Until Life Says No to Me: Collected Poems

Until Life Says No to Me

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I am content to follow to its source Every event in action or in thought; Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot! When such as I cast out remorse So great a sweetness flows into the breast We must laugh and we must sing, We are blest by everything, Everything we look upon is blest. WE that have done and thought, That have thought and done, Must ramble, and thin out Like milk spilt on a stone.

The rattle of pebbles on the shore Under the receding wave. My great-grandfather shared A pot-house bench with Oliver Goldsmith once. Oliver Goldsmith sang what he had seen, Roads full of beggars, cattle in the fields, But never saw the trefoil stained with blood, The avenging leaf those fields raised up against it. A voice Soft as the rustle of a reed from Cloyne That gathers volume; now a thunder-clap. They walked the roads Mimicking what they heard, as children mimic; They understood that wisdom comes of beggary.

CRAZED through much child-bearing The moon is staggering in the sky; Moon-struck by the despairing Glances of her wandering eye We grope, and grope in vain, For children born of her pain. Children dazed or dead! What manhood led the dance! Fly-catchers of the moon, Our hands are blenched, our fingers seem But slender needles of bone; Blenched by that malicious dream They are spread wide that each May rend what comes in reach. Imitate him if you dare, World-besotted traveller; he Served human liberty. Fool, rascal, knave, That I have not been, And yet upon my breast A myriad heads have lain.

THE threefold terror of love; a fallen flare Through the hollow of an ear; Wings beating about the room; The terror of all terrors that I bore The Heavens in my womb. Had I not found content among the shows Every common woman knows, Chimney corner, garden walk, Or rocky cistern where we tread the clothes And gather all the talk? WHERE had her sweetness gone? What fanatics invent In this blind bitter town, Fantasy or incident Not worth thinking of, put her in a rage. I had forgiven enough That had forgiven old age. All lives that has lived; So much is certain; Old sages were not deceived: Somewhere beyond the curtain Of distorting days Lives that lonely thing That shone before these eyes Targeted, trod like Spring.

But I have straightened out Ruin, wreck and wrack; I toiled long years and at length Came to so deep a thought I can summon back All their wholesome strength. What heads shake or nod? I sought my betters: Great hatred, little room, Maimed us at the start.

Capabilities

Some stupid thing that I had done Made my attention stray. Repentance keeps my heart impure; But what am I that dare Fancy that I can Better conduct myself or have more Sense than a common man? What motion of the sun or stream Or eyelid shot the gleam That pierced my body through? What made me live like these that seem Self-born, born anew?

A bundle of tempestuous cloud is blown About the sky; where that is clear of cloud Brightness remains; a brighter star shoots down; What shudders run through all that animal blood? What is this sacrifice? Can someone there Recall the Cretan barb that pierced a star? Rich foliage that the starlight glittered through, A frenzied crowd, and where the branches sprang A beautiful seated boy; a sacred bow; A woman, and an arrow on a string; A pierced boy, image of a star laid low. That woman, the Great Mother imaging, Cut out his heart. Some master of design Stamped boy and tree upon Sicilian coin.

An age is the reversal of an age: When strangers murdered Emmet, Fitzgerald, Tone, We lived like men that watch a painted stage. What matter for the scene, the scene once gone: It had not touched our lives. But popular rage, Hysterica passion dragged this quarry down. None shared our guilt; nor did we play a part Upon a painted stage when we devoured his heart. Come, fix upon me that accusing eye. I thirst for accusation. All that was sung.

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All that was said in Ireland is a lie Bred out of the contagion of the throng, Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die. Leave nothing but the nothings that belong To this bare soul, let all men judge that can Whether it be an animal or a man. The rest I pass, one sentence I unsay.

No civil rancour torn the land apart. A slow low note and an iron bell. What brought them there so far from their home. Niamh that rode on it; lad and lass That sat so still and played at the chess? What but heroic wantonness? And all alone comes riding there The King that could make his people stare, Because he had feathers instead of hair. That were a cowardly song, Wander in dreams no more; What if the Church and the State Are the mob that howls at the door!

Wine shall run thick to the end, Bread taste sour. Have I, that put it into words, Spoilt what old loins have sent? Eyes spiritualised by death can judge, I cannot, but I am not content. All the Olympians; a thing never known again. SAY that the men of the old black tower, Though they but feed as the goatherd feeds, Their money spent, their wine gone sour, Lack nothing that a soldier needs, That all are oath-bound men: Those banners come not in. There in the tomb stand the dead upright, But winds come up from the shore: They shake when the winds roar, Old bones upon the mountain shake.

If he died long ago Why do you dread us so? There in the tomb drops the faint moonlight, But wind comes up from the shore: Stand we on guard oath-bound! There in the tomb the dark grows blacker, But wind comes up from the shore: He rose the latch and went upstairs And found an empty room. The Colonel went out sailing. She may be all alone there, For who can say? The Colonel met a pedlar, Agreed their clothes to swop, And bought the grandest jewelry In a Galway shop, Instead of thread and needle put jewelry in the pack, Bound a thong about his hand, Hitched it on his back.

And he went in and she went on And both climbed up the stair, And O he was a clever man, For he his slippers wore. And when they came to the top stair He ran on ahead, His wife he found and the rich man In the comfort of a bed. And there at all street-corners A man with a pistol stood, And the rich man had paid them well To shoot the Colonel dead; But they threw down their pistols And all men heard them swear That they could never shoot a man Did all that for the poor. THAT crazed girl improvising her music.

Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,. Her soul in division from itself Climbing, falling She knew not where, Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship, Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing Heroically lost, heroically found. I have found something worse To meditate on. A King had some beautiful cousins. But where are they gone?

Battered to death in a cellar, And he stuck to his throne. Last night I lay on the mountain. A MAN that had six mortal wounds, a man Violent and famous, strode among the dead; Eyes stared out of the branches and were gone. Then certain Shrouds that muttered head to head Came and were gone. He leant upon a tree As though to meditate on wounds and blood. A Shroud that seemed to have authority Among those bird-like things came, and let fall A bundle of linen. Shrouds by two and three. Came creeping up because the man was still. And thereupon that linen-carrier said: Convicted cowards all, by kindred slain.

YOU ask what — I have found, and far and wide I go: They have schooling of their own, but I pass their schooling by, What can they know that we know that know the time to die? O what of that, O what of that, What is there left to say?

I came on a great house in the middle of the night, Its open lighted doorway and its windows all alight, And all my friends were there and made me welcome too; But I woke in an old ruin that the winds. What if my great-granddad had a pair that were twenty foot high, And mine were but fifteen foot, no modern Stalks upon higher, Some rogue of the world stole them to patch up a fence or a fire. Because piebald ponies, led bears, caged lions, are but poor shows, Because children demand Daddy-long-legs upon this timber toes, Because women in the upper storeys demand a face at the pane, That patching old heels they may shriek, I take to chisel and plane.

Malachi Stilt-Jack am I, whatever I learned has run wild, From collar to collar, from stilt to stilt, from father to child. All metaphor, Malachi, stilts and all. A barnacle goose Far up in the stretches of night; night splits and the dawn breaks loose; I, through the terrible novelty of light, stalk on, stalk on; Those great sea-horses bare their teeth and laugh at the dawn. I have passed with a nod of the head Or polite meaningless words, Or have lingered awhile and said Polite meaningless words, And thought before I had done Of a mocking tale or a gibe To please a companion Around the fire at the club, Being certain that they and I.

But lived where motley is worn: All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born. What voice more sweet than hers When, young and beautiful, She rode to harriers? This man had kept a school And rode our winged horse; This other his helper and friend Was coming into his force; He might have won fame in the end, So sensitive his nature seemed, So daring and sweet his thought. This other man I had dreamed A drunken, vainglorious lout. He had done most bitter wrong To some who are near my heart, Yet I number him in the song; He, too, has resigned his part In the casual comedy; He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly: Hearts with one purpose alone Through summer and winter seem Enchanted to a stone To trouble the living stream.

The horse that comes from the road. The rider, the birds that range From cloud to tumbling cloud, Minute by minute they change; A shadow of cloud on the stream Changes minute by minute; A horse-hoof slides on the brim, And a horse plashes within it; The long-legged moor-hens dive, And hens to moor-cocks call; Minute by minute they live: Too long a sacrifice Can make a stone of the heart.

O when may it suffice? What is it but nightfall? No, no, not night but death; Was it needless death after all? For England may keep faith For all that is done and said. We know their dream; enough To know they dreamed and are dead; And what if excess of love Bewildered them till they died? Seventy years have I lived No ragged beggar-man, Seventy years have I lived, Seventy years man and boy, And never have I danced for joy. WHAT sort of man is coming To lie between your feet? What matter, we are but women. Wash; make your body sweet; I have cupboards of dried fragrance. I can strew the sheet.

The Lord have mercy upon us. Soul must learn a love that is proper to my breast, Limbs a Love in common With every noble beast. If soul may look and body touch, Which is the more blest? THAT civilisation may not sink, Its great battle lost, Quiet the dog, tether the pony To a distant post; Our master Caesar is in the tent Where the maps ate spread, His eyes fixed upon nothing, A hand under his head.

Like a long-legged fly upon the stream His mind moves upon silence. That the topless towers be burnt And men recall that face, Move most gently if move you must In this lonely place. She thinks, part woman, three parts a child, That nobody looks; her feet Practise a tinker shuffle Picked up on a street. Like a long-legged fly upon the stream Her mind moves upon silence. There on that scaffolding reclines Michael Angelo. With no more sound than the mice make His hand moves to and fro.

Like a long-leggedfly upon the stream His mind moves upon silence. Now sinks the same rest On mind, on nest, On straining thighs. All that I have said and done, Now that I am old and ill, Turns into a question till I lie awake night after night And never get the answers right. Did that play of mine send out Certain men the English shot? Could my spoken words have checked That whereby a house lay wrecked? And all seems evil until I Sleepless would lie down and die. Man O Rocky Voice, Shall we in that great night rejoice? What do we know but that we face One another in this place? But hush, for I have lost the theme, Its joy or night-seem but a dream; Up there some hawk or owl has struck, Dropping out of sky or rock, A stricken rabbit is crying out, And its cry distracts my thought.

What made the ceiling waterproof? Why is the woman terror-struck? Can there be mercy in that look? Plotinus came and looked about, The salt-flakes on his breast, And having stretched and yawned awhile Lay sighing like the rest. The ecstatic waters laugh because Their cries are sweet and strange, Through their ancestral patterns dance, And the brute dolphins plunge Until, in some cliff-sheltered bay Where wades the choir of love Proffering its sacred laurel crowns, They pitch their burdens off.

Because this age and the next age Engender in the ditch, No man can know a happy man From any passing wretch; If Folly link with Elegance No man knows which is which, Said the man in the golden breastplate Under the old stone Cross. But actors lacking music Do most excite my spleen, They say it is more human To shuffle, grunt and groan, Not knowing what unearthly stuff Rounds a mighty scene, Said the man in the golden breastplate Under the old stone Cross.

Parnell came down the road, he said to a cheering man: Of poets that are always gay, For everybody knows or else should know That if nothing drastic is done Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out. Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in Until the town lie bearen flat. They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay; Gaiety transfiguring all that dread. All men have aimed at, found and lost; Black out; Heaven blazing into the head: Tragedy wrought to its uttermost. Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages, And all the drop-scenes drop at once Upon a hundred thousand stages, It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.

On their own feet they came, or On shipboard, Camel-back; horse-back, ass-back, mule-back, Old civilisations put to the sword. Then they and their wisdom went to rack: No handiwork of Callimachus, Who handled marble as if it were bronze, Made draperies that seemed to rise When sea-wind swept the corner, stands; His long lamp-chimney shaped like the stem Of a slender palm, stood but a day; All things fall and are built again, And those that build them again are gay.

Choosing Sylvia Plath's poems

Two Chinamen, behind them a third, Are carved in lapis lazuli, Over them flies a long-legged bird, A symbol of longevity; The third, doubtless a serving-man, Carries a musical instrument. Every discoloration of the stone, Every accidental crack or dent, Seems a water-course or an avalanche, Or lofty slope where it still snows Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch Sweetens the little half-way house Those Chinamen climb towards, and I Delight to imagine them seated there; There, on the mountain and the sky, On all the tragic scene they stare. One asks for mournful melodies; Accomplished fingers begin to play.

Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes, Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay. He died upon the gallows, But that is nothing new. Afraid they might be beaten Before the bench of Time, They turned a trick by forgery And blackened his good name. A perjurer stood ready To prove their forgery true; They gave it out to all the world, And that is something new;. Come speak your bit in public That some amends be made To this most gallant gentleman That is in quicklime laid.

Why did the people stare? His numbers, though they moved or seemed to move In marble or in bronze, lacked character. But boys and girls, pale from the imagined love Of solitary beds, knew what they were, That passion could bring character enough, And pressed at midnight in some public place Live lips upon a plummet-measured face. Europe put off that foam when Phidias Gave women dreams and dreams their looking-glass. One image crossed the many-headed, sat Under the tropic shade, grew round and slow, No Hamlet thin from eating flies, a fat Dreamer of the Middle Ages.

Empty eyeballs knew That knowledge increases unreality, that Mirror on mirror mirrored is all the show. When Pearse summoned Cuchulain to his side. What stalked through the post Office? What intellect, What calculation, number, measurement, replied? We Irish, born into that ancient sect But thrown upon this filthy modern tide And by its formless spawning fury wrecked, Climb to our proper dark, that we may trace The lineaments of a plummet-measured face.

Some knew what ailed the world But never said a thing, So I have picked a better trade And night and morning sing: Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon. Commanding officer that tore The khaki from his back? Ach, call me what you please! With boys and girls about him. With any sort of clothes, With a hat out of fashion, With Old patched shoes, With a ragged bandit cloak, With an eye like a hawk, With a stiff straight back, With a strutting turkey walk.

Their love was never drowned in care Of this or that thing, nor grew cold Because their bodies had grown old. Being forbid to marry on earth, They blossomed to immortal mirth. They found an old man running there: O wandering birds and rushy beds, You put such folly in our heads With all this crying in the wind, No common love is to our mind, And our poor Kate or Nan is less Than any whose unhappiness Awoke the harp-strings long ago. Who was it put so great a scorn In the grey reeds that night and morn Are trodden and broken by the herds, And in the light bodies of birds The north wind tumbles to and fro And pinches among hail and snow?

For all that country had been astir If anybody half as fair Had chosen a husband anywhere But where it could see her every day. We hold, because our memory is So full of that thing and of this, That out of sight is out of mind. But the grey rush under the wind And the grey bird with crooked bill rave such long memories that they still Remember Deirdre and her man; And when we walk with Kate or Nan About the windy water-side, Our hearts can Fear the voices chide.

How could we be so soon content, Who know the way that Naoise went? Now had that old gaunt crafty one, Gathering his cloak about him, run Where Aillinn rode with waiting-maids, Who amid leafy lights and shades Dreamed of the hands that would unlace Their bodices in some dim place When they had come to the marriage-bed, And harpers, pacing with high head As though their music were enough To make the savage heart of love Grow gentle without sorrowing, Imagining and pondering Heaven knows what calamity;.

Therefore it is but little news That put this hurry in my shoes. Then seeing that he scarce had spoke Before her love-worn heart had broke. He ran and laughed until he came To that high hill the herdsmen name The Hill Seat of Laighen, because Some god or king had made the laws That held the land together there, In old times among the clouds of the air.

That old man climbed; the day grew dim; Two swans came flying up to him, Linked by a gold chain each to each, And with low murmuring laughing speech Alighted on the windy grass. What shall I call them? For this young girl and this young man Have happiness without an end, Because they have made so good a friend. They know all wonders, for they pass The towery gates of Gorias, And Findrias and Falias, And long-forgotten Murias, Among the giant kings whose hoard, Cauldron and spear and stone and sword, Was robbed before earth gave the wheat; Wandering from broken street to street They come where some huge watcher is, And tremble with their love and kiss.

They know undying things, for they Wander where earth withers away, Though nothing troubles the great streams But light from the pale stars, and gleams From the holy orchards, where there is none But fruit that is of precious stone, Or apples of the sun and moon. What were our praise to them? And poets found, old writers say, A yew tree where his body lay; But a wild apple hid the grass With its sweet blossom where hers was, And being in good heart, because A better time had come again After the deaths of many men, And that long fighting at the ford, They wrote on tablets of thin board, Made of the apple and the yew, All the love stories that they knew.

Skip to main content. Until Life Says No to Me. Margaret Hitchcock, like all good poets, asks you questions you didnt know you wanted to ask: Can flour, or flowers, be a life raft? What does a house cleaner do when she finds love left lying in the house she is working in? Is anything better than butter?

What kind of cage do words make? Was Cinderella really happy ever after? What comes first in the morning, the challenge of beauty or something else? Should the Princes of Poppycock be addressed as Her Peachiness? Wet things smell stronger, and I suppose his main regret is that he can sniff just one at a time. In a frenzy of delight he runs way up the sandy road— scored by freshets after five days of rain.

Every pebble gleams, every leaf. By the end of the poem, however, she puts a new spin on things; despite feeling recovered and glad that the rain is over, there is a sense that the troubles are not over: Time to head home. I got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise. I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. With the poem ending: I slept in a bed in a room with paintings on the walls, and planned another day just like this day. But one day, I know, it will be otherwise. In fact, depression creeps into many of these poems, despite an also ever-present sense of love and connection with her husband, dog, the landscape, literature, and writing.

Donald Hall has written a memoir about their life together which I plan on reading. Her poems may at first appear simple and literal, but careful attention reveals the transcendent insights which connect the ephemeral with the timeless, the personal with the larger landscape of the world. In short, the kind of insights that make poetry truly alive. Dec 30, Laura rated it it was amazing Shelves: What Came to Me I took the last dusty piece of china out of the barrel. It was your gravy boat, with a hard, brown drop of gravy still on the porcelain lip.

I grieved for you then as I never had before. The Poet at Ten She lay on her back in the timothy and gazed past the doddering auburn heads of sumac. A cloud—huge, calm, and dignified—covered the sun but did not, could not, put it out. The light surged back again. Nothing could rouse her then from that joy so violent it was hard to distingui What Came to Me I took the last dusty piece of china out of the barrel.

Nothing could rouse her then from that joy so violent it was hard to distinguish from pain. Then it sank in the night, one piece, taking winter with it. And afterward everything seems simple and good. All afternoon I lifted oak leaves from the flowerbeds, and greeted like friends the green-white crowns of perennials.

How I hated to come in! Dinner is over, no one stirs. The dog sighs, sneezes, and closes his eyes. Hay fills the barn; only the rake and one empty wagon are left in the field. In the ditches goldenrod bends to the ground. Even at noon the house is dark. In my room under the eaves I hear the steady benevolence of water washing dust raised by the haying from the porch and car and garden chair. We are shorn and purified, as if tonsured. The grass resolves to grow again, receiving the rain to that end, but my disordered soul thirsts after something it cannot name.

Apr 17, Bookish added it Shelves: Jane Kenyon died so young that we have no idea what sort of beautiful work she would be bringing us now, but the poetry found within her Collected Poems is definitely among some of the finest I know. I have owned this book for years and it is heavily dog-eared my apologies to those of you who are offended by dog ears and marginalia!

Each time I return to it, as I have this week, I find myself once again in awe and in love with the words of this miraculous poet. These poems express a love of nature, a frustration with illness, a belief in a higher being, a painful melancholy. What hurt me so terribly all my life until this moment? How I love the small, swiftly beating heart of the bird singing in the great maples; its bright, unequivocal eye. Mar 21, Kristin Boldon rated it it was amazing Shelves: I always feel I don't 'get' poetry, but I love the poems of Jane Kenyon. Sep 10, Matthew Westerholm rated it it was amazing.

Earthy, accessible, and brilliant. May 28, katharine rated it it was amazing Shelves: I discovered this poet through listening to a "Writer's Almanac" a few months ago. This is the poet I've been waiting to read for my whole life, I'm seriously not understating. I can't really express how much I was moved by this work. Every poem in this book with the exception of one, the very last one left me saying "yes! Some have come close, but Jane Kenyon strikes just the right balance for me at least. Mary Oliver is a little too sentimental, Gary Snyder a little too esoteric. Kenyon's lyrical rhythms of the natural cycle of the year and domestic life feel like being in a conversation with a friend where they say something and I'm like, "that's just what I was going to say!

After devouring the collection for two days I literally stopped reading halfway through because I knew that this collection represented all of Kenyon's work, and as she died tragically almost twenty years ago, I knew I would never get the joy of reading a poem of hers for the first time once I had finished. I wanted to savor the work for longer--I only lasted three days though and the finished the collection on the fourth.

Also collected in the book are translations of a Russian poet that I had never heard of before that I enjoyed reading and had similar but more cynical sensibility to Kenyon. Coincidentally I learned that Kenyon's husband wrote one of my favorite books from childhood, "The Oxcart Man. Reading this book again feels like finding a lost friend.

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These are poems to return to again and again, ones that show meaning in the mundane, everyday aspects of life, and makes sense of this life through observation of nature and the home. Dec 16, Jennifer Louden added it. What i love best about her poems are how she descends into darkness and then back into gratitude and life. She captures hope alive in the dark. Jan 02, Melisa Blok rated it it was amazing. I love Jane Kenyon. I'm finally finishing this book of her collected poems that I received as a Christmas gift a few years ago.

It was worth the dawdling over the poems. I am the blossom pressed in a book, found again after two hundred years. I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper. When the young girl who starves sits down to a table she will sit beside me. I am food on the prisoner's plate. I am water r I love Jane Kenyon. I am water rushing to the wellhead, filling the pitcher until it spills.

I am the patient gardener of the dry and weedy garden. I am the stone step, the latch, and the working hinge. I am the heart contracted by joy. I am there in the basket of fruit presented to the widow. I am the musk rose opening unattended, the fern on the boggy summit. I am the one whose love overcomes you, already with you when you think to call my name. Feb 26, Donna rated it really liked it Shelves: An excellent collection of poems that spans the authors writing lifetime. You begin to feel you know the author as she goes through different phases of life and her writing reflects that.

Like a friend you stay in touch with, even though you don't live close anymore. I read it over the course of about a year and enjoyed picking it up now and then to read another batch of poems before setting it down for a little bit. A lovely collection, particularly covering topics relating to country life and An excellent collection of poems that spans the authors writing lifetime. A lovely collection, particularly covering topics relating to country life and the loss of someone you love.

Dec 09, Keith Taylor rated it it was amazing. People seem to be reading Kenyon again! Some for the first time. I think that's great. Since, sadly, she died young, her "Collected Poems" isn't gigantic, and she published carefully so there aren't very many duds in this book. You can link to it below: Jul 05, Crystal rated it really liked it Shelves: I had read just a couple of Kenyon's poems and decided that I need to read more of her work. I really enjoyed this rather large collection. Her poems remind me just a little of Robert Frost and Mary Oliver. But she seems closer to her own humanity than some poets which is refreshing.

It's such a joy to read poetry that reaches somewhere inside and causes you to say "yes. Aug 13, Eva Whittle rated it it was amazing. Her poems are gentle—even the painful ones—and true. Everyday experiences written with extreme mindfulness. Her illness ended her life too soon.

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