52 Poems
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THE HOUSE OF CHRISTMAS There fared a mother driven forthOut of an inn to roam;In the place where she was homelessAll men are at home.The crazy stable close at hand,With shaking timber and shifting sand,Grew a stronger thing to abide and standThan the square stones of Rome. For men are homesick in their homes,And strangers
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MIAMI WOODS (excerpt) Sage monitors of youth are wont to sayThe eye grows early dim to nature’s charms,And commerce with the world soon dulls the earTo heavenliest sounds. It may be so; but I,Whose feet were on the hills from earliest life,And in the vales, and by the flashing brooks,Have not so found it: —deeper
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THE WISH Well then! I now do plainly see This busy world and I shall ne'er agree. The very honey of all earthly joy Does of all meats the soonest cloy ; And they, methinks, deserve my pity Who for it can endure the stings, The crowd and buzz and murmurings,
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CORRUPTION SURE, it was so. Man in those early days Was not all stone and earth:He shin’d a little, and by those weak rays Had some glimpse of his birth.He saw heaven o’er his head, and knew from whence 5 He came, condemnèd, thither;And, as first love draws strongest, so from hence His mind sure
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DANNY DEEVER ‘What are the bugles blowin’ for?' said Files-on-Parade. ‘To turn you out, to turn you out,’ the Colour-Sergeant said.‘What makes you look so white, so white?’ said Files-on-Parade.‘I’m dreadin’ what I’ve got to watch,’ the Colour-Sergeant said. For they’re hangin’ Danny Deever, you can hear the Dead March play, The Regiment’s
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THANKS Listen with the night falling we are saying thank you we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings we are running out of the glass rooms with our mouths full of food to look at the sky and say thank you we are standing by the water thanking it standing by
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THE PARABLE OF THE OLD MAN AND THE YOUNG So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went, And took the fire with him, and a knife. And as they sojourned both of them together, Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father, Behold the preparations, fire and iron, But where the lamb for this
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BRIDGE MORNING The child outside the swinging door Heard her mother say, I won't make something of myself Stuck at home all day. Honey, said a languid voice, Some days I'm so depressed By toilet bowls and groceries I almost can't get dressed. Another friend remarked, I told My husband that, I said, 'Lanier, you
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WHY SHOULD NOT OLD MEN BE MAD? Why should not old men be mad? Some have known a likely lad That had a sound fly-fisher's wrist Turn to a drunken journalist; A girl that knew all Dante once Live to bear children to a dunce; A Helen of social welfare dream, Climb on a wagonette
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FOUR PRELUDES ON PLAYTHINGS OF THE WIND The past is a bucket of ashes. 1 The woman named Tomorrow sits with a hairpin in her teeth and takes her time and does her hair the way she wants it and fastens at last the last
Light On Dark Water 