She Walks in Beauty Read online

  on the floor for a tired woman in a gray dress who’ll lift them to the trash,

  not noticing the moms’ lips, not wondering for even a heartbeat

  if the kisses there meant hello or good-bye.

  To Flush, My Dog

  ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

  I

  Loving friend, the gift of one

  Who her own true faith has run

  Through thy lower nature,

  Be my benediction said

  With my hand upon thy head,

  Gentle fellow creature!

  II

  Like a lady’s ringlets brown,

  Flow thy silken ears adown

  Either side demurely

  Of thy silver-suited breast,

  Shining out from all the rest

  Of thy body purely.

  III

  Darkly brown thy body is,

  Till the sunshine striking this

  Alchemize its dullness,

  When the sleek curls manifold

  Flash all over into gold,

  With a burnished fullness.

  IV

  Underneath my stroking hand,

  Startled eyes of hazel bland

  Kindling, growing larger,

  Up thou leapest with a spring,

  Full of prank and curveting,

  Leaping like a charger.

  V

  Leap! thy broad tail waves a light,

  Leap! thy slender feet are bright,

  Canopied in fringes;

  Leap—those tasselled ears of thine

  Flicker strangely, fair and fine,

  Down their golden inches.

  VI

  Yet, my pretty, sportive friend,

  Little is ’t to such an end

  That I praise thy rareness!

  Other dogs may be thy peers

  Haply in these drooping ears,

  And this glossy fairness,

  VII

  But of thee it shall be said,

  This dog watched beside a bed

  Day and night unweary,—

  Watched within a curtained room,

  Where no sunbeam brake the gloom

  Round the sick and dreary.

  VIII

  Roses, gathered for a vase,

  In that chamber died apace,

  Beam and breeze resigning;

  This dog only, waited on,

  Knowing that when light is gone

  Love remains for shining.

  IX

  Other dogs in thymy dew

  Tracked the hares and followed through

  Sunny moor or meadow;

  This dog only, crept and crept

  Next a languid cheek that slept,

  Sharing in the shadow.

  X

  Other dogs of loyal cheer

  Bounded at the whistle clear,

  Up the woodside hieing;

  This dog only, watched in reach

  Of a faintly uttered speech,

  Or a louder sighing.

  XI

  And if one or two quick tears

  Dropped upon his glossy ears,

  Or a sigh came double,—

  Up he sprang in eager haste,

  Fawning, fondling, breathing fast

  In a tender trouble.

  XII

  And this dog was satisfied

  If a pale thin hand would glide

  Down his dewlaps sloping,—

  Which he pushed his nose within,

  After,—platforming his chin

  On the palm left open.

  XIII

  This dog, if a friendly voice

  Call him now to blyther choice

  Than such chamber-keeping,

  “Come out!” praying from the door,—

  Presseth backward as before,

  Up against me leaping.

  XIV

  Therefore to this dog will I,

  Tenderly not scornfully,

  Render praise and favour:

  With my hand upon his head,

  Is my benediction said

  Therefore, and for ever.

  XV

  And because he loves me so,

  Better than his kind will do

  Often, man or woman,

  Give I back more love again

  Than dogs often take of men,

  Leaning from my Human.

  XVI

  Blessings on thee, dog of mine,

  Pretty collars make thee fine,

  Sugared milk make fat thee!

  Pleasures wag on in thy tail,

  Hands of gentle motion fail

  Nevermore, to pat thee!

  XVII

  Downy pillow take thy head,

  Silken coverlid bestead,

  Sunshine help thy sleeping!

  No fly’s buzzing wake thee up,

  No man break thy purple cup,

  Set for drinking deep in.

  XVIII

  Whiskered cats arointed flee,

  Sturdy stoppers keep from thee

  Cologne distillations;

  Nuts lie in thy path for stones,

  And thy feast-day macaroons

  Turn to daily rations!

  XIX

  Mock I thee, in wishing weal?—

  Tears are in my eyes to feel

  Thou art made so straitly,

  Blessing needs must straiten too,—

  Little canst thou joy or do,

  Thou who lovest greatly.

  XX

  Yet be blessèd to the height

  Of all good and all delight

  Pervious to thy nature;

  Only loved beyond that line,

  With a love that answers thine,

  Loving fellow creature.

  HOW TO LIVE

  IN COLLEGE, I took a course called Moral and Social Inquiry, taught by the child psychiatrist Dr. Robert Coles. It was considered one of the easiest courses at Harvard because it met at noon and almost everyone got an A. But in fact it was the most challenging, because Dr. Coles asked us to think about the hardest question of all: how to live a life.

  Poetry can help us answer that question. It concerns itself with the fundamental questions and reconnects us with our deepest emotions. When everyday life distracts us, poetry can help us feel centered. When the way forward seems blocked and the burdens of work and family overwhelm us, poetry can help us find our voice. This is as true for young women as it is for those of us who are older. People sometimes make the mistake of thinking that poetry is removed or disconnected from life, but Wallace Stevens wrote that the purpose of poetry is “to help people live their lives.”

  The poems in this section are the reward for having made it through the rest of the book. They encompass all you really need to know. Two of my favorites are “To be of use” by Marge Piercy and “Leap Before You Look” by W. H. Auden. These are the poems that started this book. They were sent to me by a friend at exactly the right time—and reminded me that there is always more to do, and no reason not to do it.

  Poetry and prayer are not so different, as we can see from the Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts.” Other poems teach us that despite our efforts to control our destiny, our lives are influenced by events larger than ourselves. Poems like “September, 1918” by Amy Lowell and “24th September 1945” by Nazim Hikmet seek to restore hope to a world devastated by war and destruction. Dick Davis’s “6 A.M. Thoughts” intertwines humor and acceptance as a strategy for coping with events beyond our control.

  Fundamentally, poetry celebrates our individuality and the creative effort of living. The next to last poem in this book was one of my mother’s favorites. She loved the ancient Greek attitude toward life—the closeness to nature, the relationship of men and gods, and the reverence for the heroic. Constantine Cavafy, a modern Greek poet who lived a short and tragic life in Alexandria, drew heavily on the ancient myths and history in his work. “Ithaka” is his masterpiece, and it is one of those poems that I carry with me always in my
mind.

  May 2

  DAVID LEHMAN

  Someday I’d like to go

  to Atlantic City with you

  not to gamble ( just being

  there with you is enough

  of a gamble) but to ride

  the high white breakers

  have a Manhattan and listen

  to a baritone saxophone

  play a tune called “Salsa

  Eyes” with you beside me

  on a banquette but why

  stop there let’s go to

  Paris in November when

  it’s raining and we read

  the Tribune at La Rotonde

  our hotel room has a big

  bathtub I knew you’d like

  that and we can be a couple

  of unknown Americans what

  are we waiting for let’s go

  From a Letter to His Daughter

  RALPH WALDO EMERSON

  Finish every day and be done with it.

  You have done what you could.

  Some blunders and absurdities

  no doubt have crept in;

  forget them as soon as you can.

  Tomorrow is a new day;

  begin it well and serenely

  and with too high a spirit

  to be cumbered with

  your old nonsense.

  This day is all that is

  good and fair.

  It is too dear,

  with its hopes and invitations,

  to waste a moment on yesterdays.

  To be of use

  MARGE PIERCY

  The people I love the best

  jump into work head first

  without dallying in the shallows

  and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

  They seem to become natives of that element,

  the black sleek heads of seals

  bouncing like half-submerged balls.

  I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

  who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

  who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

  who do what has to be done, again and again.

  I want to be with people who submerge

  in the task, who go into the fields to harvest

  and work in a row and pass the bags along,

  who are not parlor generals and field deserters

  but move in a common rhythm

  when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

  The work of the world is common as mud.

  Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

  But the thing worth doing well done

  has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

  Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

  Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

  but you know they were made to be used.

  The pitcher cries for water to carry

  and a person for work that is real.

  Leap Before You Look

  W. H. AUDEN

  The sense of danger must not disappear:

  The way is certainly both short and steep,

  However gradual it looks from here;

  Look if you like, but you will have to leap.

  Tough-minded men get mushy in their sleep

  And break the by-laws any fool can keep;

  It is not the convention but the fear

  That has a tendency to disappear.

  The worried efforts of the busy heap,

  The dirt, the imprecision, and the beer

  Produce a few smart wisecracks every year;

  Laugh if you can, but you will have to leap.

  The clothes that are considered right to wear

  Will not be either sensible or cheap,

  So long as we consent to live like sheep

  And never mention those who disappear.

  Much can be said for social savoir-faire,

  But to rejoice when no one else is there

  Is even harder than it is to weep;

  No one is watching, but you have to leap.

  A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep

  Sustains the bed on which we lie, my dear:

  Although I love you, you will have to leap;

  Our dream of safety has to disappear.

  Try to Praise the Mutilated World

  ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI

  Try to praise the mutilated world.

  Remember June’s long days,

  and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.

  The nettles that methodically overgrow

  the abandoned homesteads of exiles.

  You must praise the mutilated world.

  You watched the stylish yachts and ships;

  One of them had a long trip ahead of it,

  while salty oblivion awaited others.

  You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere,

  you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.

  You should praise the mutilated world.

  Remember the moments when we were together

  in a white room and the curtain fluttered.

  Return in thought to the concert where music flared.

  You gathered acorns in the park in autumn

  and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.

  Praise the mutilated world

  and the grey feather a thrush lost,

  and the gentle light that strays and vanishes

  and returns.

  Leisure

  W. H. DAVIES

  What is this life if, full of care,

  We have no time to stand and stare?

  No time to stand beneath the boughs

  And stare as long as sheep or cows.

  No time to see, when woods we pass,

  Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

  No time to see, in broad daylight,

  Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

  No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,

  And watch her feet, how they can dance.

  No time to wait till her mouth can

  Enrich that smile her eyes began.

  A poor life this if, full of care,

  We have no time to stand and stare.

  The Waking

  THEODORE ROETHKE

  I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

  I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

  I learn by going where I have to go.

  We think by feeling. What is there to know?

  I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

  I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

  Of those so close beside me, which are you?

  God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,

  And learn by going where I have to go.

  Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?

  The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;

  I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

  Great Nature has another thing to do

  To you and me; so take the lively air,

  And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

  This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.

  What falls away is always. And is near.

  I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

  I learn by going where I have to go.

  September, 1918

  AMY LOWELL

  This afternoon was the color of water falling through sunlight;

  The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves;

  The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves,

  And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows.

  Under a tree in the park,

  Two little boys, lying flat on their faces,

  Were carefully gathering red berries

  To put in a pasteboard box.

  Some day there will be no war,

  Then I shall take out this afternoon

  And turn it in my fingers,

  And rema
rk the sweet taste of it upon my palate,

  And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves.

  To-day I can only gather it

  And put it into my lunch-box,

  For I have time for nothing

  But the endeavor to balance myself

  Upon a broken world.

  6 A.M. Thoughts

  DICK DAVIS

  As soon as you wake they come blundering in

  Like puppies or importunate children;

  What was a landscape emerging from mist

  Becomes at once a disordered garden.

  And the mess they trail with them! Embarrassments,

  Anger, lust, fear—in fact the whole pig-pen;

  And who’ll clean it up? No hope for sleep now—

  Just heave yourself out, make the tea, and give in.

  A Minor Bird

  ROBERT FROST

  I have wished a bird would fly away,

  And not sing by my house all day;

  Have clapped my hands at him from the door

  When it seemed as if I could bear no more.

  The fault must partly have been in me.

  The bird was not to blame for his key.

  And of course there must be something wrong

  In wanting to silence any song.

  May today there be peace within

  ST. TERESA OF AVILA

  May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

  May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.

  May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that

  has been given to you. . . .

  May you be content knowing you are a child of God. . . .

  Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to

  sing, dance, praise and love.

  It is there for each and every one of us.

  The Bacchae Chorus

  EURIPIDES

  CHORUS

  When shall I dance once more