Celebration

Related poetry:

1. A Celebration A middle-northern March, now as always – Gusts from the South broken against cold winds – But from under, as if a slow hand lifted a tide, It moves-not into April-into a second March, The old skin of wind-clear scales dropping Upon the mold: this is the shadow projects the tree Upward causing the sun […]...
2. 215. Song-Hey, the Dusty Miller HEY, the dusty Miller, And his dusty coat, He will win a shilling, Or he spend a groat: Dusty was the coat, Dusty was the colour, Dusty was the kiss That I gat frae the Miller. Hey, the dusty Miller, And his dusty sack; Leeze me on the calling Fills the dusty peck: Fills the […]...
3. Three Balls JABOWSKY’S place is on a side street and only the rain washes the dusty three balls. When I passed the window a month ago, there rested in proud isolation: A family bible with hasps of brass twisted off, a wooden clock with pendulum gone, And a porcelain crucifix with the glaze nicked where the left […]...
4. A Song before Sailing Wind of the dead men’s feet, Blow down the empty street Of this old city by the sea With news for me! Blow me beyond the grime And pestilence of time! I am too sick at heart to war With failure any more. Thy chill is in my bones; The moonlight on the stones Is […]...
5. Leaning Into The Afternoons Leaning into the afternoons, I cast my sad nets towards your oceanic eyes. There, in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames; Its arms turning like a drowning man’s. I send out red signals across your absent eyes That wave like the sea, or the beach by a lighthouse. You keep only darkness my […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. A Celebration of Charis: IV. Her Triumph See the chariot at hand here of Love, Wherein my lady rideth! Each that draws is a swan or a dove, And well the car Love guideth. As she goes, all hearts do duty Unto her beauty; And enamour’d, do wish, so they might But enjoy such a sight, That they still were to run […]...
8. For the Moore Centennial Celebration I ENCHANTER of Erin, whose magic has bound us, Thy wand for one moment we fondly would claim, Entranced while it summons the phantoms around us That blush into life at the sound of thy name. The tell-tales of memory wake from their slumbers, I hear the old song with its tender refrain, What passion […]...
9. A Celebration of Charis: I. His Excuse for Loving Let it not your wonder move, Less your laughter, that I love. Though I now write fifty years, I have had, and have, my peers; Poets, though divine, are men, Some have lov’d as old again. And it is not always face, Clothes, or fortune, gives the grace; Or the feature, or the youth. But […]...
10. Poem (The spirit likes to dress up…) The spirit likes to dress up like this: ten fingers, ten toes, Shoulders, and all the rest at night in the black branches, in the morning In the blue branches of the world. It could float, of course, but would rather Plumb rough matter. Airy and shapeless thing, it needs the metaphor of the body, […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. Travel I should like to rise and go Where the golden apples grow; Where below another sky Parrot islands anchored lie, And, watched by cockatoos and goats, Lonely Crusoes building boats; Where in sunshine reaching out Eastern cities, miles about, Are with mosque and minaret Among sandy gardens set, And the rich goods from near and […]...
13. Minerva Jones I am Minerva, the village poetess, Hooted at, jeered at by the Yahoos of the street For my heavy body, cock-eye, and rolling walk, And all the more when “Butch” Weldy Captured me after a brutal hunt. He left me to my fate with Doctor Meyers; And I sank into death, growing numb from the […]...
14. A Fire-Truck Right down the shocked street with a siren-blast That sends all else skittering to the curb, Redness, brass, ladders and hats hurl past, Blurring to sheer verb, Shift at the corner into uproarious gear And make it around the turn in a squall of traction, The headlong bell maintaining sure and clear, Thought is degraded […]...
15. Main Street (For S. M. L.) I like to look at the blossomy track of the moon upon the sea, But it isn’t half so fine a sight as Main Street used to be When it all was covered over with a couple of feet of snow, And over the crisp and radiant road the ringing sleighs […]...
16. A March Day in London The east wind blows in the street to-day; The sky is blue, yet the town looks grey. ‘Tis the wind of ice, the wind of fire, Of cold despair and of hot desire, Which chills the flesh to aches and pains, And sends a fever through all the veins. From end to end, with aimless […]...
17. Manufactured Gods THEY put up big wooden gods. Then they burned the big wooden gods And put up brass gods and Changing their minds suddenly Knocked down the brass gods and put up A doughface god with gold earrings. The poor mutts, the pathetic slant heads, They didn’t know a little tin god Is as good as […]...
18. Horses and Men in Rain LET us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter’s day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window, And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys. Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches-and talk about mail carriers and messenger boys slipping along the icy sidewalks. […]...
19. London in July What ails my senses thus to cheat? What is it ails the place, That all the people in the street Should wear one woman’s face? The London trees are dusty-brown Beneath the summer sky; My love, she dwells in London town, Nor leaves it in July. O various and intricate maze, Wide waste of square […]...
20. To Bessie Drennan Because she could find no one else to paint a picture of the old family place where she and her sisters lived. . .she attended an adult education class in Montpelier. In one evening Bessie Drennan learned everything she would need to accomplish her goals. . . The Vermont Folklife Center Newsletter Bessie, you’ve made […]...
21. There Was One There was one a-riding grand On a tall brown mare, And a fine gold band He brought me there. A little, gold band He held to me That would shine on a hand For the world to see. There was one a-walking swift To a little, new song, And a rose was the gift He […]...
22. Stars Wheel in Purple Stars wheel in purple, yours is not so rare As Hesperus, nor yet so great a star As bright Aldeboran or Sirius, Nor yet the stained and brilliant one of War; Stars turn in purple, glorious to the sight; Yours is not gracious as the Pleiads are Nor as Orion’s sapphires, luminous; Yet disenchanted, cold, […]...
23. The Gardener IX: When I Go Alone at Night When I go alone at night to my Love-tryst, birds do not sing, the wind Does not stir, the houses on both sides Of the street stand silent. It is my own anklets that grow loud At every step and I am ashamed. When I sit on my balcony and listen For his footsteps, leaves […]...
24. Rev. Lemuel Wiley I preached four thousand sermons, I conducted forty revivals, And baptized many converts. Yet no deed of mine Shines brighter in the memory of the world, And none is treasured more by me: Look how I saved the Blisses from divorce, And kept the children free from that disgrace, To grow up into moral men […]...
25. A London Thoroughfare. 2 A. M They have watered the street, It shines in the glare of lamps, Cold, white lamps, And lies Like a slow-moving river, Barred with silver and black. Cabs go down it, One, And then another. Between them I hear the shuffling of feet. Tramps doze on the window-ledges, Night-walkers pass along the sidewalks. The city is […]...
26. Turns And Movies: Duval's Birds The parrot, screeching, flew out into the darkness, Circled three times above the upturned faces With a great whir of brilliant outspread wings, And then returned to stagger on her finger. She bowed and smiled, eliciting applause. . . The property man hated her dirty birds. But it had taken years-yes, years-to train them, To […]...
27. Young Love Come little Infant, Love me now, While thine unsuspected years Clear thine aged Fathers brow From cold Jealousie and Fears. Pretty surely ’twere to see By young Love old Time beguil’d: While our Sportings are as free As the Nurses with the Child. Common Beauties stay fifteen; Such as yours should swifter move; Whole fair […]...
28. Rune of the Finland Woman For Sára Karig “You are so wise,” the reindeer said, “you can bind the winds of the world in a single strand.”-H. C. Andersen, “The Snow Queen” She could bind the world’s winds in a single strand. She could find the world’s words in a singing wind. She could lend a weird will to a […]...
29. The Village Green On the cheerful village green, Skirted round with houses small, All the boys and girls are seen, Playing there with hoop and ball. Now they frolic hand in hand, Making many a merry chain; Then they form a warlike band, Marching o’er the level plain. Now ascends the worsted ball, High it rises in the […]...
30. Tommy I went into a public-‘ouse to get a pint o’ beer, The publican ‘e up an’ sez, “We serve no red-coats here.” The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die, I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I: O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, go […]...
31. Year that Trembled YEAR that trembled and reel’d beneath me! Your summer wind was warm enough-yet the air I breathed froze me; A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken’d me; Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself; Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled? And sullen hymns of […]...
32. I Wish I Was By That Dim Lake I wish I was by that dim Lake, Where sinful souls their farewell take Of this vain world, and half-way lie In death’s cold shadow, ere they die. There, there, far from thee, Deceitful world, my home should be; Where, come what might of gloom and pain, False hope should n’er deceive again. The lifeless […]...
33. Garden and cradle When our babe he goeth walking in his garden, Around his tinkling feet the sunbeams play; The posies they are good to him, And bow them as they should to him, As fareth he upon his kingly way; And birdlings of the wood to him Make music, gentle music, all the day, When our babe […]...
34. The King's Experiment It was a wet wan hour in spring, And Nature met King Doom beside a lane, Wherein Hodge trudged, all blithely ballading The Mother’s smiling reign. “Why warbles he that skies are fair And coombs alight,” she cried, “and fallows gay, When I have placed no sunshine in the air Or glow on earth to-day?” […]...
35. Metaphors Of A Magnifico Twenty men crossing a bridge, Into a village, Are twenty men crossing twenty bridges, Into twenty villages, Or one man Crossing a single bridge into a village. This is old song That will not declare itself. . . Twenty men crossing a bridge, Into a village, Are Twenty men crossing a bridge Into a village. […]...
36. Though the Last Glimpse of Erin With Sorrow I See Though the last glimpse of Erin with sorrow I see, Yet wherever thou art shall seem Erin to me; In exile thy bosom shall still be my home, And thine eyes make my climate wherever we roam. To the gloom of some desert or cold rocky shore, Where the eye of the stranger can haunt […]...
37. Japanese lullaby Sleep, little pigeon, and fold your wings, Little blue pigeon with velvet eyes; Sleep to the singing of mother-bird swinging Swinging the nest where her little one lies. Away out yonder I see a star, Silvery star with a tinkling song; To the soft dew falling I hear it calling Calling and tinkling the night […]...
38. Musicians wrestle everywhere Musicians wrestle everywhere All day among the crowded air I hear the silver strife And walking long before the morn Such transport breaks upon the town I think it that “New Life”! If is not Bird it has no nest Nor “Band” in brass and scarlet drest Nor Tamborin nor Man It is not Hymn […]...
39. The House Of Dust: Part 04: 01: Clairvoyant ‘This envelope you say has something in it Which once belonged to your dead son-or something He knew, was fond of? Something he remembers?- The soul flies far, and we can only call it By things like these. . . a photograph, a letter, Ribbon, or charm, or watch. . . ‘ . . . […]...
40. The Captured Goddess Over the housetops, Above the rotating chimney-pots, I have seen a shiver of amethyst, And blue and cinnamon have flickered A moment, At the far end of a dusty street. Through sheeted rain Has come a lustre of crimson, And I have watched moonbeams Hushed by a film of palest green. It was her wings, […]...