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The Passions That We Fought With And Subdued
Claude McKay
(1889-1948)
Romance
By Claude McKay
To clasp you now and feel your head close-pressed,
Scented and warm against my beating breast;
To whisper soft and quivering your name,
And drink the passion burning in your frame;
To lie at full length, taut, with cheek to cheek,
And tease your mouth with kisses till you speak
Love words, mad words, dream words, sweet senseless words,
Melodious like notes of mating birds;
To hear you ask if I shall love always,
And myself answer: Till the end of days;
To feel your easeful sigh of happiness
When on your trembling lips I murmur: Yes;
It is so sweet. We know it is not true.
What matters it? The night must shed her dew.
We know it is not true, but it is sweet --
The poem with this music is complete.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
(1892-1950)
EBB
By Edna St. Vincent Millay
I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.
First Fig
By Edna St. Vincent Millay
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends --
It gives a lovely light!
Second Fig
By Edna St. Vincent Millay
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!
Christina Rossetti
(1830-1894)
When I am dead, My dearest
By Christina Rossetti
When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.
Trumbull Stickney
(1874-1904)
The Passions That We Fought With And Subdued
By Trumbull Stickney
The passions that we fought with and subdued
Never quite die. In some maimed serpent's coil
They lurk, ready to spring and vindicate
That power was once our torture and our lord.
Sir, Say No More
By Trumbull Stickney
Sir, say no more.
Within me 'tis as if
The green and climbing eyesight of a cat
Crawled near my mind's poor birds.
Francis Ernley Walrond
(fl. 1912-1925)
Ghosts
By Francis Ernley Walrond
I walk in a garden of roses,
'Twixt lawn and shaven lawn,
And I think of the wild free spaces,
And the rose of a breathless dawn.
Gentle and sweet beside me
Goes the wife that bears my name,
But I dream of a wild-eyed woman
And the sea that hides her shame.
Eve
By Francis Ernley Walrond
The gray of the morning
Creeps in the room like fear.
It is growing lighter,
But I sit crouched and shivering.
I dare not look at the bed,
Lest I laugh --
Or curse God.
How does it happen?
Yesterday my wife,
And now -- a strange thing --
Anything -- nothing.
A body without breath,
Arms without warmth,
Lips without kisses.
'Eve' was her name,
And the strangest part is
That I want to call -- 'Eve,
Come and look at this thing
That lies on your bed
And looks so like you.'
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