O Breath

Related poetry:

1. Breath Is Enough I draw sweet air Deeply and long, As pure as prayer, As sweet as song. Where lilies glow And roses wreath, Heart-joy I know Is just to breathe. Aye, so I think By shore or sea, As deep I drink Of purity. This brave machine, Bare to the buff, I keep ice-clean, Breath is enough. […]...
2. The Great Breath ITS edges foamed with amethyst and rose, Withers once more the old blue flower of day: There where the ether like a diamond glows Its petals fade away. A shadowy tumult stirs the dusky air; Sparkle the delicate dews, the distant snows; The great deep thrills, for through it everywhere The breath of Beauty blows. […]...
3. Three times we parted Breath and I Three times we parted Breath and I Three times He would not go But strove to stir the lifeless Fan The Waters strove to stay. Three Times the Billows tossed me up Then caught me like a Ball Then made Blue faces in my face And pushed away a sail That crawled Leagues off I […]...
4. For this accepted Breath For this accepted Breath Through it compete with Death The fellow cannot touch this Crown By it my title take Ah, what a royal sake To my necessity stooped down! No Wilderness can be Where this attendeth me No Desert Noon No fear of frost to come Haunt the perennial bloom But Certain June! Get […]...
5. The Breath Of Night The moon rises. The red cubs rolling In the ferns by the rotten oak Stare over a marsh and a meadow To the farm’s white wisp of smoke. A spark burns, high in heaven. Deer thread the blossoming rows Of the old orchard, rabbits Hop by the well-curb. The cock crows From the tree by […]...
6. The Earth Breath FROM the cool and dark-lipped furrows Breathes a dim delight Through the woodland’s purple plumage To the diamond night. Aureoles of joy encircle Every blade of grass Where the dew-fed creatures silent And enraptured pass. And the restless ploughman pauses, Turns and, wondering, Deep beneath his rustic habit Finds himself a king; For a fiery […]...
7. In a Breath To the Williamson Brothers HIGH noon. White sun flashes on the Michigan Avenue Asphalt. Drum of hoofs and whirr of motors. Women trapsing along in flimsy clothes catching Play of sun-fire to their skin and eyes. Inside the playhouse are movies from under the sea. From the heat of pavements and the dust of sidewalks, […]...
8. The Two-Sided Man Much I owe to the Lands that grew More to the Lives that fed But most to Allah Who gave me two Separate sides to my head. Much I reflect on the Good and the True In the Faiths beneath the sun, But most to Allah Who gave me two Sides to my head, not […]...
9. The Young Fools (Les Ingénus) High-heels were struggling with a full-length dress So that, between the wind and the terrain, At times a shining stocking would be seen, And gone too soon. We liked that foolishness. Also, at times a jealous insect’s dart Bothered out beauties. Suddenly a white Nape flashed beneath the branches, and this sight Was a delicate […]...
10. Sonnet To Liberty These are the letters which Endymion wrote To one he loved in secret, and apart. And now the brawlers of the auction mart Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note, Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote The merchant’s price. I think they love not art Who break the crystal of a poet’s […]...
11. Love What’s wrong with you, with us, What’s happening to us? Ah our love is a harsh cord That binds us wounding us And if we want To leave our wound, To separate, It makes a new knot for us and condemns us To drain our blood and burn together. What’s wrong with you? I look […]...
12. Two Fusiliers And have we done with War at last? Well, we’ve been lucky devils both, And there’s no need of pledge or oath To bind our lovely friendship fast, By firmer stuff Close bound enough. By wire and wood and stake we’re bound, By Fricourt and by Festubert, By whipping rain, by the sun’s glare, By […]...
13. The Return of the Children “They” Traffics and Discoveries Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs’ dove-winged races Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome, Plucking the splendid robes of the passers-by, and with pitiful! faces Begging what Princes and Powers refused: “Ah, please will you let us go home?” Over the jewelled floor, nigh […]...
14. Across The Red Sky Across the red sky two birds flying, Flying with drooping wings. Silent and solitary their ominous flight. All day the triumphant sun with yellow banners Warred and warred with the earth, and when she yielded Stabbed her heart, gathered her blood in a chalice, Spilling it over the evening sky. When the dark plumaged birds […]...
15. Invitation To Miss Marianne Moore From Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge, on this fine morning, please come flying. In a cloud of fiery pale chemicals, please come flying, To the rapid rolling of thousands of small blue drums Descending out of the mackerel sky Over the glittering grandstand of harbor-water, please come flying. Whistles, pennants and smoke are blowing. The […]...
16. Peace When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut, Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs? When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I’ll not play hypocrite To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows Alarms of wars, the […]...
17. John Kinsella's Lament For Mrs. Mary Moore I A bloody and a sudden end, Gunshot or a noose, For Death who takes what man would keep, Leaves what man would lose. He might have had my sister, My cousins by the score, But nothing satisfied the fool But my dear Mary Moore, None other knows what pleasures man At table or in […]...
18. Birth And Death Birth and death, twin-sister and twin-brother, Night and day, on all things that draw breath, Reign, while time keeps friends with one another Birth and death. Each brow-bound with flowers diverse of wreath, Heaven they hail as father, earth as mother, Faithful found above them and beneath. Smiles may lighten tears, and tears may smother […]...
19. Underground System Set the foot down with distrust upon the crust of the world-it is thin. Moles are at work beneath us; they have tunneled the sub-soil With separate chambers; which at an appointed knock Could be as one, could intersect and interlock. We walk on the skin Of life. No toil Of rake or hoe, no […]...
20. The Microbe The Microbe is so very small You cannot make him out at all, But many sanguine people hope To see him through a microscope. His jointed tongue that lies beneath A hundred curious rows of teeth; His seven tufted tails with lots Of lovely pink and purple spots, On each of which a pattern stands, […]...
21. Memorial Day “Dulce et decorum est” The bugle echoes shrill and sweet, But not of war it sings to-day. The road is rhythmic with the feet Of men-at-arms who come to pray. The roses blossom white and red On tombs where weary soldiers lie; Flags wave above the honored dead And martial music cleaves the sky. Above […]...
22. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 45. The baby new to earth and sky The baby new to earth and sky, What time his tender palm is prest Against the circle of the breast, Has never thought that “this is I”: But as he grows he gathers much, And learns the use of “I,” and “me,” And finds “I am not what I see, And other than the things […]...
23. Aperotos Eros Strong as death, and cruel as the grave, Clothed with cloud and tempest’s blackening breath, Known of death’s dread self, whom none outbrave, Strong as death, Love, brow-bound with anguish for a wreath, Fierce with pain, a tyrant-hearted slave, Burns above a world that groans beneath. Hath not pity power on thee to save, Love? […]...
24. The Ballad Of The Lonely Masturbator The end of the affair is always death. She’s my workshop. Slippery eye, Out of the tribe of myself my breath Finds you gone. I horrify Those who stand by. I am fed. At night, alone, I marry the bed. Finger to finger, now she’s mine. She’s not too far. She’s my encounter. I beat […]...
25. The Silent Ones I’m just an ordinary chap Who comes home to his tea, And mostly I don’t care a rap What people think of me; I do my job and take my pay, And love of peace expound; But as I go my patient way, Don’t push me round. Though I respect authority And order never flout, […]...
26. The Bells Today the circus poster Is scabbing off the concrete wall And the children have forgotten If they knew at all. Father, do you remember? Only the sound remains, The distant thump of the good elephants, The voice of the ancient lions And how the bells Trembled for the flying man. I, laughing, Lifted to your […]...
27. Night Thoughts Over A Sick Child Numb, stiff, broken by no sleep, I keep night watch. Looking for Signs to quiet fear, I creep Closer to his bed and hear His breath come and go, holding My own as if my own were All I paid. Nothing I bring, Say, or do has meaning here. Outside, ice crusts on river And […]...
28. Mortification How soon doth man decay! When clothes are taken from a chest of sweets To swaddle infants, whose young breath Scarce knows the way; Those clouts are little winding-sheets, Which do consign and send them unto Death. When boyes go first to bed, They step into their voluntarie graves; Sleep binds them fast; onely their […]...
29. Death XXVII Then Almitra spoke, saying, “We would ask now of Death.” And he said: You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed […]...
30. After the parties let’s all go to the party friends Where left over bottles and stale fag-ends Are proudly on offer from the last time round And our hosts believe by a ritual sound Fine spirits will flow and new cellophane wrappers Will tingle the fingers of eligible clappers Let’s all ignite at the party friends And burn […]...
31. Echoes in an empty room The strident sounds of silence echo In a darkened room, a beggar’s tomb Of emptied space and barrenness, a Shameful waste, a bitter sadness. It violates all sense of being strips aside All causal meaning bound inside the shrinking Wrap that clings to surfaces debased, Insulates the tiny tap of time, a skulking Soulless mirthless […]...
32. Universal Prayer Father of all! In every age, In ev’ry clime ador’d, By saint, by savage, and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord! Thou Great First Cause, least understood, Who all my sense confin’d To know but this, that Thou art good, And that myself am blind: Yet gave me, in this dark estate, To see the […]...
33. Out of the Rolling Ocean, the Crowd 1 OUT of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me, Whispering, I love you, before long I die, I have travel’d a long way, merely to look on you, to touch you, For I could not die till I once look’d on you, For I fear’d I might afterward lose you. […]...
34. Coral This coral’s hape ecohes the hand It hollowed. Its Immediate absence is heavy. As pumice, As your breast in my cupped palm. Sea-cold, its nipple rasps like sand, Its pores, like yours, shone with salt sweat. Bodies in absence displace their weight, And your smooth body, like none other, Creates an exact absence like this […]...
35. His Bargain Who talks of Plato’s spindle; What set it whirling round? Eternity may dwindle, Time is unwound, Dan and Jerry Lout Change their loves about. However they may take it, Before the thread began I made, and may not break it When the last thread has run, A bargain with that hair And all the windings […]...
36. Requiescat Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew! In quiet she reposes; Ah, would that I did too! Her mirth the world required; She bathed it in smiles of glee. But her heart was tired, tired, And now they let her be. Her life was turning, turning, In mazes of heat and […]...
37. HIS POETRY HIS PILLAR Only a little more I have to write: Then I’ll give o’er, And bid the world good-night. ‘Tis but a flying minute, That I must stay, Or linger in it: And then I must away. O Time, that cut’st down all, And scarce leav’st here Memorial Of any men that were; How many lie forgot […]...
38. The Breast One night a woman’s breast came to a man’s room and Began to talk about her twin sister. Her twin sister this and her twin sister that. Finally the man said, but what about you, dear breast? And so the breast spent the rest of the night talking about Herself. It was the same as […]...
39. The Mind's Liberty The mind, with its own eyes and ears, May for these others have no care; No matter where this body is, The mind is free to go elsewhere. My mind can be a sailor, when This body’s still confined to land; And turn these mortals into trees, That walk in Fleet Street or the Strand. […]...
40. Angels, in the early morning Angels, in the early morning May be seen the Dews among, Stooping plucking smiling flying Do the Buds to them belong? Angels, when the sun is hottest May be seen the sands among, Stooping plucking sighing flying Parched the flowers they bear along....