“Portent” was published in The Tempers (Elkin Mathews, 1913).

Red cradle of the night,
     In you
           The dusky child
Sleeps fast till his might
   Shall be piled
Sinew on sinew.

 

Red cradle of the night,
    The dusky child
Sleeping sits upright.
    Lo how
                    The winds blow now!
    He pillows back;
The winds are again mild.

 

When he stretches his arms out,
Red cradle of the night,
    The alarms shout
From bare tree to tree,
    Wild
              In afright!
Mighty shall he be,
Red cradle of the night,
    The dusky child!!

 

Winter Trees, by William Carlos Williams

All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.

The Thinker, by William Carlos Williams

My wife’s new pink slippers have gay pom-poms. There is not a spot or a stain on their satin toes or their sides. All night they lie together under her bed’s edge. Shivering I catch sight of them and smile, in the morning. Later I watch them descending the stair, hurrying through the doors and round the table, moving stiffly with a shake of their gay pom-poms! And I talk to them in my secret mind out of pure happiness.

Willow Poem, by William Carlos Williams

It is a willow when summer is over, a willow by the river from which no leaf has fallen nor bitten by the sun turned orange or crimson. The leaves cling and grow paler, swing and grow paler over the swirling waters of the river as if loath to let go, they are so cool, so drunk with the swirl of the wind and of the river— oblivious to winter, the last to let go and fall into the water and on the ground.

Love, by William Carlos Williams

Love is twain, it is not single, Gold and silver mixed to one, Passion ‘tis and pain which mingle Glist’ring then for aye undone. Pain it is not; wondering pity Dies or e’er the pang is fled; Passion ‘tis not, foul and gritty, Born one instant, instant dead. Love is twain, it is not single, Gold and silver mixed to one, Passion ‘tis and pain which mingle Glist’ring then for aye undone.

Marriage, by William Carlos Williams

 

So different, this man 

And this woman: 

A stream flowing 

In a field.