Louise Bogan

Louise Bogan was an American poet and critic of the mid-twentieth century. Her poetry is known for its formal precision, emotional restraint, and exploration of love, loss, and the passage of time. Biography ↓More ↓

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Louise Bogan

Decoration

A macaw preens upon a branch outspread With jewelry of seed. He's deaf and mute. The sky behind him splits like gorgeous fruit And claw-like leaves clutch light till it has bled. The raw diagonal bounty of his wings Scrapes on the eye color too chafed. He beats A flattered tail out against gauzy heats; He has the frustrate look of cheated kings. And all the simple evening passes by: A gillyflower spans its little height And lovers with their mouths press out their grief. The bird fans wide his striped regality Prismatic, while against a sky breath-white A crystal tree lets fall a crystal leaf.

Louise Bogan

Statue and Birds

Here, in the withered arbor, like the arrested wind, Straight sides, carven knees, Stands the statue, with hands flung out in alarm Or remonstrances. Over the lintel sway the woven bracts of the vine In a pattern of angles. The quill of the fountain falters, woods rake on the sky Their brusque tangles. The birds walk by slowly, circling the marble girl, The golden quails, The pheasants closed up in their arrowy wings. Dragging their sharp tails. The inquietudes of the sap and of the blood are spent. What is forsaken will rest. But her heel is lifted, — she would flee, — the whistle of the birds Fails on her breast.

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Epitaph for a Romantic Woman

She has attained the permanence She dreamed of, where old stones lie sunning. Untended stalks blow over her Even and swift, like young men running.

Always in the heart she loved Others had lived, — she heard their laughter. She lies where none has lain before, Where certainly none will follow after.

The Crows

The woman who has grown old And knows desire must die, Yet turns to love again, Hears the crows' cry.

She is a stem long hardened, A weed that no scythe mows. The heart's laughter will be to her The crying of the crows.

Who slide in the air with the same voice Over what yields not, and what yields, Alike in spring, and when there is only bitter Winter-burning in the fields.

Song

Love me because I am lost; Love me that I am undone. That is brave, — no man has wished it. Not one.

Be strong, to look on my heart As others look on my face. Love me, — I tell you that it is a ravaged Terrible place.

Betrothed

You have put your two hands upon me, and your mouth, You have said my name as a prayer. Here where trees are planted by the water I have watched your eyes, cleansed from regret, And your lips, closed over all that love cannot say.

My mother remembers the agony of her womb And long years that seemed to promise more than this. She says, "You do not love me, You do not want me, You will go away."

In the country whereto I go I shall not see the face of my friend Nor her hair the color of sunburnt grasses; Together we shall not find The land on whose hills bends the new moon In air traversed of birds.

What have I thought of love? I have said, "It is beauty and sorrow." I have thought that it would bring me lost delights, and splendor As a wind out of old time. . .

But there is only the evening here, And the sound of willows Now and again dipping their long oval leaves in the water.

Knowledge

Now that I know How passion warms little Of flesh in the mould, And treasure is brittle, —

I'll lie here and learn How, over their ground, Trees make a long shadow And a light sound.

Biography

Louise Bogan was an American poet and literary critic active from the 1920s through the 1960s. Her verse is characterized by traditional forms, dense imagery, and a controlled, often austere tone. Recurring subjects include romantic disillusionment, mortality, and the tension between passion and restraint. Bogan served as Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress from 1945 to 1946. She published several collections, including Body of This Death, Dark Summer, and The Sleeping Fury. For many years she was the poetry critic for The New Yorker. Her work is regarded as a significant contribution to American lyric poetry in the modernist period. She is particularly noted for her craftsmanship and her influence on subsequent formalist poets.

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