THE BRANCH WILL NOT BREAK
ALSO BY JAMES WRIGHT
Saint Judas Shall We Gather at the River Collected Poems
THE BRANCH WILL NOT BREAK
POEMS BY
JAMES WRIGHT
Ach, könt’ ich dorthin kommen, Und dort mein Herz erfreu’n, Und aller Qual entnommen, Und frei und selig sein.
Ach, jedes Land der Wonne! Das seh’ ich oft im Traum. Doch kommt die Morgensonne, Zerfliesst’s wie eitel Schaum.
Published by
Wesleyan University Press
Middletown, CT 06459
Copyright © 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963 by James Wright
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
20 19 18
ISBN 0–8195–1018–1
For permission to reprint some of these poems, the author wishes to make due acknowledgment to the editors of the following: The Fifties, The Sixties, The Minnesota Review, Big Table, Harper’s Magazine, The Paris Review, Audience, Botteghe Oscure, Poetry (Chicago), The Kenyon Review, The New York Times (daily), The Nation, Chicago Choice, and The Hudson Review. The poem “By a Lake in Minnesota” appeared originally in The New Yorker.
I am also grateful to three particular friends: Miss Mary Bly, for her self and for the poem which bears her name; Heinrich Heine, for his beautiful song “Aus alten Märchen winkt es”; and Allen Tate, for his friendship in a difficult time.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Wright, James Arlington, 1927–
The branch will not break; poems. [1st ed.] Middletown,
Conn., Wesleyan University Press [1963]
59 p. 21 cm.
1. Title.
PS3545.R58B7 811.54 63–8858
Library of Congress [3]
ELEUTHERIA
(Sappho)
CONTENTS
AS I STEP OVER A PUDDLE AT THE END OF WINTER, I THINK OF AN ANCIENT CHINESE GOVERNOR
GOODBYE TO THE POETRY OF CALCIUM
AUTUMN BEGINS IN MARTINS FERRY, OHIO
LYING IN A HAMMOCK AT WILLIAM DUFFY’S FARM IN PINE ISLAND, MINNESOTA
TWO POEMS ABOUT PRESIDENT HARDING
EISENHOWER’S VISIT TO FRANCO, 1959
THE UNDERMINING OF THE DEFENSE ECONOMY
DEPRESSED BY A BOOK OF BAD POETRY, I WALK TOWARD AN UNUSED PASTURE AND INVITE THE INSECTS TO JOIN ME
TWO HORSES PLAYING IN THE ORCHARD
FROM A BUS WINDOW IN CENTRAL OHIO, JUST BEFORE A THUNDER SHOWER
HAVING LOST MY SONS, I CONFRONT THE WRECKAGE OF THE MOON: CHRISTMAS, 1960
A PRAYER TO ESCAPE FROM THE MARKET PLACE
TODAY I WAS HAPPY, SO I MADE THIS POEM
TO THE EVENING STAR: CENTRAL MINNESOTA