Louise Bogan Poems

O God, in the dream the terrible horse began
To paw at the air, and make for me with his blows,
Fear kept for thirty-five years poured through his mane,
And retribution equally old, or nearly, breathed through his nose.
...

Up from the bronze, I saw
Water without a flaw
Rush to its rest in air,
Reach to its rest, and fall.
...

All night the cocks crew, under a moon like day,
And I, in the cage of sleep, on a stranger's breast,
Shed tears, like a task not to be put away---
In the false light, false grief in my happy bed,
...

Now that I have your face by heart, I look
Less at its features than its darkening frame
Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame,
Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd's crook.
...

It is yourself you seek
In a long rage,
Scanning through light and darkness
Mirrors, the page,
...

I’ve come to give you fruit from out my orchard,
Of wide report.
I have trees there that bear me many apples.
Of every sort:
...

The dark is thrown
Back from the brightness, like hair
Cast over a shoulder.
I am alone,
...

Now that I know
How passion warms little
Of flesh in the mould,
And treasure is brittle,--
...

She has no need to fear the fall
Of harvest from the laddered reach
Of orchards, nor the tide gone ebbing
From the steep beach.
...

Come, let us tell the weeds in ditches
How we are poor, who once had riches,
And lie out in the sparse and sodden
Pastures that the cows have trodden,
...