Elinor Wylie Poems
A collection of select Elinor Wylie famous poems that were written by Elinor Wylie or written about the poet by other famous poets. PoetrySoup is a comprehensive educational resource of the greatest poems and poets on history.
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by
Elinor Wylie
You are a rose, but set with sharpest spine;
You are a pretty bird that pecks at me;
You are a little squirrel on a tree,
Pelting me with the prickly fruit of the pine;
A diamond, torn from a crystal mine,
Not like that milky treasure of the sea,
A smooth, translucent pearl, but skilfully
Carven to cut,...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
My love came up from Barnegat,
The sea was in his eyes;
He trod as softly as a cat
And told me terrible lies.
His hair was yellow as new-cut pine
In shavings curled and feathered;
I thought how silver it would shine
By cruel winters weathered.
But he was in his twentieth year,
Ths time I'm speaking of;
We were...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
When foxes eat the last gold grape,
And the last white antelope is killed,
I shall stop fighting and escape
Into a little house I'll build.
But first I'll shrink to fairy size,
With a whisper no one understands,
Making blind moons of all your eyes,
And muddy roads of all your hands.
And you may grope for me in vain...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
This is the bricklayer; hear the thud
Of his heavy load dumped down on stone.
His lustrous bricks are brighter than blood,
His smoking mortar whiter than bone.
Set each sharp-edged, fire-bitten brick
Straight by the plumb-line's shivering length;
Make my marvelous wall so thick
Dead nor living may shake its strength.
Full as a crystal cup with drink
Is my...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
How can I keep my soul in me, so that
it doesn't touch your soul? How can I raise
it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote
lost objects, in some dark and silent place
that doesn't resonate when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violin's bow,
which draws...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
The Hielan' lassies are a' for spinnin',
The Lowlan' lassies for prinkin' and pinnin';
My daddie w'u'd chide me, an' so w'u'd my minnie
If I s'u'd bring hame sic a prinkin' leddie.
Now haud your tongue, ye haverin' coward,
For whilst I'm young I'll go flounced an' flowered,
In lutestring striped like the strings o' a fiddle,
Wi' gowden...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
Sleep falls, with limpid drops of rain,
Upon the steep cliffs of the town.
Sleep falls; men are at peace again
While the small drops fall softly down.
The bright drops ring like bells of glass
Thinned by the wind, and lightly blown;
Sleep cannot fall on peaceful grass
So softly as it falls on stone.
Peace falls unheeded on the...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
Hate in the world's hand
Can carve and set its seal
Like the strong blast of sand
Which cuts into steel.
I have seen how the finger of hate
Can mar and mould
Faces burned passionate
And frozen cold.
Sorrowful faces worn
As stone with rain,
Faces writhing with scorn
And sullen with pain.
But you have a proud face
Which the...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
Let us quarrel for these reasons:
You detest the salt which seasons
My speech . . . and all my lights go out
In the cold poison of your doubt.
I love Shelley . . . you love Keats
Something parts and something meets.
I love salads . . . you love chops;
Something goes and something stops.
Something...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
The old moon is tarnished
With smoke of the flood,
The dead leaves are varnished
With colour like blood.
A treacherous smiler
With teeth white as milk,
A savage beguiler
In sheathings of silk
The sea creeps to pillage,
She leaps on her prey;
A child of the village
Was murdered today.
She came up to meet him
In...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
Ah, love, within the shadow of the wood
The laurels are cut down; some other brows
May bear the classic wreath which Fame allows
And find the burden honorable and good.
Have we not passed the laurels as they stood--
Soft in the veil with which Spring endows
The wintry glitter of their woven boughs--
Nor stopped to break...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
Let us walk in the white snow
In a soundless space;
With footsteps quiet snd slow,
At a tranquil pace,
Under veils of white lace.
I shall go shod in silk,
And you in wool,
White as white cow's milk,
More beautiful
Than the breast of a gull.
We shall walk through the still town
In a windless peace;
We shall...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
For this you've striven
Daring, to fail:
Your sky is riven
Like a tearing veil.
For this, you've wasted
Wings of your youth;
Divined, and tasted
Bitter springs of truth.
From sand unslakèd
Twisted strong cords,
And wandering naked
Among trysted swords.
There's a word unspoken,
A knot untied.
Whatever is broken
The earth may hide.
The road was jagged
Over sharp stones:...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
As I was lying in my bed
I heard the church-bell ring;
Before one solemn word was said
A bird began to sing.
I heard a dog begin to bark
And a bold crowing cock;
The bell, between the cold and dark,
Tolled. It was five o'clock.
The church-bell tolled, and the bird sang,
A clear true voice he had;
The...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
Once, when my husband was a child, there came
To his father's table, one who called him kin,
In sunbleached corduroys paler than his skin.
His look was grave and kind; he bore the name
Of the dead singer of Senlac, and his smile.
Shyly and courteously he smiled and spoke;
"I've been in the laurel since the winter broke;
Four months, I reckon; yes, sir,...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
If we must cheat ourselves with any dream,
Then let it be a dream of nobleness:
Since it is necessary to express
Gall from black grapes--to sew an endless seam
With a rusty needle--chase a spurious gleam
Narrowing to the nothing through the less--
Since life's no better than a bitter guess,
And love's a stranger--let us change the...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
When my eyes are weeds,
And my lips are petals, spinning
Down the wind that has beginning
Where the crumpled beeches start
In a fringe of salty reeds;
When my arms are elder-bushes,
And the rangy lilac pushes
Upward, upward through my heart;
Summer, do your worst!
Light your tinsel moon, and call on
Your performing stars to fall on
Headlong through your paper sky;
Nevermore shall I be cursed
By a...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
The headlights raced; the moon, death-faced,
Stared down on that golden river.
I saw through the smoke the scarlet cloak
Of a boy who could not shiver.
His father's hand forced him to stand,
The traffic thundered slaughter;
One foot he thrust in the whirling dust
As it were running water.
As in a dream I saw the stream
Scatter in...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
Now let no charitable hope
Confuse my mind with images
Of eagle and of antelope:
I am by nature none of these.
I was, being human, born alone;
I am, being woman, hard beset;
I live by squeezing from a stone
What little nourishment I get.
In masks outrageous and austere
The years go by in single file;
But...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
My land is bare of chattering folk;
The clouds are low along the ridges,
And sweet's the air with curly smoke
From all my burning bridges....Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
When against earth a wooden heel
Clicks as loud as stone on steel,
When stone turns flour instead of flakes,
And frost bakes clay as fire bakes,
When the hard-bitten fields at last
Crack like iron flawed in the cast,
When the world is wicked and cross and old,
I long to be quit of the cruel cold.
Little birds...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
The rain's cold grains are silver-gray
Sharp as golden sands,
A bell is clanging, people sway
Hanging by their hands.
Supple hands, or gnarled and stiff,
Snatch and catch and grope;
That face is yellow-pale, as if
The fellow swung from rope.
Dull like pebbles, sharp like knives,
Glances strike and glare,
Fingers tangle, Bluebeard's wives
Dangle by the hair.
Orchard of...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
Too high, too high to pluck
My heart shall swing.
A fruit no bee shall suck,
No wasp shall sting.
If on some night of cold
It falls to ground
In apple-leaves of gold
I'll wrap it round.
And I shall seal it up
With spice and salt,
In a carven silver cup,
In a deep vault.
Before my eyes are blind...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
BARCAROLE ON THE STYX
Fair youth with the rose at your lips,
A riddle is hid in your eyes;
Discard conversational quips,
Give over elaborate disguise.
The rose's funeral breath
Confirms by intuitive fears;
To prove your devotion, Sir Death,
Avaunt for a dozen of years.
But do not forget to array
Your terror in juvenile charms;
I shall deeply regret my...Read more of this...
by
Elinor Wylie
Once upon a time I heard
That the flying moon was a Phoenix bird;
Thus she sails through windy skies,
Thus in the willow's arms she lies;
Turn to the East or turn to the West
In many trees she makes her nest.
When she's but a pearly thread
Look among birch leaves overhead;
When she dies in yellow...Read more of this...