Obligation

Related poetry:

1. Share of obligation If the debate rages in the pages of the news today Then I’m confused, I’ve searched and found no evidence. Perhaps the anger of some residents about a Catholic school That’s due to close because its roll has fallen lower Than the threshold for support is not the sort of news that sells. That only […]...
2. 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 […]...
3. "It Might Have Been&quot We will be what we could be. Do not say, “It might have been, had not this, or that, or this.” No fate can keep us from the chosen way; He only might who is. We will do what we could do. Do not dream Chance leaves a hero, all uncrowned to grieve. I hold, […]...
4. Hymn 135 The love of Christ shed abroad in the heart. Eph. 3:16ff. Come, dearest Lord, descend and dwell By faith and love in every breast; Then shall we know, and taste, and feel The joys that cannot be expressed. Come, fill our hearts with inward strength, Make our enlarged souls possess, And learn the height, and […]...
5. Of That So Sweet Imprisonment Of that so sweet imprisonment My soul, dearest, is fain – Soft arms that woo me to relent And woo me to detain. Ah, could they ever hold me there Gladly were I a prisoner! Dearest, through interwoven arms By love made tremulous, That night allures me where alarms Nowise may trouble us; But lseep […]...
6. It sounded as if the Streets were running It sounded as if the Streets were running And then the Streets stood still Eclipse was all we could see at the Window And Awe was all we could feel. By and by the boldest stole out of his Covert To see if Time was there Nature was in an Opal Apron, Mixing fresher Air....
7. Growing Old What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? Yes, but not for this alone. Is it to feel our strength – Not our bloom only, but our strength-decay? Is it to feel each limb Grow […]...
8. Cups of Coffee THE HAGGARD woman with a hacking cough and a deathless love whispers of white Flowers… in your poem you pour like a cup of coffee, Gabriel. The slim girl whose voice was lost in the waves of flesh piled on her bones… and The woman who sold to many men and saw her breasts shrivel… […]...
9. The Sunken Crown Nothing will hold him longer-let him go; Let him go down where others have gone down; Little he cares whether we smile or frown, Or if we know, or if we think we know. The call is on him for his overthrow, Say we; so let him rise, or let him drown. Poor fool! He […]...
10. Pardon Poem by Anne-Marie Derése. Pardon si j’ai ri Dans vos chapelles, Pardon si j’ai claquè La porte de l’hЩpital, Pardon pour le bruit, Pour la vie, Pour l’amour auquel Je n’avais pas droit. Pardon de ne pas vous ressembler....
11. Are you Loving Enough? Are you loving enough? There is some one dear, Some one you hold as the dearest of all In the holiest shrine of your heart. Are you making it known? Is the truth of it clear To the one you love? If death’s quick call Should suddenly tear you apart, Leaving no time for a […]...
12. A Brand New Life 1/ My dearest child, my dearest love Come to Ayah, who has just come My dearest star, my brightest sun Your loudest cries, my sweetest songs Your merry laughter, my constant prayer My dearest child, whenever you come Be you a son, be you a daughter Ayah’s been waiting here at home In quiet moments […]...
13. Sailor's Sweetheart He sleeps beside me in the bed; Upon my breast I hold his head; Oh how I would that we were wed, For he sails in the morning. I wish I had not been so kind; But love is fain and passion blind, While out of sight is out of mind, And he ships in […]...
14. An Ancient Gesture I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron: Penelope did this too. And more than once: you can’t keep weaving all day And undoing it all through the night; Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight; And along towards morning, when you think it will […]...
15. 530. Song-Yonder pomp of costly fashion MARK yonder pomp of costly fashion Round the wealthy, titled bride: But when compar’d with real passion, Poor is all that princely pride. Mark yonder, &c. (four lines repeated). What are the showy treasures, What are the noisy pleasures? The gay, gaudy glare of vanity and art: The polish’d jewels’ blaze May draw the wond’ring […]...
16. Call To Account! The drum of war thunders and thunders. It calls: thrust iron into the living. From every country Slave after slave Are thrown onto bayonet steel. For the sake of what? The earth shivers Hungry And stripped. Mankind is vapourised in a blood bath Only so Someone Somewhere Can get hold of Albania. Human gangs bound […]...
17. Noon I bend to the ground To catch Something whispered, Urgent, drifting Across the ditches. The heaviness of Flies stuttering In orbit, dirt Ripening, the sweat Of eggs. There are Small streams The width ofa thumb Running in the villages Of sheaves, whole Eras of grain Wakening on The stalks, a roof That breathes over My […]...
18. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
19. Prayer XXIII Then a priestess said, “Speak to us of Prayer.” And he answered, saying: You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance. For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether? And if […]...
20. 'Out, Out &#039 The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it. And from there those that lifted eyes could count Five mountain ranges one behind the other Under the sunset far into Vermont. And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and […]...
21. A Culinary Puzzle In our dainty little kitchen, Where my aproned wife is queen Over all the tin-pan people, In a realm exceeding clean, Oft I like to loiter, watching While she mixes things for tea; And she tasks me, slyly smiling, “Now just guess what this will be!” Hidden in a big blue apron, Her dimpled arms […]...
22. Stupidity Dearest, forgive that with my clumsy touch I broke and bruised your rose. I hardly could suppose It were a thing so fragile that my clutch Could kill it, thus. It stood so proudly up upon its stem, I knew no thought of fear, And coming very near Fell, overbalanced, to your garment’s hem, Tearing […]...
23. The Giver of Stars Hold your soul open for my welcoming. Let the quiet of your spirit bathe me With its clear and rippled coolness, That, loose-limbed and weary, I find rest, Outstretched upon your peace, as on a bed of ivory. Let the flickering flame of your soul play all about me, That into my limbs may come […]...
24. To Delia: On Her Endeavouring To Conceal Her Grief At Parting Ah! wherefore should my weeping maid suppress Those gentle signs of undissembled woe? When from soft love proceeds the deep distress, Ah, why forbid the willing tears to flow? Since for my sake each dear translucent drop Breaks forth, best witness of thy truth sincere, My lips should drink the precious mixture up, And, ere […]...
25. 231. Epistle to Robert Graham, Esq., of Fintry WHEN Nature her great master-piece design’d, And fram’d her last, best work, the human mind, Her eye intent on all the mazy plan, She form’d of various parts the various Man. Then first she calls the useful many forth; Plain plodding Industry, and sober Worth: Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth, And merchandise’ whole […]...
26. God's Judgment on a Wicked Bishop The summer and autumn had been so wet, That in winter the corn was growing yet, ‘Twas a piteous sight to see all around The grain lie rotting on the ground. Every day the starving poor Crowded around Bishop Hatto’s door, For he had a plentiful last-year’s store, And all the neighbourhood could tell His […]...
27. From Citron-Bower From citron-bower be her bed, Cut from branch of tree a-flower, Fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, Cut the width of board and lathe, Carve the feet from myrtle-wood. Let the palings of her bed Be quince and box-wood overlaid With the scented bark of yew. That all the wood in […]...
28. The Virgin Mother My little love, my darling, You were a doorway to me; You let me out of the confines Into this strange countrie, Where people are crowded like thistles, Yet are shapely and comely to see. My little love, my dearest Twice have you issued me, Once from your womb, sweet mother, Once from myself, to […]...
29. Vintage I will mix me a drink of stars, Large stars with polychrome needles, Small stars jetting maroon and crimson, Cool, quiet, green stars. I will tear them out of the sky, And squeeze them over an old silver cup, And I will pour the cold scorn of my Beloved into it, So that my drink […]...
30. 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...
31. A Tale of Christmas Eve ‘Twas Christmastide in Germany, And in the year of 1850, And in the city of Berlin, which is most beautiful to the eye; A poor boy was heard calling out to passers-by. “Who’ll buy my pretty figures,” loudly he did cry, Plaster of Paris figures, but no one inclined to buy; His clothes were thin […]...
32. From the Bush The Channel fog has lifted – And see where we have come! Round all the world we’ve drifted, A hundred years from “home”. The fields our parents longed for – Ah! we shall ne’er know how – The wealth that they were wronged for We’ll see as strangers now! The Dover cliffs have passed on […]...
33. 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...
34. Affinity YOU and I have found the secret way, None can bar our love or say us nay: All the world may stare and never know You and I are twined together so. You and I for all his vaunted width Know the giant Space is but a myth; Over miles and miles of pure deceit […]...
35. Sonnet VI: Is It to Love Is it to love, to fix the tender gaze, To hide the timid blush, and steal away; To shun the busy world, and waste the day In some rude mountain’s solitary maze? Is it to chant one name in ceaseless lays, To hear no words that other tongues can say, To watch the pale moon’s […]...
36. The Germ A mighty creature is the germ, Though smaller than the pachyderm. His customary dwelling place Is deep within the human race. His childish pride he often pleases By giving people strange diseases. Do you, my poppet, feel infirm? You probably contain a germ....
37. Sonnet 39 – Because thou hast the power and own'st the grace Because thou hast the power and own’st the grace To look through and behind this mask of me (Against which years have beat thus blanchingly With their rains), and behold my soul’s true face, The dim and weary witness of life’s race,- Because thou hast the faith and love to see, Through that same soul’s […]...
38. Primitive I have heard about the civilized, The marriages run on talk, elegant and honest, rational. But you and I are Savages. You come in with a bag, Hold it out to me in silence. I know Moo Shu Pork when I smell it And understand the message: I have Pleased you greatly last night. We […]...
39. The Happiest Day, The Happiest Hour The happiest day – the happiest hour My sear’d and blighted heart hath known, The highest hope of pride and power, I feel hath flown. Of power! said I? yes! such I ween; But they have vanish’d long, alas! The visions of my youth have been- But let them pass. And, pride, what have I […]...
40. 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 […]...