• Poems & Poets
  • Browse Poems
  • Browse Poets
  • Seasonal Poems
• Features
  • Articles
  • Audio & Podcasts
  • Video
  • Harriet:
    News & Community
• Resources
  • Learning Lab
  • Children’s Poetry
  • POETRY
    Mobile App
  • Poetry Tours
• Programs & Initiatives
  • Foundation Events
  • Gallery Exhibitions
  • Foundation Awards
  • Foundation Library
  • Harriet Monroe
    Poetry Institute
  • Media Partnerships
  • Poetry Out Loud
• Poetry magazine
  • 
    • May 2013

    David Caplan, Linda Gregerson, Derek Sheffield, A. E. Stallings, Michelle Boisseau, Peter Cole, and more.

    • Table of Contents
    • Browse All Issues Back to 1912
    • Subscribe to Poetry
    • Submissions & Letters to the Editor
    • Poetry Magazine Prizes
    • Advertise with Us

Poetry Magazine

• Current Issue Table of Contents
• Browse All Issues Back to 1912
• About Poetry Magazine

Silent, about-to-be-parted-from house.

Wood creaking, trying to sigh, impatient.

Clicking of squirrel-teeth in the attic.

Denuded beds, couches stripped of serapes.

Deep snow shall block all entrances

and oppress the roof and darken

the windows.    O Lares,

don’t leave.

The house yawns like a bear.

Guard its profound dreams for us,

that it return to us when we return.

November 1969

Source: Poetry (June 2012).

back to top

MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

This poem originally appeared in the June 2012 issue of Poetry magazine

• Early Elegy: Headmistress
  by Claudia Emerson
• Scythe
  by Stuart Dybek
• Increment
  by Josephine Miles

• June 2012 Table of Contents
• Subscribe to Poetry magazine
• About Poetry magazine
• Buy This Issue

More about this poem

Biography

During the course of a prolific career, Denise Levertov created a highly regarded body of poetry that reflects her beliefs as an artist and a humanist. Her work embraces a wide variety of genres and themes, including nature lyrics, love poems, protest poetry, and poetry inspired by her faith in God. "Dignity, reverence, and strength are words that come to mind as one gropes to characterize . . . one of America's most respected . . .

Continue reading this biography

back to top

Poems by Denise Levertov

• A Map of the Western Part of the County of Essex in England
• A Time Past
• Advent 1966
• At the Justice Department November 15, 1969
• Caedmon

• More poems by Denise Levertov (31 poems)
  • Clouds
  • Come into Animal Presence
  • Everything that Acts Is Actual
  • February Evening in New York
  • Goodbye to Tolerance
  • Hypocrite Women
  • In California: Morning, Evening, Late January
  • Intrusion
  • Life at War
  • Making Peace
  • Matins
  • Partial Resemblance
  • Pleasures
  • Prisoners
  • Psyche in Somerville
  • Seeing for a Moment
  • Somebody Trying
  • Song for Ishtar
  • The Ache of Marriage
  • The Secret
  • The Springtime
  • The Wealth of the Destitute
  • To Live in the Mercy of God
  • To R.D., March 4th 1988
  • Wedding-Ring
  • What My House Would Be Like If It Were A Person

back to top

Poem Categorization

SUBJECT Relationships, Home Life, Nature, Winter

SCHOOL / PERIOD Black Mountain

Poetic Terms Free Verse

If you disagree with this poem's categorization, make a suggestion.

back to top

Related

Audio

• Poem of the Day: At the Justice Department November 15, 1969
• Poetry Off the Shelf: Battle of the Bards
• Essential American Poets: Denise Levertov: Essential American Poets
• Poem of the Day: Psyche in Somerville
• Poem of the Day: Somebody Trying
• The Poetry Magazine Podcast: "That discrete first pock"
• Poem of the Day: The Wealth of the Destitute
• Poem of the Day: Wedding-Ring
• Poem of the Day: What My House Would Be Like If It Were A Person
• Avant-Garde All the Time: The Women of the Avant-Garde

Articles

• 100 Years of Poetry: The Magazine and War by Abigail Deutsch
• Craft Vs. Conscience by Ange Mlinko

Report a problem with this poem

Search Every Issue of Poetry