Paul Fort Poems

I RECOGNIZED him by his skips and hops,
And by his hair I knew that he was Pan.
Through sunny avenues he ran,
...

IVY has covered all the wall. How many hours, how many tears, since once we loved? How many days?

No roses now; ivy has torn the vine. Where is thy soul?... Climbing o'er the swallows nests, the ivy has stifled all the manor.
...

THE devil's ruby eyes peer all night long,
A-hunting mice to spit upon his little prong.

He kills three hundred thousand in his wrath,
...

THE sea is brown and green, and silver-flecked,
And roars as mountain-shadowed forests do.
The sky's grey velvet in the wind is checked
...

THE maidens short of stature, brown of hands,
With sickles hanging from their arms like moons,
Are drinking air from night's star-studded bowl,
And wending homewards from the woods at gloam.
...

THIS maiden she is dead, is dead before her wedding-day.
They lay her in her shroud, her shroud as white as flowering may.
They bear her to the earth, the earth, while yet the dawn is grey.
...

UNTO thee shall be given a boat, and thou shalt all alone embark ...
The oars shall sleep along thy slumber in the dark.
And yet the river in the night shall guide.
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BOWED o'er my staff, but raising not my head, I did not see the lightning flare. O my flock! I saw the two green eye-balls of a cat flit in the air.

He is in the lime-trees, mewing. What a gale! I hear Pluto, my dog, bark. I hear some one hail me 'Daphnis' in the pasture-land. Has death come to my house in the deep dark?
...

THE swallow flees. The twilight falls apace. The swallow flees, and the hawk follows. The moon is sparkling on the pond's chill face, and in its image drowns itself the swallow.
...

I LOVED the mother, and I loved the daughter. He sails for many a month, does sailor Jack. I loved the mother when I left her; I loved the daughter, too, when I came back.
...