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Solicidal
I find a man talking
of murdering the sun
like a bat in the palace.
He went to London
to hang like a picture,
all gilt and ash.
Poems on the topic: palace
Poems on the topic “palace” on Poets.by.
Ranter
I rant. My mouth must have
some good Latin to flaunt,
like a monk in the palace
coming to look after his mind.
Nursery rhyme
I went to my office, I went to the palace—
a swan to the swan.
I brought a bull to the chamber
and rattled the crown.
Interregnum
A queen's brief flaming left
those ruined palace walls
these peacocks strutting them at dusk
One calls
hideous with what its thousand eyes that cry
in coming night behold.
Calling 5
Oh I know you wait for me in the palace
But I am busy with the garden roses
Dazed fiery I take to their cool nectar pastures
Forgetful of the closing skies
Palace of the Babies
The disbeliever walked the moonlit place,
Outside of gates of hammered serafin,
Observing the moon-blotches on the walls.
The yellow rocked across the still façades,
Or else sat spinning on the pinnacles,
While he imagined humming sounds and sleep.
The walker in the moonlight walked alone,
And each blank window of the building balked
His loneliness and what was in his mind:
If in a shimmering room the babies came,
Drawn close by dreams of fledgling wing,
It was because night nursed them in its fold.
Night nursed not him in whose dark mind
The clambering wings of birds of black revolved,
Making harsh torment of the solitude.
The walker in the moonlight walked alone,
Fontainebleau
Interminable palaces front on the green parterres,
And ghosts of ladies lovely and immoral
Glide down the gilded stairs,
The high cold corridors are clicking with the heel taps
That long ago were theirs.
But in the sunshine, in the vague autumn sunshine,
The geometric gardens are desolately gay;
The crimson and scarlet and rose-red dahlias
Are painted like the ladies who used to pass this way
With a ringletted monarch, a Henry or a Louis
On a lost October day.
The aisles of the garden lead into the forest,
The aisles lead into autumn, a damp wind grieves,
Ghostly kings are hunting, the boar breaks cover,
But the sounds of horse and horn are hushed in falling leaves,
Kings' Palaces
I VISITED the palaces of kings,
And marvelled at the storied treasure brought
With vast expenditure of time and thought
To play upon the heart's imaginings;
All cunningly devised and priceless things —
Fine sculptured forms, rare, costly gems that caught
The sun, great canvases, and fabrics wrought
With wondrous skill to give the fancy wings.
But, coming forth, there crowded round my way
Such opulence of nature's tapestries,
That I reflected how the humblest may
Inherit all those lavish treasuries
Beside which human art is children's play,
And kings' possessions merest travesties.
A Venetian Palace
In quivering translucent light,
Her head resting upon the blue pillow of the sky,
Her feet upon the floor of the smoke-blue water,
Sleeps Beauty,
Turned to stone by a miracle of art.
And though she never stirs,
But slumbers on in a worn and faded robe
Rose-colored and bordered with old lace of ivory white,
We come from far-off cities,
And we turn to her our hungry eyes,
Even away from sunlit sky and sea.
Second Fig
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!
From China
I thought : —
The moon.
Shining upon the many steps of the palace before me.
Shines also upon the chequered rice-fields
Of my native land.
And my tears fell
Like white rice grains
At my feet.
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