A Poetry Book

Come into the garden, Maud,      For the black bat, night, has flown, Come into the garden, Maud,      I am here at the gate alone; And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,      And the musk of the rose is blown.

  For a breeze of morning moves,      And the planet of Love is on high, Beginning to faint in the light that she loves      In a bed of daffodil sky, To faint in the light of the sun she loves,      To faint in his light, and to die.

  All night have the roses heard      The flute, violin, bassoon; All night has the casement jessamine stirr’d      To the dancers dancing in tune; Till a silence fell with the waking bird,      And a hush with the setting moon.

  I said to the lily, “There is but one      With whom she has heart to be gay. When will the dancers leave her alone?      She is weary of dance and play.” Now half to the setting moon are gone,      And half to the rising day; Low on the sand and loud on the stone      The last wheel echoes away.

  I said to the rose, “The brief night goes      In babble and revel and wine. O young lord-lover, what sighs are those,      For one that will never be thine? But mine, but mine,” so I sware to the rose,      "For ever and ever, mine.“

  And the soul of the rose went into my blood,      As the music clash’d in the hall; And long by the garden lake I stood,      For I heard your rivulet fall From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood,      Our wood, that is dearer than all;

  From the meadow your walks have left so sweet      That whenever a March-wind sighs He sets the jewel-print of your feet      In violets blue as your eyes, To the woody hollows in which we meet      And the valleys of Paradise.

  The slender acacia would not shake      One long milk-bloom on the tree; The white lake-blossom fell into the lake      As the pimpernel dozed on the lea; But the rose was awake all night for your sake,      Knowing your promise to me; The lilies and roses were all awake,      They sigh’d for the dawn and thee.

  Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,      Come hither, the dances are done, In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,      Queen lily and rose in one; Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,      To the flowers, and be their sun.

  There has fallen a splendid tear      From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear;      She is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;”      And the white rose weeps, “She is late;” The larkspur listens, “I hear, I hear;”      And the lily whispers, “I wait.”

In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden, Matthea Harvey (transcript under the cut)

by Mary Oliver

I.

Something came up out of the dark. It wasn’t anything I had ever seen before. It wasn’t an animal or a flower, unless it was both.

Something came up out of the water, a head the size of a cat but muddy and without ears. I don’t know what God is. I don’t know what death is.

But I believe they have between them some fervent and necessary arrangement.

II.

Sometimes melancholy leaves me breathless…

III.

Water from the heavens! Electricity from the source! Both of them mad to create something!

The lighting brighter than any flower. The thunder without a drowsy bone in its body.

IV.

Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

V. Two or three times in my life I discovered love. Each time it seemed to solve everything. Each time it solved a great many things but not everything. Yet left me as grateful as if it had indeed, and thoroughly, solved everything.

VI.

God, rest in my heart and fortify me, take away my hunger for answers, let the hours play upon my body

like the hands of my beloved. Let the cathead appear again— the smallest of your mysteries, some wild cousin of my own blood probably— some cousin of my own wild blood probably, in the black dinner-bowl of the pond.

VII.

Death waits for me, I know it, around one corner or another. This doesn’t amuse me. Neither does it frighten me.

After the rain, I went back into the field of sunflowers. It was cool, and I was anything but drowsy. I walked slowly, and listened

PART ONE

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,

And the highwayman came riding—

Riding—riding—

The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

He’d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,

A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin.

They fitted with never a wrinkle. His boots were up to the thigh.

And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,

His pistol butts a-twinkle,

His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard.

He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred.

He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there

But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,

Bess, the landlord’s daughter,

Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked

Where Tim the ostler listened. His face was white and peaked.

His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,

But he loved the landlord’s daughter,

The landlord’s red-lipped daughter.

Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say—

“One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I’m after a prize to-night,

But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;

Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,

Then look for me by moonlight,

Watch for me by moonlight,

I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.”

He rose upright in the stirrups. He scarce could reach her hand,

But she loosened her hair in the casement. His face burnt like a brand

As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;

And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,

(O, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)

Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.

PART TWO

He did not come in the dawning. He did not come at noon;

And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise of the moon,

When the road was a gypsy’s ribbon, looping the purple moor,

A red-coat troop came marching—

Marching—marching—

King George’s men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

They said no word to the landlord. They drank his ale instead.

But they gagged his daughter, and bound her, to the foot of her narrow bed.

Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!

There was death at every window;

And hell at one dark window;

For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.

They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest.

They had bound a musket beside her, with the muzzle beneath her breast!

“Now, keep good watch!” and they kissed her. She heard the doomed man say—

Look for me by moonlight;

Watch for me by moonlight;

I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!

She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!

She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!

They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years

Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,

Cold, on the stroke of midnight,

The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

The tip of one finger touched it. She strove no more for the rest.

Up, she stood up to attention, with the muzzle beneath her breast.

She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;

For the road lay bare in the moonlight;

Blank and bare in the moonlight;

And the blood of her veins, in the moonlight, throbbed to her love’s refrain.

Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horsehoofs ringing clear;

Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?

Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,

The highwayman came riding—

Riding—riding—

The red coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still.

Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!

Nearer he came and nearer. Her face was like a light.

Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,

Then her finger moved in the moonlight,

Her musket shattered the moonlight,

Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.

He turned. He spurred to the west; he did not know who stood

Bowed, with her head o’er the musket, drenched with her own blood!

Not till the dawn he heard it, and his face grew grey to hear

How Bess, the landlord’s daughter,

The landlord’s black-eyed daughter,

Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,

With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high.

Blood red were his spurs in the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat;

When they shot him down on the highway,

Down like a dog on the highway,

And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat.

. . .

And still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,

When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,

When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,

A highwayman comes riding—

Riding—riding—

A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard.

He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred.

He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there

But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,

Bess, the landlord’s daughter,

BY FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA

TRANSLATED BY SARAH ARVIO

i

For Laurita, my sister’s friend

The moon is dead dead

— it will come back to life in the spring

when a south wind

ruffles the brow of the poplars

when our hearts yield their harvest of sighs

when the roofs wear their grass hats

The moon is dead dead

— it will come back to life in the spring

ii

For Isabelita, my sister

The evening sings a lullaby

to the oranges

My little sister sings

“the earth is an orange”

The moon weeping says

“I want to be an orange”

You can’t be — my dear — 

even if you turn pink

or a little bit lemon

by Galway Kinnell

by Carl Sandburg

by Leonard Cohen

He knows it all: that I’m in love

And you care much and not at all.

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Under the wide and starry sky Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will.