A Poem For the End of the Century

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1. Funny to be a Century Funny to be a Century And see the People going by I should die of the Oddity But then I’m not so staid as He He keeps His Secrets safely very Were He to tell extremely sorry This Bashful Globe of Ours would be So dainty of Publicity...
2. A Literature Lesson. Sir Patrick Spens in the Eighteenth Century Manner VERSE I In a famed town of Caledonia’s land, A prosperous port contiguous to the strand, A monarch feasted in right royal state; But care still dogs the pleasures of the Great, And well his faithful servants could surmise From his distracted looks and broken sighs That though the purple bowl was circling free, His […]...
3. Million Man March Poem The night has been long, The wound has been deep, The pit has been dark, And the walls have been steep. Under a dead blue sky on a distant beach, I was dragged by my braids just beyond your reach. Your hands were tied, your mouth was bound, You couldn’t even call out my name. […]...
4. Cotton Song Come, brother, come. Lets lift it; Come now, hewit! roll away! Shackles fall upon the Judgment Day But lets not wait for it. God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Cant blame God if we dont roll, Come, brother, roll, roll! Cotton bales are the fleecy way, Weary sinner’s bare feet […]...
5. Morning Poem Every morning The world Is created. Under the orange Sticks of the sun The heaped Ashes of the night Turn into leaves again And fasten themselves to the high branches – And the ponds appear Like black cloth On which are painted islands Of summer lilies. If it is your nature To be happy You […]...
6. At Lulworth Cove A Century Back Had I but lived a hundred years ago I might have gone, as I have gone this year, By Warmwell Cross on to a Cove I know, And Time have placed his finger on me there: “You see that man?” I might have looked, and said, “O yes: I see him. One that boat has […]...
7. Whats The Use Of A Title? They dont make it The beautiful die in flame – Sucide pills, rat poison, rope what – Ever… They rip their arms off, Throw themselves out of windows, They pull their eyes out of the sockets, Reject love Reject hate Reject, reject. They do’nt make it The beautiful can’t endure, They are butterflies They are […]...
8. Poem (Halleck monument dedication) SAY not the Poet dies! Though in the dust he lies, He cannot forfeit his melodious breath, Unsphered by envious death! Life drops the voiceless myriads from its roll; Their fate he cannot share, Who, in the enchanted air Sweet with the lingering strains that Echo stole, Has left his dearer self, the music of […]...
9. Weary Some praise the Lord for Light, The living spark; I thank God for the Night The healing dark. When wearily I lie, With aching sight, With what thanksgiving I Turn out the light! When to night’s drowsy deep Serene I sink, How glad am I to sleep, To cease to think! From care and fret […]...
10. Psalm 25 part 1 v.1-11 S. M. Waiting for pardon and direction. I Lift my soul to God, My trust is in his name: Let not my foes that seek my blood Still triumph in my shame. Sin, and the powers of hell, Persuade me to despair: Lord, make me know thy cov’nant well, That I may ‘scape the […]...
11. Poem in Prose This poem is for my wife. I have made it plainly and honestly: The mark is on it Like the burl on the knife. I have not made it for praise. She has no more need for praise Than summer has Or the bright days. In all that becomes a woman Her words and her […]...
12. Hymn 91 Advice to youth; or, Old age and death in an unconverted state. Eccl. 12:1,7; Isa. 45:20. Now in the heat of youthful blood Remember your Creator God: Behold, the months come hast’ning on, When you shall say, “My joys are gone!” Behold, the aged sinner goes, Laden with guilt and heavy woes, Down to the […]...
13. Landscape At The End Of The Century The sky in the trees, the trees mixed up With what’s left of heaven, nearby a patch Of daffodils rooted down Where dirt and stones comprise a kind Of night, unmetaphysical, cool as a skeptic’s Final sentence. What this scene needs Is a nude absentmindedly sunning herself On a large rock, thinks the man fed […]...
14. For The Twentieth Century Bound, hungry to pluck again from the thousand Technologies of ecstasy Boundlessness, the world that at a drop of water Rises without boundaries, I push the PLAY button:- …Callas, Laurel & Hardy, Szigeti You are alive again,- The slow movement of K.218 Once again no longer Bland, merely pretty, nearly Banal, as it is In […]...
15. I Live In The Twentieth Century I live in the Twentieth Century And you lie here beside me. You Were unhappy when you fell asleep. There was nothing I could do about It. I felt hopeless. Your face Is so beautiful that I cannot stop To describe it, and there’s nothing I can do to make you happy while You sleep....
16. Psalm 51 part 1 A penitent pleading for pardon. Show pity, Lord, O Lord, forgive, Let a repenting rebel live: Are not thy mercies large and free? May not a sinner trust in thee? My crimes are great, but not surpass The power and glory of thy grace: Great God, thy nature hath no bound, So let thy pard’ning […]...
17. Poem With Refrains The opening scene. The yellow, coal-fed fog Uncurling over the tainted city river, A young girl rowing and her anxious father Scavenging for corpses. Funeral meats. The clever Abandoned orphan. The great athletic killer Sulking in his tent. As though all stories began With someone dying. When her mother died, My mother refused to attend […]...
18. The Ball Poem What is the boy now, who has lost his ball, What, what is he to do? I saw it go Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then Merrily over-there it is in the water! No use to say ‘O there are other balls’: An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy As he stands rigid, trembling, […]...
19. OXFORD ANTHOLOGY OF TWENTIETH CENTURY POETRY&#039 To Simon Jenner NO ARMITAGE (I’d like to see his rage) NO DUHIG (one dig long overdue) NO GREENLAW (M & S might sue) NO IMLAH (ditto the TLS) NO CRICHTON SMITH or JAMIE (Tuma’s not haggis-crazy) NO CONSTANTINE (who’ll miss his donnish whine?) NO LONGLEY (the QMP tick didn’t do the trick) NO PORTER […]...
20. The City of Sleep “The Brushwood Boy” The Day’s Work Over the edge of the purple down, Where the single lamplight gleams, Know ye the road to the Merciful Town That is hard by the Sea of Dreams Where the poor may lay their wrongs away, And the sick may forget to weep? But we pity us! Oh, pity […]...
21. A Funeral Poem on the Death of C. E Through airy roads he wings his instant flight To purer regions of celestial light; Enlarg’d he sees unnumber’d systems roll, Beneath him sees the universal whole, Planets on planets run their destin’d round, And circling wonders fill the vast profound. Th’ ethereal now, and now th’ empyreal skies With growing splendors strike his wond’ring eyes: […]...
22. Lovest Thou Me? (John, xxi.16) Hark my soul! it is the Lord; ‘Tis Thy Saviour, hear His word; Jesus speaks and speaks to thee, “Say poor sinner, lovst thou me? “I deliver’d thee when bound, And when bleeding, heal’d thy wound; Sought thee wandering, set thee right, Turn’d thy darkness into light. “Can a woman’s tender care Cease […]...
23. Psalm 68 part 3 v.19,9,20-22 L. M. Praise for temporal blessings; or, Common and special mercies. We bless the Lord, the just, the good, Who fills our hearts with joy and food: Who pours his blessings from the skies, And loads our days with rich supplies. He sends the sun his circuit round, To cheer the fruits, to warm […]...
24. Le Gout du Néant Morne esprit, autrefois amoureux de la lutte, L’Espoir, dont l’éperon attisait ton ardeur, Ne veut plus t’enfourcher! Couche-toi sans pudeur, Vieux cheval dont le pied à chaque obstacle bute. Résigne-toi, mon coeur; dors ton sommeil de brute. Esprit vaincu, fourbu! Pour toi, vieux maraudeur, L’amour n’a plus de gout, non plus que la dispute; Adieu […]...
25. Love Poem My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases, At whose quick touch all glasses chip and ring, Whose palms are bulls in china, burs in linen, And have no cunning with any soft thing Except all ill-at-ease fidgeting people: The refugee uncertain at the door You make at home; deftly you steady The drunk clambering on […]...
26. Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry Relax. This won’t last long. Or if it does, or if the lines Make you sleepy or bored, Give in to sleep, turn on The T. V., deal the cards. This poem is built to withstand Such things. Its feelings Cannot be hurt. They exist Somewhere in the poet, And I am far away. Pick […]...
27. 130. Nature's Law: A Poem LET other heroes boast their scars, The marks of sturt and strife: And other poets sing of wars, The plagues of human life: Shame fa’ the fun, wi’ sword and gun To slap mankind like lumber! I sing his name, and nobler fame, Wha multiplies our number. Great Nature spoke, with air benign, “Go on, […]...
28. Poem On His Birthday In the mustardseed sun, By full tilt river and switchback sea Where the cormorants scud, In his house on stilts high among beaks And palavers of birds This sandgrain day in the bent bay’s grave He celebrates and spurns His driftwood thirty-fifth wind turned age; Herons spire and spear. Under and round him go Flounders, […]...
29. The Penitent I mourn with thee and yet rejoice That thou shouldst sorrow so; With Angel choirs I join my voice To bless the sinner’s woe. Though friends and kindred turn away And laugh thy grief to scorn, I hear the great Redeemer say ‘Blessed are ye that mourn’. Hold on thy course nor deem it strange […]...
30. Radio Poem You little box, held to me escaping So that your valves should not break Carried from house to house to ship from sail to train, So that my enemies might go on talking to me, Near my bed, to my pain The last thing at night, the first thing in the morning, Of their victories […]...
31. Bonnie Dundee in 1878 Oh, Bonnie Dundee! I will sing in thy praise A few but true simple lays, Regarding some of your beauties of the present day And virtually speaking, there’s none can them gainsay; There’s no other town I know of with you can compare For spinning mills and lasses fair, And for stately buildings there’s none […]...
32. Love Poem There is always something to be made of pain. Your mother knits. She turns out scarves in every shade of red. They were for Christmas, and they kept you warm While she married over and over, taking you Along. How could it work, When all those years she stored her widowed heart As though the […]...
33. The Mother Poem (two) I always wanted to give birth Do that incredible natural thing That women do-I nearly broke down When I heard we couldn’t And then my man said to me Well there’s always adoption (we didn’t have test tubes and the rest Then) and well even in the early sixties there was something Scandalous about adopting […]...
34. A Poem Upon The Death Of O. C That Providence which had so long the care Of Cromwell’s head, and numbred ev’ry hair, Now in its self (the Glass where all appears) Had seen the period of his golden Years: And thenceforth onely did attend to trace, What death might least so sair a Life deface. The People, which what most they fear […]...
35. Colonus' Praise (From Oedipus at Colonus) Chorus. Come praise Colonus’ horses, and come praise The wine-dark of the wood’s intricacies, The nightingale that deafens daylight there, If daylight ever visit where, Unvisited by tempest or by sun, Immortal ladies tread the ground Dizzy with harmonious sound, Semele’s lad a gay companion. And yonder in the gymnasts’ garden […]...
36. The Hand Throughout my life I see A guiding hand; The pitfalls set for me Were grimly planned. But always when and where They opened wide, Someone who seemed to care Stood by my side. When up the pathway dark I stumbled on, Afar, ahead a spark Of guidance shone. When forked the tragic trail And sad […]...
37. Poem Of Night 1 I move my hand over Slopes, falls, lumps of sight, Lashes barely able to be touched, Lips that give way so easily It’s a shock to feel underneath them The bones smile. Muffled a little, barely cloaked, Zygoma, maxillary, turbinate. 2 I put my hand On the side of your face, You lean your […]...
38. Hymn 94 Justification by faith, not by works. Rom. 3:19-22. Vain are the hopes the sons of men On their own works have built; Their hearts by nature all unclean, And all their actions guilt. Let Jew and Gentile stop their mouths Without a murm’ring word, And the whole race of Adam stand Guilty before the Lord. […]...
39. Psalm 32 Forgiveness of sins upon confession. O Blessed souls are they Whose sins are covered o’er! Divinely blest, to whom the Lord Imputes their guilt no more. They mourn their follies past, And keep their hearts with care; Their lips and lives, without deceit, Shall prove their faith sincere. While I concealed my guilt, I felt […]...
40. Web Intricate and untraceable Weaving and interweaving, Dark strand with light: Designed, beyond All spiderly contrivance, To link, not to entrap: Elation, grief, joy, contrition, entwined; Shaking, changing, Forever Forming, Transforming: All praise, All praise to the Great web....