All Poems
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Waking In March
© Philip Levine
Last night, again, I dreamed
my children were back at home,
small boys huddled in their separate beds,
and I went from one to the other
I Hear America Singing
© Walt Whitman
I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics-each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and
The Simple Truth
© Philip Levine
I bought a dollar and a half's worth of small red potatoes,
took them home, boiled them in their jackets
and ate them for dinner with a little butter and salt.
Then I walked through the dried fields
An Ending
© Philip Levine
Early March.
The cold beach deserted. My kids
home in a bare house, bundled up
and listening to rock music
A Sleepless Night
© Philip Levine
April, and the last of the plum blossoms
scatters on the black grass
before dawn. The sycamore, the lime,
the struck pine inhale
Animals Are Passing From Our Lives
© Philip Levine
It's wonderful how I jog
on four honed-down ivory toes
my massive buttocks slipping
like oiled parts with each light step.
The Manuscript of Saint Alexius
© Augusta Davies Webster
But, when my father thought my words took shape
of other than boy's prattle, he grew grave,
and answered me "Alexius, thou art young,
and canst not judge of duties; but know this
thine is to serve God, living in the world."
At Bessemer
© Philip Levine
19 years old and going nowhere,
I got a ride to Bessemer and walked
the night road toward Birmingham
passing dark groups of men cursing
Among Children
© Philip Levine
I walk among the rows of bowed heads--
the children are sleeping through fourth grade
so as to be ready for what is ahead,
the monumental boredom of junior high
What Work Is
© Philip Levine
We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is--if you're
old enough to read this you know what
Night Words
© Philip Levine
after Juan Ramon
A child wakens in a cold apartment.
The windows are frosted. Outside he hears
words rising from the streets, words he cannot
They Feed They Lion
© Philip Levine
Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter,
Out of black bean and wet slate bread,
Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar,
Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies,
They Lion grow.
A Woman Waking
© Philip Levine
She wakens early remembering
her father rising in the dark
lighting the stove with a match
scraped on the floor. Then measuring
I Won, You Lost
© Philip Levine
The last of day gathers
in the yellow parlor
and drifts like fine dust
across the face of
You Can Have It
© Philip Levine
My brother comes home from work
and climbs the stairs to our room.
I can hear the bed groan and his shoes drop
one by one. You can have it, he says.
Late Light
© Philip Levine
Rain filled the streets
once a year, rising almost
to door and window sills,
battering walls and roofs
Where Shall the Lover Rest
© Sir Walter Scott
Where shall the lover rest
Whom the fates sever
From the true maiden's breast,
Parted for ever?--
To a Lock of Hair
© Sir Walter Scott
Thy hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright
As in that well - remember'd night
When first thy mystic braid was wove,
And first my Agnes whisper'd love.
The Truth of Woman
© Sir Walter Scott
Woman's faith, and woman's trust -
Write the characters in the dust;
Stamp them on the running stream,
Print them on the moon's pale beam,
