OLD LADY'S WINTER WORDS

 

Page 5 (Image 1000012237)

The people on the street look up at us All envious. We are a king and queen, Our royal carriage is a motor bus, We watch our subjects with a haughtily joy.... How still you are! Have you been hard at work And are you tired to-night? It is so long Since I have seen you —— four whole days, I think. My heart is crowded full of foolish thoughts Like early flowers in an April meadow, And I must give them to you, all of them, Before they fade. The people I have met, The plays I saw, the trivial, shifting things That loom too big or shrink too little, shadows That hurry, gesturing along a wall, Haunting or gay —— and yet they all grow real And take their proper size here in my heart When you have seen them. —— There’s the Plaza now, A lake of light! To-night it almost seems That all the lights are gathered in your eyes, Drawn somehow toward you. See the open park Lying below us with a million lamps Scattered in wise disorder like the stars. We look down on them as God must look down On constellations floating under Him Tangled in clouds —— Come, then, and let us walk Since we have reached the park. It is our garden, All black and blossomless this winter night, But we bring April with us, you and I; We set the whole world on the trail of spring. I think that every path we ever took Has marked our footprints in mysterious fire, Delicate gold that only fairies see. When they wake up at dawn in hollow tree-trunks And come out on a drowsy park, they look Along the empty paths and say, "oh, here They went, and here, and here, and here! Come, see, Here is their bench; take hands and let us dance About it in a windy ring and make A circle round it only they can cross When they come back again!" —— Look at the lake— Do you remember how we watched the swans That night in late October while they slept?

[Swans] (Image 1000012238)

Swans must have stately dreams, I think. But now The lake bears only thin reflected lights That shake a little. How I long to take One from the cold black water —— new-made gold To give you in your hand! And see, and see, There is a star, deep in the lake, a star! Oh, dimmer than a pearl —— if you stoop low Your hand could almost reach it up to me....

(b) There was a new frail yellow moon to-night —— I wish you could have had it for a cup With stars like dew to fill it to the brim....

(c) How cold it is! Even the lights are cold; They have put shawls of fog around them, see! What if the air should grow so dimly white That we would lose our way along the paths Made new by walls of moving mist receding The more we follow —— What a silver night! That was our bench the time you said to me. The long new poem —— but how different now, How eerie with the curtain of the fog Making it strange to all the friendly trees! There is no wind, and yet great curving scrolls Carve themselves, ever changing, in the mist. Walk on a little, let me stand here watching To see you, too, grown strange to me and far....

(d) I used to wonder how the park would be If one night we could have it all alone —— No lovers with close arm-encircled waists To whisper and break in upon our dreams. And now we have it! Every wish comes true! We are alone now in a fleecy world; Even the stars have gone. We two alone!

5. OLD LADY'S WINTER WORDS (Image 1000012233)

(Note: These are excerpts from Theodore Roethke)

(a) To seize, to seize, — I know that dream. Now my orders sleep in a sleeve. My eyes have forgotten — Like the half-dead, I hug my secrets — O for some minstrel of what's to be, A bird singing into the beyond, The marrow of God, talking, Full marrow, a gleam Gracious and blank, On a bright stone. Somewhere, among the ferns and birds The great swamps flash. I would hold high converse Where the winds gather

(Text continues on Image 1000012234) And leap over my eye, And old woman Jumping in her shoes. If only I could remember The white gears bending away, The doors swinging open, The smells, the moment of hay, — When I went to sea in a sigh, In a boat of beautiful things. The good day has gone — The fair house, the high Elm swinging around With its deep shade, and birds. I have listened close For the thin sound in the windy chimney, The fall of the last ash From the dying ember. I've become a sentry of small seeds, Poking alone in my garden. The stone walks, where are they? Gone to bolster a road. The shrunken soil Has scampered away in a dry wind. Once I was sweet with the light of myself, A self-delighting creature, Leaning over a rock. My hair between me and the sun, The waves rippling near me. My feet remembered the earth, The loam heaved me That way and this. My bones had a voice; I was careless in growing —

(b) If I were a young man, I could roll in the dust of a fine rage.

13. THE FOUNTAIN (Image 1000012239/1000012241)

(Note: Poem by Sara Teasdale)

(a) Oh in the deep blue night The fountain sang alone; It sang to the drowsy heart Of the satyr carved in stone.

(b) The fountain sang and sang But the satyr never stirred —— Only the great white moon In the empty heaven heard.

(c) The fountain sang and sang And on the marble rim The milk-white peacocks slept, Their dreams were strange and dim.

(d) Bright dew was on the grass, And on the ilex dew, The dreamy milk-white birds Were all a-glisten too.

(e) The fountain sang and sang The things one cannot tell, The dreaming peacocks stirred And the gleaming dew-drops fell.

15. "I AM NOT YOURS" (Image 1000012240)

(Note: Poem by Sara Teasdale)

(a) I am not yours, not lost in you, Not lost, although I long to be Lost as a candle lit at noon, Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

(b) You love me, and I find you still A spirit beautiful and bright, Yet I am I, who long to be Lost as a light is lost in light.

(c) Oh plunge me deep in love —— put out My senses, leave me deaf and blind, Swept by the tempest of your love, A taper in a rushing wind.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

(4) NIGHTFALL

  ​ (a) We will never walk again As we used to walk at night, Watching our shadows lengthen Under the gold street-light When the snow was new and white. ​ (b) We will never walk again Slowly, we too, In spring, when the park is sweet With midnight and with dew, And the passers-by are few. ​ (c) I sit and think of it all, Out in the twilight dim, — A street-piano cries And stars come out in the skies. ​(5) IT IS NOT A WORD ​ (a) It is not a word spoken, Few words are said; Not even a look of the eyes, Nor a bend of the head. ​But only a hush of the heart That has too much to keep, Only memories waking That sleep so light a sleep. ​(6) MY HEART IS HEAVY ​ (a) My heart is heavy with many a song Like ripe fruit bearing down the tree, But I can never give you one — My songs do not belong to me. ​ (b) Yet in the evening, in the dusk When moths go to and fro, In the gray hour if the fruit has fallen, Take it, no one will know. ​(7) THE NIGHTS REMEMBE...
Read more

1. SLOW SEASON

  (a) The ravages of wind and rain are healed. The haze of harvest drifts along the field Until clear eyes put on the look of sleep. (b) The garden spider weaves a silken pear To keep inclement weather from its young. Straight from the oak, the gossamer is hung. At dusk our slow breath thickens on the air. (c) Lost hues of birds the trees take as their own. Long since, bronze wheat was gathered into sheaves. The walker trudges ankle-deep in leaves; The feather of the milkweed flutters down. (d) The shoots of spring have mellowed with the year. Buds, long unsealed, obscure the narrow lane. The blood slows trance-like in the altered vein; Our vernal wisdom moves through ripe to sere. 2. MID-COUNTRY BLOW (a) All night and all day the wind roared in the trees Until I could think there were waves rolling high as my bedroom floor; When I stood at the window, an elm bough swept to my knees; The blue spruce lashed like a surf at the doo r. (b) The second dawn I could not have believed; ...
Read more

Poems of Walter de la Mare, 1873-1956

 Selected from Collected Poems 1901-1918, Vol II: Songs of Childhood, Peacock Pie , 1920, unless otherwise noted. We compiled a brief biography of de la Mare for you. Click here to read it. Purchase AO's Volume 2 poetry collection, which includes de la Mare, Field, Riley, and Rossetti in paperback or Kindle ( $amzn ) ( K ) 01. The Horseman I heard a horseman    Ride over the hill; The moon shone clear, The night was still; His helm was silver,    And pale was he; And the horse he rode    Was of ivory. 02. Up and Down Down the Hill of Ludgate,    Up the Hill of Fleet, To and fro and East and West    With people flows the street; Even the King of England    On Temple Bar must beat For leave to ride to Ludgate    Down the Hill of Fleet. 03. Mrs. Earth Mrs. Earth makes silver black,    Mrs. Earth makes iron red But Mrs. Earth can not st...
Read more