The White City

Related poetry:

1. City of Ships CITY of ships! (O the black ships! O the fierce ships! O the beautiful, sharp-bow’d steam-ships and sail-ships!) City of the world! (for all races are here; All the lands of the earth make contributions here;) City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides! City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling […]...
2. City of Orgies CITY of orgies, walks and joys! City whom that I have lived and sung in your midst will one day make you illustrious, Not the pageants of you-not your shifting tableaux, your spectacles, repay me; Not the interminable rows of your houses-nor the ships at the wharves, Nor the processions in the streets, nor the […]...
3. The City In The Sea Lo! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest. There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!) Resemble nothing that is ours. Around, by […]...
4. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 06: Over the darkened city, the city of towers Over the darkened city, the city of towers, The city of a thousand gates, Over the gleaming terraced roofs, the huddled towers, Over a somnolent whisper of loves and hates, The slow wind flows, drearily streams and falls, With a mournful sound down rain-dark walls. On one side purples the lustrous dusk of the sea, […]...
5. Qua Cursum Ventus As ships, becalmed at eve, that lay With canvas drooping, side by side, Two towers of sail at dawn of day Are scarce long leagues apart descried; When fell the night, upsprung the breeze, And all the darkling hours they plied, Nor dreamt but each the selfsame seas By each was cleaving, side by side: […]...
6. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 08: The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city, Over the pale grey tumbled towers,- And settles among the roofs, the pale grey walls. Along damp sinuous streets it crawls, Curls like a dream among the motionless trees And seems to freeze. The fog slips ghostlike into a thousand rooms, Whirls over sleeping […]...
7. The City That Will Not Repent Climbing the heights of Berkeley Nightly I watch the West. There lies new San Francisco, Sea-maid in purple dressed, Wearing a dancer’s girdle All to inflame desire: Scorning her days of sackcloth, Scorning her cleansing fire. See, like a burning city Sets now the red sun’s dome. See, mystic firebrands sparkle There on each store […]...
8. Beautiful City Beautiful city Beautiful city, the centre and crater of European confusion, O you with your passionate shriek for the rights of an equal Humanity, How often your Re-volution has proven but E-volution Roll’d again back on itself in the tides of a civic insanity!...
9. The Alchemist in the City My window shews the travelling clouds, Leaves spent, new seasons, alter’d sky, The making and the melting crowds: The whole world passes; I stand by. They do not waste their meted hours, But men and masters plan and build: I see the crowning of their towers, And happy promises fulfill’d. And I – perhaps if […]...
10. Hymn of the City Not in the solitude Alone may man commune with heaven, or see Only in savage wood And sunny vale, the present Deity; Or only hear his voice Where the winds whisper and the waves rejoice. Even here do I behold Thy steps, Almighty! here, amidst the crowd, Through the great city rolled, With everlasting murmur […]...
11. The House Of Dust: Part 02: 01: The round red sun heaves darkly out of the sea The round red sun heaves darkly out of the sea. The walls and towers are warmed and gleam. Sounds go drowsily up from streets and wharves. The city stirs like one that is half in dream. And the mist flows up by dazzling walls and windows, Where one by one we wake and rise. We […]...
12. Docks STROLLING along By the teeming docks, I watch the ships put out. Black ships that heave and lunge And move like mastodons Arising from lethargic sleep. The fathomed harbor Calls them not nor dares Them to a strain of action, But outward, on and outward, Sounding low-reverberating calls, Shaggy in the half-lit distance, They pass […]...
13. Composed Upon Westminster Bridge Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky, […]...
14. The Rose Of Battle Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World! The tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled Above the tide of hours, trouble the air, And God’s bell buoyed to be the water’s care; While hushed from fear, or loud with hope, a band With blown, spray-dabbled hair gather at hand, Turn if you may from […]...
15. The face that launch'd a thousand ships Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies! Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips, And all is […]...
16. The Bag Of The Bee About the sweet bag of a bee Two cupids fell at odds, And whose the pretty prize should be They vowed to ask the gods. Which Venus hearing, thither came, And for their boldness stripped them, And, taking thence from each his flame, With rods of myrtle whipped them. Which done, to still their wanton […]...
17. The City's Love For one brief golden moment rare like wine, The gracious city swept across the line; Oblivious of the color of my skin, Forgetting that I was an alien guest, She bent to me, my hostile heart to win, Caught me in passion to her pillowy breast; The great, proud city, seized with a strange love, […]...
18. The Ships of Yule When I was just a little boy, Before I went to school, I had a fleet of forty sail I called the Ships of Yule; Of every rig, from rakish brig And gallant barkentine, To little Fundy fishing boats With gunwales painted green. They used to go on trading trips Around the world for me, […]...
19. The unquiet city we are succulents Our cool jade arms open Over clean tables our fine bone China minds pull the strings Of our tongues together we plait Our thoughts with the television Back through the aerials and Transmission towers prodding Through the literal fog The mechanics of which distance Does not startle us or the ears Pretend […]...
20. Wei City Song Wei City morning rain Dampens the light dust. By this inn, green, Newly green willows. I urge you to drink Another cup of wine; West of Yang Pass Are no old friends....
21. Once I Pass'd Through a Populous City ONCE I pass’d through a populous city, imprinting my brain, for future use, with its shows, architecture, customs, and traditions; Yet now, of all that city, I remember only a woman I casually met there, who detain’d me for love of me; Day by day and night by night we were together, All else has […]...
22. The Oxford Thrushes FEBRUARY, 1917 I never thought again to hear The Oxford thrushes singing clear, Amid the February rain, Their sweet, indomitable strain. A wintry vapor lightly spreads Among the trees, and round the beds Where daffodil and jonquil sleep, Only the snowdrop wakes to weep. It is not springtime yet. Alas, What dark, tempestuous days must […]...
23. So sweet love seemed that April morn So sweet love seemed that April morn, When first we kissed beside the thorn, So strangely sweet, it was not strange We thought that love could never change. But I can tell let truth be told That love will change in growing old; Though day by day is naught to see, So delicate his motions […]...
24. The Prohibition Take heed of loving me; At least remember I forbade it thee; Not that I shall repair my unthrifty waste Of breath and blood, upon thy sighs and tears, By being to thee then what to me thou wast; But so great joy our life at once outwears; Then, lest thy love by my death […]...
25. Roaming Cloud I am like a remnant of a cloud of autumn Uselessly roaming in the sky, O my sun ever-glorious! Thy touch has not yet melted my vapor, Making me one with thy light, And thus I count months and years separated from thee. If this be thy wish and if this be thy play, Then […]...
26. A Good Knight In Prison Wearily, drearily, Half the day long, Flap the great banners High over the stone; Strangely and eerily Sounds the wind’s song, Bending the banner-poles. While, all alone, Watching the loophole’s spark, Lie I, with life all dark, Feet tether’d, hands fetter’d Fast to the stone, The grim walls, square-letter’d With prison’d men’s groan. Still strain […]...
27. Sonnet: O City, City To live between terms, to live where death Has his loud picture in the subway ride, Being amid six million souls, their breath An empty song suppressed on every side, Where the sliding auto’s catastrophe Is a gust past the curb, where numb and high The office building rises to its tyranny, Is our anguished […]...
28. The City WHAT domination of what darkness dies this hour, And through what new, rejoicing, winged, ethereal power O’erthrown, the cells opened, the heart released from fear? Gay twilight and grave twilight pass. The stars appear O’er the prodigious, smouldering, dusky, city flare. The hanging gardens of Babylon were not more fair Than these blue flickering glades, […]...
29. City Trees The trees along this city street, Save for the traffic and the trains, Would make a sound as thin and sweet As trees in country lanes. And people standing in their shade Out of a shower, undoubtedly Would hear such music as is made Upon a country tree. Oh, little leaves that are so dumb […]...
30. The Ships of Saint John Where are the ships I used to know, That came to port on the Fundy tide Half a century ago, In beauty and stately pride? In they would come past the beacon light, With the sun on gleaming sail and spar, Folding their wings like birds in flight From countries strange and far. Schooner and […]...
31. Hate My enemy came nigh, And I Stared fiercely in his face. My lips went writhing back in a grimace, And stern I watched him with a narrow eye. Then, as I turned away, my enemy, That bitter heart and savage, said to me: “Some day, when this is past, When all the arrows that we […]...
32. Block City What are you able to build with your blocks? Castles and palaces, temples and docks. Rain may keep raining, and others go roam, But I can be happy and building at home. Let the sofa be mountains, the carpet be sea, There I’ll establish a city for me: A kirk and a mill and a […]...
33. The City Is A Garment A rhinestone skein, a jeweled brocade of light,- The city is a garment stretched so thin Her festive colors bleed into the night, And everywhere bright seams, unraveling, Now spill their brilliant contents out like coins On motorways and esplanades; bead cars Come tumbling down long highways; at her groin A railtrack like a zipper […]...
34. When the Assault Was Intended to the City Captain, or colonel, or knight in arms, Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize, If deed of honour did thee ever please, Guard them, and him within protect from harms. He can requite thee, for he knows the charms That call fame on such gentle acts as these, And he can spread thy name […]...
35. To One Who Has Been Long In City Pent To one who has been long in city pent, ‘Tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven, to breathe a prayer Full in the smile of the blue firmament. Who is more happy, when, with heart’s content, Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair Of wavy grass, and reads a […]...
36. It All Will Come Out Right Whatever is a cruel wrong, Whatever is unjust, The honest years that speed along Will trample in the dust. In restless youth I railed at fate With all my puny might, But now I know if I but wait It all will come out right. Though Vice may don the judge’s gown And play the […]...
37. Rest in Peace No more for you the city’s thorny ways, The ugly corners of the Negro belt; The miseries and pains of these harsh days By you will never, never again be felt. No more, if still you wander, will you meet With nights of unabating bitterness; They cannot reach you in your safe retreat, The city’s […]...
38. When Dawn Comes to the City The tired cars go grumbling by, The moaning, groaning cars, And the old milk carts go rumbling by Under the same dull stars. Out of the tenements, cold as stone, Dark figures start for work; I watch them sadly shuffle on, ‘Tis dawn, dawn in New York. But I would be on the island of […]...
39. My Lost Youth Often I think of the beautiful town That is seated by the sea; Often in thought go up and down The pleasant streets of that dear old town, And my youth comes back to me. And a verse of a Lapland song Is haunting my memory still: “A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And […]...
40. Sonnet 145: Those lips that Love's own hand did make Those lips that Love’s own hand did make Breathed forth the sound that said “I hate” To me that languished for her sake; But when she saw my woeful state, Straight in her heart did mercy come, Chiding that tongue that ever sweet Was used in giving gentle doom, And taught it thus anew to […]...