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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Louise Bogan
Louise Bogan
Louise Bogan was born in Livermore Falls, Maine, in 1897. She attended Boston...
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Related Prose
To Go Its Way in Tears: Poems of Grief
by Edward Hirsch
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Tears in Sleep

 
by Louise Bogan

All night the cocks crew, under a moon like day,
And I, in the cage of sleep, on a stranger's breast,
Shed tears, like a task not to be put away---
In the false light, false grief in my happy bed,
A labor of tears, set against joy's undoing.
I would not wake at your word, I had tears to say.
I clung to the bars of the dream and they were said,
And pain's derisive hand had given me rest
From the night giving off flames, and the dark renewing.






From The Blue Estuaries: Poems 1923-1968 by Louise Bogan, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Copyright © 1923, 1929, 1030, 1031, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1941, 1949, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1957, 1958, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968 Louise Bogan. Used with permission.
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