Majestic Haystack

by Marianne Moore

Majestic Haystack, Empress of my life,

       Your ample waist

Just fits the gown I fancy for my wife,

       And suits my taste;

Yet there you stand, flatfooted, square and deep,

An unresponsive elephantine heap,

Coquetting with the stars while I’m asleep—

       O cruel stack—

Coy, silent monster, matron of the fields,

        I sing to you;

And all the fondest love that summer yields

        I bring to you

Yet there you squat, immense in your disdain,

Heedless of all the tears of streaming rain

All eyes drip over you—your breathless swain;

        O stony stack!

Stupendous maiden, sweetest when oblong,

        Does inner flame

Now smolder in thy soul to hear my song

        Repeat thy name?

Or does thy huge and ponderous heart object

To the advances of my passion and reject

My love because it’s airy and elect?

        O wily stack!

 ~ ❇ ✾ ❈ ✾ ❇ ~

You’ve spurned my love as though I were a worm,

But next September when I see thy form

I’ll woo her with an equinoctial storm

        I have that knack!