Live Blindly and Upon the Hour

1874 –

1904

Live blindly and upon the hour. The Lord,
Who was the Future, died full long ago.
Knowledge which is the Past is folly. Go,
Poor, child, and be not to thyself abhorred.
Around thine earth sun-winged winds do blow
And planets roll; a meteor draws his sword;
The rainbow breaks his seven-coloured chord
And the long strips of river-silver flow:
Awake! Give thyself to the lovely hours.
Drinking their lips, catch thou the dream in flight
About their fragile hairs' aerial gold.
Thou art divine, thou livest,—as of old
Apollo springing naked to the light,
And all his island shivered into flowers.

This poem is in the public domain.

At Sainte-Marguerite

The gray tide flows and flounders in the rocks
Along the crannies up the swollen sand.
Far out the reefs lie naked—dunes and blocks
Low in the watery wind. A shaft of land
Going to sea thins out the western strand.

Trumbull Stickney

1905

Six O’Clock

Now burst above the city’s cold twilight 
The piercing whistles and the tower-clocks:
For day is done. Along the frozen docks
The workmen set their ragged shirts aright.
Thro’ factory doors a stream of dingy light
Follows the scrimmage as it quickly flocks
To hut and home among the snow’s gray blocks.—
I love you, human labourers. Good-night!
Good-night to all the blackened arms that ache!
Good-night to every sick and sweated brow,
To the poor girl that strength and love forsake,
To the poor boy who can no more!

Trumbull Stickney

1905

On Some Shells Found Inland

These are my murmur-laden shells that keep 
A fresh voice tho' the years be very gray. 
The wave that washed their lips and tuned their lay 
Is gone, gone with the faded ocean sweep, 
The royal tide, gray ebb and sunken neap 
And purple midday,—gone! To this hot clay 
Must sing my shells, where yet the primal day, 
Its roar and rhythm and splendour will not sleep. 
What hand shall join them to their proper sea 
If all be gone?

Trumbull Stickney

1905

Poems

Live Blindly and Upon the Hour

More by this poet

At Sainte-Marguerite

Six O’Clock

On Some Shells Found Inland

Poems

Page submenu block

Live Blindly and Upon the Hour

More by this poet

At Sainte-Marguerite

Six O’Clock

On Some Shells Found Inland

Newsletter Sign Up