My Favorite Poems

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• "Figuring Belief" by A R Ammons Visit A R Ammons's Page Read Poem

  Praying answers prayer:
  in the deep spells
  of inquiry and hope,
  a self
  enabled to rise again
  to the compromises
  and the shattering caring
  forms

• "A Mood of Quiet Beauty" by John Ashbery Visit John Ashbery's Page Read Poem

  The evening light was like honey in the trees
  When you left me and walked to the end of the street
  Where the sunset abruptly ended.
  
  The wedding-cake drawbridge lowered itself
  To the fragile forget-me-not flower.
  
  You climbed aboard.
  
  Burnt horizons suddenly paved with golden stones,
  Dreams I had, including suicide,
  Puff out the hot-air balloon now.
  
  It is bursting, it is about to burst
  With something invisible
  Just during the days.
  
  We hear, and sometimes learn,
  Pressing so close
  And fetch the blood down, and things like that.
  
  Museums then became generous, they live in our breath.

• "Breezeway" by John Ashbery Visit John Ashbery's Page Read Poem

  Someone said we needed a breezeway
  to bark down remnants of super storm Elias jugularly.
  
  Alas it wasn’t my call.
  
  I didn’t have a call or anything resembling one.
  
  You see I have always been a rather dull-spirited winch.
  
  The days go by and I go with them.
  
  A breeze falls from a nearby tower
  finds no breezeway, goes away
  along a mission to supersize red shutters.
  
  Alas if that were only all.
  
  There’s the children’s belongings to be looked to
  if only one can find the direction needed
  and stuff like that.
  
  I said we were all homers not homos
  but my voice dwindled in the roar of Hurricane Edsel.
  
  We have to live out our precise experimentation.
  
  Otherwise there’s no dying for anybody,
  no crisp rewards.
  
  Batman came out and clubbed me.
  
  He never did get along with my view of the universe
  except you know existential threads
  from the time of the peace beaters and more.
  
  He patted his dog Pastor Fido.
  
  There was still so much to be learned
  and even more to be researched.
  
  It was like a goodbye.
  
  Why not accept it,
  anyhow?
  
  The mission girls came through the woods
  in their special suitings.
  
  It was all whipped cream and baklava.
  
  Is there a Batman somewhere, who notices us
  and promptly looks away, at a new catalogue, say,
  or another racing-car expletive
  coming back at Him?

• "Just Walking Around" by John Ashbery Visit John Ashbery's Page Read Poem

  What name do I have for you?
  
  Certainly there is not name for you
  In the sense that the stars have names
  That somehow fit them.
  
  Just walking around,
  An object of curiosity to some,
  But you are too preoccupied
  By the secret smudge in the back of your soul
  To say much and wander around,
  Smiling to yourself and others.
  
  It gets to be kind of lonely
  But at the same time off-putting.
  
  Counterproductive, as you realize once again
  That the longest way is the most efficient way,
  The one that looped among islands, and
  You always seemed to be traveling in a circle.
  
  And now that the end is near
  The segments of the trip swing open like an orange.
  
  There is light in there and mystery and food.
  
  Come see it.
  
  Come not for me but it.
  
  But if I am still there, grant that we may see each other.

• "Meaningful Love" by John Ashbery Visit John Ashbery's Page Read Poem

  What the bad news was
  became apparent too late
  for us to do anything good about it.
  
  I was offered no urgent dreaming,
  didn't need a name or anything.
  
  Everything was taken care of.
  
  In the medium-size city of my awareness
  voles are building colossi.
  
  The blue room is over there.
  
  He put out no feelers.
  
  The day was all as one to him.
  
  Some days he never leaves his room
  and those are the best days,
  by far.
  
  There were morose gardens farther down the slope,
  anthills that looked like they belonged there.
  
  The sausages were undercooked,
  the wine too cold, the bread molten.
  
  Who said to bring sweaters?
  
  The climate's not that dependable.
  
  The Atlantic crawled slowly to the left
  pinning a message on the unbound golden hair of sleeping
  maidens,
  a ruse for next time,
  where fire and water are rampant in the streets,
  the gate closed—no visitors today
  or any evident heartbeat.
  
  I got rid of the book of fairy tales,
  pawned my old car, bought a ticket to the funhouse,
  found myself back here at six o'clock,
  pondering "possible side effects.
  
  "
  There was no harm in loving then,
  no certain good either.
  
  But love was loving servants
  or bosses.
  
  No straight road issuing from it.
  
  Leaves around the door are penciled losses.
  
  Twenty years to fix it.
  
  Asters bloom one way or another.

• "Postlude and Prequel" by John Ashbery Visit John Ashbery's Page Read Poem

  Would I lie to you?
  
  I don’t know what to say to you,
  and the season is coming into season just now
  with long-awaited words from back when we were
  friends and still are, of course, but the tides
  pursue their course each day.
  
  Perturbing elements
  listen in the wings, which are coming apart at the seams.
  
  Is it all doggerel and folderol?
  
  A cracked knowledge?
  
  Monkey journalism?
  
  This is better than the other overlooked good
  that dried up a while back and whispers.
  
  The results, if any, won’t last too much longer
  and I meanwhile am on my way to correct you
  about the tickets and their availability.
  
  We pitch and stiffen, elbowed by traffic mysteriously
  descending the other lane of the avenue
  as lamps burst in many-benched Central Park.

• "There Is No Word" by Tony Hoagland Visit Tony Hoagland's Page Read Poem

  There isn’t a word for walking out of the grocery store
  with a gallon jug of milk in a plastic sack
  that should have been bagged in double layers
  
  —so that before you are even out the door
  you feel the weight of the jug dragging
  the bag down, stretching the thin
  
  plastic handles longer and longer
  and you know it’s only a matter of time until
  bottom suddenly splits.
  
  There is no single, unimpeachable word
  for that vague sensation of something
  moving away from you
  
  as it exceeds its elastic capacity
  —which is too bad, because that is the word
  I would like to use to describe standing on the street
  
  chatting with an old friend
  as the awareness grows in me that he is
  no longer a friend, but only an acquaintance,
  
  a person with whom I never made the effort—
  until this moment, when as we say goodbye
  I think we share a feeling of relief,
  
  a recognition that we have reached
  the end of a pretense,
  though to tell the truth
  
  what I already am thinking about
  is my gratitude for language—
  how it will stretch just so much and no farther;
  
  how there are some holes it will not cover up;
  how it will move, if not inside, then
  around the circumference of almost anything—
  
  how, over the years, it has given me
  back all the hours and days, all the
  plodding love and faith, all the
  
  misunderstandings and secrets
  I have willingly poured into it.

• "Wasteful Gesture Only Not" by Tony Hoagland Visit Tony Hoagland's Page Read Poem

  Ruth visits her mother’s grave in the California hills.
  
  She knows her mother isn’t there but the rectangle of grass
  marks off the place where the memories are kept,
  
  like a library book namedDorothy.
  
  Some of the chapters might be:Dorothy:
  Better Bird-Watcher Than Cook;
  
  Dorothy, Wife and Atheist;
  Passionate Recycler Dorothy, Here Lies But Not.
  
  In the summer hills, where the tall tough grass
  
  reminds you of persistence
  and the endless wind
  reminds you of indifference,
  
  Ruth brings batches of white roses,
  extravagant gesture not entirely wasteful
  because as soon as she is gone she knows
  the deer come out of the woods to eat them.
  
  What was made for the eye
  goes into the mouth,
  thinks Ruth to herself as she drives away,
  and in bed when she tries to remember her mother,
  
  she drifts instead to the roses,
  and when she thinks about the roses she
  sees instead the deer chewing them—
  
  pale petals of the roses in the dark
  warm bellies of the sleeping deer—
  that’s what going to sleep is like.

• "Thin" by Kay Ryan Visit Kay Ryan's Page Read Poem

  How anything
  is known
  is so thin—
  a skin of ice
  over a pond
  only birds might
  confidently walk
  upon.
  
  A bird's
  worth of weight
  or one bird-weight
  of Wordsworth.

• "Ancient Measures" by Bill Knott Visit Bill Knott's Page Read Poem

  As much as someone could plow in one day
  They called an acre;
  As much as a person could die in one instant
  A lifetime--

• "Death" by Bill Knott Visit Bill Knott's Page Read Poem

  Going to sleep, I cross my hands on my chest.
  
  They will place my hands like this.
  
  It will look as though I am flying into myself.

• "Hair Poem" by Bill Knott Visit Bill Knott's Page Read Poem

  Hair is heaven's water flowing eerily over us
  Often a woman drifts off down her long hair and is lost

• "Minor Poem" by Bill Knott Visit Bill Knott's Page Read Poem

  The only response
  to a child's grave is
  to lie down before it and play dead

• "Monopoly" by Bill Knott Visit Bill Knott's Page Read Poem

  Finally the day dawned when a monopoly owned everything in the
  world
  So it went looking for its stockholders to celebrate
  But they were all owned by it they were all dead they were
  someplace
  Their photographs hung in elevators which went up and down up and
  down carrying nobody
  Everyone else was in bed doing exercises to get in shape for noon
  Hey the monopoly said let's uncork the World Trade Center and get
  blotto
  Silence
  The monopoly scowled
  All it wanted was a little good-fellowship, like you get in the
  highrise apartment-buildings
  Then the sky got awful dark
  Gee
  And everyone was in bed frantically doing those exercises that get us in
  shape for death
  Exercises known as "kissing" "fucking" "caressing"
  Everyone was unaware that they had been bought
  Or that the earth was about to sell them to the moon
  For a little light

• "Story Of Or" by Bill Knott Visit Bill Knott's Page Read Poem

  To pose nakedness is
  To refute it.
  
  A pose
  Is a clothes.
  
  Like
  Stanzaic arrangements of
  The word which should
  Ideally, be in pain against
  Its w and its d.
  
  No slack
  Is why such heaves of or
  To denude itself could
  Make us exude gold, yet when
  Was that ever opposite enough
  What scream or epigram
  This sperm has come
  To measure our mouths for.
  
  Note: For 'or' to free itself from 'word,' it must strain ('heave') against the 'w' and the 'd' that enclose it.
  
  If, via this strenuous (perhaps squeamish) process, the meaning of 'or' is transmuted from the English into the French as a sort of homage to the pseudonymous author of 'Story of O' (Histoire d'O), then, alchemically speaking, (or so an Aurealist might suggest) it will have risen from the pose of its measures to or-emerge as an else-gasm.

• "An End" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  Love, strong as Death, is dead.
  
  Come, let us make his bed
  Among the dying flowers:
  A green turf at his head;
  And a stone at his feet,
  Whereon we may sit
  In the quiet evening hours.
  
  He was born in the Spring,
  And died before the harvesting:
  On the last warm summer day
  He left us; he would not stay
  For Autumn twilight cold and grey.
  
  Sit we by his grave, and sing
  He is gone away.
  
  To few chords and sad and low
  Sing we so:
  Be our eyes fixed on the grass
  Shadow-veiled as the years pass
  While we think of all that was
  In the long ago.

• "A Poison Tree" by William Blake Visit William Blake's Page Read Poem

  I was angry with my friend;
  I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
  
  I was angry with my foe:
  I told it not, my wrath did grow.
  
  And I waterd it in fears,
  Night & morning with my tears:
  And I sunned it with smiles,
  And with soft deceitful wiles.
  
  And it grew both day and night.
  
  Till it bore an apple bright.
  
  And my foe beheld it shine,
  And he knew that it was mine.
  
  And into my garden stole,
  When the night had veild the pole;
  In the morning glad I see;
  My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

• "Absolutely Clear" by Shams al-Din Hafiz Visit Shams al-Din Hafiz's Page Read Poem

  Don't surrender your loneliness
  So quickly.
  
  Let it cut more deep.
  
  Let it ferment and season you
  As few human
  Or even divine ingredients can.
  
  Something missing in my heart tonight
  Has made my eyes so soft,
  My voice
  So tender,
  My need of God
  Absolutely
  Clear.

• " Black Stone on a White Stone " by César Vallejo Visit César Vallejo's Page Read Poem

  I will die in Paris with a rainstorm,
  
  on a day I already remember,
  
  I will die in Paris—and I don't shy away—
  
  perhaps on a Thursday, as today is, in autumn.
  
  It will be Thursday, because today, Thursday, as I prose
  
  these lines, I've put on my humeri in a bad mood,   
  
  and, today like never before, I've turned back,
  
  with all of my road, to see myself alone.
  
  César Vallejo has died; they kept hitting him,   
  
  everyone, even though he does nothing to them,
  
  they gave it to him hard with a club and hard
  
  
  
  also with a rope; witnesses are
  
  the Thursday days and the humerus bones,   
  
  the solitude, the rain, the roads.
  
  .
  
  .

• "Defrauded I a Butterfly" by Emily Dickinson Visit Emily Dickinson's Page Read Poem

  730
  Defrauded I a Butterfly —
  The lawful Heir — for Thee —

• "An April Adoration" by Charles G. D. Roberts Visit Charles G. D. Roberts's Page Read Poem

  Sang the sun rise on an amber morn -
  "Earth, be glad!  An April day is born.
  
  "Winter's done, and April's in the skies,
  Earth, look up with laughter in your eyes!"
  Putting off her dumb dismay of snow,
  Earth bade all her unseen children grow.
  
  Then the sound of growing in the air
  Rose to God a liturgy of prayer;
  And the thronged succession of the days
  Uttered up to God a psalm of praise.
  
  Laughed the running sap in every vein,
  Laughed the running flurries of warm rain,
  Laughed the life in every wandering root,
  Laughed the tingling cells of bud and shoot.
  
  God in all the concord of their mirth
  Heard the adoration-song of Earth.

• "'Tis customary as we part" by Emily Dickinson Visit Emily Dickinson's Page Read Poem

  440
  'Tis customary as we part
  A trinket — to confer —
  It helps to stimulate the faith
  When Lovers be afar —
  'Tis various — as the various taste —
  Clematis — journeying far —
  Presents me with a single Curl
  Of her Electric Hair —

• "A Spider sewed at Night" by Emily Dickinson Visit Emily Dickinson's Page Read Poem

  A Spider sewed at Night
  Without a Light
  Upon an Arc of White.
  
  If Ruff it was of Dame
  Or Shroud of Gnome
  Himself himself inform.
  
  Of Immortality
  His Strategy
  Was Physiognomy.

• "God gave a Loaf to every Bird" by Emily Dickinson Visit Emily Dickinson's Page Read Poem

  God gave a Loaf to every Bird —
  But just a Crumb — to Me —
  I dare not eat it — tho' I starve —
  My poignant luxury —
  To own it — touch it —
  Prove the feat — that made the Pellet mine —
  Too happy — for my Sparrow's chance —
  For Ampler Coveting —
  It might be Famine — all around —
  I could not miss an Ear —
  Such Plenty smiles upon my Board —
  My Garner shows so fair —
  I wonder how the Rich — may feel —
  An Indiaman — An Earl —
  I deem that I — with but a Crumb —
  Am Sovereign of them all —

• "Little Elegy" by Elinor Wylie Visit Elinor Wylie's Page Read Poem

  Withouten you
  No rose can grow;
  No leaf be green
  If never seen
  Your sweetest face;
  No bird have grace
  Or power to sing;
  Or anything
  Be kind, or fair,
  And you nowhere.

• "Moving Forward" by Rainer Maria Rilke Visit Rainer Maria Rilke's Page Read Poem

  The deep parts of my life pour onward,
  as if the river shores were opening out.
  
  It seems that things are more like me now,
  That I can see farther into paintings.
  
  I feel closer to what language can't reach.
  
  With my senses, as with birds, I climb
  into the windy heaven, out of the oak,
  in the ponds broken off from the sky
  my falling sinks, as if standing on fishes.

• "Extinguish Thou My Eyes" by Rainer Maria Rilke Visit Rainer Maria Rilke's Page Read Poem

  Extinguish Thou my eyes:I still can see Thee,
  deprive my ears of sound:I still can hear Thee,
  and without feet I still can come to Thee,
  and without voice I still can call to Thee.
  
  Sever my arms from me, I still will hold Thee
  with all my heart as with a single hand,
  arrest my heart, my brain will keep on beating,
  and Should Thy fire at last my brain consume,
  the flowing of my blood will carry Thee.
  
  Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming

• "Sonnet 3: Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest" by William Shakespeare Visit William Shakespeare's Page Read Poem

  Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,
  Now is the time that face should form another,
  Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
  Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
  
  For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
  Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
  
  Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
  Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
  
  Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee
  Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
  So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
  Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
  
  But if thou live rememb’red not to be,
  Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

• "Sonnet. If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain'd" by John Keats Visit John Keats's Page Read Poem

  If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd,
  And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
  Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness;
  Let us find out, if we must be constrain'd,
  Sandals more interwoven and complete
  To fit the naked foot of poesy;
  Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress
  Of every chord, and see what may be gain'd
  By ear industrious, and attention meet:
  Misers of sound and syllable, no less
  Than Midas of his coinage, let us be
  Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown;
  So, if we may not let the Muse be free,
  She will be bound with garlands of her own.
  
  Form: Sonnet (abcabdcabcdede).
  
  (line 2): Andromeda: Ethiopian princess who was rescued from a monster by Perseus, her husband-to-be.
  
  (line 11): Midas: Phrygian king who wished for gold, more than anything, and was granted the ambiguous gift of turning everything he touched into gold.
  
  'This experiment in sonnet metre appears to have been written on or very shortly before the 3rd of May 1819, and was first given in the Life, Letters &c.
  
  (1848).
  
  It was the last poem transcribed in the journal letter to George Keats and his wife begun on the 14th of February and ended on the 3rd of May, and stood immediately over the words "This is the third of May," and under the following paragraph --
  "I have been endeavouring to discover a better Sonnet stanza than we have.
  
  The legitimate does not suit the language well, from the pouncing rhymes; the other appears too elegiac, and the couplet at the end of it has seldom a pleasing effect.
  
  I do not pretend to have succeeded.
  
  It will explain itself.
  
  "
  ~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed.
  
  H.
  
  Buxton Forman, Crowell publ.
  
  1895.

• "A Cranefly In September" by Ted Hughes Visit Ted Hughes's Page Read Poem

  She is struggling through grass-mesh - not flying,
  Her wide-winged, stiff, weightless basket-work of limbs
  Rocking, like an antique wain, a top-heavy ceremonial cart
  Across mountain summits
  (Not planing over water, dipping her tail)
  But blundering with long strides, long reachings, reelings
  And ginger-glistening wings
  From collision to collision.
  
  Aimless in no particular direction,
  Just exerting her last to escape out of the overwhelming
  Of whatever it is, legs, grass,
  The garden, the county, the country, the world -
  Sometimes she rests long minutes in the grass forest
  Like a fairytale hero, only a marvel can help her.
  
  She cannot fathom the mystery of this forest
  In which, for instance, this giant watches -
  The giant who knows she cannot be helped in any way.
  
  Her jointed bamboo fuselage,
  Her lobster shoulders, and her face
  Like a pinhead dragon, with its tender moustache,
  And the simple colourless church windows of her wings
  Will come to an end, in mid-search, quite soon.
  
  Everything about her, every perfected vestment
  Is already superfluous.
  
  The monstrous excess of her legs and curly feet
  Are a problem beyond her.
  
  The calculus of glucose and chitin inadequate
  To plot her through the infinities of the stems.
  
  The frayed apple leaves, the grunting raven, the defunct tractor
  Sunk in nettles, wait with their multiplications
  Like other galaxies.
  
  The sky's Northward September procession, the vast
  soft armistice,
  Like an Empire on the move,
  Abandons her, tinily embattled
  With her cumbering limbs and cumbered brain.

• "The Owl" by Ted Hughes Visit Ted Hughes's Page Read Poem

  I saw my world again through your eyes
  As I would see it again through your children's eyes.
  
  Through your eyes it was foreign.
  
  Plain hedge hawthorns were peculiar aliens,
  A mystery of peculiar lore and doings.
  
  Anything wild, on legs, in your eyes
  Emerged at a point of exclamation
  As if it had appeared to dinner guests
  In the middle of the table.
  
  Common mallards
  Were artefacts of some unearthliness,
  Their wooings were a hypnagogic film
  Unreeled by the river.
  
  Impossible
  To comprehend the comfort of their feet
  In the freezing water.
  
  You were a camera
  Recording reflections you could not fathom.
  
  I made my world perform its utmost for you.
  
  You took it all in with an incredulous joy
  Like a mother handed her new baby
  By the midwife.
  
  Your frenzy made me giddy.
  
  It woke up my dumb, ecstatic boyhood
  Of fifteen years before.
  
  My masterpiece
  Came that black night on the Grantchester road.
  
  I sucked the throaty thin woe of a rabbit
  Out of my wetted knuckle, by a copse
  Where a tawny owl was enquiring.
  
  Suddenly it swooped up, splaying its pinions
  Into my face, taking me for a post.

• "Trust" by Liz Waldner Visit Liz Waldner's Page Read Poem

  If   I would be walking down the road
  you told me to imagine and I would and find
  a diner kind of   teacup sitting on its saucer
  in the middle then I would feel so good
  in my life that is just like mine
  I would walk right up and look into my face
  eclipsing the sky in the tea in the cup
  and say, “Thank you, I have enjoyed
  imagining all this.
  
  ”

• "A Memory Of Youth" by William Butler Yeats Visit William Butler Yeats's Page Read Poem

  THE moments passed as at a play;
  I had the wisdom love brings forth;
  I had my share of mother-wit,
  And yet for all that I could say,
  And though I had her praise for it,
  A cloud blown from the cut-throat North
  Suddenly hid Love's moon away.
  
  Believing every word I said,
  I praised her body and her mind
  Till pride had made her eyes grow bright,
  And pleasure made her cheeks grow red,
  And vanity her footfall light,
  Yet we, for all that praise, could find
  Nothing but darkness overhead.
  
  We sat as silent as a stone,
  We knew, though she'd not said a word,
  That even the best of love must die,
  And had been savagely undone
  Were it not that Love upon the cry
  Of a most ridiculous little bird
  Tore from the clouds his marvellous moon.
  
  ALTHOUGH crowds gathered once if she but showed her face,
  And even old men's eyes grew dim, this hand alone,
  Like some last courtier at a gypsy camping-place
  Babbling of fallen majesty, records what's gone.
  
  These lineaments, a heart that laughter has made sweet,
  These, these remain, but I record what-s gone.
  
  A crowd
  Will gather, and not know it walks the very street
  Whereon a thing once walked that seemed a burning cloud

• "A Drinking Song" by William Butler Yeats Visit William Butler Yeats's Page Read Poem

  Wine comes in at the mouth
  And love comes in at the eye;
  That’s all we shall know for truth
  Before we grow old and die.
  
  I lift the glass to my mouth,
  I look at you, and I sigh.

• "Even As A Dragon’s Eye That Feels The Stress" by William Wordsworth Visit William Wordsworth's Page Read Poem

  EVEN as a dragon's eye that feels the stress
  Of a bedimming sleep, or as a lamp
  Suddenly glaring through sepulchral damp,
  So burns yon Taper 'mid a black recess
  Of mountains, silent, dreary, motionless:
  The lake below reflects it not; the sky,
  Muffled in clouds, affords no company
  To mitigate and cheer its loneliness.
  
  Yet, round the body of that joyless Thing
  Which sends so far its melancholy light,
  Perhaps are seated in domestic ring
  A gay society with faces bright,
  Conversing, reading, laughing;--or they sing,
  While hearts and voices in the song unite.

• "As Frost is best conceived" by Emily Dickinson Visit Emily Dickinson's Page Read Poem

  951
  As Frost is best conceived
  By force of its Result —
  Affliction is inferred
  By subsequent effect —
  If when the sun reveal,
  The Garden keep the Gash —
  If as the Days resume
  The wilted countenance
  Cannot correct the crease
  Or counteract the stain —
  Presumption is Vitality
  Was somewhere put in twain.

• "Consider The Lilies Of The Field" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  Flowers preach to us if we will hear:—
  The rose saith in the dewy morn:
  I am most fair;
  Yet all my loveliness is born
  Upon a thorn.
  
  The poppy saith amid the corn:
  Let but my scarlet head appear
  And I am held in scorn;
  Yet juice of subtle virtue lies
  Within my cup of curious dyes.
  
  The lilies say: Behold how we
  Preach without words of purity.
  
  The violets whisper from the shade
  Which their own leaves have made:
  Men scent our fragrance on the air,
  Yet take no heed
  Of humble lessons we would read.
  
  But not alone the fairest flowers:
  The merest grass
  Along the roadside where we pass,
  Lichen and moss and sturdy weed,
  Tell of His love who sends the dew,
  The rain and sunshine too,
  To nourish one small seed.

• "Snow flakes. (45)" by Emily Dickinson Visit Emily Dickinson's Page Read Poem

  I counted till they danced so
  Their slippers leaped the town –
  And then I took a pencil
  To note the rebels down –
  And then they grew so jolly
  I did resign the prig –
  And ten of my once stately toes
  Are marshalled for a jig!

• "Strange Things Happen at Night" by John Ashbery Visit John Ashbery's Page Read Poem

  Without thinking too much about it,
  prepare to go out into the city of your dreams.
  
  Now, look up.
  
  At first they cannot see you.
  
  Later, the adjustment will be made.
  
  Your boyfriend sips bark tea.
  
  The number should've turned up by now.
  
  Perhaps the driving rain impedes it,
  the recession.
  
  In any case there are two too many of
  us here .
  
  We must double up, or die.
  
  And that might be a practical if remote solution.
  
  It's not every day you get to bicycle past the ribbons
  of people, watch the grand hotels
  for some event thought imminent--not lost.
  
  If ever I was going to turn up your volume--
  but this isn't about living, is it?
  
  Or is it?
  
  I mean, many suppers in the seven modes
  or grades, as many as can be made to last
  once the bosses and their beagles have passed through

• "January Cold Desolate" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  January cold desolate;
  February all dripping wet;
  March wind ranges;
  April changes;
  Birds sing in tune
  To flowers of May,
  And sunny June
  Brings longest day;
  In scorched July
  The storm-clouds fly
  Lightning-torn;
  August bears corn,
  September fruit;
  In rough October
  Earth must disrobe her;
  Stars fall and shoot
  In keen November;
  And night is long
  And cold is strong
  In bleak December.

• "If Stars Dropped Out Of Heaven" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  If stars dropped out of heaven,
  And if flowers took their place,
  The sky would still look very fair,
  And fair earth's face.
  
  Winged angels might fly down to us
  To pluck the stars,
  Be we could only long for flowers
  Beyond the cloudy bars.

• "I loved you first: but afterwards your love" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  I loved you first: but afterwards your love,
  Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
  As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
  
  Which owes the other most?
  
  My love was long,
  And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;
  I loved and guessed at you, you construed me
  And loved me for what might or might not be—
  Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
  
  For verily love knows not ‘mine' or ‘thine';
  With separate ‘I' and ‘thou' free love has done,
  For one is both and both are one in love:
  Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine';
  Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
  Both of us, of the love which makes us one.

• "I Have But One Rose In The World" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  I have but one rose in the world,
  And my one rose stands a-drooping:
  Oh, when my single rose is dead
  There'll be but thorns for stooping.

• "I Planted A Hand" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  I planted a hand
  And there came up a palm,
  I planted a heart
  And there came up balm.
  
  Then I planted a wish,
  But there sprang a thorn,
  While heaven frowned with thunder
  And earth sighed forlorn.

• "A Daughter Of Eve" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  A fool I was to sleep at noon,
  And wake when night is chilly
  Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
  A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
  A fool to snap my lily.
  
  My garden-plot I have not kept;
  Faded and all-forsaken,
  I weep as I have never wept:
  Oh it was summer when I slept,
  It's winter now I waken.
  
  Talk what you please of future spring
  And sun-warmed sweet to-morrow: -
  Stripped bare of hope and everything,
  No more to laugh, no more to sing,
  I sit alone with sorrow.

• "Ferry Me Across The Water" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  ‘Ferry me across the water,
  Do, boatman, do.
  
  ’
  ‘If you've a penny in your purse
  I'll ferry you.
  
  ’
  ‘I have a penny in my purse,
  And my eyes are blue;
  So ferry me across the water,
  Do, boatman, do.
  
  ’
  ‘Step into my ferry-boat,
  Be they black or blue,
  And for the penny in your purse
  I'll ferry you.
  
  ’

• "Growing In The Vale" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  Growing in the vale
  By the uplands hilly,
  Growing straight and frail,
  Lady Daffadowndilly.
  
  In a golden crown,
  And a scant green gown
  While the spring blows chilly,
  Lady Daffadown,
  Sweet Daffadowndilly.

• "Angels At The Foot" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  Angels at the foot,
  And Angels at the head,
  And like a curly little lamb
  My pretty babe in bed.

• "Brown And Furry" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  Brown and furry
  Caterpillar in a hurry,
  Take your walk
  To the shady leaf, or stalk,
  Or what not,
  Which may be the chosen spot.
  
  No toad spy you,
  Hovering bird of prey pass by you;
  Spin and die,
  To live again a butterfly.

• "Mirage" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  The hope I dreamed of was a dream,
  Was but a dream; and now I wake,
  Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,
  For a dream's sake.
  
  I hang my harp upon a tree,
  A weeping willow in a lake;
  I hang my silent harp there, wrung and snapped
  For a dream's sake.
  
  Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
  My silent heart, lie still and break:
  Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed
  For a dream's sake.

• "None Other Lamb" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  None other Lamb, none other Name,
  None other hope in Heav’n or earth or sea,
  None other hiding place from guilt and shame,
  None beside Thee!
  My faith burns low, my hope burns low;
  Only my heart’s desire cries out in me
  By the deep thunder of its want and woe,
  Cries out to Thee.
  
  Lord, Thou art Life, though I be dead;
  Love’s fire Thou art, however cold I be:
  Nor Heav’n have I, nor place to lay my head,
  Nor home, but Thee.

• "Your Brother Has A Falcon" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  Your brother has a falcon,
  Your sister has a flower;
  But what is left for mannikin,
  Born within a hour?
  
  I'll nurse you on my knee, my knee,
  My own little son;
  I'll rock you, rock you, in my arms,
  My least little one.

• " from Light: “If I stand” " by Inger Christensen Visit Inger Christensen's Page Read Poem

  If I stand
  
  alone in the snow
  
  it is clear
  
  that I am a clock
  
  how else would eternity
  
  find its way around

• "Clouds" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  White sheep, white sheep,
  On a blue hill,
  When the wind stops,
  You all stand still.
  
  When the wind blows,
  You walk away slow.
  
  White sheep, white sheep,
  Where do you go?

• "Beauty Is Vain" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  While roses are so red,
  While lilies are so white,
  Shall a woman exalt her face
  Because it gives delight?
  
  She's not so sweet as a rose,
  A lily's straighter than she,
  And if she were as red or white
  She'd be but one of three.
  
  Whether she flush in love's summer
  Or in its winter grow pale,
  Whether she flaunt her beauty
  Or hide it away in a veil,
  Be she red or white,
  And stand she erect or bowed,
  Time will win the race he runs with her
  And hide her away in a shroud.

• "A Pause Of Thought" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  I looked for that which is not, nor can be,
  And hope deferred made my heart sick in truth:
  But years must pass before a hope of youth
  Is resigned utterly.
  
  I watched and waited with a steadfast will:
  And though the object seemed to flee away
  That I so longed for, ever day by day
  I watched and waited still.
  
  Sometimes I said: This thing shall be no more;
  My expectation wearies and shall cease;
  I will resign it now and be at peace:
  Yet never gave it o'er.
  
  Sometimes I said: It is an empty name
  I long for; to a name why should I give
  The peace of all the days I have to live?
  
  —
  Yet gave it all the same.
  
  Alas, thou foolish one! alike unfit
  For healthy joy and salutary pain:
  Thou knowest the chase useless, and again
  Turnest to follow it.

• "A Divine Image" by William Blake Visit William Blake's Page Read Poem

  Cruelty has a Human Heart
  And Jealousy a Human Face
  Terror the Human Form Divine
  And Secrecy, the Human Dress
  
  The Human Dress, is forged Iron
  The Human Form, a fiery Forge.
  
  The Human Face, a Furnace seal'd
  The Human Heart, its hungry Gorge.

• "My Pretty Rose Tree" by William Blake Visit William Blake's Page Read Poem

  A flower was offered to me,
  Such a flower as May never bore;
  But I said "I've a pretty rose tree,"
  And I passed the sweet flower o'er.
  
  Then I went to my pretty rose tree,
  To tend her by day and by night;
  But my rose turned away with jealousy,
  And her thorns were my only delight.

• "Never Seek to Tell thy Love" by William Blake Visit William Blake's Page Read Poem

  Never seek to tell thy love
  Love that never told can be
  For the gentle wind does move
  Silently invisibly
  
  I told my love I told my love
  I told her all my heart
  Trembling cold in ghastly fears
  Ah she doth depart
  
  Soon as she was gone from me
  A traveller came by
  Silently invisibly
  O was no deny

• "Love Song" by Alfred Lichtenstein Visit Alfred Lichtenstein's Page Read Poem

  Your eyes are bright lands.
  
  Your looks are little birds,
  Handkerchiefs gently waving goodbye.
  
  In your smile I rest as though in bobbing boats.
  
  Your little stories are made of silk.
  
  I must behold you always.

• "Dreaming" by Alfred Lichtenstein Visit Alfred Lichtenstein's Page Read Poem

  Paul said:
  Ah, but who wouldn't want to drive a car forever--
  We burrow our way through high-stemmed woods,
  We pass by spaces that seem endless.
  
  We pass through the wind and attack the towns, which speed up.
  
  But the odors of the sluggish cities are hateful to us--
  Ah, we are flying!  Always alongside death.
  
  .
  
  .
  
  How we despise and scorn him who sits on our lives!
  Who lays out graves for us and makes all streets crooked--ha, we
  laugh at him,
  and the roads, overcome, die with us--
  Thus we shall auto our way through the whole world.
  
  .
  
  .
  
  Until, on some clear evening
  We find a violent ending against a sturdy tree.

• "The Son" by Alfred Lichtenstein Visit Alfred Lichtenstein's Page Read Poem

  Mother, don't hold me,
  Mother, your caress hurts me,
  See through my face,
  How I glow and wane.
  
  Give the last kiss.
  
  Let me go.
  
  Send a prayer after me.
  
  That I broke your life,
  Mother, forgive me.

• "A Coat" by William Butler Yeats Visit William Butler Yeats's Page Read Poem

  I made my song a coat
  Covered with embroideries
  Out of old mythologies
  From heel to throat;
  But the fools caught it,
  Wore it in the world’s eyes
  As though they’d wrought it.
  
  Song, let them take it
  For there’s more enterprise
  In walking naked.

• "All Things Can Tempt Me" by William Butler Yeats Visit William Butler Yeats's Page Read Poem

  ALL things can tempt me from this craft of verse:
  One time it was a woman's face, or worse —
  The seeming needs of my fool-driven land;
  Now nothing but comes readier to the hand
  Than this accustomed toil.
  
  When I was young,
  I had not given a penny for a song
  Did not the poet Sing it with such airs
  That one believed he had a sword upstairs;
  Yet would be now, could I but have my wish,
  Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish.

• "Daffodils" by William Wordsworth Visit William Wordsworth's Page Read Poem

  I wandered lonely as a cloud
  That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
  When all at once I saw a crowd,
  A host, of golden daffodils;
  Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
  Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
  
  Continuous as the stars that shine
  And twinkle on the milky way,
  They stretched in never-ending line
  Along the margin of a bay:
  Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
  Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
  
  The waves beside them danced; but they
  Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:
  A poet could not but be gay,
  In such a jocund company:
  I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
  What wealth the show to me had brought:
  For oft, when on my couch I lie
  In vacant or in pensive mood,
  They flash upon that inward eye
  Which is the bliss of solitude;
  And then my heart with pleasure fills,
  And dances with the daffodils.

• "To My Sister" by William Wordsworth Visit William Wordsworth's Page Read Poem

  IT is the first mild day of March:
  Each minute sweeter than before
  The redbreast sings from the tall larch
  That stands beside our door.
  
  There is a blessing in the air,
  Which seems a sense of joy to yield
  To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
  And grass in the green field.
  
  My sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
  Now that our morning meal is done,
  Make haste, your morning task resign;
  Come forth and feel the sun.
  
  Edward will come with you;--and, pray,
  Put on with speed your woodland dress;
  And bring no book: for this one day
  We'll give to idleness.
  
  No joyless forms shall regulate
  Our living calendar:
  We from to-day, my Friend, will date
  The opening of the year.
  
  Love, now a universal birth,
  From heart to heart is stealing,
  From earth to man, from man to earth:
  --It is the hour of feeling.
  
  One moment now may give us more
  Than years of toiling reason:
  Our minds shall drink at every pore
  The spirit of the season.
  
  Some silent laws our hearts will make,
  Which they shall long obey:
  We for the year to come may take
  Our temper from to-day.
  
  And from the blessed power that rolls
  About, below, above,
  We'll frame the measure of our souls:
  They shall be tuned to love.
  
  Then come, my Sister! come, I pray,
  With speed put on your woodland dress;
  And bring no book: for this one day
  We'll give to idleness.

• "She Was a Phantom of Delight" by William Wordsworth Visit William Wordsworth's Page Read Poem

  She was a Phantom of delight
  When first she gleamed upon my sight;
  A lovely Apparition, sent
  To be a moment's ornament;
  Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
  Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
  But all things else about her drawn
  From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
  A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
  To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.
  
  I saw her upon nearer view,
  A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
  Her household motions light and free,
  And steps of virgin-liberty;
  A countenance in which did meet
  Sweet records, promises as sweet;
  A Creature not too bright or good
  For human nature's daily food;
  For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
  Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
  
  And now I see with eye serene
  The very pulse of the machine;
  A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
  A Traveller between life and death;
  The reason firm, the temperate will,
  Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
  A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
  To warn, to comfort, and command;
  And yet a Spirit still, and bright
  With something of angelic light.

• "Love" by William Shakespeare Visit William Shakespeare's Page Read Poem

  TELL me where is Fancy bred,
  Or in the heart or in the head?
  
  How begot, how nourished?
  
  Reply, reply.
  
  It is engender'd in the eyes,
  With gazing fed; and Fancy dies
  In the cradle where it lies.
  
  Let us all ring Fancy's knell:
  I'll begin it,--Ding, dong, bell.
  
  All.
  
  Ding, dong, bell.

• "The Short Answer" by John Ashbery Visit John Ashbery's Page Read Poem

  I am forced to sleepwalk much of the time.
  
  We hold on to these old ways, are troubled
  sometimes and then the geyser goes away,
  time gutted.
  
  In and of itself there is
  no great roar, force pitted against force that
  makes up in time what it loses in speed.
  
  The waterfalls, the canyon, a royal I-told-you-so
  comes back to greet us at the beginning.
  
  How was your trip?
  
  Oh I didn’t last
  you see, folded over like the margin
  of a dream of the thing-in-itself.
  
  Well, and
  what have we come to?
  
  A paper-thin past,
  just so, and ‘tis pity.
  
  We regurgitate
  old anthems and what has come to pass, and why
  dwell on these.
  
  Why make things more difficult
  than they already are?
  
  Because if it’s boring
  in a different way, that’ll be interesting too.
  
  That’s what I say.
  
  That rascal, he jumped over the fence.
  
  I’m wiping my pince-nez now.
  
  Did you ever hear from
  the one who said he’d be back once it was over,
  who eluded me even in my sleep?
  
  That was a particularly
  promising time, we thought.
  
  Now the sun’s out
  and it’s raining again.
  
  Just like a day from
  the compendium.
  
  I’ll vouch for you,
  and we can go on scrolling as though nothing had risen,
  the horizon forest looks back at us.
  
  The preacher
  shook his head, the evangelist balanced two spools
  at the end of his little makeshift rope.
  
  We’d gone too far.
  
  We’d have to come back in a day or so.

• "Spring" by William Shakespeare Visit William Shakespeare's Page Read Poem

  When daisies pied, and violets blue,
  And lady-smocks all silver-white,
  And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
  Do paint the meadows with delight,
  The cuckoo then, on every tree,
  Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
  'Cuckoo!
  Cuckoo, cuckoo!' O word of fear,
  Unpleasing to a married ear.
  
  When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
  And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
  When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
  And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
  The cuckoo then, on every tree,
  Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
  'Cuckoo!
  Cuckoo, cuckoo!' O word of fear,
  Unpleasing to a married ear.

• "Song: “Where the bee sucks, there suck I”" by William Shakespeare Visit William Shakespeare's Page Read Poem

  Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
  In a cowslip’s bell I lie;
  There I couch when owls do cry.
  
  On the bat’s back I do fly
  After summer merrily.
  
  Merrily, merrily shall I live now
  Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

• "By a flower — By a letter" by Emily Dickinson Visit Emily Dickinson's Page Read Poem

  109
  By a flower — By a letter —
  By a nimble love —
  If I weld the Rivet faster —
  Final fast — above —
  Never mind my breathless Anvil!
  Never mind Repose!
  Never mind the sooty faces
  Tugging at the Forge!

• "Could — I do more — for Thee" by Emily Dickinson Visit Emily Dickinson's Page Read Poem

  447
  Could — I do more — for Thee —
  Wert Thou a Bumble Bee —
  Since for the Queen, have I —
  Nought but Bouquet?

• ""And Is It Among Rude Untutored Dales"" by William Wordsworth Visit William Wordsworth's Page Read Poem

  AND is it among rude untutored Dales,
  There, and there only, that the heart is true?
  
  And, rising to repel or to subdue,
  Is it by rocks and woods that man prevails?
  
  Ah no! though Nature's dread protection fails,
  There is a bulwark in the soul.
  
  This knew
  Iberian Burghers when the sword they drew
  In Zaragoza, naked to the gales
  Of fiercely-breathing war.
  
  The truth was felt
  By Palafox, and many a brave compeer,
  Like him of noble birth and noble mind;
  By ladies, meek-eyed women without fear;
  And wanderers of the street, to whom is dealt
  The bread which without industry they find.

• "Hidden Love" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  I hid the love within my heart,
  And lit the laughter in my eyes,
  That when we meet he may not know
  My love that never dies.
  
  But sometimes when he dreams at night
  Of fragrant forests green and dim,
  It may be that my love crept out
  And brought the dream to him.
  
  And sometimes when his heart is sick
  And suddenly grows well again,
  It may be that my love was there
  To free his life of pain.

• "In The Train" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  Fields beneath a quilt of snow
  From which the rocks and stubble sleep,
  And in the west a shy white star
  That shivers as it wakes from deep.
  
  The restless rumble of the train,
  The drowsy people in the car,
  Steel blue twilight in the world,
  And in my heart a timid star.

• "Joy" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  I am wild, I will sing to the trees,
  I will sing to the stars in the sky,
  I love, I am loved, he is mine,
  Now at last I can die!
  I am sandaled with wind and with flame,
  I have heart-fire and singing to give,
  I can tread on the grass or the stars,
  Now at last I can live!

• "My Heart Is Heavy" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  My heart is heavy with many a song
  Like ripe fruit bearing down the tree,
  But I can never give you one —
  My songs do not belong to me.
  
  Yet in the evening, in the dusk
  When moths go to and fro,
  In the gray hour if the fruit has fallen,
  Take it, no one will know.

• "Spring" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  IN Central Park the lovers sit,
  On every hilly path they stroll,
  Each thinks his love is infinite,
  And crowns his soul.
  
  But we are cynical and wise,
  We walk a careful foot apart,
  You make a little joke that tries
  To hide your heart.
  
  Give over, we have laughed enough;
  Oh dearest and most foolish friend,
  Why do you wage a war with love
  To lose your battle in the end?

• "Tonight" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  The moon is a curving flower of gold,
  The sky is still and blue;
  The moon was made for the sky to hold,
  And I for you;
  The moon is a flower without a stem,
  The sky is luminous;
  Eternity was made for them,
  To-night for us.

• "The Treasure" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  WHEN they see my songs
  They will sigh and say,
  "Poor soul, wistful soul,
  Lonely night and day.
  
  "
  They will never know
  All your love for me
  Surer than the spring,
  Stronger than the sea;
  Hidden out of sight
  Like a miser's gold
  In forsaken fields
  Where the wind is cold.

• "Pity" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  They never saw my lover's face,
  They only know our love was brief,
  Wearing awhile a windy grace
  And passing like an autumn leaf.
  
  They wonder why I do not weep,
  They think it strange that I can sing,
  They say, "Her love was scarcely deep
  Since it has left so slight a sting.
  
  "
  They never saw my love, nor knew
  That in my heart's most secret place
  I pity them as angels do
  Men who have never seen God's face.

• "Love In Autumn" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  I sought among the drifting leaves,
  The golden leaves that once were green,
  To see if Love were hiding there
  And peeping out between.
  
  For thro' the silver showers of May
  And thro' the summer's heavy heat,
  In vain I sought his golden head
  And light, fast-flying feet.
  
  Perhaps when all the world is bare
  And cruel winter holds the land,
  The Love that finds no place to hide
  Will run and catch my hand.
  
  I shall not care to have him then,
  I shall be bitter and a-cold —
  It grows too late for frolicking
  When all the world is old.
  
  Then little hiding Love, come forth,
  Come forth before the autumn goes,
  And let us seek thro' ruined paths
  The garden's last red rose.

• "It Will Not Change" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  It will not change now
  After so many years;
  Life has not broken it
  With parting or tears;
  Death will not alter it,
  It will live on
  In all my songs for you
  When I am gone.

• "A Cry" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  Oh, there are eyes that he can see,
  And hands to make his hands rejoice,
  But to my lover I must be
  Only a voice.
  
  Oh, there are breasts to bear his head,
  And lips whereon his lips can lie,
  But I must be till I am dead
  Only a cry.

• "April Song" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  Willow in your April gown
  Delicate and gleaming,
  Do you mind in years gone by
  All my dreaming?
  
  Spring was like a call to me
  That I could not answer,
  I was chained to loneliness,
  I, the dancer.
  
  Willow, twinkling in the sun,
  Still your leaves and hear me,
  I can answer spring at last,
  Love is near me!

• "Love-Free" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  I am free of love as a bird flying south in the autumn,
  Swift and intent, asking no joy from another,
  Glad to forget all of the passion of April
  Ere it was love-free.
  
  I am free of love, and I listen to music lightly,
  But if he returned, if he should look at me deeply,
  I should awake, I should awake and remember
  I am my lover's.

• "The Look" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  Strephon kissed me in the spring,
  Robin in the fall,
  But Colin only looked at me
  And never kissed at all.
  
  Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,
  Robin's lost in play,
  But the kiss in Colin's eyes
  Haunts me night and day.

• "What Do I Care?" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring,
  That my songs do not show me at all?
  
  For they are a fragrance, and I am a flint and a fire,
  I am an answer, they are only a call.
  
  But what do I care, for love will be over so soon,
  Let my heart have its say and my mind stand idly by,
  For my mind is proud and strong enough to be silent,
  It is my heart that makes my songs, not I.

• "Do Not Love Too Long" by William Butler Yeats Visit William Butler Yeats's Page Read Poem

  SWEETHEART, do not love too long:
  I loved long and long,
  And grew to be out of fashion
  Like an old song.
  
  All through the years of our youth
  Neither could have known
  Their own thought from the other's,
  We were so much at one.
  
  But O, in a minute she changed —
  O do not love too long,
  Or you will grow out of fashion
  Like an old song.

• "Figuring Belief" by A R Ammons Visit A R Ammons's Page Read Poem

  Praying answers prayer:
  in the deep spells
  of inquiry and hope,
  a self
  enabled to rise again
  to the compromises
  and the shattering caring
  forms

• "Love Song" by Alfred Lichtenstein Visit Alfred Lichtenstein's Page Read Poem

  Your eyes are bright lands.
  
  Your looks are little birds,
  Handkerchiefs gently waving goodbye.
  
  In your smile I rest as though in bobbing boats.
  
  Your little stories are made of silk.
  
  I must behold you always.

• "Dreaming" by Alfred Lichtenstein Visit Alfred Lichtenstein's Page Read Poem

  Paul said:
  Ah, but who wouldn't want to drive a car forever--
  We burrow our way through high-stemmed woods,
  We pass by spaces that seem endless.
  
  We pass through the wind and attack the towns, which speed up.
  
  But the odors of the sluggish cities are hateful to us--
  Ah, we are flying!  Always alongside death.
  
  .
  
  .
  
  How we despise and scorn him who sits on our lives!
  Who lays out graves for us and makes all streets crooked--ha, we
  laugh at him,
  and the roads, overcome, die with us--
  Thus we shall auto our way through the whole world.
  
  .
  
  .
  
  Until, on some clear evening
  We find a violent ending against a sturdy tree.

• "The Son" by Alfred Lichtenstein Visit Alfred Lichtenstein's Page Read Poem

  Mother, don't hold me,
  Mother, your caress hurts me,
  See through my face,
  How I glow and wane.
  
  Give the last kiss.
  
  Let me go.
  
  Send a prayer after me.
  
  That I broke your life,
  Mother, forgive me.

• "Ancient Measures" by Bill Knott Visit Bill Knott's Page Read Poem

  As much as someone could plow in one day
  They called an acre;
  As much as a person could die in one instant
  A lifetime--

• "Death" by Bill Knott Visit Bill Knott's Page Read Poem

  Going to sleep, I cross my hands on my chest.
  
  They will place my hands like this.
  
  It will look as though I am flying into myself.

• "Hair Poem" by Bill Knott Visit Bill Knott's Page Read Poem

  Hair is heaven's water flowing eerily over us
  Often a woman drifts off down her long hair and is lost

• "Minor Poem" by Bill Knott Visit Bill Knott's Page Read Poem

  The only response
  to a child's grave is
  to lie down before it and play dead

• "Monopoly" by Bill Knott Visit Bill Knott's Page Read Poem

  Finally the day dawned when a monopoly owned everything in the
  world
  So it went looking for its stockholders to celebrate
  But they were all owned by it they were all dead they were
  someplace
  Their photographs hung in elevators which went up and down up and
  down carrying nobody
  Everyone else was in bed doing exercises to get in shape for noon
  Hey the monopoly said let's uncork the World Trade Center and get
  blotto
  Silence
  The monopoly scowled
  All it wanted was a little good-fellowship, like you get in the
  highrise apartment-buildings
  Then the sky got awful dark
  Gee
  And everyone was in bed frantically doing those exercises that get us in
  shape for death
  Exercises known as "kissing" "fucking" "caressing"
  Everyone was unaware that they had been bought
  Or that the earth was about to sell them to the moon
  For a little light

• "Story Of Or" by Bill Knott Visit Bill Knott's Page Read Poem

  To pose nakedness is
  To refute it.
  
  A pose
  Is a clothes.
  
  Like
  Stanzaic arrangements of
  The word which should
  Ideally, be in pain against
  Its w and its d.
  
  No slack
  Is why such heaves of or
  To denude itself could
  Make us exude gold, yet when
  Was that ever opposite enough
  What scream or epigram
  This sperm has come
  To measure our mouths for.
  
  Note: For 'or' to free itself from 'word,' it must strain ('heave') against the 'w' and the 'd' that enclose it.
  
  If, via this strenuous (perhaps squeamish) process, the meaning of 'or' is transmuted from the English into the French as a sort of homage to the pseudonymous author of 'Story of O' (Histoire d'O), then, alchemically speaking, (or so an Aurealist might suggest) it will have risen from the pose of its measures to or-emerge as an else-gasm.

• "An April Adoration" by Charles G. D. Roberts Visit Charles G. D. Roberts's Page Read Poem

  Sang the sun rise on an amber morn -
  "Earth, be glad!  An April day is born.
  
  "Winter's done, and April's in the skies,
  Earth, look up with laughter in your eyes!"
  Putting off her dumb dismay of snow,
  Earth bade all her unseen children grow.
  
  Then the sound of growing in the air
  Rose to God a liturgy of prayer;
  And the thronged succession of the days
  Uttered up to God a psalm of praise.
  
  Laughed the running sap in every vein,
  Laughed the running flurries of warm rain,
  Laughed the life in every wandering root,
  Laughed the tingling cells of bud and shoot.
  
  God in all the concord of their mirth
  Heard the adoration-song of Earth.

• "An End" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  Love, strong as Death, is dead.
  
  Come, let us make his bed
  Among the dying flowers:
  A green turf at his head;
  And a stone at his feet,
  Whereon we may sit
  In the quiet evening hours.
  
  He was born in the Spring,
  And died before the harvesting:
  On the last warm summer day
  He left us; he would not stay
  For Autumn twilight cold and grey.
  
  Sit we by his grave, and sing
  He is gone away.
  
  To few chords and sad and low
  Sing we so:
  Be our eyes fixed on the grass
  Shadow-veiled as the years pass
  While we think of all that was
  In the long ago.

• "Consider The Lilies Of The Field" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  Flowers preach to us if we will hear:—
  The rose saith in the dewy morn:
  I am most fair;
  Yet all my loveliness is born
  Upon a thorn.
  
  The poppy saith amid the corn:
  Let but my scarlet head appear
  And I am held in scorn;
  Yet juice of subtle virtue lies
  Within my cup of curious dyes.
  
  The lilies say: Behold how we
  Preach without words of purity.
  
  The violets whisper from the shade
  Which their own leaves have made:
  Men scent our fragrance on the air,
  Yet take no heed
  Of humble lessons we would read.
  
  But not alone the fairest flowers:
  The merest grass
  Along the roadside where we pass,
  Lichen and moss and sturdy weed,
  Tell of His love who sends the dew,
  The rain and sunshine too,
  To nourish one small seed.

• "January Cold Desolate" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  January cold desolate;
  February all dripping wet;
  March wind ranges;
  April changes;
  Birds sing in tune
  To flowers of May,
  And sunny June
  Brings longest day;
  In scorched July
  The storm-clouds fly
  Lightning-torn;
  August bears corn,
  September fruit;
  In rough October
  Earth must disrobe her;
  Stars fall and shoot
  In keen November;
  And night is long
  And cold is strong
  In bleak December.

• "If Stars Dropped Out Of Heaven" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  If stars dropped out of heaven,
  And if flowers took their place,
  The sky would still look very fair,
  And fair earth's face.
  
  Winged angels might fly down to us
  To pluck the stars,
  Be we could only long for flowers
  Beyond the cloudy bars.

• "I loved you first: but afterwards your love" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  I loved you first: but afterwards your love,
  Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
  As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
  
  Which owes the other most?
  
  My love was long,
  And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;
  I loved and guessed at you, you construed me
  And loved me for what might or might not be—
  Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
  
  For verily love knows not ‘mine' or ‘thine';
  With separate ‘I' and ‘thou' free love has done,
  For one is both and both are one in love:
  Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine';
  Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
  Both of us, of the love which makes us one.

• "I Have But One Rose In The World" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  I have but one rose in the world,
  And my one rose stands a-drooping:
  Oh, when my single rose is dead
  There'll be but thorns for stooping.

• "I Planted A Hand" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  I planted a hand
  And there came up a palm,
  I planted a heart
  And there came up balm.
  
  Then I planted a wish,
  But there sprang a thorn,
  While heaven frowned with thunder
  And earth sighed forlorn.

• "A Daughter Of Eve" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  A fool I was to sleep at noon,
  And wake when night is chilly
  Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
  A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
  A fool to snap my lily.
  
  My garden-plot I have not kept;
  Faded and all-forsaken,
  I weep as I have never wept:
  Oh it was summer when I slept,
  It's winter now I waken.
  
  Talk what you please of future spring
  And sun-warmed sweet to-morrow: -
  Stripped bare of hope and everything,
  No more to laugh, no more to sing,
  I sit alone with sorrow.

• "Ferry Me Across The Water" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  ‘Ferry me across the water,
  Do, boatman, do.
  
  ’
  ‘If you've a penny in your purse
  I'll ferry you.
  
  ’
  ‘I have a penny in my purse,
  And my eyes are blue;
  So ferry me across the water,
  Do, boatman, do.
  
  ’
  ‘Step into my ferry-boat,
  Be they black or blue,
  And for the penny in your purse
  I'll ferry you.
  
  ’

• "Growing In The Vale" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  Growing in the vale
  By the uplands hilly,
  Growing straight and frail,
  Lady Daffadowndilly.
  
  In a golden crown,
  And a scant green gown
  While the spring blows chilly,
  Lady Daffadown,
  Sweet Daffadowndilly.

• "Angels At The Foot" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  Angels at the foot,
  And Angels at the head,
  And like a curly little lamb
  My pretty babe in bed.

• "Brown And Furry" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  Brown and furry
  Caterpillar in a hurry,
  Take your walk
  To the shady leaf, or stalk,
  Or what not,
  Which may be the chosen spot.
  
  No toad spy you,
  Hovering bird of prey pass by you;
  Spin and die,
  To live again a butterfly.

• "Mirage" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  The hope I dreamed of was a dream,
  Was but a dream; and now I wake,
  Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,
  For a dream's sake.
  
  I hang my harp upon a tree,
  A weeping willow in a lake;
  I hang my silent harp there, wrung and snapped
  For a dream's sake.
  
  Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
  My silent heart, lie still and break:
  Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed
  For a dream's sake.

• "None Other Lamb" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  None other Lamb, none other Name,
  None other hope in Heav’n or earth or sea,
  None other hiding place from guilt and shame,
  None beside Thee!
  My faith burns low, my hope burns low;
  Only my heart’s desire cries out in me
  By the deep thunder of its want and woe,
  Cries out to Thee.
  
  Lord, Thou art Life, though I be dead;
  Love’s fire Thou art, however cold I be:
  Nor Heav’n have I, nor place to lay my head,
  Nor home, but Thee.

• "Your Brother Has A Falcon" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  Your brother has a falcon,
  Your sister has a flower;
  But what is left for mannikin,
  Born within a hour?
  
  I'll nurse you on my knee, my knee,
  My own little son;
  I'll rock you, rock you, in my arms,
  My least little one.

• "Clouds" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  White sheep, white sheep,
  On a blue hill,
  When the wind stops,
  You all stand still.
  
  When the wind blows,
  You walk away slow.
  
  White sheep, white sheep,
  Where do you go?

• "Beauty Is Vain" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  While roses are so red,
  While lilies are so white,
  Shall a woman exalt her face
  Because it gives delight?
  
  She's not so sweet as a rose,
  A lily's straighter than she,
  And if she were as red or white
  She'd be but one of three.
  
  Whether she flush in love's summer
  Or in its winter grow pale,
  Whether she flaunt her beauty
  Or hide it away in a veil,
  Be she red or white,
  And stand she erect or bowed,
  Time will win the race he runs with her
  And hide her away in a shroud.

• "A Pause Of Thought" by Christina Georgina Rossetti Visit Christina Georgina Rossetti's Page Read Poem

  I looked for that which is not, nor can be,
  And hope deferred made my heart sick in truth:
  But years must pass before a hope of youth
  Is resigned utterly.
  
  I watched and waited with a steadfast will:
  And though the object seemed to flee away
  That I so longed for, ever day by day
  I watched and waited still.
  
  Sometimes I said: This thing shall be no more;
  My expectation wearies and shall cease;
  I will resign it now and be at peace:
  Yet never gave it o'er.
  
  Sometimes I said: It is an empty name
  I long for; to a name why should I give
  The peace of all the days I have to live?
  
  —
  Yet gave it all the same.
  
  Alas, thou foolish one! alike unfit
  For healthy joy and salutary pain:
  Thou knowest the chase useless, and again
  Turnest to follow it.

• " Black Stone on a White Stone " by César Vallejo Visit César Vallejo's Page Read Poem

  I will die in Paris with a rainstorm,
  
  on a day I already remember,
  
  I will die in Paris—and I don't shy away—
  
  perhaps on a Thursday, as today is, in autumn.
  
  It will be Thursday, because today, Thursday, as I prose
  
  these lines, I've put on my humeri in a bad mood,   
  
  and, today like never before, I've turned back,
  
  with all of my road, to see myself alone.
  
  César Vallejo has died; they kept hitting him,   
  
  everyone, even though he does nothing to them,
  
  they gave it to him hard with a club and hard
  
  
  
  also with a rope; witnesses are
  
  the Thursday days and the humerus bones,   
  
  the solitude, the rain, the roads.
  
  .
  
  .

• "Little Elegy" by Elinor Wylie Visit Elinor Wylie's Page Read Poem

  Withouten you
  No rose can grow;
  No leaf be green
  If never seen
  Your sweetest face;
  No bird have grace
  Or power to sing;
  Or anything
  Be kind, or fair,
  And you nowhere.

• "Defrauded I a Butterfly" by Emily Dickinson Visit Emily Dickinson's Page Read Poem

  730
  Defrauded I a Butterfly —
  The lawful Heir — for Thee —

• "'Tis customary as we part" by Emily Dickinson Visit Emily Dickinson's Page Read Poem

  440
  'Tis customary as we part
  A trinket — to confer —
  It helps to stimulate the faith
  When Lovers be afar —
  'Tis various — as the various taste —
  Clematis — journeying far —
  Presents me with a single Curl
  Of her Electric Hair —

• "A Spider sewed at Night" by Emily Dickinson Visit Emily Dickinson's Page Read Poem

  A Spider sewed at Night
  Without a Light
  Upon an Arc of White.
  
  If Ruff it was of Dame
  Or Shroud of Gnome
  Himself himself inform.
  
  Of Immortality
  His Strategy
  Was Physiognomy.

• "God gave a Loaf to every Bird" by Emily Dickinson Visit Emily Dickinson's Page Read Poem

  God gave a Loaf to every Bird —
  But just a Crumb — to Me —
  I dare not eat it — tho' I starve —
  My poignant luxury —
  To own it — touch it —
  Prove the feat — that made the Pellet mine —
  Too happy — for my Sparrow's chance —
  For Ampler Coveting —
  It might be Famine — all around —
  I could not miss an Ear —
  Such Plenty smiles upon my Board —
  My Garner shows so fair —
  I wonder how the Rich — may feel —
  An Indiaman — An Earl —
  I deem that I — with but a Crumb —
  Am Sovereign of them all —

• "As Frost is best conceived" by Emily Dickinson Visit Emily Dickinson's Page Read Poem

  951
  As Frost is best conceived
  By force of its Result —
  Affliction is inferred
  By subsequent effect —
  If when the sun reveal,
  The Garden keep the Gash —
  If as the Days resume
  The wilted countenance
  Cannot correct the crease
  Or counteract the stain —
  Presumption is Vitality
  Was somewhere put in twain.

• "Snow flakes. (45)" by Emily Dickinson Visit Emily Dickinson's Page Read Poem

  I counted till they danced so
  Their slippers leaped the town –
  And then I took a pencil
  To note the rebels down –
  And then they grew so jolly
  I did resign the prig –
  And ten of my once stately toes
  Are marshalled for a jig!

• "By a flower — By a letter" by Emily Dickinson Visit Emily Dickinson's Page Read Poem

  109
  By a flower — By a letter —
  By a nimble love —
  If I weld the Rivet faster —
  Final fast — above —
  Never mind my breathless Anvil!
  Never mind Repose!
  Never mind the sooty faces
  Tugging at the Forge!

• "Could — I do more — for Thee" by Emily Dickinson Visit Emily Dickinson's Page Read Poem

  447
  Could — I do more — for Thee —
  Wert Thou a Bumble Bee —
  Since for the Queen, have I —
  Nought but Bouquet?

• " from Light: “If I stand” " by Inger Christensen Visit Inger Christensen's Page Read Poem

  If I stand
  
  alone in the snow
  
  it is clear
  
  that I am a clock
  
  how else would eternity
  
  find its way around

• "A Mood of Quiet Beauty" by John Ashbery Visit John Ashbery's Page Read Poem

  The evening light was like honey in the trees
  When you left me and walked to the end of the street
  Where the sunset abruptly ended.
  
  The wedding-cake drawbridge lowered itself
  To the fragile forget-me-not flower.
  
  You climbed aboard.
  
  Burnt horizons suddenly paved with golden stones,
  Dreams I had, including suicide,
  Puff out the hot-air balloon now.
  
  It is bursting, it is about to burst
  With something invisible
  Just during the days.
  
  We hear, and sometimes learn,
  Pressing so close
  And fetch the blood down, and things like that.
  
  Museums then became generous, they live in our breath.

• "Breezeway" by John Ashbery Visit John Ashbery's Page Read Poem

  Someone said we needed a breezeway
  to bark down remnants of super storm Elias jugularly.
  
  Alas it wasn’t my call.
  
  I didn’t have a call or anything resembling one.
  
  You see I have always been a rather dull-spirited winch.
  
  The days go by and I go with them.
  
  A breeze falls from a nearby tower
  finds no breezeway, goes away
  along a mission to supersize red shutters.
  
  Alas if that were only all.
  
  There’s the children’s belongings to be looked to
  if only one can find the direction needed
  and stuff like that.
  
  I said we were all homers not homos
  but my voice dwindled in the roar of Hurricane Edsel.
  
  We have to live out our precise experimentation.
  
  Otherwise there’s no dying for anybody,
  no crisp rewards.
  
  Batman came out and clubbed me.
  
  He never did get along with my view of the universe
  except you know existential threads
  from the time of the peace beaters and more.
  
  He patted his dog Pastor Fido.
  
  There was still so much to be learned
  and even more to be researched.
  
  It was like a goodbye.
  
  Why not accept it,
  anyhow?
  
  The mission girls came through the woods
  in their special suitings.
  
  It was all whipped cream and baklava.
  
  Is there a Batman somewhere, who notices us
  and promptly looks away, at a new catalogue, say,
  or another racing-car expletive
  coming back at Him?

• "Just Walking Around" by John Ashbery Visit John Ashbery's Page Read Poem

  What name do I have for you?
  
  Certainly there is not name for you
  In the sense that the stars have names
  That somehow fit them.
  
  Just walking around,
  An object of curiosity to some,
  But you are too preoccupied
  By the secret smudge in the back of your soul
  To say much and wander around,
  Smiling to yourself and others.
  
  It gets to be kind of lonely
  But at the same time off-putting.
  
  Counterproductive, as you realize once again
  That the longest way is the most efficient way,
  The one that looped among islands, and
  You always seemed to be traveling in a circle.
  
  And now that the end is near
  The segments of the trip swing open like an orange.
  
  There is light in there and mystery and food.
  
  Come see it.
  
  Come not for me but it.
  
  But if I am still there, grant that we may see each other.

• "Meaningful Love" by John Ashbery Visit John Ashbery's Page Read Poem

  What the bad news was
  became apparent too late
  for us to do anything good about it.
  
  I was offered no urgent dreaming,
  didn't need a name or anything.
  
  Everything was taken care of.
  
  In the medium-size city of my awareness
  voles are building colossi.
  
  The blue room is over there.
  
  He put out no feelers.
  
  The day was all as one to him.
  
  Some days he never leaves his room
  and those are the best days,
  by far.
  
  There were morose gardens farther down the slope,
  anthills that looked like they belonged there.
  
  The sausages were undercooked,
  the wine too cold, the bread molten.
  
  Who said to bring sweaters?
  
  The climate's not that dependable.
  
  The Atlantic crawled slowly to the left
  pinning a message on the unbound golden hair of sleeping
  maidens,
  a ruse for next time,
  where fire and water are rampant in the streets,
  the gate closed—no visitors today
  or any evident heartbeat.
  
  I got rid of the book of fairy tales,
  pawned my old car, bought a ticket to the funhouse,
  found myself back here at six o'clock,
  pondering "possible side effects.
  
  "
  There was no harm in loving then,
  no certain good either.
  
  But love was loving servants
  or bosses.
  
  No straight road issuing from it.
  
  Leaves around the door are penciled losses.
  
  Twenty years to fix it.
  
  Asters bloom one way or another.

• "Postlude and Prequel" by John Ashbery Visit John Ashbery's Page Read Poem

  Would I lie to you?
  
  I don’t know what to say to you,
  and the season is coming into season just now
  with long-awaited words from back when we were
  friends and still are, of course, but the tides
  pursue their course each day.
  
  Perturbing elements
  listen in the wings, which are coming apart at the seams.
  
  Is it all doggerel and folderol?
  
  A cracked knowledge?
  
  Monkey journalism?
  
  This is better than the other overlooked good
  that dried up a while back and whispers.
  
  The results, if any, won’t last too much longer
  and I meanwhile am on my way to correct you
  about the tickets and their availability.
  
  We pitch and stiffen, elbowed by traffic mysteriously
  descending the other lane of the avenue
  as lamps burst in many-benched Central Park.

• "Strange Things Happen at Night" by John Ashbery Visit John Ashbery's Page Read Poem

  Without thinking too much about it,
  prepare to go out into the city of your dreams.
  
  Now, look up.
  
  At first they cannot see you.
  
  Later, the adjustment will be made.
  
  Your boyfriend sips bark tea.
  
  The number should've turned up by now.
  
  Perhaps the driving rain impedes it,
  the recession.
  
  In any case there are two too many of
  us here .
  
  We must double up, or die.
  
  And that might be a practical if remote solution.
  
  It's not every day you get to bicycle past the ribbons
  of people, watch the grand hotels
  for some event thought imminent--not lost.
  
  If ever I was going to turn up your volume--
  but this isn't about living, is it?
  
  Or is it?
  
  I mean, many suppers in the seven modes
  or grades, as many as can be made to last
  once the bosses and their beagles have passed through

• "The Short Answer" by John Ashbery Visit John Ashbery's Page Read Poem

  I am forced to sleepwalk much of the time.
  
  We hold on to these old ways, are troubled
  sometimes and then the geyser goes away,
  time gutted.
  
  In and of itself there is
  no great roar, force pitted against force that
  makes up in time what it loses in speed.
  
  The waterfalls, the canyon, a royal I-told-you-so
  comes back to greet us at the beginning.
  
  How was your trip?
  
  Oh I didn’t last
  you see, folded over like the margin
  of a dream of the thing-in-itself.
  
  Well, and
  what have we come to?
  
  A paper-thin past,
  just so, and ‘tis pity.
  
  We regurgitate
  old anthems and what has come to pass, and why
  dwell on these.
  
  Why make things more difficult
  than they already are?
  
  Because if it’s boring
  in a different way, that’ll be interesting too.
  
  That’s what I say.
  
  That rascal, he jumped over the fence.
  
  I’m wiping my pince-nez now.
  
  Did you ever hear from
  the one who said he’d be back once it was over,
  who eluded me even in my sleep?
  
  That was a particularly
  promising time, we thought.
  
  Now the sun’s out
  and it’s raining again.
  
  Just like a day from
  the compendium.
  
  I’ll vouch for you,
  and we can go on scrolling as though nothing had risen,
  the horizon forest looks back at us.
  
  The preacher
  shook his head, the evangelist balanced two spools
  at the end of his little makeshift rope.
  
  We’d gone too far.
  
  We’d have to come back in a day or so.

• "Sonnet. If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain'd" by John Keats Visit John Keats's Page Read Poem

  If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd,
  And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
  Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness;
  Let us find out, if we must be constrain'd,
  Sandals more interwoven and complete
  To fit the naked foot of poesy;
  Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress
  Of every chord, and see what may be gain'd
  By ear industrious, and attention meet:
  Misers of sound and syllable, no less
  Than Midas of his coinage, let us be
  Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown;
  So, if we may not let the Muse be free,
  She will be bound with garlands of her own.
  
  Form: Sonnet (abcabdcabcdede).
  
  (line 2): Andromeda: Ethiopian princess who was rescued from a monster by Perseus, her husband-to-be.
  
  (line 11): Midas: Phrygian king who wished for gold, more than anything, and was granted the ambiguous gift of turning everything he touched into gold.
  
  'This experiment in sonnet metre appears to have been written on or very shortly before the 3rd of May 1819, and was first given in the Life, Letters &c.
  
  (1848).
  
  It was the last poem transcribed in the journal letter to George Keats and his wife begun on the 14th of February and ended on the 3rd of May, and stood immediately over the words "This is the third of May," and under the following paragraph --
  "I have been endeavouring to discover a better Sonnet stanza than we have.
  
  The legitimate does not suit the language well, from the pouncing rhymes; the other appears too elegiac, and the couplet at the end of it has seldom a pleasing effect.
  
  I do not pretend to have succeeded.
  
  It will explain itself.
  
  "
  ~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed.
  
  H.
  
  Buxton Forman, Crowell publ.
  
  1895.

• "Thin" by Kay Ryan Visit Kay Ryan's Page Read Poem

  How anything
  is known
  is so thin—
  a skin of ice
  over a pond
  only birds might
  confidently walk
  upon.
  
  A bird's
  worth of weight
  or one bird-weight
  of Wordsworth.

• "Trust" by Liz Waldner Visit Liz Waldner's Page Read Poem

  If   I would be walking down the road
  you told me to imagine and I would and find
  a diner kind of   teacup sitting on its saucer
  in the middle then I would feel so good
  in my life that is just like mine
  I would walk right up and look into my face
  eclipsing the sky in the tea in the cup
  and say, “Thank you, I have enjoyed
  imagining all this.
  
  ”

• "Moving Forward" by Rainer Maria Rilke Visit Rainer Maria Rilke's Page Read Poem

  The deep parts of my life pour onward,
  as if the river shores were opening out.
  
  It seems that things are more like me now,
  That I can see farther into paintings.
  
  I feel closer to what language can't reach.
  
  With my senses, as with birds, I climb
  into the windy heaven, out of the oak,
  in the ponds broken off from the sky
  my falling sinks, as if standing on fishes.

• "Extinguish Thou My Eyes" by Rainer Maria Rilke Visit Rainer Maria Rilke's Page Read Poem

  Extinguish Thou my eyes:I still can see Thee,
  deprive my ears of sound:I still can hear Thee,
  and without feet I still can come to Thee,
  and without voice I still can call to Thee.
  
  Sever my arms from me, I still will hold Thee
  with all my heart as with a single hand,
  arrest my heart, my brain will keep on beating,
  and Should Thy fire at last my brain consume,
  the flowing of my blood will carry Thee.
  
  Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming

• "Hidden Love" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  I hid the love within my heart,
  And lit the laughter in my eyes,
  That when we meet he may not know
  My love that never dies.
  
  But sometimes when he dreams at night
  Of fragrant forests green and dim,
  It may be that my love crept out
  And brought the dream to him.
  
  And sometimes when his heart is sick
  And suddenly grows well again,
  It may be that my love was there
  To free his life of pain.

• "In The Train" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  Fields beneath a quilt of snow
  From which the rocks and stubble sleep,
  And in the west a shy white star
  That shivers as it wakes from deep.
  
  The restless rumble of the train,
  The drowsy people in the car,
  Steel blue twilight in the world,
  And in my heart a timid star.

• "Joy" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  I am wild, I will sing to the trees,
  I will sing to the stars in the sky,
  I love, I am loved, he is mine,
  Now at last I can die!
  I am sandaled with wind and with flame,
  I have heart-fire and singing to give,
  I can tread on the grass or the stars,
  Now at last I can live!

• "My Heart Is Heavy" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  My heart is heavy with many a song
  Like ripe fruit bearing down the tree,
  But I can never give you one —
  My songs do not belong to me.
  
  Yet in the evening, in the dusk
  When moths go to and fro,
  In the gray hour if the fruit has fallen,
  Take it, no one will know.

• "Spring" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  IN Central Park the lovers sit,
  On every hilly path they stroll,
  Each thinks his love is infinite,
  And crowns his soul.
  
  But we are cynical and wise,
  We walk a careful foot apart,
  You make a little joke that tries
  To hide your heart.
  
  Give over, we have laughed enough;
  Oh dearest and most foolish friend,
  Why do you wage a war with love
  To lose your battle in the end?

• "Tonight" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  The moon is a curving flower of gold,
  The sky is still and blue;
  The moon was made for the sky to hold,
  And I for you;
  The moon is a flower without a stem,
  The sky is luminous;
  Eternity was made for them,
  To-night for us.

• "The Treasure" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  WHEN they see my songs
  They will sigh and say,
  "Poor soul, wistful soul,
  Lonely night and day.
  
  "
  They will never know
  All your love for me
  Surer than the spring,
  Stronger than the sea;
  Hidden out of sight
  Like a miser's gold
  In forsaken fields
  Where the wind is cold.

• "Pity" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  They never saw my lover's face,
  They only know our love was brief,
  Wearing awhile a windy grace
  And passing like an autumn leaf.
  
  They wonder why I do not weep,
  They think it strange that I can sing,
  They say, "Her love was scarcely deep
  Since it has left so slight a sting.
  
  "
  They never saw my love, nor knew
  That in my heart's most secret place
  I pity them as angels do
  Men who have never seen God's face.

• "Love In Autumn" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  I sought among the drifting leaves,
  The golden leaves that once were green,
  To see if Love were hiding there
  And peeping out between.
  
  For thro' the silver showers of May
  And thro' the summer's heavy heat,
  In vain I sought his golden head
  And light, fast-flying feet.
  
  Perhaps when all the world is bare
  And cruel winter holds the land,
  The Love that finds no place to hide
  Will run and catch my hand.
  
  I shall not care to have him then,
  I shall be bitter and a-cold —
  It grows too late for frolicking
  When all the world is old.
  
  Then little hiding Love, come forth,
  Come forth before the autumn goes,
  And let us seek thro' ruined paths
  The garden's last red rose.

• "It Will Not Change" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  It will not change now
  After so many years;
  Life has not broken it
  With parting or tears;
  Death will not alter it,
  It will live on
  In all my songs for you
  When I am gone.

• "A Cry" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  Oh, there are eyes that he can see,
  And hands to make his hands rejoice,
  But to my lover I must be
  Only a voice.
  
  Oh, there are breasts to bear his head,
  And lips whereon his lips can lie,
  But I must be till I am dead
  Only a cry.

• "April Song" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  Willow in your April gown
  Delicate and gleaming,
  Do you mind in years gone by
  All my dreaming?
  
  Spring was like a call to me
  That I could not answer,
  I was chained to loneliness,
  I, the dancer.
  
  Willow, twinkling in the sun,
  Still your leaves and hear me,
  I can answer spring at last,
  Love is near me!

• "Love-Free" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  I am free of love as a bird flying south in the autumn,
  Swift and intent, asking no joy from another,
  Glad to forget all of the passion of April
  Ere it was love-free.
  
  I am free of love, and I listen to music lightly,
  But if he returned, if he should look at me deeply,
  I should awake, I should awake and remember
  I am my lover's.

• "The Look" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  Strephon kissed me in the spring,
  Robin in the fall,
  But Colin only looked at me
  And never kissed at all.
  
  Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,
  Robin's lost in play,
  But the kiss in Colin's eyes
  Haunts me night and day.

• "What Do I Care?" by Sara Teasdale Visit Sara Teasdale's Page Read Poem

  What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring,
  That my songs do not show me at all?
  
  For they are a fragrance, and I am a flint and a fire,
  I am an answer, they are only a call.
  
  But what do I care, for love will be over so soon,
  Let my heart have its say and my mind stand idly by,
  For my mind is proud and strong enough to be silent,
  It is my heart that makes my songs, not I.

• "Absolutely Clear" by Shams al-Din Hafiz Visit Shams al-Din Hafiz's Page Read Poem

  Don't surrender your loneliness
  So quickly.
  
  Let it cut more deep.
  
  Let it ferment and season you
  As few human
  Or even divine ingredients can.
  
  Something missing in my heart tonight
  Has made my eyes so soft,
  My voice
  So tender,
  My need of God
  Absolutely
  Clear.

• "A Cranefly In September" by Ted Hughes Visit Ted Hughes's Page Read Poem

  She is struggling through grass-mesh - not flying,
  Her wide-winged, stiff, weightless basket-work of limbs
  Rocking, like an antique wain, a top-heavy ceremonial cart
  Across mountain summits
  (Not planing over water, dipping her tail)
  But blundering with long strides, long reachings, reelings
  And ginger-glistening wings
  From collision to collision.
  
  Aimless in no particular direction,
  Just exerting her last to escape out of the overwhelming
  Of whatever it is, legs, grass,
  The garden, the county, the country, the world -
  Sometimes she rests long minutes in the grass forest
  Like a fairytale hero, only a marvel can help her.
  
  She cannot fathom the mystery of this forest
  In which, for instance, this giant watches -
  The giant who knows she cannot be helped in any way.
  
  Her jointed bamboo fuselage,
  Her lobster shoulders, and her face
  Like a pinhead dragon, with its tender moustache,
  And the simple colourless church windows of her wings
  Will come to an end, in mid-search, quite soon.
  
  Everything about her, every perfected vestment
  Is already superfluous.
  
  The monstrous excess of her legs and curly feet
  Are a problem beyond her.
  
  The calculus of glucose and chitin inadequate
  To plot her through the infinities of the stems.
  
  The frayed apple leaves, the grunting raven, the defunct tractor
  Sunk in nettles, wait with their multiplications
  Like other galaxies.
  
  The sky's Northward September procession, the vast
  soft armistice,
  Like an Empire on the move,
  Abandons her, tinily embattled
  With her cumbering limbs and cumbered brain.

• "The Owl" by Ted Hughes Visit Ted Hughes's Page Read Poem

  I saw my world again through your eyes
  As I would see it again through your children's eyes.
  
  Through your eyes it was foreign.
  
  Plain hedge hawthorns were peculiar aliens,
  A mystery of peculiar lore and doings.
  
  Anything wild, on legs, in your eyes
  Emerged at a point of exclamation
  As if it had appeared to dinner guests
  In the middle of the table.
  
  Common mallards
  Were artefacts of some unearthliness,
  Their wooings were a hypnagogic film
  Unreeled by the river.
  
  Impossible
  To comprehend the comfort of their feet
  In the freezing water.
  
  You were a camera
  Recording reflections you could not fathom.
  
  I made my world perform its utmost for you.
  
  You took it all in with an incredulous joy
  Like a mother handed her new baby
  By the midwife.
  
  Your frenzy made me giddy.
  
  It woke up my dumb, ecstatic boyhood
  Of fifteen years before.
  
  My masterpiece
  Came that black night on the Grantchester road.
  
  I sucked the throaty thin woe of a rabbit
  Out of my wetted knuckle, by a copse
  Where a tawny owl was enquiring.
  
  Suddenly it swooped up, splaying its pinions
  Into my face, taking me for a post.

• "There Is No Word" by Tony Hoagland Visit Tony Hoagland's Page Read Poem

  There isn’t a word for walking out of the grocery store
  with a gallon jug of milk in a plastic sack
  that should have been bagged in double layers
  
  —so that before you are even out the door
  you feel the weight of the jug dragging
  the bag down, stretching the thin
  
  plastic handles longer and longer
  and you know it’s only a matter of time until
  bottom suddenly splits.
  
  There is no single, unimpeachable word
  for that vague sensation of something
  moving away from you
  
  as it exceeds its elastic capacity
  —which is too bad, because that is the word
  I would like to use to describe standing on the street
  
  chatting with an old friend
  as the awareness grows in me that he is
  no longer a friend, but only an acquaintance,
  
  a person with whom I never made the effort—
  until this moment, when as we say goodbye
  I think we share a feeling of relief,
  
  a recognition that we have reached
  the end of a pretense,
  though to tell the truth
  
  what I already am thinking about
  is my gratitude for language—
  how it will stretch just so much and no farther;
  
  how there are some holes it will not cover up;
  how it will move, if not inside, then
  around the circumference of almost anything—
  
  how, over the years, it has given me
  back all the hours and days, all the
  plodding love and faith, all the
  
  misunderstandings and secrets
  I have willingly poured into it.

• "Wasteful Gesture Only Not" by Tony Hoagland Visit Tony Hoagland's Page Read Poem

  Ruth visits her mother’s grave in the California hills.
  
  She knows her mother isn’t there but the rectangle of grass
  marks off the place where the memories are kept,
  
  like a library book namedDorothy.
  
  Some of the chapters might be:Dorothy:
  Better Bird-Watcher Than Cook;
  
  Dorothy, Wife and Atheist;
  Passionate Recycler Dorothy, Here Lies But Not.
  
  In the summer hills, where the tall tough grass
  
  reminds you of persistence
  and the endless wind
  reminds you of indifference,
  
  Ruth brings batches of white roses,
  extravagant gesture not entirely wasteful
  because as soon as she is gone she knows
  the deer come out of the woods to eat them.
  
  What was made for the eye
  goes into the mouth,
  thinks Ruth to herself as she drives away,
  and in bed when she tries to remember her mother,
  
  she drifts instead to the roses,
  and when she thinks about the roses she
  sees instead the deer chewing them—
  
  pale petals of the roses in the dark
  warm bellies of the sleeping deer—
  that’s what going to sleep is like.

• "A Poison Tree" by William Blake Visit William Blake's Page Read Poem

  I was angry with my friend;
  I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
  
  I was angry with my foe:
  I told it not, my wrath did grow.
  
  And I waterd it in fears,
  Night & morning with my tears:
  And I sunned it with smiles,
  And with soft deceitful wiles.
  
  And it grew both day and night.
  
  Till it bore an apple bright.
  
  And my foe beheld it shine,
  And he knew that it was mine.
  
  And into my garden stole,
  When the night had veild the pole;
  In the morning glad I see;
  My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

• "A Divine Image" by William Blake Visit William Blake's Page Read Poem

  Cruelty has a Human Heart
  And Jealousy a Human Face
  Terror the Human Form Divine
  And Secrecy, the Human Dress
  
  The Human Dress, is forged Iron
  The Human Form, a fiery Forge.
  
  The Human Face, a Furnace seal'd
  The Human Heart, its hungry Gorge.

• "My Pretty Rose Tree" by William Blake Visit William Blake's Page Read Poem

  A flower was offered to me,
  Such a flower as May never bore;
  But I said "I've a pretty rose tree,"
  And I passed the sweet flower o'er.
  
  Then I went to my pretty rose tree,
  To tend her by day and by night;
  But my rose turned away with jealousy,
  And her thorns were my only delight.

• "Never Seek to Tell thy Love" by William Blake Visit William Blake's Page Read Poem

  Never seek to tell thy love
  Love that never told can be
  For the gentle wind does move
  Silently invisibly
  
  I told my love I told my love
  I told her all my heart
  Trembling cold in ghastly fears
  Ah she doth depart
  
  Soon as she was gone from me
  A traveller came by
  Silently invisibly
  O was no deny

• "A Memory Of Youth" by William Butler Yeats Visit William Butler Yeats's Page Read Poem

  THE moments passed as at a play;
  I had the wisdom love brings forth;
  I had my share of mother-wit,
  And yet for all that I could say,
  And though I had her praise for it,
  A cloud blown from the cut-throat North
  Suddenly hid Love's moon away.
  
  Believing every word I said,
  I praised her body and her mind
  Till pride had made her eyes grow bright,
  And pleasure made her cheeks grow red,
  And vanity her footfall light,
  Yet we, for all that praise, could find
  Nothing but darkness overhead.
  
  We sat as silent as a stone,
  We knew, though she'd not said a word,
  That even the best of love must die,
  And had been savagely undone
  Were it not that Love upon the cry
  Of a most ridiculous little bird
  Tore from the clouds his marvellous moon.
  
  ALTHOUGH crowds gathered once if she but showed her face,
  And even old men's eyes grew dim, this hand alone,
  Like some last courtier at a gypsy camping-place
  Babbling of fallen majesty, records what's gone.
  
  These lineaments, a heart that laughter has made sweet,
  These, these remain, but I record what-s gone.
  
  A crowd
  Will gather, and not know it walks the very street
  Whereon a thing once walked that seemed a burning cloud

• "A Drinking Song" by William Butler Yeats Visit William Butler Yeats's Page Read Poem

  Wine comes in at the mouth
  And love comes in at the eye;
  That’s all we shall know for truth
  Before we grow old and die.
  
  I lift the glass to my mouth,
  I look at you, and I sigh.

• "A Coat" by William Butler Yeats Visit William Butler Yeats's Page Read Poem

  I made my song a coat
  Covered with embroideries
  Out of old mythologies
  From heel to throat;
  But the fools caught it,
  Wore it in the world’s eyes
  As though they’d wrought it.
  
  Song, let them take it
  For there’s more enterprise
  In walking naked.

• "All Things Can Tempt Me" by William Butler Yeats Visit William Butler Yeats's Page Read Poem

  ALL things can tempt me from this craft of verse:
  One time it was a woman's face, or worse —
  The seeming needs of my fool-driven land;
  Now nothing but comes readier to the hand
  Than this accustomed toil.
  
  When I was young,
  I had not given a penny for a song
  Did not the poet Sing it with such airs
  That one believed he had a sword upstairs;
  Yet would be now, could I but have my wish,
  Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish.

• "Do Not Love Too Long" by William Butler Yeats Visit William Butler Yeats's Page Read Poem

  SWEETHEART, do not love too long:
  I loved long and long,
  And grew to be out of fashion
  Like an old song.
  
  All through the years of our youth
  Neither could have known
  Their own thought from the other's,
  We were so much at one.
  
  But O, in a minute she changed —
  O do not love too long,
  Or you will grow out of fashion
  Like an old song.

• "Sonnet 3: Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest" by William Shakespeare Visit William Shakespeare's Page Read Poem

  Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,
  Now is the time that face should form another,
  Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
  Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
  
  For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
  Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
  
  Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
  Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
  
  Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee
  Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
  So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
  Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
  
  But if thou live rememb’red not to be,
  Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

• "Love" by William Shakespeare Visit William Shakespeare's Page Read Poem

  TELL me where is Fancy bred,
  Or in the heart or in the head?
  
  How begot, how nourished?
  
  Reply, reply.
  
  It is engender'd in the eyes,
  With gazing fed; and Fancy dies
  In the cradle where it lies.
  
  Let us all ring Fancy's knell:
  I'll begin it,--Ding, dong, bell.
  
  All.
  
  Ding, dong, bell.

• "Spring" by William Shakespeare Visit William Shakespeare's Page Read Poem

  When daisies pied, and violets blue,
  And lady-smocks all silver-white,
  And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
  Do paint the meadows with delight,
  The cuckoo then, on every tree,
  Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
  'Cuckoo!
  Cuckoo, cuckoo!' O word of fear,
  Unpleasing to a married ear.
  
  When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
  And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
  When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
  And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
  The cuckoo then, on every tree,
  Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
  'Cuckoo!
  Cuckoo, cuckoo!' O word of fear,
  Unpleasing to a married ear.

• "Song: “Where the bee sucks, there suck I”" by William Shakespeare Visit William Shakespeare's Page Read Poem

  Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
  In a cowslip’s bell I lie;
  There I couch when owls do cry.
  
  On the bat’s back I do fly
  After summer merrily.
  
  Merrily, merrily shall I live now
  Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

• "Even As A Dragon’s Eye That Feels The Stress" by William Wordsworth Visit William Wordsworth's Page Read Poem

  EVEN as a dragon's eye that feels the stress
  Of a bedimming sleep, or as a lamp
  Suddenly glaring through sepulchral damp,
  So burns yon Taper 'mid a black recess
  Of mountains, silent, dreary, motionless:
  The lake below reflects it not; the sky,
  Muffled in clouds, affords no company
  To mitigate and cheer its loneliness.
  
  Yet, round the body of that joyless Thing
  Which sends so far its melancholy light,
  Perhaps are seated in domestic ring
  A gay society with faces bright,
  Conversing, reading, laughing;--or they sing,
  While hearts and voices in the song unite.

• "Daffodils" by William Wordsworth Visit William Wordsworth's Page Read Poem

  I wandered lonely as a cloud
  That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
  When all at once I saw a crowd,
  A host, of golden daffodils;
  Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
  Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
  
  Continuous as the stars that shine
  And twinkle on the milky way,
  They stretched in never-ending line
  Along the margin of a bay:
  Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
  Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
  
  The waves beside them danced; but they
  Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:
  A poet could not but be gay,
  In such a jocund company:
  I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
  What wealth the show to me had brought:
  For oft, when on my couch I lie
  In vacant or in pensive mood,
  They flash upon that inward eye
  Which is the bliss of solitude;
  And then my heart with pleasure fills,
  And dances with the daffodils.

• "To My Sister" by William Wordsworth Visit William Wordsworth's Page Read Poem

  IT is the first mild day of March:
  Each minute sweeter than before
  The redbreast sings from the tall larch
  That stands beside our door.
  
  There is a blessing in the air,
  Which seems a sense of joy to yield
  To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
  And grass in the green field.
  
  My sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
  Now that our morning meal is done,
  Make haste, your morning task resign;
  Come forth and feel the sun.
  
  Edward will come with you;--and, pray,
  Put on with speed your woodland dress;
  And bring no book: for this one day
  We'll give to idleness.
  
  No joyless forms shall regulate
  Our living calendar:
  We from to-day, my Friend, will date
  The opening of the year.
  
  Love, now a universal birth,
  From heart to heart is stealing,
  From earth to man, from man to earth:
  --It is the hour of feeling.
  
  One moment now may give us more
  Than years of toiling reason:
  Our minds shall drink at every pore
  The spirit of the season.
  
  Some silent laws our hearts will make,
  Which they shall long obey:
  We for the year to come may take
  Our temper from to-day.
  
  And from the blessed power that rolls
  About, below, above,
  We'll frame the measure of our souls:
  They shall be tuned to love.
  
  Then come, my Sister! come, I pray,
  With speed put on your woodland dress;
  And bring no book: for this one day
  We'll give to idleness.

• "She Was a Phantom of Delight" by William Wordsworth Visit William Wordsworth's Page Read Poem

  She was a Phantom of delight
  When first she gleamed upon my sight;
  A lovely Apparition, sent
  To be a moment's ornament;
  Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
  Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
  But all things else about her drawn
  From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
  A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
  To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.
  
  I saw her upon nearer view,
  A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
  Her household motions light and free,
  And steps of virgin-liberty;
  A countenance in which did meet
  Sweet records, promises as sweet;
  A Creature not too bright or good
  For human nature's daily food;
  For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
  Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
  
  And now I see with eye serene
  The very pulse of the machine;
  A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
  A Traveller between life and death;
  The reason firm, the temperate will,
  Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
  A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
  To warn, to comfort, and command;
  And yet a Spirit still, and bright
  With something of angelic light.

• ""And Is It Among Rude Untutored Dales"" by William Wordsworth Visit William Wordsworth's Page Read Poem

  AND is it among rude untutored Dales,
  There, and there only, that the heart is true?
  
  And, rising to repel or to subdue,
  Is it by rocks and woods that man prevails?
  
  Ah no! though Nature's dread protection fails,
  There is a bulwark in the soul.
  
  This knew
  Iberian Burghers when the sword they drew
  In Zaragoza, naked to the gales
  Of fiercely-breathing war.
  
  The truth was felt
  By Palafox, and many a brave compeer,
  Like him of noble birth and noble mind;
  By ladies, meek-eyed women without fear;
  And wanderers of the street, to whom is dealt
  The bread which without industry they find.

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