THE GIFT

Related poetry:

1. One Perfect Rose A single flow’r he sent me, since we met. All tenderly his messenger he chose; Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet – One perfect rose. I knew the language of the floweret; ‘My fragile leaves,’ it said, ‘his heart enclose.’ Love long has taken for his amulet One perfect rose. Why is it no […]...
2. 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’. […]...
3. Sonnet XII: Now, O'er the Tesselated Pavement Now, o’er the tessellated pavement strew Fresh saffron, steep’d in essence of the rose, While down yon agate column gently flows A glitt’ring streamlet of ambrosial dew! My Phaon smiles! the rich carnation’s hue, On his flush’d cheek in conscious lustre glows, While o’er his breast enamour’d Venus throws Her starry mantle of celestial blue! […]...
4. Little Joke Stripping an almond tree in flower The wise apothecary’s skill A single drop of lethal power From perfect sweetness can distill From bitterness in efflorescence, With murderous poisons packed therein; The poet draws pellucid essence Pure as a drop of metheglin....
5. Love's Reason For that thy face is fair I love thee not; Nor yet because the light of thy brown eyes Hath gleams of wonder and of glad surprise, Like woodland streams that cross a sunlit spot: Nor for thy beauty, born without a blot, Most perfect when it shines through no disguise Pure as the star […]...
6. Stanzas Inscribed to Lady William Russell NATURE, to prove her heav’n-taught pow’r, That gems the earth, and paints the flow’r; That bids the soft enchanting note Steal from the LINNET’S downy throat; That from young MAY’S ambrosial wings, The balmy dew of HYBLA flings; With partial hand, each charm combin’d, To deck THY Form, and grace THY Mind. She gave her […]...
7. The Gift “He gave her class. She gave him sex.” Katharine Hepburn on Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers He gave her money. She gave him head. He gave her tips on “aggressive growth” mutual funds. She gave him a red rose and a little statue of eros. He gave her Genesis 2 (21-23). She gave him Genesis […]...
8. Life's Tragedy It may be misery not to sing at all, And to go silent through the brimming day; It may be misery never to be loved, But deeper griefs than these beset the way. To sing the perfect song, And by a half-tone lost the key, There the potent sorrow, there the grief, The pale, sad […]...
9. Petit, The Poet Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick, Tick, tick, tick, like mites in a quarrel Faint iambics that the full breeze wakens But the pine tree makes a symphony thereof. Triolets, villanelles, rondels, rondeaus, Ballades by the score with the same old thought: The snows and the roses of yesterday are vanished; And what […]...
10. Sonnet 54 Of this worlds theatre in which we stay, My love like the spectator ydly sits Beholding me that all the pageants play, Disguysing diversly my troubled wits. Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits, And mask in myrth lyke to a comedy: Soone after when my joy to sorrow flits, I waile and make my […]...
11. Humming-bird pie the paiute indians had the bird sussed A humming bird (loaded with seeds) set out To see beyond the sun – it aimed to be frugal Rationing itself to only one seed a day – even so It ran out long before it meant to It gave up (getting nowhere and seeing nothing) – All […]...
12. Sonnet LIIII OF this worlds Theatre in which we stay, My loue lyke the Spectator ydly sits Beholding me that all the pageants play, Disguysing diuersly my troubled wits. Sometimes I ioy when glad occasion sits, And mask in myrth lyke to a Comedy: Soone after when my ioy to sorrow flits, I waile and make my […]...
13. A NEW YEAR'S GIFT, SENT TO SIR SIMEON STEWARD No news of navies burnt at seas; No noise of late spawn’d tittyries; No closet plot or open vent, That frights men with a Parliament: No new device or late-found trick, To read by th’ stars the kingdom’s sick; No gin to catch the State, or wring The free-born nostril of the King, We send […]...
14. 'Tis easier to pity those when dead ‘Tis easier to pity those when dead That which pity previous Would have saved A Tragedy enacted Secures Applause That Tragedy enacting Too seldom does....
15. 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; […]...
16. Poseidonians The Poseidonians forgot the Greek language After so many centuries of mingling With Tyrrhenians, Latins, and other foreigners. The only thing surviving from their ancestors Was a Greek festival, with beautiful rites, With lyres and flutes, contests and wreaths. And it was their habit toward the festival’s end To tell each other about their ancient […]...
17. Snake I saw a young snake glide Out of the mottled shade And hang, limp on a stone: A thin mouth, and a tongue Stayed, in the still air. It turned; it drew away; Its shadow bent in half; It quickened and was gone I felt my slow blood warm. I longed to be that thing. […]...
18. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
19. The Gift of the Sea The dead child lay in the shroud, And the widow watched beside; And her mother slept, and the Channel swept The gale in the teeth of the tide. But the mother laughed at all. “I have lost my man in the sea, And the child is dead. Be still,” she said, “What more can ye […]...
20. The Gift I want to give you something, my child, for we are drifting in the Stream of the world. Our lives will be carried apart, and our love forgotten. But I am not so foolish as to hope that I could buy your heart With my gifts. Young is your life, your path long, and you […]...
21. The Gift I THOUGHT, beloved, to have brought to you A gift of quietness and ease and peace, Cooling your brow as with the mystic dew Dropping from twilight trees. Homeward I go not yet; the darkness grows; Not mine the voice to still with peace divine: From the first fount the stream of quiet flows Through […]...
22. Before This Little Gift Was Come BEFORE this little gift was come The little owner had made haste for home; And from the door of where the eternal dwell, Looked back on human things and smiled farewell. O may this grief remain the only one! O may our house be still a garrison Of smiling children, and for evermore The tune […]...
23. A Gift See! I give myself to you, Beloved! My words are little jars For you to take and put upon a shelf. Their shapes are quaint and beautiful, And they have many pleasant colours and lustres To recommend them. Also the scent from them fills the room With sweetness of flowers and crushed grasses. When I […]...
24. The Gift of God Blessed with a joy that only she Of all alive shall ever know, She wears a proud humility For what it was that willed it so – That her degree should be so great Among the favoured of the Lord That she may scarcely bear the weight Of her bewildering reward. As one apart, immune, […]...
25. A New Year's Gift We are prevented; you whose Presence is A Publick New-yeares gift, a Common bliss To all that Love or Feare, give no man leave To vie a Gift but first he shall receave; Like as the Persian Sun with golden Eies First shines upon the Priest and Sacrifice. Ile on howere; May this yeare happier […]...
26. Historion No man hath dared to write this thing as yet, And yet I know, how that the souls of all men great At times pass athrough us, And we are melted into them, and are not Save reflexions of their souls. Thus am I Dante for a space and am One Francois Villon, ballad-lord and […]...
27. Mothers Are a Special Gift Mothers are a special gift sent From God above, They bless us with their nurturing, And fill us with their love. They pick us up when we are down, And when we’re sad they know, They’re always there to lend a hand, And guide us as we go. And mothers are like special jewels That […]...
28. Sonnet 122: Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain Full charactered with lasting memory, Which shall above that idle rank remain Beyond all date even to eternity- Or at the least, so long as brain and heart Have faculty by nature to subsist; Till each to razed oblivion yield his part Of thee, thy record never […]...
29. The Soul of the City Receives the Gift of the Holy Spirit A BROADSIDE DISTRIBUTED IN SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS Censers are swinging, Over the town; Censers are swinging, Look overhead! Censers are swinging, Heaven comes down. City, dead city, Awake from the dead! Censers, tremendous, Gleam overhead. Wind-harps are ringing, Wind-harps unseen- Calling and calling:- “Wake from the dead. Rise, little city, Shine like a queen.” Soldiers of […]...
30. Walt Whitman The master-songs are ended, and the man That sang them is a name. And so is God A name; and so is love, and life, and death, And everything. But we, who are too blind To read what we have written, or what faith Has written for us, do not understand: We only blink, and […]...
31. Sonnet 11 XI A Book was writ of late call’d Tetrachordon; And wov’n close, both matter, form and stile; The Subject new: it walk’d the Town a while, Numbring good intellects; now seldom por’d on. Cries the stall-reader, bless us! what a word on A title page is this! and some in file Stand spelling fals, while […]...
32. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
33. HUDDERSFIELD – THE SECOND POETRY CAPITAL OF ENGLAND It brings to mind Swift leaving a fortune to Dublin ВЂ˜For the founding of a lunatic asylum – no place needs it more’. The breathing beauty of the moors and cheap accommodation Drew me but the total barbarity of the town stopped me from Writing a single line: from the hideous facade of its railway […]...
34. Childhood HOW I could see through and through you! So unconscious, tender, kind, More than ever was known to you Of the pure ways of your mind. We who long to rest from strife Labour sternly as a duty; But a magic in your life Charms, unknowing of its beauty. We are pools whose depths are […]...
35. 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 […]...
36. A few kind words A few kind words, what can be bought with that? In essence just a clique of tidy prose, A verb, a noun, perhaps an adjectival phrase Offered in the form of venal praise – and be surprised at what it buys. Like a fleeting smile it’s currency outweighs The simple form, a hint of urbane […]...
37. Platonic I knew it the first of the summer, I knew it the same at the end, That you and your love were plighted, But couldn’t you be my friend? Couldn’t we sit in the twilight, Couldn’t we walk on the shore With only a pleasant friendship To bind us, and nothing more? There was not […]...
38. Olmecs rule The news is out, down Veracruz they found the evidence, Olmecs had the written word 400 years before Sumerians. A Chinese claim predates all that, but let it rest. Examine what it means to Mesoamericans! Okay, you Spanish thinking converts to the English tongue, Reflect a while, your reaching back predates the sum Of everything […]...
39. Psalm 119 part 7 Imperfection of nature, and perfection of scripture. Ver. 96, paraphrased. Let all the heathen writers join To form one perfect book; Great God! if once compared with thine, How mean their writings look! Not the most perfect rules they gave Could show one sin forgiv’n, Nor lead a step beyond the grave; But thine conduct […]...
40. Slant Yesterday, for a long while, The early morning sunlight In the trees was sufficient, Replaced by a hello From a long-limbed woman Pedaling her bike, Whereupon the wind came up, Dispersing the mosquitoes. Blessings, all. I’d come so far, it seemed, Happily looking for so little. But then I saw a cow in a room […]...