Carnegie Hill Village
Staying connected in your own community
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
“Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.”
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
The tulips make me want to paint,
Something about the way they drop
Their petals on the tabletop
And do not wilt so much as faint,
Something about their burnt-out hearts,
Something about their pallid stems
Wearing decay like diadems,
Live thy Life,
Young and old,
Like yon oak,
Bright in spring,
Living gold;
Summer-rich
Then; and then
Autumn-changed
Soberer-hued
Gold again.
All his leaves
Fall'n at length,
Look, he stands,
I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
I have often walked down this street before
But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before
All at once am I several stories high
Knowing I'm on the street where you live
Are there lilac trees in the heart of town?
In winter
all the singing is in
the tops of the trees
where the wind-bird
with its white eyes
shoves and pushes
among the branches.
Like any of us
When the panther came
no belfry rang alarums,
no cleric spat his tea.
When the panther came
the sky an lawn were still.
The panther came
through forest,
through field,
up to the wall
and my one blossoming cherry tree.
The jaws of the cliff
Stood square against the soft hands
Of a first snowfall.
Yet children do not
Cry out nor do they plead once;
Snow dampens the wood.
You had said one thing,
And someone else another;
Outside, winter waits.
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.