Bee

A Prayer for my Daughter Once more the storm is howling, and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle But Gregory's wood and one bare hill Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind, Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed; And for an hour I have walked and prayed Because of the great gloom that is in my mind. I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower, And under the arches of the bridge, and scream In the elms above the flooded stream; Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum, Out of the murderous innocence of the sea. May she be granted beauty and yet not Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught, Or hers before a looking-glass, for such, Being made beautiful overmuch, Consider beauty a sufficient end, Lose natural kindness and maybe The heart-revealing intimacy That chooses right, and never find a friend. Helen being chosen foun

 I Believe Poetry, I tell my students, is idiosyncratic. Poetry is where we are ourselves, (though Sterling Brown said “Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I’”) digging in the clam flats for the shell that snaps, emptying the proverbial pocketbook. Poetry is what you find in the dirt in the corner, overhear on the bus, God in the details, the only way to get from here to there. Poetry (and now my voice is rising) is not all love, love, love, and I’m sorry the dog died. Poetry (here I hear myself loudest) is the human voice, and are we not of interest to each other?   *Elizabeth Alexander

On Monsieur’s Departure --By Queen Elizabeth I _____________________________ I grieve and dare not show my discontent, I love and yet am forced to seem to hate, I do, yet dare not say I ever meant, I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate. I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned, Since from myself another self I turned. My care is like my shadow in the sun, Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it, Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done. His too familiar care doth make me rue it. No means I find to rid him from my breast, Till by the end of things it be supprest. Some gentler passion slide into my mind, For I am soft and made of melting snow; Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind. Let me or float or sink, be high or low. Or let me live with some more sweet content, Or die and so forget what love ere meant. _______________________________

________________________ You say you love; but with a voice Chaster than a nun's, who singeth The soft vespers to herself While the chime-bell ringeth-- O love me truly! You say you love; but with a smile Cold as sunrise in September, As you were Saint Cupid's nun, And kept his weeks of Ember-- O love me truly! You say you love; but then your lips Coral tinted teach no blisses, More coral in the sea-- They never pout for kisses-- O love me truly! You say you love; but then your hand No soft squeeze for squeeze returneth; It is like a statue's, dead,-- While mine for passion burneth-- O love me truly! O breathe a word or two of fire! Smile, as if those words should burn me, Squeeze as lovers should--O kiss And in thy heart inurn me-- O love me truly! ________________________ John Keats

His Name is Today We are guilty of many errors and many faults, But our worst crime is abandoning the children, Neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, His blood is being made, And his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer 'Tomorrow'. His name is 'Today'. -  Gabriela Mistral  (1889-1957), a poet from Chile who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1945

When the lamp is shattered, The light in the dust lies dead; When the cloud is scattered, The rainbow's glory is shed; When the lute is broken, Sweet tones are remembered not; When the lips have spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot. As music and splendor Survive not the lamp and the lute, The heart's echoes render No song when the spirit is mute:-- No song but sad dirges, Like the wind through a ruined cell, Or the mournful surges That ring the dead seaman's knell. When hearts have once mingled, Love first leaves the well-built nest; The weak one is singled To endure what it once possessed. O Love! who bewailest The frailty of all things here, Why choose you the frailest For your cradle, your home, and your bier? Its passions will rock thee, As the storms rock the ravens on high; Bright reason will mock thee, Like the sun from a wintry sky. From thy nest every rafter Will rot, and thine eagle home Leave thee naked to laughter, When leaves fall and cold winds come. *** - Pe

She comes not when Noon is on the roses-- Too bright is Day. She comes not to the Soul till it reposes From work and play. But when Night is on the hills, and the great Voices Roll in from Sea, By starlight and candle-light and dreamlight She comes to me. ________________________ by Herbert Trench

TEASE I WILL give you all my keys, You shall be my chatelaine, You shall enter as you please, As you please shall go again. When I hear you jingling through All the chambers of my soul, How I sit and laugh at you In your vain housekeeping role. Jealous of the smallest cover, Angry at the simplest door; Well, you anxious, inquisitive lover, Are you pleased with what's in store? You have fingered all my treasures, Have you not, most curiously, Handled all my tools and measures And masculine machinery? Over every single beauty You have had your little rapture; You have slain, as was your duty, Every sin-mouse you could capture. Still you are not satisfied, Still you tremble faint reproach; Challenge me I keep aside Secrets that you may not broach. Maybe yes, and maybe no, Maybe there are secret places, Altars barbarous below, Elsewhere halls of high disgraces. Maybe yes, and maybe no, You may have it as you please, Since I choose to keep you so, Suppliant on your curi

___________________________________________ Round clouds roll in the arms of the wind, The round earth rolls in a clasp of blue sky, And see, where the budding hazels are thinned, The wild anemones lie In undulating shivers beneath the wind. Over the blue of the waters ply White ducks, a living flotilla of cloud; And, look you, floating just thereby, The blue-gleamed drake stems proud Like Abraham, whose seed should multiply. In the lustrous gleam of the water, there Scramble seven toads across the silk, obscure leaves, Seven toads that meet in the dusk to share The darkness that interweaves The sky and earth and water and live things everywhere. Look now, through the woods where the beech-green spurts Like a storm of emerald snow, look, see A great bay stallion dances, skirts The bushes sumptuously, Going outward now in the spring to his brief deserts. Ah love, with your rich, warm face aglow, What sudden expectation opens you So wide as you watch the c