For each ecstatic instant

Related poetry:

1. Crumbling is not an instant's Act Crumbling is not an instant’s Act A fundamental pause Dilapidation’s processes Are organized Decays. ‘Tis first a Cobweb on the Soul A Cuticle of Dust A Borer in the Axis An Elemental Rust Ruin is formal Devil’s work Consecutive and slow Fail in an instant, no man did Slipping is Crash’s law....
2. A Door just opened on a street A Door just opened on a street I lost was passing by An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed And Wealth and Company. The Door as instant shut And I I lost was passing by Lost doubly but by contrast most Informing misery...
3. Goddess In The Wood, The In a flowered dell the Lady Venus stood, Amazed with sorrow. Down the morning one Far golden horn in the gold of trees and sun Rang out; and held; and died. . . . She thought the wood Grew quieter. Wing, and leaf, and pool of light Forgot to dance. Dumb lay the unfalling stream; […]...
4. To disappear enhances To disappear enhances The Man that runs away Is tinctured for an instant With Immortality But yesterday a Vagrant Today in Memory lain With superstitious value We tamper with “Again” But “Never” far as Honor Withdraws the Worthless thing And impotent to cherish We hasten to adorn Of Death the sternest function That just as […]...
5. Mohini Chatterjee I asked if I should pray. But the Brahmin said, ‘pray for nothing, say Every night in bed, ‘I have been a king, I have been a slave, Nor is there anything. Fool, rascal, knave, That I have not been, And yet upon my breast A myriad heads have lain.’ That he might Set at […]...
6. On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour Give me a golden pen, and let me lean On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far; Bring me a tablet whiter than a star, Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen The silver strings of heavenly harp atween: And let there glide by many a pearly car Pink robes, and wavy hair, and […]...
7. Sweet You forgot but I remembered Sweet You forgot but I remembered Every time for Two So that the Sum be never hindered Through Decay of You Say if I erred? Accuse my Farthings Blame the little Hand Happy it be for You a Beggar’s Seeking More to spend Just to be Rich to waste my Guineas On so Best a […]...
8. The feet of people walking home The feet of people walking home With gayer sandals go The Crocus til she rises The Vassal of the snow The lips at Hallelujah Long years of practise bore Til bye and bye these Bargemen Walked singing on the shore. Pearls are the Diver’s farthings Extorted from the Sea Pinions the Seraph’s wagon Pedestrian once […]...
9. Music, When Soft Voices Die Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken. Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heaped for the beloved’s bed; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on....
10. Dream Song 90: Op. posth. no. 13 In the night-reaches dreamed he of better graces, Of liberations, and beloved faces, Such as now ere dawn he sings. It would not be easy, accustomed to these things, To give up the old world, but he could try; Let it all rest, have a good cry. Let Randall rest, whom your self-torturing Cannot restore […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. 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 […]...
13. Quick And Bitter The end was quick and bitter. Slow and sweet was the time between us, Slow and sweet were the nights When my hands did not touch one another in despair but in the love Of your body which came Between them. And when I entered into you It seemed then that great happiness Could be […]...
14. Withered Grave Forever yours My dearly beloved one Carved in stone, many years ago. Underneath those loving words, a resting body Far too young, left by it’s soul. A few lonely flowers come back every year, But it’s apparent, no living soul is tending here. From the date, by now, forever must also be gone. But where […]...
15. Sonnets 10: Oh, My Beloved, Have You Thought Of This Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this: How in the years to come unscrupulous Time, More cruel than Death, will tear you from my kiss, And make you old, and leave me in my prime? How you and I, who scale together yet A little while the sweet, immortal height No pilgrim may remember […]...
16. Historion No man hath dared to write this thing as yet, And yet I know, how that the souls of all men great At times pass athrough us, And we are melted into them, and are not Save reflexions of their souls. Thus am I Dante for a space and am One Francois Villon, ballad-lord and […]...
17. I gained it so I gained it so By Climbing slow By Catching at the Twigs that grow Between the Bliss and me It hung so high As well the Sky Attempt by Strategy I said I gained it This was all Look, how I clutch it Lest it fall And I a Pauper go Unfitted by an instant’s […]...
18. 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...
19. 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...
20. "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 […]...
21. 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 […]...
22. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
23. Tragedy A MAN went forth one day at eve: The long day’s toil for him was done: The eye that scanned the page could leave Its task until tomorrow’s sun. Upon the threshold where he stood Flared on his tired eyes the sight, Where host on host the multitude Burned fiercely in the dusky night. The […]...
24. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
25. Sonnet 22 – When our two souls stand up erect and strong When our two souls stand up erect and strong, Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher, Until the lengthening wings break into fire At either curved point,-what bitter wrong Can the earth do to us, that we should not long Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher, The angels would press on us and […]...
26. Sonnets 08: And You As Well Must Die, Beloved Du And you as well must die, beloved dust, And all your beauty stand you in no stead; This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head, This body of flame and steel, before the gust Of Death, or under his autumnal frost, Shall be as any leaf, be no less dead Than the first leaf that fell, […]...
27. My Cross I wrote a poem to the moon But no one noticed it; Although I hoped that late or soon Someone would praise a bit Its purity and grace forlone, Its beauty tulip-cool… But as my poem died still-born, I felt a fool. I wrote a verse of vulgar trend Spiced with an oath or two; […]...
28. I think the longest Hour of all I think the longest Hour of all Is when the Cars have come And we are waiting for the Coach It seems as though the Time Indignant that the Joy was come Did block the Gilded Hands And would not let the Seconds by But slowest instant ends The Pendulum begins to count Like little […]...
29. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
30. 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 […]...
31. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
32. What would I give to see his face? What would I give to see his face? I’d give I’d give my life of course But that is not enough! Stop just a minute let me think! I’d give my biggest Bobolink! That makes two Him and Life! You know who “June” is I’d give her Roses a day from Zanzibar And Lily tubes […]...
33. A Week Later A week later, I said to a friend: I don’t Think I could ever write about it. Maybe in a year I could write something. There is something in me maybe someday To be written; now it is folded, and folded, And folded, like a note in school. And in my dream Someone was playing […]...
34. The Sonnets To Orpheus: X You who are close to my heart always, I welcome you, ancient coffins of stone, Which the cheerful water of Roman days Still flows through, like a wandering song. Or those other ones that are open wide Like the eyes of a happily waking shepard -with silence and bee-suck nettle inside, From which ecstatic butterflies […]...
35. Between the form of Life and Life Between the form of Life and Life The difference is as big As Liquor at the Lip between And Liquor in the Jug The latter excellent to keep But for ecstatic need The corkless is superior I know for I have tried...
36. The Kiss Returned AS WILLIAM walking with his wife was seen, A man of rank admired her lovely mien. Who gave you such a charming fair? he cried, May I presume to kiss your beauteous bride? With all my heart, replied the humble swain, You’re welcome, sir: I beg you’ll not refrain; She’s at your service: take the […]...
37. Nepenthe Yes, it was like you to forget, And cancel in the welcome of your smile My deep arrears of debt, And with the putting forth of both your hands To sweep away the bars my folly set Between us bitter thoughts, and harsh demands, And reckless deeds that seemed untrue To love, when all the […]...
38. Because that you are going Because that you are going And never coming back And I, however absolute, May overlook your Track Because that Death is final, However first it be, This instant be suspended Above Mortality Significance that each has lived The other to detect Discovery not God himself Could now annihilate Eternity, Presumption The instant I perceive That […]...
39. Brother and Sister The shorn moon trembling indistinct on her path, Frail as a scar upon the pale blue sky, Draws towards the downward slope: some sorrow hath Worn her down to the quick, so she faintly fares Along her foot-searched way without knowing why She creeps persistent down the sky’s long stairs. Some day they see, though […]...
40. Sestina I wandered o’er the vast green plains of youth, And searched for Pleasure. On a distant height Fame’s silhouette stood sharp against the skies. Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad highway I caught the glimmer of a golden goal, While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love. Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed […]...