Rev. Lemuel Wiley

Related poetry:

1. NO FAULT IN WOMEN No fault in women, to refuse The offer which they most would chuse. No fault: in women, to confess How tedious they are in their dress; No fault in women, to lay on The tincture of vermilion; And there to give the cheek a dye Of white, where Nature doth deny. No fault in women, […]...
2. Good and Bad Children Children, you are very little, And your bones are very brittle; If you would grow great and stately, You must try to walk sedately. You must still be bright and quiet, And content with simple diet; And remain, through all bewild’ring, Innocent and honest children. Happy hearts and happy faces, Happy play in grassy places […]...
3. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
4. The Laughter Of Women The laughter of women sets fire To the Halls of Injustice And the false evidence burns To a beautiful white lightness It rattles the Chambers of Congress And forces the windows wide open So the fatuous speeches can fly out The laughter of women wipes the mist From the spectacles of the old; It infects […]...
5. Ben apfelgarten There was a certain gentleman, Ben Apfelgarten called, Who lived way off in Germany a many years ago, And he was very fortunate in being very bald And so was very happy he was so. He warbled all the day Such songs as only they Who are very, very circumspect and very happy may; The […]...
6. 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. […]...
7. Lover's Gifts XVI: She Dwelt Here by the Pool She dwelt here by the pool with its landing-stairs in ruins. Many An evening she had watched the moon made dizzy by the shaking of Bamboo leaves, and on many a rainy day the smell of the wet earth Had come to her over the young shoots of rice. Her pet name is known here […]...
8. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
9. The Frog Comes to mind as another small upheaval Amongst the rubble. His eye matches exactly the bubble In my spirit-level. I set aside hammer and chisel And take him on the trowel. The entire population of Ireland Springs from a pair left to stand Overnight in a pond In the gardens of Trinity College, Two bottle […]...
10. The Coquette, and After (Triolets) I For long the cruel wish I knew That your free heart should ache for me While mine should bear no ache for you; For, long the cruel wish! I knew How men can feel, and craved to view My triumph fated not to be For long! . . . The cruel wish I knew […]...
11. Poor little Heart! Poor little Heart! Did they forget thee? Then dinna care! Then dinna care! Proud little Heart! Did they forsake thee? Be debonnaire! Be debonnaire! Frail little Heart! I would not break thee Could’st credit me? Could’st credit me? Gay little Heart Like Morning Glory! Wind and Sun wilt thee array!...
12. St. Martin's Summer AS swallows turning backward When half-way o’er the sea, At one word’s trumpet summons They came again to me – The hopes I had forgotten Came back again to me. I know not which to credit, O lady of my heart! Your eyes that bade me linger, Your words that bade us part – I […]...
13. Night Funeral In Harlem Night funeral In Harlem: Where did they get Them two fine cars? Insurance man, he did not pay His insurance lapsed the other day Yet they got a satin box For his head to lay. Night funeral In Harlem: Who was it sent That wreath of flowers? Them flowers came From that poor boy’s friends […]...
14. Mistrust YOU look at me with wan, bright eyes When in the deeper world I stray: You fear some hidden ambush lies In wait to call me, “Come away.” What if I see behind the veil Your starry self beseeching me, Or at its stern command grow pale, “Let her be free, let her be free”?...
15. Flight Of Stairs Stairs fly as straight as hawks; Or else in spirals, curve out of curve, pausing At a ledge to poise their wings before relaunching. Stairs sway at the height of their flight Like a melody in Tristan; Or swoop to the ground with glad spread of their feathers Before they close them. They curiously investigate […]...
16. Sonnet 26 – I lived with visions for my company I lived with visions for my company Instead of men and women, years ago, And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know A sweeter music than they played to me. But soon their trailing purple was not free Of this world’s dust, their lutes did silent grow, And I myself grew faint and blind […]...
17. 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 […]...
18. Tцrnfallet There is a meadow in Sweden Where I lie smitten, Eyes stained with clouds’ White ins and outs. And about that meadow Roams my widow Plaiting a clover Wreath for her lover. I took her in marriage In a granite parish. The snow lent her whiteness, A pine was a witness. She’d swim in the […]...
19. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
20. 1819 New Year's Carrier's Address Believe me, dear patrons, I have wand’red too far, Without any compass, or planet or star; My dear native village I scarcely can see So I’ll hie to my hive like the tempest-tost bee. Hail home! sacred home! to my soul ever dear; Abroad may be wonders but rapture is here. My future ambition will […]...
21. 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 […]...
22. 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 […]...
23. Affinity YOU and I have found the secret way, None can bar our love or say us nay: All the world may stare and never know You and I are twined together so. You and I for all his vaunted width Know the giant Space is but a myth; Over miles and miles of pure deceit […]...
24. Flossie Cabanis From Bindle’s opera house in the village To Broadway is a great step. But I tried to take it, my ambition fired When sixteen years of age, Seeing “East Lynne” played here in the village By Ralph Barrett, the coming Romantic actor, who enthralled my soul. True, I trailed back home, a broken failure, When […]...
25. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
26. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
27. Wide Lies Australia Wide lies Australia! The seas that surround her Flow for her unity – all states in one. Never has Custom nor Tyranny bound her – Never was conquest so peacefully won. Fair lies Australia! with all things within her Meet for a Nation, the greatest to be: Free to the White Man to woo and […]...
28. Sonnet 01 Sidney, in whom the heyday of romance Came to its precious and most perfect flower, Whether you tourneyed with victorious lance Or brought sweet roundelays to Stella’s bower, I give myself some credit for the way I have kept clean of what enslaves and lowers, Shunned the ideals of our present day And studied those […]...
29. Sersmith the Dentist Do you think that odes and sermons, And the ringing of church bells, And the blood of old men and young men, Martyred for the truth they saw With eyes made bright by faith in God, Accomplished the world’s great reformations? Do you think that the Battle Hymn of the Republic Would have been heard […]...
30. Alfonso Churchill They laughed at me as “Prof. Moon,” As a boy in Spoon River, born with the thirst Of knowing about the stars. They jeered when I spoke of the lunar mountains, And the thrilling heat and cold, And the ebon valleys by silver peaks, And Spica quadrillions of miles away, And the littleness of man. […]...
31. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
32. Grandad Heaven’s mighty sweet, I guess; Ain’t no rush to git there: Been a sinner, more or less; Maybe wouldn’t fit there. Wicked still, bound to confess; Might jest pine a bit there. Heaven’s swell, the preachers say: Got so used to earth here; Had such good times all the way, Frolic, fun and mirth here; […]...
33. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
34. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
35. Give All To Love Give all to love; Obey thy heart; Friends, kindred, days, Estate, good fame, Plans, credit, and the muse; Nothing refuse. ‘Tis a brave master, Let it have scope, Follow it utterly, Hope beyond hope; High and more high, It dives into noon, With wing unspent, Untold intent; But ’tis a god, Knows its own path, […]...
36. Tennessee Claflin Shope I was the laughing-stock of the village, Chiefly of the people of good sense, as they call themselves Also of the learned, like Rev. Peet, who read Greek The same as English. For instead of talking free trade, Or preaching some form of baptism; Instead of believing in the efficacy Of walking cracks picking up […]...
37. Sonnet LXXIX MEn call you fayre, and you doe credit it, For that your selfe ye dayly such doe see: But the trew fayre, that is the gentle wit, And vertuous mind is much more praysd of me. For all the rest, how euer fayre it be, Shall turne to nought and loose that glorious hew: But […]...
38. Colors Passing Through Us Purple as tulips in May, mauve Into lush velvet, purple As the stain blackberries leave On the lips, on the hands, The purple of ripe grapes Sunlit and warm as flesh. Every day I will give you a color, Like a new flower in a bud vase On your desk. Every day I will paint […]...
39. 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 […]...
40. Persuasions to Joy, a Song IF the quick spirits in your eye Now languish and anon must die; If every sweet and every grace Must fly from that forsaken face; Then, Celia, let us reap our joys Ere Time such goodly fruit destroys. Or if that golden fleece must grow For ever free from aged snow; If those bright suns […]...