Copyright © 1994 by Naomi Replansky. “I Met My Solitude” originally appeared in The Dangerous World: New and Selected Poems, 1934–1994 (Another Chicago Press, 1994). Reprinted by permission of the author. All rights reserved.
I am weary of the working,
Weary of the long day’s heat;
To thy comfortable bosom,
Wilt thou take me, spirit sweet?
Weary of the long, blind struggle
For a pathway bright and high,—
Weary of the dimly dying
Hopes that never quite all die.
Weary searching a bad cipher
For a good that must be meant;
Discontent with being weary,—
Weary with my discontent.
I am weary of the trusting
Where my trusts but torments prove;
Wilt thou keep faith with me? wilt thou
Be my true and tender love?
I am weary drifting, driving
Like a helmless bark at sea;
Kindly, comfortable spirit,
Wilt thou give thyself to me?
Give thy birds to sing me sonnets?
Give thy winds my cheeks to kiss?
And thy mossy rocks to stand for
The memorials of our bliss?
I in reverence will hold thee,
Never vexed with jealous ills,
Though thy wild and wimpling waters
Wind about a thousand hills.
From The Poetical Works of Alice and Phoebe Cary (Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1896) by Alice Cary. This poem is in the public domain.
year-worn weary to the bone, dancing in the dark with the dark, the Suicide Kid gone gray. ah, the swift summers over and gone forever! is that death stalking me now? no, it’s only my cat, this time.
From The People Look Like Flowers At Last by Charles Bukowski. Copyright© 2007 by Linda Lee Bukowski. Published by arrangement with Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.