Slow Movement

William Carlos Williams 1883 (Rutherford) – 1963 (Rutherford)



All those treasures that lie in the little bolted box whose tiny space is
Mightier than the room of the stars, being secret and filled with dreams:
All those treasures—I hold them in my hand—are straining continually
Against the sides and the lid and the two ends of the little box in which I guard them;
Crying that there is no sun come among them this great while and that they weary of shining;
Calling me to fold back the lid of the little box and to give them sleep finally.

But the night I am hiding from them, dear friend, is far more desperate than their night!
And so I take pity on them and pretend to have lost the key to the little house of my treasures;
For they would die of weariness were I to open it, and not be merely faint and sleepy
As they are now.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 30, 2023

45 sec read
67

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXAXXA XXAX
Characters 781
Words 153
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 6, 4

William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams was a Latino-American poet closely associated with modernism and imagism. more…

All William Carlos Williams poems | William Carlos Williams Books

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