Written by
John Davidson |
Late December: my father and I
are going to New York, to the circus.
He holds me
on his shoulders in the bitter wind:
scraps of white paper
blow over the railroad ties.
My father liked
to stand like this, to hold me
so he couldn't see me.
I remember
staring straight ahead
into the world my father saw;
I was learning
to absorb its emptiness,
the heavy snow
not falling, whirling around us.
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Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
Far to the Northward there lies a land,
A wonderful land that the winds blow over,
And none may fathom or understand
The charm it holds for the restless rover;
A great grey chaos -- a land half made,
Where endless space is and no life stirreth;
There the soul of a man will recoil afraid
From the sphinx-like visage that Nature weareth.
But old Dame Nature, though scornful, craves
Her dole of death and her share of slaughter;
Many indeed are the nameless graves
Where her victims sleep by the Grey Gulf-water.
Slowly and slowly those grey streams glide,
Drifting along with a languid motion,
Lapping the reed-beds on either side,
Wending their way to the North Ocean.
Grey are the plains where the emus pass
Silent and slow, with their dead demeanour;
Over the dead man's graves the grass
Maybe is waving a trifle greener.
Down in the world where men toil and spin
Dame Nature smiles as man's hand has taught her;
Only the dead men her smiles can win
In the great lone land by the Grey Gulf-water.
For the strength of man is an insect's strength
In the face of that mighty plain and river,
And the life of a man is a moment's length
To the life of the stream that will run for ever.
And so it comes that they take no part
In small world worries; each hardy rover
Rides like a paladin, light of heart,
With the plains around and the blue sky over.
And up in the heavens the brown lark sings
The songs the strange wild land has taught her;
Full of thanksgiving her sweet song rings --
And I wish I were back by the Grey Gulf-water.
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Written by
Edna St Vincent Millay |
Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass
And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind
Blow over me—I am so tired, so tired
Of passing pleasant places! All my life,
Following Care along the dusty road,
Have I looked back at loveliness and sighed;
Yet at my hand an unrelenting hand
Tugged ever, and I passed.
All my life long
Over my shoulder have I looked at peace;
And now I fain would lie in this long grass
And close my eyes.
Yet onward!
Cat birds call
Through the long afternoon, and creeks at dusk
Are guttural.
Whip-poor-wills wake and cry,
Drawing the twilight close about their throats.
Only my heart makes answer.
Eager vines
Go up the rocks and wait; flushed apple-trees
Pause in their dance and break the ring for me;
And bayberry, that through sweet bevies thread
Of round-faced roses, pink and petulant,
Look back and beckon ere they disappear.
Only my heart, only my heart responds.
Yet, ah, my path is sweet on either side
All through the dragging day,—sharp underfoot
And hot, and like dead mist the dry dust hangs—
But far, oh, far as passionate eye can reach,
And long, ah, long as rapturous eye can cling,
The world is mine: blue hill, still silver lake,
Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road
A gateless garden, and an open path:
My feet to follow, and my heart to hold.
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Written by
Louise Bogan |
She has attained the permanence
She dreamed of, where old stones lie sunning.
Untended stalks blow over her
Even and swift, like young men running.
Always in the heart she loved
Others had lived, -- she heard their laughter.
She lies where none has lain before,
Where certainly none will follow after.
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Written by
George William Russell |
Wind of the gentle summer night,
Dwell in the lilac tree,
Sway the blossoms clustered light,
Then blow over to me.
Wind, you are sometimes strong and great,
You frighten the ships at sea,
Now come floating your delicate freight
Out of the lilac tree,
Wind you must waver a gossamer sail
To ferry a scent so light,
Will you carry my love a message as frail
Through the hawk-haunted night?
For my heart is sometimes strange and wild,
Bitter and bold and free,
I scare the beautiful timid child,
As you frighten the ships at sea;
But now when the hawks are piercing the air,
With the golden stars above,
The only thing that my heart can bear
Is a lilac message of love.
Gentle wind, will you carry this
Up to her window white
Give her a gentle tender kiss;
Bid her good-night, good-night.
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Written by
Adela Florence Cory Nicolson |
How I loved you in your sleep,
With the starlight on your hair!
The touch of your lips was sweet,
Aziza whom I adore,
I lay at your slender feet,
And against their soft palms pressed,
I fitted my face to rest.
As winds blow over the sea
From Citron gardens ashore,
Came, through your scented hair,
The breeze of the night to me.
My lips grew arid and dry,
My nerves were tense,
Though your beauty soothe the eye
It maddens the sense.
Every curve of that beauty is known to me,
Every tint of that delicate roseleaf skin,
And these are printed on every atom of me,
Burnt in on every fibre until I die.
And for this, my sin,
I doubt if ever, though dust I be,
The dust will lose the desire,
The torment and hidden fire,
Of my passionate love for you.
Aziza whom I adore,
My dust will be full of your beauty, as is the blue
And infinite ocean full of the azure sky.
In the light that waxed and waned
Playing about your slumber in silver bars,
As the palm trees swung their feathery fronds athwart the stars,
How quiet and young you were,
Pale as the Champa flowers, violet veined,
That, sweet and fading, lay in your loosened hair.
How sweet you were in your sleep,
With the starlight on your hair!
Your throat thrown backwards, bare,
And touched with circling moonbeams, silver white
On the couch's sombre shade.
O Aziza my one delight,
When Youth's passionate pulses fade,
And his golden heart beats slow,
When across the infinite sky
I see the roseate glow
Of my last, last sunset flare,
I shall send my thoughts to this night
And remember you as I die,
The one thing, among all the things of this earth, found fair.
How sweet you were in your sleep,
With the starlight, silver and sable, across your hair!
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Written by
Carl Sandburg |
BURY this old Illinois farmer with respect.
He slept the Illinois nights of his life after days of work in Illinois cornfields.
Now he goes on a long sleep.
The wind he listened to in the cornsilk and the tassels, the wind that combed his red beard zero mornings when the snow lay white on the yellow ears in the bushel basket at the corncrib,
The same wind will now blow over the place here where his hands must dream of Illinois corn.
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