Allen Tate Poems

There is a place that some men know,
I cannot see the whole of it
Nor how I came there. Long ago
Flame burst out of a secret pit
...

I have looked at them long,
My eyes blur; sourceless light
Keeps them forever young
Before our ageing sight.
...

Alice grown lazy, mammoth but not fat,
Declines upon her lost and twilight age;
Above in the dozing leaves the grinning cat
...

When little boys grown patient at last, weary,
Surrender their eyes immeasurably to the night,
The event will rage terrific as the sea;
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Now all day long the man who is not dead
Hastens the dark with inattentive eyes,
The woman with white hand and erect head
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Turn back. Turn, young lady dear
A murderer's house you enter here
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The afternoon with heavy hours
Lies vacant on the wanderer's sight
And sunset waits whose cloudy towers
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There by some wrinkled stones round a leafless tree
With beards askew, their eyes dull and wild
Twelve ragged men, the council of charity
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Say never the strong heart
In the consuming breath
Cries out unto the dark
The skinny death.
...

I see the horses and the sad streets
Of my childhood in an agate eye
Roving, under the clean sheets,
...