Had I not This, or This, I said

Related poetry:

1. Sonnet XLIX: Thou Leaden Brain Thou leaden brain, which censur’st what I write, And say’st my lines be dull and do not move, I marvel not thou feel’st not my delight, Which never felt’st my fiery touch of love. But thou, whose pen hath like a pack-horse serv’d, Whose stomach unto gall hath turn’d thy food, Whose senses, like poor […]...
2. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
3. Hither, Hither, Love Hither hither, love – ‘Tis a shady mead – Hither, hither, love! Let us feed and feed! Hither, hither, sweet – ‘Tis a cowslip bed – Hither, hither, sweet! ‘Tis with dew bespread! Hither, hither, dear By the breath of life, Hither, hither, dear! – Be the summer’s wife! Though one moment’s pleasure In one […]...
4. Karma Repair Kit: Items 1-4 1. Get enough food to eat, and eat it. 2. Find a place to sleep where it is quiet, and sleep there. 3. Reduce intellectual and emotional noise until you arrive at the silence of yourself, and listen to it....
5. Myself can read the Telegrams Myself can read the Telegrams A Letter chief to me The Stock’s advance and Retrograde And what the Markets say The Weather how the Rains In Counties have begun. ‘Tis News as null as nothing, But sweeter so than none....
6. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
7. A Question Whene’er I feed the barnyard folk My gentle soul is vexed; My sensibilities are torn And I am sore perplexed. The rooster so politely stands While waiting for his food, But when I feed him, what a change! He then is rough and rude. He crowds his gentle wives aside Or pecks them on the […]...
8. Lobster For Lunch His face was like a lobster red, His legs were white as mayonnaise: “I’ve had a jolly lunch,” he said, That Englishman of pleasant ways. “Thy do us well at our hotel: In England food is dull these days.” “We had a big langouste for lunch. I almost ate the whole of it. And now […]...
9. Holy Sonnet XII: Why Are We By All Creatures Waited On? Why are we by all creatures waited on? Why do the prodigal elements supply Life and food to me, being more pure than I, Simple, and further from corruption? Why brook’st thou, ignorant horse, subjection? Why dost thou, bull, and bore so seelily, Dissemble weakness, and by one man’s stroke die, Whose whole kind you […]...
10. Divine Epigrams: On the Miracle of the Multiplied Loaves See here an easy feast that knows no wound, That under hunger’s teeth will needs be sound; A subtle harvest of unbounded bread, What would ye more? Here food itself is fed....
11. O Hymen! O Hymenee! O HYMEN! O hymenee! Why do you tantalize me thus? O why sting me for a swift moment only? Why can you not continue? O why do you now cease? Is it because, if you continued beyond the swift moment, you would soon certainly kill me? 5...
12. The Deepest Dream The deepest dream is of mad governors, Down, down we feel it, till the very crust Of the world cracks, and where there was no dust, Atoms of ruin rise. Confusion stirs, And fear; and all our thoughts dark scavengers Feed on the center’s refuse. Hope is thrust Like wind away, and love sinks into […]...
13. Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
14. Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...
15. Crisis is a Hair Crisis is a Hair Toward which the forces creep Past which forces retrograde If it come in sleep To suspend the Breath Is the most we can Ignorant is it Life or Death Nicely balancing. Let an instant push Or an Atom press Or a Circle hesitate In Circumference It may jolt the Hand That […]...
16. Sonnet II VNquiet thought, whom at the first I bred, Of th’inward bale of my loue pined hart: And sithens haue with sighes and sorrowes fed, Till greater then my wombe thou woxen art. Breake forth at length out of the inner part, In which thou lurkest lyke to vipers brood: And seeke some succour both to […]...
17. The Service without Hope The Service without Hope Is tenderest, I think Because ’tis unsustained By stint Rewarded Work Has impetus of Gain And impetus of Goal There is no Diligence like that That knows not an Until...
18. To The Nightingale Exert thy Voice, sweet Harbinger of Spring! This Moment is thy Time to sing, This Moment I attend to Praise, And set my Numbers to thy Layes. Free as thine shall be my Song; As thy Musick, short, or long. Poets, wild as thee, were born, Pleasing best when unconfin’d, When to Please is least […]...
19. I know of people in the Grave I know of people in the Grave Who would be very glad To know the news I know tonight If they the chance had had. ‘Tis this expands the least event And swells the scantest deed My right to walk upon the Earth If they this moment had....
20. Amber Hover The imagined center, our tongues Grew long to please it, licking The walls, a chamber built of scent, A moment followed by a lesser moment & a hunger to return. It couldn’t last. Resin Flowed glacially from wounds in the bark Pinned us in our entering As the orchids opened wider. First, Liquid, so […]...
21. We do not know the time we lose We do not know the time we lose The awful moment is And takes its fundamental place Among the certainties A firm appearance still inflates The card the chance the friend The spectre of solidities Whose substances are sand...
22. No Other can reduce No Other can reduce Our mortal Consequence Like the remembering it be nought A Period from hence But Contemplation for Contemporaneous Nought Our Single Competition Jehovah’s Estimate....
23. The Puzzled Game-Birds They are not those who used to feed us When we were young they cannot be – These shapes that now bereave and bleed us? They are not those who used to feed us, – For would they not fair terms concede us? – If hearts can house such treachery They are not those who […]...
24. Morns like these we parted Morns like these we parted Noons like these she rose Fluttering first then firmer To her fair repose. Never did she lisp it It was not for me She was mute from transport I from agony Till the evening nearing One the curtains drew Quick! A Sharper rustling! And this linnet flew!...
25. Feast I drank at every vine. The last was like the first. I came upon no wine So wonderful as thirst. I gnawed at every root. I ate of every plant. I came upon no fruit So wonderful as want. Feed the grape and bean To the vintner and monger: I will lie down lean With […]...
26. Art thou the thing I wanted? Art thou the thing I wanted? Begone my Tooth has grown Supply the minor Palate That has not starved so long I tell thee while I waited The mystery of Food Increased till I abjured it And dine without Like God Art thou the thing I wanted? Begone my Tooth has grown Affront a minor […]...
27. 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 […]...
28. Signet of Eternity The day was when I did not keep myself in readiness for thee; And entering my heart unbidden even as one of the common crowd, Unknown to me, my king, thou didst press the signet of eternity upon Many a fleeting moment of my life. And today when by chance I light upon them and […]...
29. I groped for him before I knew I groped for him before I knew With solemn nameless need All other bounty sudden chaff For this foreshadowed Food Which others taste and spurn and sneer Though I within suppose That consecrated it could be The only Food that grows...
30. The Clean Plater Some singers sing of ladies’ eyes, And some of ladies lips, Refined ones praise their ladylike ways, And course ones hymn their hips. The Oxford Book of English Verse Is lush with lyrics tender; A poet, I guess, is more or less Preoccupied with gender. Yet I, though custom call me crude, Prefer to sing […]...
31. Without this there is nought Without this there is nought All other Riches be As is the Twitter of a Bird Heard opposite the Sea I could not care to gain A lesser than the Whole For did not this include themself As Seams include the Ball? I wished a way might be My Heart to subdivide ‘Twould magnify the […]...
32. The Half-way House Love I was shewn upon the mountain-side And bid to catch Him ere the dropp of day. See, Love, I creep and Thou on wings dost ride: Love it is evening now and Thou away; Love, it grows darker here and Thou art above; Love, come down to me if Thy name be Love. My […]...
33. The Appology ‘Tis true I write and tell me by what Rule I am alone forbid to play the fool To follow through the Groves a wand’ring Muse And fain’d Idea’s for my pleasures chuse Why shou’d it in my Pen be held a fault Whilst Mira paints her face, to paint a thought Whilst Lamia to […]...
34. 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 […]...
35. Each Second is the last Each Second is the last Perhaps, recalls the Man Just measuring unconsciousness The Sea and Spar between. To fail within a Chance How terribler a thing Than perish from the Chance’s list Before the Perishing!...
36. Each Life Converges to some Centre Each Life Converges to some Centre Expressed or still Exists in every Human Nature A Goal Embodied scarcely to itself it may be Too fair For Credibility’s presumption To mar Adored with caution as a Brittle Heaven To reach Were hopeless, as the Rainbow’s Raiment To touch Yet persevered toward sure for the Distance How […]...
37. Lines Inscribed Upon A Cup Formed From A Skull Start not-nor deem my spirit fled: In me behold the only skull From which, unlike a living head, Whatever flows is never dull. I lived, I loved, I quaffed like thee; I died: let earth my bones resign: Fill up-thou canst not injure me; The worm hath fouler lips than thine. Better to hold the […]...
38. Inscription for my little son's silver plate When thou dost eat from off this plate, I charge thee be thou temperate; Unto thine elders at the board Do thou sweet reverence accord; And, though to dignity inclined, Unto the serving-folk be kind; Be ever mindful of the poor, Nor turn them hungry from the door; And unto God, for health and food […]...
39. Grey Gull ‘Twas on an iron, icy day I saw a pirate gull down-plane, And hover in a wistful way Nigh where my chickens picked their grain. An outcast gull, so grey and old, Withered of leg I watched it hop, By hunger goaded and by cold, To where each fowl full-filled its crop. They hospitably welcomed […]...
40. Sonnet CXXXIV So, now I have confess’d that he is thine, And I myself am mortgaged to thy will, Myself I’ll forfeit, so that other mine Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still: But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free, For thou art covetous and he is kind; He learn’d but surety-like to […]...