Words For Departure

Louise Bogan 1897 (Livermore Falls) – 1970 (New York City)



Nothing was remembered, nothing forgotten.
When we awoke, wagons were passing on the warm summer pavements,
The window-sills were wet from rain in the night,
Birds scattered and settled over chimneypots
As among grotesque trees.

Nothing was accepted, nothing looked beyond.
Slight-voiced bells separated hour from hour,
The afternoon sifted coolness
And people drew together in streets becoming deserted.
There was a moon, and light in a shop-front,
And dusk falling like precipitous water.

Hand clasped hand
Forehead still bowed to forehead--
Nothing was lost, nothing possessed
There was no gift nor denial.

2
I have remembered you.
You were not the town visited once,
Nor the road falling behind running feet.

You were as awkward as flesh
And lighter than frost or ashes.

You were the rind,
And the white-juiced apple,
The song, and the words waiting for music.

3
You have learned the beginning;
Go from mine to the other.

Be together; eat, dance, despair,
Sleep, be threatened, endure.
You will know the way of that.

But at the end, be insolent;
Be absurd--strike the thing short off;
Be mad--only do not let talk
Wear the bloom from silence.

And go away without fire or lantern
Let there be some uncertainty about your departure.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:02 min read
49

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAXAX XBXXCB XXXD EXFX XX XDX EXB XXX CXXF XB
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,207
Words 208
Stanzas 10
Stanza Lengths 5, 6, 4, 4, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 2

Louise Bogan

Louise Bogan was an American poet. more…

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    D "and your eyes have become less bright"