sww1107

There by the window in the old house
Perched on the bluff, overlooking miles of valley,
My days of labor closed, sitting out life's decline,
Day by day did I look in my memory,
As one who gazes in an enchantress' crystal globe,...

This wild night, gathering the washing as if it were flowers animal vines twisting over the line and
slapping my face lightly, soundless merriment
in the gesticulations of shirtsleeves,
I recall out of my joy a night of misery
...

The fox pushes softly, blindly through me at night,
between the liver and the stomach. Comes to the heart
and hesitates. Considers and then goes around it.
Trying to escape the mildness of our violent world.
Goes deeper, searchi...

So, art thou feahered, art thou flown,
Thou naked thing?—and canst alone
Upon the unsolid summer air
Sustain thyself, and prosper there?
Shall  no more with anxious note
Advise thee  through the happy day,
...

THEY put up big wooden gods. Then they burned the big wooden gods And put up brass gods and Changing their minds suddenly Knocked down the brass gods and put up A doughface god with gold earrings. The poor mutts, the pathetic slant heads, They d...

In many and reportless places
We feel a Joy --
Reportless, also, but sincere as Nature
Or Deity --

It comes, without a consternation --
Dissolves -- the same --
But leaves a sumptuous Destitution --
Without a Na...

(1)

This is the sea, then, this great abeyance.
How the sun's poultice draws on my inflammation.

Electrifyingly-colored sherbets, scooped from the freeze
By pale girls, travel the air in scorched hands.

Why is...

I saw thee once- once only- years ago:
I must not say how many- but not many.
It was a July midnight; and from out
A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
Ther...

(1)The Sea! the Sea! the open Sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free! 
Without a mark, without a bound, ，
It runneth the earth's wide regions 'round; 
It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies; 
Or like a ...

When our yacht sails seaward on steady keel
And the wind is moist with breath of brine
And our laughter tells of our perfect weal,
We may carol the praises of ruby wine;
But if, automobiling, my woes combine
And fuel gives out ...

How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways.


I love thee to the depth and breadth and height


My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight


For the ends of being and idea...

I'm Nobody
             by Emily Dickinson

I'm nobody, who are you?
Are you nobody,too?
Then there is a pair of us.
They'd advertise -- you know!
...

I loved you;

 and perhaps I love you still,


The flame, perhaps, is not extinguished;

yet


It burns so quietly within my soul,


No longer should you feel distresse...

I heard a Fly buzz — when I died — 
 The stillness in the room
Was like the stillness in the air —
Between the heaves of storm —

The eyes around — had wrung them dry —
And...

If you were coming in the Fall,
I'd brush the Summer by
With half a smile, and half a spurn,
As Housewives do, a Fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls --
And put them each in separate Drawer...

In the rectory garden on his evening walk
Paced brisk Father Shawn.  A cold day, a sodden one it was
In black November.  After a sliding rain
Dew stood in chill sweat on each stalk,
Each thorn; spiring from wet earth, a bl...

I've been list'nin' to them lawyers
In the court house up the street,
An' I've come to the conclusion
That I'm most completely beat.
Fust one feller riz to argy,
An' he boldly waded in
As he dressed the tremblin' pris'ner...

The furthest distance in the world


Is not between life and death

But when I stand in front of you

Yet you don't know that I love you

The furthest distance in the world

Is not when...

It was only a little house of two rooms --
Almost like a child's play-house --
With scarce five acres of ground around it;
And I had so many children to feed
And school and clothe, and a wife who was sick
From bearing children....

Oh Shadow on the Grass, Art thou a Step or not? Go make thee fair my Candidate My nominated Heart -- Oh Shadow on the Grass While I delay to guess Some other thou wilt consecrate -- Oh Unelected Face --  

Numb, stiff, broken by no sleep,
I keep night watch. Looking for
signs to quiet fear, I creep
closer to his bed and hear
his breath come and go, holding
my own as if my own were
all I paid. Nothing I bring,
say...

Numb, stiff, broken by no sleep,
I keep night watch. Looking for
signs to quiet fear, I creep
closer to his bed and hear
his breath come and go, holding
my own as if my own were
all I paid. Nothing I bring,
say...

Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king;
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing,
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The palm and may make country ...

Our little Kinsmen -- after Rain In plenty may be seen, A Pink and Pulpy multitude The tepid Ground upon. A needless life, it seemed to me Until a little Bird As to a Hospitality Advanced and breakfasted. As I of He, so God of Me I pondere...

A Poem on Spring

The long and lonesome winter nights
thawed in Spring's intoxicating breath
embalmed with the message of rebirth
loud in the breaking of riotous green.

Both earth and heaven are possessed
...

I pray you not, Leuconoë, to pore
With unpermitted eyes on what may be
Appointed by the gods for you and me,
Nor on Chaldean figures any more.
’T were infinitely better to implore
The present only:—whether ...

A Burdock -- clawed my Gown --
Not Burdock's -- blame --
But mine --
Who went too near
The Burdock's Den --

A Bog -- affronts my shoe --
What else have Bogs -- to do --
The only Trade they know --
The splas...

How the Waters closed above Him We shall never know -- How He stretched His Anguish to us That -- is covered too -- Spreads the Pond Her Base of Lilies Bold above the Boy Whose unclaimed Hat and Jacket Sum the History --

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For wh...