Beacons

Related poetry:

1. A Song On The Baths What Angel stirrs this happy Well, Some Muse from thence come shew’t me, One of those naked Graces tell That Angels are for beauty: The Lame themselves that enter here Come Angels out againe, And Bodies turne to Soules all cleere, All made for joy, noe payne. Heate never was so sweetely mett With moist […]...
2. Moments Of Vision That mirror Which makes of men a transparency, Who holds that mirror And bids us such a breast-bare spectacle see Of you and me? That mirror Whose magic penetrates like a dart, Who lifts that mirror And throws our mind back on us, and our heart, Until we start? That mirror Works well in these […]...
3. Idea XX: An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still, Wherewith, alas, I have been long possess’d, Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill, Nor gives me once but one poor minute’s rest. In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake; And when by means to drive it out I try, With greater torments […]...
4. Sonnet XX: An Evil Spirit An evil spirit, your beauty haunts me still, Wherewith, alas, I have been long possest, Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill, Nor gives me once but one poor minute’s rest; In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake, And when by means to drive it out I try, With greater torments […]...
5. Omens When daylight was yet sleeping under the pillow, And stars in the heavens still lingering shone, Young Kitty, all blushing, rose up from her pillow, The last time she e’er was to press it alone. For the youth whom she treasured her heart and her soul in Had promised to link the last tie before […]...
6. For A Favorite Granddaughter Never love a simple lad, Guard against a wise, Shun a timid youth and sad, Hide from haunted eyes. Never hold your heart in pain For an evil-doer; Never flip it down the lane To a gifted wooer. Never love a loving son, Nor a sheep astray; Gather up your skirts and run From a […]...
7. Life CHILDREN, ye have not lived, to you it seems Life is a lovely stalactite of dreams, Or carnival of careless joys that leap About your hearts like billows on the deep In flames of amber and of amethyst. Children, ye have not lived, ye but exist Till some resistless hour shall rise and move Your […]...
8. Before The World Was Made If I make the lashes dark And the eyes more bright And the lips more scarlet, Or ask if all be right From mirror after mirror, No vanity’s displayed: I’m looking for the face I had Before the world was made. What if I look upon a man As though on my beloved, And my […]...
9. From Victor Hugo Child, were I king, I’d yield my royal rule, My chariot, sceptre, vassal-service due, My crown, my porphyry-basined waters cool, My fleets, whereto the sea is but a pool, For a glance from you! Love, were I God, the earth and its heaving airs, Angels, the demons abject under me, Vast chaos with its teeming […]...
10. A Lady Who Thinks She Is Thirty Unwillingly Miranda wakes, Feels the sun with terror, One unwilling step she takes, Shuddering to the mirror. Miranda in Miranda’s sight Is old and gray and dirty; Twenty-nine she was last night; This morning she is thirty. Shining like the morning star, Like the twilight shining, Haunted by a calendar, Miranda is a-pining. Silly girl, […]...
11. A Nativity What woman hugs her infant there? Another star has shot an ear. What made the drapery glisten so? Not a man but Delacroix. What made the ceiling waterproof? Landor’s tarpaulin on the roof What brushes fly and moth aside? Irving and his plume of pride. What hurries out the knaye and dolt? Talma and his […]...
12. Morning (Love Sonnet XXVII) Naked you are simple as one of your hands; Smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round. You’ve moon-lines, apple pathways Naked you are slender as a naked grain of wheat. Naked you are blue as a night in Cuba; You’ve vines and stars in your hair. Naked you are spacious and yellow As summer in a golden […]...
13. To Ladies' Eyes To Ladies’ eyes a round, boy, We can’t refuse, we can’t refuse; Though bright eyes so abound, boy, ‘Tis hard to choose, ’tis hard to choose. For thick as stars that lighten Yon airy bowers, yon airy bowers, The countless eyes that brighten This earth of ours, this earth of ours. But fill the cup […]...
14. A Mysterious Naked Man A mysterious naked man has been reported On Cranston Avenue. The police are performing The usual ceremonies with coloured lights and sirens. Almost everyone is outdoors and strangers are conversing Excitedly As they do during disasters when their involvement is Peripheral. ‘What did he look like? ‘ the lieutenant is asking. ‘I don’t know, ‘ […]...
15. Locked Doors For the angels who inhabit this town, Although their shape constantly changes, Each night we leave some cold potatoes And a bowl of milk on the windowsill. Usually they inhabit heaven where, By the way, no tears are allowed. They push the moon around like A boiled yam. The Milky Way is their hen With […]...
16. With The Face With the face goes a mirror As with the mind a world. Likeness tells the doubting eye That strangeness is not strange. At an early hour and knowledge Identity not yet familiar Looks back upon itself from later, And seems itself. To-day seems now. With reality-to-be goes time. With the mind goes a world. Wit […]...
17. OBSTACLES A thousand visits to the supermarket A thousand acts of sexual intimacy Spread over forty years. Your essence was quite other A smile of absolute connection Repeated a thousand times. Your daily visits to the outside lavatory While I stood talking outside, An intimacy I have sought With no other. My greatest fear is that […]...
18. Ernest Hyde My mind was a mirror: It saw what it saw, it knew what it knew. In youth my mind was just a mirror In a rapidly flying car, Which catches and loses bits of the landscape. Then in time Great scratches were made on the mirror, Letting the outside world come in, And letting my […]...
19. Unde Malum Where does evil come from? It comes From man Always from man Only from man – Tadeusz Rozewicz Alas, dear Tadeusz, Good nature and wicked man Are romantic inventions You show us this way The depth of your optimism So let man exterminate His own species The innocent sunrise will illuminate A liberated flora and […]...
20. Drunk Too far away, oh love, I know, To save me from this haunted road, Whose lofty roses break and blow On a night-sky bent with a load Of lights: each solitary rose, Each arc-lamp golden does expose Ghost beyond ghost of a blossom, shows Night blenched with a thousand snows. Of hawthorn and of lilac […]...
21. Hymn 37 Christ’s intercession. Lift up your eyes to th’ heav’nly seats Where your Redeemer stays; Kind Intercessor, there he sits, And loves, and pleads, and prays. ‘Twas well, my soul, he died for thee, And shed his vital blood; Appeased stern justice on the tree, And then arose to God. Petitions now, and praise may rise, […]...
22. How I Walked Alone in the Jungles of Heaven Oh, once I walked in Heaven, all alone Upon the sacred cliffs above the sky. God and the angels, and the gleaming saints Had journeyed out into the stars to die. They had gone forth to win far citizens, Bought at great price, bring happiness for all: By such a harvest make a holier town […]...
23. A Song of the English Fair is our lot O goodly is our heritage! (Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth!) For the Lord our God Most High He hath made the deep as dry, He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the Earth! Yea, though we sinned and our rulers went […]...
24. Cleansings Walk here among the walking scepters. Learn Inhuman patience. Flesh can only cleave To bone this tightly if their hearts believe That G-d is good, and never mind the Urn. A lentil and a bean might plump their skin With mothers’ bounteous, soft-dimpled fat (and call it “health”), might quickly build again The muscles of […]...
25. 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 […]...
26. The Dead Heart After I wrote this, a friend scrawled on this page, “Yes.” And I said, merely to myself, “I wish it could be for a Different seizure as with Molly Bloom and her ‘and Yes I said yes I will Yes.” It is not a turtle Hiding in its little green shell. It is not a […]...
27. Good and Evil XXII And one of the elders of the city said, “Speak to us of Good and Evil.” And he answered: Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil. For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in […]...
28. The Mountain Sprite In yonder valley there dwelt, alone, A youth, whose moments had calmly flown, ‘Till spells came o’er him, and, day and night, He was haunted and watch’d by a Mountain Sprite. As once, by moonlight, he wander’d o’er The golden sands of that Island shore, A foot-print sparkled before his sight ‘Twas the fairy foot […]...
29. Four Days In Vermont Window’s tree trunk’s predominant face A single eye-leveled hole where limb’s torn off Another larger contorts to swell growing in around Imploding wound beside a clutch of thin twigs Hold to one two three four five six dry twisted Yellowish brown leaves flat against the other Gray trees in back stick upright then the glimpse […]...
30. An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, with Penetential Cries Salvation comes by Christ alone, The only Son of God; Redemption now to every one, That love his holy Word. Dear Jesus, we would fly to Thee, And leave off every Sin, Thy tender Mercy well agree; Salvation from our King. Salvation comes now from the Lord, Our victorious King. His holy Name be well […]...
31. An Apology for the Bottle Volcanic Sometimes I dip my pen and find the bottle full of fire, The salamanders flying forth I cannot but admire. It’s Etna, or Vesuvius, if those big things were small, And then ’tis but itself again, and does not smoke at all. And so my blood grows cold. I say, “The bottle held but ink, […]...
32. Graceland TOMB of a millionaire, A multi-millionaire, ladies and gentlemen, Place of the dead where they spend every year The usury of twenty-five thousand dollars For upkeep and flowers To keep fresh the memory of the dead. The merchant prince gone to dust Commanded in his written will Over the signed name of his last testament […]...
33. Read Your Fate A world’s disappearing. Little street, You were too narrow, Too much in the shade already. You had only one dog, One lone child. You hid your biggest mirror, Your undressed lovers. Someone carted them off In an open truck. They were still naked, travelling On their sofa Over a darkening plain, Some unknown Kansas or […]...
34. Annabel Lee It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of ANNABEL LEE; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. She was a child and I was a child, […]...
35. Lady At A Mirror As in sleeping-drink spices Softly she loosens in the liquid-clear Mirror her fatigued demeanor; And she puts her smile deep inside. And she waits while the liquid Rises from it; then she pours her hair Into the mirror, and, lifting one Wondrous shoulder from the evening gown, She drinks quietly from her image. She drinks […]...
36. New England Here where the wind is always north-north-east And children learn to walk on frozen toes, Wonder begets an envy of all those Who boil elsewhere with such a lyric yeast Of love that you will hear them at a feast Where demons would appeal for some repose, Still clamoring where the chalice overflows And crying […]...
37. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
38. Good and Bad Children Children, you are very little, And your bones are very brittle; If you would grow great and stately, You must try to walk sedately. You must still be bright and quiet, And content with simple diet; And remain, through all bewild’ring, Innocent and honest children. Happy hearts and happy faces, Happy play in grassy places […]...
39. Leda And The Swan A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. How can those terrified vague fingers push The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? And how can body, laid in that white […]...
40. Psalm 68 part 2 v.17,18 L. M. Christ’s ascension, and the gift of the Spirit. Lord, when thou didst ascend on high, Ten thousand angels filled the sky; Those heav’nly guards around thee wait, Like chariots that attend thy state. Not Sinai’s mountain could appear More glorious when the Lord was there; While he pronounced his dreadful law, And […]...