Works

Cherish you then the hope I shall forget
At length, my lord, Pieria?--put away
For your so passing sake, this mouth of clay
These mortal bones against my body set,
For all the puny fever and frail sweat...

If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
That you were gone, not to return again--
Read from the back-page of a paper, say,
Held by a neighbor in a subway train,
How at the corner of this avenue...

This door you might not open, and you did;
So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed. . . . Here is no treasure hid,
No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring...

Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
Beats upon my heart.
People twist and scream in pain,--
Dawn will find them still again;
This has neither wax nor wane,
Neither stop nor start.
...

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know....

I'll keep a little tavern
Below the high hill's crest,
Wherein all grey-eyed people
May set them down and rest.

There shall be plates a-plenty,
And mugs to melt the chill...

Ho, Giant! This is I!
I have built me a bean-stalk into your sky!
La,--but it's lovely, up so high!

This is how I came,--I put
Here my knee, there my foot,
Up and up, from shoot to shoot--...

God had called us, and we came;
Our loved Earth to ashes left;
Heaven was a neighbor's house,
Open to us, bereft.

Gay the lights of Heaven showed,
And 'twas God who walked ahead;...

When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes,
And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind
Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned
Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes,...

Love, if I weep it will not matter,
And if you laugh I shall not care;
Foolish am I to think about it,
But it is good to feel you there.

Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking,--...

I knew her for a little ghost
That in my garden walked;
The wall is high--higher than most--
And the green gate was locked.

And yet I did not think of that
Till after she was gone--...

OH, here the air is sweet and still,
And soft's the grass to lie on;
And far away's the little hill
They took for Christ to die on.

And there's a hill across the brook,...

Oh, I am grown so free from care
Since my heart broke!
I set my throat against the air,
I laugh at simple folk!

There's little kind and little fair
Is worth its weight in smoke...

I had a little Sorrow,
Born of a little Sin,
I found a room all damp with gloom
And shut us all within;
And, "Little Sorrow, weep," said I,
"And, Little Sin, pray God to die,...

And what are you that, wanting you
I should be kept awake
As many nights as there are days
With weeping for your sake?

And what are you that, missing you,
As many days as crawl...

Down, you mongrel, Death!
Back into your kennel!
I have stolen breath
In a stalk of fennel!
You shall scratch and you shall whine
Many a night, and you shall worry
Many a bone, before you bury...

All right,
Go ahead!
What's in a name?
I guess I'll be locked into
As much as I'm locked out of!

Death, I say, my heart is bowed
Unto thine,--O mother!
This red gown will make a shroud
Good as any other!

(I, that would not wait to wear
My own bridal things,
In a dress dark as my hair...

What should I be but a prophet and a liar,
Whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar?
Teethed on a crucifix and cradled under water,
What should I be but the fiend's god-daughter?
...

"Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more!
Thou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body sore!
And all for a pledge that was not pledged by me,
I have kissed thy crust and eaten sparingly...