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Robert Penn Warren















                                        Marcia Winslow. oil on canvas (1945


Night Hawk

From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through 

Geometries and orchids that the sunset builds, 
Out of the peak's black angularity of shadow, riding 
The last tumultuous avalanche of 
Light above pines and the guttural gorge, 
The hawk comes. 
His wing 
Scythes down another day, his motion 
Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear 
The crashless fall of stalks of Time. 

The head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error. 

Look!Look!he is climbing the last light 
Who knows neither Time nor error, and under 
Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings 
Into shadow. 

Long now, 
The last thrush is still, the last bat 
Now cruises in his sharp hieroglyphics.His wisdom 
Is ancient, too, and immense.The star 
Is steady, like Plato, over the mountain. 

If there were no wind we might, we think, hear 
The earth grind on its axis, or history 
Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar.

John Ashbery

  The New Spirit (excerpt) I thought that if I could put it all down, that would be one way. And next the thought came to me that to leave a...