To S. M

Related poetry:

1. Song Of One Of The Girls Here in my heart I am Helen; I’m Aspasia and Hero, at least. I’m Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Stael; I’m Salome, moon of the East. Here in my soul I am Sappho; Lady Hamilton am I, as well. In me Recamier vies with Kitty O’Shea, With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell. I’m […]...
2. The Fury Of Cooks Herbs, garlic, Cheese, please let me in! Souffles, salad, Parker House rolls, Please let me in! Cook Helen, Why are you so cross, Why is your kitchen verboten? Couldn’t you just teach me To bake a potato, To bake a potato, That charm, That young prince? No! No! This is my county! You shout silently. […]...
3. Helen all Alone “In the Same Boat” A Diversity of Creatures There was darkness under Heaven For an hour’s space Darkness that we knew was given Us for special grace. Sun and noon and stars were hid, God had left His Throne, When Helen came to me, she did, Helen all alone! Side by side (because our fate […]...
4. Quebec -1908 Of old, like Helen, guerdon of the strong Like Helen fair, like Helen light of word, “The spoils unto the conquerors belong. Who winneth me must win me by the sword.” Grown old, like Helen, once the jealous prize That strong men battled for in savage hate, Can she look forth with unregretful eyes, […]...
5. Awake, My Heart Awake, my heart, to be loved, awake, awake! The darkness silvers away, the morn doth break, It leaps in the sky: unrisen lustres slake The o’ertaken moon. Awake, O heart, awake! She too that loveth awaketh and hopes for thee: Her eyes already have sped the shades that flee, Already they watch the path thy […]...
6. Sonnets 06: No Rose That In A Garden Ever Grew No rose that in a garden ever grew, In Homer’s or in Omar’s or in mine, Though buried under centuries of fine Dead dust of roses, shut from sun and dew Forever, and forever lost from view, But must again in fragrance rich as wine The grey aisles of the air incarnadine When the old […]...
7. Leave Me, O Love Which Reachest But To Dust Leave me, O love which reachest but to dust, And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things; Grow rich in that which never taketh rust: Whatever fades but fading pleasure brings. Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be, Which breaks the clouds and opens forth […]...
8. Dying! To be afraid of thee Dying! To be afraid of thee One must to thine Artillery Have left exposed a Friend Than thine old Arrow is a Shot Delivered straighter to the Heart The leaving Love behind. Not for itself, the Dust is shy, But, enemy, Beloved be Thy Batteries divorce. Fight sternly in a Dying eye Two Armies, Love […]...
9. We'll go no more a-roving SO, we’ll go no more a-roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright. For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest. Though the night was made […]...
10. Psalm 89 part 6 v.47ff L. M. Mortality and hope. A funeral psalm. Remember, Lord, our mortal state, How frail our life! how short the date! Where is the man that draws his breath Safe from disease, secure from death’? Lord, while we see whole nations die, Our flesh and sense repine and cry, “Must death for ever rage […]...
11. The face that launch'd a thousand ships Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies! Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips, And all is […]...
12. So We'll Go No More a-Roving So we’ll go no more a-roving So late into the night, Though the heart still be as loving, And the moon still be as bright. For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul outwears the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest. Though the night was made for […]...
13. Variations of Greek Themes I A HAPPY MAN (Carphyllides) When these graven lines you see, Traveler, do not pity me; Though I be among the dead, Let no mournful word be said. Children that I leave behind, And their children, all were kind; Near to them and to my wife, I was happy all my life. My three sons […]...
14. The Red Dance There was a girl Who danced in the city that night, That April 22nd, All along the Charles River. It was as if one hundred men were watching Or do I mean the one hundred eyes of God? The yellow patches in the sycamores Glowed like miniature flashlights. The shadows, the skin of them Were […]...
15. New Feet EMPTY battlefields keep their phantoms. Grass crawls over old gun wheels And a nodding Canada thistle flings a purple Into the summer’s southwest wind, Wrapping a root in the rust of a bayonet, Reaching a blossom in rust of shrapnel....
16. On The Death Of Sir Rowland Cotton Seconding That Of Sir Robert More Cottons yet? O let not envious Fate Attempt the Ruine of our growing State. O had it spar’d Sir Rowland, then might wee Have almost spar’d Sir Robert’s Library. His Life and th’ others bookes taught but the same; Death kils us twice in blotting twice one Name. Give Him, and take those Reliques […]...
17. Ashes Of Life Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike; Eat I must, and sleep I will,-and would that night were here! But ah!-to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike! Would that it were day again!-with twilight near! Love has gone and left me and I don’t know what to do; […]...
18. Sonnet XL: On the Low Margin On the low margin of a murm’ring stream, As rapt in meditation’s arms I lay; Each aching sense in slumbers stole away, While potent fancy form’d a soothing dream; O’er the Leucadian deep, a dazzling beam Shed the bland light of empyrean day! But soon transparent shadows veil’d each ray, While mystic visions sprang athwart […]...
19. I Have Become Very Hairy I have become very hairy all over my body. I’m afraid they’ll start hunting me because of my fur. My multicolored shirt has no meaning of love It looks like an air photo of a railway station. At night my body is open and awake under the blanket, Like eyes under the blindfold of someone […]...
20. Psalm 16 part 3 Courage in death, and hope of the resurrection. When God is nigh, my faith is strong; His arm is my almighty prop: Be glad, my heart; rejoice, my tongue; My dying flesh shall rest in hope. Though in the dust I lay my head, Yet, gracious God, thou wilt not leave My soul for ever […]...
21. Psalm 139 part 1 The all-seeing God. Lord, thou hast searched and seen me through, Thine eye commands with piercing view My rising and my resting hours, My heart and flesh with all their powers. My thoughts, before they are my own, Are to my God distinctly known; He knows the words I mean to speak Ere from my […]...
22. If Death be Good (Sappho LXXIV) If death be good, Why do the gods not die? If life be ill, Why do the gods still live? If love be naught, Why do the gods still love? If love be all, What should men do but love?...
23. Sonnet XLII: Oh! Canst Thou Bear Oh! can’st thou bear to see this faded frame, Deform’d and mangled by the rocky deep? Wilt thou remember, and forbear to weep, My fatal fondness, and my peerless fame? Soon o’er this heart, now warm with passion’s flame, The howling winds and foamy waves shall sweep; Those eyes be ever clos’d in death’s cold […]...
24. The Gardener XXXVIII: My Love, Once upon a Time My love, once upon a time your poet Launched a great epic in his mind. Alas, I was not careful, and it struck Your ringing anklets and came to Grief. It broke up into scraps of songs and Lay scattered at your feet. All my cargo of the stories of old Wars was tossed by […]...
25. Sonnet XXIII: To Aetna's Scorching Sands To AEtna’s scorching sands my Phaon flies! False Youth! can other charms attractive prove? Say, can Sicilian loves thy passions move, Play round thy heart, and fix thy fickle eyes, While in despair the Lesbian Sappho dies? Has Spring for thee a crown of poppies wove, Or dost thou languish in th’ Idalian grove, Whose […]...
26. I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair Don’t go far off, not even for a day Don’t go far off, not even for a day, Because I don’t know how to say it – a day is long And I will be waiting for you, as in An empty station when the trains are Parked off somewhere else, asleep. Don’t leave me, […]...
27. Don't Go Far Off, Not Even For A Day Don’t go far off, not even for a day, because Because I don’t know how to say it: a day is long And I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station When the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep. Don’t leave me, even for an hour, because Then the little drops […]...
28. Crumbling is not an instant's Act Crumbling is not an instant’s Act A fundamental pause Dilapidation’s processes Are organized Decays. ‘Tis first a Cobweb on the Soul A Cuticle of Dust A Borer in the Axis An Elemental Rust Ruin is formal Devil’s work Consecutive and slow Fail in an instant, no man did Slipping is Crash’s law....
29. Christ's Nativity 1 Awake, glad heart! get up and sing! 2 It is the birth-day of thy King. 3 Awake! awake! 4 The Sun doth shake 5 Light from his locks, and all the way 6 Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day. 7 Awake, awake! hark how th’ wood rings; 8 Winds whisper, and the busy springs […]...
30. Florida The state with the prettiest name, The state that floats in brackish water, Held together by mangrave roots That bear while living oysters in clusters, And when dead strew white swamps with skeletons, Dotted as if bombarded, with green hummocks Like ancient cannon-balls sprouting grass. The state full of long S-shaped birds, blue and white, […]...
31. Little Boy Blue The little toy dog is covered with dust, But sturdy and stanch he stands; And the little toy soldier is red with rust, And his musket molds in his hands. Time was when the little toy dog was new And the soldier was passing fair, And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue […]...
32. Jerusalem: England! awake! awake! awake! England! awake! awake! awake! Jerusalem thy Sister calls! Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death And close her from thy ancient walls? Thy hills and valleys felt her feet Gently upon their bosoms move: Thy gates beheld sweet Zion’s ways: Then was a time of joy and love. And now the time returns again: […]...
33. Under a Hat Rim WHILE the hum and the hurry Of passing footfalls Beat in my ear like the restless surf Of a wind-blown sea, A soul came to me Out of the look on a face. Eyes like a lake Where a storm-wind roams Caught me from under The rim of a hat. I thought of a midsea […]...
34. The Soldiers at Lauro Young are our dead Like babies they lie The wombs they blest once Not healed dry And yet – too soon Into each space A cold earth falls On colder face. Quite still they lie These fresh-cut reeds Clutched in earth Like winter seeds But they will not bloom When called by spring To burst […]...
35. Blow, Bugle, Blow THE splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going! O […]...
36. Fast Anchor'd, Eternal, O Love FAST-ANCHOR’D, eternal, O love! O woman I love! O bride! O wife! more resistless than I can tell, the thought of you! -Then separate, as disembodied, or another born, Ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation; I ascend-I float in the regions of your love, O man, O sharer of my roving life....
37. Primeval my Love for the Woman I Love PRIMEVAL my love for the woman I love, O bride! O wife! more resistless, more enduring than I can tell, the thought of you! Then separate, as disembodied, the purest born, The ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation, I ascend-I float in the regions of your love, O man, O sharer of my roving […]...
38. 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 […]...
39. The Gardener IX: When I Go Alone at Night When I go alone at night to my Love-tryst, birds do not sing, the wind Does not stir, the houses on both sides Of the street stand silent. It is my own anklets that grow loud At every step and I am ashamed. When I sit on my balcony and listen For his footsteps, leaves […]...
40. Nature that Washed Her Hands in Milk Nature, that washed her hands in milk, And had forgot to dry them, Instead of earth took snow and silk, At love’s request to try them, If she a mistress could compose To please love’s fancy out of those. Her eyes he would should be of light, A violet breath, and lips of jelly; Her […]...