Women with low voices and good color,

Poppies on a three-foot stem, hot sunlight,

Strawberries in blue dishes, books by Knopf,

Sharp pencils, feel of a wide flat-bitted pipe,

Split sticks of yellow pine to throw on fires,

Reading Charles Lamb in a row-boat anchored

In sunny water, coffee that is half cream

And hot, all lamps at night with parchment shades,

The spaced-out way the brown Atlantic

Monthly prints its poems, brass candlesticks, and

Daggers, mowing lawns, wearing sailor pants,

Arriving at the third green, leaving the first

Tee with a foursome all smoking after

Their drives, reading aloud, reading in bed,

Ruled paper to write on, woodcuts in narrow

Black frames, swimming under water, toast,

New magazines, apples and tangerines,

Talking about people, , letters from England,

Words, rain, bacon frying, lighted windows,

Smell of soft coal smoke, the snort of steam shovels,

A string trio during lunch, Colonial furniture,

Soft white shirts with black ties, Sunday morning,

Scissors, scratching matches, Lombardy polars

In a row and yellow in the fall, , gloves,

Grand pianos, pure-bred Airedale dogs,

The moment of the curtain's rise, sleep,

Cool water to drink, beginnings of all things,

The ring of the telephone, paths, rugs, tree-shadow,

Sleeping on a train, wood to whittle, books,

Home, painting walls, riding the subway,

News reels, closed cars, remembering dreams,

Posters, corn on the cob, half dollars, cutting steak,

Full tobacco jars, old clocks, puns, noon-time,

Raking and burning leaves while I think of nothing

But burning and raking leaves, putting books

Back on the shelves, lanterns, seven-branched

Candlesticks, surf, tops of towers, plans and maps,

Smell of bread baking, the morning mail,

The Shakespeare sonnets, masses of forsythias against

The greens of other threes and shrubs, , table-cloths,

The smell of coffee making, conversation that is

Part silences, old shoes, a long putt sunk,

The drone of an airplane marking a slow line

Like a pencil point across the sky, big flames,

Old ships, a bowl of lilacs, fog, new sweet cidar,

Weather vanes, big barns, the straight lines of

Apple orchards, the look of certain names like

Chaucer, Morley, Oxford, Donne, Lambert, Cousens,

Bob, Mac, Lenny, Larry; yellow and blue striped pitchers,

Giving and getting books, new slang, sonnets and

Narrow poems, carrying a pair of oars on the shoulder,

Italian pottery, American pewter, built-in-bookshelves,

Winsor chairs, gripping a window sill as I reach

In from the outside, hearing poetry recited from

Memory, preparing a stack of griddle cakes, new cheese,

Bulletin boards, Dvorak's "Going Home", being on an island,

Being welcome, rooms blue with tobacco-smoke,

Diaries, beamed ceilings, pools, lawns,

Single trees, ship-pictures, hammers, men marching

And looking straight ahead, seeing younger person

Realize something new, high clouds of smoke,

A clock ticking in the dark, the right word for

A feeling, good parody, walking to song not

Sung loud, the smell of cut drying in the sun,

Wood panelling, engines on the fishing boats early

In the morning, smell of grape arbors in August,

Sweet potatoes, weight of a birch log for the fireplace,

Sound of a train crossing a draw, boys singing

East Side West in the street at night, ,

The smell of railroad stations, jazz melody in duets,

Men with deep voices, girls with good legs,

Introducing favorite books to new friends,

Grubbing and patting out garden-soil with my hands,

Hedges, muscle-lameness, meals in clubs,

Scuffing dry leaves, the silence in woods,

American place-names, sweaters and jackets,

To hear an organ in an empty church, the indoor

Feeling of winter-time, Pepys' diary, the Oxford

Book of English Prose, writing letters,

Climbing mountains, old elm trees, lying in grass,

Long hair let down, portraits, wearing an overcoat,

Stopping on skis in the woods to light a pipe,

trains, munching kernels of dried yellow corn,

Quart bottles of ink, cannons, galley proofs of

Something I have written, combing my hair,

Slip-covers on rare books, pictures of authors,

Understanding why people say what they do and not

Telling them I understand, names of race-horses,

Doing what I find myself doing, thin old spoons,

Seeing familiar places through another's eyes,

Sets of books acquired one at a time, banjo clocks,

A fur coat in an open car in winter, footstools,

red barberries, initial letters, gravy,

Advertising sections, wearing evening clothes,

Recognition, ship models, side-notes to a poem,

Bookplates, trains whistling at night, smell of

Sawdust piles in the sun, high bridges, biting apples,

Vines, wheels, pictures by Howard Pyle, wind,

Wreaths in windows at Christmas, smoking

Technical names of things, children's make-believe,

Latin adjectives against Anglo-Saxon nouns,

The look of my own handwriting as it leaves the pen,

Remembering poetry, clear glass retorts and vessels

In the chemistry laboratory, hands, roofs, the

Urgent melody of prose, watching an approaching

Storm, harbor-smell, long clay pipes, a boy's choir,

Steps and pillars, going backstage, creaking floors,

Blankets, week-ends, door-keys, the spur of the moment,

Roots of plants, the mystery of faces, widening

Rings in water, thinking how it was before this

Or if the other thing had. happened, getting up

And lighting lights to read again because I cannot

Sleep, , listening, Roman letters cut in stone,

Green shoots in a blue bowl of pebbles,

Large flat books, chunky books, chiminies,

Negro dialect, four at a table, all second-hand

Bookstores everywhere, large-figured wall-paper,

Hooks, planing the edge of a board, shelves,

Holbein portraits, reading German, feeling clean,

Winning according to the rules, history of words,

Lists of books, a muted violin, incense in church,

Kings, Marking and making notes in a book, dancing slowly,

Singing with groups, autumn, running a motor-boat,

Sawing and splitting wood, books to carry, pockets,

Place-cards at luncheon, being surprised with a present,

Divans, high rooms, field glasses, finding lost things,

Leisure, laying a fire, anchored ships, facing

Into the wind, wearing moccasins, thinking what

Damn good friends I have, knowing my way in a

Dark room, shuffling sheets of paper into order,

Half waking to turn over, pencil drawings, bare arms,

New clothes, driving nails, flags, wind, running.

This is a chant of praise for things I love.