The Prisoner

Related poetry:

1. A Prisoner in a Dungeon Deep A prisoner in a dungeon deep Sat musing silently; His head was rested on his hand, His elbow on his knee. Turned he his thoughts to future times Or are they backward cast? For freedom is he pining now Or mourning for the past? No, he has lived so long enthralled Alone in dungeon gloom […]...
2. The Prisoner Still let my tyrants know, I am not doomed to wear Year after year in gloom and desolate despair; A messenger of Hope comes every night to me, And offers for short life, eternal liberty. He comes with western winds, with evening’s wandering airs, With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars: […]...
3. Prisoner, The – (A Fragment) In the dungeon-crypts, idly did I stray, Reckless of the lives wasting there away; “Draw the ponderous bars! open, Warder stern!” He dared not say me nay – the hinges harshly turn. “Our guests are darkly lodged,” I whisper’d, gazing through The vault, whose grated eye showed heaven more grey than blue; (This was when […]...
4. The three tailors I shall tell you in rhyme how, once on a time, Three tailors tramped up to the inn Ingleheim, On the Rhine, lovely Rhine; They were broke, but the worst of it all, they were curst With that malady common to tailors a thirst For wine, lots of wine. “Sweet host,” quoth the three, “we’re […]...
5. The Prisoner of Chillon I My hair is gray, but not with years, Nor grew it white In a single night, As men’s have grown from sudden fears: My limbs are bow’d, though not with toil, But rusted with a vile repose, For they have been a dungeon’s spoil, And mine has been the fate of those To whom […]...
6. The Prisoner I lash and writhe against my prison bars, And watch with sullen eyes the gaping crowd. . Give me my freedom and the burning stars, The hollow sky, and crags of moonlit cloud! Once I might range across the trackless plain, And roar with joy, until the desert air And wide horizons echoed it amain: […]...
7. Pleasure A Short Poem or Else Not Say I True pleasure breathes not city air, Nor in Art’s temples dwells, In palaces and towers where The voice of Grandeur dwells. No! Seek it where high Nature holds Her court ‘mid stately groves, Where she her majesty unfolds, And in fresh beauty moves; Where thousand birds of […]...
8. Visiting A Taoist On Tiatien Mountain Amongst bubbling streams A dog barks; peach blossom Is heavy with dew; here And there a deer can Be seen in forest glades! No sound of the mid-day Bell enters this fastness Where blue mist rises From bamboo groves; Down from a high peak Hangs a waterfall; Non knows where he has gone, so sadly […]...
9. Prisoner ‘Prisoner, tell me, who was it that bound you?’ ‘It was my master,’ said the prisoner. ‘I thought I could outdo everybody in the world in wealth and power, And I amassed in my own treasure-house the money due to my king. When sleep overcame me I lay upon the bed that was for my […]...
10. The Prisoner Upspoke the culprit at the bar, Conducting his own case: ‘Your Lordship, I have gone to far, But grant me of your grace. As I was passing by a shop I saw my arm go out, And though I begged of it to stop, It stole beyond a doubt. ‘But why should my whole body […]...
11. My Prisoner We was in a crump-‘ole, ‘im and me; Fightin’ wiv our bayonets was we; Fightin’ ‘ard as ‘ell we was, Fightin’ fierce as fire because It was ‘im or me as must be downed; ‘E was twice as big as me; I was ‘arf the weight of ‘e; We was like a terryer and a […]...
12. Ylladmar Her hair was, oh, so dense a blur Of darkness, midnight envied her; And stars grew dimmer in the skies To see the glory of her eyes; And all the summer rain of light That showered from the moon at night Fell o’er her features as the gloom Of twilight o’er a lily-bloom. The crimson […]...
13. The Prisoner of Zenda At the end a “The Prisoner of Zenda,” The King being out of danger, Stewart Granger (As Rudolph Rassendyll) Must swallow a bitter pill By renouncing his co-star, Deborah Kerr. It would be poor behavia In him and in Princess Flavia Were they to put their own Concerns before those of the Throne. Deborah Kerr […]...
14. In The Foam Life swelleth in a whitening wave, And dasheth thee and me apart. I sweep out seaward: be thou brave. And reach the shore, Sweetheart. Beat back the backward-thrusting sea. Thy weak white arm his blows may thwart, Christ buffet the wild surge for thee Till thou’rt ashore, Sweetheart. Ah, now thy face grows dim apace, […]...
15. On A Political Prisoner She that but little patience knew, From childhood on, had now so much A grey gull lost its fear and flew Down to her cell and there alit, And there endured her fingers’ touch And from her fingers ate its bit. Did she in touching that lone wing Recall the years before her mind Became […]...
16. The Logic Of This State Marking time in pencil strokes across a virgin page And waiting for coincidence of heart-beat and second-hand, Keying to the electronic blips that phase The passing time; visionary states of grace Do not deluge to stupefy a mounting conscience, Prescience would ease the wait and melt The phlegm of apprehension clotted In the membranes of […]...
17. Maturity A stationary sense… as, I suppose, I shall have, till my single body grows Inaccurate, tired; Then I shall start to feel the backward pull Take over, sickening and masterful – Some say, desired. And this must be the prime of life… I blink, As if at pain; for it is pain, to think This […]...
18. Lebennin Silver flow the streams from Colos to Erui In the green fields of Lebennin! Tall grows the grass there. In the wind from the Sea The white lilies sway, And the golden bells are shaken of mallos and alfirin In the green fields of Lebennin, In the wind from the Sea!...
19. Cologne In Kцhln, a town of monks and bones, And pavements fang’d with murderous stones And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches ; I counted two and seventy stenches, All well defined, and several stinks! Ye Nymphs that reign o’er sewers and sinks, The river Rhine, it is well known, Doth wash your city of Cologne […]...
20. Dream Song 7: 'The Prisoner of Shark Island' with Paul Muni Henry is old, old; for Henry remembers Mr Deeds’ tuba, & the Cameo, & the race in Ben Hur, —The Lost World, with sound, & The Man from Blankey’s, which he did not dig, Nor did he understand one caption of, Bewildered Henry, while the Big Ones laughed. Now Henry is unmistakably a Big One. […]...
21. Cologne In Kohln, a town of monks and bones, And pavements fang’d with murderous stones And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches; I counted two and seventy stenches, All well defined, and several stinks! Ye Nymphs that reign o’er sewers and sinks, The river Rhine, it is well known, Doth wash your city of Cologne; But […]...
22. The Gentlest Lady They say He was a serious child, And quiet in His ways; They say the gentlest lady smiled To hear the neighbors’ praise. The coffers of her heart would close Upon their smaliest word. Yet did they say, “How tall He grows!” They thought she had not heard. They say upon His birthday eve She’d […]...
23. THE BLISS OF ABSENCE DRINK, oh youth, joy’s purest ray From thy loved one’s eyes all day, And her image paint at night! Better rule no lover knows, Yet true rapture greater grows, When far sever’d from her sight. Powers eternal, distance, time, Like the might of stars sublime, Gently rock the blood to rest, O’er my senses softness […]...
24. Idler's Song I sit in the twilight dim At the close of an idle day, And I list to the soft sweet hymn, That rises far away, And dies on the evening air. Oh, all day long, They sing their song, Who toil in the valley there. But never a song sing I, Sitting with folded hands, […]...
25. Sonnet 141: In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes, For they in thee a thousand errors note; But ’tis my heart that loves what they despise, Who in despite of view is pleased to dote. Nor are mine cars with thy tongue’s tune delighted, Nor tender feeling to base touches prone, Nor taste, nor […]...
26. The Withering Of The Boughs I cried when the moon was mutmuring to the birds: ‘Let peewit call and curlew cry where they will, I long for your merry and tender and pitiful words, For the roads are unending, and there is no place to my mind.’ The honey-pale moon lay low on the sleepy hill, And I fell asleep […]...
27. At Eighty Years As nothingness draws near How I can see Inexorably clear My vanity. My sum of worthiness Always so small, Dwindles from less to less To none at all. As grisly destiny Claims me at last, How grievous seem to me Sins of my past! How keen a conscience edge Can come to be! How pitiless […]...
28. Perplexed Music EXPERIENCE, like a pale musician, holds A dulcimer of patience in his hand, Whence harmonies, we cannot understand, Of God; will in his worlds, the strain unfolds In sad-perplexed minors: deathly colds Fall on us while we hear, and countermand Our sanguine heart back from the fancyland With nightingales in visionary wolds. We murmur ‘ […]...
29. TO MUSIC, TO BECALM A SWEET SICK YOUTH Charms, that call down the moon from out her sphere, On this sick youth work your enchantments here! Bind up his senses with your numbers, so As to entrance his pain, or cure his woe. Fall gently, gently, and a-while him keep Lost in the civil wilderness of sleep: That done, then let him, dispossess’d […]...
30. Eternities I cannot count the pebbles in the brook. Well hath He spoken: “Swear not by thy head. Thou knowest not the hairs,” though He, we read, Writes that wild number in His own strange book. I cannot count the sands or search the seas, Death cometh, and I leave so much untrod. Grant my immortal […]...
31. The Song of the Darling River The skies are brass and the plains are bare, Death and ruin are everywhere And all that is left of the last year’s flood Is a sickly stream on the grey-black mud; The salt-springs bubble and the quagmires quiver, And this is the dirge of the Darling River: ‘I rise in the drought from the […]...
32. Mine Sweepers Dawn off the Foreland the young flood making Jumbled and short and steep Black in the hollows and bright where it’s breaking Awkward water to sweep. “Mines reported in the fairway, “Warn all traffic and detain. “‘Sent up Unity, Cralibel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain.” Noon off the Foreland the first ebb making Lumpy and […]...
33. Preludium to Europe The nameless shadowy female rose from out the breast of Orc, Her snaky hair brandishing in the winds of Enitharmon; And thus her voice arose: ‘O mother Enitharmon, wilt thou bring forth other sons? To cause my name to vanish, that my place may not be found, For I am faint with travail, Like the […]...
34. Spring Pools These pools that, though in forests, still reflect The total sky almost without defect, And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver, Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone, And yet not out by any brook or river, But up by roots to bring dark foliage on. The trees that have it […]...
35. Storm Fear WHEN the wind works against us in the dark, And pelts with snow The lowest chamber window on the east, And whispers with a sort of stifled bark, The beast, ‘Come out! Come out!’ It costs no inward struggle not to go, Ah, no! I count our strength, Two and a child, Those of us […]...
36. Euthanasia When Time, or soon or late, shall bring The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead, Oblivion! may thy languid wing Wave gently o’er my dying bed! No band of friends or heirs be there, To weep, or wish, the coming blow: No maiden, with dishevelled hair, To feel, or feign, decorous woe. But silent let […]...
37. Kissing time ‘T is when the lark goes soaring And the bee is at the bud, When lightly dancing zephyrs Sing over field and flood; When all sweet things in nature Seem joyfully achime – ‘T is then I wake my darling, For it is kissing time! Go, pretty lark, a-soaring, And suck your sweets, 0 bee; […]...
38. Words Out of us all That make rhymes Will you choose Sometimes – As the winds use A crack in a wall Or a drain, Their joy or their pain To whistle through – Choose me, You English words? I know you: You are light as dreams, Tough as oak, Precious as gold, As poppies and […]...
39. Arabia Far are the shades of Arabia, Where the Princes ride at noon, ‘Mid the verdurous vales and thickets, Under the ghost of the moon; And so dark is that vaulted purple Flowers in the forest rise And toss into blossom ‘gainst the phantom stars Pale in the noonday skies. Sweet is the music of Arabia […]...
40. Agatha SHE wanders in the April woods, That glisten with the fallen shower; She leans her face against the buds, She stops, she stoops, she plucks a flower. She feels the ferment of the hour: She broodeth when the ringdove broods; The sun and flying clouds have power Upon her cheek and changing moods. She cannot […]...