If your Nerve, deny you

Related poetry:

1. Sonnet 10: For shame, deny that thou bear'st love to any For shame, deny that thou bear’st love to any Who for thy self art so unprovident. Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many, But that thou none lov’st is most evident; For thou art so possessed with murd’rous hate, That ‘gainst thy self thou stick’st not to conspire, Seeking that beauteous roof to […]...
2. A single Screw of Flesh A single Screw of Flesh Is all that pins the Soul That stands for Deity, to Mine, Upon my side the Veil Once witnessed of the Gauze Its name is put away As far from mine, as if no plight Had printed yesterday, In tender solemn Alphabet, My eyes just turned to see, When it […]...
3. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
4. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
5. LOVE LIGHTLY PLEASED Let fair or foul my mistress be, Or low, or tall, she pleaseth me; Or let her walk, or stand, or sit, The posture her’s, I’m pleased with it; Or let her tongue be still, or stir Graceful is every thing from her; Or let her grant, or else deny, My love will fit each […]...
6. Crow's Nerve Fails Crow, feeling his brain slip, Finds his every feather the fossil of a murder. Who murdered all these? These living dead, that root in his nerves and his blood Till he is visibly black? How can he fly from his feathers? And why have they homed on him? Is he the archive of their accusations? […]...
7. Song The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, Under the burden of dissatisfaction the weight, The weight we carry is love. Who can deny? In dreams It touches the body, In thought constructs A miracle, in imagination Anguishes till born In human Looks out of the heart burning with purity For […]...
8. Never Suddenly, desperately I thought, “No, never In millions of minutes Can I for one second Calm-leaving my own self Like clothes on a chair-back And quietly opening The door of one house (No, not one of all millions) Of blood, flesh and brain, Climb the nerve-stair and look From the tower, from the windows Of […]...
9. MY FATHER I had a father once, the records say. He has gone away down the long avenue Of death, on the hand-held minor no mist Of his breath, his firm signature no more. No more holding down his hat in the wind, Running to catch the last post, he has gone Beyond the wind-shaped stones on […]...
10. The Witch I HAVE walked a great while over the snow, And I am not tall nor strong. My clothes are wet, and my teeth are set, And the way was hard and long. I have wandered over the fruitful earth, But I never came here before. Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in […]...
11. H. Baptism II Since, Lord, to thee A narrow way and little gate Is all the passage, on my infancy Thou didst lay hold, and antedate My faith in me. O let me still Write thee great God, and me a child: Let me be soft and supple to thy will, Small to my self, to others mild, […]...
12. The Saint And The Hunchback Hunchback. Stand up and lift your hand and bless A man that finds great bitterness In thinking of his lost renown. A Roman Caesar is held down Under this hump. Saint. God tries each man According to a different plan. I shall not cease to bless because I lay about me with the taws That […]...
13. The H. Communion Not in rich furniture, or fine array, Nor in a wedge of gold, Thou, who from me wast sold, To me dost now thy self convey; For so thou should’st without me still have been, Leaving within me sin: But by the way of nourishment and strength Thou creep’st into my breast; Making thy way […]...
14. The World stands solemner to me The World stands solemner to me Since I was wed to Him A modesty befits the soul That bears another’s name A doubt if it be fair indeed To wear that perfect pearl The Man upon the Woman binds To clasp her soul for all A prayer, that it more angel prove A whiter Gift […]...
15. She dealt her pretty words like Blades She dealt her pretty words like Blades How glittering they shone And every One unbared a Nerve Or wantoned with a Bone She never deemed she hurt That is not Steel’s Affair A vulgar grimace in the Flesh How ill the Creatures bear To Ache is human not polite The Film upon the eye Mortality’s […]...
16. Sweet Mountains Ye tell Me no lie Sweet Mountains Ye tell Me no lie Never deny Me Never fly Those same unvarying Eyes Turn on Me when I fail or feign, Or take the Royal names in vain Their far slow Violet Gaze My Strong Madonnas Cherish still The Wayward Nun beneath the Hill Whose service is to You Her latest Worship […]...
17. 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 […]...
18. It is easy to work when the soul is at play It is easy to work when the soul is at play But when the soul is in pain The hearing him put his playthings up Makes work difficult then It is simple, to ache in the Bone, or the Rind But Gimlets among the nerve Mangle daintier terribler Like a Panter in the Glove...
19. Tell Me Tell me, dear beauty of the dusk, When purple ribbons bind the hill, Do dreams your secret wish fulfill, Do prayers, like kernels from the husk Come from your lips? Tell me if when The mountains loom at night, giant shades Of softer shadow, swift like blades Of grass seeds come to flower. Then Tell […]...
20. Saint Judas When I went out to kill myself, I caught A pack of hoodlums beating up a man. Running to spare his suffering, I forgot My name, my number, how my day began, How soldiers milled around the garden stone And sang amusing songs; how all that day Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone Bargained […]...
21. Love can do all but raise the Dead Love can do all but raise the Dead I doubt if even that From such a giant were withheld Were flesh equivalent But love is tired and must sleep, And hungry and must graze And so abets the shining Fleet Till it is out of gaze....
22. Heartbeat Only mouths are we. Who sings the distant heart Which safely exists in the center of all things? His giant heartbeat is diverted in us Into little pulses. And his giant grief Is, like his giant jubilation, far too Great for us. And so we tear ourselves away From him time after time, remaining only […]...
23. Dream Song 72: The Elder Presences Shh! on a twine hung from disastered trees Henry is swinging his daughter. They seem drunk. Over across them look out, Tranquil, the high statues of the wise. Her feet peep, like a lady’s in sleep sunk. That which this scene’s about— He pushes violent, his calves distend, His mouth is open with effort, so […]...
24. The Lost Path The garden’s full of scented wallflowers, And, save that these stir faintly, nothing stirs; Only a distant bell in hollow chime Cried out just now for far-forgoten time, And three reverberate words the great bell spoke. The knocker’s made of brass, the door of oak, And such a clamor must be loosed on air By […]...
25. Mesmerism I. All I believed is true! I am able yet All I want, to get By a method as strange as new: Dare I trust the same to you? II. If at night, when doors are shut, And the wood-worm picks, And the death-watch ticks, And the bar has a flag of smut, And a […]...
26. The Recumbent Posture The day after Christmas, young Albert Were what’s called, confined to his bed, With a tight kind of pain in his stummick And a light feeling up in his head. His parents were all in a fluster When they saw little lad were so sick, They said, ‘Put out your tongue!’, When they’d seen it […]...
27. 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 […]...
28. A Doubt of Martyrdom O for some honest lover’s ghost, Some kind unbodied post Sent from the shades below! I strangely long to know Whether the noble chaplets wear Those that their mistress’ scorn did bear Or those that were used kindly. For whatsoe’er they tell us here To make those sufferings dear, ‘Twill there, I fear, be found […]...
29. Sonnet Oh, for some honest lover’s ghost, Some kind unbodied post Sent from the shades below! I strangely long to know Whether the noble chaplets wear Those that their mistress’ scorn did bear Or those that were used kindly. For whatsoe’er they tell us here To make those sufferings dear, ‘Twill there, I fear, be found […]...
30. Say, Lad, Have You Things to Do? Say, lad, have you things to do? Quick then, while your day’s at prime. Quick, and if ’tis work for two, Here am I man: now’s your time. Send me now, and I shall go; Call me, I shall hear you call; Use me ere they lay me low Where a man’s no use at […]...
31. Outside Fargo, North Dakota Along the sprawled body of the derailed Great Northern freight car, I strike a match slowly and lift it slowly. No wind. Beyond town, three heavy white horses Wade all the way to their shoulders In a silo shadow. Suddenly the freight car lurches. The door slams back, a man with a flashlight Calls me […]...
32. Manufactured Gods THEY put up big wooden gods. Then they burned the big wooden gods And put up brass gods and Changing their minds suddenly Knocked down the brass gods and put up A doughface god with gold earrings. The poor mutts, the pathetic slant heads, They didn’t know a little tin god Is as good as […]...
33. I Years had been from Home I Years had been from Home And now before the Door I dared not enter, lest a Face I never saw before Stare solid into mine And ask my Business there “My Business but a Life I left Was such remaining there?” I leaned upon the Awe I lingered with Before The Second like an […]...
34. Of Bronze and Blaze Of Bronze and Blaze The North Tonight So adequate it forms So preconcerted with itself So distant to alarms And Unconcern so sovereign To Universe, or me Infects my simple spirit With Taints of Majesty Till I take vaster attitudes And strut upon my stem Disdaining Men, and Oxygen, For Arrogance of them My Splendors, […]...
35. Hymn To Life The hair falling on your forehead suddenly lifted. Suddenly something stirred on the ground. The trees are whispering in the dark. Your bare arms will be cold. Far off where we can’t see, the moon must be rising. It hasn’t reached us yet, slipping through the leaves to light up your shoulder. But I know […]...
36. An English Wood This valley wood is pledged To the set shape of things, And reasonably hedged: Here are no harpies fledged, No rocs may clap their wings, Nor gryphons wave their stings. Here, poised in quietude, Calm elementals brood On the set shape of things: They fend away alarms From this green wood. Here nothing is that […]...
37. The Guardian-Angel A PICTURE AT FANO. I. Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave That child, when thou hast done with him, for me! Let me sit all the day here, that when eve Shall find performed thy special ministry, And time come for departure, thou, suspending Thy flight, mayst see another child for tending, Another […]...
38. Anna Who Was Mad Anna who was mad, I have a knife in my armpit. When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages. Am I some sort of infection? Did I make you go insane? Did I make the sounds go sour? Did I tell you to climb out the window? Forgive. Forgive. Say not I did. Say […]...
39. I thought that nature was enough I thought that nature was enough Till Human nature came But that the other did absorb As Parallax a Flame Of Human nature just aware There added the Divine Brief struggle for capacity The power to contain Is always as the contents But give a Giant room And you will lodge a Giant And not […]...
40. The New Colossus Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor […]...