Most read ▸
Elinor Wylie
I saw a Tiger's golden flank,
I saw what food he ate,
By a desert spring he drank;
The Tiger's name was Hate.
Then I saw a placid Lamb
Lying fast asleep;
Like a river from its dam
Flashed the Tiger's leap.
I saw a Lion tawny-red,
Terrible and brave;
The Tiger's leap overhead
Broke like a wave.
In sand below or sun above
He faded like a flame.
The Lamb said, "I am Love";
"Lion, tell your name."
who on a hunt
would not be wooed by lions
I never could have thought
there had been upon earth
a man so little curious
the world is all cards and ash
First axe then lightning on
a million acres of dry slash:
the state’s namesake forests
burned & burned.
Then flood: with no roots
to hold the rains, hillsides slid,
rivers raged, cellars
filled with ashy gray mud.
The last lion in Pennsylvania
was starving, bones
visible under her hide
when they found her
at the end of a line
of incriminating footprints,
near a rocky outcropping
called the Pinnacle.
was never found.
Black-&-yellow
beetles smuggled her
underground; trees took
her up. Her ears became—
among other things—leaves,
& her roar was reborn in
the tops of tall pines.
She ran in the sap.
But she traveled, too,
into the ravenous
stomachs of the deer,
who were no longer
the wary creatures
she used to stalk.
Through them, she explored
crack my bones to see me glow
break my heart and I'll give you my all
take my breath and I'll thank you
with my last gasp of air
rip my skin and I'll
make sure you're alright
smash my face and I'll tell
them it was an accident
because you could never wrong me
you just have you days
it's my fault
I made you into this monster
but this is all wrong
you should be holding me gently
but instead you're throwing me away
to the lions
I lean to you --
alien man,
leanest in prerequisites ---
I lean,
cured of vicissitudes,
lion, but unbeleaguered of lions,
allured to visit, to align ---
alone, no lion alone,
living, lying alone
pleading love,
the non-transitive balance,
the coupling substantive.
I lean:
little hill of dreams
to sleep within --
hydrant of hope
Hate in the world's hand
Can carve and set its seal
Like the strong blast of sand
Which cuts into steel.
I have seen how the finger of hate
Can mar and mold
Faces burned passionate
And frozen cold.
Sorrowful faces worn
As stone with rain,
Faces writhing with scorn
And sullen with pain.
But you have a proud face
Which the world cannot harm,
You have turned the pain to a grace
And the scorn to a charm.