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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Max Michelson

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

A Helen

Max Michelson

From “Masks”

  • Do birds sing for their mates?
  • My song was for one airy and shining,
  • Lighter than a butterfly’s wings.
  • On the way, she would half-turn and listen.
  • She fluttered solemn, occupied, yet I never knew her airy business.
  • Now that I sing of an earthly woman,
  • She listens wondering.


  • YOU looked tired,

    For you came from far,

    Perhaps from Greece.

    You may have been walking for ages.

    You stepped slowly,

    As though you carried

    Some precious wine.

    You stayed a moment …

    Then vanished,

    Wondering,

    As if you were some one else.