The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry

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by Неизвестный

Mark Strand, 1968

  Next | TOC> If Ever Two Were One> Coleridge M

  We never said farewell

  We never said farewell, nor even looked

  Our last upon each other, for no sign

  Was made when we the linkèd chain unhooked

  And broke the level line.

  And here we dwell together, side by side,

  Our places fixed for life upon the chart.

  Two islands that the roaring seas divide

  Are not more far apart.

  Mary Coleridge, 1896

  Next | TOC> If Ever Two Were One> Drayton

  Since there's no help, come let us

  kiss and part

  Since there's no help, come let us kiss

  and part—

  Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;

  And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,

  That thus so cleanly I myself can free.

  Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,

  And when we meet at any time again,

  Be it not seen in either of our brows

  That we one jot of former love retain.

  Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,

  When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,

  When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,

  And Innocence is closing up his eyes:

  —Now if thou would'st, when all have

  given him over,

  From death to life thou might'st him yet recover.

  Michael Drayton, 1619

  Next | TOC> If Ever Two Were One> Millay

  Oh, Oh, you will be sorry for

  that word!

  Oh, Oh, you will be sorry for that word!

  Give back my book and take my kiss instead.

  Was it my enemy or my friend I heard,

  "What a big book for such a little head!"

  Come, I will show you now my newest hat,

  And you may watch me purse my mouth

  and prink!

  Oh, I shall love you still, and all of that.

  I never again shall tell you what I think.

  I shall be sweet and crafty, soft and sly;

  You will not catch me reading any more:

  I shall be called a wife to pattern by;

  And some day when you knock and push the door,

  Some sane day, not too bright and not too stormy,

  I shall be gone, and you may whistle for me.

  Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1923

  Next | TOC> If Ever Two Were One> Coleridge M

  Unpunished

  The weapon that you fought with was a word,

  And with that word you stabbed me to

  the heart.

  Not once but twice you did it, yet the sword

  Made no blood start.

  They have not tried you for your life. You go

  Strong in such innocence as men will boast.

  They have not buried me! They do not know

  Life from its ghost.

  Mary Coleridge, 1890

  Next | TOC> If Ever Two Were One> Wickham

  Divorce

  A voice from the dark is calling me.

  In the close house I nurse a fire.

  Out in the dark, cold winds rush free

  To the rock heights of my desire.

  I smother in the house in the valley below,

  Let me out to the night, let me go, let me go.

  Spirits that ride the sweeping blast,

  Frozen in rigid tenderness,

  Wait! For I leave the fire at last

  My little-love's warm loneliness.

  I smother in the house in the valley below,

  Let me out in the night, let me go, let me go.

  High on the hills are beating drums.

  Clear from a line of marching men

  To the rock's edge the hero comes.

  He calls me and he calls again.

  On the hill there is fighting, victory or

  quick death,

  In the house is the fire, which I fan with

  sick breath.

  I smother in the house in the valley below,

  Let me out in the dark, let me go, let me go!

  Anna Wickham, 1911

  Next | TOC> If Ever Two Were One> Merrill

  A Renewal

  Having used every subterfuge

  To shake you, lies, fatigue, or even that of passion,

  Now I see no way but a clean break.

  I add that I am willing to bear the guilt.

  You nod assent. Autumn turns windy, huge,

  A clear vase of dry leaves vibrating on and on.

  We sit, watching. When I next speak

  Love buries itself in me, up to the hilt.

  James Merrill, 1958

  Next | TOC> If Ever Two Were One> Sandburg

  Mag

  I wish to God I never saw you, Mag.

  I wish you never quit your job and came

  along with me.

  I wish we never bought a license and

  a white dress

  For you to get married in the day we ran off to

  a minister

  And told him we would love each other

  and take care of each other

  Always and always long as the sun and the rain

  lasts anywhere.

  Yes, I'm wishing now you lived somewhere away

  from here

  And I was a bum on the bumpers a thousand

  miles away dead broke.

  I wish the kids had never come

  And rent and coal and clothes to pay for

  And a grocery man calling for cash,

  Every day cash for beans and prunes.

  I wish to God I never saw you, Mag.

  I wish to God the kids had never come.

  Carl Sandburg, 1916

  Next | TOC> If Ever Two Were One> Akhmatova

  Ah, You Thought

  Ah—you thought I'd be the type

  You could forget,

  And that praying and sobbing, I'd throw myself

  Under the hooves of a bay.

  Or I would beg from the witches

  Some kind of root in charmed water

  And send you a terrible gift—

  My intimate, scented handkerchief.

  Damned if I will. Neither by glance nor by groan

  Will I touch your cursed soul,

  But I vow to you by the garden of angels,

  By the miraculous icon I vow

  And by the fiery passion of our nights—

  I will never return to you.

  Anna Akhmatova, 1921

  translated by Judith Hemschemeyer

  Next | TOC> If Ever Two Were One> Snodgrass

  Mementos, I

  Sorting out letters and piles of my old

  Canceled checks, old clippings, and

  yellow note cards

  That meant something once, I happened to find

  Your picture. That picture. I stopped there cold,

  Like a man raking piles of dead leaves in his yard

  Who has turned up a severed hand.

  Still, that first second, I was glad: you stand

  Just as you stood—shy, delicate, slender,

  In that long gown of green lace netting

  and daisies

  That you wore to our first dance. The sight of you

  stunned

  Us all. Well, our needs were different, then,

  And our ideals came easy.

  Then through the war and those two long years

  Overseas, the Japanese dead in their shacks

  Among dishes, dolls, and lost shoes; I carried

  This glimpse of you, there, to choke down

  my fear,

  Prove it had been, that it might come back.

  That was before we got married.

  —Before we drained out one another's force

  With lies, self-denial, unspoken regret

  And the sick eyes that blam
e; before the divorce

  And the treachery. Say it: before we met. Still,

  I put back your picture. Someday, in due course,

  I will find that it's still there.

  W. D. Snodgrass, 1967

  Next | TOC> If Ever Two Were One> Bontemps

  Idolatry

  You have been good to me, I give you this:

  The arms of lovers empty as our own,

  Marble lips sustaining one long kiss

  And the hard sound of hammers breaking stone.

  For I will build a chapel in the place

  Where our love died and I will journey there

  To make a sign and kneel before your face

  And set an old bell tolling on the air.

  Arna Bontemps, 1949

 

 

 


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