Veteran Sirens

Related poetry:

1. The Veteran When I was young and bold and strong, Oh, right was right, and wrong was wrong! My plume on high, my flag unfurled, I rode away to right the world. “Come out, you dogs, and fight!” said I, And wept there was but once to die. But I am old; and good and bad Are […]...
2. The Sirens' Song STEER, hither steer your winged pines, All beaten mariners! Here lie Love’s undiscover’d mines, A prey to passengers Perfumes far sweeter than the best Which make the Phoenix’ urn and nest. Fear not your ships, Nor any to oppose you save our lips; But come on shore, Where no joy dies till Love hath gotten […]...
3. Praise (I) To write a verse or two is all the praise That I can raise: Mend my estate in any ways, Thou shalt have more. I go to Church; help me to wings, and I Will thither fly; Or, if I mount unto the sky, I will do more. Man is all weakness; there is no […]...
4. Refusal Beloved, In what other lives or lands Have I known your lips Your Hands Your Laughter brave Irreverent. Those sweet excesses that I do adore. What surety is there That we will meet again, On other worlds some Future time undated. I defy my body’s haste. Without the promise Of one more sweet encounter I […]...
5. 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 […]...
6. Lay His Sword By His Side Lay his sword by his side it hath served him too well Not to rest near his pillow below; To the last moment true, from his hand ere it fell, Its point was still turn’d to a flying foe. Fellow-labourers in life, let them slumber in death, Side by side, as becomes the reposing brave […]...
7. Ballad of a Ship Down by the flash of the restless water The dim White Ship like a white bird lay; Laughing at life and the world they sought her, And out she swung to the silvering bay. Then off they flew on their roystering way, And the keen moon fired the light foam flying Up from the flood […]...
8. Style Flaubert wanted to write a novel About nothing. It was to have no subject And be sustained upon the style alone, Like the Holy Ghost cruising above The abyss, or like the little animals In Disney cartoons who stand upon a branch That breaks, but do not fall Till they look down. He never wrote […]...
9. Albert and the 'Eadsman On young Albert Ramsbottom’s birthday His parents asked what he’d like most; He said to see t’ Tower of London And gaze upon Anne Boleyn’s ghost. They thowt this request were unusual And at first to refuse were inclined, ‘Til Pa said a trip t’ metrollopse Might broaden the little lad’s mind. They took charrybank […]...
10. The Cat's Song Mine, says the cat, putting out his paw of darkness. My lover, my friend, my slave, my toy, says The cat making on your chest his gesture of drawing Milk from his mother’s forgotten breasts. Let us walk in the woods, says the cat. I’ll teach you to read the tabloid of scents, To fade […]...
11. FOUND ONCE through the forest Alone I went; To seek for nothing My thoughts were bent. I saw i’ the shadow A flower stand there As stars it glisten’d, As eyes ’twas fair. I sought to pluck it, It gently said: “Shall I be gather’d Only to fade?” With all its roots I dug it with […]...
12. LOVE DISLIKES NOTHING Whatsoever thing I see, Rich or poor although it be, ‘Tis a mistress unto me. Be my girl or fair or brown, Does she smile, or does she frown; Still I write a sweet-heart down. Be she rough, or smooth of skin; When I touch, I then begin For to let affection in. Be she […]...
13. If We Must Die If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursèd lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even […]...
14. Crazy Jane And Jack The Journeyman I know, although when looks meet I tremble to the bone, The more I leave the door unlatched The sooner love is gone, For love is but a skein unwound Between the dark and dawn. A lonely ghost the ghost is That to God shall come; I – love’s skein upon the ground, My body […]...
15. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
16. Fragment Faint white pillars that seem to fade As you look from here are the first one sees Of his house where it hides and dies in a shade Of beeches and oaks and hickory trees. Now many a man, given woods like these, And a house like that, and the Briony gold, Would have said, […]...
17. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
18. I Fellowed Sleep I fellowed sleep who kissed me in the brain, Let fall the tear of time; the sleeper’s eye, Shifting to light, turned on me like a moon. So, planning-heeled, I flew along my man And dropped on dreaming and the upward sky. I fled the earth and, naked, climbed the weather, Reaching a second ground […]...
19. At Cheyenne Young Lochinvar came in from the West, With fringe on his trousers and fur on his vest; The width of his hat-brim could nowhere be beat, His No. Brogans were chuck full of feet, His girdle was horrent with pistols and things, And he flourished a handful of aces on kings. The fair Mariana sate […]...
20. The Sunken Crown Nothing will hold him longer-let him go; Let him go down where others have gone down; Little he cares whether we smile or frown, Or if we know, or if we think we know. The call is on him for his overthrow, Say we; so let him rise, or let him drown. Poor fool! He […]...
21. Stanzas to Flora LET OTHERS wreaths of ROSES twine With scented leaves of EGLANTINE; Enamell’d buds and gaudy flow’rs, The pride of FLORA’S painted bow’rs; Such common charms shall ne’er be wove Around the brows of him I LOVE. Fair are their beauties for a day, But swiftly do they fade away; Each PINK sends forth its choicest […]...
22. A Curse For A Nation I heard an angel speak last night, And he said ‘Write! Write a Nation’s curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea.’ I faltered, taking up the word: ‘Not so, my lord! If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother. ‘For I am bound by gratitude, By love […]...
23. The Tide of Sorrow ON the twilight-burnished hills I lie and long and gaze Where below the grey-lipped sands drink in the flowing tides, Drink, and fade and disappear: interpreting their ways A seer in my heart abides. Once the diamond dancing day-waves laved thy thirsty lips: Now they drink the dusky night-tide running cold and fleet, Drink, and […]...
24. 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...
25. The Apparition When by thy scorn, O murd’ress, I am dead, And that thou think’st thee free From all solicitation from me, Then shall my ghost come to thy bed, And thee, feigned vestal, in worse arms shall see; Then thy sick taper will begin to wink, And he, whose thou art then, being tired before, Will, […]...
26. Sonet LIV O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live. The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye As the perfumed tincture of the roses, Hang on such thorns and play […]...
27. My Masterpiece It’s slim and trim and bound in blue; Its leaves are crisp and edged with gold; Its words are simple, stalwart too; Its thoughts are tender, wise and bold. Its pages scintillate with wit; Its pathos clutches at my throat: Oh, how I love each line of it! That Little Book I Never Wrote. In […]...
28. 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...
29. A Call DUSK its ash-grey blossoms sheds on violet skies, Over twilight mountains where the heart songs rise, Rise and fall and fade away from earth to air. Earth renews the music sweeter. Oh, come there. Come, acushla, come, as in ancient times Rings aloud the underland with faery chimes. Down the unseen ways as strays each […]...
30. Apology To Delia: For Desiring A Lock Of Her Hair Delia, the unkindest girl on earth, When I besought the fair, That favour of intrinsic worth A ringlet of her hair, Refused that instant to comply With my absurd request, For reasons she could specify, Some twenty score at least. Trust me, my dear, however odd It may appear to say, I sought it merely […]...
31. Shot? So Quick, So Clean an Ending? Shot? so quick, so clean an ending? Oh that was right, lad, that was brave: Yours was not an ill for mending, ‘Twas best to take it to the grave. Oh you had forethought, you could reason, And saw your road and where it led, And early wise and brave in season Put the pistol […]...
32. What Then? His chosen comrades thought at school He must grow a famous man; He thought the same and lived by rule, All his twenties crammed with toil; ‘What then?’ sang Plato’s ghost. ‘What then?’ Everything he wrote was read, After certain years he won Sufficient money for his need, Friends that have been friends indeed; ‘What […]...
33. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
34. The Missal Makers To visit the Escurial We took a motor bus, And there a guide mercurial Took charge of us. He showed us through room after room, And talked hour after hour, Of place, crypt and royal tomb, Of pomp and power. But in bewilderment of grace What pleased me most of all Were ancient missals proud […]...
35. The Blue Swallows Across the millstream below the bridge Seven blue swallows divide the air In shapes invisible and evanescent, Kaleidoscopic beyond the mind’s Or memory’s power to keep them there. “History is where tensions were,” “Form is the diagram of forces.” Thus, helplessly, there on the bridge, While gazing down upon those birds – How strange, to […]...
36. 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 […]...
37. Sonnet 11 Apart sweet women (for whom Heaven be blessed), Comrades, you cannot think how thin and blue Look the leftovers of mankind that rest, Now that the cream has been skimmed off in you. War has its horrors, but has this of good That its sure processes sort out and bind Brave hearts in one intrepid […]...
38. Sonnets i SHALL I compare thee to a Summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm’d; And every fair from fair sometime declines, […]...
39. Sonnets XVIII: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm’d; And every fair from fair sometime declines, […]...
40. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (Sonnet 18) Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, […]...