An envy of that one consummate part
Léonie Adams
Swept me, who mock. Whether I laugh or weep,
Some inner silences are at my heart.
Country of the Proud
By Léonie Adams
A fall over rock,
Metal answering to water,
Is the seal of this spot;
A land trodden by music
And the tune forgot.
Of a region savage,
The territory that was broken,
Silver gushed free;
And earth holy, earth meek shall receive it
In humility.
This, not dwelt in, this haunted,
The country of the proud,
Is curdling to stone,
And careless of the feet of the waters
As they glance from it down.
Send Forth The High Falcon
by Léonie Adams
Send forth the high falcon flying after the mind
Till it come toppling down from its cold cloud:
The beak of the falcon to pierce it till it fall
Where the simple heart is bowed.
O in wild innocence it rides
The rare ungovernable element,
But once it sways to terror and descent,
The marches of the wind are its abyss,
No wind staying it upward of the breast—
Let mind be proud for this,
And ignorant from what fabulous cause it dropt,
Or with how learned a gesture the unschooled heart
Shall lull both terror and innocence to rest
Fourteen Lines 