Dilemma

Related poetry:

1. Her Dilemma THE two were silent in a sunless church, Whose mildewed walls, uneven paving-stones, And wasted carvings passed antique research; And nothing broke the clock’s dull monotones. Leaning against a wormy poppy-head, So wan and worn that he could scarcely stand, For he was soon to die, he softly said, “Tell me you love me!” holding […]...
2. Amoretti III: The Sovereign Beauty The sovereign beauty which I do admire, Witness the world how worthy to be praised: The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised; That being now with her huge brightness dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view; But looking still on her, I stand […]...
3. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
4. Dream Song 123: Daples my floor the eastern sun, my house faces north Dapples my floor the eastern sun, my house faces north, I have nothing to say except that it dapples my floor And it would dapple me If I lay on that floor, as-well-forthwith I have done, trying well to mount a thought Not carelessly In times forgotten, except by the New York Times Which can’t […]...
5. Surprise My heart went fluttering with fear Lest you should go, and leave me here To beat my breast and rock my head And stretch me sleepless on my bed. Ah, clear they see and true they say That one shall weep, and one shall stray For such is Love’s unvarying law…. I never thought, I […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. Woe! It is true, our tribe is similar to the bees, It gathers honey of wisdom, carries it, stores it in honeycombs. I am able to roam for hours Through the labyrinth of the main library, floor to floor. But yesterday, looking for the words of masters and prophets, I wandered into high regions That are […]...
9. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
10. Sestina I wandered o’er the vast green plains of youth, And searched for Pleasure. On a distant height Fame’s silhouette stood sharp against the skies. Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad highway I caught the glimmer of a golden goal, While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love. Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed […]...
11. Ernie Pyle I wish I had a simple style In writing verse, As in his prose had Ernie Pyle, So true and terse; Springing so forthright from the heart With guileless art. I wish I could put back a dram As Ernie could; I wish that I could cuss and damn As soldier should; And fain with […]...
12. The False Friends They laid their hands upon my head, They stroked my cheek and brow; And time could heal a hurt, they said, And time could dim a vow. And they were pitiful and mild Who whispered to me then, “The heart that breaks in April, child, Will mend in May again.” Oh, many a mended heart […]...
13. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
14. Dream Song 88: Op. posth. no. 11 In slack times visit I the violent dead And pick their awful brains. Most seem to feel Nothing is secret more To my disdain I find, when we who fled Cherish the knowings of both worlds, conceal More, beat on the floor, Where Bhain is stagnant, dear of Henry’s friends, Yellow with cancer, paper-thin, & […]...
15. A Hero Three times I had the lust to kill, To clutch a throat so young and fair, And squeeze with all my might until No breath of being lingered there. Three times I drove the demon out, Though on my brow was evil sweat. . . . And yet I know beyond a doubt He’ll get […]...
16. To George Sand: A Recognition TRUE genius, but true woman! dost deny The woman’s nature with a manly scorn And break away the gauds and armlets worn By weaker women in captivity? Ah, vain denial! that revolted cry Is sobbed in by a woman’s voice forlorn, Thy woman’s hair, my sister, all unshorn Floats back dishevelled strength in agony Disproving […]...
17. The Floor The floor is something we must fight against. Whilst seemingly mere platform for the human Stance, it is that place that men fall to. I am not dizzy. I stand as a tower, a lighthouse; The pale ray of my sentiency flowing from my face. But should I go dizzy I crash down into the […]...
18. Autobiographical The lover in these poems Is me; The doctor, Love. He appears As husband, lover Analyst & muse, As father, son & maybe even God & surely death. All this is true. The man you turn to In the dark Is many men. This is an open secret Women share & yet agree to hide […]...
19. A Dream of Trees There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees, A quiet house, some green and modest acres A little way from every troubling town, A little way from factories, schools, laments. I would have time, I thought, and time to spare, With only streams and birds for company. To build out of my life […]...
20. TO WILLIAM E. CHANNING The pages of thy book I read, And as I closed each one, My heart, responding, ever said, “Servant of God! well done!” Well done! Thy words are great and bold; At times they seem to me, Like Luther’s, in the days of old, Half-battles for the free. Go on, until this land revokes The […]...
21. PUBLISHERS And then they pretend like owls With marble eyes and wizened stupidity I do not know why they cannot perceive True art But I will write Until sand evaporates And the moon consumes the sun I will write Even for the sake of art For myself and for those who feel Reading could lift them […]...
22. No Lilies For Lisette Said the Door: “She came in With no shadow of sin; Turned the key in the lock, Slipped out of her frock, The robe she liked best When for supper she dressed. Then a letter she tore. . . What a wan look she wore!” Said the Door. Said the Chair: “She sat down With […]...
23. Noon I bend to the ground To catch Something whispered, Urgent, drifting Across the ditches. The heaviness of Flies stuttering In orbit, dirt Ripening, the sweat Of eggs. There are Small streams The width ofa thumb Running in the villages Of sheaves, whole Eras of grain Wakening on The stalks, a roof That breathes over My […]...
24. Light and Dark NOT the soul that’s whitest Wakens love the sweetest: When the heart is lightest Oft the charm is fleetest. While the snow-frail maiden, Waits the time of learning, To the passion laden Turn with eager yearning. While the heart is burning Heaven with earth is banded: To the stars returning Go not empty-handed. Ah, the […]...
25. The Masked Face I found me in a great surging space, At either end a door, And I said: “What is this giddying place, With no firm-fixéd floor, That I knew not of before?” “It is Life,” said a mask-clad face. I asked: “But how do I come here, Who never wished to come; Can the light and […]...
26. Epithalamium: A Marriage Poem ‘Twas summer, when softly the breezes were blowing, And Hudson majestic so sweetly was flowing, The groves rang with music & accents of pleasure And nature in rapture beat time to the measure, When Helen and Jonas, so true and so loving, Along the green lawn were seen arm in arm moving, Sweet daffodils, violets […]...
27. 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 […]...
28. A drinking song Come, brothers, share the fellowship We celebrate to-night; There’s grace of song on every lip And every heart is light! But first, before our mentor chimes The hour of jubilee, Let’s drink a health to good old times, And good times yet to be! Clink, clink, clink! Merrily let us drink! There’s store of wealth […]...
29. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
30. To Ireland In The Coming Times Know, that I would accounted be True brother of a company That sang, to sweeten Ireland’s wrong, Ballad and story, rann and song; Nor be I any less of them, Because the red-rose-bordered hem Of her, whose history began Before God made the angelic clan, Trails all about the written page. When Time began to […]...
31. The Song Of Wandering Aengus I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread; And when white moths were on the wing, And moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream And caught a little silver trout. […]...
32. Hostel Beach, Oneroa The cliff sprang from the sea at end of Hostel Beach, If the tide was out you’d reach a tiny bay beyond The cape without wet feet, an easy stroll but too effete For blood as hot as ours. We watched it at full flood; A risky place to contemplate the games we planned, We […]...
33. Socrates Ghost Must Haunt Me Now Socrates ghost must haunt me now, Notorious death has let him go, He comes to me with a clumsy bow, Saying in his disused voice, That I do not know I do not know, The mechanical whims of appetite Are all that I have of conscious choice, The butterfly caged in eclectic light Is my […]...
34. Halley's Comet Miss Murphy in first grade Wrote its name in chalk Across the board and told us It was roaring down the stormtracks Of the Milky Way at frightful speed And if it wandered off its course And smashed into the earth There’d be no school tomorrow. A red-bearded preacher from the hills With a wild […]...
35. May Morning I lie stretched out upon the window-seat And doze, and read a page or two, and doze, And feel the air like water on me close, Great waves of sunny air that lip and beat With a small noise, monotonous and sweet, Against the window and the scent of cool, Frail flowers by some brown […]...
36. 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 […]...
37. Theme For English B The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here To this college on the hill above Harlem. I am […]...
38. Amoretti LXXIX: Men Call you Fair Men call you fair, and you do credit it, For that your self ye daily such do see: But the true fair, that is the gentle wit, And vertuous mind, is much more prais’d of me. For all the rest, how ever fair it be, Shall turn to naught and lose that glorious hue: But […]...
39. I Shall Come Back I shall come back without fanfaronade Of wailing wind and graveyard panoply; But, trembling, slip from cool Eternity- A mild and most bewildered little shade. I shall not make sepulchral midnight raid, But softly come where I had longed to be In April twilight’s unsung melody, And I, not you, shall be the one afraid. […]...
40. Dream Song 51: Our wounds to time, from all the other times Our wounds to time, from all the other times, Sea-times slow, the times of galaxies Fleeing, the dwarfs’ dead times, Lessen so little that if here in his crude rimes Henry them mentions, do not hold it, please, For a putting of man down. Ol’ Marster, being bound you do your best Versus we coons, […]...