Gertrude Stein (1874 - 1946)
America by Gertrude Stein
.
Once in English they said America. Was it English to them.
Once they said Belgian.
We like a fog.
Do you for weather.
Are we brave.
Are we true.
Have we the national colour.
Can we stand ditches.
Can we mean well.
Do we talk together.
Have we red cross.
A great many people speak of feet.
And socks.
The Harvest Moon by Ted Hughes
.
The flame-red moon, the harvest moon,
Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing,
A vast balloon,
Till it takes off, and sinks upward
To lie on the bottom of the sky, like a gold doubloon.
The harvest moon has come,
Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon.
And the earth replies all night, like a deep drum.
.
So people can't sleep,
So they go out where elms and oak trees keep
A kneeling vigil, in a religious hush.
The harvest moon has come!
.
And all the moonlit cows and all the sheep
Stare up at her petrified, while she swells
Filling heaven, as if red hot, and sailing
Closer and closer like the end of the world.
.
Till the gold fields of stiff wheat
Cry `We are ripe, reap us!' and the rivers
Sweat from the melting hills.
.
To The Moon by Percy Bysshe Shelley
.
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth, --
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
.
Under The Moon by William Butler Yeats
.
I have no happiness in dreaming of Brycelinde,
Nor Avalon the grass-green hollow, nor Joyous Isle,
Where one found Lancelot crazed and hid him for a while;
Nor Uladh, when Naoise had thrown a sail upon the wind;
Nor lands that seem too dim to be burdens on the heart:
Land-under-Wave, where out of the moon's light and the sun's
Seven old sisters wind the threads of the long-lived ones,
Land-of-the-Tower, where Aengus has thrown the gates apart,
And Wood-of-Wonders, where one kills an ox at dawn,
To find it when night falls laid on a golden bier.
Therein are many queens like Branwen and Guinevere;
And Niamh and Laban and Fand, who could change to an otter or fawn,
And the wood-woman, whose lover was changed to a blue-eyed hawk;
And whether I go in my dreams by woodland, or dun, or shore,
Or on the unpeopled waves with kings to pull at the oar,
I hear the harp-string praise them, or hear their mournful talk.
.
Because of something told under the famished horn
Of the hunter's moon, that hung between the night and the day,
To dream of women whose beauty was folded in dis may,
Even in an old story, is a burden not to be borne.
.
The Moon is distant from the Sea by Emily Dickinson
.
The Moon is distant from the Sea --
And yet, with Amber Hands --
She leads Him -- docile as a Boy --
Along appointed Sands --
.
He never misses a Degree --
Obedient to Her Eye
He comes just so far -- toward the Town --
Just so far -- goes away --
.
Oh, Signor, Thine, the Amber Hand --
And mine -- the distant Sea --
Obedient to the least command
Thine eye impose on me --
.
Harvest moon by Yosa Buson
.
Harvest moon--
called at his house,
he was digging potatoes.
The Moon by William Henry Davies
.
Thy beauty haunts me heart and soul,
Oh, thou fair Moon, so close and bright;
Thy beauty makes me like the child
That cries aloud to own thy light:
The little child that lifts each arm
To press thee to her bosom warm.
.
Though there are birds that sing this night
With thy white beams across their throats,
Let my deep silence speak for me
More than for them their sweetest notes:
Who worships thee till music fails,
Is greater than thy nightingales.
.
Full Moon by Tu Fu
.
Above the tower -- a lone, twice-sized moon.
On the cold river passing night-filled homes,
It scatters restless gold across the waves.
On mats, it shines richer than silken gauze.
.
Empty peaks, silence: among sparse stars,
Not yet flawed, it drifts. Pine and cinnamon
Spreading in my old garden . . . All light,
All ten thousand miles at once in its light!
The Freedom of the Moon by Robert Frost
.
I've tried the new moon tilted in the air
Above a hazy tree-and-farmhouse cluster
As you might try a jewel in your hair.
I've tried it fine with little breadth of luster,
Alone, or in one ornament combining
With one first-water start almost shining.
.
I put it shining anywhere I please.
By walking slowly on some evening later,
I've pulled it from a crate of crooked trees,
And brought it over glossy water, greater,
And dropped it in, and seen the image wallow,
The color run, all sorts of wonder follow.
.
THE SADNESS OF THE MOON by Charles Baudelaire
.
THE Moon more indolently dreams to-night
Than a fair woman on her couch at rest,
Caressing, with a hand distraught and light,
Before she sleeps, the contour of her breast.
.
Upon her silken avalanche of down,
Dying she breathes a long and swooning sigh;
And watches the white visions past her flown,
Which rise like blossoms to the azure sky.
.
And when, at times, wrapped in her languor deep,
Earthward she lets a furtive tear-drop flow,
Some pious poet, enemy of sleep,
.
Takes in his hollow hand the tear of snow
Whence gleams of iris and of opal start,
And hides it from the Sun, deep in his heart.
.
Everything by Anna Akhmatova
.
Everything’s looted, betrayed and traded,
black death’s wing’s overhead.
Everything’s eaten by hunger, unsated,
so why does a light shine ahead?
.
By day, a mysterious wood, near the town,
breathes out cherry, a cherry perfume.
By night, on July’s sky, deep, and transparent,
new constellations are thrown.
.
And something miraculous will come
close to the darkness and ruin,
something no-one, no-one, has known,
though we’ve longed for it since we were children.
Flowers by Raymond A. Foss
.
Three flowers
bloom each day
.
Falsely fragile Queen Anne’s Lace
Clump of effervescent Daisies
A singular Black-eyed Susan
.
Wildflowers all
growing in the fields
of our hearts
.
Each her own
scent, shape, pose
Craning for light, food, attention
.
Willingly, lovingly tended
by the gardener,
the one who sowed the seed
.
April 8, 2005 10:35, edited 10:44
....................................................
Wallflower by Anne Sexton
.
Come friend,
I have an old story to tell you—
.
Listen.
Sit down beside me and listen.
My face is red with sorrow
and my breasts are made of straw.
I sit in the ladder-back chair
in a corner of the polished stage.
I have forgiven all the old actors for dying.
A new one comes on with the same lines,
like large white growths, in his mouth.
The dancers come on from the wings,
perfectly mated.
.
I look up. The ceiling is pearly.
My thighs press, knotting in their treasure.
Upstage the bride falls in satin to the floor.
Beside her the tall hero in a red wool robe
stirs the fire with his ivory cane.
The string quartet plays for itself,
gently, gently, sleeves and waxy bows.
The legs of the dancers leap and catch.
I myself have little stiff legs,
my back is as straight as a book
and how I came to this place—
the little feverish roses,
the islands of olives and radishes,
the blissful pastimes of the parlor—
I'll never know.
..........................
Moccasin Flowers by Mary Oliver
.
All my life,
so far,
I have loved
more than one thing,
.
including the mossy hooves
of dreams, including'
the spongy litter
under the tall trees.
.
In spring
the moccasin flowers
reach for the crackling
lick of the sun
.
and burn down. Sometimes,
in the shadows,
I see the hazy eyes,
the lamb-lips
.
of oblivion,
its deep drowse,
and I can imagine a new nothing
in the universe,
.
the matted leaves splitting
open, revealing
the black planks
of the stairs.
.
But all my life--sofar--
I have loved best
how the flowers rise
and open, how
.
the pink lungs of their bodies
enter the fore of the world
and stand there shining
and willing--the one
.
thing they can do before
they shuffle forward
into the floor of darkness, they
become the trees.
.
