I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Grieve not for the invisible, transported brow
On which like leaves the dark hair grew
Nor for the lips of laughter that are now
Laughing inaudibly in sun and dew
Nor for those limbs that, fallen low
And seeming faint and slow,
Shall yet pursue
More ways of swiftness than the swallow dips
Among... and find more winds than ever blew
The straining sails of unimpeded ships!
Mourn not!—yield only happy tears
To deeper beauty than appears!
I am young, O shaggy mountains; I am young and you are old;
You are mighty, brooding pines, and I am small;
And your great, gaunt shadows crush me with a horror still and cold,
And your sullen silence holds me like a pall.
Just today I went for water to a little silver spring
Where the air was sweet and scarlet berries grew;
And my dreams came flocking homeward and my haunting fears took wing
Till the night crawled forth to meet me. Then I knew.
I am stranger to your silence; I am alien to your might;
I am longing for a little, laughing world
Where the days went dancing past me, for my heart as very light,—
And from many friendly hearths the smoke upcurled.
Yet he loves you, lonely mountains, and he says he loves me too,
But my heart is torn with longing for the gentle land I knew—
And the careless hours when life was very sweet.
Will you always frown upon me through the weary, weary years
Till my dream-home fades to silence and to night?
I was gay, O brooding mountains, till you taught me pain and tears.
I am alien to your solitude and might.
Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall
She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,
And she is dying piece-meal
of a sort of emotional anemia
And round about there is a rabble
Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.
They shall inherit the earth.
In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.
She would like some one to speak to her,
And is almost afraid that I
will commit that indiscretion.
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.
Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain
children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more
when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone’s any was all to her
someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream
stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)
one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was
all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.
Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain
Ho, brother! Art thou prisoned too?
Is thy heart hot with restless pain?
I heard the call thy bugle blew
Here by the bleak and chilling main,
(Whilst round me shaven parks are spread
And cindered drives wind on and on);
And at thy cry, thy lifted head,
My gladdened heart was westward drawn.
O splendid bird! your trumpet brings
To my lone heart the prairie springs.
The mountains they are silent folk
They stand afar — alone,
And the clouds that kiss their brows at night
Hear neither sigh nor groan.
Each bears him in his ordered place
As soldiers do, and bold and high
They fold their forests round their feet
And bolster up the sky.