among the dead %go home CEREMONIAL First Line: I shall bow three times Last Line: Having murdered politely %your heart CHEAT First Line: Magnificent moment of my birth Last Line: Hoarding her own forever CHLOE OR ... First Line: Chloe or her modern sister, lil Last Line: Keep death, like all the others, guessing CHRYSALIS First Line: Golden to itself it lay, %its dreams as grains in twinkle-twinkle Last Line: Come away,' they said, %'out of sight is dead' CIRCUS First Line: The trained men tumble hereditarily Last Line: To the starved yellow beast CITY First Line: The city was not built of stones Last Line: Since every last man is the first CITY OF COLD WOMEN: GARDENS First Line: The white gardens of the cold women Last Line: They have no fragrance to repine in CITY OF COLD WOMEN: HOUSES First Line: The roofs of the city are a bleak mist Last Line: There are tired lilies, propped to apathy CITY OF COLD WOMEN: THE LOVERS First Line: They come glowing to the gates of the city Last Line: It is sweet carrion they scatter to him CITY OF COLD WOMEN: THE SKY First Line: The winged stars poise over the city Last Line: Timorous and benumbed CITY OF COLD WOMEN: THE WIND First Line: The wind shudders through the city Last Line: The shawls of the chattering wind CITY OF COLD WOMEN: VOICES First Line: Are there words thin enough for such thin lips Last Line: And their only echo is pain CITY SEEMS First Line: A city seems between us. It is only love Last Line: Sleep like a populace COME, WORDS, AWAY First Line: Come, words, away from mouths Last Line: And mouldered mouths writhe to outspeak us COMING OF AGE First Line: Bright moons the children's faces fall down Last Line: Of flesh translated into death %before it dies COMPROMISE First Line: I am the sun of whatever day may be today Last Line: All my morrows CONCLUSION First Line: Some part of me is ever away Last Line: Of that in me I never guessed CONSOLATION First Line: If I loved you yesterday Last Line: Find it in old loves and lies CONTRABAND First Line: The old feet will never find pavements in the sky Last Line: Perhaps it is the very magic that contrives the trick CORDELIA First Line: Cordelia's needle had been stitching since Last Line: Were rimmed in rational eyes for a sane moment CRICKET'S SPRING First Line: The hammocks of the cricket's shrill Last Line: Of dawn scrapes from a cricket's wing CRIME OF JOHN ELDRIDGE KATELL First Line: In our town there was none so public-spirited Last Line: Of john eldridge katell the public-spirited DALLYDILBAREE First Line: From the fountain of dallydilbaree Last Line: In which beauty must drown %though bodies be buried DAWN First Line: Dawn coms, is dawn and flees again Last Line: Upon tomorrow's dawn of me DAWN OF DARKNESS First Line: I remember the first morning Last Line: Comes death's bright dark and end of dying DEAD KNOW NOTHING NOW Last Line: Mystery slumbers in bones DEAR POSSIBLE First Line: Dear possible, and if you drown Last Line: And I mean that, dear possible, %that fate, that dear fate DEATH AS DEATH First Line: To conceive death as death %is difficulty come by easily Last Line: Gratitude has no language, %foresight no vision DEDICATION First Line: That I might not be lonely Last Line: Of a chance pilgrimage DEFENSE First Line: Of the public prosecutor Last Line: Truth on god's next day of judgement DID I NOT DIE First Line: Did I not die yesterday, when Last Line: God has had his fill DILEMMA First Line: Beloved of many, yet loving none herself Last Line: In a predicament of kindliness DIMENSIONS First Line: Measure me for a burial Last Line: To prove that I was nothing at all DING-DONGING First Line: With old hours all befry heads Last Line: And spread ding-donging back %more and more to yesterdays Subject(s): Bells DIRGE FOR SUMMER First Line: My life is like the bitten tree, furzy and frazzled Last Line: Kissing the cold lips of all the trees my moan can find DISSOLUTION OF ONE First Line: The judgement, the atonement Last Line: Only hell is a place DIVESTMENT First Line: See how I am like a tree, beloved Last Line: To you then, beloved DIVESTMENT OF BEAUTY First Line: She, she and she and she -- %which of these is not lovely? Last Line: While she and she, she, she, disclose %the recondite familiar to your candour DOOM IN BLOOM First Line: Now flower the oldest seeds. %the secret of the root no more Last Line: But risk of all beguiles %fate's wreckage into similar smiles DOOMED First Line: Wear out at last, old earth Last Line: That both must die on the same day DOOR AJAR First Line: When one spring will be shabbier than the last Last Line: What men, but for ourselves, we might have been DOUBTERS First Line: The world may guard me well Last Line: That it's a heaven they've got DRINKING SONG: 1. BEFORE THE BOWL First Line: The melancholy in us scolds Last Line: And yet another here DRINKING SONG: 2. AFTER THE BOWL First Line: Ah, there is something in the cup Last Line: Away to anywhere DRUIDA First Line: Above druida, below druida, %round druida when she loved Last Line: And a hundred passions welcomed him %in a hundred huts EARTH First Line: Have no wide fears for earth EARTH, GREAT EYEBALL First Line: Earth, great eyeball Last Line: Whose endurance is an endurance of death EASIER DOOM First Line: Wide as a pavement is the moment Last Line: Where I become terribly %not myself ECHOES: 1 First Line: Since learning all in such a tremble last night Last Line: I have been smiling ECHOES: 10 First Line: The optician, in honour of his trade Last Line: As the romans thought cultivated and natural ECHOES: 11 First Line: I shall mend it,' I say %whenever something breaks Last Line: I come in late always %saying, 'I shall mend it' ECHOES: 12 First Line: Gently down the incline of the mind Last Line: Imperishable matronymic of a species ECHOES: 13 First Line: The poppy edifices of sleep Last Line: The shallow terrors, waking never far ECHOES: 14 First Line: Love at a sickbed is a long way Last Line: The immeasurable areas of distress %....Collapse ECHOES: 15 First Line: ...Cheated history Last Line: And stealing us has only them ECHOES: 16 First Line: Now victory has come of age Last Line: In a ravished world, and calls the pities ECHOES: 17 First Line: Forgive me, giver, if I destroy the gift! Last Line: I cannot but perfect it ECHOES: 18 First Line: Worthy of a jewel,' they say of beauty Last Line: And what the precious thing ECHOES: 19 First Line: And if occasionally a rhyme appeared Last Line: Ailing forgetfulness became ECHOES: 2 First Line: Mothering innocents to monsters is Last Line: In women ECHOES: 20 First Line: In short despite of time, that long despite of truth Last Line: Long-short of it to reason more' ECHOES: 21 First Line: Between the word and the world lie Last Line: Fading eternities of soon ECHOES: 22 First Line: When a dog lying on the flagstones Last Line: He watches it too well ECHOES: 23 First Line: Love is very everything, like fire Last Line: But only one combustion ECHOES: 24 First Line: My address? At the cafes, cathedrals Last Line: Reiterated morsel %expanded into space ECHOES: 25 First Line: Let us seem to speak Last Line: Rescue us from from rescue ECHOES: 26 First Line: What a tattle-tattle we Last Line: What a %what ECHOES: 3 First Line: It was the beginning of time Last Line: When an angel spoke and was quiet again ECHOES: 4 First Line: After the count of centuries numbers hang Last Line: Close to the throat, where memory clasps the lace, %an ancient brooch ECHOES: 5 First Line: It is a mission for men to scare and fly Last Line: Someone must bide, someone must guard the night ECHOES: 6 First Line: If there are heroes anywhere Last Line: As weathermen point with pride to rain ECHOES: 7 First Line: Dire necessity made all Last Line: And haunting meant never to see ghosts ECHOES: 8 First Line: Intelligence in ladies and gentlemen Last Line: The garden of the perpendicular is a sphere ECHOES: 9 First Line: Need for a tragic head Last Line: When tears are thought of and none appear ELEGY IN A SPIDER'S WEB First Line: What to say when the spider Last Line: What time the spider Subject(s): Insects; Spiders END First Line: I live to wait Last Line: Proof of my hopeless heart EPIGRAMS First Line: Because of men and women there is love Last Line: Love such as this will wake to weep in death EPITHALAMIUM OF A NUN First Line: The christ-embrace has fallen like a curse Last Line: Holiness, if I know you not, and smile EVASIONS First Line: Streets move evasively and so do people Last Line: That shunning candor, they find sanity EVOLUTION OF A CREATURE THROUGH SEVERAL FACES: ASSUMPTION OF A NAME First Line: Now the flushed image enters on violence Last Line: But a precipitous agony of numbers EVOLUTION OF A CREATURE THROUGH SEVERAL FACES: FROWN OF DISPLEASURE First Line: There is to do but what the roaming bear Last Line: With physiognomy sporting in the brain EVOLUTION OF A CREATURE THROUGH SEVERAL FACES: THE LOVE FACE First Line: The skin creeps close inseparable as apple-peel Last Line: Of the slow smiling of procreation FAITH UPON THE WATERS First Line: A ghost rose when the waves rose Last Line: With mortal premonition FALLACIES First Line: He never would have been a man to feed Last Line: By anybody's taciturnity FLOORWALKER First Line: His ways were ribboned aisles Last Line: To be nobody's squire FLOWERING URN First Line: And every prodigal greatness %must creep back into strange home Last Line: The same but for the way in flowering %it speaks of fruits that could not be FOR ONE WHO WILL BELIEVE First Line: It is Last Line: A faint pride reminiscent of you FOR ONE WHO WILL BLESS THE DEVIL First Line: The body of your virtue Last Line: For putting a proper end to you FOR ONE WHO WILL DUST A SHADOW First Line: Take out your speckled shadow Last Line: With nothing left over FOR ONE WHO WILL GO SHIVERING First Line: The twenty sunny shawls you had Last Line: Should pass and see me wear it FOR ONE WHO WILL KEEP A MIRROR First Line: Beward a loveliness too smiling Last Line: Even the more abiding voice FOR ONE WHO WILL LOVE GOD First Line: Life and love together came Last Line: Where god lives on love's breath FOR ONE WHO WILL REMEMBER First Line: Drop the little glass heart on a stone FOR ONE WHO WILL SING First Line: Bind you to the back of a bird Last Line: How silent a bird may be FOR ONE WHO WILL STAND IN THE WIND First Line: Halt here a minute Last Line: Irrelevant antithesis FOR REBECCA WEST (ON READING THE JUDGE) First Line: With what compassionate solicitude Last Line: It would be like my watching god, a little FOR THOSE WHO STAY UP AT NIGHT First Line: Busy, busy Last Line: Keep watching FORBIDDEN First Line: Republican and democrat Last Line: If we taught politics to stars FORGOTTEN GIRLHOOD: IN LADDERY STREET: A SECOND AWAY First Line: One, two, three, four, more Last Line: All over her nose, %all over her nose Subject(s): Children FORGOTTEN GIRLHOOD: IN LADDERY STREET: ALL THE WAY BACK First Line: Bill bubble in a bowler hat Last Line: And only perfection matters Subject(s): Children FORGOTTEN GIRLHOOD: IN LADDERY STREET: AROUND THE CORNER First Line: But don't call mother damnable names Last Line: Such nonsense is disgraceful among thieves. %off, wench, off' Subject(s): Children FORGOTTEN GIRLHOOD: IN LADDERY STREET: CHILDREN First Line: Children sleep at night Last Line: The old ones know. %the old ones are old Subject(s): Children FORGOTTEN GIRLHOOD: IN LADDERY STREET: HERSELF First Line: I am hands %and face Last Line: Is it only something inside %that I can't see? Subject(s): Children FORGOTTEN GIRLHOOD: IN LADDERY STREET: TOWARD THE CORNER First Line: One, two, three. %coming, old trouble, coming Last Line: Into the great rag-bag you go. %going, old trouble, going Subject(s): Children FORGOTTEN GIRLHOOD: INTO LADDERY STREET First Line: The stove was grey, the coal was gone Last Line: For short and for long, %for long, for long Subject(s): Children FORMS First Line: Life sucks the substance of us up Last Line: Will do for a ghost FOURTH ESTATE First Line: The newspaper reports people as usual Last Line: In a forgotten file FOURTH WALL First Line: A man was on each wall of three Last Line: To kiss the dust that shares its care FREE First Line: Thinking is the poorest way of traveling Last Line: Vagabond and dead GHOUL First Line: Life is death Last Line: Who can only be eaten once GOAT AND AMALTHEA First Line: I have been assaulted by the moths Last Line: For amalthea in her former time %shall weep me longer GOD'S PROXIES First Line: God yawned and threw a cushion at a saint Last Line: His dreaming and traveling and dying for him GOLDEN PLOVER First Line: Little by little the love that went a golden plover away Last Line: Find another new nest to comfort in GRACE First Line: This posture and this manner suit Last Line: I choke upon a piece of my own tongue-meat GRIEVE, WOMEN First Line: Grieve, women, for the sorrows not your own Last Line: Return to angels GROPERS First Line: The flowers are out to feel Last Line: Men are closer %pluck more quickly HARLEQUINADE ON A CURBSTONE First Line: Someone is sitting there, gamaliel Last Line: I've learned, my boy, are very hard to find HAUNT First Line: Content the conscience with a moon of blindness Last Line: As our brows beam light HEED First Line: All those who know each other too well Last Line: Lest it lose itself HELEN'S BURNING Poem Text First Line: Her beauty, which we talk of Last Line: And lose the gift of prophecy. Subject(s): Helen Of Troy; Mythology - Classical HELEN'S FACES First Line: Bitterly have I been contested for Last Line: Contest and bitterness never raged round her HER PORTION First Line: Having as much of pain as she can hold Last Line: The even share, agree to hold too much, and break HERACLEA First Line: She called, heraclea Last Line: Afraid to battle for his grave HIGHER ORDER First Line: From man to maggot, each can see Last Line: Preserve each drop, to grow and wither like the green wood HILLS First Line: The hills would be lovelier afire Last Line: Or a flame to drench HOUSE First Line: The house arose and how I never knew Last Line: And curse me for minding what the neighbors said HOUSES First Line: The secret population of the houses Last Line: These hearts mistook for homes HOW CAN I DIE Last Line: What things may die HOW DOES A TREE First Line: How does a tree hold up the sky Last Line: And to know how he's crippled and crushed between HOW I CALLED THE ANT DARLING First Line: The moment must have been the same for both Last Line: Not for an ant and not for murder I HAD SUCH PURPOSES First Line: When you said that my love was like a cloak Last Line: I had such purposes for punishment I HAVE A PENANCE TOO First Line: Less than the air that is torn Last Line: Unconquerable up to battle IF A WOMAN SHOULD BE MESSIAH Last Line: No one would IMPROPRIETIES First Line: Your hands are very white Last Line: And come to me mutely, modestly serious IN DUE FORM First Line: I do not doubt you %I know you love me Last Line: And not mentionable in a doom-book IN NINETEEN TWENTY-SEVEN: 1 First Line: In nineteen twenty-seven, in the spring Last Line: In gardens and smiles in shops and offices; %and no more real than this IN NINETEEN TWENTY-SEVEN: 2 First Line: And they are vast preliminaries Last Line: Home for a place to lean an elbow IN NINETEEN TWENTY-SEVEN: 3 First Line: Fierce is unhappiness, a living god Last Line: Bold and shy speed and recession %climax and suspension IN NINETEEN TWENTY-SEVEN: 4 First Line: Had I remained hidden and unmoved Last Line: For such weather-vanes of understanding IN NINETEEN TWENTY-SEVEN: 5 First Line: Therefore, since all is well Last Line: An old eternity pleading refutal IN REVERENCE First Line: Her faith was a pope Last Line: A fallen pope INCARNATIONS First Line: Do not deny, %do not deny, thing out of things Last Line: This was never I INITIATION First Line: When the women of twelve summers Last Line: With the loam that lies on the left bank of the teev INTERLUDE First Line: If ever, in the city of the cold women Last Line: That comes gallantly to prove its warmness INTERVAL First Line: Fandra, fandra, love him not Last Line: Wait %don't go INVOCATION FOR BIRDS First Line: Mists of our blindness, something be Last Line: To do for birds when light is dead JAZZ JUBILATE: 1. THE BLIND BEGGAR IN THE BACK STREET First Line: May a joyful noise unto the lord all ye lands Last Line: Lively to heaven JAZZ JUBILATE: 2. MOTHER OF PEARL PALACE First Line: The wax shines brightly Last Line: For the soul on its back JAZZ JUBILATE: 3. SUNDAY First Line: Reverend cobbleweb withdrew to his study Last Line: Come before his presence singing JAZZ JUBILATE: 4. LADY LOVE AND THE LADIES First Line: Lady love, lady love Last Line: And modern, being greek JEWS First Line: An old enravishment of all the hearts Last Line: Grinds dark the clouded dust of mystery JOHN AND I First Line: Begin the story with a man; curtail Last Line: That john and I are better off like this JORAVALY First Line: In the town of joravaly Last Line: And good men bad JOWL AND COWL First Line: Fresh is the early sin at least Last Line: Doubling on a wakened angel JUDGE First Line: Flesh finding two lonely lives Last Line: Which shall wake JUDGEMENT DAY First Line: Into the home of the homeless drifted the waifs Last Line: Either a common despair or a dreary delight JUGGLERS First Line: What %is this the world in your hands Last Line: Zealots of agony %exquisite, unendurable KINDNESS First Line: To be alive is to be curious Last Line: This privilege of boredom to all of you KING OF LOVE (TO PEDANTS AND PURITANS) First Line: The king of love had nothing left but love Last Line: And lucifer's KISS First Line: My mite of love buried away Last Line: Deliverance and the brave kiss LADY OF ALL CREATION First Line: Lady of all creation and perverse Last Line: And let us live in you invisibly LAST NUPTIALS First Line: A husband is for heaven Last Line: While my lord god slumbered LAST WOMEN First Line: Still, still %red tongues of desire Last Line: Still, voices, still LAURA AND FRANCISCA: 1. THE ISLAND, AND HERE First Line: My name, as the title shows, %is laura, and hers francisca Last Line: When it was to-day - and to-morrow, %the long present instead of night?' LAURA AND FRANCISCA: 2. FRANCISCA, AND SCARCELY MORE First Line: Francisca will be wild -- she sings.' %this is the way of looking at a child Last Line: More death-like and more natural to know LAURA AND FRANCISCA: 3. HOW THE POEM ENDS First Line: For there are still sounds of a world %as if astir where it lay dead Last Line: Into the stranger you can't do without, %o tourists of neighbourliness LIAR First Line: I deny my moods Last Line: I affirm my moods LIFE IS A THING First Line: Life is a thing somebody gave to me Last Line: For all the uses that it made of me LIGHTNING First Line: The cold white lightning Last Line: The cruel bright lightning is beautiful LINES IN FAREWELL First Line: Where it was hard to say I said goodbye Last Line: Though senseless, peace and a path LOCOMOTIVE First Line: Birth was the hardy drill and hammering Last Line: This human name I cannot answer to LOST ISLE First Line: Death flew with me Last Line: Why should death come LOVE AND A LADY First Line: As were the old chinese, cruel and dead Last Line: No, no, not very. Child, speak further tell me LOVE WAS NO TETHER First Line: Love was no tether about the heart with me Last Line: And then %peace LOVELY MY FLESH First Line: Lovely my flesh but extravagance rash Last Line: That was made but to break LUCRECE AND NARA First Line: Astonished stood lucrece and nara Last Line: Lucrece, is it you, the quiet?' LULLABY First Line: Every poor fellow reminds me of my father Last Line: Resentful birth renewing LYING SPYING Poem Text First Line: (lying spying what men say of dead men Last Line: Not a thing to tell each other. Subject(s): Spring MAGICIANS First Line: Iupon his dais like a rider of Last Line: In each of us, serene and still and dreaming MAKESHIFT First Line: I stood once at the tip of the earth Last Line: Less secure, perhaps MAMA TO MARIA First Line: Step out, maria, and let mars Last Line: On such a night MANY GENTLEMEN First Line: Many gentlemen there are born not babes Last Line: Smiled upward to her learned brow MAP OF PLACES First Line: The map of places passes Last Line: Holes in maps look through to nowhere MARY CAREY First Line: As forbidden as frenzy on sunday Last Line: Mary can be pure MASK First Line: Cover up, %oh, quickly cover up Last Line: The eternal taint wears beauty like a mask. %but a mask eternal MASTERPIECE OF LOPE JUAN First Line: In filamona people never had Last Line: Bent sharply to the limits of a frame MATER INVITA First Line: Take him away Last Line: To pardon an old enemy MELINDA POURS First Line: Teacups tinkle china nectar Last Line: For a human kin of mine MEMORIES OF MORTALITIES: 1. MY MOTHER AND MY BIRTH First Line: My mother was a snake, but warm Last Line: Save for mortality remembered MEMORIES OF MORTALITIES: 2. MY FATHER AND MY CHILDHOOD First Line: As childhood is to fairies, fancies Last Line: Whose vocal waking slept inside my own MEMORIES OF MORTALITIES: 3. SICKNESS AND SCHOOLING First Line: The later griping, when we suffer mind-woes Last Line: As the story grows too different to speak of %in the way the workd speaks MEN AND THE HYMN First Line: Swish the silent silk away Last Line: Dies a divided harmony %too brave MORTAL Poem Text First Line: There is a man of me that tills Last Line: I think there's no way of making anything more than a mortal of me. MUSIC TEACHER First Line: There was a time, I've heard, when she could play Last Line: A melody to malice in her place MY HUNGER First Line: My hunger has no crumbs but moments Last Line: And the accursed courage for a close MYSTERIOUS WHOEVER First Line: A film lies over -- not the eyes but over Last Line: The mysterious whoever %you NAMED First Line: Dance it was and no one dancing Last Line: Love like a name in her %too dark to stir NAPOLEON IN THE SHADES First Line: The news! The news Last Line: Bird, the news NEW ATLAS First Line: An underdog, well-grounded at the bottom Last Line: May I be as a mountain to them then NIGHT First Line: Light was always Last Line: The hoarse pantomime of day NO MORE ARE LOVELY PALACES First Line: No more are lovely palaces Last Line: The lovely palaces were too lovely, %true lavish is the terrible NOR IS IT WRITTEN First Line: Nor is it written that you may not grieve Last Line: To each is given what defeat he will NOTHING SO FAR First Line: Nothing so far but moonlight %where the mind is Last Line: The look of day with last night's rid of moths NOTWITHSTANDING LOVE First Line: I shall be always just as dark as this Last Line: That have fattened here O VOCABLES OF LOVE Poem Text First Line: O vocables of love, / o zones of dreamt responses Subject(s): Love O VOCABLES OF LOVE First Line: O vocables of love, %o zones of dreamt responses Last Line: Horizons spread intelligibility %and once more it is yesterday Subject(s): Love ODE TO LOVE First Line: Oh, more than nothing and surely less than all Last Line: To love's still south ODE TO THE STEEL THROATS First Line: The prophetic throats were gold Last Line: As if it understood %or loved OF STONE IS MY STRONG HEART Last Line: Or you, to drink ON EXACTITUDE First Line: To speak as the person of a mind Last Line: Exact simple human match of that truth ON EXCAVATING AT TELL EL-AMARNA First Line: The sun is a sad eye Last Line: Over amarna %over the nile ON HAVING A POEM ACCEPTED BY A MAGAZINE First Line: It grew diffidently in my garden Last Line: Fittingly forgotten ONLY DAUGHTER First Line: Under her gown the girl is Last Line: Of an only daughter ORBITS First Line: Her first devised intention was a jest Last Line: And kind and rectilinear carlotto PASSIONATE WOMEN First Line: The passionate women are runners of the hills Last Line: Running in valleys PEDESTAL First Line: So still the life of mind has seemed to me Last Line: Myself, or yet this rock that is my song PERINOT OLAD First Line: Perinot olad, of such tongue Last Line: Be dead, alive, the dead to be alive, dead PERSPECTIVE First Line: Now I have wearied of the intimate range Last Line: Until you're fittingly remote, apart PESTILENCE First Line: There is either something wrong with muldul Last Line: And they may be grateful for their infirmities PIPERS First Line: The perennial rats plague the heights Last Line: The quick terrible brine of joy bottomless POEMS TO ALASTOR: BEAUTY WAS ONCE First Line: Beauty was once, alastor, where you left Last Line: From the marred sorrow of this barren hour POEMS TO ALASTOR: GHOSTS First Line: Alastor, if I may swoon to you and you a sun Last Line: Will bear my spiteful memory repeatedly POEMS TO ALASTOR: INSTEAD First Line: Instead, I have resumed the old discard Last Line: A promised death you should have brought instead POEMS TO ALASTOR: NUMBERS First Line: Being an upward thousand, man Last Line: Of newly numbering old love POEMS TO ALASTOR: PLAINT NOT BITTER First Line: Love sent alastor to call my soul Last Line: But of a body without flying feet POEMS TO ALASTOR: PROTHALAMION First Line: Nothing alone, together whole Last Line: The flesh to keep the spirit fast POEMS TO ALASTOR: PROTHALAMION II First Line: Where the beholding self of me is wrecked Last Line: Groping along a lost eternity POEMS TO ALASTOR: THE BRIDGE First Line: Love lies alastor like a broken bridge Last Line: To flight, though now we prowl on the same shore POEMS TO ALASTOR: THIS SIDE First Line: Oh now, alastor, I am well divided Last Line: There is a little for me here POSTSCRIPT First Line: We never will admit in filamona Last Line: Lope emblazoned the treasures he had stolen PREFACE First Line: Come to me for truth Last Line: And then come back again tomorrow PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE First Line: I have been with the trees all day Last Line: As somebody else PRESENCES First Line: Not as the mechanism of time Last Line: Perceive the human heart of me PRISMS First Line: What is beheld through glass seems glass Last Line: Through which one may not put one's hands to touch QUIDS First Line: The little quids, the monstrous quids QUIET ECHO First Line: To whomever our travail will seem Last Line: Starts back the quiet echo from god QUIETEST SONG First Line: What were birds made for Last Line: Of dreaming other things RAPTURE First Line: To cry the grief away Last Line: Where my rapture waits me dead RECLAMATION First Line: Shall her face be down, shall her eyes shine Last Line: In death, the second self-denial REJOICE, LIARS First Line: Rejoice, the witch of truth has perished Last Line: Takes on substance, shedding phantomness REQUITAL First Line: Passed like a talisman from hand to hand Last Line: And be as often divided in the wind REST First Line: Even the lives my flesh has overlooked Last Line: All the tired lives I have ever lived REUNION First Line: Only what has passed out the golden gates Last Line: Mandy %sandy %dandy RHYTHMS OF LOVE: 1 First Line: Woman, reviling term %of man unto the female germ Last Line: And words no more than mean RHYTHMS OF LOVE: 2 First Line: Yes!' to you is in the same breath Last Line: Death and the universe are an earlier pair RHYTHMS OF LOVE: 3 First Line: Dark image of my mind Last Line: Then one, then nothing, then you RHYTHMS OF LOVE: 4 First Line: Our months astonish, as meals come round Last Line: We gape like the first ones %and look to magic RHYTHMS OF LOVE: 5 First Line: In these embraces glamour %comes early and is an early go-er Last Line: And were it more it were %fictitiousness and loving RHYTHMS OF LOVE: 6 First Line: You bring me messages %from days and years Last Line: Strangers we seem to love by memory RHYTHMS OF LOVE: 7 First Line: A brick and mortar motley %a heart and mind confusion Last Line: When graduated from love-making ROMNTIC PROFESSION First Line: Begrimed and smudged with earth Last Line: And god the self I hate RUGGED BLACK OF ANGER First Line: The rugged black of anger %has an uncertain smile-border Last Line: And share one smile-border %to remain so SAINT OF DAROS First Line: He tapped the rocks until they all ran dry Last Line: Of crippled love that love had twisted straight SAME SMALL WAY First Line: The careless clues to other passions than ours Last Line: Fever of decay SCOURGE First Line: I am the woman of no tears Last Line: What I am like alone SEA, FALSE PHILOSOPHY (1) Poem Text First Line: Foremost of false philosophies, / the sea harangues the daft Subject(s): Sea; Ocean SEA, FALSE PHILOSOPHY (1) First Line: Foremost of false philosophies, %the sea harangues the daft Last Line: And scatter to a watery zero %as the last rash prophecy is spoken Subject(s): Sea SEA, FALSE PHILOSOPHY (2) First Line: Foremost of false philosophies, %the sea harangues the daft Last Line: And prophecy expands into extinction SEVERAL LOVE-STORIES First Line: Tjhe formula of recognition %apply themselves to memories Last Line: Townsfolk, untwirl these casings %from paris and heaven SHE PITIED ME First Line: She pitied me because my ways were smooth Last Line: And pitying each other SHORE First Line: No water-dragon of the sea I sail Last Line: Of flesh that bears my agony SHORES First Line: The river around the secret city of age Last Line: Death cannot make into eternity SIGNATURE First Line: The effort to put my essence in me Last Line: The clear face spells %a bright illegibility of name SIN First Line: That nun Last Line: And bares the whiteness of her sin SLAVES First Line: The universe may be Last Line: That free and strip him ugly to his nakedness SO SLIGHT First Line: It was as near invisible %as night in early dusk Last Line: Drift off and fall %like thistledown without a bruise SOBRIETY First Line: A goblet is my joy Last Line: Bitterly at the bottom SONG FOR A HOT DAY First Line: Convey the season to a special climate Last Line: Forever from its burning land SONG OF THE LYRE First Line: Laughter in love changes every age Last Line: Not orpheus has the lyre %but eurydice SPEAKING IN ME First Line: The whispering you mark in me Last Line: To chatter me charitable my brother's keeper SPIDER First Line: Just right, more, or less Last Line: Of a long legendary folly SPIRIT OF THIS STRANGE AGE First Line: The years he was not here -- what years they were Last Line: Of time, spirit of this strange age of his SPRING HAS MANY SILENCES First Line: The spring has many sounds Last Line: The spring has many silences STARVED First Line: Who owns this body of mine Last Line: Of our poor provender STONE First Line: The simple and the gentle knew this shrine Last Line: And see the might that lies in him alone STRANGE First Line: Pride and the humble heart have been my banners Last Line: A smile was all I had. Was this enough SUBTERFUGE First Line: They called philander solomon and not Last Line: They prove their principles and keep their god SUMMARY FOR ALASTOR First Line: Because my song was bold Last Line: The dreaming child can smile %and keep on safely sleeping SUMMONS First Line: Come to me, man of my death Last Line: And not unhappy, since there are no tongues SWEET ASCETIC First Line: Find me the thing to make me less Last Line: Smile just a little and disappear TACT First Line: God sleeps all week and only wakes on sundays Last Line: We can't go on like this forever TAKE HANDS First Line: Take hands. %there is no love now Last Line: How we dwell apart, %and how love triumphs in this TALE OF MODERNITY: 1 First Line: Shakespeare knew lust by day Last Line: O sexual sun, back into my loins, %be night also, as you are' TALE OF MODERNITY: 2 First Line: Shakespeare distinguished:earth the obscure Last Line: And young as the moon, grown girl to self TALE OF MODERNITY: 3 First Line: Bishop modernity plucked out his heart Last Line: Of knowledge-gall, love's maddening part TALE OF MODERNITY: 4 First Line: Bishop modernity in the fatal chapel watched Last Line: Till then she's ghost with me thy ghostly whole!' TEARS ARE A CELEBRATION Last Line: In single peace THE SAD BOY Poem Text First Line: Ay, his old mother was a glad one Last Line: And his glad mother and his mad father after him. THE WIND SUFFERS Poem Text First Line: The wind suffers of blowing Last Line: By my further dying. Subject(s): Pain; Suffering; Misery THERE IS MUCH AT WORK First Line: There is much at work to make the world Last Line: And the revelation will be instantaneous. %we shall all die quickly THERE IS NO LAND YET First Line: The long sea, how short-lasting Last Line: In water where no land is Subject(s): Bible; Religion THESE MEN HAVE BEEN Last Line: Of that macedonian %caesar %napoleon THEY PASS EACH OTHER IN THE DANCE First Line: They pass each other in the dance but twice Last Line: They pass each other in the dance but twice THIEF First Line: He is young and ugly Last Line: Thief, stand in the light THREE MILES AWAY First Line: Three miles away lay Last Line: To three miles away TIGER First Line: The tiger in me I know late, not burning bright TILLAQUILS First Line: Dancing lamely on a lacquered plain TIMOTHY'S LAD First Line: He must teach the child Last Line: While his father was off at war TO A BROKEN STATUE First Line: So fair, so firm and wishful with your stone Last Line: For that which might have lived, had life been art TO A CAUTIOUS FRIEND First Line: Foresight my mask %as the prophetic faith only until Last Line: Love touched my throat TO A GEM First Line: I had been looking forever Last Line: I shall remember too TO A LOVELESS LOVER: 1 First Line: How we happened to be both human Last Line: And the accursed courage for a close TO A LOVELESS LOVER: 2 First Line: Did I surprise too truly, then Last Line: Applaud the way I build the wall again TO A LOVELESS LOVER: 3 First Line: The requisite spot of anguish having shown Last Line: That flaps your piety incognito TO A LOVELESS LOVER: 4 First Line: The cycle of revenge comes round, %your expiation ties in me Last Line: Mercy, mercy for me where I stand %a bigot of forgiveness TO A PROUD LOVER First Line: Until you have beheld her truly Last Line: Of your destruction %in the possession TO AN UNBORN CHILD First Line: What! Another Last Line: With one brief moment of being TO ANOTHER First Line: Whom I have understood even less than any Last Line: Of having without love consoled a woman TO B.S.B. (INMEMORIAM) First Line: He came too sweetly to be strong Last Line: Forget through loving TO I---- First Line: Your voice more than any song a song Last Line: How far it is behind TO ONE ABOUT TO BECOME MY FRIEND First Line: Stand off Last Line: I should be none of these to you TO THE SKY First Line: You must have learned little Last Line: Unwisely beautiful TO THIS DEATH First Line: I shall be lover to the earth Last Line: To this death TOCSIN First Line: Where are the winnings of the war Last Line: For love, up from the grave TOO HAPPY I Last Line: Having starved too long TORCH First Line: My little house is all unlit at night Last Line: To life and a young love be put to sleep TRAITOR First Line: Good that my eyes in going Last Line: Betray me over and over eternally TRANSMIGRATION First Line: You are tall and straight, eileen Last Line: Mistress of a mighty isle TRATCH First Line: Wrapped tratch crackling in brown paper Last Line: Something should have been said about habit TRIFLE First Line: What meanings constitute myself Last Line: A mere detail TRINITY First Line: Seeds are the flesh of flowers Last Line: Of mortal three %eternally TRINITY: 1. SOWING First Line: Wherefrom with earth away Last Line: A common mercy doles their separate pain TRINITY: 2. THE GARDEN OF DROUGHT First Line: Around the garden slept a sea Last Line: Blew toward the blessed water and died TRINITY: 3. RAIN First Line: The seeds lifted their suns and made a sky Last Line: Into a sea of night TRINITY: 4. SUN AND SEA First Line: All petaled personalities Last Line: Souled, deathed, but dead of earth TRINITY: 5. EVENT First Line: Now, seeds religiously Last Line: And singing third TRINITY: 6. CELEBRATION First Line: Love rose a wind and like a wind Last Line: Out of an unidentifiable trinity TRIUMPH First Line: Sight is the flashing trick of blindness Last Line: Grotesque triumph TROUBLES OF A BOOK First Line: To trouble of a book is first to be Last Line: I reading eyes, be answered with %letters and bookishness TRUTH First Line: We keep looking for truth Last Line: She'd have to be afraid of dying, then TWINS First Line: The original mother Last Line: To tell them apart TWO HELLS: 1. OF PROMETHEUS First Line: No suns or seas weather this world Last Line: Of pride that is your lasting home TWO HELLS: 2. OF DAMON First Line: Overly friend, damon, and fool Last Line: In his red kiss your pledge fulfill UNDERGROUND First Line: The roots we are Last Line: For shame %vegetables UNFORFEITED First Line: They hate me in the town where I live Last Line: Than let them know how much I hate their kind VICTORY First Line: Without millions of pennies and millions of men VICTORY First Line: Before I had a plot and plan Last Line: Telling both in one death's story VIRGIN First Line: My flesh is at a distance from me Last Line: A forgotten passion, %before I learn of it Subject(s): Bible; Religion WANDERER First Line: What hints of china in his eyes Last Line: Wanderer, wanderer, where is home WASTE First Line: Cruel then too exquisite to be cruel Last Line: That wastes the one abiding power WAY IT IS First Line: It falls to an idiot to talk wisely Last Line: And the strangest creature of all %to be natural WHEN LOVE BECOMES WORDS First Line: The yet undone, become the unwritten %by the activity of others Last Line: With the warm accusation of being poets WIND, THE CLOCK, THE WE First Line: The wind has at last got into the clock Last Line: Of perhaps meaning otherwise? WIND, THE CLOCK, THE WE First Line: The wind has at last got into the clock Last Line: Or perhaps meaning otherwise? WISHING MORE DEAR First Line: Can this finding your presence dear Last Line: I greet you with too fond a look? WITH THE FACE First Line: With the face goes a mirror Last Line: With such faint brightnesses WORLD AND I First Line: This is not exactly what I mean Last Line: Fail to meet by a moment, and a word WORLD'S END First Line: The tympanum is worn thin Last Line: That even nothing can live through love WRAPPERS First Line: How many neat brown packages there are Last Line: All wrapped and tied demurely -- for another XENONES AND KYRANOS First Line: These were two men Last Line: Spinning with tidy accuracy YES AND NO First Line: Across a continent imaginary Last Line: What we know, what we don't know YOU OR YOU First Line: How well, you, you resemble! Last Line: How well, you, you resemble. %I love you therefore |
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