Baptism

Related poetry:

1. H. Baptism As he that sees a dark and shady grove, Stays not, but looks beyond it on the sky; So when I view my sins, mine eyes remove More backward still, and to that water fly, Which is above the heav’ns, whose spring and rest Is in my dear Redeemer’s pierced side. O blessed streams! either […]...
2. A Cruel Mistress We read of kings and gods that kindly took A pitcher fill’d with water from the brook ; But I have daily tender’d without thanks Rivers of tears that overflow their banks. A slaughter’d bull will appease angry Jove, A horse the Sun, a lamb the god of love, But she disdains the spotless sacrifice […]...
3. What the Coal-Heaver Said The moon’s an open furnace door Where all can see the blast, We shovel in our blackest griefs, Upon that grate are cast Our aching burdens, loves and fears And underneath them wait Paper and tar and pitch and pine Called strife and blood and hate. Out of it all there comes a flame, A […]...
4. H. Baptism II Since, Lord, to thee A narrow way and little gate Is all the passage, on my infancy Thou didst lay hold, and antedate My faith in me. O let me still Write thee great God, and me a child: Let me be soft and supple to thy will, Small to my self, to others mild, […]...
5. Sonnet IX Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye That thou consumest thyself in single life? Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die. The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife; The world will be thy widow and still weep That thou no form of thee hast left behind, When every private widow […]...
6. Sonnet 9: Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye, That thou consum’st thy self in single life? Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die, The world will wail thee like a makeless wife. The world will be thy widow and still weep, That thou no form of thee hast left behind, When every private […]...
7. The Angel I Dreamt a Dream! what can it mean? And that I was a maiden Queen: Guarded by an Angel mild; Witless woe, was neer beguil’d! And I wept both night and day And he wip’d my tears away And I wept both day and night And hid from him my hearts delight So he took […]...
8. Psalm 126 Surprising deliverance. When God restored our captive state, Joy was our song, and grace our theme; The grace beyond our hopes so great That joy appeared a painted dream. The scoffer owns thy hand, and pays Unwilling honors to thy name; While we with pleasure shout thy praise, With cheerful notes thy love proclaim. When […]...
9. 237. Song-It is na, Jean, thy Bonie Face IT is na, Jean, thy bonie face, Nor shape that I admire; Altho’ thy beauty and thy grace Might weel awauk desire. Something, in ilka part o’ thee, To praise, to love, I find, But dear as is thy form to me, Still dearer is thy mind. Nae mair ungenerous wish I hae, Nor stronger […]...
10. Hymn 134 Religion vain without love. 1 Cor. 13:1-3. Had I the tongues of Greeks and Jews, And nobler speech, that angels use, If love be absent, I am found, Like tinkling brass, an empty sound. Were I inspired to preach and tell All that is done in heav’n and hell; Or could my faith the world […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. Examination at the Womb-Door Who owns those scrawny little feet? Death. Who owns this bristly scorched-looking face? Death. Who owns these still-working lungs? Death. Who owns this utility coat of muscles? Death. Who owns these unspeakable guts? Death. Who owns these questionable brains? Death. All this messy blood? Death. These minimum-efficiency eyes? Death. This wicked little tongue? Death. This […]...
13. Psalm 47 Christ ascending and reigning. O for a shout of sacred joy To God the sovereign King! Let every land their tongues employ, And hymns of triumph sing. Jesus our God ascends on high, His heav’nly guards around Attend him rising through the sky, With trumpets’ joyful sound. While angels shout and praise their King, Let […]...
14. From "Vashti&quot WHAT thing shall be held up to woman’s beauty? Where are the bounds of it? Yea, what is all The world, but an awning scaffolded amid The waste perilous Eternity, to lodge This Heaven-wander’d princess, woman’s beauty? The East and West kneel down to thee, the North And South; and all for thee their shoulders […]...
15. 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 […]...
16. Fugue You see them vanish in their speeding cars, The many people hastening through the world, And wonder what they would have done before This time of time speed distance, random streams Of molecules hastened by what rising heat? Was there never a world where people just sat still? Yet they might be all of them […]...
17. Addiction What have I became in this false fantasy? Thriving on something sweet, submerging into another world. Without it I tumble transforming into nothing. I’m locked in a stalemate not capable to stir. Look closely through my eyes, as deep as the end of sight. See! My ailment and do your very best to repair. Save […]...
18. Marked with D When the chilled dough of his flesh went in an oven Not unlike those he fuelled all his life, I thought of his cataracts ablaze with Heaven And radiant with the sight of his dead wife, Light streaming from his mouth to shape her name, ‘not Florence and not Flo but always Florrie.’ I thought […]...
19. Codicil Schizophrenic, wrenched by two styles, One a hack’s hired prose, I earn Me exile. I trudge this sickle, moonlit beach for miles, Tan, burn To slough off This live of ocean that’s self-love. To change your language you must change your life. I cannot right old wrongs. Waves tire of horizon and return. Gulls screech […]...
20. The Tyger Tyger Tyger. burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye. Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews […]...
21. Lois Spears Here lies the body of Lois Spears, Born Lois Fluke, daughter of Willard Fluke, Wife of Cyrus Spears, Mother of Myrtle and Virgil Spears, Children with clear eyes and sound limbs (I was born blind) I was the happiest of women As wife, mother and housekeeper, Caring for my loved ones, And making my home […]...
22. The Conqueror Worm Lo! ’tis a gala night Within the lonesome latter years. An angel throng, bewinged, bedight In veils, and drowned in tears, Sit in a theatre to see A play of hopes and fears While the orchestra breathes fitfully The music of the spheres. Mimes, in the form of God on high, Mutter and mumble low, […]...
23. Fire-Caught The gold moth did not love him So, gorgeous, she flew away. But the gray moth circled the flame Until the break of day. And then, with wings like a dead desire, She fell, fire-caught, into the flame....
24. Sonnet XL: My Heart the Anvil My heart the anvil where my thoughts do beat; My words the hammers fashioning my desire; My breast the forge including all the heat; Love is the fuel which maintains the fire; My sighs the bellows which the flame increaseth, Filling mine ears with noise and nightly groaning; Toiling with pain, my labor never ceaseth, […]...
25. LINCOLN, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE WHEN the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour Greatening and darkening as it hurried on, She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down To make a man to meet the mortal need. She took the tried clay of the common road Clay warm yet with the genial heat of earth, Dashed through it all […]...
26. Enigma Some men are born to gather women’s tears, To give a harbour to their timorous fears, To take them as the dry earth takes the rain, As the dark wood the warm wind from the plain; Yet their own tears remain unshed, Their own tumultuous fears unsaid, And, seeming steadfast as the forest and the […]...
27. I Shall Not Burn I have done with love and lust, I reck not for gold or fame; I await familiar dust These frail fingers to reclaim: Not for me the tiger flame. Not for me the furnace glow, Rage of fire and ashen doom; To sweet earth my bones bestow Where above a lowly tomb January roses bloom. […]...
28. The Furious Gun The furious gun in his raging ire, When that the bowl is rammed in too sore And that the flame cannot part from the fire, Cracketh in sunder, and in the air doth roar The shivered pieces; right so doth my desire, Whose flame increaseth from more to more, Which to let out I dare […]...
29. The World is with Me The world is with me, and its many cares, Its woes its wants the anxious hopes and fears That wait on all terrestrial affairs The shades of former and of future years Forboding fancies and prophetic tears, Quelling a spirit that was once elate. Heavens! what a wilderness the world appears, Where youth, and mirth, […]...
30. George Meredith Forty years back, when much had place That since has perished out of mind, I heard that voice and saw that face. He spoke as one afoot will wind A morning horn ere men awake; His note was trenchant, turning kind. He was one of those whose wit can shake And riddle to the very […]...
31. Poetics I look for the way Things will turn Out spiralling from a center, The shape Things will take to come forth in So that the birch tree white Touched black at branches Will stand out Wind-glittering Totally its apparent self: I look for the forms Things want to come as From what black wells of […]...
32. 136. Prayer-O Thou Dread Power O THOU dread Power, who reign’st above, I know thou wilt me hear, When for this scene of peace and love, I make this prayer sincere. The hoary Sire-the mortal stroke, Long, long be pleas’d to spare; To bless this little filial flock, And show what good men are. She, who her lovely offspring eyes […]...
33. Submission O Lord, my best desire fulfil, And help me to resign Life, health, and comfort to Thy will, And make Thy pleasure mine. Why whould I shrink at Thy command, Whose love forbids my fears? Or tremble at the gracious hand That wipes away my tears? No, rather let me freely yield What most I […]...
34. The Temple Between us leapt a gold and scarlet flame. Into the hollow of the cupped, arched blue Of Heaven it rose. Its flickering tongues up-drew And vanished in the sunshine. How it came We guessed not, nor what thing could be its name. From each to each had sprung those sparks which flew Together into fire. […]...
35. An English Wood This valley wood is pledged To the set shape of things, And reasonably hedged: Here are no harpies fledged, No rocs may clap their wings, Nor gryphons wave their stings. Here, poised in quietude, Calm elementals brood On the set shape of things: They fend away alarms From this green wood. Here nothing is that […]...
36. Hymn 21 A vision of the kingdom of Christ among men. Rev. 21:1-4. Lo! what a glorious sight appears To our believing eyes! The earth and sea are passed away, And the old rolling skies. From the third heav’n, where God resides, That holy, happy place, The new Jerusalem comes down, Adorned with shining grace. Attending angels […]...
37. The Heap of Rags One night when I went down Thames’ side, in London Town, A heap of rags saw I, And sat me down close by. That thing could shout and bawl, But showed no face at all; When any steamer passed And blew a loud shrill blast, That heap of rags would sit And make a sound […]...
38. Shelley Knight-errant of the Never-ending Quest, And Minstrel of the Unfulfilled Desire; For ever tuning thy frail earthly lyre To some unearthly music, and possessed With painful passionate longing to invest The golden dream of Love’s immortal fire In mortal robes of beautiful attire, And fold perfection to thy throbbing breast! What wonder, Shelley, if the […]...
39. Sonnet I FROM fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty’s rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory: But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed’st thy light’st flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet […]...
40. To Tirzah Whate’er is Born of Mortal Birth, Must be consumed with the Earth To rise from Generation free: Then what have I to do with thee? The Sexes sprung from Shame & Pride Blowd in the morn; in evening died But Mercy changed Death into Sleep; The Sexes rose to work & weep. Thou Mother of […]...