First Praise
First Praise - context Summary
Published 1917 in Al Que Quiere!
"First Praise" was first published in William Carlos Williams's 1917 collection Al Que Quiere!. The poem appears during Williams's early career as he was establishing a distinct American voice. Its pastoral images and repeated address to a feminine "lady" fit the small, focused lyric pieces that populate the volume. The publication situates the poem within Williams's transitional phase away from late-Romantic influences toward his later modernist idiom.
Read Complete AnalysesLady of dusk-wood fastnesses, Thou art my Lady. I have known the crisp, splintering leaf-tread with thee on before, White, slender through green saplings; I have lain by thee on the brown forest floor Beside thee, my Lady. Lady of rivers strewn with stones, Only thou art my Lady. Where thousand the freshets are crowded like peasants to a fair; Clear-skinned, wild from seclusion They jostle white-armed down the tent-bordered thoroughfare Praising my Lady.
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