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William Carlos Williams Poems: Libertad! Igualdad! Fraternidad!

This document contains several poems by William Carlos Williams exploring themes of spring, nature, and rural life. It includes poems like "Spring and All" describing the signs of spring emerging in the landscape, "The Farmer" about a farmer contemplating his fields in the rain, and "Spring Strains" vividly capturing the tension and energy of spring through the imagery of trees straining against the sky.

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Anaya Farhan
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90 views3 pages

William Carlos Williams Poems: Libertad! Igualdad! Fraternidad!

This document contains several poems by William Carlos Williams exploring themes of spring, nature, and rural life. It includes poems like "Spring and All" describing the signs of spring emerging in the landscape, "The Farmer" about a farmer contemplating his fields in the rain, and "Spring Strains" vividly capturing the tension and energy of spring through the imagery of trees straining against the sky.

Uploaded by

Anaya Farhan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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William Carlos Williams Poems Spring and All

By the road to the contagious hospital


under the surge of the blue
LIBERTAD! IGUALDAD! FRATERNIDAD! mottled clouds driven from the
northeast-a cold wind. Beyond, the
You sullen pig of a man waste of broad, muddy fields
you force me into the mud brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
with your stinking ash-cart!
patches of standing water
Brother!
the scattering of tall trees
—if we were rich
we’d stick our chests out All along the road the reddish
and hold our heads high! purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
It is dreams that have destroyed us. stuff of bushes and small trees
There is no more pride with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines-
in horses or in rein holding.
We sit hunched together brooding Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
our fate.{33} dazed spring approaches-
Well—
all things turn bitter in the end They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
whether you choose the right or save that they enter. All about them
the left way the cold, familiar wind-
and—
dreams are not a bad thing. N ow the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined-
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

39
But now the stark dignity of The Farmer
entrance-Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken The farmer in deep thought
is pacing through the rain
among his blank fields, with
hands in pockets,
in his head
the harvest already planted.
The Pot of Flowers A cold wind ruffles the water
among the browned weeds.
On all sides
Pink confused with white the world rolls coldly away:
flowers and flowers reversed black orchards
take and spill the shaded flame darkened by the March clouds-
darting_it back leaving room for thought.
into the lamp's horn Down past the brushwood
bristling by
petals aslant darkened with mauve the rainsluiced wagonroad
looms the artist figure of
red where in whorls the farmer-composing
petal lays its glow upon petal ~antagonist
round flamegreen throats

petals radiant with transpiercing light


contending
above
the leaves
reaching up their modest green
from the pot's rim

and there, wholly dark, the pot


gay with rough moss.

40 41
Or do you think you can shut grief in? Spring Strains blue-grey like the city
What-from us? We who have perhaps
nothing to lose? Share with us
share with us-it will be money In a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds
in your pockets. crowded erect with desire against the sky
Go now tense blue-grey twigs
I think you are ready. slenderly anchoring them down, drawing
them in-

two blue-grey birds chasing


El Hombre a third struggle in circles, angles,
swift convergings to a point that bursts
instantly!
It's a strange courage
you give me ancient star: Vibrant bowing limb~
pull downward, sucking in the sky
Shine alone in the sunrise that bulges from behind, plastering itself
toward which you lend no part! against them in packed rifts, rock blue
and dirty orange!

But-
(Hold hard, rigid jointed trees!)
the blinding and red-edged sun-blur-
creeping energy, concentrated
counterforce-welds sky, buds, trees,
rivets them in one puckering hold!
Sticks through! Pulls the whole
counter-pulling mass upward, to the right
locks even the opaque, not yet defined
ground in a terrific drag that is
loosening the very tap-roots!

On a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds


two blue-grey birds, chasing a third,
at full cry! Now they are
flung outward and up-disappearing suddenly!

20 21

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