William Stanley Braithwaite
William Stanley Braithwaite Poems
I
OFF our New England coast the sea to-night
Is moaning the full sorrow of its heart:
...
Sandy Star and Willie Gee,
Count 'em two, you make 'em three:
Pluck the man and boy apart
And you'll see into my heart.
...
Turn me to my yellow leaves,
I am better satisfied;
There is something in me grieves--
That was never born, and died.
...
Heart free, hand free,
Blue above, brown under,
All the world to me
Is a place of wonder.
...
Del Cascar, Del Cascar,
Stood upon a flaming star,
Stood, and let his feet hang down
Till in China the toes turned brown.
...
A white road between sea and land,
Night and silence on either hand
Pointing to some unknown gate
...
MY heart gives thanks for many things;
For strength to labor day by day,
For sleep that comes when darkness wings
...
I am glad daylong for the gift of song,
For time and change and sorrow;
For the sunset wings and the world-end things
...
Dear little child, whose very speech
Gives me joy beyond my heart's measure,
However far my years may reach,
...
When your eyes gaze seaward
Piercing through the dim
Slow descending nightfall,
On the outer rim
...
There are no hollows any more
Between the mountains; the prairie floor
Is like a curtain with the drape
Of the winds' invisible shape;
...
KNOW a household made of pure delight,
That sits within a garden of quietness:
A welcomed visitor by day or night,
...
Foreseen in Eve's desire,
Foreborne in Adam s bliss,
The whim of a dream on fire
Has brought the world to this:
...
My heart can tell them, every one,
The messengers of dreams that run
Above the tree-tops in the sun.
...
MY thoughts go marching like an armed host
Out of the city of silence, guns and cars;
Troop after troop across my dreams they post
...
What sudden bird will bring us any cheer
Whose song in the chill dawn gives hope
of Spring;
...
Now my songs shall grow
Sweeter, year by year,
Just because I know
You shall read them, dear,
...
How placidly this silent river rolls
Under the midnight stars before our feet,
While we chant music of dead poets' souls
...
The Best Poem Of William Stanley Braithwaite
The House Of Falling Leaves
I
OFF our New England coast the sea to-night
Is moaning the full sorrow of its heart:
There is no will to comfort it apart
Since moon and stars are hidden from its sight.
And out beyond the furthest harbor-light
There runs a tide that marks not any chart
Wherewith man knows the ending and the start
Of that long voyage in the infinite.
If change and fate and hapless circumstance
May baffle and perplex the moaning sea,
And day and night in alternate advance
Still hold the primal Reasoning in fee,
Cannot my Grief be strong enough to chance
My voice across the tide I cannot see?
II
We go from house to house, from town to town,
And fill the distance full of smiles and words;
We take all pleasure that our strength affords
And care not if the sun be up or down.
The way of it no man has ever known ---
But suddenly there is a snap of chords
Within the heart that sounds like hollow boards,---
We question every shadow that is thrown.
O to be near when the last word is said!
And see the last reflection in the eye ---
For when the word is brought our friend is dead,
How bitter is the tear that will not dry,
Because so far away our steps are led
When Love should draw us close to say Good-bye!
Ill
Four seasons are there to the circling year:
Four houses where the dreams of men abide ---
The stark and naked Winter without pride,
The Spring like a young maiden soft and fair;
The Summer like a bride about to bear
The issue of the love she deified;
And lastly, Autumn, on the turning tide
That ebbs the voice of nature to its bier.
Four houses with two spacious chambers each,
Named Birth and Death, wherein Time joys and grieves.
Is there no Fate so wise enough to teach
Into which door Life enters and retrieves?
What matter since his voice is out of reach,
And Sorrow fills My House of Falling Leaves!
IV
The House of Falling Leaves we entered in ---
He and I --- we entered in and found it fair;
At midnight some one called him up the stair,
And closed him in the Room I could not win.
Now must I go alone out in the din
Of hurrying days: for forth he cannot fare;
I must go on with Time, and leave him there
In Autumn s house where dreams will soon grow thin.
When Time shall close the door unto the house
And opens that of Winter's soon to be,
And dreams go moving through the ruined boughs ---
He who went in comes out a Memory.
From his deep sleep no sound may e'er arouse, ---
The moaning rain, nor wind-embattled sea.
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4/24/2024 9:09:08 AM # 1.0.0.1119
