For William and Emily Maxwell

At this time of day
One could hear the caulking irons sound
Against the hulls in the dockyard.
Tar smoke rose between trees
And large oily patches floated on the water,
Undulating unevenly
In the purple sunlight
Like the surfaces of Florentine bronze.

At this time of day
Sounds carried clearly
Through hot silences of fading daylight.
The weedy fields lay drowned
In odors of creosote and salt.
Richer than double-colored taffeta,
Oil floated in the harbor,
Amoeboid, iridescent, limp.

The little box which contains the world
Fell in love with herself
And conceived
Still another little box

The little box of the little box
Also fell in love with herself
And conceived
Still another little box

And so it went on forever

The world from the little box
Ought to be inside
The last offspring of the little box

But not one of the little boxes
Inside the little box in love with herself
Is the last one

Let's see you find the world now

Love hath a chamber all of imagery;
And there is one dim nook,
A little storied web wherein my heart
From leaf to leaf is read as in a book.

One part in the middle of the web begun and left unfinished;
a face with ravelled threads falling over it and hiding it. Love says
that the time has come to resume and finish this part of the web,
though much has come between since it was begun.

For the garlands of heaven were all laid by,
And the Daylight sucked at the breasts of a Lie.

The wounded heart and the dying swan

O, how in our waning days
We love more tenderly and more obsessively. . .
Shine on, shine on, the parting rays
Of our last love, our setting sun!
Shadow's embraced the heavens,
A glow still wanders in the West,-
Hold back, hold back, o dying day,
Prolong, prolong enchantment.
The blood may thin within our veins,
But in our hearts some tenderness still reigns. . .
O you, our final love!
You are both paradise and bane.

The first flower of the spring is not so fair
Or bright, as one the ripe midsummer brings.
The first faint note the forest warbler sings
Is not as rich with feeling, or so rare
As when, full master of his art, the air
Drowns in the liquid sea of song he flings
Like silver spray from beak, and breast, and wings.
The artist's earliest effort wrought with care,
The bard's first ballad, written in his tears,
Set by his later toil seems poor and tame.
And into nothing dwindles at the test.
So with the passions of maturer years

When a man is in love
how can he use old words?
Should a woman
desiring her lover
lie down with
grammarians and linguists?

I said nothing
to the woman I loved
but gathered
love's adjectives into a suitcase
and fled from all languages.

Light, oh where is the light?
Kindle it with the burning fire of desire!

There is the lamp but never a flicker of a flame--is such thy fate, my heart?
Ah, death were better by far for thee!

Misery knocks at thy door,
and her message is that thy lord is wakeful,
and he calls thee to the love-tryst through the darkness of night.

The sky is overcast with clouds and the rain is ceaseless.
I know not what this is that stirs in me--I know not its meaning.

A moment's flash of lightning drags down a deeper gloom on my sight,

As in the gardens, all through May, the rose,

Lovely, and young, and fair apparelled,

Makes sunrise jealous of her rosy red,

When dawn upon the dew of dawning glows;

Graces and Loves within her breast repose,

The woods are faint with the sweet odour shed,

Till rains and heavy suns have smitten dead

The languid flower, and the loose leaves unclose, -



So this, the perfect beauty of our days,

When earth and heaven were vocal of her praise,

The fates have slain, and her sweet soul reposes;

Lady, whom my belovèd loves so well!
When on his clasping arm thy head reclineth,
When on thy lips his ardent kisses dwell,
And the bright flood of burning light, that shineth
In his dark eyes, is pourèd into thine;
When thou shalt lie enfolded to his heart,
In all the trusting helplessness of love;
If in such joy sorrow can find a part,
Oh, give one sigh unto a doom like mine!
Which I would have thee pity, but not prove.
One cold, calm, careless, wintry look that fell
Haply by chance on me, is all that he

She is standing on my eyelids
And her hair is in my hair
She has the color of my eye
She has the body of my hand
In my shade she is engulfed
As a stone against the sky

She will never close her eyes
And she does not let me sleep
And her dreams in the bright day
Make the suns evaporate
And me laugh cry and laugh
Speak when I have nothing to say