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About this Poem 

“From the Telephone” was published in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse in August 1922.

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From the Telephone

Out of the dark cup
Your voice broke like a flower.
It trembled, swaying on its taut stem.
The caress in its touch
Made my eyes close.

This poem is in the public domain.

This poem is in the public domain.

Florence Ripley Mastin

Florence Ripley Mastin

Florence Ripley Mastin was born in Wayne, Pennsylvania, in 1886.

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by this poet

poem
Night Fell
Florence Ripley Mastin
1918

Night fell one year ago, like this.
He had been writing steadily.
Among these dusky walls of books,
How bright he looked, intense as flame!
Suddenly he paused,
The firelight in his hair,
And said, “The time has come to go.”
I took his hand;
We watched the logs burn out;

poem
Discovery
Florence Ripley Mastin
1918

The gray path glided before me
Through cool, green shadows;
Little leaves hung in the soft air
Like drowsy moths;
A group of dark trees, gravely conferring,
Made me conscious of the gaucherie of sound;
Farther on, a slim lilac
Drew me down to her on the warm grass.
“How sweet

poem
Dust
Florence Ripley Mastin
2018
My words are dust.
I who would build a star,
I who would touch the heel of the white sun;
Staggering up the inaccessible sky,
I look upon the dust.

The stainless clouds go mounting
In shining spires;
And a little heap of dust
Are my desires.

Yet, dwelling long upon these peaks
Unchained upon the flickering
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