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| Memory of April |
54 |
| Epitaph |
55 |
| Daisy |
56 |
| Primrose |
57 |
| Queen-Ann’s-Lace |
58 |
| Great Mullen |
59 |
| Waiting |
60 |
| The Hunter |
61 |
| Arrival |
62 |
| To a Friend Concerning Several Ladies |
63 |
| Youth and Beauty |
65 |
| The Thinker |
66 |
| The Disputants |
67 |
| The Tulip Bed |
68 |
| The Birds |
69 |
| The Nightingales |
70 |
| Spouts |
71 |
| Blueflags |
72 |
| The Widow’s Lament in Springtime |
73 |
| Light Hearted William |
74 |
| Portrait of the Author |
75 |
| The Lonely Street |
77 |
| The Great Figure |
78 |
SOUR GRAPES
THE LATE SINGER
Here it is spring again
and I still a young man!
I am late at my singing.
The sparrow with the black rain on his breast
has been at his cadenzas for two weeks past:
What is it that is dragging at my heart?
The grass by the back door
is stiff with sap.
The old maples are opening
their branches of brown and yellow moth-flowers.
A moon hangs in the blue
in the early afternoons over the marshes.
I am late at my singing. |
MARCH
| I |
Winter is long in this climate
and spring—a matter of a few days
only,—a flower or two picked
from mud or from among wet leaves
or at best against treacherous
bitterness of wind, and sky shining
teasingly, then closing in black
and sudden, with fierce jaws. |
| |
| II |
March,
you remind me of
the pyramids, our pyramids—
stript of the polished stone
that used to guard them!
March,
you are like Fra Angelico
at Fiesole, painting on plaster!
March,
you are like a band of
young poets that have not learned
the blessedness of warmth
(or have forgotten it).
At any rate—
I am moved to write poetry
for the warmth there is in it
and for the loneliness—
a poem that shall have you
in it March. |
| |
| III |
See!
Ashur-ban-i-pal,
the archer king, on horse-back,
in blue and yellow enamel!
with drawn bow—facing lions
standing on their hind legs,
fangs bared! his shafts
bristling in their necks!
Sacred bulls—dragons
in embossed brickwork
marching—in four tiers—
along the sacred way to
Nebuchadnezzar’s throne hall!
They shine in the sun,
they that have been
|
