PolyArchive

A November Night Sara Teasdale There! See the line of lights, A chain of stars down either side the street — Why can’t you lift the chain and give it to me, A necklace for my throat? I’d twist it round And you could play with it. You smile at me As though I were […]

An October Garden Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) In my Autumn garden I was fain To mourn among my scattered roses; Alas for that last rosebud which uncloses To Autumn’s languid sun and rain When all the world is on the wane! Which has not felt the sweet constraint of June, Nor heard the nightingale in tune. […]

Poppies in October Sylvia Plath Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts. Nor the woman in the ambulance Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly — A gift, a love gift Utterly unasked for By a sky Palely and flamily Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes Dulled to a halt under […]

748 Emily Dickinson Autumn—overlooked my Knitting— Dyes—said He—have I— Could disparage a Flamingo— Show Me them—said I— Cochineal—I chose—for deeming It resemble Thee— And the little Border—Dusker— For resembling Me—

October Helen Hunt Jackson Bending above the spicy woods which blaze, Arch skies so blue they flash, and hold the sun Immeasurably far; the waters run Too slow, so freighted are the river-ways With gold of elms and birches from the maze Of forests. Chestnuts, clicking one by one, Escape from satin burs; her fringes […]

449 (I died for Beauty—but was scarce) Emily Dickinson I died for Beauty—but was scarce Adjusted in the Tomb When One who died for Truth, was lain In an adjoining Room— He questioned softly “Why I failed?” “For Beauty,” I replied— “And I—for Truth—Themself are One— We Brethren, are,” He said— And so, as Kinsmen, […]

Wisdom Sara Teasdale It was a night of early spring, The winter-sleep was scarcely broken; Around us shadows and the wind Listened for what was never spoken. Though half a score of years are gone, Spring comes as sharply now as then— But if we had it all to do It would be done the […]

I Shall Not Care Sara Teasdale When I am dead, and over me bright April Shakes out her rain drenched hair, Tho’ you should lean above me broken-hearted, I shall not care. For I shall have peace. As leafy trees are peaceful When rain bends down the bough. And I shall be more silent and […]

The Sky is Low, the Clouds are Mean Emily Dickinson The Sky is low — the Clouds are mean. A Travelling Flake of Snow Across a Barn or through a Rut Debates if it will go — A Narrow Wind complains all Day How some one treated him Nature, like Us, is sometimes caught Without her Diadem […]

Songs out of Sorrow IV. Wisdom Sara Teasdale When I have ceased to break my wings Against the faultiness of things, And learned that compromises wait Behind each hardly opened gate, When I have looked Life in the eyes, Grown calm and very coldly wise, Life will have given me the Truth, And taken in […]

From Dorothy Parker’s essay, “My Hometown,” published in McCall’s magazine in January 1928: It occurs to me that there are other towns. It occurs to me so violently that I say, at intervals, “Very well, if New York is going to be like this, I’m going to live somewhere else.” And I do — that’s […]

Coda Dorothy Parker There’s little in taking or giving, There’s little in water or wine; This living, this living, this living Was never a project of mine. Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is The gain of the one at the top, For art is a form of catharsis, And love is a permanent […]

Kin to Sorrow Edna St. Vincent Millay AM I kin to Sorrow, That so oft Falls the knocker of my door— Neither loud nor soft, But as long accustomed, Under Sorrow’s hand? Marigolds around the step And rosemary stand, And then comes Sorrow— And what does Sorrow care For the rosemary Or the marigolds there? […]

Sonnet V Edna St. Vincent Millay IF I should learn, in some quite casual way, That you were gone, not to return again— Read from the back-page of a paper, say, Held by a neighbor in a subway train, How at the corner of this avenue And such a street (so are the papers filled) […]

Sonnet VII Edna St. Vincent Millay When I too long have looked upon your face, Wherein for me a brightness unobscured Save by the mists of brightness has its place, And terrible beauty not to be endured, I turn away reluctant from your light, And stand irresolute, a mind undone, A silly, dazzled thing deprived […]