#Americans
Tradition, thou art for suckling c… Thou art the enlivening milk for b… But no meat for men is in thee. Then— But, alas, we all are babes.
A man said to the universe: “Sir I exist!” “However,” replied the universe, “The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.”
Once, I knew a fine song, —It is true, believe me— It was all of birds, And I held them in a basket; When I opened the wicket,
The livid lightnings flashed in th… The leaden thunders crashed. A worshipper raised his arm. “Hearken! Hearken! The voice of… “Not so,” said a man.
I HEARD thee laugh, And in this merriment I defined the measure of my pain; I knew that I was alone, Alone with love,
There was a land where lived no vi… A traveller at once demanded: “Wh… The people told him: “Once the violets of this place sp… ‘Until some woman freely gives her…
On the desert A silence from the moon’s deepest… Fire rays fall athwart the robes Of hooded men, squat and dumb. Before them, a woman
The ocean said to me once, “Look! Yonder on the shore Is a woman, weeping. I have watched her.
I stood upon a high place, And saw, below, many devils Running, leaping, and carousing in sin. One looked up, grinning,
The trees in the garden rained flo… Children ran there joyously. They gathered the flowers Each to himself. Now there were some
Yes, I have a thousand tongues, And nine and ninety-nine lie. Though I strive to use the one, It will make no melody at my will, But is dead in my mouth.
If there is a witness to my little… To my tiny throes and struggles, He sees a fool; And it is not fine for gods to men…
AH, God, the way your little fing… As you thrust a bare arm backward And made play with your hair And a comb a silly gilt comb Ah, God—that I should suffer
LITTLE birds of the night Aye, they have much to tell Perching there in rows Blinking at me with their serious… Recounting of flowers they have se…
A man saw a ball of gold in the sk… He climbed for it, And eventually he achieved it— It was clay. Now this is the strange part:
