Ballade of an Omnibus

Related poetry:

1. Ballade to Our Lady of Czestochowa I Lady and Queen and Mystery manifold And very Regent of the untroubled sky, Whom in a dream St. Hilda did behold And heard a woodland music passing by: You shall receive me when the clouds are high With evening and the sheep attain the fold. This is the faith that I have held and […]...
2. Outside Fargo, North Dakota Along the sprawled body of the derailed Great Northern freight car, I strike a match slowly and lift it slowly. No wind. Beyond town, three heavy white horses Wade all the way to their shoulders In a silo shadow. Suddenly the freight car lurches. The door slams back, a man with a flashlight Calls me […]...
3. Ballade of a Special Edition He comes; I hear him up the street Bird of ill omen, flapping wide The pinion of a printed sheet, His hoarse note scares the eventide. Of slaughter, theft, and suicide He is the herald and the friend; Now he vociferates with pride A double murder in Mile End! A hanging to his soul is […]...
4. Ballade of Unfortunate Mammals Love is sharper than stones or sticks; Lone as the sea, and deeper blue; Loud in the night as a clock that ticks; Longer-lived than the Wandering Jew. Show me a love was done and through, Tell me a kiss escaped its debt! Son, to your death you’ll pay your due- Women and elephants never […]...
5. Epitaph In The Form Of A Ballade Freres humains qui apres nous vivez, N’ayez les coeurs contre nous endurcis… Men, brother men, that after us yet live, Let not your hearts too hard against us be; For if some pity of us poor men ye give, The sooner God shall take of you pity. Here are we five or six strung up, […]...
6. Is It Possible Is it possible That so high debate, So sharp, so sore, and of such rate, Should end so soon and was begun so late? Is it possible? Is it possible So cruel intent, So hasty heat and so soon spent, From love to hate, and thence for to relent? Is it possible? Is it possible […]...
7. Ballade De Marguerite (Normande) I am weary of lying within the chase When the knights are meeting in market-place. Nay, go not thou to the red-roofed town Lest the hoofs of the war-horse tread thee down. But I would not go where the Squires ride, I would only walk by my Lady’s side. Alack! and alack! thou art overbold, […]...
8. Ballade at Thirty-five This, no song of an ingénue, This, no ballad of innocence; This, the rhyme of a lady who Followed ever her natural bents. This, a solo of sapience, This, a chantey of sophistry, This, the sum of experiments, I loved them until they loved me. Decked in garments of sable hue, Daubed with ashes of […]...
9. Ballade To Our Lady WRITTEN FOR HIS MOTHER Dame du ciel, regents terrienne, Emperiere des infemaux palus…. Lady of Heaven and earth, and therewithal Crowned Empress of the nether clefts of Hell,- I, thy poor Christian, on thy name do call, Commending me to thee, with thee to dwell, Albeit in nought I be commendable. But all mine undeserving […]...
10. The Ballade Of The Automobile When our yacht sails seaward on steady keel And the wind is moist with breath of brine And our laughter tells of our perfect weal, We may carol the praises of ruby wine; But if, automobiling, my woes combine And fuel gives out in my road-machine And it’s sixteen miles to that home of mine […]...
11. Amoretti III: The Sovereign Beauty The sovereign beauty which I do admire, Witness the world how worthy to be praised: The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised; That being now with her huge brightness dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view; But looking still on her, I stand […]...
12. Sonnet XCII: Be Your Words Made Be your words made, good sir, of Indian ware, That you allow me them by so small rate? Or do you cutted Spartans imitate? Or do you mean my tender ears to spare, That to my questions you so total are? When I demand of Phœnix Stella’s state, You say, forsooth, you left her well […]...
13. Ballade Of A Great Weariness There’s little to have but the things I had, There’s little to bear but the things I bore. There’s nothing to carry and naught to add, And glory to Heaven, I paid the score. There’s little to do but I did before, There’s little to learn but the things I know; And this is the […]...
14. Ballade of Dead Actors Where are the passions they essayed, And where the tears they made to flow? Where the wild humours they portrayed For laughing worlds to see and know? Othello’s wrath and Juliet’s woe? Sir Peter’s whims and Timon’s gall? And Millamant and Romeo? Into the night go one and all. Where are the braveries, fresh or […]...
15. The Ballade Of The Mistletoe Bough I am standing under the mistletoe, And I smile, but no answering smile replies For her haughty glance bids me plainly know That not for me is the thing I prize; Instead, from her coldly scornful eyes, Indifference looks on my barefaced guile; She knows, of course, what my act implies- But look at those […]...
16. Double Ballade on the Nothingness of Things The big teetotum twirls, And epochs wax and wane As chance subsides or swirls; But of the loss and gain The sum is always plain. Read on the mighty pall, The weed of funeral That covers praise and blame, The – isms and the – anities, Magnificence and shame: “O Vanity of Vanities!” The Fates […]...
17. The Hayloft Through all the pleasant meadow-side The grass grew shoulder-high, Till the shining scythes went far and wide And cut it down to dry. Those green and sweetly smelling crops They led the waggons home; And they piled them here in mountain tops For mountaineers to roam. Here is Mount Clear, Mount Rusty-Nail, Mount Eagle and […]...
18. 270. Song-The Captain's Lady Chorus.-O mount and go, mount and make you ready, O mount and go, and be the Captain’s lady. WHEN the drums do beat, and the cannons rattle, Thou shalt sit in state, and see thy love in battle: When the drums do beat, and the cannons rattle, Thou shalt sit in state, and see thy […]...
19. UPON A DELAYING LADY Come, come away Or let me go; Must I here stay Because you’re slow, And will continue so; Troth, lady, no. I scorn to be A slave to state; And since I’m free, I will not wait, Henceforth at such a rate, For needy fate. If you desire My spark should glow, The peeping fire […]...
20. "Unto Me?" I do not know you “Unto Me?” I do not know you Where may be your House? “I am Jesus Late of Judea Now of Paradise” Wagons have you to convey me? This is far from Thence “Arms of Mine sufficient Phaeton Trust Omnipotence” I am spotted “I am Pardon” I am small “The Least Is esteemed in Heaven the […]...
21. The Future The future: time’s excuse To frighten us; too vast A project, too large a morsel For the heart’s mouth. Future, who won’t wait for you? Everyone is going there. It suffices you to deepen The absence that we are....
22. The Virtue Of Woman Man of virtue has need;-into life with boldness he plunges, Entering with fortune more sure into the hazardous strife; But to woman one virtue suffices; it is ever shining Lovingly forth to the heart; so let it shine to the eye!...
23. Addition I do not question whether I am happy or unhappy. Yet there is one thing that I keep gladly in mind That in the great addition (their addition that I abhor) That has so many numbers, I am not one Of the many units there. In the final sum I have not been calculated. And […]...
24. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
25. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
26. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
27. Three Quatrains I As long as Fame’s imperious music rings Will poets mock it with crowned words august; And haggard men will clamber to be kings As long as Glory weighs itself in dust. II Drink to the splendor of the unfulfilled, Nor shudder for the revels that are done: The wines that flushed Lucullus are all […]...
28. Man I Am and Man Would Be, Love Man I am and man would be, Love merest man and nothing more. Bid me seem no other! Eagles boast of pinions let them soar! I may put forth angel’s plumage, once unmanned, but not before. Now on earth to stand suffices, nay, if kneeling serves, to kneel: Here you front me, here I find […]...
29. To Mr. Blanchard, the Celebrated Aeronaut in America Nil mortalibus ardui est Caelum ipsum petimus stultitia Horace FROM Persian looms the silk he wove No Weaver meant should trail above The surface of the earth we tread, To deck the matron or the maid. But you ambitious, have design’d With silk to soar above mankind: On silk you hang your splendid car And […]...
30. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
31. Home, My Little Children, Hear Are Songs For You COME, my little children, here are songs for you; Some are short and some are long, and all, all are new. You must learn to sing them very small and clear, Very true to time and tune and pleasing to the ear. Mark the note that rises, mark the notes that fall, Mark the time […]...
32. Cruisers As our mother the Frigate, bepainted and fine, Made play for her bully the Ship of the Line; So we, her bold daughters by iron and fire, Accost and decoy to our masters’ desire. Now, pray you, consider what toils we endure, Night-walking wet sea-lanes, a guard and a lure; Since half of our trade […]...
33. Thou Blind Man's Mark Thou blind man’s mark, thou fool’s self chosen snare, Fond fancy’s scum, and dregs of scatter’d thought, Band of all evils, cradle of causeless care, Thou web of will, whose end is never wrought. Desire, desire I have too dearly bought, With price of mangled mind thy worthless ware, Too long, too long asleep thou […]...
34. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
35. Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride? Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my […]...
36. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
37. Praise (I) To write a verse or two is all the praise That I can raise: Mend my estate in any ways, Thou shalt have more. I go to Church; help me to wings, and I Will thither fly; Or, if I mount unto the sky, I will do more. Man is all weakness; there is no […]...
38. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
39. Sonnet XL MArk when she smiles with amiable cheare, And tell me whereto can ye lyken it: When on each eyelid sweetly doe appeare, An hundred Graces as in shade to sit. Lykest it seemeth in my simple wit Vnto the fayre sunshine in somers day: That when a dreadfull storme away is flit, Thrugh the broad […]...
40. SYMPHONY IN YELLOW An omnibus across the bridge Crawls like a yellow butterfly And, here and there, a passer-by Shows like a little restless midge. Big barges full of yellow hay Are moored against the shadowy wharf, And, like a yellow silken scarf, The thick fog hangs along the quay. The yellow leaves begin to fade And flutter […]...