A butterfly's wing
moving gracefully
in a still Asian dawn
works up a storm
that beats the hell
out of us in Pennsylvania.
I used to think it was
a woman somewhere
on he other side of the world,
turning, maybe, in her sleep,
or tossing the hair
from her face with a soft flip,
that has wakened me
on this lonely dark night,
not a sound, not a glint
of light out the window,
and no air at all
on this night when I need
air, even if only
what comes of a butterfly
passing, or a woman

If it shine or if it rain,
Little will I care or know.
Days, like drops upon a pane,
Slip, and join, and go.

At my door's another lad;
Here's his flower in my hair.
If he see me pale and sad,
Will he see me fair?

I sit looking at the floor.
Little will I think or say
If he seek another door;
Even if he stay.

I'll tell thee everything I can:
There's little to relate.
I saw an aged aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.

'Who are you, aged man?' I said.
'And how is it you live?'
And his answer trickled through my head,
Like water through a sieve.
He said, 'I look for butterflies
That sleep among the wheat:
I make them into mutton-pies,
And sell them in the street.

I sell them unto men,' he said,
'Who sail on stormy seas;
And that's the way I get my bread --
A trifle, if you please.'
But I was thinking of a plan

Can I explain this to you? Your eyes
are entrances the mouths of caves
I issue from wonderful interiors
upon a blessed sea and a fine day,
from inside these caves I look and dream.

Your hair explicable as a waterfall
in some black liquid cooled by legend
fell across my thought in a moment
became a garment I am naked without
lines drawn across through morning and evening.

And in your body each minute I died
moving your thigh could disinter me
from a grave in a distant city:
your breasts deserted by cloth, clothed in twilight

440

'Tis customary as we part
A trinket—to confer—
It helps to stimulate the faith
When Lovers be afar—

'Tis various—as the various taste—
Clematis—journeying far—
Presents me with a single Curl
Of her Electric Hair—

i

The women tell me, 'Man, you're old;
don't be so bold.
Look into a mirror
to make it clearer:
your hair
ain't there.'

But I can't see what lies
above my eyes.
I do see more reason to play the game,
when Death takes aim.

ii

If wealth with all its money
could make us never die,
I'd give my life to earning,
and then, when Death came by,

I'd pay him and forget him.
But there's no way to spend
yourself into forever.
So since my life must end,

at news of her death

Not a line of her writing have I
Not a thread of her hair,
No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby
I may picture her there;
And in vain do I urge my unsight
To conceive my lost prize
At her close, whom I knew when her dreams were upbrimming with light
And with laughter her eyes.

What scenes spread around her last days,
Sad, shining, or dim?
Did her gifts and compassions enray and enarch her sweet ways
With an aureate nimb?
Or did life-light decline from her years,

Though the last glimpse of Erin with sorrow I see,
Yet wherever thou art shall seem Erin to me;
In exile thy bosom shall still be my home,
And thine eyes make my climate wherever we roam.

To the gloom of some desert or cold rocky shore,
Where the eye of the stranger can haunt us no more,
I will fly with my Coulin, and think the rough wind
Less rude than the foes we leave frowning behind.

And I'll gaze on thy gold hair as graceful it wreathes,
And hang o'er thy soft harp, as wildly it breathes;

LO, what a golden day it is!
The glad sun rives the sapphire deeps
Down to the dim pearl-floor’d abyss
Where, cold in death, my lover sleeps;

Crowns with soft fire his sea-drench’d hair,
Kisses with gold his lips death-pale,
Lets down from heaven a golden stair,
Whose steps methinks his soul doth scale.

This is my treasure. White and sweet,
He lies beneath my ardent eyne,
With heart that nevermore shall beat,
Nor lips press softly against mine.

How like a dream it seems to me,

it's 1962 March 28th
I'm sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
night is falling
I never knew I liked
night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain
I don't like
comparing nightfall to a tired bird

I didn't know I loved the earth
can someone who hasn't worked the earth love it
I've never worked the earth
it must be my only Platonic love

and here I've loved rivers all this time
whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills
European hills crowned with chateaus