The old moon is tarnished With smoke of the flood, The dead leaves are varnished With color 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 to-day. She came up […]

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 […]

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 mold Faces burned passionate And frozen cold. Sorrowful faces worn As stone with rain, Faces writhing with scorn And sullen with pain. But […]

Within my house of patterned horn I sleep in such a bed As men may keep before they’re born And after they are dead. Sticks and stones may break their bones, And words may make them bleed; There is not one of them who owns An armor to his need. Tougher than hide or lozenged […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 colored like the sun, Her breast is colored like the moon. Weave her a chain of silver twist, And […]

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 trumpeters of Caesar’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, […]

Liza, go steep your long white hands In the cool waters of that spring Which bubbles up through shiny sands The color 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 candle-light. Lay your cold hands […]

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 a white cow’s milk, More beautiful Than the breast of a gull. We shall walk through the still […]

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 […]