Latest

  • To Fight Aloud

    TO fight aloud is very brave, But gallanter, I know, Who charge within the bosom, The cavalry of woe. Who win, and nations do not see, Who fall, and none observe, Whose dying eyes no country Regards with patriot love. More→

  • Dawn

    WHEN night is almost done, And sunrise grows so near That we can touch the spaces, It’s time to smooth the hair, And get the dimples ready… More→

  • The Book of Martyrs

    READ, sweet, how others strove, Till we are stouter; What they renounced, Till we are less afraid; How many times they bore The faithful witness, Till we are helped, As if a kingdom cared! More→

  • The Mystery of Pain

    PAIN has an element of blank; It cannot recollect When it began, or if there were A day when it was not. More→

  • I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed

    ITASTE taste a liquor never brewed, From tankards scooped in pearl; Not all the vats upon the Rhine Yield such an alcohol! Inebriate of air am I, And debauchee of dew, Reeling, through endless summer days, From inns of molten blue. More→

  • A Book

    HE ate and drank the precious words, His spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, Nor that his frame was dust. More→

  • I Had No Time to Hate

    I HAD no time to hate, because The grave would hinder me, And life was not so ample I Could finish enmity. More→

  • Unreturning

    ’TWAS such a little, little boat That toddled down the bay! ’T was such a gallant, gallant sea That beckoned it away! More→

  • Whether My Bark Went Down at Sea

    WHETHER my bark went down at sea, Whether she met with gales, Whether to isles enchanted She bent her docile sails… More→

  • Belshazzar Had a Letter

    BELSHAZZAR had a letter — He never had but one; Belshazzar’s correspondent Concluded — and begun In that immortal copy… More→

  • The Brain Within Its Groove

    THE brain within its groove Runs evenly and true; But let a splinter swerve ’T were easier for you… More→

  • Index, Love

    LINKS to poems in first print order, Mine, Bequest, Alter? More→

  • Mine

    MINE by the right of the white election! Mine by the royal seal! Mine by the sign in the scarlet prison Bars cannot conceal! More→

  • Bequest

    YOU left me sweet, two legacies, — A legacy of love A Heavenly Father would content, Had He the offer of… More→

  • Alter?

    ALTER? When the hills do. Falter? When the sun Question if his glory Be the perfect one. More→

  • Suspense

    E LYSIUM is as far as to The very nearest room, If in that room a friend await Felicity or doom. More→

  • Surrender

    DOUBT me, my dim companion! Why, God would be content With but a fraction of the love Poured thee without a stint. The whole of me, forever, What more the woman can, — Say quick, that I may dower thee With last delight I own! More→

  • If You Were Coming in the Fall

    IF you were coming in the fall, I’d brush the summer by With half a smile and half a spurn, As housewives do a fly. If I could see you in a year, I’d wind the months in balls, And put them each in separate drawers, Until their time befalls. If only centuries delayed, I’d…

  • With a Flower

    IHIDE myself within my flower, That wearing on your breast, You, unsuspecting, wear me too — And angels know the rest. More→

  • Proof

    T HAT I did always love, I bring thee proof: That till I loved I did not love enough. More→

  • Have You Got a Brook

    HAVE you got a brook in your little heart, Where bashful flowers blow, And blushing birds go down to drink, And shadows tremble so? And nobody knows, so still it flows, That any brook is there; And yet your little draught of life Is daily drunken there. More→

  • Transplanted

    AS if some little Arctic flower, Upon the polar hem, Went wandering down the latitudes, Until it puzzled came To continents of summer… More→

  • The Outlet

    MY river runs to thee: Blue sea, wilt welcome me? My river waits reply. Oh, sea, look graciously! More→

  • In Vain

    ICANNOT live with you, It would be life, And life is over there Behind the shelf The sexton keeps the key to, Putting up Our life — his porcelain, Like a cup Discarded of the housewife, Quaint or broken; A newer Sevres pleases, Old ones crack. More→

  • Cornhuskers, Prairie

    I was born on the prairie and the milk of its wheat, the red of its clover, the eyes of its women, gave me a song and a slogan.Here the water went down, the icebergs slid with gravel, the gaps and the valleys hissed, and the black loam came, and the yellow sandy loam.Here between…

  • Renunciation

    THERE came a day at summer’s full Entirely for me; I thought that such were for the saints, Where revelations be. The sun, as common, went abroad, The flowers, accustomed, blew, As if no soul the solstice passed That maketh all things new. More→

  • Love’s Baptism

    I’M ceded, I’ve stopped being theirs; The name they dropped upon my face With water, in the country church, Is finished using now, And they can put it with my dolls, My childhood, and the string of spools I’ve finished threading, too. Baptized before without the choice, But this time consciously, of grace Unto supremest…

  • Resurrection

    IT was a long parting, but the time For interview had come; Before the judgment-seat of God, The last and second time These fleshless lovers met, A heaven in a gaze, A heaven of heavens, the privilege Of one another’s eyes. More→

  • Apocalypse

    I’M wife; I’ve finished that, That other state; I’m Czar, I’m woman now: It’s safer so. More→

  • The Wife

    SHE to his requirement, dropped The playthings of her life To take the honorable work Of woman and of wife. More→

  • Apotheosis

    COME slowly, Eden! Lips unused to thee; Bashful, sip thy jasmines… More→

  • Index, Nature

    Links to poems in first print order, New Feet within My Garden Go, May-Flower, Why? More→

  • New Feet within My Garden Go

    NEW feet within my garden go, New fingers stir the sod; A troubadour upon the elm Betrays the solitude. More→

  • May-Flower

    PINK, small, and punctual, Aromatic, low, Covert in April, Candid in May, Dear to the moss, Known by the knoll… More→

  • Why?

    THE murmur of a bee A witchcraft yieldeth me. If any ask me why, ’T were easier to die Than tell. More→

  • Perhaps You’d Like to Buy a Flower

    PERHAPS you’d like to buy a flower? But I could never sell. If you would like to borrow Until the daffodil Unties her yellow bonnet… More→

  • The Pedigree of Honey

    THE pedigree of honey Does not concern the bee… More→

  • A Service of Song

    SOME keep the Sabbath going to church; I keep it staying at home, With a bobolink for a chorister, And an orchard for a dome. More→

  • The Bee Is Not Afraid of Me

    THE bee is not afraid of me, I know the butterfly; The pretty people in the woods Receive me cordially. More→

  • Summer’s Armies

    SOME rainbow coming from the fair! Some vision of the world Cashmere I confidently see! Or else, a peacock’s purple train, Feather by feather, on the plain Fritters itself away! The dreamy butterflies bestir, Lethargic pools resume the whir Of last year’s sundered tune. From some old fortress on the sun Baronial bees march, one…

  • The Grass

    THE grass so little has to do — A sphere of simple green, With only butterflies to brood, And bees to entertain; And stir all day to pretty tunes The breezes fetch along, And hold the sunshine in its lap And bow to everything… More→

  • A Little Road Not Made of Man

    ALITTLE road not made of man, Enabled of the eye, Accessible to thill of bee, Or cart of butterfly. More→

  • Summer Shower

    ADROP fell on the apple tree, Another on the roof; A half a dozen kissed the eaves, And made the gables laugh. A few went out to help the brook, That went to help the sea. Myself conjectured, Were they pearls, What necklaces could be! More→

  • Psalm of the Day

    ASOMETHING in a summer’s day, As slow her flambeaux burn away, Which solemnizes me; A something in a summer’s noon — An azure depth, a wordless tune, Transcending ecstasy; And still within a summer’s night A something so transporting bright, I clap my hands to see; Then veil my too inspecting face, Lest such a…

  • The Sea of Sunset

    THIS is the land the sunset washes, These are the banks of the Yellow Sea; Where it rose, or whither it rushes, These are the western mystery! More→

  • Purple Clover

    THERE is a flower that bees prefer, And butterflies desire; To gain the purple democrat The humming-birds aspire; And whatsoever insect pass, A honey bears away Proportioned to his several dearth And her capacity. More→

  • The Bee

    LIKE trains of cars on tracks of plush I hear the level bee: A jar across the flowers goes, Their velvet masonry Withstands until the sweet assault Their chivalry consumes, While he, victorious, tilts away To vanquish other blooms. More→

  • Presentiment

    That long shadow on the lawn Indicative that suns go down…

  • As Children Bid the Guest

    AS children bid the guest good-night, And then reluctant turn, My flowers raise their pretty lips, Then put their nightgowns on. More→

  • Angels, in the Early Morning

    ANGELS, in the early morning, May be seen the dews among; Stooping, plucking, smiling, flying: Do the buds to them belong? More→