Poem Hunter: Poems - Poets - Poetry

BELOW, the street was hoarse with cries,
With groan of carts and scuffling feet,
With laughter worse than blasphemies,
Was choked with dust and blind with heat,
This room was still--too still for peace.

It heard the livid words we said
Of hate and passion, watched us where
I sat, as one beside the dead--
You lay with all your glorious hair
Flung on the crazy bed.

The moment's passion ended brought--
Ah, child, to you what did it bring?
What could it, but one hideous thought
To us so tired of everything,
And hating what we sought?

--So tired of all this grey room meant,
Of life together, shackled cold,
Or bound in flame so different
From the swift, white desire of old,
The old, divine consent.

Poor room, so meanly intimate!
Our dirty clothes sprawled on a chair,
Combs, candle-ends, and grimy plate
Littered the table, paper and hair
Forlornely choked the grate.


...

I hear an army charging upon the land,
And the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their knees:
Arrogant, in black armour, behind them stand,
Disdaining the reins, with fluttering whips, the charioteers.

They cry unto the night their battle-name:
I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughter.
They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame,
Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.


...

Sometimes I feel like I'm crazy!
Solidly crazy, Desperately crazy
Aware I'm doing wrong, still trying
Hang me thrice, still breathing
Struggling to be something
Suffer with everything
Seem like death's friend calling.
...

She was aweary of the hovering
Of Love's incessant tumultuous wing;
Her lover's tokens she would answer not--
'Twere well she should be strange with him somewhat:
A pretty babe, this Love,--but fie on it,
That would not suffer her lay it down a whit!
Appointed tryst defiantly she balked,
And with her lightest comrade lightly walked,
Who scared the chidden Love to hide apart,
And peep from some unnoticed corner of her heart.
She thought not of her lover, deem it not
(There yonder, in the hollow, that's HIS cot),
But she forgot not that he was forgot.
She saw him at his gate, yet stilled her tongue--
So weak she felt her, that she would feel strong,
And she must punish him for doing him wrong:
Passed, unoblivious of oblivion still;
And if she turned upon the brow o' the hill,
It was so openly, so lightly done,
You saw she thought he was not thought upon.
He through the gate went back in bitterness;
She that night woke and stirred, with no distress,
Glad of her doing,--sedulous to be glad,
Lest perhaps her foolish heart suspect that it was sad.
...

Here I am in the garden laughing
an old woman with heavy breasts
and a nicely mapped face

how did this happen
well that's who I wanted to be

at last a woman
in the old style sitting
stout thighs apart under

...

Time she spends without a pause,
Half sleep, half food, a silent cause,
A gentle smile, a fleeting gleam,
She works like an endless stream.


Like a machine with tireless might,
Resting briefly between the night,
Her arms bear the weight alone,
Carrying dreams she's never known.

...

Sun and wind and beat of sea,
Great lands stretching endlessly…
Where be bonds to bind the free?
All the world was made for me!
...

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
...

You may not be able to see me,
but that does not mean I am no longer here.
You may not be able to touch me,
but that does not mean I am gone forever.
The physical world may know me to be dead,
but I am, in truth, very much alive -
more alive, in fact, than I have ever been,
In ways that you do not understand.
You think that I am unaware of how much you miss me,
but know that I miss you even more.

...