For A Lady Who Must Write Verse

Related poetry:

1. The Man Who Could Write Boanerges Blitzen, servant of the Queen, Is a dismal failure is a Might-have-been. In a luckless moment he discovered men Rise to high position through a ready pen. Boanerges Blitzen argued therefore “I, With the selfsame weapon, can attain as high.” Only he did not possess when he made the trial, Wicked wit of C-lv-n, […]...
2. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
3. To a Gentleman and Lady on the Death of the Lady's Brother and Sister On Death’s domain intent I fix my eyes, Where human nature in vast ruin lies, With pensive mind I search the drear abode, Where the great conqu’ror has his spoils bestow’d; There there the offspring of six thousand years In endless numbers to my view appears: Whole kingdoms in his gloomy den are thrust, And […]...
4. A Lady red amid the Hill A Lady red amid the Hill Her annual secret keeps! A Lady white, within the Field In placid Lily sleeps! The tidy Breezes, with their Brooms Sweep vale and hill and tree! Prithee, My pretty Housewives! Who may expected be? The Neighbors do not yet suspect! The Woods exchange a smile! Orchard, and Buttercup, and […]...
5. Advice to the Grub Street Verse-writers Ye poets ragged and forlorn, Down from your garrets haste; Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born, Not yet consign’d to paste; I know a trick to make you thrive; O, ’tis a quaint device: Your still-born poems shall revive, And scorn to wrap up spice. Get all your verses printed fair, Then let them […]...
6. The Gentlest Lady They say He was a serious child, And quiet in His ways; They say the gentlest lady smiled To hear the neighbors’ praise. The coffers of her heart would close Upon their smaliest word. Yet did they say, “How tall He grows!” They thought she had not heard. They say upon His birthday eve She’d […]...
7. Loving In Truth, And Fain In Verse My Love To Show Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That She, dear She, might take some pleasure of my pain, -Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain – I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine, […]...
8. Luck once We were young At this Machine. . . Drinking Smoking Typing It was a most Splendid Miraculous Time Still Is Only now Instead of Moving toward Time It Moves toward Us Makes each word Drill Into the Paper Clear Fast Hard Feeding a Closing Space....
9. Verse For a Certain Dog Such glorious faith as fills your limpid eyes, Dear little friend of mine, I never knew. All-innocent are you, and yet all-wise. (For Heaven’s sake, stop worrying that shoe!) You look about, and all you see is fair; This mighty globe was made for you alone. Of all the thunderous ages, you’re the heir. (Get […]...
10. A Proud Lady Hate in the world’s hand Can carve and set its seal Like the strong blast of sand Which cuts into steel. I have seen how the finger of hate Can mar and mould Faces burned passionate And frozen cold. Sorrowful faces worn As stone with rain, Faces writhing with scorn And sullen with pain. But […]...
11. For An Unknown Lady Lady, if you’d slumber sound, Keep your eyes upon the ground. If you’d toss and turn at night, Slip your glances left and right. Would the mornings find you gay, Never give your heart away. Would they find you pale and sad, Fling it to a whistling lad. Ah, but when his pleadings burn, Will […]...
12. A Scrap of Paper “Will you go to war just for a scrap of paper?” Question Of the German Chancellor to the British Ambassador, August 5, 1914. A mocking question! Britain’s answer came Swift as the light and searching as the flame. “Yes, for a scrap of paper we will fight Till our last breath, and God defend the […]...
13. A Certain Lady Oh, I can smile for you, and tilt my head, And drink your rushing words with eager lips, And paint my mouth for you a fragrant red, And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips. When you rehearse your list of loves to me, Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed. And you laugh back, nor […]...
14. To A Lady On The Death Of Her Husband GRIM monarch! see, depriv’d of vital breath, A young physician in the dust of death: Dost thou go on incessant to destroy, Our griefs to double, and lay waste our joy? Enough thou never yet wast known to say, Though millions die, the vassals of thy sway: Nor youth, nor science, not the ties of […]...
15. Trying To Write That day i finished A small piece For an obscure magazine I popped it in the box And such a starry elation Came over me That I got whistled at in the street For the first time in a long time. I was dirty and roughly dressed And had circles under my eyes And far […]...
16. My April Lady When down the stair at morning The sunbeams round her float, Sweet rivulets of laughter Are bubbling in her throat; The gladness of her greeting Is gold without alloy; And in the morning sunlight I think her name is Joy. When in the evening twilight The quiet book-room lies, We read the sad old ballads, […]...
17. The Danger Of Writing Defiant Verse And now I have another lad! No longer need you tell How all my nights are slow and sad For loving you too well. His ways are not your wicked ways, He’s not the like of you. He treads his path of reckoned days, A sober man, and true. They’ll never see him in the […]...
18. A Rabbit As King Of The Ghosts The difficulty to think at the end of day, When the shapeless shadow covers the sun And nothing is left except light on your fur- There was the cat slopping its milk all day, Fat cat, red tongue, green mind, white milk And August the most peaceful month. To be, in the grass, in the […]...
19. On The Death Of A Young Lady Of Five Years Of Age FROM dark abodes to fair etherial light Th’ enraptur’d innocent has wing’d her flight; On the kind bosom of eternal love She finds unknown beatitude above. This known, ye parents, nor her loss deplore, She feels the iron hand of pain no more; The dispensations of unerring grace, Should turn your sorrows into grateful praise; […]...
20. All the letters I can write All the letters I can write Are not fair as this Syllables of Velvet Sentences of Plush, Depths of Ruby, undrained, Hid, Lip, for Thee Play it were a Humming Bird And just sipped me...
21. If It Is True What the Prophets Write If it is true, what the Prophets write, That the heathen gods are all stocks and stones, Shall we, for the sake of being polite, Feed them with the juice of our marrow-bones? And if Bezaleel and Aholiab drew What the finger of God pointed to their view, Shall we suffer the Roman and Grecian […]...
22. Sonnet 80: O, how I faint when I of you do write O, how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, And in the praise thereof spends all his might To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame. But since your worth, wide as the ocean is, The humble as the proudest sail doth bear, My saucy bark, […]...
23. Sonnet 86: Was it the proud full sail of his great verse Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you, That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew? Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead? No, neither he, nor […]...
24. On Being Challenged to Write an Epigram in the Manner of Herrick To Griggs, that learned man, in many a bygone session, His kids were his delight, and physics his profession; Now Griggs, grown old and glum, and less intent on knowledge, Physics himself at home, and sends his kids to college....
25. New age (i) How new the world is Trying to find Nerve in an old rind (ii) The bread is crumbled For birds to swallow Rolled into droppings Flowers from the hair Of noseless statues Tyrants of parks Where men have cowered Too long and mistaken Unmanned by he dark (iii) When we awaken (how have we […]...
26. Cinema Screen Light’s patterns freeze: Frost on our faces. Light’s pollen sifts Through the lids of our eyes… Light sinks and rusts In water; is broken By glass… rests On deserted dust. Light lies like torn Paper in corners: A rock-pool’s pledge Of the sea’s return. Light, wrenched at the edges By wind, looks down At itself […]...
27. To A Much Too Unfortunate Lady He will love you presently If you be the way you be. Send your heart a-skittering. He will stoop, and lift the thing. Be your dreams as thread, to tease Into patterns he shall please. Let him see your passion is Ever tenderer than his…. Go and bless your star above, Thus are you, and […]...
28. The Lady's Yes “Yes,” I answered you last night; “No,” this morning, Sir, I say. Colours seen by candlelight, Will not look the same by day. When the viols played their best, Lamps above, and laughs below – Love me sounded like a jest, Fit for Yes or fit for No. Call me false, or call me free […]...
29. With Penne, Inke, And Paper To A Distressed Friend Here is paper, pen, and inke, That your heart and seale may sinke Into such markes as may expresse A Soule much blest in heavinesse. May your paper seeme as fayre As yourselfe when you appeare: May the Letters which you write Looke like black eye-lids on white. May your penne such fancies bring As […]...
30. Verse Past ruined Ilion Helen lives, Alcestis rises from the shades. Verse calls them forth; ’tis verse that gives Immortal youth to mortal maids. Soon shall oblivion’s deepening veil Hide all the peopled hills you see, The gay, the proud, while lovers hail These many summers you and me....
31. This Be The Verse They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at […]...
32. My Ship and I O it’s I that am the captain of a tidy little ship, Of a ship that goes a sailing on the pond; And my ship it keeps a-turning all around and all about; But when I’m a little older, I shall find the secret out How to send my vessel sailing on beyond. For I […]...
33. NOT EVERY DAY FIT FOR VERSE ‘Tis not ev’ry day that I Fitted am to prophesy: No, but when the spirit fills The fantastic pannicles, Full of fire, then I write As the Godhead doth indite. Thus enraged, my lines are hurl’d, Like the Sibyl’s, through the world: Look how next the holy fire Either slakes, or doth retire; So the […]...
34. A Lady You are beautiful and faded Like an old opera tune Played upon a harpsichord; Or like the sun-flooded silks Of an eighteenth-century boudoir. In your eyes Smoulder the fallen roses of out-lived minutes, And the perfume of your soul Is vague and suffusing, With the pungence of sealed spice-jars. Your half-tones delight me, And I […]...
35. Sonnet 28 – My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! My letters! all dead paper, mute and white! And yet they seem alive and quivering Against my tremulous hands which loose the string And let them drop down on my knee to-night. This said,-he wished to have me in his sight Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring To come and touch […]...
36. Farewell To Verse In youth when oft my muse was dumb, My fancy nighly dead, To make my inspiration come I stood upon my head; And thus I let the blood down flow Into my cerebellum, And published every Spring or so Slim tomes in vellum. Alas! I am rheumatic now, Grey is my crown; I can no […]...
37. Free Verse I now delight In spite Of the might And the right Of classic tradition, In writing And reciting Straight ahead, Without let or omission, Just any little rhyme In any little time That runs in my head; Because, I’ve said, My rhymes no longer shall stand arrayed Like Prussian soldiers on parade That march, Stiff […]...
38. I Feel (Verse Libre) I feel Very much Like taking Its unholy perpetrators By the hair Of their heads (If they have any hair) And dragging them around A few times, And then cutting them Into small, irregular pieces And burying them In the depths of the blue sea. They are without form And void,/ Or at least The […]...
39. Verse-Making Was Least of My Virtues Verse-making was least of my virtues: I viewed with despair Wealth that never yet was but might be all that verse-making were If the life would but lengthen to wish, let the mind be laid bare. So I said, “To do little is bad, to do nothing is worse” And made verse. Love-making, how simple […]...
40. The Lady Visitor in the Pauper Ward Why do you break upon this old, cool peace, This painted peace of ours, With harsh dress hissing like a flock of geese, With garish flowers? Why do you churn smooth waters rough again, Selfish old skin-and-bone? Leave us to quiet dreaming and slow pain, Leave us alone....