Adelaide Crapsey Quotes

Ere the horne'd owl hoot Once and twice and thrice there shall Go among the blind brown worms News of thy great burial; When the pomp is passed away, 'Here's a King,' the worms shall say.

In your Curled petals what ghosts Of blue headlands and seas, What perfumed immortal breath sighing Of Greece.

But me They cannot touch, Old age and death. The strange And ignominious end of old Dead folk!

When I was girl by Nilus stream I watched the deserts stars arise; My lover, he who dreamed the Sphinx, Learned all his dreaming from eyes. I bore in Greece a burning name, And I have been in Italy Madonna to a painter-lad, And mistress to a Medici. And have you heard (and I have heard) Of puzzled men with decorous mien, Who judged - the wench knew far too much - And burnt her on the Salem green?

Seen on a night in November How frail Above the bulk Of crashing water hangs, Autumn, evanescent, wan, The moon.

Dost thou Not feel them slip, How cold! how cold! the moon's Thin wavering finger-tips, along Thy throat?

No guile? Nay, but so strangely He moves among us. . Not this Man but Barabbas! Release to us Barabbas!

Still as On windless nights The moon-cast shadows are, So still will be my heart when I Am dead.