The Beautiful American Word, Sure in  General   

The beautiful American word, Sure,
As I have come into a room, and touch
The lamp's button, and the light blooms with such
Certainty where the darkness loomed before,

As I care for what I do not know, and care
Knowing for little she might not have been,
And for how little she would be unseen,
The intercourse of lives miraculous and dear.

Where the light is, and each thing clear,
separate from all others, standing in its place,
I drink the time and touch whatever's near,

And hope for day when the whole world has that face:
For what assures her present every year?
In dark accidents the mind's sufficient grace.

By Delmore Schwartz

Tell Your Friends About It | Print This Poem

Comments

You should be logged in to be able to leave comments

Other poems by Delmore Schwartz:

• A Dream Of Whitman Paraphrased, Recognized And Mad
• A Young Child And His Pregnant Mother
• Albert Einstein To Archibald Macleish
• America, America!
• Apollo Musagete, Poetry, And The Leader Of The Mus
• Archaic Bust Of Apollo
• At This Moment Of Time
• By Circumstances Fed
• Cambridge, Spring 1937
• Concerning The Synthetic Unity Of Apperception
• Far Rockaway
• Faust In Old Age
• For The One Who Would Not Take His Life In His Han
• From The Graveyard By The Sea
• From: A King Of Kings, A King Among The Kings
• In The Slight Ripple, The Mind Perceives The Heart
• Late Autumn In Venice
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
• News Of The Gold World Of May
• O Love, Sweet Animal
• Occasional Poems
• Out Of The Watercolored Window, When You Look
• Parlez-Vous Francais?
• Philology Recapitulates Ontology, Poetry Is Ontolo
• Phoenix Lyrics
• Poem (Faithful to your commands, o consciousness)
• Poem (In the morning, when it was raining)
• Poem (Old man in the crystal morning after snow)
• Poem (Remember midsummer: the fragrance of box)
• Poem (You, my photographer, you, most aware)
• Prothalamion
• Saint, Revolutionist
• Socrates Ghost Must Haunt Me Now
• Someone Is Harshly Coughing As Before
• Sonnet On Famous And Familiar Sonnets And Experien
• Sonnet Suggested By Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, E
• Sonnet: O City, City
• Sonnet: The Ghosts Of James And Peirce In Harvard
• Spiders
• The Ballad Of The Children Of The Czar
• The Ballet Of The Fifth Year
• The Beautiful American Word, Sure
• The First Night Of Fall And Falling Rain
• The Journey Of A Poem Compared To All The Sad Vari
• The Poet
• The Sin Of Hamlet
• The Spring
• Tired And Unhappy, You Think Of Houses
• To Helen
• What Curious Dresses All Men Wear
• What Is To Be Given
• Yeats Died Saturday In France