Three from Sullivan II

Poems from The Treasury of American Poetry: A Collection of the Finest by America's Poets.

Auspex

My heart, I cannot still it,
Nest that had song-birds in it;
And when the last shall go,
The dreary days to fill it,
Instead of lark or linnet,
Shall whirl dead leaves and snow.

Had they been swallows only,
Without the passion stronger
That skyward longs and sings,—
Woe's me, I shall be lonely
When I can feel no longer
The impatience of their wings!

A moment, sweet delusion,
Like birds the brown leaves hover;
But it will not be long
Before their wild confusion
Fall wavering down to cover
The poet and his song.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)

The Sheaves

Where long the shadows of the wind had rolled,
Green wheat was yielding to the change assigned;
And as by some vast magic undivined
The world was turning slowly into gold.
Like nothing that was ever bought or sold
It waited there, the body and the mind;
And with a mighty meaning of a kind
That tells the more the more it is not told.

So in a land where all days are not fair,
Fair days went on till on another day
A thousand gold sheaves were lying there,
Shining and still, but not for long to stay—
As if a thousand girls with golden hair
Might rise from where they slept and go away.

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)

It Is the Season

when we learn
or do not learn
to say goodbye.

The crone leaves that as green
virgins opened themselves
to sun, creak at our feet

and all farewells return
to crowd the air:
say, Chinese lovers by a bridge,

with crows, and a waterfall;
He will cross
the bridge, the crows fly;

children who told each other
secrets, and will not speak
next summer;

Some speech of parting
mentions God, as in
à Dieu, Adios,

commending what cannot
be kept
to permanence.

There is nothing of north
unknown, as the dark
comes earlier. The birds

take their lives in their wings
for the cruel trip;
all farewells are rehearsals.

Darling, the sun rose
later today.
Summer, summer

is what we had.
Say nothing yet.
Prepare.

Josephine Jacobsen (1908-2003)

The Treasury of American Poetry (1978), ed. Nancy Sullivan, pp. 189, 334, 533f.

See also Three from Sullivan: Poems from The Treasury of American Poetry: A Collection of the Finest by America's Poets.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 10/05/03 12:30:28 PM
Categorized as Literary & Sunday Poetry Series.