#AmericanWriters
MY forefathers gave me My spirit’s shaken flame, The shape of hands, the beat of he… The letters of my name. But it was my lovers,
WHEN they see my songs They will sigh and say, ‘Poor soul, wistful soul, Lonely night and day.’ They will never know
To-night I close my eyes and see A strange procession passing me— The years before I saw your face Go by me with a wistful grace; They pass, the sensitive, shy year…
PEOPLE that I meet and pass In the city’s broken roar, Faces that I lose so soon And have never found before, Do you know how much you tell
INTO my heart’s treasury I slipped a coin That time cannot take Nor a thief purloin,— Oh better than the minting
One by one, like leaves from a tre… All my faiths have forsaken me; But the stars above my head Burn in white and delicate red, And beneath my feet the earth
MY heart is a garden tired with a… Heaped with bending asters and dah… In the hazy sunshine, the garden r… The drench of rains and a snow-dro… Daffodils blowing in the cold wind…
IF I must go to heaven’s end Climbing the ages like a stair, Be near me and forever bend With the same eyes above me there; Time will fly past us like leaves…
I wear a crown invisible and clear… And go my lifted royal way apart Since you have crowned me softly i… With love that is half ardent, hal… And as a queen disguised might pas…
The winds have grown articulate in… And voiced again the wail of ancie… That smote upon the winds of long… The cries of Trojan women as they… The quivering moan of pale Androm…
There! See the line of lights, A chain of stars down either side… Why can’t you lift the chain and g… A necklace for my throat? I’d tw… And you could play with it. You…
I came from the sunny valleys And sought for the open sea, For I thought in its gray expanse… My peace would come to me. I came at last to the ocean
If I should see your eyes again, I know how far their look would go… Back to a morning in the park With sapphire shadows on the snow. Or back to oak trees in the spring
It is enough for me by day To walk the same bright earth with… Enough that over us by night The same great roof of stars is di… I have no care to bind the wind
IF I were a bee and you were a ro… Would you let me in when the gray… Would you hold your petals wide ap… Would you let me in to find your h… If you were a rose?