10 Best Famous Evenings Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Evenings poems. This is a select list of the best famous Evenings poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Evenings poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of evenings poems.

• All Famous Evenings Poems

 I love the evenings, passionless and fair, I love the evens, 
Whether old manor-fronts their ray with golden fulgence leavens, 
In numerous leafage bosomed close; 
Whether the mist in reefs of fire extend its reaches sheer, 
Or a hundred sunbeams splinter in an azure atmosphere 
On cloudy archipelagos. 

Oh, gaze ye on the firmament! a hundred clouds in motion, 
Up-piled in the immense sublime beneath the winds' commotion, 
Their unimagined shapes accord: 
Under their waves at intervals flame a pale levin through, 
As if some giant of the air amid the vapors drew 
A sudden elemental sword. 

The sun at bay with splendid thrusts still keeps the sullen fold; 
And momently at distance sets, as a cupola of gold, 
The thatched roof of a cot a-glance; 
Or on the blurred horizon joins his battle with the haze; 
Or pools the blooming fields about with inter-isolate blaze, 
Great moveless meres of radiance. 

Then mark you how there hangs athwart the firmament's swept track, 
Yonder a mighty crocodile with vast irradiant back, 
A triple row of pointed teeth? 
Under its burnished belly slips a ray of eventide, 
The flickerings of a hundred glowing clouds in tenebrous side 
With scales of golden mail ensheathe. 

Then mounts a palace, then the air vibrates--the vision flees. 
Confounded to its base, the fearful cloudy edifice 
Ruins immense in mounded wrack; 
Afar the fragments strew the sky, and each envermeiled cone 
Hangeth, peak downward, overhead, like mountains overthrown 
When the earthquake heaves its hugy back. 

These vapors, with their leaden, golden, iron, bronzèd glows, 
Where the hurricane, the waterspout, thunder, and hell repose, 
Muttering hoarse dreams of destined harms,-- 
'Tis God who hangs their multitude amid the skiey deep, 
As a warrior that suspendeth from the roof-tree of his keep 
His dreadful and resounding arms! 

All vanishes! The Sun, from topmost heaven precipitated, 
Like a globe of iron which is tossed back fiery red 
Into the furnace stirred to fume, 
Shocking the cloudy surges, plashed from its impetuous ire, 
Even to the zenith spattereth in a flecking scud of fire 
The vaporous and inflamèd spaume. 

O contemplate the heavens! Whenas the vein-drawn day dies pale, 
In every season, every place, gaze through their every veil? 
With love that has not speech for need! 
Beneath their solemn beauty is a mystery infinite: 
If winter hue them like a pall, or if the summer night 
Fantasy them starre brede.

 When weary with the long day's care,
And earthly change from pain to pain,
And lost and ready to despair,
Thy kind voice calls me back again:
Oh, my true friend! I am not lone,
While thou canst speak with such a tone! 

So hopeless is the world without;
The world within I doubly prize;
Thy world, where guile, and hate, and doubt,
And cold suspicion never rise;
Where thou, and I, and Liberty,
Have undisputed sovereignty. 

What matters it, that, all around,
Danger, and guilt, and darkness lie,
If but within our bosom's bound
We hold a bright, untroubled sky,
Warm with ten thousand mingled rays
Of suns that know no winter days? 

Reason, indeed, may oft complain
For Nature's sad reality,
And tell the suffering heart, how vain
Its cherished dreams must always be;
And Truth may rudely trample down
The flowers of Fancy, newly-blown: 

But, thou art ever there, to bring
The hovering vision back, and breathe
New glories o'er the blighted spring,
And call a lovelier Life from Death,
And whisper, with a voice divine,
Of real worlds, as bright as thine. 

I trust not to thy phantom bliss,
Yet, still, in evening's quiet hour,
With never-failing thankfulness,
I welcome thee, Benignant Power;
Sure solacer of human cares,
And sweeter hope, when hope despairs!

 An unwrapped icon, too potent to touch,
she freed my breasts from the camp Empire dress.
Now one of them's the shadow of a breast
with a lost object's half-life, with as much
life as an anecdotal photograph:
me, Kim and Iva, all stripped to the waist,
hiking near Russian River on June first
'79: Iva's five-and-a-half.
While she was almost twenty, wearing black
T-shirts in D.C., where we hadn't met.
You lay your palm, my love, on my flat chest.
In lines alive with what is not regret,
she takes her own path past, doesn't turn back.
Persistently, on paper, we exist.

Persistently, on paper, we exist.
You'd touch me if you could, but you're, in fact,
three thousand miles away. And my intact
body is eighteen months paper: the past
a fragile eighteen months regime of trust
in slash-and-burn, in vitamin pills, backed
by no statistics. Each day I enact
survivor's rituals, blessing the crust
I tear from the warm loaf, blessing the hours
in which I didn't or in which I did
consider my own death. I am not yet
statistically a survivor (that
is sixty months). On paper, someone flowers
and flares alive. I knew her. But she's dead.

She flares alive. I knew her. But she's dead.
I flirted with her, might have been her friend,
but transatlantic schedules intervened.
She wrote a book about her Freedom Ride,
the wary elders whom she taught to read,
— herself half-British, twenty-six, white-blonde,
with thirty years to live.
And I happened
to open up The Nation to that bad
news which I otherwise might not have known
(not breast cancer: cancer of the brain).
Words take the absent friend away again.
Alone, I think, she called, alone, upon
her courage, tried in ways she'd not have wished
by pain and fear: her courage, extinguished.

The pain and fear some courage extinguished
at disaster's denouement come back
daily, banal: is that brownish-black
mole the next chapter? Was the ache enmeshed
between my chest and armpit when I washed
rogue cells' new claw, or just a muscle ache?
I'm not yet desperate enough to take
comfort in being predeceased: the anguish
when the Harlem doctor, the Jewish dancer,
die of AIDS, the Boston seminary's
dean succumbs "after brief illness" to cancer.
I like mossed slabs in country cemeteries
with wide-paced dates, candles in jars, whose tallow
glows on summer evenings, desk-lamp yellow.

Aglow in summer evening, a desk-lamp's yellow
moonlight peruses notebooks, houseplants, texts,
while an aging woman thinks of sex
in the present tense. Desire may follow,
urgent or elegant, cut raw or mellow
with wine and ripe black figs: a proof, the next
course, a simple question, the complex
response, a burning sweetness she will swallow.
The opening mind is sexual and ready
to embrace, incarnate in its prime.
Rippling concentrically from summer's gold
disc, desire's iris expands, steady
with blood beat. Each time implies the next time.
The aging woman hopes she will grow old.

The aging woman hopes she will grow old.
A younger woman has a dazzling vision
of bleeding wrists, her own, the clean incisions
suddenly there, two open mouths. They told
their speechless secrets, witnesses not called
to what occurred with as little volition
of hers as these phantom wounds.
Intense precision
of scars, in flesh, in spirit. I'm enrolled
by mine in ranks where now I'm "being brave"
if I take off my shirt in a hot crowd
sunbathing, or demonstrating for Dyke Pride.
Her bravery counters the kitchen knives'
insinuation that the scars be made.
With, or despite our scars, we stay alive.

"With, or despite our scars, we stayed alive
until the Contras or the Government
or rebel troops came, until we were sent
to 'relocation camps' until the archives
burned, until we dug the ditch, the grave
beside the aspen grove where adolescent
boys used to cut class, until we went
to the precinct house, eager to behave
like citizens..."
I count my hours and days,
finger for luck the word-scarred table which
is not my witness, shares all innocent
objects' silence: a tin plate, a basement
door, a spade, barbed wire, a ring of keys,
an unwrapped icon, too potent to touch.

 Downward through the evening twilight, 
In the days that are forgotten, 
In the unremembered ages, 
From the full moon fell Nokomis, 
Fell the beautiful Nokomis, 
She a wife, but not a mother.
She was sporting with her women, 
Swinging in a swing of grape-vines, 
When her rival the rejected, 
Full of jealousy and hatred, 
Cut the leafy swing asunder, 
Cut in twain the twisted grape-vines, 
And Nokomis fell affrighted 
Downward through the evening twilight, 
On the Muskoday, the meadow, 
On the prairie full of blossoms. 
"See! a star falls!" said the people; 
"From the sky a star is falling!"
There among the ferns and mosses, 
There among the prairie lilies, 
On the Muskoday, the meadow, 
In the moonlight and the starlight, 
Fair Nokomis bore a daughter. 
And she called her name Wenonah, 
As the first-born of her daughters.
And the daughter of Nokomis 
Grew up like the prairie lilies, 
Grew a tall and slender maiden,
With the beauty of the moonlight, 
With the beauty of the starlight.
And Nokomis warned her often, 
Saying oft, and oft repeating, 
"Oh, beware of Mudjekeewis, 
Of the West-Wind, Mudjekeewis; 
Listen not to what he tells you; 
Lie not down upon the meadow, 
Stoop not down among the lilies,
Lest the West-Wind come and harm you!"
But she heeded not the warning, 
Heeded not those words of wisdom, 
And the West-Wind came at evening, 
Walking lightly o'er the prairie, 
Whispering to the leaves and blossoms, 
Bending low the flowers and grasses, 
Found the beautiful Wenonah, 
Lying there among the lilies, 
Wooed her with his words of sweetness, 
Wooed her with his soft caresses, 
Till she bore a son in sorrow, 
Bore a son of love and sorrow.
Thus was born my Hiawatha, 
Thus was born the child of wonder; 
But the daughter of Nokomis, 
Hiawatha's gentle mother,
In her anguish died deserted 
By the West-Wind, false and faithless, 
By the heartless Mudjekeewis.
For her daughter long and loudly 
Wailed and wept the sad Nokomis; 
"Oh that I were dead!" she murmured, 
"Oh that I were dead, as thou art! 
No more work, and no more weeping, 
Wahonowin! Wahonowin!"
By the shores of Gitche Gumee, 
By the shining Big-Sea-Water, 
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis, 
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis. 
Dark behind it rose the forest, 
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees, 
Rose the firs with cones upon them; 
Bright before it beat the water, 
Beat the clear and sunny water, 
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.
There the wrinkled old Nokomis 
Nursed the little Hiawatha, 
Rocked him in his linden cradle, 
Bedded soft in moss and rushes, 
Safely bound with reindeer sinews; 
Stilled his fretful wail by saying, 
"Hush! the Naked Bear will hear thee!" 
Lulled him into slumber, singing, 
"Ewa-yea! my little owlet! 
Who is this, that lights the wigwam? 
With his great eyes lights the wigwam? 
Ewa-yea! my little owlet!"
Many things Nokomis taught him 
Of the stars that shine in heaven; 
Showed him Ishkoodah, the comet, 
Ishkoodah, with fiery tresses; 
Showed the Death-Dance of the spirits, 
Warriors with their plumes and war-clubs, 
Flaring far away to northward 
In the frosty nights of Winter; 
Showed the broad white road in heaven, 
Pathway of the ghosts, the shadows, 
Running straight across the heavens, 
Crowded with the ghosts, the shadows.
At the door on summer evenings 
Sat the little Hiawatha; 
Heard the whispering of the pine-trees, 
Heard the lapping of the waters,
Sounds of music, words of wonder; 
'Minne-wawa!" said the Pine-trees, 
Mudway-aushka!" said the water.
Saw the fire-fly, Wah-wah-taysee, 
Flitting through the dusk of evening, 
With the twinkle of its candle 
Lighting up the brakes and bushes, 
And he sang the song of children, 
Sang the song Nokomis taught him: 
"Wah-wah-taysee, little fire-fly, 
Little, flitting, white-fire insect, 
Little, dancing, white-fire creature, 
Light me with your little candle, 
Ere upon my bed I lay me, 
Ere in sleep I close my eyelids!"
Saw the moon rise from the water 
Rippling, rounding from the water, 
Saw the flecks and shadows on it, 
Whispered, "What is that, Nokomis?" 
And the good Nokomis answered: 
"Once a warrior, very angry, 
Seized his grandmother, and threw her 
Up into the sky at midnight; 
Right against the moon he threw her; 
'T is her body that you see there."
Saw the rainbow in the heaven, 
In the eastern sky, the rainbow, 
Whispered, "What is that, Nokomis?" 
And the good Nokomis answered: 
"'T is the heaven of flowers you see there; 
All the wild-flowers of the forest, 
All the lilies of the prairie, 
When on earth they fade and perish, 
Blossom in that heaven above us."
When he heard the owls at midnight, 
Hooting, laughing in the forest, 
'What is that?" he cried in terror, 
"What is that," he said, "Nokomis?"
And the good Nokomis answered: 
"That is but the owl and owlet,
Talking in their native language, 
Talking, scolding at each other."
Then the little Hiawatha 
Learned of every bird its language, 
Learned their names and all their secrets, 
How they built their nests in Summer, 
Where they hid themselves in Winter, 
Talked with them whene'er he met them, 
Called them "Hiawatha's Chickens."
Of all beasts he learned the language, 
Learned their names and all their secrets, 
How the beavers built their lodges, 
Where the squirrels hid their acorns, 
How the reindeer ran so swiftly, 
Why the rabbit was so timid, 
Talked with them whene'er he met them, 
Called them "Hiawatha's Brothers."
Then Iagoo, the great boaster, 
He the marvellous story-teller, 
He the traveller and the talker, 
He the friend of old Nokomis, 
Made a bow for Hiawatha; 
From a branch of ash he made it, 
From an oak-bough made the arrows, 
Tipped with flint, and winged with feathers, 
And the cord he made of deer-skin.
Then he said to Hiawatha: 
"Go, my son, into the forest, 
Where the red deer herd together, 
Kill for us a famous roebuck, 
Kill for us a deer with antlers!"
Forth into the forest straightway 
All alone walked Hiawatha 
Proudly, with his bow and arrows; 
And the birds sang round him, o'er him, 
"Do not shoot us, Hiawatha!"
Sang the robin, the Opechee, 
Sang the bluebird, the Owaissa, 
"Do not shoot us, Hiawatha!"
Up the oak-tree, close beside him, 
Sprang the squirrel, Adjidaumo, 
In and out among the branches, 
Coughed and chattered from the oak-tree, 
Laughed, and said between his laughing, 
"Do not shoot me, Hiawatha!"
And the rabbit from his pathway 
Leaped aside, and at a distance 
Sat erect upon his haunches, 
Half in fear and half in frolic, 
Saying to the little hunter, 
"Do not shoot me, Hiawatha!"
But he heeded not, nor heard them, 
For his thoughts were with the red deer; 
On their tracks his eyes were fastened, 
Leading downward to the river, 
To the ford across the river,
And as one in slumber walked he. 
Hidden in the alder-bushes,
There he waited till the deer came, 
Till he saw two antlers lifted, 
Saw two eyes look from the thicket, 
Saw two nostrils point to windward, 
And a deer came down the pathway, 
Flecked with leafy light and shadow. 
And his heart within him fluttered, 
Trembled like the leaves above him, 
Like the birch-leaf palpitated, 
As the deer came down the pathway.
Then, upon one knee uprising, 
Hiawatha aimed an arrow; 
Scarce a twig moved with his motion, 
Scarce a leaf was stirred or rustled, 
But the wary roebuck started, 
Stamped with all his hoofs together,
Listened with one foot uplifted, 
Leaped as if to meet the arrow; 
Ah! the singing, fatal arrow, 
Like a wasp it buzzed and stung him!
Dead he lay there in the forest, 
By the ford across the river; 
Beat his timid heart no longer, 
But the heart of Hiawatha 
Throbbed and shouted and exulted, 
As he bore the red deer homeward, 
And Iagoo and Nokomis 
Hailed his coming with applauses.
From the red deer's hide Nokomis 
Made a cloak for Hiawatha, 
From the red deer's flesh Nokomis 
Made a banquet to his honor. 
All the village came and feasted, 
All the guests praised Hiawatha, 
Called him Strong-Heart, Soan-ge-taha! 
Called him Loon-Heart, Mahn-go-taysee!

 I love you - though it makes me beat,
Though vain it seems, and melancholy -
Yet to this shameless, hapless folly
I'll be confessing at your feet.
It ill becomes me: that I'm older,
Time I should be more sensible...
And yet the frivolous disorder
Fills every jitter of my soul.
Say you'll be gone - I'm jaded, yawning;
You're back - I'm sad, I suffer through -
Yet how can I be clear, from owning,
My angel, all my care for you!
When off the stairs your weightless footfall,
Your dress's rustle, reaches me,
Your voice, as maidenly, as youthful -
I lose my senses instantly.
You smile at me - I'm glad, immensely;
Ignore me - and I'm sad, again;
Your pallid hand will recompense me
For the whole day of utter pain.
When you're embroidering, or setting
Your eye on something fair, or letting
Your hair amuse you - I'm beguiled;
In silence, reddening, all forgetting
I watch you like a spellbound child.
But then how wretched my existence,
How desolate my jealous pain,
When you set out into the distance
To wander in the cold and rain;
And then your solitary grievings,
Or, in the corner, twosome talks,
Or twosome piano in the evenings,
Or twosome trips, or twosome walks...
Alina! just a little mercy -
I dare not even mention love:
For sins I have been guilty of,
My angel, of your care unworthy...
But feign it! All can be achieved
By that absorbing gaze, believe me...
Oh, it takes little to deceive me -
I cannot wait to be deceived!

(tr. by Genia Gurarie, 10.95 - 4.99)
Copyright retained by Genia Gurarie.
email: [email protected]
http://www.princeton.edu/~egurarie/
For permission to reproduce, write personally to the translator.

 O, let me seize thy pen sublime
That paints, in melting dulcet rhyme, 
The glowing pow'r, the magic art, 
Th' extatic raptures of the Heart; 
Soft Beauty's timid smile serene,
The dimples of Love's sportive mien; 
The sweet descriptive tale to trace; 
To picture Nature's winning grace;
To steal the tear from Pity's eye; 
To catch the sympathetic sigh; 
O teach me, with swift light'nings force
To watch wild passion's varying course; 
To mark th' enthusiast's vivid fire,
Or calmly touch thy golden lyre,
While gentle Reason mildly sings
Responsive to the trembling strings. 

SWEET Nymph, enchanting Poetry! 
I dedicate my mind to Thee. 
Oh! from thy bright Parnassian bow'rs
Descend, to bless my sombre hours;
Bend to the earth thy eagle wing,
And on its glowing plumage bring
Blithe FANCY, from whose burning eye
The young ideas sparkling fly; 
O, come, and let us fondly stray,
Where rosy Health shall lead the way,
And soft FAVONIUS lightly spread
A perfum'd carpet as we tread;
Ah! let us from the world remove,
The calm forgetfulness to prove,
Which at the still of evening's close,
Lulls the tir'd peasant to repose; 
Repose, whose balmy joys o'er-pay
The sultry labours of the day. 

And when the blue-ey'd dawn appears,
Just peeping thro' her veil of tears; 
Or blushing opes her silver gate, 
And on its threshold, stands elate,
And flings her rosy mantle far
O'er every loit'ring dewy star; 
And calls the wanton breezes forth,
And sprinkles diamonds o'er the earth; 
While in the green-wood's shade profound,
The insect race, with buzzing sound
Flit o'er the rill,­a glitt'ring train,
Or swarm along the sultry plain. 
Then in sweet converse let us rove,
Where in the thyme-embroider'd grove, 
The musky air its fragrance pours
Upon the silv'ry scatter'd show'rs; 
To hail soft Zephyr, as she goes
To fan the dew-drop from the rose;
To shelter from the scorching beam,
And muse beside the rippling stream. 

Or when, at twilight's placid hour, 
We stroll to some sequester'd bow'r; 
And watch the haughty Sun retire
Beneath his canopy of fire; 
While slow the dusky clouds enfold
Day's crimson curtains fring'd with gold;
And o'er the meadows faintly fly
Pale shadows of the purpling sky: 
While softly o'er the pearl-deck'd plain,
Cold Dian leads the sylvan train; 
In mazy dance and sportive glee,
SWEET MUSE, I'll fondly turn to thee;
And thou shalt deck my couch with flow'rs, 
And wing with joy my silent hours. 

When Sleep, with downy hand, shall spread
A wreath of poppies round my head; 
Then, FANCY, on her wing sublime,
Shall waft me to the sacred clime
Where my enlighten'd sense shall view,
Thro' ether realms of azure hue, 
That flame, where SHAKESPEARE us'd to fill, 
With matchless fire, his "golden quill." 
While, from its point bright Genius caught
The wit supreme, the glowing thought, 
The magic tone, that sweetly hung
About the music of his tongue. 
Then will I skim the floating air,
On a light couch of gossamer,
While with my wonder-aching eye,
I contemplate the spangled sky, 
And hear the vaulted roof repeat
The song of Inspiration sweet; 
While round the winged cherub train,
Shall iterate the aëry strain:
Swift, thro' my quiv'ring nerves shall float
The tremours of each thrilling note; 
And every eager sense confess
Extatic transport's wild excess:
'Till, waking from the glorious dream,
I hail the morn's refulgent beam. 

DEAR Maid! of ever-varying mien, 
Exulting, pensive, gay, serene, 
Now, in transcendent pathos drest, 
Now, gentle as the turtle's breast; 
Where'er thy feath'ry steps shall lead,
To side-long hill, or flow'ry mead; 
To sorrow's coldest, darkest cell,
Or where, by Cynthia's glimm'ring ray, 
The dapper fairies frisk and play
About some cowslip's golden bell;
And, in their wanton frolic mirth,
Pluck the young daisies from the earth,
To canopy their tiny heads, 
And decorate their verdant beds; 
While to the grass-hopper's shrill tune,
They quaff libations to the moon, 
From acorn goblets, amply fill'd
With dew, from op'ning flow'rs distill'd. 
Or when the lurid tempest pours, 
From its dark urn, impetuous show'rs, 
Or from its brow's terrific frown,
Hurls the pale murd'rous lightnings down;
To thy enchanting breast I'll spring, 
And shield me with thy golden wing. 

Or when amidst ethereal fire,
Thou strik'st thy DELLA CRUSCAN lyre, 
While round, to catch the heavenly song,
Myriads of wond'ring seraphs throng:
Whether thy harp's empassioned strain
Pours forth an OVID's tender pain;
Or in PINDARIC flights sublime,
Re-echoes thro' the starry clime;
Thee I'll adore; transcendent guest,
And woe thee to my burning breast. 

But, if thy magic pow'rs impart
One soft sensation to the heart,
If thy warm precepts can dispense
One thrilling transport o'er my sense; 
Oh! keep thy gifts, and let me fly,
In APATHY's cold arms to die.

 Sir, since the last Elizabethan died,
Or, rather, that more Paradisal muse,
Blind with much light, passed to the light more glorious
Or deeper blindness, no man's hand, as thine,
Has, on the world's most noblest chord of song,
Struck certain magic strains. Ears satiate
With the clamorous, timorous whisperings of to-day,
Thrilled to perceive once more the spacious voice
And serene unterrance of old. We heard
-- With rapturous breath half-held, as a dreamer dreams
Who dares not know it dreaming, lest he wake --
The odorous, amorous style of poetry,
The melancholy knocking of those lines,
The long, low soughing of pentameters,
-- Or the sharp of rhyme as a bird's cry --
And the innumerable truant polysyllables
Multitudinously twittering like a bee.
Fulfilled our hearts were with the music then,
And all the evenings sighed it to the dawn,
And all the lovers heard it from all the trees.
All of the accents upon the all the norms!
-- And ah! the stress of the penultimate!
We never knew blank verse could have such feet.

Where is it now? Oh, more than ever, now
I sometimes think no poetry is read
Save where some sepultured C?sura bled,
Royally incarnadining all the line.
Is the imperial iamb laid to rest,
And the young trochee, having done enough?
Ah! turn again! Sing so to us, who are sick
Of seeming-simple rhymes, bizarre emotions,
Decked in the simple verses of the day,
Infinite meaning in a little gloom,
Irregular thoughts in stanzas regular,
Modern despair in antique metres, myths
Incomprehensible at evening,
And symbols that mean nothing in the dawn.
The slow lines swell. The new style sighs. The Celt
Moans round with many voices.
God! to see
Gaunt anap?sts stand up out of the verse,
Combative accents, stress where no stress should be,
Spondee on spondee, iamb on choriamb,
The thrill of all the tribrachs in the world,
And all the vowels rising to the E!
To hear the blessed mutter of those verbs,
Conjunctions passionate toward each other's arms,
And epithets like amaranthine lovers
Stretching luxuriously to the stars,
All prouder pronouns than the dawn, and all
The thunder of the trumpets of the noun!

 We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?

The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues.

 SMOKE of the fields in spring is one,
Smoke of the leaves in autumn another.
Smoke of a steel-mill roof or a battleship funnel,
They all go up in a line with a smokestack,
Or they twist … in the slow twist … of the wind.

If the north wind comes they run to the south.
If the west wind comes they run to the east.
 By this sign
 all smokes
 know each other.
Smoke of the fields in spring and leaves in autumn,
Smoke of the finished steel, chilled and blue,
By the oath of work they swear: “I know you.”

Hunted and hissed from the center
Deep down long ago when God made us over,
Deep down are the cinders we came from—
You and I and our heads of smoke.

Some of the smokes God dropped on the job
Cross on the sky and count our years
And sing in the secrets of our numbers;
Sing their dawns and sing their evenings,
Sing an old log-fire song:

You may put the damper up,
You may put the damper down,
The smoke goes up the chimney just the same.

Smoke of a city sunset skyline,
Smoke of a country dusk horizon—
 They cross on the sky and count our years.

Smoke of a brick-red dust
 Winds on a spiral
 Out of the stacks
For a hidden and glimpsing moon.
This, said the bar-iron shed to the blooming mill,
This is the slang of coal and steel.
The day-gang hands it to the night-gang,
The night-gang hands it back.

Stammer at the slang of this—
Let us understand half of it.
 In the rolling mills and sheet mills,
 In the harr and boom of the blast fires,
 The smoke changes its shadow
 And men change their shadow;
 A ******, a wop, a bohunk changes.

 A bar of steel—it is only
Smoke at the heart of it, smoke and the blood of a man.
A runner of fire ran in it, ran out, ran somewhere else,
And left—smoke and the blood of a man
And the finished steel, chilled and blue.

So fire runs in, runs out, runs somewhere else again,
And the bar of steel is a gun, a wheel, a nail, a shovel,
A rudder under the sea, a steering-gear in the sky;
And always dark in the heart and through it,
 Smoke and the blood of a man.
Pittsburg, Youngstown, Gary—they make their steel with men.

In the blood of men and the ink of chimneys
The smoke nights write their oaths:
Smoke into steel and blood into steel;
Homestead, Braddock, Birmingham, they make their steel with men.
Smoke and blood is the mix of steel.

 The birdmen drone
 in the blue; it is steel
 a motor sings and zooms.

Steel barb-wire around The Works.
Steel guns in the holsters of the guards at the gates of The Works.
Steel ore-boats bring the loads clawed from the earth by steel, lifted and lugged by arms of steel, sung on its way by the clanking clam-shells.
The runners now, the handlers now, are steel; they dig and clutch and haul; they hoist their automatic knuckles from job to job; they are steel making steel.
Fire and dust and air fight in the furnaces; the pour is timed, the billets wriggle; the clinkers are dumped:
Liners on the sea, skyscrapers on the land; diving steel in the sea, climbing steel in the sky.

Finders in the dark, you Steve with a dinner bucket, you Steve clumping in the dusk on the sidewalks with an evening paper for the woman and kids, you Steve with your head wondering where we all end up—
Finders in the dark, Steve: I hook my arm in cinder sleeves; we go down the street together; it is all the same to us; you Steve and the rest of us end on the same stars; we all wear a hat in hell together, in hell or heaven.

Smoke nights now, Steve.
Smoke, smoke, lost in the sieves of yesterday;
Dumped again to the scoops and hooks today.
Smoke like the clocks and whistles, always.
 Smoke nights now.
 To-morrow something else.

Luck moons come and go:
Five men swim in a pot of red steel.
Their bones are kneaded into the bread of steel:
Their bones are knocked into coils and anvils
And the sucking plungers of sea-fighting turbines.
Look for them in the woven frame of a wireless station.
So ghosts hide in steel like heavy-armed men in mirrors.
Peepers, skulkers—they shadow-dance in laughing tombs.
They are always there and they never answer.

One of them said: “I like my job, the company is good to me, America is a wonderful country.”
One: “Jesus, my bones ache; the company is a liar; this is a free country, like hell.”
One: “I got a girl, a peach; we save up and go on a farm and raise pigs and be the boss ourselves.”
And the others were roughneck singers a long ways from home.
Look for them back of a steel vault door.

They laugh at the cost.
They lift the birdmen into the blue.
It is steel a motor sings and zooms.

In the subway plugs and drums,
In the slow hydraulic drills, in gumbo or gravel,
Under dynamo shafts in the webs of armature spiders,
They shadow-dance and laugh at the cost.

The ovens light a red dome.
Spools of fire wind and wind.
Quadrangles of crimson sputter.
The lashes of dying maroon let down.
Fire and wind wash out the slag.
Forever the slag gets washed in fire and wind.
The anthem learned by the steel is:
 Do this or go hungry.
Look for our rust on a plow.
Listen to us in a threshing-engine razz.
Look at our job in the running wagon wheat.

Fire and wind wash at the slag.
Box-cars, clocks, steam-shovels, churns, pistons, boilers, scissors—
Oh, the sleeping slag from the mountains, the slag-heavy pig-iron will go down many roads.
Men will stab and shoot with it, and make butter and tunnel rivers, and mow hay in swaths, and slit hogs and skin beeves, and steer airplanes across North America, Europe, Asia, round the world.

Hacked from a hard rock country, broken and baked in mills and smelters, the rusty dust waits
Till the clean hard weave of its atoms cripples and blunts the drills chewing a hole in it.
The steel of its plinths and flanges is reckoned, O God, in one-millionth of an inch.

Once when I saw the curves of fire, the rough scarf women dancing,
Dancing out of the flues and smoke-stacks—flying hair of fire, flying feet upside down;
Buckets and baskets of fire exploding and chortling, fire running wild out of the steady and fastened ovens;
Sparks cracking a harr-harr-huff from a solar-plexus of rock-ribs of the earth taking a laugh for themselves;
Ears and noses of fire, gibbering gorilla arms of fire, gold mud-pies, gold bird-wings, red jackets riding purple mules, scarlet autocrats tumbling from the humps of camels, assassinated czars straddling vermillion balloons;
I saw then the fires flash one by one: good-by: then smoke, smoke;
And in the screens the great sisters of night and cool stars, sitting women arranging their hair,
Waiting in the sky, waiting with slow easy eyes, waiting and half-murmuring:
 “Since you know all
 and I know nothing,
 tell me what I dreamed last night.”

Pearl cobwebs in the windy rain,
in only a flicker of wind,
are caught and lost and never known again.

A pool of moonshine comes and waits,
but never waits long: the wind picks up
loose gold like this and is gone.

A bar of steel sleeps and looks slant-eyed
on the pearl cobwebs, the pools of moonshine;
sleeps slant-eyed a million years,
sleeps with a coat of rust, a vest of moths,
a shirt of gathering sod and loam.

The wind never bothers … a bar of steel.
The wind picks only .. pearl cobwebs .. pools of moonshine.

 As you plaited the harvest bow
You implicated the mellowed silence in you
In wheat that does not rust
But brightens as it tightens twist by twist
Into a knowable corona,
A throwaway love-knot of straw.

Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks
And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game cocks
Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent
Until your fingers moved somnambulant:
I tell and finger it like braille,
Gleaning the unsaid off the palpable,

And if I spy into its golden loops
I see us walk between the railway slopes
Into an evening of long grass and midges,
Blue smoke straight up, old beds and ploughs in hedges,
An auction notice on an outhouse wall--
You with a harvest bow in your lapel,

Me with the fishing rod, already homesick
For the big lift of these evenings, as your stick
Whacking the tips off weeds and bushes
Beats out of time, and beats, but flushes
Nothing: that original townland
Still tongue-tied in the straw tied by your hand.

The end of art is peace
Could be the motto of this frail device
That I have pinned up on our deal dresser--
Like a drawn snare
Slipped lately by the spirit of the corn
Yet burnished by its passage, and still warm.