wishanem's review
3.0
I don't particularly love Louise Bogan's poetry. It is often melodramatic and overlong for my tastes, and there is a very limited range of tone and imagery apparent in the poems. When the poems focus on a simple subject or something really timeless, they shine. Even though I wasn't knocked out by the collection in general, I still found myself saving many more poems from this collection than I usually do. There is often a single great line in these poems that makes an otherwise mediocre piece meaningful.
KNOWLEDGE
Now that I know
How passion warms little
Of flesh in the mould,
And treasure is brittle, —
I'll lie here and learn
How, over their ground,
Trees make a long shadow
And a light sound.
PORTRAIT
She has no need to fear the fall
Of harvest from the laddered reach
Of orchards, nor the tide gone ebbing
From the steep beach.
Nor hold to pain's effrontery
Her body's bulwark, stern and savage,
Nor be a glass, where to forsee
Another's ravage.
What she has gathered, and what lost,
She will not find to lose again.
She is possessed by time, who once
Was loved by men.
THE ROMANTIC
Admit the ruse to fix and name her chaste
With those who sleep the spring through, one and one,
Cool nights, when laurel builds up, without haste,
Its precise flower, like a pentagon.
In her obedient breast, all that ran free
You thought to bind, like echoes in a shell.
At the year's end, you promised, it would be
The unstrung leaves, and not her heart, that fell.
So the year broke and vanished on the screen
You cast about her; summer went to haws.
This, by your leave, is what she should have been, —
Another man will tell you what she was.
MY VOICE NOT BEING PROUD
My voice, not being proud
Like a strong woman's, that cries
Imperiously aloud
That death disarm her, lull her —
Screams for no mourning color
Laid menacingly, like fire,
Over my long desire.
It will end, and leave no print.
As you lie, I shall lie:
Separate, eased, and cured.
Whatever is wasted or wanted
In this country of glass and flint
Some garden will use, once planted.
As you lie alone, I shall lie,
O, in singleness assured,
Deafened by mire and lime.
I remember, while there is time.
STATUE AND BIRDS
Here, in the withered arbor, like the arrested wind,
Straight sides, carven knees,
Stands the statue, with hands flung out in alarm
Or remonstrances.
Over the lintel sway the woven bracts of the vine
In a pattern of angles.
The quill of the fountain falters, woods rake on the sky
Their brusque tangles.
The birds walk by slowly, circling the marble girl,
The golden quails,
The pheasants closed up in their arrowy wings.
Dragging their sharp tails.
The inquietudes of the sap and of the blood are spent.
What is forsaken will rest.
But her heel is lifted, — she would flee, — the whistle of the birds
Fails on her breast.
EPITAPH FOR A ROMANTIC WOMAN
She has attained the permanence
She dreamed of, where old stones lie sunning.
Untended stalks blow over her
Even and swift, like young men running.
Always in the heart she loved
Others had lived, — she heard their laughter.
She lies where none has lain before,
Where certainly none will follow after.
THE ALCHEMIST
I burned my life, that I might find
A passion wholly of the mind,
Thought divorced from eye and bone,
Ecstasy come to breath alone.
I broke my life, to seek relief
From the flawed light of love and grief.
With mounting beat the utter fire
Charred existence and desire.
It died low, ceased its sudden thresh.
I had found unmysterious flesh —
Not the mind's avid substance — still
Passionate beyond the will.
THE CROWS
The woman who has grown old
And knows desire must die,
Yet turns to love again,
Hears the crows' cry.
She is a stem long hardened,
A weed that no scythe mows.
The heart's laughter will be to her
The crying of the crows.
Who slide in the air with the same voice
Over what yields not, and what yields,
Alike in spring, and when there is only bitter
Winter-burning in the fields.
SONG
Love me because I am lost;
Love me that I am undone.
That is brave, — no man has wished it.
Not one.
Be strong, to look on my heart
As others look on my face.
Love me, — I tell you that it is a ravaged
Terrible place.
THE CHANGED WOMAN
The light flower leaves its little core
Begun upon the waiting bough.
Again she bears what she once bore
And what she knew she re-learns now.
The cracked glass fuses at a touch.
The wound heals over, and is set
In the whole flesh, and is not much
Quite to remember or forget.
Rocket and tree, and dome and bubble
Again behind her freshened eyes
Are treacherous. She need not trouble.
Her lids will know them when she dies.
And while she lives, the unwise, heady
Dream, ever denied and driven,
Will one day find her bosom ready, —
That never thought to be forgiven.
FIFTEENTH FAREWELL
You may have all things from me, save my breath.
The slight life in my throat will not give pause
For your love, nor your loss, nor any cause.
Shall I be made a panderer to death,
Dig the green ground for darkness underneath,
Let the dust serve me, covering all that was
With all that will be? Better, from time's claws,
The hardened face under the subtle wreath.
Cooler than stones in wells, sweeter, more kind
Than hot, perfidious words, my breathing moves
Close to my plunging blood. Be strong, and hang
Unriven mist over my breast and mind.
My breath! We shall forget the heart that loves,
Though in my body beat its blade, and its fang.
I erred, when I thought loneliness the wide
Scent of mown grass over forsaken fields,
Or any shadow isolation yields.
Loneliness was the heart within your side.
Your thought, beyond my touch, was tilted air
Ringed with as many borders as the wind.
How could I judge you gentle or unkind
When all bright flying space was in your care?
Now that I leave you, I shall be made lonely
By simple empty days, — never that chill
Resonant heart to strike between my arms
Again, as though distraught for distance, — only
Levels of evening, now, behind a hill,
Or a late cock-crow from the darkening farms.
SONNET
Since you would claim the sources of my thought
Recall the meshes whence it sprang unlimed,
The reedy traps which other hands have timed
To close upon it. Conjure up the hot
Blaze that it cleared so cleanly, or the snow
Devised to strike it down. It will be free.
Whatever nets draw in to prison me
At length your eyes must turn to watch it go.
My mouth, perhaps ', may learn one thing too well,
My body hear no echo save its own,
Yet will the desperate mind, maddened and proud,
Seek out the storm, escape the bitter spell
That we obey, strain to the wind, be thrown
Straight to its freedom in the thunderous cloud.
KNOWLEDGE
Now that I know
How passion warms little
Of flesh in the mould,
And treasure is brittle, —
I'll lie here and learn
How, over their ground,
Trees make a long shadow
And a light sound.
PORTRAIT
She has no need to fear the fall
Of harvest from the laddered reach
Of orchards, nor the tide gone ebbing
From the steep beach.
Nor hold to pain's effrontery
Her body's bulwark, stern and savage,
Nor be a glass, where to forsee
Another's ravage.
What she has gathered, and what lost,
She will not find to lose again.
She is possessed by time, who once
Was loved by men.
THE ROMANTIC
Admit the ruse to fix and name her chaste
With those who sleep the spring through, one and one,
Cool nights, when laurel builds up, without haste,
Its precise flower, like a pentagon.
In her obedient breast, all that ran free
You thought to bind, like echoes in a shell.
At the year's end, you promised, it would be
The unstrung leaves, and not her heart, that fell.
So the year broke and vanished on the screen
You cast about her; summer went to haws.
This, by your leave, is what she should have been, —
Another man will tell you what she was.
MY VOICE NOT BEING PROUD
My voice, not being proud
Like a strong woman's, that cries
Imperiously aloud
That death disarm her, lull her —
Screams for no mourning color
Laid menacingly, like fire,
Over my long desire.
It will end, and leave no print.
As you lie, I shall lie:
Separate, eased, and cured.
Whatever is wasted or wanted
In this country of glass and flint
Some garden will use, once planted.
As you lie alone, I shall lie,
O, in singleness assured,
Deafened by mire and lime.
I remember, while there is time.
STATUE AND BIRDS
Here, in the withered arbor, like the arrested wind,
Straight sides, carven knees,
Stands the statue, with hands flung out in alarm
Or remonstrances.
Over the lintel sway the woven bracts of the vine
In a pattern of angles.
The quill of the fountain falters, woods rake on the sky
Their brusque tangles.
The birds walk by slowly, circling the marble girl,
The golden quails,
The pheasants closed up in their arrowy wings.
Dragging their sharp tails.
The inquietudes of the sap and of the blood are spent.
What is forsaken will rest.
But her heel is lifted, — she would flee, — the whistle of the birds
Fails on her breast.
EPITAPH FOR A ROMANTIC WOMAN
She has attained the permanence
She dreamed of, where old stones lie sunning.
Untended stalks blow over her
Even and swift, like young men running.
Always in the heart she loved
Others had lived, — she heard their laughter.
She lies where none has lain before,
Where certainly none will follow after.
THE ALCHEMIST
I burned my life, that I might find
A passion wholly of the mind,
Thought divorced from eye and bone,
Ecstasy come to breath alone.
I broke my life, to seek relief
From the flawed light of love and grief.
With mounting beat the utter fire
Charred existence and desire.
It died low, ceased its sudden thresh.
I had found unmysterious flesh —
Not the mind's avid substance — still
Passionate beyond the will.
THE CROWS
The woman who has grown old
And knows desire must die,
Yet turns to love again,
Hears the crows' cry.
She is a stem long hardened,
A weed that no scythe mows.
The heart's laughter will be to her
The crying of the crows.
Who slide in the air with the same voice
Over what yields not, and what yields,
Alike in spring, and when there is only bitter
Winter-burning in the fields.
SONG
Love me because I am lost;
Love me that I am undone.
That is brave, — no man has wished it.
Not one.
Be strong, to look on my heart
As others look on my face.
Love me, — I tell you that it is a ravaged
Terrible place.
THE CHANGED WOMAN
The light flower leaves its little core
Begun upon the waiting bough.
Again she bears what she once bore
And what she knew she re-learns now.
The cracked glass fuses at a touch.
The wound heals over, and is set
In the whole flesh, and is not much
Quite to remember or forget.
Rocket and tree, and dome and bubble
Again behind her freshened eyes
Are treacherous. She need not trouble.
Her lids will know them when she dies.
And while she lives, the unwise, heady
Dream, ever denied and driven,
Will one day find her bosom ready, —
That never thought to be forgiven.
FIFTEENTH FAREWELL
You may have all things from me, save my breath.
The slight life in my throat will not give pause
For your love, nor your loss, nor any cause.
Shall I be made a panderer to death,
Dig the green ground for darkness underneath,
Let the dust serve me, covering all that was
With all that will be? Better, from time's claws,
The hardened face under the subtle wreath.
Cooler than stones in wells, sweeter, more kind
Than hot, perfidious words, my breathing moves
Close to my plunging blood. Be strong, and hang
Unriven mist over my breast and mind.
My breath! We shall forget the heart that loves,
Though in my body beat its blade, and its fang.
I erred, when I thought loneliness the wide
Scent of mown grass over forsaken fields,
Or any shadow isolation yields.
Loneliness was the heart within your side.
Your thought, beyond my touch, was tilted air
Ringed with as many borders as the wind.
How could I judge you gentle or unkind
When all bright flying space was in your care?
Now that I leave you, I shall be made lonely
By simple empty days, — never that chill
Resonant heart to strike between my arms
Again, as though distraught for distance, — only
Levels of evening, now, behind a hill,
Or a late cock-crow from the darkening farms.
SONNET
Since you would claim the sources of my thought
Recall the meshes whence it sprang unlimed,
The reedy traps which other hands have timed
To close upon it. Conjure up the hot
Blaze that it cleared so cleanly, or the snow
Devised to strike it down. It will be free.
Whatever nets draw in to prison me
At length your eyes must turn to watch it go.
My mouth, perhaps ', may learn one thing too well,
My body hear no echo save its own,
Yet will the desperate mind, maddened and proud,
Seek out the storm, escape the bitter spell
That we obey, strain to the wind, be thrown
Straight to its freedom in the thunderous cloud.
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