Louise Bogan

Men loved wholly beyond
Have the staff without the banner
Like a fire in a dry
Rising within women's

Up from the bronze,
I
Water without a
Rush to its rest in air,

Come, let us tell the weeds in
How we are poor, who once had riches,
And lie out in the sparse and
Pastures that the cows have trodden,

I had come to the house, in a cave of trees, Facing a sheer sky
Everything moved, — a bell hung ready to strike, Sun and reflection wheeled by
When the bare eyes were before me And the hissing hair, Held up at a window, seen through a do...

At midnight
Run in your ears

Now that I
How passion warms
Of flesh in the mould,
And treasure is brittle,—I'll lie here and

She has no need to fear the fall Of harvest from the laddered reach Of orchards, nor the tide gone ebbing From the steep beach
Nor hold to pain's effrontery Her body's bulwark, stern and savage, Nor be a glass, where to forsee Another's ravag...

She has attained the permanence She dreamed of, where old stones lie sunning
Untended stalks blow over her Even and swift, like young men running
Always in the heart she loved Others had lived, — she heard their laughter
She lies wh...

I do not know where either of us can turn Just at first, waking from the sleep of each other
I do not know how we can bear The river struck by the gold plummet of the moon,
Or many trees shaken together in the darkness
We shall wish...

To me, one silly task is like another
I bare the shambling tricks of lust and pride
This flesh will never give a child its mother,— Song, like a wing, tears through my breast, my side,
And madness chooses out my voice again,

When beauty breaks and falls asunderI feel no grief for it, but wonder
When love, like a frail shell, lies broken,
I keep no chip of it for token
I never had a man for

It is yourself you
In a long rage,
Scanning through light and
Mirrors, the page,