Men At Forty

Related poetry:

1. To a Child of Quality, Five Years Old, 1704. The Author then Forty LORDS, knights, and squires, the numerous band That wear the fair Miss Mary’s fetters, Were summoned by her high command To show their passions by their letters. My pen amongst the rest I took, Lest those bright eyes, that cannot read, Should dart their kindling fire, and look The power they have to be obey’d. […]...
2. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
3. Sonnet 2: When forty winters shall besiege thy brow When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, Thy youth’s proud livery so gazed on now, Will be a tattered weed of small worth held. Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies, Where all the treasure of thy lusty days, To say within thine own deep sunken […]...
4. Sonnet II: When Forty Winters Shall Besiege Thy Brow When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now, Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held: Then being ask’d where all thy beauty lies, Where all the treasure of thy lusty days, To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes, […]...
5. The Twelve-Forty-Five (For Edward J. Wheeler) Within the Jersey City shed The engine coughs and shakes its head, The smoke, a plume of red and white, Waves madly in the face of night. And now the grave incurious stars Gleam on the groaning hurrying cars. Against the kind and awful reign Of darkness, this our angry train, […]...
6. The Big Heart “Too many things are occurring for even a big heart to hold.” – From an essay by W. B. Yeats Big heart, Wide as a watermelon, But wise as birth, There is so much abundance In the people I have: Max, Lois, Joe, Louise, Joan, Marie, Dawn, Arlene, Father Dunne, And all in their short […]...
7. The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...
8. Flying at Forty You call me Courageous, I who grew up Gnawing on books, As some kids Gnaw On bubble gum, Who married disastrously Not once But three times, Yet have a lovely daughter I would not undo For all the dope In California. Fear was my element, Fear my contagion. I swam in it Till I became […]...
9. The Fathers Our fathers all were poor, Poorer our fathers’ fathers; Beyond, we dare not look. We, the sons, keep store Of tarnished gold that gathers Around us from the night, Record it in this book That, when the line is drawn, Credit and creditor gone, Column and figure flown, Will open into light. Archaic fevers shake […]...
10. Filling Station Oh, but it is dirty! this little filling station, Oil-soaked, oil-permeated To a disturbing, over-all Black translucency. Be careful with that match! Father wears a dirty, Oil-soaked monkey suit That cuts him under the arms, And several quick and saucy And greasy sons assist him (it’s a family filling station), All quite thoroughly dirty. Do […]...
11. 1887 From Clee to heaven the beacon burns, The shires have seen it plain, From north and south the sign returns And beacons burn again. Look left, look right, the hills are bright, The dales are light between, Because ’tis fifty years to-night That God has saved the Queen. Now, when the flame they watch not […]...
12. A British-Roman Song (A. D. 406) “A Centurion of the Thirtieth” Puck of Pook’s Hill My father’s father saw it not, And I, belike, shall never come To look on that so-holly spot That very Rome Crowned by all Time, all Art, all Might, The equal work of Gods and Man, City beneath whose oldest height The Race […]...
13. Born Brothers Equality is absolute or no. Nothing between can stand. We are the sons Of the same sire, or madness breaks and runs Through the rude world. Ridiculous our woe If single pity does not love it. So Our separate fathers love us. No man shuns His poorest child’s embrace. We are the sons Of such, […]...
14. At the Vietnam War Memorial Black granite stretches its harsh, tapering wings Up to pedestrian-level grass But sucks me down, here, at the intersection of names. I forgive, I must, though I wish something Could heal this wound in the earth. Behold, all theorists, the price of theory: Extreme unction by napalm and blood, Vets shipped home whole or in […]...
15. The Legend of Evil I This is the sorrowful story Told when the twilight fails And the monkeys walk together Holding their neighbours’ tails: “Our fathers lived in the forest, Foolish people were they, They went down to the cornland To teach the farmers to play. “Our fathers frisked in the millet, Our fathers skipped in the wheat, Our […]...
16. When the new year when the new year Came out of nowhere And peeped into rooms It was so flattered to find All the tv’s drinking its health Praising its innocent appearance It responded with its warm Dark smile and went round Filling people’s dry hearts With joy Over the coming weeks though Those same tv’s attacked it Criticising […]...
17. The Gold Lily As I perceive I am dying now and know I will not speak again, will not Survive the earth, be summoned Out of it again, not A flower yet, a spine only, raw dirt Catching my ribs, I call you, Father and master: all around, My companions are failing, thinking You do not see. How […]...
18. On The Death of a Father I was schooled well before he died, able at least To feel what others felt when their fathers Were deceased. Able but not willing And not without despair to glimpse the man Who’d hide the truth of just how much he cared. My argent truth was fulsome gloom, Moribund and drear, my face a patent […]...
19. Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...
20. England's Answer Truly ye come of The Blood; slower to bless than to ban; Little used to lie down at the bidding of any man. Flesh of the flesh that I bred, bone of the bone that I bare; Stark as your sons shall be stern as your fathers were. Deeper than speech our love, stronger than […]...
21. A Song of the Republic Sons of the South, awake! arise! Sons of the South, and do. Banish from under your bonny skies Those old-world errors and wrongs and lies. Making a hell in a Paradise That belongs to your sons and you. Sons of the South, make choice between (Sons of the South, choose true), The Land of Morn […]...
22. The Child Is Father To The Man ‘The child is father to the man.’ How can he be? The words are wild. Suck any sense from that who can: ‘The child is father to the man.’ No; what the poet did write ran, ‘The man is father to the child.’ ‘The child is father to the man!’ How can he be? The […]...
23. Before Sunset Love’s twilight wanes in heaven above, On earth ere twilight reigns: Ere fear may feel the chill thereof, Love’s twilight wanes. Ere yet the insatiate heart complains ‘Too much, and scarce enough,’ The lip so late athirst refrains. Soft on the neck of either dove Love’s hands let slip the reins: And while we look […]...
24. So Far and So Far, and on Toward the End SO far, and so far, and on toward the end, Singing what is sung in this book, from the irresistible impulses of me; But whether I continue beyond this book, to maturity, Whether I shall dart forth the true rays, the ones that wait unfired, (Did you think the sun was shining its brightest? No-it […]...
25. Three Faces I. VENTIMIGLIA The sky and sea glared hard and bright and blank: Down the one steep street, with slow steps firm and free, A tall girl paced, with eyes too proud to thank The sky and sea. One dead flat sapphire, void of wrath or glee, Through bay on bay shone blind from bank to […]...
26. Sardis (Revelations, iii. 1-6) “Write to Sardis,” saith the Lord, “And write what He declares, He whose Spirit, and whose word, Upholds the seven stars: All thy works and ways I search, Find thy zeal and love decay’d; Thou art call’d a living church, But thou art cold and dead. “Watch, remember, seek, and strive, Exert […]...
27. 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 […]...
28. Wisdom (Proverbs, viii. 22-31) “Ere God had built the mountains, Or raised the fruitful hills; Before he fill’d the fountains That feed the running rills; In me from everlasting, The wonderful I am, Found pleasures never wasting, And Wisdom is my name. “When, like a tent to dwell in, He spread the skies abroad, And swathed […]...
29. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
30. Hymn 64 Adoption. 1 John 3:1ff; Gal. 4:6. Behold what wondrous grace The Father has bestowed On sinners of a mortal race, To call them sons of God! ‘Tis no surprising thing That we should be unknown; The Jewish world knew not their king, God’s everlasting Son. Nor doth it yet appear How great we must be […]...
31. The Ballad Of The Children Of The Czar 1 The children of the Czar Played with a bouncing ball In the May morning, in the Czar’s garden, Tossing it back and forth. It fell among the flowerbeds Or fled to the north gate. A daylight moon hung up In the Western sky, bald white. Like Papa’s face, said Sister, Hurling the white ball […]...
32. An Incantation Come with me, and we will blow Lots of bubbles, as we go; Bubbles bright as ever Hope Drew from fancy or from soap; Bright as e’er the South Sea sent From its frothy element! Come with me, and we will blow Lots of bubbles, as we go. Mix the lather, Johnny W lks, Thou, […]...
33. Boy and Father THE BOY Alexander understands his father to be a famous lawyer. The leather law books of Alexander’s father fill a room like hay in a barn. Alexander has asked his father to let him build a house like bricklayers build, a house with walls and roofs made of big leather law books. The rain beats […]...
34. Cooney Potter I inherited forty acres from my Father And, by working my wife, my two sons and two daughters From dawn to dusk, I acquired A thousand acres. But not content, Wishing to own two thousand acres, I bustled through the years with axe and plow, Toiling, denying myself, my wife, my sons, my daughters. Squire […]...
35. Psalm 78 part 1 Providences of God recorded. Let children hear the mighty deeds Which God performed of old, Which in our younger years we saw, And which our fathers told. He bids us make his glories known, His works of power and grace; And we’ll convey his wonders down Through every rising race. Our lips shall tell them […]...
36. The Appology ‘Tis true I write and tell me by what Rule I am alone forbid to play the fool To follow through the Groves a wand’ring Muse And fain’d Idea’s for my pleasures chuse Why shou’d it in my Pen be held a fault Whilst Mira paints her face, to paint a thought Whilst Lamia to […]...
37. Hymn 99 Stones made children of Abraham. Matt. 3:9. Vain are the hopes that rebels place Upon their birth and blood, Descended from a pious race; Their fathers now with God. He from the caves of earth and hell Can take the hardest stones, And fill the house of Abram well With new-created sons. Such wondrous power […]...
38. Father My father knows the proper way The nation should be run; He tells us children every day Just what should now be done. He knows the way to fix the trusts, He has a simple plan; But if the furnace needs repairs, We have to hire a man. My father, in a day or two […]...
39. Death and the Lady TURN in, my lord, she said ; As it were the Father of Sin I have hated the Father of the Dead, The slayer of my kin ; By the Father of the Living led, Turn in, my lord, turn in. We were foes of old ; thy touch was cold, But mine is warm […]...
40. Infant Sorrow My mother groand! my father wept, Into the dangerous world I leapt: Helpless, naked, piping loud: Like a fiend hid in a cloud. Struggling in my fathers hands: Striving against my swaddling bands: Bound and weary I thought best To sulk upon my mother’s breast....