"Too many things are occurring for even a big heart to hold." - From an essay by W. B. Yeats Big heart,
wide as a watermelon,
but wise as birth,
there is so much abundance

They sent me letters with news
of you and I made moccasins that I would never use.
When I grew well enough to tolerate
myself, I lived with my mother, the witches said.
But I didn't leave. I had my portrait
done instead.

Gods

© Anne Sexton

Ms. Sexton went out looking for the gods.
She began looking in the sky
expecting a large white angel with a blue crotch.

Amarantha. A Pastorall

© Richard Lovelace

Up with the jolly bird of light
Who sounds his third retreat to night;
Faire Amarantha from her bed
Ashamed starts, and rises red

Sonnet III: If So It Hap

© Samuel Daniel

If so it hap this offspring of my care,

These fatal Anthems, sad and mournful Songs,

The Gold Key

© Anne Sexton

The speaker in this case
is a middle-aged witch, me-
tangled on my two great arms,
my face in a book

A Wedding Song

© Jean Ingelow

And they said, “He is young, the lad we love,
The heir of the Isles is young:
How we deem of his mother, and one gone above,
Can neither be said nor sung.

Dreaming The Breasts

© Anne Sexton

I have put a padlock
on you, Mother, dear dead human,
so that your great bells,
those dear white ponies,
can go galloping, galloping,
wherever you are.

On The Gallows

There is a gate, we know full well,
That stands 'twixt Heaven, and Earth, and Hell,
Where many for a passage venture,
Yet very few are fond to enter:

Upon His Majesty's Happy Return

The rising sun complies with our weak sight,
First gilds the clouds, then shows his globe of light
At such a distance from our eyes, as though
He knew what harm his hasty beams would do.

On The Death Of A Friend's Child

Death never came so nigh to me before,

Nor showed me his mild face: oft had I mused

The Author Of The Jesus Papers Speaks

© Anne Sexton

In my dream
I milked a cow,
the terrible udder
like a great rubber lily

Jerusalem Delivered - Book 02 - part 06

LXVI

"True labour in the vineyard of thy Lord,

Oh! Mr. Malthus!

Turn back to Malthus as he walked o'er English Fields and Downs
And walked at night the crooked Streets of crooked English Towns,
Lifeless, undying, Shade or Man, as one that could not die
A hundred years his Shadow fell, a hundred Years to lie,
The Shadow on the Window Pane when Malthus' Ghost went by.