Poems begining by L

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LET it go on; let the love of this hour be poured out till all the answers are made, the last dollar spent and the last blood gone.

Time runs with an ax and a hammer, time slides down the hallways with a pass-key and a master-key, and time gets by, time wins.

Legends

© Carl Sandburg

CLOWNS DYINGFIVE circus clowns dying this year, morning newspapers told their lives, how each one horizontal in a last gesture of hands arranged by an undertaker, shook thousands into convulsions of laughter from behind rouge-red lips and powder-white face.

STEAMBOAT BILLWhen the boilers of the Robert E. Lee exploded, a steamboat winner of many races on the Mississippi went to the bottom of the river and never again saw the wharves of Natchez and New Orleans.
And a legend lives on that two gamblers were blown toward the sky and during their journey laid bets on which of the two would go higher and which would be first to set foot on the turf of the earth again.

Leather Leggings

© Carl Sandburg

THEY have taken the ball of earth
and made it a little thing.

They were held to the land and horses;

Lawyer

© Carl Sandburg

WHEN the jury files in to deliver a verdict after weeks of direct and cross examinations, hot clashes of lawyers and cool decisions of the judge,
There are points of high silencetwiddling of thumbs is at an endbailiffs near cuspidors take fresh chews of tobacco and waitand the clock has a chance for its ticking to be heard.
A lawyer for the defense clears his throat and holds himself ready if the word is Guilty to enter motion for a new trial, speaking in a soft voice, speaking in a voice slightly colored with bitter wrongs mingled with monumental patience, speaking with mythic Atlas shoulders of many preposterous, unjust circumstances.

Laughing Corn

© Carl Sandburg

THERE was a high majestic fooling
Day before yesterday in the yellow corn.

And day after to-morrow in the yellow corn

Last Answers

© Carl Sandburg

I wrote a poem on the mist
And a woman asked me what I meant by it.
I had thought till then only of the beauty of the mist,
how pearl and gray of it mix and reel,
And change the drab shanties with lighted lamps at evening
into points of mystery quivering with color.

Long Guns

© Carl Sandburg

THEN came, Oscar, the time of the guns.
And there was no land for a man, no land for a country,
Unless guns sprang up
And spoke their language.

Letter S

© Carl Sandburg

THE RIVER is gold under a sunset of Illinois.
It is a molten gold someone pours and changes.
A woman mixing a wedding cake of butter and eggs
Knows what the sunset is pouring on the river here.
The river twists in a letter S.
A gold S now speaks to the Illinois sky.

Laughing Blue Steel

© Carl Sandburg

TWO fishes swimming in the sea,
Two birds flying in the air,
Two chisels on an anvilmaybe.
Beaten, hammered, laughing blue steel to each othermaybe.

Lost

© Carl Sandburg

DESOLATE and lone
All night long on the lake
Where fog trails and mist creeps,
The whistle of a boat

Lolotte, Who Attires My Hair

© Jessie Redmon Fauset

Lolotte, who attires my hair,
Lost her lover. Lolotte weeps;
Trails her hand before her eyes;
Hangs her head and mopes and sighs,

Limits

© Jorge Luis Borges

Of all the streets that blur in to the sunset,
There must be one (which, I am not sure)
That I by now have walked for the last time
Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone

Late September

© Amy Lowell

Tang of fruitage in the air;
Red boughs bursting everywhere;
Shimmering of seeded grass;
Hooded gentians all a'mass.

Loon Point

© Amy Lowell

Softly the water ripples
Against the canoe's curving side,
Softly the birch trees rustle
Flinging over us branches wide.

Leisure

© Amy Lowell

Leisure, thou goddess of a bygone age,
When hours were long and days sufficed to hold
Wide-eyed delights and pleasures uncontrolled
By shortening moments, when no gaunt presage

Listening

© Amy Lowell

'T is you that are the music, not your song.
The song is but a door which, opening wide,
Lets forth the pent-up melody inside,
Your spirit's harmony, which clear and strong

Lead Soldiers

© Amy Lowell

The old mandarin nods under his purple umbrella. The
rose in his hand
shoots its petals up in thin quills of crimson. Then
they collapse
and shrivel like red embers. The fire sizzles.