Beauty

Related poetry:

1. Sonnet XLI: Why Do I Speak of Joy Love’s Lunacy Why do I speak of joy, or write of love, When my heart is the very den of horror, And in my soul the pains of Hell I prove, With all his torments and infernal terror? What should I say? What yet remains to do? My brain is dry with weeping all too […]...
2. O Beauty, Passing Beauty! O beauty, passing beauty! Sweetest sweet! How can thou let me waste my youth in sighs? I only ask to sit beside thy feet. Thou knowest I dare not look into thine eyes. Might I but kiss thy hand! I dare not fold My arms about thee scarcely dare to speak. And nothing seems to […]...
3. Amoretti III: The Sovereign Beauty The sovereign beauty which I do admire, Witness the world how worthy to be praised: The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised; That being now with her huge brightness dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view; But looking still on her, I stand […]...
4. BEAUTY I AM as lovely as a dream in stone, And this my heart where each finds death in turn, Inspires the poet with a love as lone As clay eternal and as taciturn. Swan-white of heart, a sphinx no mortal knows, My throne is in the heaven’s azure deep; I hate all movements that disturb […]...
5. She Walks In Beauty She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which […]...
6. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
7. PUBLISHERS And then they pretend like owls With marble eyes and wizened stupidity I do not know why they cannot perceive True art But I will write Until sand evaporates And the moon consumes the sun I will write Even for the sake of art For myself and for those who feel Reading could lift them […]...
8. Against Evil Company Why should I join with those in Play, In whom I’ve no delight, Who curse and swear, but never pray, Who call ill Names, and fight. I hate to hear a wanton Song, Their Words offend my Ears: I should not dare defile my Tongue With Language such as theirs. Away from Fools I’ll turn […]...
9. On Seeing A Piece Of Our Artillery Brought Into Action Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm, Great gun towering towards Heaven, about to curse; Sway steep against them, and for years rehearse Huge imprecations like a blasting charm! Reach at that Arrogance which needs thy harm, And beat it down before its sins grow worse; Spend our resentment, cannon, yea, disburse Our gold […]...
10. 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 […]...
11. The Living Beauty I bade, because the wick and oil are spent And frozen are the channels of the blood, My discontented heart to draw content From beauty that is cast out of a mould In bronze, or that in dazzling marble appears, Appears, but when wc have gone is gone again, Being more indifferent to our solitude […]...
12. Idea XX: An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still An evil spirit, your beauty, haunts me still, Wherewith, alas, I have been long possess’d, Which ceaseth not to tempt me to each ill, Nor gives me once but one poor minute’s rest. In me it speaks, whether I sleep or wake; And when by means to drive it out I try, With greater torments […]...
13. TO WILLIAM E. CHANNING The pages of thy book I read, And as I closed each one, My heart, responding, ever said, “Servant of God! well done!” Well done! Thy words are great and bold; At times they seem to me, Like Luther’s, in the days of old, Half-battles for the free. Go on, until this land revokes The […]...
14. The Wild Old Wicked Man Because I am mad about women I am mad about the hills,’ Said that wild old wicked man Who travels where God wills. ‘Not to die on the straw at home. Those hands to close these eyes, That is all I ask, my dear, From the old man in the skies. Daybreak and a candle-end. […]...
15. Ode to Beauty EXULTING BEAUTY,­phantom of an hour, Whose magic spells enchain the heart, Ah! what avails thy fascinating pow’r, Thy thrilling smile, thy witching art? Thy lip, where balmy nectar glows; Thy cheek, where round the damask rose A thousand nameless Graces move, Thy mildly speaking azure eyes, Thy golden hair, where cunning Love In many a […]...
16. Sonnet 33 – Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear The name I used to run at, when a child, From innocent play, and leave the cowslips piled, To glance up in some face that proved me dear With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled Into […]...
17. A Very Short Song Once, when I was young and true, Someone left me sad- Broke my brittle heart in two; And that is very bad. Love is for unlucky folk, Love is but a curse. Once there was a heart I broke; And that, I think, is worse....
18. Divinely Superfluous Beauty The storm-dances of gulls, the barking game of seals, Over and under the ocean… Divinely superfluous beauty Rules the games, presides over destinies, makes trees grow And hills tower, waves fall. The incredible beauty of joy Stars with fire the joining of lips, O let our loves too Be joined, there is not a maiden […]...
19. Hymn To Intellectual Beauty The awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats through unseen among us, visiting This various world with as inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower, Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, It visits with inconstant glance Each human heart and countenance; Like hues and harmonies of evening, Like clouds […]...
20. Infelice Walking swiftly with a dreadful duchess, He smiled too briefly, his face was pale as sand, He jumped into a taxi when he saw me coming, Leaving my alone with a private meaning, He loves me so much, my heart is singing. Later at the Club when I rang him in the evening They said: […]...
21. The Beauty of Death XIV Part One – The Calling Let me sleep, for my soul is intoxicated with love and Let me rest, for my spirit has had its bounty of days and nights; Light the candles and burn the incense around my bed, and Scatter leaves of jasmine and roses over my body; Embalm my hair with frankincense […]...
22. Sonnet IV: Bright Star of Beauty Bright star of beauty, on whose eyelids sit A thousand nymph-like and enamour’d Graces, The Goddesses of Memory and Wit, Which there in order take their several places; In whose dear bosom sweet delicious Love Lays down his quiver, which he once did bear, Since he that blessed Paradise did prove, And leaves his mother’s […]...
23. A Cross-Road Epitaph “Am Kreuzweg wird begraben Wer selber brachte sich um.” When first the world grew dark to me I call’d on God, yet came not he. Whereon, as wearier wax’d my lot, On Love I call’d, but Love came not. When a worse evil did befall, Death, on thee only did I call....
24. Said The Poet To The Analyst My business is words. Words are like labels, Or coins, or better, like swarming bees. I confess I am only broken by the sources of things; As if words were counted like dead bees in the attic, Unbuckled from their yellow eyes and their dry wings. I must always forget who one words is able […]...
25. The Gardener LXI: Peace, My Heart Peace, my heart, let the time for The parting be sweet. Let it not be a death but completeness. Let love melt into memory and pain Into songs. Let the flight through the sky end In the folding of the wings over the Nest. Let the last touch of your hands be Gentle like the […]...
26. Pied Beauty Glory be to God for dappled things- For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings; Landscape plotted and pieced-fold, fallow, and plough; And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim. All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who […]...
27. The Loss of Love All through an empty place I go, And find her not in any room; The candles and the lamps I light Go down before a wind of gloom. Thick-spraddled lies the dust about, A fit, sad place to write her name Or draw her face the way she looked That legendary night she came. The […]...
28. Dialogue Between a Sovereign and a One-Pound Note Said a Sov’reign to a Note, In the pocket of my coat, Where they met in a neat purse of leather, “How happens it, I prithee, That though I’m wedded with thee, Fair Pound, we can never live together? Like your sex, fond of change, With silver you can range, And of lots of young […]...
29. 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 […]...
30. This Side Of The Truth (for Llewelyn) This side of the truth, You may not see, my son, King of your blue eyes In the blinding country of youth, That all is undone, Under the unminding skies, Of innocence and guilt Before you move to make One gesture of the heart or head, Is gathered and spilt Into the winding […]...
31. Beauty XXV And a poet said, “Speak to us of Beauty.” Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide? And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech? The aggrieved and the injured say, “Beauty is kind and gentle. […]...
32. Love's Deity I long to talk with some old lover’s ghost, Who died before the God of Love was born: I cannot think that he, who then loved most, Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn. But since this god produced a destiny, And that vice-nature, Custom, lets it be, I must love her […]...
33. To A Young Beauty Dear fellow-artist, why so free With every sort of company, With every Jack and Jill? Choose your companions from the best; Who draws a bucket with the rest Soon topples down the hill. You may, that mirror for a school, Be passionate, not bountiful As common beauties may, Who were not born to keep in […]...
34. Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty) Consider A girl who keeps slipping off, Arms limp as old carrots, Into the hypnotist’s trance, Into a spirit world Speaking with the gift of tongues. She is stuck in the time machine, Suddenly two years old sucking her thumb, As inward as a snail, Learning to talk again. She’s on a voyage. She is […]...
35. Ingrateful Beauty Threatened Know Celia, since thou art so proud, ‘Twas I that gave thee thy renown; Thou hadst, in the forgotten crowd Of common beauties, liv’d unknown, Had not my verse exhal’d thy name, And with it imp’d the wings of fame. That killing power is none of thine, I gave it to thy voice, and eyes; […]...
36. A Vision of Beauty WHERE we sat at dawn together, while the star-rich heavens shifted, We were weaving dreams in silence, suddenly the veil was lifted. By a hand of fire awakened, in a moment caught and led Upward to the heaven of heavens-through the star-mists overhead Flare and flaunt the monstrous highlands; on the sapphire coast of night […]...
37. The Gardener XXVII: Trust Love “Trust love even if it brings sorrow. Do not close up your heart.” “Ah no, my friend, your words are Dark, I cannot understand them.” “Pleasure is frail like a dewdrop, While it laughs it dies. But sorrow is Strong and abiding. Let sorrowful Love wake in your eyes.” “Ah no, my friend, your words […]...
38. Recurrence We shall have our little day. Take my hand and travel still Round and round the little way, Up and down the little hill. It is good to love again; Scan the renovated skies, Dip and drive the idling pen, Sweetly tint the paling lies. Trace the dripping, pierced heart, Speak the fair, insistent verse, […]...
39. The Fountain of Shadowy Beauty I WOULD I could weave in The colour, the wonder, The song I conceive in My heart while I ponder, And show how it came like The magi of old Whose chant was a flame like The dawn’s voice of gold; Whose dreams followed near them A murmur of birds, And ear still could hear […]...
40. Sonnet 02 – But only three in all God's universe But only three in all God’s universe Have heard this word thou hast said,-Himself, beside Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied One of us. . . that was God, . . . and laid the curse So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce My sight from seeing thee,-that if I had died, The […]...