"ripeness" poems
I’m a child and not a bride, but
Last month you made me marry you.
You know it wasn’t love that made me say yes
But the fear of what shape my death could take
If I were to turn you down. Of course
I had no voice. I could only muse to myself
In the dark closet and imagine myself
A mother at thirteen: would it be awesome?
Would it be dreadful? Would it…? I died of anxiety.
Last month you made me marry you.
I had no time to discover me for myself:
Who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be;
I had no time to think before I had to say yes.
But it pains my bones to the marrow.
I am an unripe fruit for the eating.
I am a piece for the show-glass.
Last month you made me marry you.
I spent nights upon nights weeping over how you’ve
Broken me; how you’ve set my life ablaze
Like a forest in a wildfire;
And now the once-upon-a-time sweet sounding music
Of my soul is burnt into silence.
I have forgotten the dialect of my soul.
I hush. I hush. I hush. I hush. I hush.
You have beaten silence into me,
And now I have to prepare to moan and wail
Beneath your weight, while I watch you helplessly
As you bite into my innocence,
As you suckle the un-ripeness out of me,
As you dig into my childhood and pleasure yourself
In the childhood screams you hear from me.
But it isn’t the fun that makes me scream.
It is the bitter pain of knowing, of remembering
That my life ended at thirteen:
Broken like a fallen calabash
In the hands of a fifty-five year old man.
Jun 24, 2014
Jun 24, 2014 at 12:05 AM UTC
Mine are grapefruit halves
Bitter
Salted
Easing the transition into awake
Perfect juicy handfuls
But I know girls with cantalopes
Seems to me you'd need a map
To navigate those
And hands like
Melonballers just to make an impression
Raspberry, Blackberry, Cherry *******
A fruit salad of peaches
And mangoes and apples
It's a world made for peelers
And paring knives
I world where a sweet tooth
Can thrive
We plant our women in orchards
Cultivate them in careful
Organized rows
With expert farmers and the latest fertilizers
Leading them on
Into ripeness
Harvested at just the right time
So that no man ever need know hunger
Aug 27, 2013
Aug 27, 2013 at 7:17 PM UTC
Sometimes she walks through the village in her
little red dress
all absorbed in restraining herself,
and yet, despite herself, she seems to move
according to the rhythm of her life to come.
She runs a bit, hesitates, stops,
half-turns around...
and, all while dreaming, shakes her head
for or against.
Then she dances a few steps
that she invents and forgets,
no doubt finding out that life
moves on too fast.
It's not so much that she steps out
of the small body enclosing her,
but that all she carries in herself
frolics and ferments.
It's this dress that she'll remember
later in a sweet surrender;
when her whole life is full of risks,
the little red dress will always seem right.
Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.
Bid the last fruits to be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to ripeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.
Whoever has no house now will not build one
anymore.
Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long
time,
will stay up, read, write long letters,
and wander the avenues, up and down,
restlessly, while the leaves are blowing.
13.4k
Around the table,
Literacy discussion turned elitist...
Bemoaning some poor Johnny,
Son of a plumber who does not read
Beyond the practical need,
And has no desire to.
I stopped to check my sense of what I had just heard...
Was transported to a prairie farm;
Thought of my Father, then in his eighties
Who felt no need and no sense of loss
For not having read Shakespeare nor Kant
For missing Milton's Paradises and Hemingway,
For by-passing Black Elk Speaks and C.S. Lewis.
Every morning, he read his Bible;
Some nights he read the mail's
Motley collection of literature:
Ads and politicians and fanatics,
Demanding money and his time,
But mostly money.
"I don't have time to read!"
He'd shout when I suggested a novel.
What literature he had was in his head,
Poems memorized when he was a boy
In a two room school, or
His own lines, written as a young man,
Describing work and friends
Long distant now, but still alive
In memory.
Dad taught me how to read
In different literacies and different texts:
Nuances of sky to read the weather -
What chill or storm or drought was on its way
("Storm's coming, boys! Let's get that hay!");
Cows and calves and bulls,
(Which one was sick or well, dry or bred);
Ways to diagnose mechanical ailments
("Start with the easiest options first");
Metals, to know which welding rod applied
("Aluminum sags, and cast iron cracks");
Grain, rolled crisp between hard hands,
(a test of ripeness);
Cement, to blend the perfect mix,
("Clean gravel/sand, no dirt, not too much water!);
Conservation,
("Always keep some grain on hand" &
"Keep your fuel above half-tank").
So many literacies...
Dad, the Master Reader of them all...
No wonder he'd no time for books.
Dec 20, 2011
Dec 20, 2011 at 9:26 PM UTC
I am trapped inside an hourglass
these affections are shut tight
like knots within my chest
I am waiting for the test of time to pass
and that is something only silence does best
While every grain of sand falls to rise against the air I breathe
my heart is refined by endurance
there is no sweeter alternative
than to taste the fullness of love
in the ripeness of its season
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 6:24 AM UTC
You are pathology incarnate
The sweat on your brow trick of the light
You were the first female
But you are no woman
Just a beast in the shape of a girl
Plucked one year before ripeness
A major at everything
A minor one way
Your eyes betray your true nature
Sharp, louche and depravity reined
Soot-yellow and one dollar green
Some might call it hazel
I call it dirt against your aryan gold hair
If you offered me fruit
I’d force myself to take a bite
So my soul won’t witness my guts feasted in the gutter
Carnivorously carnival-carved cadaver
Stamped under your cigarette-stained heels
Cherry cola chipped out of chapped lips
Cos I didn’t dare take a chockfull
You’re the first girl who has ever touched me
But I’m just the fly on your fruit
Lilith Haefelin
The girl before Eve.
Apr 7, 2021
Apr 7, 2021 at 11:33 PM UTC
Loving you was like eating green grapes.
Pushing, pushing, then pop through the skin.
Tasting the sweet success
Letting it flood my mouth
Only making me want more.
But green grapes are sour at their peak of ripeness, at their most beautiful.
The sour sting in my jaw is what it feels like after your sweetness was gone,
Affter I couldn't think about you without wondering if maybe that thick skin was thick for a reason.
That maybe green grapes should come with a warning label.
Jun 6, 2015
Jun 6, 2015 at 10:47 AM UTC
Around the table, literacy discussion
Turns elitist...
Bemoaning some poor Johnny,
Son of a plumber who does not read
Beyond the practical need,
And has no desire to.
I stop to check my sense of what I have just heard...
Am transported back to a prairie farm
And think of my Father, now in his eighties
Who still feels no need and no sense of loss
For not having read Shakespeare or Kant
For missing Milton's Paradises and Hemingway,
For by-passing Black Elk Speaks and C.S. Lewis.
Every morning, he reads his Bible;
Some nights he reads the mail's
Motley collection of literature:
Ads and politicians and fanatics,
Demanding money and his time,
But mostly money.
"I don't have time to read!"
He shouts, when I suggest a novel.
What literature he has is in his head,
Poems memorized when he was a boy
In a two room school, or
His own lines, written as a young man,
Describing work and friends
Long distant now, but still alive
In memory.
Dad taught me how to read
In different literacies and different texts:
Nuances of sky to read the weather -
What chill or storm or drought was on its way;
Cows and calves and bulls -
Which one was sick or well, dry or bred;
Equipment to diagnose mechanical ailments;
Metals to know which welding rod applied;
Grain, rolled crisp between his hands, a test of ripeness...
Cement to find the perfect mix,
So many literacies...
Dad, the Master Reader of them all...
No wonder he'd no time for books.
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 10:02 AM UTC
Her face-
A thousand suns,
A cosmic dance under
The ever-expanding escape;
The curtains that fall heavily
Upon the eyes of oblivion.
Her hands-
A fox running
Through the meadow;
The open cages that
Confine gloom back
Into its prison.
Her eyes-
An indefinite eternity,
Through which both
Dark and light speak;
The great
Illusionist.
Her lips-
A bitter moonlight
Casting its shadow upon
Persisting glow;
The ripeness of a
Mango in its season.
Her feet-
A battered road
Folding upon itself
As it struggles to find
Its way home;
The seeds scattered
In every empty hole.
Her-
A desolate daydream
That runs through
Unbounded space;
The deep ocean trench
I’ve completely
Drowned in.
May 7, 2017
May 7, 2017 at 12:02 PM UTC
August is a time for remorse.
A time for memories,
swelling up and distorting one's vision.
The ripeness of summer has withered
under the harsh July heat,
leaving behind a shriveled skeleton of time.
August is a time of love.
Emotions that have been accumulating through June,
subtly burst through the seams,
oblivious to the Goodbyes,
lurking right beyond the bend.
August is a time of forgotten promises,
of the misled see you later,
so often mumbled from lover's lips.
The scent of leaving lingers in the air,
creating a bitter aftertaste,
mixed with the flavor of devotion.
For, forever doesn't mix well with farewell.
August is a time of silence.
A time where a single word might betray a hidden feeling,
that is swelling up beyond the bend of casual conversation.
August is a time of noise.
Where "I love you" and "see you soon",
drown out the static of reality.
Where loneliness is judged by the tangible,
and everyone is afraid of being left.
August is a time of leaving.
Minutes become muddled with sentiment, moving like molasses,
dripping slowly into the oncoming hour,
overflowing with empty formalities.
August has no tolerance for long goodbyes;
which fester like an open wound in the middle of the day.
No, August is parting in silence,
with one's final words uttered in the darkness,
the moon and stars as the only witnesses.
August is a time of closure,
not the type seen in movies,
full of mundane routines.
Accompanied by tears and terse observations,
"Your coat appears worn thin, my dear".
August is the closure that comes in the middle of the night,
when it is least expected.
It is neither welcomed,
nor is it pushed aside.
It comes as easily as sleep,
nestling into the deepest corners of one's soul.
Sometimes August isn't recognized,
until December.
After it has faded into the hazy realm,
which all past months inhabit.
Its only legacy is etched upon our souls,
haunting our every thought,
in the most lovely way:
August is a time of growing up,
of forgotten forever's,
full of the sweetest intent.
Jul 30, 2011
Jul 30, 2011 at 7:35 PM UTC
Under this canopy
of dark
gleaming stars
I now sit
allow my body
to take residence
in the aura
of my own
glowing
let thoughts
of reason
slowly unravel
until they
become
one
long
thread
connecting my
mind but
releasing it
to the air
Molecules, like
the tiniest of crystals,
gently whir
energetically
about me
in almost
invisible stirrings
letting the power
of energy centers
take over:
Red,
for my root
for I am
tethered
to this earth
Orange, for
the passion
so strong
and truly knowing
my own worth
Yellow, for
my gut,
instincts open
and a-light
expanding into
universes, broadening
my sight
Then my heart
washed through and through
in shades of green
its own incandescence
filled with verdant,
fiery sheens
It beats a lantern
of vitality
in this ocean of pain
sending a beacon in
the darkness
helping to break old,
patterns
prompt them to
snap like rusty chains
Here it pumps in growth of
leafy, budding light
Guiding my spirit
in ripeness full and bright
I rise up
into the
indigo-turquoise
of my throat
as words burst forth
in surges,
in the salty froth
of ocean spirals
they float,
get pulled by
mysterious urges
Like waterfall mist
just kissing
the tips of eyelash
flickers
these words that
have the power
to calm
or make my blood
run quicker
And then:
the deep purple
of my crown
that tapers into
a shimmering white
and I know
I can now
receive myself,
calm, in queenly
presence of mind
of spirit
in my highest
form of
light
Jul 5, 2016
Jul 5, 2016 at 3:39 AM UTC
Listen to the stories
men tell of last year
that sound of other places
though they happened here
Listen to a name
so private it can burn
hear it said aloud
and learn and learn
History is a needle
for putting men asleep
anointed with the poison
of all they want to keep
Now a name that saved you
has a foreign taste
claims a foreign body
froze in last year’s waste
And what is living lingers
while monuments are built
then yields its final whisper
to letters raised in gilt
But cries of stifled ripeness
whip me to my knees
I am with the falling snow
falling in the seas
I am with the hunters
hungry and shrewd
and I am with the hunted
quick and soft and ****
I am with the houses
that wash away in rain
and leave no teeth of pillars
to rake them up again
Let men numb names
scratch winds that blow
listen to the stories
but what you know you know
And knowing is enough
for mountains such as these
where nothing long remains
houses walls or trees
<~>
“I would recommend On Hearing a Name Long Unspoken. This poem is from Cohen’s 1964 collection, Flowers for ****** which deals with the trauma of the Holocaust and its legacy in 1960s Canada. In this book Cohen describes himself as a ‘front-line writer’ trying to understand totalitarianism, and the poems aim to critique his readers’ complacency in the violence of the world wars, anti-Semitism and colonialism. In On Hearing a Name Long Unspoken, Cohen asks his readers to consider how atrocities ‘that sound of other places’ also ‘happened here.’ He wants us to remember the lives of real people, to remember where people have found solidarity and protection, as well as how they have been oppressed because he is concerned that the stories that are told about the past will make it feel distant and unreal.”
KAIT PINDER, assistant professor of English at Acadia University
Apr 2, 2022
Apr 2, 2022 at 3:24 PM UTC
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Verses crept under my
Selkie
like incarnatio Tattoos
billowing surface
blood
streams
dream
To break out like ripeness'
like
Inevitability
opens up a delight of a persimmon
a passion, a mad devotion
transfering abundance
to
satiate flesh flames
a sentient transformation
from crystal clear
primal
scream Journey
to ethereal mind-
waves tumbling unending
down on my
tummy
with yours
sweet sweat's
shimmering plankton
surrounds me as
your love's energy
u n en ding u n d u l a ti on*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dec 30, 2015
Dec 30, 2015 at 5:05 AM UTC
on this rumbling
stretch of tundra
no trees reach up
to soothe the sky
there is a pulling down
of wind tunnel vortex
like conifers in reverse
an icy howl
in the bonechill
of time
Translucent holes,
perfectly round, are dug
in glacial archeology
and in the sea below
gelid creatures lurk,
half-frozen
in the history of my
soul
Only moss and lichens
grow on the rock,
somehow softening the
rugged textures
of the wild landscapes
that seethe
just beneath my skin
and there, just
shy of the surface
is a quickening
a subtle pulse of veins
that pumps life
between the gales of
my heart's steppes
flushing out
the pain
somewhere
deep
within the private lotus
of my being
folioles unfurl
leafy shapes around
my organs
wrapping them like gifts
as they undulate in whorls
opening my petals
in renewed consciousness
and deliberation
as a new kind of
stamen
rises
dusty pollen
powdery
budding ripeness
bursting up
and out
of my deepest
centered
whirlpool pistil
nectar dripping
in viscous webs,
to be caught upon
the tongue of
a new dawning
My silky outer
wings of vegetation,
slender stalks of
filaments and anther
have been turned
into hot steel
They protect
the tender vulnerable
when burned
as poison words held up to my
watchful eyes,
are properly discerned
I give myself over
to this new power,
my back arched to fully embrace
what is to come,
a universe calling thunder,
the old patterns undone
I am ready
to reveal my all
as the goddess deep within
comes to release my gold
suffusing light through skin
conjured from me
a relentless strength,
ever-growing,
now tenfold
rising way past
soft-lit stratospheres
and orbiting
to
bold
Nov 5, 2017
Nov 5, 2017 at 6:05 PM UTC
Petty theft of pretty poetry so
taut like my buttocks when I was twenty
and did not appreciate the ripeness of my
flesh.
Or this – about an orange peel –
the white is bitter the spits of oil
not iridescent as oil might be
lazed
in a parking lot puddle.
Try for size the heavy fur of
winter cottages, blah except for
holiday wreaths and the silent exhalation of
smokes snaking from their
top.
Translate this grapefruit that is both
sour and sweet
and fulminates
loss.
Mar 9, 2018
Mar 9, 2018 at 8:11 AM UTC
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cell.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,---
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
2.4k
Rushing River
The water rolls past the chain of rocks
Studded steps stand single file
Principles holding against the flood a mighty fortress
Evil thoughts swirling down through the mind
At the river’s edge the reeds bow
Marshes tangled with shoots and flattened weeds
Rich grasses carpet all in all bounty abounds
The earth benefits water given free course this guarantees its purity
Be quick to walk into the swirling spiritual waters your purity the sacred word is the water
The natural shore a poisoning quagmire
Work on the shore a duty but for life come to the spirit to barter
The world’s biggest beggars have false wealth it keeps them from true riches
Fruit is delicate with excess ripeness the result inedible
Riches of the spirit or any endeavor needs proper care and management
Without wisdom you become filled with hollowness
The river contains the richest soil and never will spoil your life
So come to the head waters of the heavenly tributaries
Drink your fill over the land you will flow and spill
Drought scorched hearts you can fill
Their destiny a heavenly ocean fulfilling every emotion of being excepted and loved
Nov 17, 2011
Nov 17, 2011 at 5:10 AM UTC
what I got was
a january smile
from a milkblooded boy.
if only the pearl of your teeth were
white as my eyes
deertail flash in the dark
and nowhere else to hide but
five a.m. sheets and the smell of
sunrise mumbles
toofast weightloss:
a late spring heart
is drenched with its
ripeness but
rots if you leave it to
the bees
then the summer desiccation becomes
winter starvation—
in between, autumn comes to
stay. purples, mostly
maroons moth
-eaten by the greengrass deadweight of
so many depetalled flowers. Midnight never strikes
soon enough.
there have been no doves for
weeks &
maybe longer than
that i haven’t
kept count
on you to teach me where they go when
the seasons change
but given time and
tide rips the
stains from your whites
so i with
patience await the
first frosts;
you are never far behind the
snow.
meanwhile your
jewel-studded eyes & corsair heart
glint in the moonlit touchmenot of your
faraway skin
keep your hair
shirt on.
Oct 7, 2012
Oct 7, 2012 at 3:20 AM UTC
In the lazy
late afternoon light
when everything seems dreamlike
she comes to me.
Smiling coyly she undoes a clasp,
her robe slips off the shoulder.
I watch the fabric water like
flow over her body.
Hanging on her *******
heavy with the ripeness of youth,
it pauses
then slips over her ***** brown *******
One bouncing, then the other.
Following her curves,
past the hollow of her navel...
exposing her crowning glory,
her woman's furry triangle
so warm and moist and welcoming.
Like an admiring hand,
the falling cloth
traces the wonderful curve of her ***
and down her long, smooth legs
to pool languidly at her feet.
She undoes her dark hair
shakes her head and lets it fall.
In all her glory she stands before me
eyeing me hungrily...
No seducer but prey am I.
Feb 6, 2018
Feb 6, 2018 at 9:22 AM UTC
Magpie alights on the eaves
tonguing a bitter wild berry
***** head left,
right,
decides against this spot
and relocates to a new one
out of sight.
Autumn happened today,
again.
Same as every year.
I was under the shade of the porch,
coffee in hand,
and smelt a change in the taste of the wind.
It's been at least ten degrees cooler
and I've donned the first piece of warm clothing
since April.
Magpie perches on the red wooden
fence on my right,
still gently squeezing that berry-
as if testing its ripeness.
Head ***** left,
head ***** right,
magpie flies away.
The leaves will start to turn this week.
Maybe next.
My coffee is lukewarm now,
same as the air.
Magpie sits in the yard
and carefully sets his lunch down,
prods his beak into the soil,
picks it back up,
and buries it for later.
Magpie flies away.
A rush of cold air sweeps through me.
Same as every year.
I rise and walk,
mug in hand,
back inside.
Sep 8, 2015
Sep 8, 2015 at 2:16 PM UTC
I said: ‘Nay, pluck not,—let the first fruit be:
Even as thou sayest, it is sweet and red,
But let it ripen still. The tree’s bent head
Sees in the stream its own fecundity
And bides the day of fulness. Shall not we
At the sun’s hour that day possess the shade,
And claim our fruit before its ripeness fade,
And eat it from the branch and praise the tree?’
I say: ‘Alas! our fruit hath wooed the sun
Too long,—’tis fallen and floats adown the stream.
Lo, the last clusters! Pluck them every one,
And let us sup with summer; ere the gleam
Of autumn set the year’s pent sorrow free,
And the woods wail like echoes from the sea.’
2k
1
The irresponsive silence of the land,
The irresponsive sounding of the sea,
Speak both one message of one sense to me:--
Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand
Thou too aloof bound with the flawless band
Of inner solitude; we bind not thee;
But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free?
What heart shall touch thy heart? what hand thy hand?--
And I am sometimes proud and sometimes meek,
And sometimes I remember days of old
When fellowship seemed not so far to seek
And all the world and I seemed much less cold,
And at the rainbow's foot lay surely gold,
And hope felt strong and life itself not weak.
2
Thus am I mine own prison. Everything
Around me free and sunny and at ease:
Or if in shadow, in a shade of trees
Which the sun kisses, where the gay birds sing
And where all winds make various murmuring;
Where bees are found, with honey for the bees;
Where sounds are music, and where silences
Are music of an unlike fashioning.
Then gaze I at the merrymaking crew,
And smile a moment and a moment sigh
Thinking: Why can I not rejoice with you?
But soon I put the foolish fancy by:
I am not what I have nor what I do;
But what I was I am, I am even I.
3
Therefore myself is that one only thing
I hold to use or waste, to keep or give;
My sole possession every day I live,
And still mine own despite Time's winnowing.
Ever mine own, while moons and seasons bring
From crudeness ripeness mellow and sanative;
Ever mine own, till Death shall ply his sieve;
And still mine own, when saints break grave and sing.
And this myself as king unto my King
I give, to Him Who gave Himself for me;
Who gives Himself to me, and bids me sing
A sweet new song of His redeemed set free;
He bids me sing: O death, where is thy sting?
And sing: O grave, where is thy victory?
2k
(My lady in waiting
Was a cougar crouched in the brush.)
Brush it off, no big deal.
I'll console myself
By talking to strangers,
Fraternizing with friends
And enemies alike.
Maybe old men
Fornicating at my image
Is better than true friendship,
Tangible attachment or comfort.
Maybe I never needed it.
(The look and feel of
Printed words on a screen.)
(Maybe the chill was me,
Maybe I am a bit nippy.)
No time was spent
Trying to harvest this field,
Cold winter took all in bloom,
Fresh compassion plucked
Before ripeness came to play.
What was I to you?
We suspected a dream.
I comforted you in
The idea that I was there,
That I could listen.
(My lady in waiting
Was a cougar crouched in the brush.)
Feb 27, 2010
Feb 27, 2010 at 11:09 PM UTC
1756
’Twas here my summer paused
What ripeness after then
To other scene or other soul
My sentence had begun.
To winter to remove
With winter to abide
Go manacle your icicle
Against your Tropic Bride.
1.9k
I
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
II
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
III
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
1.9k