The mortal fruit upon the bough Hands above the nuptial bed. The cat-bird in the tree returns The forfeit of his mutual vow. The hard, untimely apple of The branch that feeds on watered rain, Takes the place upon her lips Of her late lamented love. Many hands together press, Shaped within a static prayer Recall
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related poems
- Romance by Edgar Allan Poe
- I Loved You Before I Was Born by Li-Young Lee
- Modern Love: XXIX by George Meredith
- Modern Love: XXIV by George Meredith
- The Phantom Guest by Natalie Clifford Barney
occasions
“In Particular” was published in The Book of Repulsive Women (Guido Bruno, 1915).
In Particular
Djuna Barnes, 1892 - 1982
What loin-cloth, what rag of wrong
Unpriced?
What turn of body, what of lust
Undiced?
So we’ve worshipped you a little
More than Christ.
This poem is in the public domain.
This poem is in the public domain.

Djuna Barnes
Djuna Barnes was born in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York on June 12, 1892. She was an American novelist, poet, playwright, journalist, and visual artist, as well as an important figure in the Modernist movement. Her works include The Book of Repulsive Women (1915), Ladies Almanack (1928), and Nightwood (1937). Barnes died in New York City on June 18, 1982.
by this poet
And now she walks on out turned feet
Beside the litter in the street
Or rolls beneath a dirty sheet
Within the town.
She does not stir to doff her dress,
She does not kneel low to confess,
A little conscience, no distress
And settles down.
Ah God! she settles
Three paces down the shore, low sounds the lute,
The better that my longing you may know;
I’m not asking you to come,
But—can’t you go?
Three words, “I love you,” and the whole is said—
The greatness of it throbs from sun to sun;
I’m not asking you to walk,
But—can’t you run?
related poems
The Mad Girls climb the wet hill,
breathe the sharp air through sick-green lungs.
The Wildest One wanders off like an old cow
and finds a steaming breast inside a footprint in the snow.
She slips it into her glove, holds it close like a darling.
At night, she suckles
First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera, and checked the edge of the knife-blade, I put on the body-armor of black rubber the absurd flippers the grave and awkward mask. I am having to do this not like Cousteau with his assiduous team aboard the sun-flooded schooner but
I have gone out, a possessed witch, haunting the black air, braver at night; dreaming evil, I have done my hitch over the plain houses, light by light: lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind. A woman like that is not a woman, quite. I have been her kind. I have found the warm caves in