He Wrote the History Book

1887 –

1972

There! You shed a ray
  of whimsicality on a mask of profundity so
    terrific, that I have been dumbfounded by
it oftener than I care to say.
               The book? Titles are chaff.

Authentically
     brief and full of energy, you contribute to your father’s
          legibility and are sufficiently
synthetic. Thank you for showing me
               your father’s autograph.

Poetry

I too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.
   Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers that there is in
   it after all, a place for the genuine.
      Hands that can grasp, eyes
      that can dilate, hair that can rise
         if it must, these things are important not because a

Marianne Moore

1920

Silence

My father used to say,
“Superior people never make long visits,
have to be shown Longfellow’s grave
or the glass flowers at Harvard.
Self-reliant like the cat—
that takes its prey to privacy,
the mouse’s limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth—
they sometimes enjoy solitude,

Marianne Moore

1924

Poems

He Wrote the History Book

More by this poet

Poetry

Silence

The Fish

Poems

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He Wrote the History Book

More by this poet

Poetry

Silence

The Fish

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