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The sock.
I once gave my friend a sock on her birthday, attached to the bright fabric is a note reading.
You're a free elf.
Poems on the topic: elf
Poems on the topic “elf” on Poets.by.
To a Friend
Your head is steel cut into drooping lines
That make a mask satirically meek:
Your face is like a tired devil weak
From drinking many vague and unsought wines.
The sullen skepticism of your eyes
For ever trying to transcend itself,
Is often entered by a wistful elf
Who sits naïvely unperturbed and wise.
And this same remnant, with its youthful wiles
Held curiously apart from blasphemies,
Twirls starlight shivers out upon your sneers
And changes them to little, startled smiles.
And all your insolence drops to its knees
Before the half-won grandeur of past years.
The Birth-Night
The eerie fingers of the rain
All day have stroked my window-pane,
While all the day and all the night
Elves have been grinding, keen and bright,
Weird, tiny knives of nerves and wits.
Upon my heart an Elf-king sits ...
A cruel, Lilliputian mite ...
And by my breath he flies a kite
Of hope in life or hope in death.
He tugs and scowls with all his might ...
The kite depends on my frail breath.
I watch the earthly colours bright,
Painted upon that fluttering kite.
Little boys fly gay kites
And play with marbles ...
Little boys laugh and shout
The Ancient Elf
I AM the maker,
The builder, the breaker,
The eagle-winged helper,
The speedy forsaker.
I am the lyre.
The water, the fire.
The tooth of oppression,
The lips of desire.
The snare and the wing,
The honey, the sting ;
When you seek for me look
For a different thing.
I, careless and gay,
Never mean what I say,
For my thoughts and my eyes
Look the opposite way.
An Autumn Walk with Deborah
Over the limp and sallow grasses,
Deborah, will you walk with me?
You may gather gentians in purple masses
And honeypods from the locust tree.
Brown leaves cover the partridge berry.
Holding it safe for your eager hand.
Barberry bright and cornelian cherry
Offering scarlet jewels stand.
I shall dress you up as an elf-queen, twining
Bittersweet wreaths for your golden head ;
Your leaf-brown cloak with its orange lining
I shall hang with garlands yellow and red.
Let us leave this place while the sunlight lingers
Lest the elves should covet your beauty bright.
The gentians fall from your tired fingers
As I carry you home through the fading light.
The Lost Forest
I walked with my mother
Where the tall trees grow,
And she showed me tiny tables
Where the elves sit in a row,
And the bells that ring to call them
When the night winds blow.
There were small frosted toadstools,
And little cups of wine.
And velvet banks to rest on
Where moss grew thick and fine,
And a smooth brown ring for dancing
Underneath a pine.
But now when I go walking
All the way is clear;
The little bells are silent
And the moss grown sere,
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