Louis Untermeyer Poems

You have not conquered me—it is the surge
Of love itself that beats against my will;
It is the sting of conflict, the old urge
...

What nudity as beautiful as this
Obedient monster purring at its toil;
These naked iron muscles dripping oil
...

“Do you remember at the rainbow's end
Those flowers trampled by the hurrying rain,
Hanging their heads, knowing they would not spend
...

I never knew the earth had so much gold --
   The fields run over with it, and this hill,
Hoary and old,
   Is young with buoyant blooms that flame and thrill.
...

Why
Is the sky?

What starts the thunder overhead?
Who makes the crashing noise?
...

God, I return to You on April days
   When along country roads You walk with me,
   And my faith blossoms like the earliest tree
That shames the bleak world with its yellow sprays --
...

Why are the things that have no death
The ones with neither sight nor breath!
Eternity is thrust upon
A bit of earth, a senseless stone.
...

What sudden bugle calls us in the night
   And wakes us from a dream that we had shaped;
Flinging us sharply up against a fight
   We thought we had escaped.
...

How much of Godhood did it take --
   What purging epochs had to pass,
Ere I was fit for leaf and lake
   And worthy of the patient grass?
...

MAY nothing evil cross this door,
And may ill-fortune never pry
About these windows; may the roar
And rains go by.
...