What I notice first within
this rough scene fixed
in memory is the rare
quality of its lightning, as if
those bolts were clipped
from a comic book, pasted
on low cloud, or fashioned
with cardboard, daubed
with gilt then hung overhead
on wire and fine hooks.
What I hear most clearly
within that thunder now
is its grief—a moan, a long
lament echoing, an ache.
And the rain? Raucous enough,
pounding, but oddly
musical, and, well,

In my garden now
I hear the cricket cry
Telling Summertime
“Good-by! Good-by!”

I see the first red leaves
And brown leaves fall,
Birds come in flocks
And do not sing at all.

Grapes have a pleasant smell,
And I know a place
Where they hang white and sweet
Against leaves like lace.

Coxcomb like the cry
Of a wounded thing,
Lifts its red head high,
Late blossoming.

Beloved of honey bees,
The orange marigold
Aromatic, spreads
Fold on starry fold.

In the vivid throng
Here fringed asters are,

In yonder old cathedral
Two lovely coffins lie;
In one, the head of the state lies dead,
And a singer sleeps hard by.

Once had that King great power
And proudly ruled the land—
His crown e'en now is on his brow
And his sword is in his hand.

How sweetly sleeps the singer
With calmly folded eyes,
And on the breast of the bard at rest
The harp that he sounded lies.

The castle walls are falling
And war distracts the land,
But the sword leaps not from that mildewed spot
There in that dead king's hand.

Under a brooding, coal-black pall
(Its depths lit up by the furnace-glare)
Thou liest fenced with a gateless wall;
A chimneyed cordon rings thy lair.

A spider of stone and steel and glass,
Thou swayest thy tangled web of wires:
Thou settest snares which none may pass
With a subtle skill that never tires.

A dragon, wingless, gorged with food,
Thou crouchest o'er thy ravined gains,
With gas and water for the blood
Which courses through thy iron veins.

Thou who at once art fair and foul,
Hast built thee palaces wrought of gold,

Tell all the world that summer's here again
With song and joy; tell them, that they may know
How, on the hillside, in the shining fields
New clumps of violets and daisies grow.

Tell all the world that summer's here again,
That white clouds voyage through a sky so still
With blue tranquillity, it seems to hang
One windless tapestry, from hill to hill.

Tell all the world that summer's here again:
Folk go about so solemnly and slow,
Walking each one his grooved and ordered way—
I fear that, otherwise they will not know!

Oh had I the wings of a dove!
Far, far from the world would I fly,
And seek a new home for my love
In those happier regions on high.

I am weary of this lower earth,
Its turmoils, its hopes, and its fears;
The mourning that follows its mirth,
Its mirth that is sadder than tears!

But there is a world yet to come,
By God's presence eternally blest,
Where the good shall inherit a home,
And the weary for ever shall rest.

Oh had I the wings of the dove!
Far, far from the world would I fly,
And find a new home for my love

My true love sent me a valentine
All on a winter's day,
And suddenly the cold gray skies
Grew soft and warm as May!
The snowflakes changed to apple blooms,
A pink-white fluttering crowd,
And on the swaying maple boughs
The robins sang aloud.

For moaning wintry winds, I heard
The music sweet and low
Of morning-glory trumpets
Through which the soft airs blow.
O love of mine, my Valentine!
This is no winter day—
For Love rules all the calendars,
And Love knows only May!

I have hung my misty ivy over all
The pomps of antique Rome, and the gray blight
Of my grim touch upon the Rhine doth smite
Full many a haughty burg and crumbling wall.

In ways severe, implacable, I fall
Where colonnaded Parthenons rise white
Into the nimbus of the soft Greek light,
Or where proud Baalbec's dismal shades appall.

Oh, morbid joy have I, when towns of towers,
And insolent Karnacs, by grave sphinxes girt,
Perish before my dark, destructive powers.
And I am glad to view, with eyes alert,

If I were
suddenly
confronted
by a sestina

would I hold
my ground
or make
for the hills?

snare it
in a paper bag
and release
it outdoors

or laugh
like hell
and notify

Above the Circus of the World she sat,
Beautiful and base, a harlot crowned with pride:
Fierce nations, upon whom she sneered and spat,—
Shrieked at her feet and for her pastime died.