The House the Poet Built

This is the house the poet built.

This is the silence everyone heard

Inside the house the poet built.

Here is the high goal out in the yard;

This is the silence everyone heard

Inside the house the poet built.

Here is a hummingbird on guard

Perched on the high goal out in the yard;

This is the silence everyone heard

Inside the house the poet built.

Here is the lady of his regard

Who watched the hummingbird standing guard

Next to the high goal in the yard;

This is the silence everyone heard

Inside the house the poet built.

Here are the heavens, many-starred,

Over the lady of his regard

Who saw the hummingbird on guard

Near to the high goal out in the yard;

This is the silence everyone heard

Inside the house the poet built.

Here is the hawk whose screams were heard

Throughout the heavens, many-starred,

Over the lady of his regard

Who saw the hummingbird stand guard

Near to the high goal out in the yard;

This is the silence everyone heard

Inside the house the poet built.

Here is the flitter-bat that whirred

At night when the hawk was no more heard

Under the heavens, many-starred,

Over the lady of his regard

Who knew where the hummingbird stood on guard

Beside the high goal out in the yard;

This is the silence everyone heard

Inside the house the poet built.

Here is the poet, the daft, old bard

Who watched the flitter-bats that whirred

At night when the hawk was no more heard

Under the heavens, radiant-starred,

Over the lady of his regard

Who fed the hummingbird standing guard

Beside the high goal out in the yard;

This is the silence everyone heard

Inside the house the poet built.

From “Selected Poems 1957-1987” (Soho: $18.95; 270 pp.). Snodgrass, who won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1959, is professor of English at the University of Delaware. This selection is notable for its inclusion of old and new dramatic monologues from the poet’s controversial and still incomplete cycle, “The Fuehrer Bunker.” Soho, a recently organized literary publisher, says of Snodgrass that his “scope and achievement have eluded all but his most diligent readers.” 1987, W.D. Snodgrass, by permission.