St. Francis Preparatory School



SIFT PoemsBecause I could not stop for Death,He kindly stopped for me;The carriage held but just ourselvesAnd Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste, And I had put awayMy labor, and my leisure too,For his civility.We passed the school, where children stroveAt recess, in the ring;We passed the fields of gazing grain,We passed the setting sun.Or rather, he passed us;The dews grew quivering and chill,For only gossamer my gown,My tippet only tulle.We paused before a house that seemedA swelling of the ground;The roof was scarcely visible,The cornice but a mound.Since then 'tis centuries, and yet eachFeels shorter than the dayI first surmised the horses' headsWere toward eternity.--Emily DickinsonThere's a certain slant of light,On winter afternoons,That oppresses, like the weightOf cathedral tunes.Heavenly hurt it gives us;We can find no scar,But internal differenceWhere the meanings are.None may teach it anything,'Tis the seal, despair,-An imperial afflictionSent us of the air.When it comes, the landscape listens,Shadows hold their breath;When it goes, 't is like the distanceOn the look of death.--Emily DickinsonThe Lake Isle of InnisfreeI will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;And live alone in the bee-loud glade.And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,And evening full of the linnet's wings.I will arise and go now, for always night and dayI hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,I hear it in the deep heart's core.--W.B. YeatsAnecdote of the JarI placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill. The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground And tall and of a port in air. It took dominion every where. The jar was gray and bare. It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee. --Wallace StevensThe Young HousewifeAt ten AM the young housewifemoves about in negligee behindthe wooden walls of her husband’s house.I pass solitary in my car.Then again she comes to the curbto call the ice-man, fish-man, and standsshy, uncorseted, tucking instray ends of hair, and I compare herto a fallen leaf.The noiseless wheels of my carrush with a crackling sound overdried leaves as I bow and pass smiling. --William Carlos WilliamsHarlem [Dream Deferred]What happens to a dream deferred?Does it dry uplike a raisin in the sun?Or fester like a sore—And then run?Does it stink like rotten meat?Or crust and sugar over—like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sagslike a heavy load.Or does it explode? --Langston HughesTraveling Through The DarkTraveling through the dark I found a deerdead on the edge of the Wilson River road.It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the carand stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;she had stiffened already, almost cold.I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.My fingers touching her side brought me the reason--her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,alive, still, never to be born.Beside that mountain road I hesitated.The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;under the hood purred the steady engine.I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.I thought hard for us all--my only swerving--,then pushed her over the edge into the river. --William StaffordHer KindI have gone out, a possessed witch,haunting the black air, braver at night;dreaming evil, I have done my hitchover the plain houses, light by light:lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.A woman like that is not a woman, quite.I have been her kind.I have found the warm caves in the woods,filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,closets, silks, innumerable goods;fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:whining, rearranging the disaligned.A woman like that is misunderstood.I have been her kind.I have ridden in your cart, driver,waved my nude arms at villages going by,learning the last bright routes, survivorwhere your flames still bite my thighand my ribs crack where your wheels wind.A woman like that is not ashamed to die.I have been her kind.Anne SextonCoalI Is the total black, being spoken From the earth's inside. There are many kinds of open. How a diamond comes into a knot of flame How a sound comes into a word, coloured By who pays what for speaking. Some words are open Like a diamond on glass windows Singing out within the crash of passing sun Then there are words like stapled wagers In a perforated book—buy and sign and tear apart— And come whatever wills all chances The stub remains An ill-pulled tooth with a ragged edge. Some words live in my throat Breeding like adders. Others know sun Seeking like gypsies over my tongue To explode through my lips Like young sparrows bursting from shell. Some words Bedevil me. Love is a word another kind of open— As a diamond comes into a knot of flame I am black because I come from the earth's inside Take my word for jewel in your open light.--Audre Lord BatsIn the blue air the bats float touching no leaf. Science has shown how they capture their prey—moths, mosquitoes—in the middle of flight in the fold of a wing, and how they hang by the millions, socially, in caves. But in the night still comes the unexplained figure slipping in and out of bedrooms, in and out the soft throats of women. For science is only the golden boaton the dark river, such fur on the cheeks, such teeth of blood, where women dreambehind the kiss. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download