The Widow's Lament in Springtime

William Carlos Williams 1883 (Rutherford) – 1963 (Rutherford)



Sorrow is my own yard
where the new grass
flames as it has flamed
often before but not
with the cold fire
that closes round me this year.
Thirtyfive years
I lived with my husband.
The plumtree is white today
with masses of flowers.
Masses of flowers
load the cherry branches
and color some bushes
yellow and some red
but the grief in my heart
is stronger than they
for though they were my joy
formerly, today I notice them
and turn away forgetting.
Today my son told me
that in the meadows,
at the edge of the heavy woods
in the distance, he saw
trees of white flowers.
I feel that I would like
to go there
and fall into those flowers
and sink into the marsh near them.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 28, 2023

39 sec read
166

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDEFGHIJJKKLMINOPQRSTJUVJO
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 650
Words 132
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 28

William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams was a Latino-American poet closely associated with modernism and imagism. more…

All William Carlos Williams poems | William Carlos Williams Books

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