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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams was born in Rutherford, New Jersey, in 1883. He began writing poetry while a student at Horace Mann High School, at which time he made the decision to become...
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FURTHER READING
Poems About Difficult Love
Anna, Thy Charms
by Robert Burns
Be Near Me
by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
He would not stay for me, and who can wonder
by A. E. Housman
I Am Not Yours
by Sara Teasdale
I Do Not Love Thee
by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
Love's Secret
by William Blake
Never give all the heart
by W. B. Yeats
The More Loving One
by W. H. Auden
To His Coy Love
by Michael Drayton
To His Coy Mistress
by Andrew Marvell
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII)
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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A Love Song  
by William Carlos Williams

What have I to say to you
When we shall meet?
Yet—
I lie here thinking of you.

The stain of love
Is upon the world.
Yellow, yellow, yellow,
It eats into the leaves,
Smears with saffron
The horned branches that lean
Heavily
Against a smooth purple sky.

There is no light—
Only a honey-thick stain
That drips from leaf to leaf
And limb to limb
Spoiling the colours
Of the whole world.

I am alone.
The weight of love
Has buoyed me up
Till my head
Knocks against the sky.

See me!
My hair is dripping with nectar—
Starlings carry it
On their black wings.
See, at last
My arms and my hands
Are lying idle.

How can I tell
If I shall ever love you again
As I do now?



First published in Poems 1916.
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