Jean Starr Untermeyer Poems

How memory cuts away the years,
And how clean the picture comes
Of autumn days, brisk and busy;
...

I edged back against the night.
The sea growled assault on the wave-bitten shore.
And the breakers,
...

I stand between them and the outer winds,
But I am a crumbling wall.
They told me they could bear the blast alone,
They told me: that was all.
...

Across the hot square, where the barbaric sun
Pours coarse laughter on the crowds,
Trumpets throw their loud nooses
...

When an old man walks with lowered head
And eyes that do not seem to see,
I wonder does he ponder on
The worm he was or is to be.
...

Temper my spirit, oh Lord,
Burn out its alloy,
And make it a pliant steel for thy wielding,
Not a clumsy toy,
...

'Isn't it quaint,' he turned and said to me,
'To watch these village people at the fair?'
But I had seen too often what was there;
...

Since the earliest days I have dressed myself
In fanciful clothes;
Trying to satisfy a whispering insistence.
...

Plow not nor plant this arid mound.
Here is no sap for seed,
No ferment for your need-
Ungrateful ground!
...

They say I have a constant heart, who know
Not anything of how it turns and yields
First here, first there; nor how in separate fields
...