I will be the gladdest thing Under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers And not pick one.
I will look at cliffs and clouds With quiet eyes, Watch the wind bow down the grass, And the grass rise.
And when lights begin to show Up from the town, I will mark which must be mine, And then start down!
~~ Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) from Renascence, and other poems, 1912 [Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
This is the shortest day,
‘Tis afternoon;
Warm with the fire I’ve loitered out to see
A pale wet mist
Hiding a yellow moon,
A bunch of jingling stares
Thickening the top of a bare Winter tree.
~~ Mary Devenport O'Neill (1879-1967) from Prometheus, and other poems, 1929
The wet roads were like pewter bands;
The hilltops had a hard wet line;
There was no sign
Of warmth but in the fresh-lit lamps,
Although the driving rain
Was done at last;
One seemed to see
As well as hear the wind –
Watching the clouds and trees
And the cold crouching people hurrying past.
~~ Mary Devenport O'Neill (1879-1967) from Prometheus, and other poems, 1929
There were four apples on the bough,
Half gold half red, that one might know
The blood was ripe inside the core;
The colour of the leaves was more
Like stems of yellow corn that grow
Through all the gold June meadow’s floor.
The warm smell of the fruit was good
To feed on, and the split green wood,
With all its bearded lips and stains
Of mosses in the cloven veins,
Most pleasant, if one lay or stood
In sunshine or in happy rains.
There were four apples on the tree,
Red stained through gold, that all might see
The sun went warm from core to rind;
The green leaves made the summer blind
In that soft place they kept for me
With golden apples shut behind.
The leaves caught gold across the sun,
And where the bluest air begun,
Thirsted for song to help the heat;
As I to feel my lady’s feet
Draw close before the day were done;
Both lips grew dry with dreams of it.
In the mute August afternoon
They trembled to some undertune
Of music in the silver air;
Great pleasure was it to be there
Till green turned duskier and the moon
Coloured the corn-sheaves like gold hair.
That August time it was delight
To watch the red moons wane to white
’Twixt grey seamed stems of apple-trees;
A sense of heavy harmonies
Grew on the growth of patient night,
More sweet than shapen music is.
But some three hours before the moon
The air, still eager from the noon,
Flagged after heat, not wholly dead;
Against the stem I leant my head;
The colour soothed me like a tune,
Green leaves all round the gold and red.
I lay there till the warm smell grew
More sharp, when flecks of yellow dew
Between the round ripe leaves had blurred
The rind with stain and wet; I heard
A wind that blew and breathed and blew,
Too weak to alter its one word.
The wet leaves next the gentle fruit
Felt smoother, and the brown tree-root
Felt the mould warmer: I too felt
(As water feels the slow gold melt
Right through it when the day burns mute)
The peace of time wherein love dwelt.
There were four apples on the tree,
Gold stained on red that all might see
The sweet blood filled them to the core:
The colour of her hair is more
Like stems of fair faint gold, that be
Mown from the harvest’s middle floor.
~~ A.C. Swinburne (1837-1909) from Poems and Ballads, 1866
[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]
Rain and hazy squirted light,
Dampness and the fat green trees,
Sleepily I read this book
Open on my knees –
’Who of the Nymphs divine
That haunt Olympus height,
Who, then, will tell me, who?’
Above the square five seagulls fly,
Like Cassiopeia, black on a white sky,
The afternoon wears on –
’Toil upon toil brings toil;
Whither, ah, whither,
Whither have I not gone?’
~~ Mary Devenport O'Neill (1879-1967) from Prometheus, and other poems, 1929
S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero, Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all.”
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
~~ T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) from Prufrock, and other observations, 1917
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
Passionate March winds called in the wild, grey trees this morning.
The frozen brook
Has suddenly become a broad and turbulent stream,
Rushing through the deep ravine,
Swirling about the banks and bending bushes.
Winter is vanquished.
Yet in the harsh, raw air,
In the wet, clinging slime of mud and clay,
And lowering sky and bare, wind-tortured branches,
There lies no beauty or peace.
Peace that has brooded in austere purity
On the white snow-fields sleeping in amber sunshine;
Beauty in magical jade and diamond ice,
Or feathery, silvery powder of new-fallen snow.
But with the rushing of streams and winds there came
Stirring of unborn hopes. . . .
Passion, unrest, yearning, deep discontent,
Something that might become, all suddenly,
Joy. . . .
In an instant passing.
I have felt all day
This sense of questing youth throughout the world.
Before the day had passed,
Waiting in a crowded thoroughfare,
Two Chinamen appeared:
Immobile, passive, enigmatic beings,
Watching the ways of men with the Orient's weird gaze,
Lids dropping low over dim, slanting eyes.
One heavily muffled, seemed to be in pain,
That only his dark, claw-like hands revealed
In a slow writhing, half-hidden in his sleeves.
No other movement in mask-like face or form.
There for an instant I saw old China brooding,
Ancient old
Weighed with the burdens and pains of long, unfathomed, years.
And from those low-caste forms inscrutable,
My thoughts turned to sages, philosophers,
With essence of three religions mingled in their brains.
Calm ivory hands holding vast mystic keys
Weary I climbed the hill and now I sit beside my fire
While darkness gathers in,
Pondering a little while about the world,
The world that suddenly seemed old, dark, worn, this afternoon,
As men and women feel suddenly old sometimes
In an instant's passing.
Joy yields to sorrow.
Passion turns to pain.
But listen – soul of me!
Out in the strange March evening
Passionate winds are calling,
Even louder than they did in the grey morning.
The swollen stream rushes on.
O Youth of Springtime
Youth!
What passion, hope, freedom, in your untutored song:
The world is young, young, young tonight!
What will tomorrow bring?
~~ Louise Morey Bowman (1882-1944) from Moonlight and Common Day, 1922
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
Come, let us walk. 'Tis of the summer day —
The long, long summer day — the lingering afternoon,
And Nature here has phases all her own
I would not miss. Swift swings the river down
From yonder towering two-leaved mountain gates,
O'erhung with drapery of rose and pearl,
Past winding slopes, along the valley's length,
In deep concealment now, now flashing by,
Contemptuous of delay, flinging a kiss
In passing; lost at length in hazy light.
What hands have levelled all those terraces
That look upon his course ? Now see aloft
Where swaths of shadow fall and slide
Among the gold upon the dimpled hills,
Cadenced in their vast and rhythmic sweep,
By hollows and by seams that once were filled
With rushing torrents. See! see how they lie
Fold upon fold, in cycles of the past,
Or wind- or wave-swept into glorious shapes,
And piled against the azure of the heavens.
These undulating lines, like silenced waves
Taken in mid-course of their unrivalled leap,
To fix forever their unresting course,
Seem to my eyes, in the calm evenings, still
To palpitate away into the moving sky.
~~ Mary Electa Adams (1823-1896) from From Distant Shores, 1898
Peace o'er the landscape; through the high thin air
"God's bows and arrows," dark-wing'd swallows, cleave.
And on the warm hillside the green hops weave
Their graceful garlands that full harvest bear.
Here, in the border, rain-washed, all things fair
Incline their heads to rest, for herald eve
Thus early doth the Sabbath hours perceive,
And every fragrant blossom breathes a prayer.
Then fret no more, my heart, but steep thyself
In tender twilight and refreshing dew,
And with calm Nature vigil keep awhile ;
Put by all daily toil, all thought of pelf;
Not less for grace 'mid leafy alleys sue
Than in some grand cathedral's vaulted aisle.
~~ Caroline Blanche Elizabeth Lindsay (1844-1912) from Poems (Selected), 1907
Clear water in a brilliant bowl,
Pink and white carnations. The light
In the room more like a snowy air,
Reflecting snow. A newly-fallen snow
At the end of winter when afternoons return.
Pink and white carnations - one desires
So much more than that. The day itself
Is simplified: a bowl of white,
Cold, a cold porcelain, low and round,
With nothing more than the carnations there.
II
Say even that this complete simplicity
Stripped one of all one's torments, concealed
The evilly compounded, vital I
And made it fresh in a world of white,
A world of clear water, brilliant-edged,
Still one would want more, one would need more,
More than a world of white and snowy scents.
III
There would still remain the never-resting mind,
So that one would want to escape, come back
To what had been so long composed.
The imperfect is our paradise.
Note that, in this bitterness, delight,
Since the imperfect is so hot in us,
Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds.
~~ Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), 1938 from Parts of a World, 1942
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]
Throughout the afternoon I watched them there,
Snow-fairies falling, falling from the sky,
Whirling fantastic in the misty air,
Contending fierce for space supremacy.
And they flew down a mightier force at night,
As though in heaven there was revolt and riot,
And they, frail things had taken panic flight
Down to the calm earth seeking peace and quiet.
I went to bed and rose at early dawn
To see them huddled together in a heap,
Each merged into the other upon the lawn,
Worn out by the sharp struggle, fast asleep.
The sun shone brightly on them half the day,
By night they stealthily had stol’n away.
II
And suddenly my thoughts then turned to you
Who came to me upon a winter’s night,
When snow-sprites round my attic window flew,
Your hair disheveled, eyes aglow with light.
My heart was like the weather when you came,
The wanton winds were blowing loud and long;
But you, with joy and passion all aflame,
You danced and sang a lilting summer song.
I made room for you in my little bed,
Took covers from the closet fresh and warm,
A downful pillow for your scented head,
And lay down with you resting in my arm.
You went with Dawn. You left me ere the day,
The lonely actor of a dreamy play.
~~ Claude McKay (1890-1948) from Harlem Shadows, 1922
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
The fountain murmuring of sleep,
A drowsy tune;
The flickering green of leaves that keep
The light of June;
Peace, through a slumbering afternoon,
The peace of June.
A waiting ghost, in the blue sky,
The white curved moon;
June, hushed and breathless, waits, and I
Wait too, with June;
Come, through the lingering afternoon,
Soon, love, come soon.
~~ Arthur Symons (1865-1945) from Silhouettes, 1892
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
If she would come, now, and say, What will you, Lover? —
She who has the fairest gifts of all the earth to give —
Think you I should ask some tremendous thing to prove her,
Her life, say, and all her love, so long as she might live? . . .
Should I touch her hair? her hands? her garments, even?
Nay! for such rewards the gods their own good time have set!
Once, these were all mine; the least, poor one was heaven:
Now, lest she remember, I pray that she forget.
Merely should I ask — ah! she would not refuse them
Who still seems very kind when I meet with her in dreams —
Only three of our old days, and — should she help to choose
them —
Would the first not be in April, beside the sudden streams? . . .
Once, upon a morning, up the path that we had taken,
We saw Spring come where the willow-buds are gray,
Heard the high hills, as with tread of armies, shaken;
Felt the strong sun — O the glory of that day!
And then — what? one afternoon of quiet summer weather!
O, woodlands and meadow-lands along the blue St. John,
My birch finds a path — though your rafts lie close together —
Then O! what starry miles before the gray o’ the dawn! . . .
I have met the new day, among the misty islands,
Come with whine of saw-mills and whirr of hidden wings,
Gleam of dewy cobwebs, smell of grassy highlands, —
Ah! the blood grows young again thinking of these things.
Then, last and best of all! Though all else were found hollow
Would Time not send a little space, before the Autumn’s close,
And lead us up the road — the old road we used to follow
Among the sunset hills till the Hunter’s Moon arose? . . .
Then, home through the poplar-wood! damp across our faces
The gray leaves that fall, the moths that flutter by:
Yea! this for me, now, of all old hours and places,
To keep when I am dead, Time, until she come to die.
~~~ Francis Sherman (1871-1926) From A Canadian Calendar, 1900
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
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