Poetry
Summer 1951
The Mink
The mink, such a helpless, overgrown caterpillar When quiet and waiting, becomes a torment, A wily rodent, bent on serious search. The mink in its brown coat caught chickens by […]
Younger Poets
Autumn 1941
Page Torn from a Note-Book
Not as though storks were sorry that they’d brought the childBut just as summer clouds gather and graySo did the friendship waver, so did time delayIts final shot too long, […]
Younger Poets
Autumn 1941
[How Slightly Earned, the Body]
How slightly earned, the body,body’s first attraction,faint and fierce,how little warranted, its angerof insistence, longing clamber,deprivation, and repose. … We lie, we grow two arms;we anchor cheek, we kiss;we bid our […]
Younger Poets
Autumn 1941
Coup d’Etat
A tremor, like magnitude, shook the world,It was an end-day, a beginning-hour.The front lawns of the suburbs were not glad of it,But the birds carolled endlessly, as ever. The world […]
Poetry
Spring 1945
July Phantom
In the declivities of love, those terse gamuts Where the harsh words are piled like stooks in a field, And the pleasures of unicorns languish . . . In the […]
Poetry
Spring 1945
Little Cuckold
The cuckold with her smiling face Goes about the market place Strewing garlands in the lane For her friend and for her swain Cuckold curtsies to her foe, Kisses rival […]
Discussion
Summer 1943
The Structure of Metaphor
Mr. Ransom in an editorial comment entitled “The Inorganic Muses” makes the following observation concerning metaphor: It has proved impossible, I think, to insist that metaphor is a mere expository […]
Poetry
Summer 1955
To S. R.
1. Magnanimous rain, desired of farmers, today Come forth and be thou the bane of tennis courts, Demolish the tender grain and clog the pores Of the glimmering clay, inducing […]
Poetry
Summer 1955
My Dear He Dress in Scarlet
My dear he dress in scarlet And hunt the ambling deer, My dear he wear a number pressed Upon his beauteous back, just here, And hunt the deer with license. […]