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Verse 

Marriage (1916)

• So different, this man
  And this woman:
  A stream flowing
  In a field.
  • Poetry Chicago, 1916)

Al Que Quiere! (1917)

• Why do I write today?
• The beauty of
  the terrible faces
  of our nonentities
  stirs me to it:
• “Apology”

• I lie here thinking of you:—the stain of love
  is upon the world!
  • “Love Song”

• Brother!
  — if we were rich
  we’d stick our chests out
  and hold our heads high!
• It is dreams that have destroyed us.
• There is no more pride
  in horses or in rein holding.
• We sit hunched together brooding
  our fate.
• Well —
  all things turn bitter in the end
  whether you choose the right or
  the left way
  and —
  dreams are not a bad thing.
  • “Libertad! Igualidad! Fraternidad!”

Collected Poems 1921-1931 (1934)

• “He’s come out of the man
  and he’s let
  the man go —

the liar
Dead

his eyes

rolled up out of
the light — a mockery

which

love cannot touch —just bury it
and hide its face
for shame.

• “Death”

Complete Collected Poems (1938)

• These
• are the desolate, dark weeks
  when nature in its barrenness
  equals the stupidity of man.
• The
• year plunges into night
  and the heart plunges
  lower than night
  • “These”

Collected Later Poems (1950)

• Not now. Love itself a flower
  with roots in a parched ground.
  Empty pockets make empty heads.
  Cure it if you can but
  do not believe that we can live
  today in the country
  for the country will bring us
  no peace.
  • “Raleigh Was Right” (1940)

The Desert Music and Other Poems (1954)

• I think
  of the poetry
  of René Char
  and all he must have seen
  and suffered
  that has brought him
  to speak only of
  sedgy rivers,
  of daffodils and tulips
  whose roots they water,
  even to the free-flowing river
  that laves the rootlets
  of those sweet-scented flowers
  that people the
  milky
  way
  • “To a Dog Injured in the Street”

• The cries of a dying dog
  are to be blotted out
  as best I can.
  René Char
  you are a poet who believes
  in the power of beauty
  to right all wrongs.
  I believe it also.
  With invention and courage
  we shall surpass
  the pitiful dumb beasts,
  let all men believe it,
  as you have taught me also
  to believe it.
  • “To a Dog Injured in the Street”

Journey to Love (1955)

Asphodel, That Greeny Flower

• Of asphodel, that greeny flower,

like a buttercup

upon its branching stem —

save that’s green and wooden —

I come, my sweet,

to sing to you.

We lived long together,

a life filled,

if you will,

with flowers. So that

I was cheered

when I first came to know

that there were flowers also

in hell.

Today

I’m filled with the fading memory of those flowers

that we both loved,

even to this poor

colorless thing —

I saw it

when I was a child —

little prized among the living

but the dead see,

asking among themselves:

What do I remember

that was shaped

as this thing is shaped?

while our eyes fill

with tears.

Of love, abiding love

it will be telling

though too weak a wash of crimson

colors it

to make it wholly credible.

There is something

something urgent

I have to say to you

and you alone

but it must wait

while I drink in

the joy of your approach,

perhaps for the last time.

And so

with fear in my heart

I drag it out

and keep on talking

for I dare not stop.

• Only give me time,

time to recall them

before I shall speak out.

Give me time,

time.

When I was a boy

I kept a book

to which, from time

to time,

I added pressed flowers

until, after a time,

I had a good collection.

The asphodel,

forebodingly,

among them.

I bring you,

reawakened,

a memory of those flowers.

They were sweet

when I pressed them

and retained

something of their sweetness

a long time.

It is a curious odor,

a moral odor,

that brings me

near to you.

• Endless wealth,

I thought,

held out its arms to me.

A thousand tropics

in an apple blossom.

The generous earth itself

gave us lief.

The whole world

became my garden!

But the sea

which no one tends

is also a garden

when the sun strikes it

and the waves

are wakened.

I have seen it

and so have you

when it puts all flowers

to shame.

• I cannot say

that I have gone to hell

for your love

but often

found myself there

in your pursuit.

I do not like it

and wanted to be

in heaven. Hear me out.

Do not turn away.

I have learned much in my life

from books

and out of them

about love.

Death

is not the end of it.

• The storm unfolds.

Lightning

plays about the edges of the clouds.

The sky to the north

is placid,

blue in the afterglow

as the storm piles up.

It is a flower

that will soon reach

the apex of its bloom.

• When I speak

of flowers

it is to recall

that at one time

we were young.

All women are not Helen,

I know that,

but have Helen in their hearts.

My sweet,

you have it also, therefore

I love you

and could not love you otherwise.

• The storm bursts

or fades! it is not

the end of the world.

Love is something else,

or so I thought it,

a garden which expands,

though I knew you as a woman

and never thought otherwise,

until the whole sea

has been taken up

and all its gardens.

It was the love of love,

the love that swallows up all else,

a grateful love,

a love of nature, of people,

of animals,

a love engendering

gentleness and goodness

that moved me

and that I saw in you.

• I come, my sweet,

to sing to you!

My heart rouses

thinking to bring you news

of something

that concerns you

and concerns many men. Look at

what passes for the new.

You will not find it there but in

despised poems.

•     It is difficult
  to get the news from poems

yet men die miserably every day

for lack

of what is found there.