William Carlos Williams

The Late Singer

  Here it is spring again
  and I still a young man!
  I am late at my singing.
  The sparrow with the black rain on his breast
  has been at his cadenzas for two weeks past:
  What is it that is dragging at my heart?
  The grass by the back door
  is stiff with sap.
  The old maples are opening
  their branches of brown and yellow moth-flowers.
  A moon hangs in the blue
  in the early afternoons over the marshes.
  I am late at my singing.