Before you knew you owned it

Related poetry:

1. Modern Love I: By This He Knew She Wept By this he knew she wept with waking eyes: That, at his hand’s light quiver by her head, The strange low sobs that shook their common bed Were called into her with a sharp surprise, And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes, Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away […]...
2. All I may, if small All I may, if small, Do it not display Larger for the Totalness ‘Tis Economy To bestow a World And withhold a Star Utmost, is Munificence Less, tho’ larger, poor....
3. We knew not that we were to live We knew not that we were to live Nor when we are to die Our ignorance our cuirass is We wear Mortality As lightly as an Option Gown Till asked to take it off By his intrusion, God is known It is the same with Life...
4. If You Only Knew Far from me and like the stars, the sea and all the trappings of poetic myth, Far from me but here all the same without your knowing, Far from me and even more silent because I imagine you endlessly. Far from me, my lovely mirage and eternal dream, you cannot know. If you only knew. […]...
5. Come With Me, I Said, And No One Knew (VII) Come with me, I said, and no one knew Where, or how my pain throbbed, No carnations or barcaroles for me, Only a wound that love had opened. I said it again: Come with me, as if I were dying, And no one saw the moon that bled in my mouth Or the blood that […]...
6. I could suffice for Him, I knew I could suffice for Him, I knew He could suffice for Me Yet Hesitating Fractions Both Surveyed Infinity “Would I be Whole” He sudden broached My syllable rebelled ‘Twas face to face with Nature forced ‘Twas face to face with God Withdrew the Sun to Other Wests Withdrew the furthest Star Before Decision stooped to […]...
7. Apparently with no surprise Apparently with no surprise To any happy Flower The Frost beheads it at its play In accidental power The blonde Assassin passes on The Sun proceeds unmoved To measure off another Day For an Approving God....
8. Snowdrops Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know What despair is; then Winter should have meaning for you. I did not expect to survive, Earth suppressing me. I didn’t expect To waken again, to feel In damp earth my body Able to respond again, remembering After so long how to open again […]...
9. I Knew A Woman I knew a woman, lovely in her bones, When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them; Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one: The shapes a bright container can contain! Of her choice virtues only gods should speak, Or English poets who grew up on Greek (I’d have them sing […]...
10. The Soul selects her own Society The Soul selects her own Society Then shuts the Door To her divine Majority Present no more Unmoved she notes the Chariots pausing At her low Gate Unmoved an Emperor be kneeling Upon her Mat I’ve known her from an ample nation Choose One Then close the Valves of her attention Like Stone...
11. For largest Woman's Hearth I knew For largest Woman’s Hearth I knew ‘Tis little I can do And yet the largest Woman’s Heart Could hold an Arrow too And so, instructed by my own, I tenderer, turn Me to....
12. Light Is More Important Than The Lantern Light is more important than the lantern, The poem more important than the notebook, And the kiss more important than the lips. My letters to you Are greater and more important than both of us. The are the only documents Where people will discover Your beauty And my madness....
13. The IX Ode to Horace HORACE. While I was pleasing to your arms, Nor any youth, of happier charms, Thy snowy bosom blissful prest, Not Portia’s like me was blest. LYDIA. While for no other fair you burn’d, Nor Lydia was for Chloe scorn’d What maid was then so blest as thine? Not [xx’s] flame could equal mine. HORACE. Me […]...
14. A Precise Woman A precise woman with a short haircut brings order To my thoughts and my dresser drawers, Moves feelings around like furniture Into a new arrangement. A woman whose body is cinched at the waist and firmly divided Into upper and lower, With weather-forecast eyes Of shatterproof glass. Even her cries of passion follow a certain […]...
15. The Man Who Knew The Dreamer visioned Life as it might be, And from his dream forthright a picture grew, A painting all the people thronged to see, And joyed therein till came the Man Who Knew, Saying: “‘Tis bad! Why do ye gape, ye fools! He painteth not according to the schools.” The Dreamer probed Life’s mystery of […]...
16. I Knew A Man By Sight I knew a man by sight, A blameless wight, Who, for a year or more, Had daily passed my door, Yet converse none had had with him. I met him in a lane, Him and his cane, About three miles from home, Where I had chanced to roam, And volumes stared at him, and he […]...
17. Nature and God I neither knew Nature and God I neither knew Yet Both so well knew me They startled, like Executors Of My identity. Yet Neither told that I could learn My Secret as secure As Herschel’s private interest Or Mercury’s affair...
18. Sonnet 94: They that have power to hurt and will do none They that have power to hurt and will do none, That do not do the thing, they most do show, Who, moving others, are themselves as stone, Unmovèd, cold, and to temptation slow, They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces, And husband nature’s riches from expense; They are the lords and owners of their faces, Others, […]...
19. Sonnet XCIV They that have power to hurt and will do none, That do not do the thing they most do show, Who, moving others, are themselves as stone, Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow, They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces And husband nature’s riches from expense; They are the lords and owners of their faces, Others […]...
20. It knew no Medicine It knew no Medicine It was not Sickness then Nor any need of Surgery And therefore ’twas not Pain It moved away the Cheeks A Dimple at a time And left the Profile plainer And in the place of Bloom It left the little Tint That never had a Name You’ve seen it on a […]...
21. Now I knew I lost her Now I knew I lost her Not that she was gone But Remoteness travelled On her Face and Tongue. Alien, though adjoining As a Foreign Race Traversed she though pausing Latitudeless Place. Elements Unaltered Universe the same But Love’s transmigration Somehow this had come Henceforth to remember Nature took the Day I had paid so […]...
22. I groped for him before I knew I groped for him before I knew With solemn nameless need All other bounty sudden chaff For this foreshadowed Food Which others taste and spurn and sneer Though I within suppose That consecrated it could be The only Food that grows...
23. I knew that I had gained I knew that I had gained And yet I knew not how By Diminution it was not But Discipline unto A Rigor unrelieved Except by the Content Another bear its Duplicate In other Continent....
24. Before The World Was Made If I make the lashes dark And the eyes more bright And the lips more scarlet, Or ask if all be right From mirror after mirror, No vanity’s displayed: I’m looking for the face I had Before the world was made. What if I look upon a man As though on my beloved, And my […]...
25. Elijah's Wagon knew no thill Elijah’s Wagon knew no thill Was innocent of Wheel Elijah’s horses as unique As was his vehicle Elijah’s journey to portray Expire with him the skill Who justified Elijah In feats inscrutable...
26. It knew no lapse, nor Diminuation It knew no lapse, nor Diminuation But large serene Burned on until through Dissolution It failed from Men I could not deem these Planetary forces Annulled But suffered an Exchange of Territory Or World...
27. The most triumphant Bird I ever knew or met The most triumphant Bird I ever knew or met Embarked upon a twig today And till Dominion set I famish to behold so eminent a sight And sang for nothing scrutable But intimate Delight. Retired, and resumed his transitive Estate To what delicious Accident Does finest Glory fit!...
28. Once, I knew a fine song Once, I knew a fine song, It is true, believe me It was all of birds, And I held them in a basket; When I opened the wicket, Heavens! They all flew away. I cried, “Come back, little thoughts!” But they only laughed. They flew on Until they were as sand Thrown between me and […]...
29. Reason and Passion XV And the priestess spoke again and said: “Speak to us of Reason and Passion.” And he answered saying: Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite. Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and […]...
30. In Tempore Senectutis When I am old, And sadly steal apart, Into the dark and cold, Friend of my heart! Remember, if you can, Not him who lingers, but that other man, Who loved and sang, and had a beating heart, When I am old! When I am old, And all Love’s ancient fire Be tremulous and cold: […]...
31. Another Imitation Of Anacreon PRONE, on my couch I calmly slept Against my wont. A little child Awoke me as he gently crept And beat my door. A tempest wild Was raging-dark and cold the night. “Have pity on my naked plight,” He begged, “and ope thy door”. “Thy name?” I asked admitting him. “The same “Anon I’ll tell, […]...
32. Among the Multitude AMONG the men and women, the multitude, I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs, Acknowledging none else-not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any nearer than I am; Some are baffled-But that one is not-that one knows me. Ah, lover and perfect equal! I meant that you should discover me so, by […]...
33. From The Flats What heartache ne’er a hill! Inexorable, vapid, vague and chill The drear sand-levels drain my spirit low. With one poor word they tell me all they know; Whereat their stupid tongues, to tease my pain, Do drawl it o’er again and o’er again. They hurt my heart with griefs I cannot name: Always the same, […]...
34. Dunce Songs : 9 Love me little, love me long, Then we neither can be wrong: You in giving, I in taking; There is nor a heart breaking But remembers one touch, Or maybe seven, of too much. Love me more than halfway, though. Let me think, then let me know. And I promise you the same: A little […]...
35. Sonnet XXXVIII: Sitting Alone, Love Sitting alone, Love bids me go and write; Reason plucks back, commanding me to stay, Boasting that she doth still direct the way, Or else Love were unable to endite. Love, growing angry, vexed at the spleen And scorning Reason’s maimed argument, Straight taxeth Reason, wanting to invent, Where she with Love conversing hath not […]...
36. Show Biz I can’t have it And you can’t have it And we won’t Get it So don’t bet on it Or even think about It Just get out of bed Each morning Wash Shave Clothe Yourself And go out into It Because Outside of that All that’s left is Suicide and Madness So you just Can’t […]...
37. The Cold Heaven Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven That seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice, And thereupon imagination and heart were driven So wild that every casual thought of that and this Vanished, and left but memories, that should be out of season With the hot blood of youth, of […]...
38. As if a Phantom Caress'd Me AS if a phantom caress’d me, I thought I was not alone, walking here by the shore; But the one I thought was with me, as now I walk by the shore-the one I loved, that caress’d me, As I lean and look through the glimmering light-that one has utterly disappear’d, And those appear that […]...
39. Karma Christmas was in the air and all was well With him, but for a few confusing flaws In divers of God’s images. Because A friend of his would neither buy nor sell, Was he to answer for the axe that fell? He pondered; and the reason for it was, Partly, a slowly freezing Santa Claus […]...
40. The End Of The Trail Life, you’ve been mighty good to me, Yet here’s the end of the trail; No more mountain, moor and sea, No more saddle and sail. Waves a-leap in the laughing sun Call to me as of yore. . . . Alas! my errant days are done: I’ll rove no more, no more. Life, you’ve cheered […]...