She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems

Cover

Title Page

She walks in beauty
    
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

INTRODUCTION

FALLING IN LOVE

   
A Very Valentine
    
GERTRUDE STEIN

   
Song
    
JOHN KEATS

   
I Do Not Love Thee
    
THE HONORABLE CAROLINE ELIZABETH SARAH NORTON

   
From
Hero and Leander
    
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

   
Love's Philosophy
    
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

   
Having a Coke with You
    
FRANK O'HARA

   
Symptom Recital
    
DOROTHY PARKER

   
To Aphrodite of the Flowers, at Knossos
    
SAPPHO

   
Come to the Orchard in Spring
    
RUMI

MAKING LOVE

   
Don't try to rush things
—from
Poem 41

   
From
From June to December

   
Wild Nights—Wild Nights!
    
EMILY DICKINSON

   
may i feel said he
    
E. E. CUMMINGS

   
When He Pressed His Lips

   
Corinna's Going a-Maying
    
ROBERT HERRICK

   
The Weather-Cock Points South
    
AMY LOWELL

   
To His Mistress Going to Bed
    
JOHN DONNE

   
The Song of Solomon 2:1–17, 3:1–5

   
Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour
    
WALLACE STEVENS

   
Variation on the Word
Sleep    
MARGARET ATWOOD

   
After Making Love We Hear Footsteps
    
GALWAY KINNELL

   
It Is Marvellous . . .
    
ELIZABETH BISHOP

   
White Heliotrope
    
ARTHUR SYMONS

   
Youth
    
OSIP MANDELSTAM

BREAKING UP

   
Lilacs
    
KATHERINE GARRISON CHAPIN

   
Unfortunate Coincidence
    
DOROTHY PARKER

   
The Philosopher
    
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

   
From
Summer with Monika
    
ROGER McGOUGH

   
I'm Going to Georgia
    
FOLK SONG

   
A Type of Loss
    
INGEBORG BACHMANN

   
On Monsieur's Departure
    
QUEEN ELIZABETH I

   
The Eaten Heart
—from
The Knight of Curtesy

   
My life closed twice before its close—
    
EMILY DICKINSON

   
When We Two Parted
    
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON

   
Well, I Have Lost You
    
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

   
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII)
    
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

   
“No, Thank You, John”
    
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

   
when you have forgotten Sunday: the love story
    
GWENDOLYN BROOKS

   
The End
    
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER

MARRIAGE

   
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
    
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

   
Marriage
    
GREGORY CORSO

   
From
The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
    
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

   
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
    
E. E. CUMMINGS

   
To My Dear and Loving Husband
    
ANNE BRADSTREET

   
To Margo
    
GAVIN EWART

   
A Word to Husbands
    
OGDEN NASH

   
To the Ladies
    
LADY MARY CHUDLEIGH

   
The Female of the Species
    
RUDYARD KIPLING

   
From
Paradise Lost
    
JOHN MILTON

   
The Good Wife
    
PROVERBS 31:10–31

   
My Last Duchess
    
ROBERT BROWNING

   
To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage
    
ROBERT LOWELL

   
From a Survivor
    
ADRIENNE RICH

   
Letter from My Wife
    
NAZIM HIKMET

   
To Paula in Late Spring
    
W. S. MERWIN

   
A Farmer's Calendar
    
VIETNAMESE FOLK POEM

LOVE ITSELF

   
A Birthday
    
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

   
June Light
    
RICHARD WILBUR

   
Protocols
    
VIKRAM SETH

   
Jamesian
    
THOM GUNN

   
From
Proverbs and Song Verse
    
ANTONIO MACHADO

   
Sonnet XLIII: How Do I Love Thee?
    
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

   
XLIV: You must know that I do not love
and
that I love you
    
PABLO NERUDA

   
Code Poem for the French Resistance
    
LEO MARKS

   
The Smaller Orchid
    
AMY CLAMPITT

   
Sonnet 116
    
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

   
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
    
RUMI

   
The Emperor
    
MATTHEW ROHRER

   
Late Fragment
    
RAYMOND CARVER

   
From
The First Morning of the Second World
    
DELMORE SCHWARTZ

   
1 Corinthians 13:1–13

WORK

   
weaponed woman
    
GWENDOLYN BROOKS

   
Night Waitress
    
LYNDA HULL

   
In an Iridescent Time
    
RUTH STONE

   
Madam and Her Madam
    
LANGSTON HUGHES

   
Letters from Storyville
    
NATASHA TRETHEWEY

   
Lineage
    
MARGARET WALKER

   
I Want You Women Up North to Know
    
TILLIE OLSEN

   
PS Education
    
ELLEN HAGAN

   
At the Café
    
PATRICIA KIRKPATRICK

   
Worked Late on a Tuesday Night
    
DEBORAH GARRISON

   
The Age of Great Vocations
    
ALANE ROLLINGS

   
Defining Worlds
    
G. Y. BAXTER

   
What's That Smell in the Kitchen?
    
MARGE PIERCY

   
Father Grumble
    
FOLK SONG

   
Epitaph
    
ANONYMOUS

BEAUTY, CLOTHES, AND THINGS OF THIS WORLD

   
Antony and Cleopatra, II, ii, 191–232
    
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

   
What Do Women Want?
    
KIM ADDONIZIO

   
The Catch
    
RICHARD WILBUR

   
Cosmetics Do No Good
    
STEVE KOWIT

   
Face Lift
    
SYLVIA PLATH

   
Fatigue
    
HILAIRE BELLOC

   
The Great Lover
    
RUPERT BROOKE

   
Patterns
    
AMY LOWELL

   
Crocheted Bag
    
ROSEMARY CATACALOS

   
Delight in Disorder
    
ROBERT HERRICK

   
The Rhodora

   
Roses Only
    
MARIANNE MOORE

   
Eagle Poem
    
JOY HARJO

MOTHERHOOD

   
A Cradle Song
    
W. B. YEATS

   
Notes from the Delivery Room
    
LINDA PASTAN

   
Socks
    
SHARON OLDS

   
High School Senior
    
SHARON OLDS

   
Nobody Knows But Mother
    
MARY MORRISON

   
From
“Clearances,” In Memoriam M.K.H. (1911–1984)
    
SEAMUS HEANEY

   
if there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have
    
E. E. CUMMINGS

   
Somebody's Mother
    
MARY DOW BRINE

   
The Book of Ruth 1:16–17

   
The Dream That I Told My Mother-in-Law
    
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER

   
Mother's Closet
    
MAXINE SCATES

   
Ode
    
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER

   
Vietnam
    
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

   
A Child
    
MARY LAMB

   
blessing the boats
    
LUCILLE CLIFTON

SILENCE AND SOLITUDE

   
I'm happiest when most away
    
EMILY BRONTË

   
Keeping Things Whole
    
MARK STRAND

   
We All Know It
    
MARIANNE MOORE

   
As Much As You Can
    
CONSTANTINE P. CAVAFY