LET NO CHARITABLE HOPE
Now let no charitable hope
Confuse my mind with images
Of eagle and of antelope
I am in nature none of these.
I was, being human, born alone;
I am, being woman, hard beset
I live by squeezing from a stone
The little nourishment I get.
In masks outrageous and austere
The years go by in single file;
But none has merited my fear,
And none has quite escaped my smile.
Elinor Wylie
INCANTATION
From ��Nets to Catch The Wind
A white well
In a black cave;
A bright shell
In a dark wave.
A white rose
Black brambles hood;
Smooth bright snows
In a dark wood.
A flung white glove
In a dark fight:
A white dove
On a wild black night.
A white door
In a dark lane:
A bright core
To bitter black pain.
A white hand
Waved from dark walls;
In a burnt black land
Bright waterfalls.
A bright spark
Where black ashes are;
In the smothering dark
One white star.
Elinor Wylie
SANCTUARY
From�� Nets To Catch The Wind
This is the bricklayer; hear the thud
Of his heavy load dumped down on stone.
His lustrous bricks are brighter than blood,
His smoking mortar whiter than bone.
Set each sharp-edged, fire-bitten brick
Straight by the plumb-line's shivering length;
Make my marvelous wall so thick
Dead nor living may shake its strength.
Full as a crystal cup with drink
Is my cell with dreams, and quiet, and cool...
Stop, old man! You must leave a chink;
How can I breathe? You can't, you fool!
Elinor Wylie
ATAVISM
I was always afraid of Somes's Pond:
Not the little pond, by which the willow stands,
Where laughing boys catch alewives in their hands
In brown, bright shallows; but the one beyond.
There, when the frost makes all the birches burn
Yellow as cow-lilies, and the pale sky shines
Like a polished shell between black spruce and pines,
Some strange thing tracks us, turning where we turn.
You'll say I dream it, being the true daughter
Of those who in old times endured this dread.
Look!��Where the lily-stems are showing red
A silent paddle moves below the water,
A sliding shape has stirred them like a breath;
Tall plumes surmount a painted mask of death.
Elinor Wylie
THE FALCON
From�� Nets to Catch the Wind
Why should my sleepy heart be taught
To whistle mocking-bird replies?
This is another bird you've caught,
Soft-feathered, with a falcon's eyes.
The bird Imagination,
That flies so far, that dies so soon;
Her wings are colored like the sun,
Her breast is colored like the moon.
Weave her a chain of silver twist,
And a little hood of scarlet wool,
And let her perch upon your wrist,
And tell here she is beautiful.
Elinor Wylie
SONNET X
From One Person
When I perceive the sable of your hair
Silvered, and deep within those caverns are
Your eyesockets, a double-imaged star,
And your fine substance fretted down with care,
Then do I marvel that a woman dare
Prattle of mortal matters near and far
To one so wounded in demonic war
Against some prince of Sirius or Altair.
How is it possible that this hand of clay,
Though white as porcelain, can contrive a touch
So delicate it shall not hurt too much?
What voice can my invention find to say
So soft, precise, and scrupulous a word
You shall not take it for another sword?
Elinor Wylie
NEXT - Satirical Verse (The Barb of Satire)������ ��� INDEX OF POETS
��� HOME: Nets to Catch the Wind��� ��� POETRY of Nature & Gardening��� ��� �