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Best Famous Hummed Poems

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Written by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot | Create an image from this poem

Rhapsody on a Windy Night

 TWELVE o’clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory
And all its clear relations
Its divisions and precisions,
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.

Half-past one,
The street-lamp sputtered,
The street-lamp muttered,
The street-lamp said, “Regard that woman
Who hesitates toward you in the light of the door
Which opens on her like a grin.
You see the border of her dress
Is torn and stained with sand,
And you see the corner of her eye
Twists like a crooked pin.”

The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard,
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.

Half-past two,
The street-lamp said,
“Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,
Slips out its tongue
And devours a morsel of rancid butter.”
So the hand of the child, automatic,
Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.
I could see nothing behind that child’s eye.
I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with barnacles on his back,
Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.

Half-past three,
The lamp sputtered,
The lamp muttered in the dark.
The lamp hummed:
“Regard the moon,
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
She winks a feeble eye,
She smiles into corners.
She smooths the hair of the grass.
The moon has lost her memory.
A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,
Her hand twists a paper rose,
That smells of dust and eau de Cologne,
She is alone
With all the old nocturnal smells
That cross and cross across her brain.”
The reminiscence comes
Of sunless dry geraniums
And dust in crevices,
Smells of chestnuts in the streets,
And female smells in shuttered rooms,
And cigarettes in corridors
And cocktail smells in bars.

The lamp said,
“Four o’clock,
Here is the number on the door.
Memory!
You have the key,
The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair.
Mount.
The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,
Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.”

The last twist of the knife.


Written by David St John | Create an image from this poem

Los Angeles 1954

 It was in the old days,
When she used to hang out at a place
Called Club Zombie,
A black cabaret that the police liked
To raid now and then. As she
Stepped through the door, the light
Would hit her platinum hair,
And believe me, heads would turn. Maestro
Loved it; he'd have her by
The arm as he led us through the packed crowd
To a private corner
Where her secluded oak table always waited.
She'd say, Jordan... 
And I'd order her usual,
A champagne cocktail with a tall shot of bourbon
On the side. She'd let her eyes
Trail the length of the sleek neck
Of the old stand-up bass, as
The bass player knocked out the bottom line,
His forehead glowing, glossy
With sweat in the blue lights;
Her own face, smooth and shining, as
The liquor slowly blanketed the pills
She'd slipped beneath her tongue.
Maestro'd kick the **** out of anybody
Who tried to sneak up for an autograph;
He'd say, Jordan, just let me know if
 Somebody gets too close....
Then he'd turn to her and whisper, Here's
 Where you get to be Miss Nobody...
And she'd smile as she let him
Kiss her hand. For a while, there was a singer
At the club, a guy named Louis--
But Maestro'd change his name to "Michael Champion";
Well, when this guy leaned forward,
Cradling the microphone in his huge hands,
All the legs went weak 
Underneath the ladies.
He'd look over at her, letting his eyelids
Droop real low, singing, Oh Baby I...
 Oh Baby I Love... I Love You...
And she'd be gone, those little mermaid tears
Running down her cheeks. Maestro
Was always cool. He'd let them use his room upstairs,
Sometimes, because they couldn't go out--
Black and white couldn't mix like that then.
I mean, think about it--
This kid star and a cool beauty who made King Cole
Sound raw? No, they had to keep it
To the club; though sometimes,
Near the end, he'd come out to her place
At the beach, always taking the iced whisky
I brought to him with a sly, sweet smile.
Once, sweeping his arm out in a slow
Half-circle, the way at the club he'd
Show the audience how far his endless love
Had grown, he marked
The circumference of the glare whitening the patio
Where her friends all sat, sunglasses
Masking their eyes...
And he said to me, Jordan, why do
 White people love the sun so?--
 God's spotlight, my man?
Leaning back, he looked over to where she
Stood at one end of the patio, watching
The breakers flatten along the beach below,
Her body reflected and mirrored
Perfectly in the bedroom's sliding black glass
Door. He stared at her
Reflection for a while, then looked up at me
And said, Jordan, I think that I must be
 Like a pool of water in a cave that sometimes
 She steps into...
Later, as I drove him back into the city,
He hummed a Bessie Smith tune he'd sing
For her, but he didn't say a word until
We stopped at last back at the club. He stepped
slowly out of the back
Of the Cadillac, and reaching to shake my hand
Through the open driver's window, said,
My man, Jordan... Goodbye.
Written by Philip Levine | Create an image from this poem

The Return

 All afternoon my father drove the country roads
between Detroit and Lansing. What he was looking for
I never learned, no doubt because he never knew himself,
though he would grab any unfamiliar side road
and follow where it led past fields of tall sweet corn
in August or in winter those of frozen sheaves.
Often he'd leave the Terraplane beside the highway
to enter the stunned silence of mid-September,
his eyes cast down for a sign, the only music
his own breath or the wind tracking slowly through
the stalks or riding above the barren ground. Later
he'd come home, his dress shoes coated with dust or mud,
his long black overcoat stained or tattered
at the hem, sit wordless in his favorite chair,
his necktie loosened, and stare at nothing. At first
my brothers and I tried conversation, questions
only he could answer: Why had he gone to war?
Where did he learn Arabic? Where was his father?
I remember none of this. I read it all later,
years later as an old man, a grandfather myself,
in a journal he left my mother with little drawings
of ruined barns and telephone poles, receding
toward a future he never lived, aphorisms
from Montaigne, Juvenal, Voltaire, and perhaps a few
of his own: "He who looks for answers finds questions."
Three times he wrote, "I was meant to be someone else,"
and went on to describe the perfumes of the damp fields.
"It all starts with seeds," and a pencil drawing
of young apple trees he saw somewhere or else dreamed.

I inherited the book when I was almost seventy
and with it the need to return to who we were.
In the Detroit airport I rented a Taurus;
the woman at the counter was bored or crazy:
Did I want company? she asked; she knew every road
from here to Chicago. She had a slight accent,
Dutch or German, long black hair, and one frozen eye.
I considered but decided to go alone,
determined to find what he had never found.
Slowly the autumn morning warmed, flocks of starlings
rose above the vacant fields and blotted out the sun.
I drove on until I found the grove of apple trees
heavy with fruit, and left the car, the motor running,
beside a sagging fence, and entered his life
on my own for maybe the first time. A crow welcomed
me home, the sun rode above, austere and silent,
the early afternoon was cloudless, perfect.
When the crow dragged itself off to another world,
the shade deepened slowly in pools that darkened around
the trees; for a moment everything in sight stopped.
The wind hummed in my good ear, not words exactly,
not nonsense either, nor what I spoke to myself,
just the language creation once wakened to.
I took off my hat, a mistake in the presence
of my father's God, wiped my brow with what I had,
the back of my hand, and marveled at what was here:
nothing at all except the stubbornness of things.
Written by Victor Hugo | Create an image from this poem

Beloved Name

 ("Le parfum d'un lis.") 
 
 {Bk. V. xiii.} 


 The lily's perfume pure, fame's crown of light, 
 The latest murmur of departing day, 
 Fond friendship's plaint, that melts at piteous sight, 
 The mystic farewell of each hour at flight, 
 The kiss which beauty grants with coy delay,— 
 
 The sevenfold scarf that parting storms bestow 
 As trophy to the proud, triumphant sun; 
 The thrilling accent of a voice we know, 
 The love-enthralled maiden's secret vow, 
 An infant's dream, ere life's first sands be run,— 
 
 The chant of distant choirs, the morning's sigh, 
 Which erst inspired the fabled Memnon's frame,— 
 The melodies that, hummed, so trembling die,— 
 The sweetest gems that 'mid thought's treasures lie, 
 Have naught of sweetness that can match HER NAME! 
 
 Low be its utterance, like a prayer divine, 
 Yet in each warbled song be heard the sound; 
 Be it the light in darksome fanes to shine, 
 The sacred word which at some hidden shrine, 
 The selfsame voice forever makes resound! 
 
 O friends! ere yet, in living strains of flame, 
 My muse, bewildered in her circlings wide, 
 With names the vaunting lips of pride proclaim, 
 Shall dare to blend the one, the purer name, 
 Which love a treasure in my breast doth hide,— 
 
 Must the wild lay my faithful harp can sing, 
 Be like the hymns which mortals, kneeling, hear; 
 To solemn harmonies attuned the string, 
 As, music show'ring from his viewless wing, 
 On heavenly airs some angel hovered near. 
 
 CAROLINE BOWLES (MRS. SOUTHEY) 


 




Written by John Greenleaf Whittier | Create an image from this poem

Maud Muller

 Maud Muller on a summer's day 
Raked the meadow sweet with hay. 

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth 
Of simple beauty and rustic health. 

Singing, she wrought, and her merry gleee 
The mock-bird echoed from his tree. 

But when she glanced to the far-off town 
White from its hill-slope looking down, 

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest 
And a nameless longing filled her breast,- 

A wish that she hardly dared to own, 
For something better than she had known. 

The Judge rode slowly down the lane, 
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane. 

He drew his bridle in the shade 
Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid, 

And asked a draught from the spring that flowed 
Through the meadow across the road. 

She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up, 
And filled for him her small tin cup, 

And blushed as she gave it, looking down 
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown. 

"Thanks!" said the Judge; "a sweeter draught 
From a fairer hand was never quaffed." 

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, 
Of the singing birds and the humming bees; 

Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether 
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather. 

And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown 
And her graceful ankles bare and brown; 

And listened, while a pleased surprise 
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes. 

At last, like one who for delay 
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away. 

Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me! 
That I the Judge's bride might be! 

"He would dress me up in silks so fine, 
And praise and toast me at his wine. 

"My father should wear a broadcloth coat; 
My brother should sail a pointed boat. 

"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay, 
And the baby should have a new toy each day. 

"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor, 
And all should bless me who left our door." 

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, 
And saw Maud Muller standing still. 

"A form more fair, a face more sweet, 
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet. 

"And her modest answer and graceful air 
Show her wise and good as she is fair. 

"Would she were mine, and I to-day, 
Like her, a harvester of hay. 

"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, 
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues, 

"But low of cattle and song of birds, 
And health and quiet and loving words." 

But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold, 
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold. 

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, 
And Maud was left in the field alone. 

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, 
When he hummed in court an old love-tune; 

And the young girl mused beside the well 
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell. 

He wedded a wife of richest dower, 
Who lived for fashion, as he for power. 

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, 
He watched a picture come and go; 

And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes 
Looked out in their innocent surprise. 

Oft, when the wine in his glass was red, 
He longed for the wayside well instead; 

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms 
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms. 

And the proud man sighed, and with a secret pain, 
"Ah, that I were free again! 

"Free as when I rode that day, 
Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay." 

She wedded a man unlearned and poor, 
And many children played round her door. 

But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain, 
Left their traces on heart and brain. 

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot 
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot, 

And she heard the little spring brook fall 
Over the roadside, through a wall, 

In the shade of the apple-tree again 
She saw a rider draw his rein; 

And, gazing down with timid grace, 
She felt his pleased eyes read her face. 

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls 
Stretched away into stately halls; 

The weary wheel to a spinet turned, 
The tallow candle an astral burned, 

And for him who sat by the chimney lug, 
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug, 

A manly form at her side she saw, 
And joy was duty and love was law. 

Then she took up her burden of life again, 
Saying only, "It might have been." 

Alas for the maiden, alas for the Judge, 
For rich repiner and househole drudge! 

God pity them both and pity us all, 
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall. 

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, 
The saddest are these: "It might have been!" 

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies 
Deeply buried from human eyes; 

And, in the hereafter, angels may 
Roll the stone from its grave away!


Written by Philip Levine | Create an image from this poem

In The New Sun

 Filaments of light 
slant like windswept rain. 
The orange seller hawks 
into the sky, a man with a hat 
stops below my window 
and shakes his tassels. 
 Awake 
in Tetuan, the room filling 
with the first colors, and water running 
in a tub. 

* 

A row of sparkling carp 
iced in the new sun, odor 
of first love, of childhood, 
the fingers held to the nose, 
or hours while the clock hummed. 

The fat woman in the orange smock 
places tiny greens at mouth 
and tail as though she remembered 
or yearned instead for forests, deep floors 
of needles, and the hushed breath. 

* 

Blue nosed cannisters 
as fat as barrels silently 
slipping by. "Nitro," he says. 
On the roof he shows me 
where Reuban lay down 
to ****-off and never woke. 
"We're takin little whiffs 
all the time." 
 Slivers 
of glass work their way 
through the canvas gloves 
and burn. Lifting my black glasses 
in the chemical light, I stop 
to squeeze one out and the asbestos 
glows like a hand in moonlight 
or a face in dreams. 

* 

Pinpoints of blue 
along the arms, light rushing 
down across the breasts 
missing the dry shadows 
under them. 
 She stretches 
and rises on her knees 
and smiles and far down 
to the sudden embroidery of curls 
the belly smiles 
that three times stretched slowly moonward 
in a hill of child. 

* 

Sun through the cracked glass, 
bartender at the cave end 
peeling a hard-boiled egg. Four 
in the afternoon, 
the dogs asleep, the river 
must bridge seven parched flats 
to Cordoba by nightfall. 
It will never make it. 
 I will 
never make it. Like the old man 
in gray corduroy asleep 
under the stifled fan, I have 
no more moves, 
stranded on an empty board. 

* 

From the high hill 
behind Ford Rouge, we could see 
the ore boats pulling 
down river, the rail yards, 
and the smoking mountain. 
East, the city spreading 
toward St. Clair, miles of houses, 
factories, shops burning 
in the still white snow. 

"Share this with your brother," 
he said, and it was always winter 
and a dark snow.
Written by Les Murray | Create an image from this poem

A Retrospect Of Humidity

 All the air conditioners now slacken
their hummed carrier wave. Once again
we've served our three months with remissions
in the steam and dry iron of this seaboard.
In jellied glare, through the nettle-rash season
we've watched the sky's fermenting laundry
portend downpours. Some came, and steamed away,
and we were clutched back into the rancid
saline midnights of orifice weather,
to damp grittiness and wiping off the air. 

Metaphors slump irritably together in
the muggy weeks. Shark and jellyfish shallows
become suburbs where you breathe a fat towel;
babies burst like tomatoes with discomfort
in the cotton-wrapped pointing street markets;
the Lycra-bulging surf drips from non-swimmers
miles from shore, and somehow includes soil.
Skins, touching, soak each other. Skin touching
any surface wets that and itself
in a kind of mutual digestion.
Throbbing heads grow lianas of nonsense. 

It's our annual visit to the latitudes
of rice, kerosene and resignation,
an averted, temporary visit
unrelated, for most, to the attitudes
of festive northbound jets gaining height -
closer, for some few, to the memory
of ulcers scraped with a tin spoon
or sweated faces bowing before dry
where the flesh is worn inside out,
all the hunger-organs clutched in rank nylon,
by those for whom exhaustion is spirit: 

an intrusive, heart-narrowing season
at this far southern foot of the monsoon.
As the kleenex flower, the hibiscus
drops its browning wads, we forget
annually, as one forgets a sickness.
The stifling days will never come again,
not now that we've seen the first sweater
tugged down on the beauties of division
and inside the rain's millions, a risen
loaf of cat on a cool night verandah.
Written by Amy Lowell | Create an image from this poem

The Paper Windmill

 The little boy pressed his face against the window-pane 
and looked out
at the bright sunshiny morning. The cobble-stones of 
the square
glistened like mica. In the trees, a breeze danced and 
pranced,
and shook drops of sunlight like falling golden coins into the brown 
water
of the canal. Down stream slowly drifted a long string 
of galliots
piled with crimson cheeses. The little boy thought they 
looked as if
they were roc's eggs, blocks of big ruby eggs. He said, 
"Oh!" with delight,
and pressed against the window with all his might.

The golden cock on the top of the `Stadhuis' gleamed. His 
beak was open
like a pair of scissors and a narrow piece of blue sky was wedged 
in it.
"Cock-a-doodle-do," cried the little boy. "Can't you 
hear me
through the window, Gold Cocky? Cock-a-doodle-do! You 
should crow
when you see the eggs of your cousin, the great roc." But 
the golden cock
stood stock still, with his fine tail blowing in the wind.
He could not understand the little boy, for he said "Cocorico"
when he said anything. But he was hung in the air to 
swing, not to sing.
His eyes glittered to the bright West wind, and the crimson cheeses
drifted away down the canal.

It was very dull there in the big room. Outside in the 
square, the wind
was playing tag with some fallen leaves. A man passed, 
with a dogcart
beside him full of smart, new milkcans. They rattled 
out a gay tune:
"Tiddity-tum-ti-ti. Have some milk for your tea. Cream 
for your coffee
to drink to-night, thick, and smooth, and sweet, and white,"
and the man's sabots beat an accompaniment: "Plop! trop! 
milk for your tea.
Plop! trop! drink it to-night." It was very pleasant 
out there,
but it was lonely here in the big room. The little boy 
gulped at a tear.

It was ***** how dull all his toys were. They were so 
still.
Nothing was still in the square. If he took his eyes 
away a moment
it had changed. The milkman had disappeared round the 
corner,
there was only an old woman with a basket of green stuff on her 
head,
picking her way over the shiny stones. But the wind pulled 
the leaves
in the basket this way and that, and displayed them to beautiful 
advantage.
The sun patted them condescendingly on their flat surfaces, and 
they seemed
sprinkled with silver. The little boy sighed as he looked 
at his disordered
toys on the floor. They were motionless, and their colours 
were dull.
The dark wainscoting absorbed the sun. There was none 
left for toys.

The square was quite empty now. Only the wind ran round 
and round it,
spinning. Away over in the corner where a street opened 
into the square,
the wind had stopped. Stopped running, that is, for it 
never
stopped spinning. It whirred, and whirled, and gyrated, 
and turned.
It burned like a great coloured sun. It hummed, and buzzed, 
and sparked,
and darted. There were flashes of blue, and long smearing 
lines of saffron,
and quick jabs of green. And over it all was a sheen 
like a myriad
cut diamonds. Round and round it went, the huge wind-wheel,
and the little boy's head reeled with watching it. The 
whole square
was filled with its rays, blazing and leaping round after one another,
faster and faster. The little boy could not speak, he 
could only gaze,
staring in amaze.

The wind-wheel was coming down the square. Nearer and 
nearer it came,
a great disk of spinning flame. It was opposite the window 
now,
and the little boy could see it plainly, but it was something more
than the wind which he saw. A man was carrying a huge 
fan-shaped frame
on his shoulder, and stuck in it were many little painted paper 
windmills,
each one scurrying round in the breeze. They were bright 
and beautiful,
and the sight was one to please anybody, and how much more a little 
boy
who had only stupid, motionless toys to enjoy.

The little boy clapped his hands, and his eyes danced and whizzed,
for the circling windmills made him dizzy. Closer and 
closer
came the windmill man, and held up his big fan to the little boy
in the window of the Ambassador's house. Only a pane 
of glass
between the boy and the windmills. They slid round before 
his eyes
in rapidly revolving splendour. There were wheels and 
wheels of colours --
big, little, thick, thin -- all one clear, perfect spin. The 
windmill vendor
dipped and raised them again, and the little boy's face was glued
to the window-pane. Oh! What a glorious, wonderful 
plaything!
Rings and rings of windy colour always moving! How had 
any one ever preferred
those other toys which never stirred. "Nursie, come quickly. Look!
I want a windmill. See! It is never still. You 
will buy me one, won't you?
I want that silver one, with the big ring of blue."

So a servant was sent to buy that one: silver, ringed 
with blue,
and smartly it twirled about in the servant's hands as he stood 
a moment
to pay the vendor. Then he entered the house, and in 
another minute
he was standing in the nursery door, with some crumpled paper on 
the end
of a stick which he held out to the little boy. "But 
I wanted a windmill
which went round," cried the little boy. "That is the 
one you asked for,
Master Charles," Nursie was a bit impatient, she had mending to 
do.
"See, it is silver, and here is the blue." "But it is 
only a blue streak,"
sobbed the little boy. "I wanted a blue ring, and this 
silver
doesn't sparkle." "Well, Master Charles, that is what 
you wanted,
now run away and play with it, for I am very busy."

The little boy hid his tears against the friendly window-pane. On 
the floor
lay the motionless, crumpled bit of paper on the end of its stick.
But far away across the square was the windmill vendor, with his 
big wheel
of whirring splendour. It spun round in a blaze like 
a whirling rainbow,
and the sun gleamed upon it, and the wind whipped it, until it seemed
a maze of spattering diamonds. "Cocorico!" crowed the 
golden cock
on the top of the `Stadhuis'. "That is something worth 
crowing for."
But the little boy did not hear him, he was sobbing over the crumpled
bit of paper on the floor.
Written by Craig Raine | Create an image from this poem

In The Kalahari Desert

 The sun rose like a tarnished
looking-glass to catch the sun

and flash His hot message
at the missionaries below--

Isabella and the Rev. Roger Price,
and the Helmores with a broken axle

left, two days behind, at Fever Ponds.
The wilderness was full of home:

a glinting beetle on its back
struggled like an orchestra

with Beethoven. The Hallé,
Isabella thought and hummed.

Makololo, their Zulu guide,
puzzled out the Bible, replacing

words he didn't know with Manchester.
Spikenard, alabaster, Leviticus,

were Manchester and Manchester.
His head reminded Mrs. Price

of her old pomander stuck with cloves,
forgotten in some pungent tallboy.

The dogs drank under the wagon
with a far away clip-clopping sound,

and Roger spat into the fire,
leaned back and watched his phlegm

like a Welsh rarebit
bubbling on the brands. . . 

When Baby died, they sewed her
in a scrap of carpet and prayed,

with milk still darkening
Isabella's grubby button-through.

Makololo was sick next day
and still the Helmores didn't come.

The outspanned oxen moved away
at night in search of water,

were caught and goaded on
to Matabele water-hole--

nothing but a dark stain on the sand.
Makololo drank vinegar and died.

Back they turned for Fever Ponds
and found the Helmores on the way. . .

Until they got within a hundred yards,
the vultures bobbed and trampolined

around the bodies, then swirled
a mile above their heads

like scalded tea leaves.
The Prices buried everything--

all the tattered clothes and flesh,
Mrs. Helmore's bright chains of hair,

were wrapped in bits of calico
then given to the sliding sand.

'In the beginning was the Word'--
Roger read from Helmore's Bible

found open at St. John.
Isabella moved her lips,

'The Word was Manchester.'
Shhh, shhh, the shovel said. Shhh. . .
Written by Rudyard Kipling | Create an image from this poem

The Songs of the Lathes

 1918Being the Words of the Tune Hummed at Her Lathe by Mrs. L. Embsay, Widow
The fans and the beltings they roar round me.
The power is shaking the floor round me
Till the lathes pick up their duty and the midnight-shift takes over.
 It is good for me to be here!

Guns in Flanders--Flanders guns!
(I had a man that worked 'em once!)
Shells for guns in Flanders, Flanders!
Shells for guns in Flanders, Flanders!
 Shells for guns in Flanders! Feeds the guns! 

The cranes and the carriers they boom over me,
The bays and the galleries they loom over me,
With their quarter-mile of pillars growing little in the distance--
 It is good for me to be here!

The Zeppelins and Gothas they raid over us.
Our lights give warning, and fade over us.
(Seven thousand women keeping quiet in the darkness!)
 Oh, it's good for me to be here.

The roofs and the buildings they grow round me,
Eating up the fields I used to know round me;
And the shed that I began in is a sub-inspector's office--
 So long have I been here!

I've seen six hundred mornings make our lamps grow dim,
Through the bit that isn't painted round our sky-light rim,
And the sunshine through the window slope according to the seasons,
 Twice since I've been here.

The trains on the sidings they call to us
With the hundred thousand blanks that they haul to us;
And we send 'em what we've finished, and they take it where it's wanted,
 For that is why we are here!

Man's hate passes as his love will pass.
God made Woman what she always was.
Them that bear the burden they will never grant forgiveness
 So long as they are here!

Once I was a woman, but that's by with me.
All I loved and looked for, it must die with me;
But the Lord has left me over for a servant of the Judgment,
 And I serve His Judgments here!

Guns in Flanders--Flanders guns!
(I had a son that worked 'em once!)
Shells for guns in Flanders, Flanders!
Shells for guns in Flanders, Flanders!
 Shells for guns in Flanders! Feeds the guns!

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry