Louise Bogan


Paperback Achievement in American Poetry Book


Men Loved Wholly Beyond Wisdom

Men loved wholly beyond wisdom 
Have the staff without the banner. 
Like a fire in a dry thicket 
Rising within women's eyes 
Is the love men must return. 
Heart, so subtle now, and trembling, 
What a marvel to be wise., 
To love never in this manner! 
To be quiet in the fern 
Like a thing gone dead and still, 
Listening to the prisoned cricket 
Shake its terrible dissembling 
Music in the granite hill.

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...