How Hard, How Desperately Hard, Is The

Underneath My Stiffened Gown Is The Softness Of A Woman Bathing In A Marble Basin, A Basin In The Midst Of Hedges Grown So Thick, She Cannot See Her Lover Hiding, But She Guesses He Is Near, And The Sliding Of The Water Seems The Stroking Of A Dear Hand Upon Her.

Poets Are Always The Advance Guard Of Literature; The Advance Guard Of Life. It Is For This Reason That Their Recognition Comes So Slowly.

Life Is A Stream On Which We Strew Petal By Petal The Flower Of Our Heart; The End Lost In Dream, They Float Past Our View, We Only Watch Their Glad, Early Start. Freighted With Hope, Crimsoned With Joy, We Scatter The Leaves Of Our Opening Rose; Their Widening Scope, Their Distant Employ, We Never Shall Know. And The Stream As It Flows Sweeps Them Away, Each One Is Gone Ever Beyond Into Infinite Ways. We Alone Stay While Years Hurry On, The Flower Fared Forth, Though Its Fragrance Still Stays.

This Is War: Boys Flung Into A Breach Like Shoveled Earth; And Old Men, Broken, Driving Rapidly Before Crowds Of People In A Glitter Of Silly Decorations. Behind The Boys And The Old Men, Life Weeps, And Shreds Her Garments To The Blowing Winds.

Lilacs, False Blue, White, Purple, Colour Of Lilac, Your Great Puffs Of Flowers Are Everywhere In This My New England ... Lilacs In Dooryards Holding Quiet Conversation With An Early Moon; Lilacs Watching A Deserted House; ... Lilacs, Wind-beaten, Staggering Under A Lopsided Shock Of Bloom, You Are Everywhere.