William Jay Smith

William Jay Smith Poems

All night the wind swept over the house
And through our dream
Swirling the snow up through the pines,
Ruffling the white, ice-capped clapboards,
...

2.

See how he dives
From the rocks with a zoom!
See how he darts
Through his watery room
...

The geraniums I left last night on the windowsill,
To the best of my knowledge now, are out there still,
And will be there as long as I think they will.
...

How rewarding to know Mr. Smith,
Whose writings at random appear!
Some think him a joy to be with
While others do not, it is clear.
...

Now touch the air softly, step gently, one, two ...
I'll love you 'til roses are robin's egg blue;
I'll love you 'til gravel is eaten for bread,
And lemons are orange, and lavender's red.
...

A silver-scaled Dragon with jaws flaming red
Sits at my elbow and toasts my bread.
I hand him fat slices, and then, one by one,
...

Winter and summer, whatever the weather,
The Floor and the Ceiling were happy together
In a quaint little house on the outskirts of town
With the Floor looking up and the Ceiling looking down.
...

Of living creatures most I prize
Black-spotted yellow Butterflies
Sailing softly through the skies.
...

The Polar Bear never makes his bed;
He sleeps on a cake of ice instead.
He has no blanket, no quilt, no sheet
...

I think it must be very nice
To stroll about upon the ice,
Night and day, day and night,
Wearing only black and white,
...

"Come," the Captain said. "let me show you
how this place looks from the air."
And I followed him to the monoplane, the little "cat"
waiting at the end of the runway.
...

The Dachshund leads a quiet life
Not far above the ground;
He takes an elongated wife,
They travel all around.
...

I knew that I had arrived in paradise:
The island was a garden but not a garden like Eden
with one terrace above another, reaching so high
...

Into the smouldering ruin now go down:
And walk where once she walked and breathe the air
She breathed that final day on the burning stair
And follow her, beyond the fleeing crowds,
...

Now touch the air softly,
Step gently. One, two…
I'll love you till roses
Are robin's-egg blue;
...

William Jay Smith Biography

William Jay Smith, born in April 22nd, 1918, is an American poet. He was appointed the nineteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1968 to 1970. He was born in Winnfield, Louisiana. He was brought up at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, south of St. Louis. William Jay Smith received his A.B. and M.A. from Washington University in St. Louis, and went on with his studies at Columbia University, and Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. In 1947 Smith married the poet Barbara Howes, and they lived for a time in England and Italy. They had two sons, David Smith, and Gregory. They divorced in the mid-1960s. William Jay Smith was a poet in residence at Williams College from 1959–1967, taught at Columbia University between the years of 1973 and 1975. He serves as the Professor Emeritus of English literature at Hollins University. As of 2008, he has residencies both in Cummington, Massachusetts and Paris, France. Smith is the author of ten collections of poetry of which two were finalists for the National Book Award. Smith has been member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1975. His work has appeared in Harper's Magazine, The New York Review of Books.)

The Best Poem Of William Jay Smith

Winter Morning

All night the wind swept over the house
And through our dream
Swirling the snow up through the pines,
Ruffling the white, ice-capped clapboards,
Rattling the windows,
Rustling around and below our bed
So that we rode
Over wild water
In a white ship breasting the waves.
We rode through the night
On green, marbled
Water, and, half-waking, watched
The white, eroded peaks of icebergs
Sail past our windows;
Rode out the night in that north country,
And awoke, the house buried in snow,
Perched on a
Chill promontory, a
Giant's tooth
In the mouth of the cold valley,
Its white tongue looped frozen around us,
The trunks of tall birches
Revealing the rib cage of a whale
Stranded by a still stream;
And saw, through the motionless baleen of their branches,
As if through time,
Light that shone
On a landscape of ivory,
A harbor of bone.

William Jay Smith Comments

WRITE YOUR FUC**NG NAME 15 October 2020

: vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

0 0 Reply
Peeps 11 May 2020

I love your poems

0 0 Reply
Johanna Beyts 05 August 2019

Dacshunds is a lovely poem

0 0 Reply

William Jay Smith Popularity

William Jay Smith Popularity

Close
Error Success