Tag: Louise Bogan

Medusa by Louise Bogan

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Louise Bogan 1897-1970

Medusa
1921

I had come to the house, in a cave of trees,
Facing a sheer sky.
Everything moved, — a bell hung ready to strike,
Sun and reflection wheeled by.

When the bare eyes were before me
And the hissing hair,
Held up at a window, seen through a door.
The stiff bald eyes, the serpents on the forehead
Formed in the air.

This is a dead scene forever now.
Nothing will ever stir.
The end will never brighten it more than this,
Nor the rain blur.

The water will always fall, and will not fall,
And the tipped bell make no sound.
The grass will always be growing for hay
Deep on the ground.

And I shall stand here like a shadow
Under the great balanced day,
My eyes on the yellow dust, that was lifting in the wind,
And does not drift away.

Louise Bogan
Born: 11 August 1897, Maine, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 4 February 1970, New York, USA

Bogan was a poet. Appointed the Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress in 1945. she was the first woman to hold the office. Bogan wrote poetry, friction, and criticism and was a regular poetry reviewer for 2The New Yorker.”

Last Hill in A Vista by Louise Bogan

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Louise Bogan 1897-1970

Last Hill in A Vista
1923

Come, let us tell the weeds in ditches
How we are poor, who once had riches,
And lie out in the sparse and sodden
Pastures that the cows have trodden,
The while an autumn night seals down
The comforts of the wooden town.

Come, let us counsel some cold stranger
How we sought safety but loved danger.
So, with stiff walls about us, we
Chose this more fragile boundary:
Hills, where light poplars, the firm oak,
Loosen into a little smoke.

Louise Bogan
Born: 11 August 1897, Maine, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 4 February 1970, New York, USA

Bogan was a poet. Appointed the Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress in 1945. she was the first woman to hold the office. Bogan wrote poetry, friction, and criticism and was a regular poetry reviewer for 2The New Yorker.”

Knowledge by Louise Bogan

~ JezzieG
Louise Bogan 1897-1970

Knowledge
1922

Now that I know
How passion warms little
Of flesh in the mould,
And treasure is brittle,–

I’ll lie here and learn
How, over their ground
Trees make a long shadow
And a light sound.

Louise Bogan
Born: 11 August 1897, Maine, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 4 February 1970, New York, USA

Bogan was a poet. Appointed the Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress in 1945. she was the first woman to hold the office. Bogan wrote poetry, friction, and criticism and was a regular poetry reviewer for 2The New Yorker.”

Chanson Un Peu Naïve by Louise Bogan

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Chanson Un Peu Naïve
1923

What body can be ploughed,
Sown, and broken yearly?
But she would not die, she vowed,
But she has, nearly.
Sing, heart sing;
Call and carol clearly.

And, since she could not die,
Care would be a feather,
A film over the eye
Of two that lie together.
Fly, song, fly,
Break your little tether.

So from strength concealed
She makes her pretty boast:
Plain is a furrow healed
And she may love you most.
Cry, song, cry,
And hear your crying lost

Louise Bogan 1897-1970

Louise Bogan
Born: 11 August 1897, Maine, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 4 February 1970, New York, USA

Bogan was a poet. Appointed the Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress in 1945. she was the first woman to hold the office. Bogan wrote poetry, friction, and criticism and was a regular poetry reviewer for 2The New Yorker

Man Alone by Louise Bogan

~ JezzieG

Man Alone
20th century

It is yourself you seek
In a long rage,
Scanning through light and darkness
Mirrors, the page,

Where should reflected be
Those eyes and that thick hair,
That passionate look, that laughter.
You should appear

Within the book, or doubled,
Freed, in the silvered glass;
Into all other bodies
Yourself should pass.

The glass does not dissolve;
Like walls the mirrors stand;
The printed page gives back
Words by another hand.

And your infatuate eye
Meets not itself below;
Strangers lie in your arms
As I lie now

Louise Bogan 1897-1970

Louise Bogan
Born: 11 August 1897, Maine, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 4 February 1970, New York, USA

Bogan was a poet. Appointed the Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress in 1945. she was the first woman to hold the office. Bogan wrote poetry, friction, and criticism and was a regular poetry reviewer for 2The New Yorker.”