Dear March-Come in�
How glad I am-
I hoped for you before�
Put down your Hat
You must have walked
How out of Breath you are
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest
Did you leave Nature well�
Oh March, Come right up stairs with me-I have so much to tell

EMILY DICKINSON
[1830 - 1886]

THE MUSIC WE ARE

Did you hear that winter's over?
The basil and the carnations cannot control their laughter!
The nightingale, back from his wandering,
has been made singing master over the birds.
The trees reach out their congratulations.
The soul goes dancing through the king's doorway.
Anemones blush because they have seen the rose naked.
Spring, the only fair judge, walks in the courtroom,
and several December thieves steal away.
Last year's miracles will soon be forgotten.
New creatures whirl in from non�existence,
galaxies scattered around their feet.
Have you met them?
Do you hear the bud of Jesus crooning in the cradle?
A single narcissus flower has been appointed Inspector oj Kingdoms.
A feast is set.
Listen: the wind is pouring wine!
Love used to hide inside images: no more!
The orchard hangs out its lanterns.
The dead come stumbling by in shrouds.
Nothing can stay bound or be imprisoned.
You say,"End this poem here, and wait for what's next." I will.
Poems are rough notations for the music we are.

EMILY DICKINSON
[1830-1886]

At the round earths imagin'd comers, blow
Your trumpets, Angells, and arise, arise
From death, you numberlesse infinities
Of soules, and to your scafued bodies goe,
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow,
All whom warre, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despaire,law, chance, hath slaine, and you whose eyes,
Shall behold God, and never tast deaths woe.
But let them sleepe, Lord, and mee moume a space,
For, if above all these, my sinnes abound,
'Tis late to aske abundance of thy grace,
When wee are there; here on this lowly ground,
Teach mee how to repent; for that's as good
As if thou'hadst seal'd my pardon, with thy blood.

JOHN DONNE
[1572-1631]

Shadows

And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.
And if, as weeks go round, in the dark of the moon
my spirit darkens and goes out, and soft strange gloom
pervades my movements and my thoughts and words then
I shall know that I am walking still
with God, we are close together now the moon's in shadow.

And if, as autumn deepens and darkens
I feel the pain of falling leaves,
and stems that break in storms and trouble and dissolution and distress
and then the softness of deep shadows folding, folding
around my soul and spirit, around my lips
so sweet, like a swoon, or more like the drowse of a low,
sad song singing darker than the nightingale, on, on to the solstice
and the silence of short days,the silence of the year, the shadow.

D. H. LAWRENCE

When Icicles�Hang by the Wall

When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-whit!
To-who! -a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whit!
To-who! -a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
from Love's Labour's Lost

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you 0 my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,
seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd,
till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere,
0 my soul.

WALT WHITMAN
[1819-1892]

To Autumn

�� Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples ,the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Aye, where are they?
�� Think not of them, thou hast thy music too�
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains. with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

JOHN KEATS
[1795-1821]

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