Witter Bynner

Among the automobiles and in a region
Now Democratic, now Republican,
With a department-store, a branch of the Legion,
...

I Come and go
And never stay.
I pick and choose
A night, a day,
...

In Kamakura, near the great Daibutsu,
When I had sat a long time on the ground
And been gathered up, forgetful of my face and form,
...

Well, I was in the old Second Maine,
The first regiment in Washington from the Pine Tree State.
...

Fiercely I remove from you
All the little vestiges-
Garments that confine you,
Things that touch the flesh,
...

Cease from the asking,
you receive the answer.
God is not God, life life
...

Clouds dream and disappear;
Waters dream in a rainbow and are gone;
Fire-dreams change with the sun
Or when a poppy closes;
...

As if you were an archer
with your swift hand at the bow,
...

Whether the time be slow or fast,
   Enemies, hand in hand,
Must come together at the last
   And understand.
...

By seven vineyards on one hill
   We walked. The native wine
In clusters grew beside us two,
   For your lips and for mine,
...

When I walked home forgotten,
When I walked home in grief,
I found a letter under my door.
...

Has
Like a navel
A hole in its middle
Through which a gull may fly
...

Perhaps they laughed at Dante in his youth,
Told him that truth
Had unappealably been said
In the great masterpieces of the dead: --
...

Because we felt there could not be
A mowing in reality
So white and feathery-blown and gay
With blossoms of wild caraway,
...

In came the moon and covered me with wonder,
Touched me and was near me and made me very still.
In came a rush of song, like rain after thunder,
Pouring importunate on my window-sill.
...

Name me no names for my disease,
   With uninforming breath;
I tell you I am none of these,
   But homesick unto death --
...

Shall I say that what heaven gave
   Earth has taken? --
Or that sleepers in the grave
   Reawaken?
...

Though wisdom underfoot
   Dies in the bloody fields,
Slowly the endless root
   Gathers again and yields.
...

There is an island where a man alone,
Alive beyond the selfishness of living,
Knows the whole world around him as his own
...

Lest I learn, with clearer sight,
Such beauty cannot be -
Tie a bandage, pull it tight,
Blind me, I would not see!
...