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Early Poems IV

These are early poems of mine, written as a boy starting around age eleven into my teens as a high school student and my first two years of collete. A few may have been written a bit later; I'm not always sure of composition dates due to inconsistent record keeping in my youth. 

Elegy for a little girl, lost
by Michael R. Burch

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Early Poems III

These are early poems I wrote as a boy starting around age eleven, then as a teenager in high school and my first two years of college. Some poems may be a bit later because I didn't consistenly date my poems in the early days and even when I did, if I revised a poem the original date of composition was usually lost. Thus the best I can do now is guess at a range of dates for some of my early poems. 

Hymn to Apollo
by Michael R. Burch

something of sunshine attracted my i
as it lazed on the afternoon sky,
golden,
splashed on the easel of god . . .

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Early Poems II

These are early poems I wrote as a boy starting around age eleven, as a teen in high school and during my first two years in college, plus a few that may be a bit later. 

EARLY POEMS: JUVENILIA by Michael R. Burch

 

Styx
by Michael R. Burch, age 16

Black waters,
deep and dark and still...
all men have passed this way,
or will.

"Styx" has been published by The Lyric, Poezii (in a Romanian translation by Petru Dimofte), The Raintown Review, Blue Unicorn, Brief Poems and Artvilla. Not too shabby for a teenage poem.

 

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Early Poems I

These are my early poems, which I began writing around age eleven to thirteen, although I didn't make a conscious decision to become a poet until around age fourteen. 

Shadows
by Michael R. Burch

Alone again as evening falls,
I join gaunt shadows and we crawl
up and down my room's dark walls.

Up and down and up and down,
against starlight—strange, mirthless clowns—
we merge, emerge, submerge . . . then drown.

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A Dream

I was a child with all a child's wild prayers,
That followed Love yet ever saw him flee,
His splendid feet on-speeding silently;
His wings gold tinctured spread athwart life's stairs
Ascending ever, and yet unawares
Oft turning his fair face and suddenly
Fixing his deep eyes smilingly on me:
So climbing girlhood caught at unguessed cares

But one Spring day Love halted in his flight
And straight let flash an arrow at my heart,
So that I swooned, who strove to reach his side …
When I awoke, a sea of saffron light
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Too Late

Had we but met in other days,
Had we but loved in other ways,
Another light and hope had shone
On your life and my own.

In sweet but hopeless reveries
I fancy how your wistful eyes
Had saved me, had I known their power
In fate's imperious hour;

How loving you, beloved of God,
And following you, the path I trod
Had led me, through your love and prayers,
To God's love unawares:

And how our beings joined as one
Had passed through checkered shade and sun,
Until the earth our lives had given,

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To Wordsworth

Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know
That things depart which never may return:
Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow,
Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.
These common woes I feel. One loss is mine
Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore.
Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine
On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar:
Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood
Above the blind and battling multitude:
In honoured poverty thy voice did weave
Songs consecrate to truth and liberty,--

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To The River Otter

Dear native brook! wild streamlet of the West!
How many various-fated years have passed,
What happy and what mournful hours, since last
I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast,
Numbering its light leaps! Yet so deep impressed
Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes
I never shut amid the sunny ray,
But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,
Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,
And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes,
Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way,

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Yarrow Visited

September, 1814

And is this -Yarrow? -This the stream
Of which my fancy cherished
So faithfully, a waking dream,
An image that hath perished?
O that some minstrel's harp were near
To utter notes of gladness
And chase this silence from the air,
That fills my heart with sadness!

Yet why? -a silvery current flows
With uncontrolled meanderings;
Nor have these eyes by greener hills
Been soothed, in all my wanderings.
And, through her depths, Saint Mary's Lake
Is visibly delighted;
For not a feature of those hills

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