Nocturne of the Wharves

Related poetry:

1. The North Ship Legend I saw three ships go sailing by, Over the sea, the lifting sea, And the wind rose in the morning sky, And one was rigged for a long journey. The first ship turned towards the west, Over the sea, the running sea, And by the wind was all possessed And carried to a rich […]...
2. Wind He shouts in the sails of the ships at sea, He steals the down from the honeybee, He makes the forest trees rustle and sing, He twirls my kite till it breaks its string. Laughing, dancing, sunny wind, Whistling, howling, rainy wind, North, South, East and West, Each is the wind I like the best. […]...
3. Nocturne Of Remembered Spring I. Moonlight silvers the tops of trees, Moonlight whitens the lilac shadowed wall And through the evening fall, Clearly, as if through enchanted seas, Footsteps passing, an infinite distance away, In another world and another day. Moonlight turns the purple lilacs blue, Moonlight leaves the fountain hoar and old, And the boughs of elms grow […]...
4. Nocturne Always I knew that it could not last (Gathering clouds, and the snowflakes flying), Now it is part of the golden past (Darkening skies, and the night-wind sighing); It is but cowardice to pretend. Cover with ashes our love’s cold crater- Always I’ve known that it had to end Sooner or later. Always I knew […]...
5. Nocturne Night comes, an angel stands Measuring out the time of stars, Still are the winds, and still the hours. It would be peace to lie Still in the still hours at the angel’s feet, Upon a star hung in a starry sky, But hearts another measure beat. Each body, wingless as it lies, Sends out […]...
6. I Have Loved Hours At Sea I have loved hours at sea, gray cities, The fragile secret of a flower, Music, the making of a poem That gave me heaven for an hour; First stars above a snowy hill, Voices of people kindly and wise, And the great look of love, long hidden, Found at last in meeting eyes. I have […]...
7. Nocturne III One night One night all full of murmurings, of perfumes and music of wings; One night In which fantastic fireflies burnt in the humid nuptial shadows, Slowly by my side, pressed altogether close, silent and pale, As if a presentiment of infinite bitternesses Agitated you unto the most hidden fibers of your being, Along the […]...
8. As I Walk These Broad, Majestic Days AS I walk these broad, majestic days of peace, (For the war, the struggle of blood finish’d, wherein, O terrific Ideal! Against vast odds, having gloriously won, Now thou stridest on-yet perhaps in time toward denser wars, Perhaps to engage in time in still more dreadful contests, dangers, Longer campaigns and crises, labors beyond all […]...
9. Last Answers I wrote a poem on the mist And a woman asked me what I meant by it. I had thought till then only of the beauty of the mist, how pearl and gray of it mix and reel, And change the drab shanties with lighted lamps at evening into points of mystery quivering with color. […]...
10. Nocturne In A Deserted Brickyard Stuff of the moon Runs on the lapping sand Out to the longest shadows. Under the curving willows, And round the creep of the wave line, Fluxions of yellow and dusk on the waters Make a wide dreaming pansy of an old pond in the night....
11. A March Day in London The east wind blows in the street to-day; The sky is blue, yet the town looks grey. ‘Tis the wind of ice, the wind of fire, Of cold despair and of hot desire, Which chills the flesh to aches and pains, And sends a fever through all the veins. From end to end, with aimless […]...
12. Voyages Pond snipe, bleached pine, rue weed, wart I walk by sedge and brown river rot To where the old lake boats went daily out. All the ships are gone, the gray wharf fallen In upon itself. Even the channel’s Grown over. Once we set sail here For Bob-Lo, the Brewery Isles, Cleveland. We would have […]...
13. Break, Break, Break Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me. O, well for the fisherman’s boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! O, well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay! And the […]...
14. Old Song Re-Sung I saw three ships a-sailing, A-sailing on the sea, The first her masts were silver, Her hull was ivory. The snows came drifting softly, And lined her white as wool; Oh, Jesus, Son of Mary, Thy Cradle beautiful! I saw three ships a-sailing, The next was red as blood, Her decks shone like a ruby, […]...
15. Sir Humphrey Gilbert Southward with fleet of ice Sailed the corsair Death; Wild and gast blew the blast, And the east-wind was his breath. His lordly ships of ice Glisten in the sun; On each side, like pennons wide, Flashing crystal streamlets run. His sails of white sea-mist Dripped with silver rain; But where he passed there were […]...
16. Bathed in War's Perfume BATHED in war’s perfume-delicate flag! (Should the days needing armies, needing fleets, come again,) O to hear you call the sailors and the soldiers! flag like a beautiful woman! O to hear the tramp, tramp, of a million answering men! O the ships they arm with joy! O to see you leap and beckon from […]...
17. The Tearful Tale Of Captain Dan A sinner was old Captain Dan; His wives guv him no rest: He had one wife to East Skiddaw And one to Skiddaw West. Now Ann Eliza was the name Of her at East Skiddaw; She was the most cantankerous Female you ever saw. I don’t know but one crosser-grained, And of this Captain Dan […]...
18. Baltic Fog Notes (Bergen)SEVEN days all fog, all mist, and the turbines pounding through high seas. I was a plaything, a rat’s neck in the teeth of a scuffling mastiff. Fog and fog and no stars, sun, moon. Then an afternoon in fjords, low-lying lands scrawled in granite languages on a gray sky, A night harbor, blue dusk […]...
19. Captain Orlando Killion Oh, you young radicals and dreamers, You dauntless fledglings Who pass by my headstone, Mock not its record of my captaincy in the army And my faith in God! They are not denials of each other. Go by reverently, and read with sober care How a great people, riding with defiant shouts The centaur of […]...
20. The Wind O, wind! what saw you in the South, In lilied meadows fair and far? I saw a lover kiss his lass New-won beneath the evening star. O, wind! what saw you in the West Of passing sweet that wooed your stay? I saw a mother kneeling by The cradle where her first-born lay. O, wind! […]...
21. Song of the Sea-Wind When the sun sets over the long blue wave I spring from my couch of rest, And I hurtle and boom over leagues of foam That toss in the weltering west, I pipe a hymn to the headlands high, My comrades forevermore, And I chase the tricksy curls of foam O’er the glimmering sandy shore. […]...
22. The Absence I speak to you across cities I speak to you across plains My mouth is upon your pillow Both faces of the walls come meeting My voice discovering you I speak to you of eternity O cities memories of cities Cities wrapped in our desires Cities come early cities come lately Cities strong and cities […]...
23. A Tall Man THE MOUTH of this man is a gaunt strong mouth. The head of this man is a gaunt strong head. The jaws of this man are bone of the Rocky Mountains, the Appalachians. The eyes of this man are chlorine of two sobbing oceans, Foam, salt, green, wind, the changing unknown. The neck of this […]...
24. The Message Wind of the gentle summer night, Dwell in the lilac tree, Sway the blossoms clustered light, Then blow over to me. Wind, you are sometimes strong and great, You frighten the ships at sea, Now come floating your delicate freight Out of the lilac tree, Wind you must waver a gossamer sail To ferry a […]...
25. Sea Fever I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking, And a gray mist on the sea’s face, and a gray dawn […]...
26. Rain Along Shore Wan white mists upon the sea, East wind harping mournfully All the sunken reefs along, Wail and heart-break in its song, But adown the placid bay Fisher-folk keep holiday. All the deeps beyond the bar Call and murmur from afar, ‘Plaining of a mighty woe Where the great ships come and go, But adown the […]...
27. A Way to Love God Here is the shadow of truth, for only the shadow is true. And the line where the incoming swell from the sunset Pacific First leans and staggers to break will tell all you need to know About submarine geography, and your father’s death rattle Provides all biographical data required for the Who’s Who of the […]...
28. Night Opens to the Storm Poem by Anne-Marie Derése, translated by Judith Skillman. Night opens to the storm, A mauve coupling, Swollen. The sky, laden Like a merchant ship, Throws off its anchor. Danger, heavier Each instant, Exudes the mugginess Of a greenhouse. Shimmering like mercury The Valley of the Seven Muses Breathes mist Through its gray nostrils. The valley […]...
29. Smoke I SIT in a chair and read the newspapers. Millions of men go to war, acres of them are buried, guns and ships broken, cities burned, villages sent up in smoke, and children where cows are killed off amid hoarse barbecues vanish like finger-rings of smoke in a north wind. I sit in a chair […]...
30. Exposure I Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us. . . Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent. . . Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient. . . Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous, But nothing happens. Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on […]...
31. The Ships that Won't Go Down We hear a great commotion ‘Bout the ship that comes to grief, That founders in mid-ocean, Or is driven on a reef; Because it’s cheap and brittle A score of sinners drown. But we hear but mighty little Of the ships that won’t go down. Here’s honour to the builders – The builders of the […]...
32. The Glory of Ships The glory of ships is an old, old song, Since the days when the sea-rovers ran In their open boats through the roaring surf, And the spread of the world began; The glory of ships is a light on the sea, And a star in the story of man. When Homer sang of the galleys […]...
33. Mist Forms THE SHEETS of night mist travel a long valley. I know why you came at sundown in a scarf mist. What was it we touched asking nothing and asking all? How many times can death come and pay back what we saw? In the oath of the sod, the lips that swore, In the oath […]...
34. The White Ships and the Red (For Alden March) With drooping sail and pennant That never a wind may reach, They float in sunless waters Beside a sunless beach. Their mighty masts and funnels Are white as driven snow, And with a pallid radiance Their ghostly bulwarks glow. Here is a Spanish galleon That once with gold was gay, Here is […]...
35. The Song of the Cities BOMBAY Royal and Dower-royal, I the Queen Fronting thy richest sea with richer hands A thousand mills roar through me where I glean All races from all lands. CALCUTTA Me the Sea-captain loved, the River built, Wealth sought and Kings adventured life to hold. Hail, England! I am Asia Power on silt, Death in my […]...
36. Bells Of Gray Crystal Bells of gray crystal Break on each bough The swans’ breath will mist all The cold airs now. Like tall pagodas Two people go, Trail their long codas Of talk through the snow. Lonely are these And lonely and I…. The clouds, gray Chinese geese Sleek through the sky....
37. Jugurtha How cold are thy baths, Apollo! Cried the African monarch, the splendid, As down to his death in the hollow Dark dungeons of Rome he descended, Uncrowned, unthroned, unattended; How cold are thy baths, Apollo! How cold are thy baths, Apollo! Cried the Poet, unknown, unbefriended, As the vision, that lured him to follow, With […]...
38. The Survivor Once more he sees his companions’ faces Livid in the first faint light, Gray with cement dust, Nebulous in the mist, Tinged with death in their uneasy sleep. At night, under the heavy burden Of their dreams, their jaws move, Chewing a non-existant turnip. ‘Stand back, leave me alone, submerged people, Go away. I haven’t […]...
39. O Captain! My Captain! 1 O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring: But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of […]...
40. Absence My shadow I woke to a wind swirling the curtains light and dark And the birds twittering on the roofs, I lay cold In the early light in my room high over London. What fear was it that made the wind sound like a fire So that I got up and looked out half-asleep At […]...