Two Songs Of Advent by Yvor Winters
I On the desert, between pale mountains, out cries — Far whispers creeping through an ancient shell. II Coyote, on delicate mocking feet, Hovers down the canyon, among the mountains, His voice running wild in the wind’s valleys. Listen! Listen! for I enter now your thought. ————— The End And that’s the End of the […]
On Teaching The Young by Yvor Winters
The young are quick of speech. Grown middle-aged, I teach Corrosion and distrust, Exacting what I must. A poem is what stands When imperceptive hands, Feeling, have gone astray. It is what one should say. Few minds will come to this. The poet’s only bliss Is in cold certitude— Laurel, archaic, rude. ————— The End […]
Dark spring by Yvor Winters
My mother Foresaw deaths And walked among Chrysanthemums, Winecolored, Withered rose, The earthy blossoms. My very breath Disowned In nights of study, And page by page I came on spring. The rats run on the roof, These words come hard—- Sadder than cockcrow In a dreamless, earthen sleep. The Christ, eternal In the scented cold; […]
Where My Sight Goes by Yvor Winters
Who knows Where my sight goes, What your sight shows – Where the peachtree blows? The frogs sing Of everything And children run As leaves swing. And many women pass Dressed in white, As thoughts of noon pass From sea to sea. And all these things would take My life from me. ————— The End […]
To Emily Dickinson by Yvor Winters
Dear Emily, my tears would burn your page, But for the fire-dry line that makes them burn— Burning my eyes, my fingers, while I turn Singly the words that crease my heart with age. If I could make some tortured pilgrimage Through words or Time. or the blank pain of Doom And kneel before you […]
To A Young Writer by Yvor Winters
Achilles Holt, Stanford, 1930 Here for a few short years Strengthen affections; meet, Later, the dull arrears Of age, and be discreet. The angry blood burns low. Some friend of lesser mind Discerns you not; but so Your solitude’s defined. Write little; do it well. Your knowledge will be such, At last, as to dispel […]
Time And The Garden by Yvor Winters
The spring has darkened with activity. The future gathers in vine, bush, and tree: Persimmon, walnut, loquat, fig, and grape, Degrees and kinds of color, taste, and shape. These will advance in their due series, space The season like a tranquil dwelling-place. And yet excitement swells me, vein by vein: I long to crowd the […]
The Slow Pacific Swell by Yvor Winters
Far out of sight forever stands the sea, Bounding the land with pale tranquillity. When a small child, I watched it from a hill At thirty miles or more. The vision still Lies in the eye, soft blue and far away: The rain has washed the dust from April day; Paint-brush and lupine lie against […]
The Moralists by Yvor Winters
You would extend the mind beyond the act, Furious, bending, suffering in thin And unpoetic dicta; you have been Forced by hypothesis to fiercer fact. As metal singing hard, with firmness racked, You formulate our passion; and behind In some harsh moment nowise of the mind Lie the old meanings your advance has packed. No […]
The Journey by Yvor Winters
Snake River Country I now remembered slowly how I came, I, sometime living, sometime with a name, Creeping by iron ways across the bare Wastes of Wyoming, turning in despair, Changing and turning, till the fall of night, Then throbbing motionless with iron might. Four days and nights! Small stations by the way, Sunk far […]
The Fable by Yvor Winters
Beyond the steady rock the steady sea, In movement more immovable than station, Gathers and washes and is gone. It comes, A slow obscure metonymy of motion, Crumbling the inner barriers of the brain. But the crossed rock braces the hills and makes A steady quiet of the steady music, Massive with peace. And listen, […]
The Empty Hills by Yvor Winters
The grandeur of deep afternoons, The pomp of haze on marble hills, Where every white-walled villa swoons Through violence that heat fulfills, Pass tirelessly and more alone Than kings that time has laid aside. Safe on their massive sea of stone The empty tufted gardens ride. Here is no music, where the air Drives slowly […]
Sir Gawaine And The Green Knight by Yvor Winters
Reptilian green the wrinkled throat, Green as a bough of yew the beard; He bent his head, and so I smote; Then for a thought my vision cleared. The head dropped clean; he rose and walked; He fixed his fingers in the hair; The head was unabashed and talked; I understood what I must dare. […]
One Ran Before by Yvor Winters
I could tell Of silence where One ran before Himself and fell Into silence Yet more fair. And this were more A thing unseen Than falling screen Could make of air. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository […]
On A View Of Pasadena From The Hills by Yvor Winters
From the high terrace porch I watch the dawn. No light appears, though dark has mostly gone, Sunk from the cold and monstrous stone. The hills Lie naked but not light. The darkness spills Down the remoter gulleys; pooled, will stay Too low to melt, not yet alive with day. Below the windows, the lawn, […]
Night Of Battle by Yvor Winters
Europe: 1944 as regarded from a great distance Impersonal the aim Where giant movements tend; Each man appears the same; Friend vanishes from friend. In the long path of lead That changes place like light No shape of hand or head Means anything tonight. Only the common will For which explosion spoke; And stiff on […]
Much In Little by Yvor Winters
Amid the iris and the rose, The honeysuckle and the bay, The wild earth for a moment goes In dust or weed another way. Small though its corner be, the weed Will yet intrude its creeping beard; The harsh blade and the hairy seed Recall the brutal earth we feared. And if no water touch […]
Moonrise by Yvor Winters
The branches, jointed, pointing up and out, shine out like brass. Upon the heavy lip of earth the dog at moments is possessed and screams: The rising moon draws up his blood and hair. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — […]
John Sutter by Yvor Winters
I was the patriarch of the shining land, Of the blond summer and metallic grain; Men vanished at the motion of my hand, And when I beckoned they would come again. The earth grew dense with grain at my desire; The shade was deepened at the springs and streams; Moving in dust that clung like […]
God Of Roads by Yvor Winters
I, peregrine of noon. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of world poetry. Poetry Monster — the multilingual library of poetic works. Here you’ll find original poems, poetry translations, ancient verses, ballads and even folk tales. Poetry […]
At The San Francisco Airport by Yvor Winters
To my daughter, 1954 This is the terminal: the light Gives perfect vision, false and hard; The metal glitters, deep and bright. Great planes are waiting in the yard— They are already in the night. And you are here beside me, small, Contained and fragile, and intent On things that I but half recall— Yet […]
An October Nocturne by Yvor Winters
The night was faint and sheer; Immobile, road and dune. Then, for a moment, clear, A plane moved past the moon. O spirit cool and frail, Hung in the lunar fire! Spun wire and brittle veil! And tremblingly slowly higher! Pure in each proven line! The balance and the aim, Half empty, half divine! I […]
Alone by Yvor Winters
I, one who never speaks, Listened days in summer trees, Each day a rustling leaf. Then, in time, my unbelief Grew like my running – My own eyes did not exist, When I struck I never missed. Noon, felt and far away – My brain is a thousand bees. ————— The End And that’s the […]
A Song In Passing by Yvor Winters
Where am I now? And what Am I to say portends? Death is but death, and not The most obtuse of ends. No matter how one leans One yet fears not to know. God knows what all this means! The mortal mind is slow. Eternity is here. There is no other place. The only thing […]