Conscientious Objector

Related poetry:

1. Objector In line at lunch I cross my fork and spoon To ward off complicity the ordered life Our leaders have offered us. Thin as a knife, Our chance to live depends on such a sign While others talk and The Pentagon from the moon Is bouncing exact commands: “Forget your faith; Be ready for whatever […]...
2. Hide-And-Seek Someone hides from someone else Hides under his tongue The other looks for him under the earth He hides on his forehead The other looks for him in the sky He hides inside his forgetfulness The other looks for him in the grass Looks for him looks There’s no place he doesn’t look And looking […]...
3. Noon Walk On The Asylum Lawn The summer sun ray Shifts through a suspicious tree. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow It sucks the air And looks around for me. The grass speaks. I hear green chanting all day. I will fear no evil, fear no evil The blades extend And reach my way. The sky breaks. It […]...
4. The Princess: A Medley: Our Enemies have Fall'n Our enemies have fall’n, have fall’n: the seed, The little seed they laugh’d at in the dark, Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk Of spanless girth, that lays on every side A thousand arms and rushes to the Sun. Our enemies have fall’n, have fall’n: they came; The leaves were wet […]...
5. The Farewell Of A Virginia Slave Mother To Her Daughters Sold Into Southern Bondage Gone, gone, sold and gone To the rice-swamp dank and lone. Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings Where the noisome insect stings Where the fever demon strews Poison with the falling dews Where the sickly sunbeams glare Through the hot and misty air; Gone, […]...
6. Don't fear death Don’t fear death in earthly travels. Don’t fear enemies or friends. Just listen to the words of prayers, To pass the facets of the dreads. Your death will come to you, and never You shall be, else, a slave of life, Just waiting for a dawn’s favor, From nights of poverty and strife. She’ll build […]...
7. Farewell Address at the Argyle Hall Fellow Citizens of Dundee. I now must bid farewell to ye. For I am going to London far away. But when I will return again I cannot say. Farewell! Farewell! to the bonnie banks o’ the Silvery Tay. Also the beautiful Hill o’ Balgay. And the ill fated Bridge o’ the Silvery Tay. Which I […]...
8. O Sweetheart, Hear You O Sweetheart, hear you Your lover’s tale; A man shall have sorrow When friends him fail. For he shall know then Friends be untrue And a little ashes Their words come to. But one unto him Will softly move And softly woo him In ways of love. His hand is under Her smooth round breast; […]...
9. Travel The railroad track is miles away, And the day is loud with voices speaking, Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day But I hear its whistle shrieking. All night there isn’t a train goes by, Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming, But I see its cinders red on the sky, […]...
10. Liebestod When I was bold, when I was bold- And that’s a hundred years!- Oh, never I thought my breast could hold The terrible weight of tears. I said: “Now some be dolorous; I hear them wail and sigh, And if it be Love that play them thus, Then never a love will I.” I said: […]...
11. The Liner She's a Lady The Liner she’s a lady, an’ she never looks nor ‘eeds The Man-o’-War’s ‘er ‘usband, an’ ‘e gives ‘er all she needs; But, oh, the little cargo-boats, that sail the wet seas roun’, They’re just the same as you an’ me a-plyin’ up an’ down! Plyin’ up an’ down, Jenny, ‘angin’ round the Yard, All […]...
12. Exeat I remember the Roman Emperor, one of the cruellest of them, Who used to visit for pleasure his poor prisoners cramped in dungeons, So then they would beg him for death, and then he would say: Oh no, oh no, we are not yet friends enough. He meant they were not yet friends enough for […]...
13. Cotton Song Come, brother, come. Lets lift it; Come now, hewit! roll away! Shackles fall upon the Judgment Day But lets not wait for it. God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Cant blame God if we dont roll, Come, brother, roll, roll! Cotton bales are the fleecy way, Weary sinner’s bare feet […]...
14. Enemy of Death (For Rossana Sironi) You should not have Ripped out your image Taken from us, from the world, A portion of beauty. What can we do We enemies of death, Bent to your feet of rose, Your breast of violet? Not a word, not a scrap Of your last day, a No To earth’s things, a […]...
15. Black riders came from the sea Black riders came from the sea. There was clang and clang of spear and shield, And clash and clash of hoof and heel, Wild shouts and the wave of hair In the rush upon the wind: Thus the ride of sin....
16. Songs For A Colored Singer I A washing hangs upon the line, but it’s not mine. None of the things that I can see belong to me. The neighbors got a radio with an aerial; we got a little portable. They got a lot of closet space; we got a suitcase. I say, “Le Roy, just how much are we […]...
17. Lament When I was a windy boy and a bit And the black spit of the chapel fold, (Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women), I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood, The rude owl cried like a tell-tale tit, I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled Nine-pin down on donkey’s common, […]...
18. Lincoln Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all, That which is gendered in the wilderness From lonely prairies and God’s tenderness. Imperial soul, star of a weedy stream, Born where the ghosts of buffaloes still dream, Whose spirit hoof-beats storm above his grave, Above that breast of earth and prairie-fire – Fire that freed […]...
19. Ballad of Dead Friends As we the withered ferns By the roadway lying, Time, the jester, spurns All our prayers and prying All our tears and sighing, Sorrow, change, and woe All our where-and-whying For friends that come and go. Life awakes and burns, Age and death defying, Till at last it learns All but Love is dying; Love’s […]...
20. Psalm 109 v.1-5,31 C. M. Love to enemies from the example of Christ. God of my mercy and my praise, Thy glory is my song, Though sinners speak against thy grace With a blaspheming tongue. When in the form of mortal man Thy Son on earth was found, With cruel slanders, false and vain, They compassed him […]...
21. Daybreak In Alabama When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent […]...
22. Psalm 127 The blessing of God on the business and comforts of life. If God succeed not, all the cost And pains to build the house are lost; If God the city will not keep, The watchful guards as well may sleep. What if you rise before the sun, And work and toil when day is done; […]...
23. Let Them Alone If God has been good enough to give you a poet Then listen to him. But for God’s sake let him alone until he is dead; No prizes, no ceremony, They kill the man. A poet is one who listens To nature and his own heart; and if the noise of the world grows up […]...
24. Gravelly Run I don’t know somehow it seems sufficient To see and hear whatever coming and going is, Losing the self to the victory of stones and trees, Of bending sandpit lakes, crescent Round groves of dwarf pine: For it is not so much to know the self As to know it as it is known by […]...
25. Prayer LET us leave our island woods grown dim and blue; O’er the waters creeping the pearl dust of the eve Hides the silver of the long wave rippling through: The chill for the warm room let us leave. Turn the lamp down low and draw the curtain wide, So the greyness of the starlight bathes […]...
26. If I could bribe them by a Rose If I could bribe them by a Rose I’d bring them every flower that grows From Amherst to Cashmere! I would not stop for night, or storm Or frost, or death, or anyone My business were so dear! If they would linger for a Bird My Tambourin were soonest heard Among the April Woods! Unwearied, […]...
27. Statue of a Couple Your hand, my wonder, is now icy cold. The purest light of the celestial dome Has burned me through. And now we are As two still plams lying in darlmess, As two black banks of a frozen stream In the chasm of the world. Our hair combed back is carved in wood, The moon walks […]...
28. My Friends My friends without shields walk on the target It is late the windows are breaking My friends without shoes leave What they love Grief moves among them as a fire among Its bells My friends without clocks turn On the dial they turn They part My friends with names like gloves set out Bare handed […]...
29. I Have Some Friends I have some friends, some worthy friends, And worthy friends are rare: These carpet slippers on my feet, That padded leather chair; This old and shabby dressing-gown, So well the worse of wear. I have some friends, some honest friends, And honest friends are few; My pipe of briar, my open fire, A book that’s […]...
30. The red man says hello the red man says hello The green tree says i’m here All grown-ups are sleeping Only the children hear Decorations are delighted Presents hug the floor The room in its festive hat Hides behind the door Through the glittering day Two worlds split the one Grown-ups lose their tempers Children have the fun The red […]...
31. Sonnet XX: Fly, Fly, My Friends Fly, fly, my friends, I have my death wound; fly! See there that boy, that murthering boy I say, Who like a thief, hid in dark bush doth lie, Till bloody bullet get him wrongful prey. So tyrant he no fitter place could spy, Nor so fair level in so secret stay, As that sweet […]...
32. Come O'er the Sea Come o’er the sea, Maiden with me, Mine through sunshine, storm, and snows; Seasons may roll, But the true soul Burns the same, where’er it goes. Let fate frown on, so we love and part not; ‘Tis life where thou art, ’tis death were thou are not. Then come o’er the sea, Maiden with me, […]...
33. Evening ‘Tis evening; the black snail has got on his track, And gone to its nest is the wren, And the packman snail, too, with his home on his back, Clings to the bowed bents like a wen. The shepherd has made a rude mark with his foot Where his shadow reached when he first came, […]...
34. Hail! Childish Slave Of Social Rules HAIL! Childish slaves of social rules You had yourselves a hand in making! How I could shake your faith, ye fools, If but I thought it worth the shaking. I see, and pity you; and then Go, casting off the idle pity, In search of better, braver men, My own way freely through the city. […]...
35. Astrophel and Stella: XX Fly, fly, my friends, I have my death wound, fly! See there that boy, that murd’ring boy, I say, Who, like a thief, hid in dark bush doth lie Till bloody bullet get him wrongful prey. So tyrant he no fitter place could spy, Nor so fair level in so secret stay, As that sweet […]...
36. In Tenebris Wintertime nighs; But my bereavement-pain It cannot bring again: Twice no one dies. Flower-petals flee; But since it once hath been, No more that severing scene Can harrow me. Birds faint in dread: I shall not lose old strength In the lone frost’s black length: Strength long since fled! Leaves freeze to dun; But friends […]...
37. Psalm 06 Aug. 13. 1653. Lord in thine anger do not reprehend me Nor in thy hot displeasure me correct; Pity me Lord for I am much deject Am very weak and faint; heal and amend me, For all my bones, that even with anguish ake, Are troubled, yea my soul is troubled sore And thou O […]...
38. The Lost Mistress All’s over, then: does truth sound bitter As one at first believes? Hark, ’tis the sparrows’ good-night twitter About your cottage eaves! And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, I noticed that today; One day more bursts them open fully -You know the red turns grey. Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest? May […]...
39. Sestina Otiosa Our great work, the Otia Merseiana, Edited by learned Mister Sampson, And supported by Professor Woodward, Is financed by numerous Bogus Meetings Hastily convened by Kuno Meyer To impose upon the Man of Business. All in vain! The accomplished Man of Business Disapproves of Otia Merseiana, Turns his back on Doctor Kuno Meyer; Cannot be […]...
40. To Any Reader As from the house your mother sees You playing round the garden trees, So you may see, if you will look Through the windows of this book, Another child, far, far away, And in another garden, play. But do not think you can at all, By knocking on the window, call That child to hear […]...