Death's Echo “O who can ever gaze his fill,” Farmer and fisherman say, “On native shore and local hill, Grudge aching limb or callus on th Father, grandfather stood upon thi 1
A Dream Deferred What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? 2
Come let us mock at the great Come let us mock at the great That had such burdens on the mind And toiled so hard and late To leave some monument behind, Nor thought of the levelling wind. 5 13
Epitaph on a Tyrant Perfection, of a kind, was what he And the poetry he invented was eas He knew human folly like the back And was greatly interested in armi When he laughed, respectable senat 1
Let History Be my Judge We made all possible preparations, Drew up a list of firms, Constantly revised our calculation And allotted the farms, Issued all the orders expedient 1
The Unknown Citizen He was found by the Bureau of Sta One against whom there was no offi And all the reports on his conduct That, in the modern sense of an ol saint, 1
Partition Unbiased at least he was when he a Having never set eyes on the land Between two peoples fanatically at With their different diets and inc “Time,” they had briefed him in L 1
If I Could Tell You Time will say nothing but I told Time only knows the price we have If I could tell you I would let y If we should weep when clowns put If we should stumble when musician 2
The Novelist Encased in talent like a uniform, The rank of every poet is well kno They can amaze us like a thunderst Or die so young, or live for years They can dash forward like hussars 1
Here War Is Simple Here war is simple like a monument A telephone is speaking to a man; Flags on a map assert that troops A boy brings milk in bowls. There For living men in terror of their 1
Villanelle Time can say nothing but I told y Time only knows the price we have If I could tell you, I would let If we should weep when clowns put If we should stumble when musician 1
Are You There? Each lover has some theory of his About the difference between the a Of being with his love, and being Why what, when dreaming, is dear f That really stirs the senses, when 1
As the poets have mournfully sung As the poets have mournfully sung, Death takes the innocent young, The rolling-in-money, The screamingly-funny, And those who are very well hung. 2
In Memory of W. B. Yeats He disappeared in the dead of wint The brooks were frozen, the airpor And snow disfigured the public sta The mercury sank in the mouth of t What instruments we have agree 2
Ganymede He looked in all His wisdom from Down on that humble boy who kept t And sent a dove; the dove returned Youth liked the music, but soon fe But He had planned such future fo 1
Another Time For us like any other fugitive, Like the numberless flowers that c And all the beasts that need not r It is today in which we live. So many try to say Not Now, 1
September 1, 1939 I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: 2
We Too Had Known Golden Hours We, too, had known golden hours When body and soul were in tune, Had danced with our true loves By the light of a full moon, And sat with the wise and good 1
Funeral Blues Stop all the clocks, cut off the t Prevent the dog from barking with Silence the pianos and with muffle Bring out the coffin, let the mour Let aeroplanes circle moaning over 1 4
In the Time of War, XII And the age ended, and the last de In bed, grown idle and unhappy; th The sudden shadow of the giant’s e Would fall no more at dusk across They slept in peace: in marshes he 1
Miranda My dear one is mine as mirrors are As the poor and sad are real to th And the high green hill sits alway Up jumped the Black Man behind th Turned a somersault and ran away w 1
As We Like It Certainly our city with its byres The river’s edge, its cathedral, i Here is the cosmopolitan cooking And the light alloys and the glass Built by the conscience-stricken, 1
The Riddle Underneath the leaves of life, Green on the prodigious tree, In a trance of grief Stand the fallen man and wife: Far away the single stag 1