THE COLOSSUS

Related poetry:

1. The Last Supper Marie Vaux of the Painted Lips, And the mouth so mocking gay, A wanton you to the finger-tips, Who break men’s hearts in play; A thing of dust I have striven for, Honour and manhood given for, Headlong to ruin driven for, And this is the last, you say. . . . Drinking your wine […]...
2. The New Colossus Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor […]...
3. The Naked And The Nude For me, the naked and the nude (By lexicographers construed As synonyms that should express The same deficiency of dress Or shelter) stand as wide apart As love from lies, or truth from art. Lovers without reproach will gaze On bodies naked and ablaze; The Hippocratic eye will see In nakedness, anatomy; And naked shines […]...
4. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
5. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
6. Candle Hat In most self-portraits it is the face that dominates: Cezanne is a pair of eyes swimming in brushstrokes, Van Gogh stares out of a halo of swirling darkness, Rembrant looks relieved as if he were taking a breather From painting The Blinding of Sampson. But in this one Goya stands well back from the mirror […]...
7. Autobiographical The lover in these poems Is me; The doctor, Love. He appears As husband, lover Analyst & muse, As father, son & maybe even God & surely death. All this is true. The man you turn to In the dark Is many men. This is an open secret Women share & yet agree to hide […]...
8. The Fisherman Although I can see him still. The freckled man who goes To a grey place on a hill In grey Connemara clothes At dawn to cast his flies, It’s long since I began To call up to the eyes This wise and simple man. All day I’d looked in the face What I had hoped […]...
9. Fields of Soria Hills of silver plate, Grey heights, dark red rocks Through which the Duero bends Its crossbow arc Round Soria, shadowed oaks, Stone dry-lands, naked mountains, White roads and river poplars, Twilights of Soria, warlike and mystical, Today I feel, for you, In my hearts depths, sadness, Sadness of love! Fields of Soria, Where it seems […]...
10. Forgiveness AT dusk the window panes grew grey; The wet world vanished in the gloom; The dim and silver end of day Scarce glimmered through the little room. And all my sins were told; I said Such things to her who knew not sin- The sharp ache throbbing in my head, The fever running high within. […]...
11. Exiles Her brown falcon perches above the sink As steaming water forks over my hands. Below the wrists they shrivel and turn pink. I am in exile in my own land. Her half-grown cats scuffle across the floor Trailing a slime of blood from where they fed. I lock the door. They claw under the door. […]...
12. AN ODE TO MY JAILED FRIEND Unmasked – The spirits’ face is a black hole Swallowing the celestial beauty Of the stars. Caged – The sentinel is crouched Subsumed in seething pain Not pain but anger of being guiltless Yet ‘guilty’ for being in jail. The cell – No crime equals its greasy grey walls Thickly dark with no grills for […]...
13. The Ragged Wood O hurry where by water among the trees The delicate-stepping stag and his lady sigh, When they have but looked upon their images – Would none had ever loved but you and I! Or have you heard that sliding silver-shoed Pale silver-proud queen-woman of the sky, When the sun looked out of his golden hood? […]...
14. When You Are Old When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But […]...
15. Old Boy Scout A bonny bird I found today Mired in a melt of tar; Its silky breast was silver-grey, Its wings were cinnabar. So still it lay right in the way Of every passing car. Yet as I gently sought to pry It loose, it glared at me; You would have thought its foe was I, It […]...
16. Belts There was a row in Silver Street that’s near to Dublin Quay, Between an Irish regiment an’ English cavalree; It started at Revelly an’ it lasted on till dark: The first man dropped at Harrison’s, the last forninst the Park. For it was: “Belts, belts, belts, an’ that’s one for you!” An’ it was “Belts, […]...
17. REVERSIBILITY ANGEL of gaiety, have you tasted grief? Shame and remorse and sobs and weary spite, And the vague terrors of the fearful night That crush the heart up like a crumpled leaf? Angel of gaiety, have you tasted grief? Angel of kindness, have you tasted hate? With hands clenched in the shade and tears of […]...
18. The Womb Up from the evil day Of wattle and of woad, Along man’s weary way Dark Pain has been the goad. Back from the age of stone, Within his brutish brain, What pleasure he has known Is ease from Pain. Behold in Pain the force That haled Man from the Pit, And set him such a […]...
19. A HOPE FOR POETRY: REMEMBERING THE SIXTIES There was a hope for poetry in the sixties And for education and society, teachers free To do as they wanted: I could and did teach Poetry and art all day and little else – That was my way. I threw rainbows against the classroom walls, Gold and silver dragons in the corridors and Halls; […]...
20. A Rusty Nail I ran a nail into my hand, The wound was hard to heal; So bitter was the pain to stand I thought how it would feel, To have spikes thrust through hands and feet, Impaled by hammer beat. Then hoisted on a cross of oak Against the sullen sky, With all about the jeering follk […]...
21. My Madonna I haled me a woman from the street, Shameless, but, oh, so fair! I bade her sit in the model’s seat And I painted her sitting there. I hid all trace of her heart unclean; I painted a babe at her breast; I painted her as she might have been If the Worst had been […]...
22. Mid-ocean in War-time (For My Mother) The fragile splendour of the level sea, The moon’s serene and silver-veiled face, Make of this vessel an enchanted place Full of white mirth and golden sorcery. Now, for a time, shall careless laughter be Blended with song, to lend song sweeter grace, And the old stars, in their unending race, Shall […]...
23. Only Dreams A maiden sat in teh sunset glow Of the shadowy, beautiful Long Ago, That we see through a mist of tears. She sat and dreamed, with lips apart, With thoughtful eyes and a beating heart, Of the mystical future years; And brighter far than the sunset skies Was the vision seen by the maiden’s eyes. […]...
24. The First Thrush Though leaves have fallen long since, The wagtails flirt and flit, Glad in the morning sun; While, on the knotted quince, The dewdrops, pearled on it, Bead to a little run. . . . Soft as a breathing air There came a lovely sound Out of the branches bare; So rich it was, and round, […]...
25. MY PERFECT ROSE At ten she came to me, three years ago, There was ‘something between us’ even then; Watching her write like Eliot every day, Turn prose into haiku in ten minutes flat, Write a poem in Greek three weeks from learning the alphabet; Then translate it as ‘Sun on a tomb, gold place, small sacred horse’. […]...
26. "Me thinks this heart…&quot Me thinks this heart should rest awhile So stilly round the evening falls The veiled sun sheds no parting smile Nor mirth nor music wakes my Halls I have sat lonely all the day Watching the drizzly mist descend And first conceal the hills in grey And then along the valleys wend And I have […]...
27. Day That I Have Loved Tenderly, day that I have loved, I close your eyes, And smooth your quiet brow, and fold your thin dead hands. The grey veils of the half-light deepen; colour dies. I bear you, a light burden, to the shrouded sands, Where lies your waiting boat, by wreaths of the sea’s making Mist-garlanded, with all grey […]...
28. Serenade (For Music) The western wind is blowing fair Across the dark AEgean sea, And at the secret marble stair My Tyrian galley waits for thee. Come down! the purple sail is spread, The watchman sleeps within the town, O leave thy lily-flowered bed, O Lady mine come down, come down! She will not come, I know her […]...
29. Grumpy Grandpa Grand-daughter of the Painted Nails, As if they had been dipped in gore, I’d like to set you lugging pails And make you scrub the kitchen floor. I’m old and crotchety of course, And on this point my patience fails; I’d sue my old girl for divorce If she showed up with painted nails. Grand-daughter […]...
30. THE SWISS ALPS YESTERDAY brown was still thy head, as the locks Of my loved one, Whose sweet image so dear silently beckons afar. Silver-grey is the early snow to-day on thy summit, Through the tempestuous night streaming fast over Thy brow. Youth, alas, throughout life as closely to age is united As, in some changeable dream, yesterday […]...
31. Waikiki Warm perfumes like a breath from vine and tree Drift down the darkness. Plangent, hidden from eyes Somewhere an ‘eukaleli’ thrills and cries And stabs with pain the night’s brown savagery. And dark scents whisper; and dim waves creep to me, Gleam like a woman’s hair, stretch out, and rise; And new stars burn into […]...
32. Sonnet XVI: In Nature Apt In nature apt to like when I did see Beauties, which were of many carats fine, My boiling sprites did thither soon incline, And, Love, I thought that I was full of thee: But finding not those restless flames in me, Which others said did make their souls to pine, I thought those babes of […]...
33. Just Think! Just think! some night the stars will gleam Upon a cold, grey stone, And trace a name with silver beam, And lo! ’twill be your own. That night is speeding on to greet Your epitaphic rhyme. Your life is but a little beat Within the heart of Time. A little gain, a little pain, A […]...
34. The Voice Safe in the magic of my woods I lay, and watched the dying light. Faint in the pale high solitudes, And washed with rain and veiled by night, Silver and blue and green were showing. And the dark woods grew darker still; And birds were hushed; and peace was growing; And quietness crept up the […]...
35. Summer Colours Long curls Lightest blond Like silver and gold In the saffron sun Summer dresses Cool white Show lots of skin Golden brown Painted toenails Fierce red In summer shoes Walk by And catch eyes Green and blue Behind black shades Against the gleam...
36. A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnight They mouth love’s language. Gnash The thirteen teeth Your lean jaws grin with. Lash Your itch and quailing, nude greed of the flesh. Love’s breath in you is stale, worded or sung, As sour as cat’s breath, Harsh of tongue. This grey that stares Lies not, stark skin and bone. Leave greasy lips their kissing. […]...
37. Fading All in the beautiful Autumn weather One thought lingers with me and stays; Death and winter are coming together, Though both are veiled by the amber haze I look on the forest of royal splendour! I look on the face in my quiet room; A face all beautiful, sad and tender, And both are stamped […]...
38. Silver Slowly, silently, now the moon Walks the night in her silver shoon; This way, and that, she peers, and sees Silver fruit upon silver trees; One by one the casements catch Her beams beneath the silvery thatch; Couched in his kennel, like a log, With paws of silver sleeps the dog; From their shadowy cote […]...
39. Endymion The rising moon has hid the stars; Her level rays, like golden bars, Lie on the landscape green, With shadows brown between. And silver white the river gleams, As if Diana, in her dreams, Had dropt her silver bow Upon the meadows low. On such a tranquil night as this, She woke Endymion with a […]...
40. The British Church I joy, dear mother, when I view Thy perfect lineaments, and hue Both sweet and bright. Beauty in thee takes up her place, And dates her letters from thy face, When she doth write. A fine aspect in fit array, Neither too mean nor yet too gay, Shows who is best. Outlandish looks may not […]...