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Postlude

By William Carlos Williams 1883–1963

Now that I have cooled to you

Let there be gold of tarnished masonry,

Temples soothed by the sun to ruin

That sleep utterly.

Give me hand for the dances,

Ripples at Philae, in and out,

And lips, my Lesbian,

Wall flowers that once were flame.

Your hair is my Carthage

And my arms the bow,

And our words arrows

To shoot the stars

Who from that misty sea

Swarm to destroy us.

But you there beside me—

Oh how shall I defy you,

Who wound me in the night

With breasts shining

Like Venus and like Mars?

The night that is shouting Jason

When the loud eaves rattle

As with waves above me

Blue at the prow of my desire.

"Postlude" by William Carlos Williams, from The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Volume I, 1909-1939,© 1938 by New Directions Publishing Corp. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Corp.

Source: Poetry (June 1913).

Biography

William Carlos Williams has always been known as an experimenter, an innovator, a revolutionary figure in American poetry. Yet in comparison to artists of his own time who sought a new environment for creativity as expatriates in Europe, Williams lived a remarkably conventional life. A doctor for more than forty years serving the New Jersey town of Rutherford, he relied on his patients, the America around him, and his own . . .

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