Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow. I am the diamond glints on snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain. I am the gentle autumn rain. When you awaken in the morning's hush I am the swift uplifting rush Of quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Sonnet Xxv

Before I loved you, love, nothing was my own: I wavered through the streets, among Objects: Nothing mattered or had a name: The world was made of air, which waited. I knew rooms full of ashes, Tunnels where the moon lived, Rough warehouses that growled 'get lost', Questions that insisted in the sand.

Autumn

Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain, With banners, by great gales incessant fanned, Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand, And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain! Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne, Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand Outstretched with benedictions o'er the land, Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain! Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended So long beneath the heaven's o'er-hanging eaves;

1914

War broke: and now the Winter of the world With perishing great darkness closes in. The foul tornado, centred at Berlin, Is over all the width of Europe whirled, Rending the sails of progress. Rent or furled Are all Art's ensigns. Verse wails. Now begin Famines of thought and feeling. Love's wine's thin. The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled. For after Spring had bloomed in early Greece,

I Remember You As You Were

I remember you as you were in the last autumn. You were the grey beret and the still heart. In your eyes the flames of the twilight fought on. And the leaves fell in the water of your soul. Clasping my arms like a climbing plant the leaves garnered your voice, that was slow and at peace. Bonfire of awe in which my thirst was burning. Sweet blue hyacinth twisted over my soul.

Autumn Moonlight

Autumn moonlight-- a worm digs silently into the chestnut. Translated by Robert Hass

Arrival

And yet one arrives somehow, finds himself loosening the hooks of her dress in a strange bedroom-- feels the autumn dropping its silk and linen leaves about her ankles. The tawdry veined body emerges twisted upon itself like a winter wind . . . !

Autumn Song

Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf How the heart feels a languid grief Laid on it for a covering, And how sleep seems a goodly thing In Autumn at the fall of the leaf? And how the swift beat of the brain Falters because it is in vain, In Autumn at the fall of the leaf Knowest thou not? and how the chief

If I Could Write Words

If I could write words Like leaves on an autumn forest floor, What a bonfire my letters would make. If I could speak words of water, You would drown when I said 'I love you.'

Autumn Within

It is autumn; not without But within me is the cold. Youth and spring are all about; It is I that have grown old. Birds are darting through the air, Singing, building without rest; Life is stirring everywhere, Save within my lonely breast.

A Dream

I dreamt of autumn in the window's twilight, And you, a tipsy jesters' throng amidst. ' And like a falcon, having stooped to slaughter, My heart returned to settle on your wrist. But time went on, grew old and deaf. Like thawing Soft ice old silk decayed on easy chairs. A bloated sunset from the garden painted The glass with bloody red September tears.

Autumn Daybreak

Cold wind of autumn, blowing loud At dawn, a fortnight overdue, Jostling the doors, and tearing through My bedroom to rejoin the cloud, I know—for I can hear the hiss And scrape of leaves along the floor— How may boughs, lashed bare by this, Will rake the cluttered sky once more. Tardy, and somewhat south of east, The sun will rise at length, made known

Sonnet 88: Trees

There is never a sight more beautiful Or so amazing than that of a tree, In summer with branches and leaves so full With gently swaying boughs for all to see. Sure footed roots set so deep in the earth Where wriggly worms and microbes do dwell To branches where robins nest and give birth, Oh how these trees have some stories to tell.

Eating And Drinking Chapter Vi

Then an old man, a keeper of an inn, said, "Speak to us of Eating and Drinking." And he said: Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light. But since you must kill to eat, and rob the young of its mother's milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of worship, And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in many.

'Fall, Leaves, Fall'

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away; Lengthen night and shorten day; Every leaf speaks bliss to me Fluttering from the autumn tree. I shall smile when wreaths of snow Blossom where the rose should grow; I shall sing when night's decay Ushers in a drearier day.

A Baby's Cradle With No Baby In It

A baby's cradle with no baby in it, A baby's grave where autumn leaves drop sere; The sweet soul gathered home to Paradise, The body waiting here.

First Day Of Spring

First day of spring-- I keep thinking about the end of autumn. Translated by Robert Hass

God's World

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough! Thy winds, thy wide grey skies! Thy mists that roll and rise! Thy woods this autumn day, that ache and sag And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff! World, World, I cannot get thee close enough! Long have I known a glory in it all, But never knew I this;

1915

I’ve watched the Seasons passing slow, so slow, In the fields between La Bassée and Bethune; Primroses and the first warm day of Spring, Red poppy floods of June, August, and yellowing Autumn, so To Winter nights knee-deep in mud or snow, And you’ve been everything. Dear, you’ve been everything that I most lack In these soul-deadening trenches—pictures, books,

Black Stone On Top Of A White Stone

I shall die in Paris, in a rainstorm, On a day I already remember. I shall die in Paris- it does not bother me- Doubtless on a Thursday, like today, in autumn. It shall be a Thursday, because today, Thursday As I put down these lines, I have set my shoulders To the evil. Never like today have I turned, And headed my whole journey to the ways where I am alone.