Elinor Morton Wylie Poems

Beauty has a tarnished dress,
And a patchwork cloak of cloth
Dipped deep in mournfulness,
Striped like a moth.
...

Too high, too high to pluck
My heart shall swing.
A fruit no bee shall suck,
No wasp shall sting.
...

When against earth a wooden heel
Clicks as loud as stone on steel,
When stone turns flour instead of flakes,
And frost bakes clay as fire bakes,
...

Better to see your cheek grown hollow,
Better to see your temple worn,
Than to forget to follow, follow,
After the sound of a silver horn.
...

BARCAROLE ON THE STYX


Fair youth with the rose at your lips,
...

Stripping an almond tree in flower
The wise apothecary's skill
A single drop of lethal power
From perfect sweetness can distill
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Lovers eminent in love
Ever diversities combine;
The vocal chords of the cushat-dove,
The snake's articulated spine.
...

I was always afraid of Somes's Pond:
Not the little pond, by which the willow stands,
Where laughing boys catch alewives in their hands
In brown, bright shallows; but the one beyond.
...

You are a rose, but set with sharpest spine;
You are a pretty bird that pecks at me;
You are a little squirrel on a tree,
Pelting me with the prickly fruit of the pine;
...

Sleep falls, with limpid drops of rain,
Upon the steep cliffs of the town.
Sleep falls; men are at peace again
While the small drops fall softly down.
...