Poetry
Winter 1960
The Time to Come
Two young hearts in five old rooms But the first ever, being theirs: Experience, transplanted, blooms And with good weather wisely bears; And will be harvested some day; But that […]
Poetry
Winter 1960
Let Me Listen
I cannot thank you, rain, enough. You would not hear me anyway. You have your noises—let me listen As the dark grass will all day. I am not grass, I […]
Poetry
Winter 1960
Young Herbert
Young Herbert on his hill and I on mine Do not forget each other. What he thinks, I wonder. But he thinks. I know by now He takes so long […]
Poetry
Winter 1950
The Mirror
Nothing could this man dismay. He held a mirror in his hand: A small one, but it looked away As time does over sleeping land. It showed him worse things […]
Poetry
Winter 1950
What Beast Is This
What beast is this, not bellowing, not stung With blood, that moves upon us to devour? For it is near—the never ending hour Of our own death, that all the […]
Poetry
Winter 1947
Homage to Three
THOMAS HARDY, POET With older eyes than any Roman hadIn a stone hole, or Briton under barrow,Steadily he gazed; and bleakest worldsGrew warm—illicitly grew warm and moved;For hope in him […]
Poetry
Spring 1943
Aetat 50
Will it be more of this that century day, If day at all, if number, if I live, Will it be this and better: what I know now Doubled at […]
Poetry
Spring 1943
April, 1942
How terrible their trust, the little leaves, The odorless, uncurling into love, The warm day round them, careless if they curl. It is not there for them; the great clock […]
Poetry
Spring 1943
How We Shine
Why does it jog so slowly, the one rumor No idiot doubts, no sage of us denies: Death’s hand is last? The newest breathing infant, After so many autumns, after […]
Poetry
Spring 1942
Northern Minstrel (Kafka)
Having no end to sing, he sent his heroes Nevertheless and swiftly: similar arrows Into one dark where snow was the conclusion; Where going on was target; piercing which, More […]
Poetry
Spring 1942
The Seven Sleepers
The liberal arts lie eastward of this shore. Choppy the waves at first. Then the long swells And the being lost. Oh, centuries of salt Till the surf booms again, […]
Poetry
Spring 1942
Northern Philosopher (Kierkegaard)
Not the world's width, but a deep vein somewhere That disappointment lowered his mind to; That cruelty opened, offering passage: Sanctuary to injured sense; Not the tall sky's excitement, spread […]
Poetry
Spring 1942
Latter Day
Historian, these hills Mock a late race, remembering Tall senators at dawn Walking the dew ways. Where have they gone, the guardians? Emperor is thief, and matrons Muddy the sweet […]
Book Reviews
Spring 1939
Music of a Mind
New Writing: Fall, 1938. Edited by John Lehmann. Knopf. $2.75 In Dreams Begin Responsibilities. By Delmore Schwartz. New Directions. $2.50 A sentence in Mr. Lehmann’s volume might suggest to the […]