Randall Jarrell White Poems
- 1. The Black Swan
When the swans turned my sister into a swan
I would go to the lake, at night, from milking:
The sun would look out through the reeds like a swan,
A swan's red beak; and the beak would open
... - 2. Hope
The spirit killeth, but the letter giveth life.
The week is dealt out like a hand
That children pick up card by card.
One keeps getting the same hand.
... - 3. The Breath Of Night
The moon rises. The red cubs rolling
In the ferns by the rotten oak
Stare over a marsh and a meadow
To the farm's white wisp of smoke.
... - 4. The Elementary Scene
Looking back in my mind I can see
The white sun like a tin plate
Over the wooden turning of the weeds;
The street jerking --a wet swing--
... - 5. The Woman At The Washington Zoo
The saris go by me from the embassies.
Cloth from the moon. Cloth from another planet.
They look back at the leopard like the leopard.
... - 6. The Lost World
I. Children's Arms
On my way home I pass a cameraman
On a platform on the bumper of a car
... - 7. A Man Meets A Woman In The Street
Under the separated leaves of shade
Of the gingko, that old tree
That has existed essentially unchanged
Longer than any other living tree,
... - 8. A Camp In The Prussian Forest
I walk beside the prisoners to the road.
Load on puffed load,
Their corpses, stacked like sodden wood,
Lie barred or galled with blood
...
