An Old Story

Related poetry:

1. The Story of Sigurd the Volsung (excerpt) But therewith the sun rose upward and lightened all the earth, And the light flashed up to the heavens from the rims of the glorious girth; But they twain arose together, and with both her palms outspread, And bathed in the light returning, she cried aloud and said: “All hail, O Day and thy Sons, […]...
2. The Undying She was so wonderful I wondered If wedding me she had not blundered; She was so pure, so high above me, I marvelled how she came to love me: Or did she? Well, in her own fashion – Affection, pity, never passion. I knew I was not worth her love; Yet oh, how wistfully I […]...
3. On a certain Lady at Court I know the thing that’s most uncommon; (Envy be silent and attend!) I know a Reasonable Woman, Handsome and witty, yet a Friend. Not warp’d by Passion, aw’d by Rumour, Not grave thro’ Pride, or gay thro’ Folly, An equal Mixture of good Humour, And sensible soft Melancholy. ‘Has she no Faults then (Envy says) […]...
4. Story A woman’s taking her late-afternoon walk On Chestnut where no sidewalk exists And houses with gravel driveways Sit back among the pines. Only the house With the vicious dog is close to the road. An electric fence keeps him in check. When she comes to that house, the woman Always crosses to the other side. […]...
5. Sonnet 103: Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth, That having such a scope to show her pride, The argument all bare is of more worth Than when it hath my added praise beside. O, blame me not if I no more can write! Look in your glass, and there appears a face That overgoes my blunt […]...
6. Impromptu, to Lady Winchelsea In vain you boast Poetic Names of yore, And cite those Sapho’s we admire no more: Fate doom’d the Fall of ev’ry Female Wit, But doom’d it then when first Ardelia writ. Of all Examples by the World confest, I knew Ardelia could not quote the best; Who, like her Mistress on Britannia’s Throne; Fights, […]...
7. Song I. Nay but you, who do not love her, Is she not pure gold, my mistress? Holds earth aught – speak truth – above her? Aught like this tress, see, and this tress, And this last fairest tress of all, So fair, see, ere I let it fall? II. Because, you spend your lives in […]...
8. Sonnet 39: O, how thy worth with manners may I sing O, how thy worth with manners may I sing, When thou art all the better part of me? What can mine own praise to mine own self bring? And what is’t but mine own when I praise thee? Even for this let us divided live, And our dear love lose name of single one, That […]...
9. Sonnet XXXIX O, how thy worth with manners may I sing, When thou art all the better part of me? What can mine own praise to mine own self bring? And what is ‘t but mine own when I praise thee? Even for this let us divided live, And our dear love lose name of single one, […]...
10. The Second Oldest Story Go I must along my ways Though my heart be ragged, Dripping bitter through the days, Festering, and jagged. Smile I must at every twinge, Kiss, to time its throbbing; He that tears a heart to fringe Hates the noise of sobbing. Weep, my love, till Heaven hears; Curse and moan and languish. While I […]...
11. Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride? Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my […]...
12. Sonnet LXXX 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 […]...
13. 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, […]...
14. The Story Of Our Lives 1 We are reading the story of our lives Which takes place in a room. The room looks out on a street. There is no one there, No sound of anything. The tress are heavy with leaves, The parked cars never move. We keep turning the pages, hoping for something, Something like mercy or change, […]...
15. The Tree: An Old Man's Story I Its roots are bristling in the air Like some mad Earth-god’s spiny hair; The loud south-wester’s swell and yell Smote it at midnight, and it fell. Thus ends the tree Where Some One sat with me. II Its boughs, which none but darers trod, A child may step on from the sod, And twigs […]...
16. Story “And if he’s gone away,” said she, “Good riddance, if you’re asking me. I’m not a one to lie awake And weep for anybody’s sake. There’s better lads than him about! I’ll wear my buckled slippers out A-dancing till the break of day. I’m better off with him away! And if he never come,” said […]...
17. An Old Story (Retold in Rhyme) They threw him in a prison cell; He moaned upon his bed. And when he crept from coils of hell: “Last night you killed,” they said. “last night in drunken rage you slew A being brave with breath; A radiant soul, because of you Lies dark in death.” “last night I killed,” […]...
18. Story Of Isaac The door it opened slowly, My father he came in, I was nine years old. And he stood so tall above me, His blue eyes they were shining And his voice was very cold. He said, “I’ve had a vision And you know I’m strong and holy, I must do what I’ve been told.” So […]...
19. Sonnet LXX That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect, For slander’s mark was ever yet the fair; The ornament of beauty is suspect, A crow that flies in heaven’s sweetest air. So thou be good, slander doth but approve Thy worth the greater, being woo’d of time; For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love, […]...
20. 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, […]...
21. Sonnet 70: That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect, For slander’s mark was ever yet the fair; The ornament of beauty is suspect, A crow that flies in heaven’s sweetest air. So thou be good, slander doth but approve Thy worth the greater being wooed of time, For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love, […]...
22. A Christmas Ghost Story South of the Line, inland from far Durban, A mouldering soldier lies your countryman. Awry and doubled up are his gray bones, And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans Nightly to clear Canopus: “I would know By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified, Was ruled to […]...
23. The Story Of The Ashes And The Flame No matter why, nor whence, nor when she came, There was her place. No matter what men said, No matter what she was; living or dead, Faithful or not, he loved her all the same. The story was as old as human shame, But ever since that lonely night she fled, With books to blind […]...
24. The White Lights When in from Delos came the gold That held the dream of Pericles, When first Athenian ears were told The tumult of Euripides, When men met Aristophanes, Who fledged them with immortal quills – Here, where the time knew none of these, There were some islands and some hills. When Rome went ravening to see […]...
25. The Story of Ung Once, on a glittering ice-field, ages and ages ago, Ung, a maker of pictures, fashioned an image of snow. Fashioned the form of a tribesman gaily he whistled and sung, Working the snow with his fingers. Read ye the Story of Ung! Pleased was his tribe with that image came in their hundreds to scan […]...
26. To Wolcott Balestier Beyond the path of the outmost sun through utter darkness hurled Further than ever comet flared or vagrant star-dust swirled Live such as fought and sailed and ruled and loved and made our world. They are purged of pride because they died, they know the worth of their bays, They sit at wine with the […]...
27. TO My Lord Colrane, In Answer to his Complemental Verses sent me under the Name of CLEANOR LOng my dull Muse in heavy slumbers lay, Indulging Sloth, and to soft Ease gave way, Her Fill of Rest resolving to enjoy, Or fancying little worthy her employ. When Noble Cleanors obliging Strains Her, the neglected Lyre to tune, constrains. Confus’d at first, she rais’d her drowsie Head, Ponder’d a while, then pleas’d, forsook […]...
28. The Corridor It may have been the pride in me for aught I know, or just a patronizing whim; But call it freak of fancy, or what not, I cannot hide the hungry face of him. I keep a scant half-dozen words he said, And every now and then I lose his name; He may be living […]...
29. The Woman and the Wife I THE EXPLANATION “You thought we knew,” she said, “but we were wrong. This we can say, the rest we do not say; Nor do I let you throw yourself away Because you love me. Let us both be strong, And we shall find in sorrow, before long, Only the price Love ruled that we […]...
30. Praise In Summer Obscurely yet most surely called to praise, As sometimes summer calls us all, I said The hills are heavens full of branching ways Where star-nosed moles fly overhead the dead; I said the trees are mines in air, I said See how the sparrow burrows in the sky! And then I wondered why this mad […]...
31. Song (Go And Catch A Falling Star) Go and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are, Or who cleft the Devil’s foot, Teach me to hear mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy’s stinging, And find What wind Serves to advance an honest mind. If thou be’st born to strange sights, Things […]...
32. Sympathy My Muse is simple, yet it’s nice To think you don’t need to think twice On words I write. I reckon I’ve a common touch And if you say I cuss too much I answer: ‘Quite!’ I envy not the poet’s lot; He has something I haven’t got, Alas, I know. But I have something […]...
33. A Disqualified Jockey's Story You see, the thing was this way there was me, That rode Panopply, the Splendor mare, And Ikey Chambers on the Iron Dook, And Smith, the half-caste rider on Regret, And that long bloke from Wagga him that rode Veronikew, the Snowy River horse. Well, none of them had chances not a chance Among the […]...
34. Peace on Earth He took a frayed hat from his head, And “Peace on Earth” was what he said. “A morsel out of what you’re worth, And there we have it: Peace on Earth. Not much, although a little more Than what there was on earth before I’m as you see, I’m Ichabod,- But never mind the ways […]...
35. Psalm 73 v.22,3,6,17-20 L. M. The prosperity of sinners cursed. Lord, what a thoughtless wretch was I, To mourn, and murmur, and repine, To see the wicked placed on high, In pride and robes of honor shine! But O their end, their dreadful end! Thy sanctuary taught me so; On slipp’ry rocks I see them stand, And […]...
36. The Story of Mongrel Grey This is the story the stockman told On the cattle-camp, when the stars were bright; The moon rose up like a globe of gold And flooded the plain with her mellow light. We watched the cattle till dawn of day And he told me the story of Mongrel Grey. He was a knock-about station hack, […]...
37. Independence Ode Columbia, fair queen in your glory! Columbia, the pride of the earth! We crown you with song – wreath and story; We honour the day of your birth! The wrath of a king and his minions You braved, to be free, on that day; And the eagle sailed up on strong pinions, And frightened the […]...
38. Exit For what we owe to other days, Before we poisoned him with praise, May we who shrank to find him weak Remember that he cannot speak. For envy that we may recall, And for our faith before the fall, May we who are alive be slow To tell what we shall never know. For penance […]...
39. I envy Seas, whereon He rides I envy Seas, whereon He rides I envy Spokes of Wheels Of Chariots, that Him convey I envy Crooked Hills That gaze upon His journey How easy All can see What is forbidden utterly As Heaven unto me! I envy Nests of Sparrows That dot His distant Eaves The wealthy Fly, upon His Pane The […]...
40. Strange Are The Ways Of Men STRANGE are the ways of men, And strange the ways of God! We tread the mazy paths That all our fathers trod. We tread them undismayed, And undismayed behold The portents of the sky, The things that were of old. The fiery stars pursue Their course in heav’n on high; And round the ‘leaguered town, […]...