To a Post Office Inkwell
How many humble hearts have dipped
In you, and scrawled their manuscript!
Have shared their secrets, told their cares,
Their curious and quaint affairs!
Your pool of ink, your scratchy pen,
Have moved the lives of unborn men,
And watched young people, breathing hard,
Put Heaven on a postal card.
poem by Christopher Morley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Secret
IT was the House of Quietness
To which I came at dusk;
The garth was lit with roses
And heavy with their musk.
The tremulous tall poplar trees
Stood whispering around,
The gentle flicker of their plumes
More quiet than no sound.
And as I wondered at the door
What magic might be there,
The Lady of Sweet Silences
Came softly down the stair.
poem by Christopher Morley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Burning Leaves, November
THESE are the folios of April,
All the library of spring,
Missals gilt and rubricated
With the frost's illumining.
Ruthless, we destroy these treasures,
Set the torch with hand profane-
Gone, like Alexandrian vellums,
Like the books of burnt Louvain!
Yet these classics are immortal:
O collectors, have no fear,
For the publisher will issue
New editions every year.
poem by Christopher Morley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Song for a Little House
I'M glad our house is a little house,
Not too tall nor too wide:
I'm glad the hovering butterflies
Feel free to come inside.
Our little house is a friendly house.
It is not shy or vain;
It gossips with the talking trees,
And makes friends with the rain.
And quick leaves cast a shimmer of green
Against our whited walls,
And in the phlox, the dutious bees
Are paying duty calls.
poem by Christopher Morley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The barren music of a word or phrase,
THE barren music of a word or phrase,
The futile arts of syllable and stress,
He sought. The poetry of common days
He did not guess.
The simplest, sweetest rhythms life affords-
Unselfish love, true effort truly done,
The tender themes that underlie all words-
He knew not one.
The human cadence and the subtle chime
Of little laughters, home and child and wife,
He knew not. Artist merely in his rhyme,
Not in his life.
poem by Christopher Morley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Burning Leaves in Spring
WHEN withered leaves are lost in flame
Their eddying gosts, a thin blue haze,
Blow through the thickets whence they came
On amberlucent autumn days.
The cool green woodland heart receives
Their dim, dissolving, phantom breath;
In young hereditaty leaves
They see their happy life-in-death.
My minutes perish as they glow-
Time burns my crazy bonfire through;
But ghosts of blackened hours still blow,
Eternal Beauty, back to you!
poem by Christopher Morley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Milkman
EARLY in the morning, when the dawn is on the roofs,
You hear his wheels come rolling, you hear his horses hoofs;
You hear the bottles clinking, and then he drives away:
You yawn in bed, turn over, and begin another day!
The old-time dairy maids are dear to every poet's heart-
I'd rather be the dairy man and drive a little cart,
And bustle round the village in the early morning blue,
And hang my reigns upon a hook, as I've seen Casey do.
poem by Christopher Morley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
When I a householder became
EARLY in the morning, when the dawn is on the roofs,
You hear his wheels come rolling, you hear his horses hoofs;
You hear the bottles clinking, and then he drives away:
You yawn in bed, turn over, and begin another day!
The old-time dairy maids are dear to every poet's heart-
I'd rather be the dairy man and drive a little cart,
And bustle round the village in the early morning blue,
And hang my reigns upon a hook, as I've seen Casey do.
poem by Christopher Morley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
On Naming a House
WHEN I a householder became
I had to give my house a name.
I thought I'd call it 'Poplar Trees,'
Or 'Widdershins' or 'Velvet Bees,'
Or 'Just Beneath a Star.'
Or 'As You Like It,' 'If You Please,'
Or 'Nicotine' or 'Bread and Cheese,'
'Full Moon' or 'Doors Ajar.'
But still I sought some subtle charm,
Some rune to guard my roof from harm
And keep the devil far;
A thought of this, and I was saved!
I had my letter-heads engraved
The House Where Brown Eyes Are.
poem by Christopher Morley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Church of Unbent Knees
AS I went by the church to-day
I heard the organ cry;
And goodly folk were on their knees,
But I went striding by.
My minister hath a roof more vast:
My aisles are oak-trees high;
My altar-cloth is on the hills,
My organ is the sky.
I see my rood upon the clouds,
The winds, my chanted choir;
My crystal windows, heaven-glazed,
Are stained with sunset fire.
The stars, the thunder, and the rain,
White sands and purple seas-
These are His pulpit and His pew,
My God of Unbent Knees!
poem by Christopher Morley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
