10 Best Famous Greens Poems

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

• All Famous Greens Poems

Axes 
After whose stroke the wood rings, 
And the echoes! 
Echoes traveling 
Off from the center like horses. 

The sap 
Wells like tears, like the 
Water striving 
To re-establish its mirror 
Over the rock 

That drops and turns, 
A white skull, 
Eaten by weedy greens. 
Years later I 
Encounter them on the road--- 

Words dry and riderless, 
The indefatigable hoof-taps. 
While 
From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars 
Govern a life.

One face looks out from all his canvases,
     One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
     We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
     A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
     A saint, an angel—every canvas means
The same one meaning, neither more nor less.
He feeds upon her face by day and night,
     And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
     Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
No as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
     Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.

 Once more the gate behind me falls; 
Once more before my face 
I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls, 
That stand within the chace. 

Beyond the lodge the city lies, 
Beneath its drift of smoke; 
And ah! with what delighted eyes 
I turn to yonder oak. 

For when my passion first began, 
Ere that, which in me burn'd, 
The love, that makes me thrice a man, 
Could hope itself return'd; 

To yonder oak within the field 
I spoke without restraint, 
And with a larger faith appeal'd 
Than Papist unto Saint. 

For oft I talk'd with him apart 
And told him of my choice, 
Until he plagiarized a heart, 
And answer'd with a voice. 

Tho' what he whisper'd under Heaven 
None else could understand; 
I found him garrulously given, 
A babbler in the land. 

But since I heard him make reply 
Is many a weary hour; 
'Twere well to question him, and try 
If yet he keeps the power. 

Hail, hidden to the knees in fern, 
Broad Oak of Sumner-chace, 
Whose topmost branches can discern 
The roofs of Sumner-place! 

Say thou, whereon I carved her name, 
If ever maid or spouse, 
As fair as my Olivia, came 
To rest beneath thy boughs.--- 

"O Walter, I have shelter'd here 
Whatever maiden grace 
The good old Summers, year by year 
Made ripe in Sumner-chace: 

"Old Summers, when the monk was fat, 
And, issuing shorn and sleek, 
Would twist his girdle tight, and pat 
The girls upon the cheek, 

"Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's-pence, 
And number'd bead, and shrift, 
Bluff Harry broke into the spence 
And turn'd the cowls adrift: 

"And I have seen some score of those 
Fresh faces that would thrive 
When his man-minded offset rose 
To chase the deer at five; 

"And all that from the town would stroll, 
Till that wild wind made work 
In which the gloomy brewer's soul 
Went by me, like a stork: 

"The slight she-slips of royal blood, 
And others, passing praise, 
Straight-laced, but all-too-full in bud 
For puritanic stays: 

"And I have shadow'd many a group 
Of beauties, that were born 
In teacup-times of hood and hoop, 
Or while the patch was worn; 

"And, leg and arm with love-knots gay 
About me leap'd and laugh'd 
The modish Cupid of the day, 
And shrill'd his tinsel shaft. 

"I swear (and else may insects prick 
Each leaf into a gall) 
This girl, for whom your heart is sick, 
Is three times worth them all. 

"For those and theirs, by Nature's law, 
Have faded long ago; 
But in these latter springs I saw 
Your own Olivia blow, 

"From when she gamboll'd on the greens 
A baby-germ, to when 
The maiden blossoms of her teens 
Could number five from ten. 

"I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain, 
(And hear me with thine ears,) 
That, tho' I circle in the grain 
Five hundred rings of years--- 

"Yet, since I first could cast a shade, 
Did never creature pass 
So slightly, musically made, 
So light upon the grass: 

"For as to fairies, that will flit 
To make the greensward fresh, 
I hold them exquisitely knit, 
But far too spare of flesh." 

Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern, 
And overlook the chace; 
And from thy topmost branch discern 
The roofs of Sumner-place. 

But thou, whereon I carved her name, 
That oft hast heard my vows, 
Declare when last Olivia came 
To sport beneath thy boughs. 

"O yesterday, you know, the fair 
Was holden at the town; 
Her father left his good arm-chair, 
And rode his hunter down. 

"And with him Albert came on his. 
I look'd at him with joy: 
As cowslip unto oxlip is, 
So seems she to the boy. 

"An hour had past---and, sitting straight 
Within the low-wheel'd chaise, 
Her mother trundled to the gate 
Behind the dappled grays. 

"But as for her, she stay'd at home, 
And on the roof she went, 
And down the way you use to come, 
She look'd with discontent. 

"She left the novel half-uncut 
Upon the rosewood shelf; 
She left the new piano shut: 
She could not please herseif 

"Then ran she, gamesome as the colt, 
And livelier than a lark 
She sent her voice thro' all the holt 
Before her, and the park. 

"A light wind chased her on the wing, 
And in the chase grew wild, 
As close as might be would he cling 
About the darling child: 

"But light as any wind that blows 
So fleetly did she stir, 
The flower, she touch'd on, dipt and rose, 
And turn'd to look at her. 

"And here she came, and round me play'd, 
And sang to me the whole 
Of those three stanzas that you made 
About my Ôgiant bole;' 

"And in a fit of frolic mirth 
She strove to span my waist: 
Alas, I was so broad of girth, 
I could not be embraced. 

"I wish'd myself the fair young beech 
That here beside me stands, 
That round me, clasping each in each, 
She might have lock'd her hands. 

"Yet seem'd the pressure thrice as sweet 
As woodbine's fragile hold, 
Or when I feel about my feet 
The berried briony fold." 

O muffle round thy knees with fern, 
And shadow Sumner-chace! 
Long may thy topmost branch discern 
The roofs of Sumner-place! 

But tell me, did she read the name 
I carved with many vows 
When last with throbbing heart I came 
To rest beneath thy boughs? 

"O yes, she wander'd round and round 
These knotted knees of mine, 
And found, and kiss'd the name she found, 
And sweetly murmur'd thine. 

"A teardrop trembled from its source, 
And down my surface crept. 
My sense of touch is something coarse, 
But I believe she wept. 

"Then flush'd her cheek with rosy light, 
She glanced across the plain; 
But not a creature was in sight: 
She kiss'd me once again. 

"Her kisses were so close and kind, 
That, trust me on my word, 
Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind, 
But yet my sap was stirr'd: 

"And even into my inmost ring 
A pleasure I discern'd, 
Like those blind motions of the Spring, 
That show the year is turn'd. 

"Thrice-happy he that may caress 
The ringlet's waving balm--- 
The cushions of whose touch may press 
The maiden's tender palm. 

"I, rooted here among the groves 
But languidly adjust 
My vapid vegetable loves 
With anthers and with dust: 

"For ah! my friend, the days were brief 
Whereof the poets talk, 
When that, which breathes within the leaf, 
Could slip its bark and walk. 

"But could I, as in times foregone, 
From spray, and branch, and stem, 
Have suck'd and gather'd into one 
The life that spreads in them, 

"She had not found me so remiss; 
But lightly issuing thro', 
I would have paid her kiss for kiss, 
With usury thereto." 

O flourish high, with leafy towers, 
And overlook the lea, 
Pursue thy loves among the bowers 
But leave thou mine to me. 

O flourish, hidden deep in fern, 
Old oak, I love thee well; 
A thousand thanks for what I learn 
And what remains to tell. 

" ÔTis little more: the day was warm; 
At last, tired out with play, 
She sank her head upon her arm 
And at my feet she lay. 

"Her eyelids dropp'd their silken eaves 
I breathed upon her eyes 
Thro' all the summer of my leaves 
A welcome mix'd with sighs. 

"I took the swarming sound of life--- 
The music from the town--- 
The murmurs of the drum and fife 
And lull'd them in my own. 

"Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip, 
To light her shaded eye; 
A second flutter'd round her lip 
Like a golden butterfly; 

"A third would glimmer on her neck 
To make the necklace shine; 
Another slid, a sunny fleck, 
From head to ankle fine, 

"Then close and dark my arms I spread, 
And shadow'd all her rest--- 
Dropt dews upon her golden head, 
An acorn in her breast. 

"But in a pet she started up, 
And pluck'd it out, and drew 
My little oakling from the cup, 
And flung him in the dew. 

"And yet it was a graceful gift--- 
I felt a pang within 
As when I see the woodman lift 
His axe to slay my kin. 

"I shook him down because he was 
The finest on the tree. 
He lies beside thee on the grass. 
O kiss him once for me. 

"O kiss him twice and thrice for me, 
That have no lips to kiss, 
For never yet was oak on lea 
Shall grow so fair as this.' 

Step deeper yet in herb and fern, 
Look further thro' the chace, 
Spread upward till thy boughs discern 
The front of Sumner-place. 

This fruit of thine by Love is blest, 
That but a moment lay 
Where fairer fruit of Love may rest 
Some happy future day. 

I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice, 
The warmth it thence shall win 
To riper life may magnetise 
The baby-oak within. 

But thou, while kingdoms overset, 
Or lapse from hand to hand, 
Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet 
Thine acorn in the land. 

May never saw dismember thee, 
Nor wielded axe disjoint, 
That art the fairest-spoken tree 
From here to Lizard-point. 

O rock upon thy towery-top 
All throats that gurgle sweet! 
All starry culmination drop 
Balm-dews to bathe thy feet! 

All grass of silky feather grow--- 
And while he sinks or swells 
The full south-breeze around thee blow 
The sound of minster bells. 

The fat earth feed thy branchy root, 
That under deeply strikes! 
The northern morning o'er thee shoot, 
High up, in silver spikes! 

Nor ever lightning char thy grain, 
But, rolling as in sleep, 
Low thunders bring the mellow rain, 
That makes thee broad and deep! 

And hear me swear a solemn oath, 
That only by thy side 
Will I to Olive plight my troth, 
And gain her for my bride. 

And when my marriage morn may fall, 
She, Dryad-like, shall wear 
Alternate leaf and acorn-ball 
In wreath about her hair. 

And I will work in prose and rhyme, 
And praise thee more in both 
Than bard has honour'd beech or lime, 
Or that Thessalian growth, 

In which the swarthy ringdove sat, 
And mystic sentence spoke; 
And more than England honours that, 
Thy famous brother-oak, 

Wherein the younger Charles abode 
Till all the paths were dim, 
And far below the Roundhead rode, 
And humm'd a surly hymn.

 At four o'clock
in the gun-metal blue dark
we hear the first crow of the first cock

just below
the gun-metal blue window
and immediately there is an echo

off in the distance,
then one from the backyard fence,
then one, with horrible insistence,

grates like a wet match 
from the broccoli patch,
flares,and all over town begins to catch.

Cries galore
come from the water-closet door,
from the dropping-plastered henhouse floor,

where in the blue blur 
their rusting wives admire,
the roosters brace their cruel feet and glare

with stupid eyes
while from their beaks there rise
the uncontrolled, traditional cries.

Deep from protruding chests
in green-gold medals dressed,
planned to command and terrorize the rest,

the many wives 
who lead hens' lives
of being courted and despised;

deep from raw throats
a senseless order floats
all over town. A rooster gloats

over our beds
from rusty irons sheds
and fences made from old bedsteads,

over our churches 
where the tin rooster perches,
over our little wooden northern houses,

making sallies 
from all the muddy alleys,
marking out maps like Rand McNally's:

glass-headed pins,
oil-golds and copper greens,
anthracite blues, alizarins,

each one an active 
displacement in perspective;
each screaming, "This is where I live!"

Each screaming
"Get up! Stop dreaming!"
Roosters, what are you projecting?

You, whom the Greeks elected
to shoot at on a post, who struggled
when sacrificed, you whom they labeled

"Very combative..."
what right have you to give 
commands and tell us how to live,

cry "Here!" and "Here!"
and wake us here where are
unwanted love, conceit and war?

The crown of red
set on your little head
is charged with all your fighting blood

Yes, that excrescence
makes a most virile presence,
plus all that vulgar beauty of iridescence

Now in mid-air
by two they fight each other.
Down comes a first flame-feather,

and one is flying,
with raging heroism defying
even the sensation of dying.

And one has fallen
but still above the town
his torn-out, bloodied feathers drift down;

and what he sung
no matter. He is flung
on the gray ash-heap, lies in dung

with his dead wives
with open, bloody eyes,
while those metallic feathers oxidize.


St. Peter's sin
was worse than that of Magdalen
whose sin was of the flesh alone;

of spirit, Peter's,
falling, beneath the flares,
among the "servants and officers."

Old holy sculpture
could set it all together
in one small scene, past and future:

Christ stands amazed,
Peter, two fingers raised
to surprised lips, both as if dazed.

But in between
a little cock is seen
carved on a dim column in the travertine,

explained by gallus canit;
flet Petrus underneath it,
There is inescapable hope, the pivot;

yes, and there Peter's tears
run down our chanticleer's
sides and gem his spurs.

Tear-encrusted thick
as a medieval relic
he waits. Poor Peter, heart-sick,

still cannot guess
those cock-a-doodles yet might bless,
his dreadful rooster come to mean forgiveness,

a new weathervane
on basilica and barn,
and that outside the Lateran

there would always be
a bronze cock on a porphyry
pillar so the people and the Pope might see

that event the Prince
of the Apostles long since
had been forgiven, and to convince

all the assembly
that "Deny deny deny"
is not all the roosters cry.

In the morning
a low light is floating
in the backyard, and gilding

from underneath
the broccoli, leaf by leaf;
how could the night have come to grief?

gilding the tiny
floating swallow's belly
and lines of pink cloud in the sky,

the day's preamble
like wandering lines in marble,
The cocks are now almost inaudible.

The sun climbs in,
following "to see the end,"
faithful as enemy, or friend.

 I always like summer
Best
you can eat fresh corn
From daddy's garden
And okra
And greens
And cabbage
And lots of
Barbeque
And buttermilk
And homemade ice-cream
At the church picnic
And listen to
Gospel music
Outside
At the church
Homecoming
And go to the mountains with
Your grandmother
And go barefooted
And be warm
All the time
Not only when you go to bed
And sleep

 The artichoke
of delicate heart
erect
in its battle-dress, builds
its minimal cupola;
keeps
stark
in its scallop of
scales.
Around it,
demoniac vegetables
bristle their thicknesses,
devise
tendrils and belfries,
the bulb's agitations;
while under the subsoil
the carrot
sleeps sound in its
rusty mustaches.
Runner and filaments
bleach in the vineyards,
whereon rise the vines.
The sedulous cabbage
arranges its petticoats;
oregano
sweetens a world;
and the artichoke
dulcetly there in a gardenplot,
armed for a skirmish,
goes proud
in its pomegranate
burnishes.
Till, on a day,
each by the other,
the artichoke moves
to its dream
of a market place
in the big willow
hoppers:
a battle formation.
Most warlike
of defilades-
with men
in the market stalls,
white shirts
in the soup-greens,
artichoke field marshals,
close-order conclaves,
commands, detonations,
and voices,
a crashing of crate staves.

And
Maria
come
down
with her hamper
to
make trial
of an artichoke:
she reflects, she examines,
she candles them up to the light like an egg,
never flinching;
she bargains,
she tumbles her prize
in a market bag
among shoes and a
cabbage head,
a bottle
of vinegar; is back
in her kitchen.
The artichoke drowns in a pot.

So you have it:
a vegetable, armed,
a profession
(call it an artichoke)
whose end
is millennial.
We taste of that
sweetness,
dismembering scale after scale.
We eat of a halcyon paste:
it is green at the artichoke heart.

When Frankenstein was just a kid,
he ate his greens. It’s true. He did!
He ate his spinach, salads, peas,
asparagus, and foods like these,
and with each leaf and lima bean
his skin became a bit more green.
On chives and chard he loved to chew,
and Brussels sprouts and peppers too,
until he ate that fateful bean
that turned his skin completely green.
He turned all green, and stayed that way,
and now he frightens folks away.
Poor Frankenstein, his tale is sad,
but things need not have been so bad.
It’s fair to say, if only he
had eaten much less celery,
avoided cabbage, ate no kale,
why, then, we’d have a different tale.
So, mom and dad, I’m here to say
please take these vegetables away
or my fate could be just as grim.
Yes, I could end up green like him.
So, mom and dad, before we dine,
please give a thought to Frankenstein.

 --Kenn Nesbitt

Copyright © Kenn Nesbitt 2012. All Rights Reserved.

this is the garden: colours come and go 
frail azures fluttering from night's outer wing
strong silent greens serenely lingering 
absolute lights like baths of golden snow.
This is the garden: pursed lips do blow
upon cool flutes within wide glooms and sing
(of harps celestial to the quivering string)
invisible faces hauntingly and slow.

This is the garden. Time shall surely reap
and on Death's blade lie many a flower curled 
in other lands where other songs be sung;
yet stand They here enraptured as among
The slow deep trees perpetual of sleep
some silver-fingered fountain steals the world.

 From cold Norse caves or buccaneer Southern seas
Oft come repenting tempests here to die;
Bewailing old-time wrecks and robberies,
They shrive to priestly pines with many a sigh,
Breathe salutary balms through lank-lock'd hair
Of sick men's heads, and soon -- this world outworn --
Sink into saintly heavens of stirless air,
Clean from confessional. One died, this morn,
And willed the world to wise Queen Tranquil: she,
Sweet sovereign Lady of all souls that bide
In contemplation, tames the too bright skies
Like that faint agate film, far down descried,
Restraining suns in sudden thoughtful eyes
Which flashed but now. Blest distillation rare
Of o'er-rank brightness filtered waterwise
Through all the earths in heaven -- thou always fair,
Still virgin bride of e'er-creating thought --
Dream-worker, in whose dream the Future's wrought --
Healer of hurts, free balm for bitter wrongs --
Most silent mother of all sounding songs --
Thou that dissolvest hells to make thy heaven --
Thou tempest's heir, that keep'st no tempest leaven --
But after winds' and thunders' wide mischance
Dost brood, and better thine inheritance --
Thou privacy of space, where each grave Star
As in his own still chamber sits afar
To meditate, yet, by thy walls unpent,
Shines to his fellows o'er the firmament --
Oh! as thou liv'st in all this sky and sea
That likewise lovingly do live in thee,
So melt my soul in thee, and thine in me,
Divine Tranquillity!

Gray Pelican, poised where yon broad shallows shine,
Know'st thou, that finny foison all is mine
In the bag below thy beak -- yet thine, not less?
For God, of His most gracious friendliness,
Hath wrought that every soul, this loving morn,
Into all things may be new-corporate born,
And each live whole in all: I sail with thee,
Thy Pelican's self is mine; yea, silver Sea,
In this large moment all thy fishes, ripples, bights,
Pale in-shore greens and distant blue delights,
White visionary sails, long reaches fair
By moon-horn'd strands that film the far-off air,
Bright sparkle-revelations, secret majesties,
Shells, wrecks and wealths, are mine; yea, Orange-trees,
That lift your small world-systems in the light,
Rich sets of round green heavens studded bright
With globes of fruit that like still planets shine,
Mine is your green-gold universe; yea, mine,
White slender Lighthouse fainting to the eye
That wait'st on yon keen cape-point wistfully,
Like to some maiden spirit pausing pale,
New-wing'd, yet fain to sail
Above the serene Gulf to where a bridegroom soul
Calls o'er the soft horizon -- mine thy dole
Of shut undaring wings and wan desire --
Mine, too, thy later hope and heavenly fire
Of kindling expectation; yea, all sights,
All sounds, that make this morn -- quick flights
Of pea-green paroquets 'twixt neighbor trees,
Like missives and sweet morning inquiries
From green to green, in green -- live oaks' round heads,
Busy with jays for thoughts -- grays, whites and reds
Of pranked woodpeckers that ne'er gossip out,
But alway tap at doors and gad about --
Robins and mocking-birds that all day long
Athwart straight sunshine weave cross-threads of song,
Shuttles of music -- clouds of mosses gray
That rain me rains of pleasant thoughts alway
From a low sky of leaves -- faint yearning psalms
Of endless metre breathing through the palms
That crowd and lean and gaze from off the shore
Ever for one that cometh nevermore --
Palmettos ranked, with childish spear-points set
Against no enemy -- rich cones that fret
High roofs of temples shafted tall with pines --
Green, grateful mangroves where the sand-beach shines --
Long lissome coast that in and outward swerves,
The grace of God made manifest in curves --
All riches, goods and braveries never told
Of earth, sun, air and heaven -- now I hold
Your being in my being; I am ye,
And ye myself; yea, lastly, Thee,
God, whom my roads all reach, howe'er they run,
My Father, Friend, Beloved, dear All-One,
Thee in my soul, my soul in Thee, I feel,
Self of my self. Lo, through my sense doth steal
Clear cognizance of all selves and qualities,
Of all existence that hath been or is,
Of all strange haps that men miscall of chance,
And all the works of tireless circumstance:
Each borders each, like mutual sea and shore,
Nor aught misfits his neighbor that's before,
Nor him that's after -- nay, through this still air,
Out of the North come quarrels, and keen blare
Of challenge by the hot-breath'd parties blown;
Yet break they not this peace with alien tone,
Fray not my heart, nor fright me for my land,
-- I hear from all-wards, allwise understand,
The great bird Purpose bears me twixt her wings,
And I am one with all the kinsmen things
That e'er my Father fathered. Oh, to me
All questions solve in this tranquillity:
E'en this dark matter, once so dim, so drear,
Now shines upon my spirit heavenly-clear:
Thou, Father, without logic, tellest me
How this divine denial true may be,
-- How `All's in each, yet every one of all
Maintains his Self complete and several.'

 From time to time, lifting his eyes, he sees
The soft blue starlight through the one small window,
The moon above black trees, and clouds, and Venus,—
And turns to write . . . The clock, behind ticks softly.

It is so long, indeed, since I have written,—
Two years, almost, your last is turning yellow,—
That these first words I write seem cold and strange.
Are you the man I knew, or have you altered?
Altered, of course—just as I too have altered—
And whether towards each other, or more apart,
We cannot say . . . I've just re-read your letter—
Not through forgetfulness, but more for pleasure—

Pondering much on all you say in it
Of mystic consciousness—divine conversion—
The sense of oneness with the infinite,—
Faith in the world, its beauty, and its purpose . . .
Well, you believe one must have faith, in some sort,
If one's to talk through this dark world contented.
But is the world so dark? Or is it rather
Our own brute minds,—in which we hurry, trembling,
Through streets as yet unlighted? This, I think.

You have been always, let me say, "romantic,"—
Eager for color, for beauty, soon discontented
With a world of dust and stones and flesh too ailing:
Even before the question grew to problem
And drove you bickering into metaphysics,
You met on lower planes the same great dragon,
Seeking release, some fleeting satisfaction,
In strange aesthetics . . . You tried, as I remember,
One after one, strange cults, and some, too, morbid,
The cruder first, more violent sensations,
Gorgeously carnal things, conceived and acted
With splendid animal thirst . . . Then, by degrees,—
Savoring all more delicate gradations

In all that hue and tone may play on flesh,
Or thought on brain,—you passed, if I may say so,
From red and scarlet through morbid greens to mauve.
Let us regard ourselves, you used to say,
As instruments of music, whereon our lives
Will play as we desire: and let us yield
These subtle bodies and subtler brains and nerves
To all experience plays . . . And so you went
From subtle tune to subtler, each heard once,
Twice or thrice at the most, tiring of each;
And closing one by one your doors, drew in
Slowly, through darkening labyrinths of feeling,
Towards the central chamber . . . Which now you've reached.

What, then's, the secret of this ultimate chamber—
Or innermost, rather? If I see it clearly
It is the last, and cunningest, resort
Of one who has found this world of dust and flesh,—
This world of lamentations, death, injustice,
Sickness, humiliation, slow defeat,
Bareness, and ugliness, and iteration,—
Too meaningless; or, if it has a meaning,
Too tiresomely insistent on one meaning:

Futility . . . This world, I hear you saying,—
With lifted chin, and arm in outflung gesture,
Coldly imperious,—this transient world,
What has it then to give, if not containing
Deep hints of nobler worlds? We know its beauties,—
Momentary and trivial for the most part,
Perceived through flesh, passing like flesh away,—
And know how much outweighed they are by darkness.
We are like searchers in a house of darkness,
A house of dust; we creep with little lanterns,
Throwing our tremulous arcs of light at random,
Now here, now there, seeing a plane, an angle,
An edge, a curve, a wall, a broken stairway
Leading to who knows what; but never seeing
The whole at once . . . We grope our way a little,
And then grow tired. No matter what we touch,
Dust is the answer—dust: dust everywhere.
If this were all—what were the use, you ask?
But this is not: for why should we be seeking,
Why should we bring this need to seek for beauty,
To lift our minds, if there were only dust?
This is the central chamber you have come to:
Turning your back to the world, until you came
To this deep room, and looked through rose-stained windows,
And saw the hues of the world so sweetly changed.

Well, in a measure, so only do we all.
I am not sure that you can be refuted.
At the very last we all put faith in something,—
You in this ghost that animates your world,
This ethical ghost,—and I, you'll say, in reason,—
Or sensuous beauty,—or in my secret self . . .
Though as for that you put your faith in these,
As much as I do—and then, forsaking reason,—
Ascending, you would say, to intuition,—
You predicate this ghost of yours, as well.
Of course, you might have argued,—and you should have,—
That no such deep appearance of design
Could shape our world without entailing purpose:
For can design exist without a purpose?
Without conceiving mind? . . . We are like children
Who find, upon the sands, beside a sea,
Strange patterns drawn,—circles, arcs, ellipses,
Moulded in sand . . . Who put them there, we wonder?

Did someone draw them here before we came?
Or was it just the sea?—We pore upon them,
But find no answer—only suppositions.
And if these perfect shapes are evidence
Of immanent mind, it is but circumstantial:
We never come upon him at his work,
He never troubles us. He stands aloof—
Well, if he stands at all: is not concerned
With what we are or do. You, if you like,
May think he broods upon us, loves us, hates us,
Conceives some purpose of us. In so doing
You see, without much reason, will in law.
I am content to say, 'this world is ordered,
Happily so for us, by accident:
We go our ways untroubled save by laws
Of natural things.' Who makes the more assumption?

If we were wise—which God knows we are not—
(Notice I call on God!) we'd plumb this riddle
Not in the world we see, but in ourselves.
These brains of ours—these delicate spinal clusters—
Have limits: why not learn them, learn their cravings?
Which of the two minds, yours or mine, is sound?
Yours, which scorned the world that gave it freedom,
Until you managed to see that world as omen,—
Or mine, which likes the world, takes all for granted,
Sorrow as much as joy, and death as life?—
You lean on dreams, and take more credit for it.
I stand alone . . . Well, I take credit, too.
You find your pleasure in being at one with all things—
Fusing in lambent dream, rising and falling
As all things rise and fall . . . I do that too—
With reservations. I find more varied pleasure
In understanding: and so find beauty even
In this strange dream of yours you call the truth.

Well, I have bored you. And it's growing late.
For household news—what have you heard, I wonder?
You must have heard that Paul was dead, by this time—
Of spinal cancer. Nothing could be done—
We found it out too late. His death has changed me,
Deflected much of me that lived as he lived,
Saddened me, slowed me down. Such things will happen,
Life is composed of them; and it seems wisdom
To see them clearly, meditate upon them,
And understand what things flow out of them.
Otherwise, all goes on here much as always.
Why won't you come and see us, in the spring,
And bring old times with you?—If you could see me
Sitting here by the window, watching Venus
Go down behind my neighbor's poplar branches,—
Just where you used to sit,—I'm sure you'd come.
This year, they say, the springtime will be early.