An Eternity (by Archibald MacLeish)

An Eternity
by Archibald MacLeish
[from Tower of Ivory (1917)]

There is no dusk to be, 
        There is no dawn that was, 
Only there’s now, and now, 
        And the wind in the grass.

Days I remember of 
        Now in my heart, are now; 
Days that I dream will bloom 
        White the peach bough.

Dying shall never be 
        Now in the windy grass; 
Now under shooken leaves 
        Death never was.

   

Two Poems from the War (by Archibald MacLeish)

Two Poems from the War
by Archibald MacLeish
[from Tower of Ivory (1917)]

Oh, not the loss of the accomplished thing! 
Not dumb farewells, nor long relinquishment 
Of beauty had, and golden summer spent, 
And savage glory of the fluttering 
Torn banners of the rain, and frosty ring 
Of moon-white winters, and the imminent 
Long-lunging seas, and glowing students bent 
To race on some smooth beach the gull’s wing:

Not these, nor all we’ve been, nor all we’ve loved, 
The pitiful familiar names, had moved 
Our hearts to weep for them; but oh, the star 
The future is! Eternity’s too wan 
To give again that undefeated, far, 
All-possible irradiance of dawn.

*

Like moon-dark, like brown water you escape, 
O laughing mouth, O sweet uplifted lips. 
Within the peering brain old ghosts take shape; 
You flame and wither as the white foam slips 
Back from the broken wave: sometimes a start, 
A gesture of the hands, a way you own 
Of bending that smooth head above your heart,– 
Then these are vanished, then the dream is gone.

Oh, you are too much mine and flesh of me 
To seal upon the brain, who in the blood 
Are so intense a pulse, so swift a flood 
Of beauty, such unceasing instancy. 
Dear unimagined brow, unvisioned face, 
All beauty has become your dwelling place.

   

Baccalaureate (by Archibald MacLeish)

Baccalaureate
by Archibald MacLeish
[from Tower of Ivory (1917)]

A year or two, and grey Euripides, 
And Horace and a Lydia or so, 
And Euclid and the brush of Angelo, 
Darwin on man, Vergilius on bees, 
The nose and dialogues of Socrates, 
Don Quixote, Hudibras and Trinculo, 
How worlds are spawned and where the dead gods go,– 
All shall be shard of broken memories.

And there shall linger other, magic things,– 
The fog that creeps in wanly from the sea, 
The rotten harbor smell, the mystery 
Of moonlit elms, the flash of pigeon wings, 
The sunny Green, the old-world peace that clings 
About the college yard, where endlessly 
The dead go up and down. These things shall be 
Enchantment of our hearts’ rememberings.

And these are more than memories of youth 
Which earth’s four winds of pain shall blow away; 
These are youth’s symbols of eternal truth, 
Symbols of dream and imagery and flame, 
Symbols of those same verities that play 
Bright through the crumbling gold of a great name.

   

Ars Poetica (by Archibald MacLeish)

Ars Poetica
by Archibald MacLeish
[from Streets in the Moon (1926)]

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown —

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

          *

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind —

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.

          *

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea —

A poem should not mean
But be.