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 […]

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. […]

“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 […]

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 […]

Why should this Negro insolently stride Down the red noonday on such noiseless feet? Piled in his barrow, tawnier than wheat, Lie heaps of smoldering daisies, somber-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. […]

First Traveler: What’s that lying in the dust? Second Traveler: A crooked stick. First Traveler: What’s it worth, if you can trust To arithmetic? Second Traveler: Isn’t this a riddle? First Traveler: No, a trick. Second Traveler: It’s worthless. Leave it where it lies. First Traveler: Wait; count ten; Rub a little dust upon your […]

1 When the world turns completely upside down You say we’ll emigrate to the Eastern Shore Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore; We’ll live among wild peach trees, miles from town. You’ll wear a coonskin cap, and I a gown Homespun, dyed butternut’s dark gold color. Lost, like your lotus-eating ancestor, We’ll swim in milk and […]

I always was 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, when the frost makes all the birches burn Yellow as cow-lilies, and the pale sky shines Like a polished shell between black […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Sleep falls, with limpid drops of rain, Upon the steep cliffs of the town. Sleep falls; men are at peace again Awhile 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 […]

When against earth a wooden heel Clicks as loud as stone and steel, When snow 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 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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 unslaked Twisted strong cords, And wandered naked Among trysted swords. There’s a word unspoken, A knot untied. Whatever is broken The earth may […]

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 […]