Written by
Edward Estlin (E E) Cummings |
All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the merry deer ran before.
Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift sweet deer
the red rare deer.
Four red roebuck at a white water
the cruel bugle sang before.
Horn at hip went my love riding
riding the echo down
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the level meadows ran before.
Softer be they than slippered sleep
the lean lithe deer
the fleet flown deer.
Four fleet does at a gold valley
the famished arrow sang before.
Bow at belt went my love riding
riding the mountain down
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the sheer peaks ran before.
Paler be they than daunting death
the sleek slim deer
the tall tense deer.
Four tell stags at a green mountain
the lucky hunter sang before.
All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
my heart fell dead before.
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Written by
Robert Frost |
He saw her from the bottom of the stairs
Before she saw him.
She was starting down,
Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.
She took a doubtful step and then undid it
To raise herself and look again.
He spoke
Advancing toward her: 'What is it you see
From up there always -- for I want to know.
'
She turned and sank upon her skirts at that,
And her face changed from terrified to dull.
He said to gain time: 'What is it you see?'
Mounting until she cowered under him.
'I will find out now -- you must tell me, dear.
'
She, in her place, refused him any help
With the least stiffening of her neck and silence.
She let him look, sure that he wouldn't see,
Blind creature; and a while he didn't see.
But at last he murmured, 'Oh' and again, 'Oh.
'
'What is it -- what?' she said.
'Just that I see.
'
'You don't,' she challenged.
'Tell me what it is.
'
'The wonder is I didn't see at once.
I never noticed it from here before.
I must be wonted to it -- that's the reason.
'
The little graveyard where my people are!
So small the window frames the whole of it.
Not so much larger than a bedroom, is it?
There are three stones of slate and one of marble,
Broad-shouldered little slabs there in the sunlight
On the sidehill.
We haven't to mind those.
But I understand: it is not the stones,
But the child's mound --'
'Don't, don't, don't, don't,' she cried.
She withdrew shrinking from beneath his arm
That rested on the banister, and slid downstairs;
And turned on him with such a daunting look,
He said twice over before he knew himself:
'Can't a man speak of his own child he's lost?'
'Not you! Oh, where's my hat? Oh, I don't need it!
I must get out of here.
I must get air.
I don't know rightly whether any man can.
'
'Amy! Don't go to someone else this time.
Listen to me.
I won't come down the stairs.
'
He sat and fixed his chin between his fists.
'There's something I should like to ask you, dear.
'
'You don't know how to ask it.
'
'Help me, then.
'
Her fingers moved the latch for all reply.
'My words are nearly always an offence.
I don't know how to speak of anything
So as to please you.
But I might be taught
I should suppose.
I can't say I see how,
A man must partly give up being a man
With women-folk.
We could have some arrangement
By which I'd bind myself to keep hands off
Anything special you're a-mind to name.
Though I don't like such things 'twixt those that love.
Two that don't love can't live together without them.
But two that do can't live together with them.
'
She moved the latch a little.
'Don't -- don't go.
Don't carry it to someone else this time.
Tell me about it if it's something human.
Let me into your grief.
I'm not so much
Unlike other folks as your standing there
Apart would make me out.
Give me my chance.
I do think, though, you overdo it a little.
What was it brought you up to think it the thing
To take your mother-loss of a first child
So inconsolably- in the face of love.
You'd think his memory might be satisfied --'
'There you go sneering now!'
'I'm not, I'm not!
You make me angry.
I'll come down to you.
God, what a woman! And it's come to this,
A man can't speak of his own child that's dead.
'
'You can't because you don't know how.
If you had any feelings, you that dug
With your own hand--how could you?--his little grave;
I saw you from that very window there,
Making the gravel leap and leap in air,
Leap up, like that, like that, and land so lightly
And roll back down the mound beside the hole.
I thought, Who is that man? I didn't know you.
And I crept down the stairs and up the stairs
To look again, and still your spade kept lifting.
Then you came in.
I heard your rumbling voice
Out in the kitchen, and I don't know why,
But I went near to see with my own eyes.
You could sit there with the stains on your shoes
Of the fresh earth from your own baby's grave
And talk about your everyday concerns.
You had stood the spade up against the wall
Outside there in the entry, for I saw it.
'
'I shall laugh the worst laugh I ever laughed.
I'm cursed.
God, if I don't believe I'm cursed.
'
I can repeat the very words you were saying ,
"Three foggy mornings and one rainy day
Will rot the best birch fence a man can build.
"
Think of it, talk like that at such a time!
What had how long it takes a birch to rot
To do with what was in the darkened parlour?
You couldn't care! The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short
They might as well not try to go at all.
No, from the time when one is sick to death,
One is alone, and he dies more alone.
Friends make pretence of following to the grave,
But before one is in it, their minds are turned
And making the best of their way back to life
And living people, and things they understand.
But the world's evil.
I won't have grief so
If I can change it.
Oh, I won't, I won't'
'There, you have said it all and you feel better.
You won't go now.
You're crying.
Close the door.
The heart's gone out of it: why keep it up?
Amyl There's someone coming down the road!'
'You --oh, you think the talk is all.
I must go-
Somewhere out of this house.
How can I make you --'
'If--you -- do!' She was opening the door wider.
'Where do you mean to go? First tell me that.
I'll follow and bring you back by force.
I will! --'
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Written by
Gerard Manley Hopkins |
When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut,
Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?
When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I'll not play hypocrite
To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but
That piecemeal peace is poor peace.
What pure peace allows
Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?
O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu
Some good! And so he does leave Patience exquisite,
That plumes to Peace thereafter.
And when Peace here does house
He comes with work to do, he does not come to coo,
He comes to brood and sit.
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Written by
Thomas Hardy |
I
O it was sad enough, weak enough, mad enough -
Light in their loving as soldiers can be -
First to risk choosing them, leave alone losing them
Now, in far battle, beyond the South Sea! .
.
.
II
- Rain came down drenchingly; but we unblenchingly
Trudged on beside them through mirk and through mire,
They stepping steadily--only too readily! -
Scarce as if stepping brought parting-time nigher.
III
Great guns were gleaming there, living things seeming there,
Cloaked in their tar-cloths, upmouthed to the night;
Wheels wet and yellow from axle to felloe,
Throats blank of sound, but prophetic to sight.
IV
Gas-glimmers drearily, blearily, eerily
Lit our pale faces outstretched for one kiss,
While we stood prest to them, with a last quest to them
Not to court perils that honour could miss.
V
Sharp were those sighs of ours, blinded these eyes of ours,
When at last moved away under the arch
All we loved.
Aid for them each woman prayed for them,
Treading back slowly the track of their march.
VI
Someone said: "Nevermore will they come: evermore
Are they now lost to us.
" O it was wrong!
Though may be hard their ways, some Hand will guard their ways,
Bear them through safely, in brief time or long.
VII
- Yet, voices haunting us, daunting us, taunting us,
Hint in the night-time when life beats are low
Other and graver things .
.
.
Hold we to braver things,
Wait we, in trust, what Time's fulness shall show.
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Written by
Denise Levertov |
"I am a landscape," he said,
"a landscape and a person walking in that landscape.
There are daunting cliffs there,
and plains glad in their way
of brown monotony.
But especially
there are sinkholes, places
of sudden terror, of small circumference
and malevolent depths.
"
"I know," she said.
"When I set forth
to walk in myself, as it might be
on a fine afternoon, forgetting,
sooner or later I come to where sedge
and clumps of white flowers, rue perhaps,
mark the bogland, and I know
there are quagmires there that can pull you
down, and sink you in bubbling mud.
"
"We had an old dog," he told her, "when I was a boy,
a good dog, friendly.
But there was an injured spot
on his head, if you happened
just to touch it he'd jump up yelping
and bite you.
He bit a young child,
they had to take him to the vet's and destroy him.
"
"No one knows where it is," she said,
"and even by accident no one touches it:
It's inside my landscape, and only I, making my way
preoccupied through my life, crossing my hills,
sleeping on green moss of my own woods,
I myself without warning touch it,
and leap up at myself--"
"--or flinch back
just in time.
"
"Yes, we learn that
It's not terror, it's pain we're talking about:
those places in us, like your dog's bruised head,
that are bruised forever, that time
never assuages, never.
"
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