Knowing Archibald MacLeish: 2 Poems

Archibald MacLeish

a) Charity

Since my Beloved chambered me

   To beat within her breast,

And took my soul to light a shrine

   Her soul had decked and dressed,

And caught my songs about her throat,—

   Dissected, known, confessed,

I dwell within her charity

A half-unwelcome guest.

b) Soul-Sight

Like moon-dark, like brown water you escape,

O laughing mouth, O sweet uplifted lips.

Within the peering brain old ghosts take shape;

You flame and wither as the white foam slips

Back from the broken wave: sometimes a start,

A gesture of the hands, a way you own

Of bending that smooth head above your heart,—

Then these are vanished, then the dream is gone.

Oh, you are too much mine and flesh of me

To seal upon the brain, who in the blood

Are so intense a pulse, so swift a flood

Of beauty, such unceasing instancy.

Dear unimagined brow, unvisioned face,

All beauty has become your dwelling place.