Works

Father

Have you spent the money I gave you to-day?

John

Ay, father I have.
A fourpence on cakes, two pennies that away
To a beggar I gave.

Father
...

When a dream is born in you
With a sudden clamorous pain,
When you know the dream is true
And lovely, with no flaw nor stain,
O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch...

In my body lives a flame,
Flame that burns me all the day;
When a fierce sun does the same,
I am charred away.

Who could keep a smiling wit,
Roasted so in heart and hide,...

Old Mr. Philosopher
Comes for Ben and Claire,
An ugly man, a tall man,
With bright-red hair.

The books that he's written
No one can read.
"In fifty years they'll understand:...

Come close to me, dear Annie, while I bind a lover's knot.
A tale of burning love between a kettle and a pot.
The pot was stalwart iron and the kettle trusty tin,...

Now I begin to know at last,
These nights when I sit down to rhyme,
The form and measure of that vast
God we call Poetry, he who stoops
And leaps me through his paper hoops
A little higher every time....

Why do you break upon this old, cool peace,
This painted peace of ours,
With harsh dress hissing like a flock of geese,
With garish flowers?
Why do you churn smooth waters rough again,...

The bugler sent a call of high romance,
"Lights out! Lights out!" to the deserted square.
On the thin brazen notes he threw a prayer,
"God, if it's this for me next time in France ......

Across the room my silent love I throw,
Where you sit sewing in bed by candlelight,
Your young stern profile and industrious fingers
Displayed against the blind in a shadow-show,
To Dinda's grave delight....

When I was not quite five years old
I first saw the blue picture book,
And Fraulein Spitzenburger told
Stories that sent me hot and cold;
I loathed it, yet I had to look:
It was a German book.
...

Lost manor where I walk continually
A ghost, while yet in woman's flesh and blood;
Up your broad stairs mounting with outspread fingers
And gliding steadfast down your corridors...

The youngest poet down the shelves was fumbling
In a dim library, just behind the chair
From which the ancient poet was mum-mumbling
A song about some Lovers at a Fair,...

Can I find True-Love a gift
In this dark hour to restore her,
When body's vessel breaks adrift,
When hope and beauty fade before her?
But in this plight I cannot think...