Find and share the perfect poems.
Little things I’ll give to you—
Till your fingers learn to press
Gently
On a loveliness;
Little things and new—
Till your fingers learn to hold
Love that’s fragile,
Love that’s old.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on March 24, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
O day—if I could cup my hands and drink of you,
And make this shining wonder be
A part of me!
O day! O day!
You lift and sway your colors on the sky
Till I am crushed with beauty. Why is there
More of reeling sunlit air
Than I can breathe? Why is there sound
The room is as we left it
But mellowed to a heightened
Dignity.
The chairs
Have summer coverings
Of cobwebs,
The teakwood lamps are there,
And still the bed sags
To the center,
And the table throws
Its weight of shadow
On the spread . . . .
. . . Folly to have left the room unused:
You did not merit such a nicety . . . .
The barnacle of crowds—
Like a tuck
On a finished skirt, unnoticed—
He collected his material
Covertly:
A ragpicker,
A scavenger of words.
And the gleanings
Of his hearing
He would costume
In his own words,
And parade before
A listener.
So that now,
Across the tea-cup,
He was telling
Of his research,
Of his study,
Of his deep thought-out
Conclusions.