The Malay took the Pearl

Related poetry:

1. Delight becomes pictorial Delight becomes pictorial When viewed through Pain More fair because impossible Than any gain The Mountain at a given distance In Amber lies Approached the Amber flits a little And That’s the Skies...
2. Removed from Accident of Loss Removed from Accident of Loss By Accident of Gain Befalling not my simple Days Myself had just to earn Of Riches as unconscious As is the Brown Malay Of Pearls in Eastern Waters, Marked His What Holiday Would stir his slow conception Had he the power to dream That put the Dower’s fraction Awaited even […]...
3. THE PEARL FISHERMAN This evening and part of the night I sank again into the dense sea Where we beings and things float. I descended for pearls to show to men Who fear even the risk of the border. This evening and part of the night I was amidst that silence, in that deepness Where the most infinite […]...
4. The Voice that stands for Floods to me The Voice that stands for Floods to me Is sterile borne to some The Face that makes the Morning mean Glows impotent on them What difference in Substance lies That what is Sum to me By other Financiers be deemed Exclusive Property!...
5. The Negro Boy Paupertas onus visa est grave. Cold blows the wind, and while the tear Bursts trembling from my swollen eyes, The rain’s big drop, quick meets it there, And on my naked bosom flies! O pity, all ye sons of Joy, The little wand’ring Negro-boy. These tatter’d clothes, this ice-cold breast By Winter harden’d into steel, […]...
6. The Pearl Diver Kanzo Makame, the diver, sturdy and small Japanee, Seeker of pearls and of pearl-shell down in the depths of the sea, Trudged o’er the bed of the ocean, searching industriously. Over the pearl-grounds the lugger drifted a little white speck: Joe Nagasaki, the “tender”, holding the life-line on deck, Talked through the rope to the […]...
7. The Pearl The Kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, Seeking goodly pearls; who, when he had found one, Sold all that he had and bought it.-Matthew 13.45 I know the ways of Learning; both the head And pipes that feed the press, and make it run; What reason hath from nature borrowed, Or of […]...
8. Pearl Fog Open the door now. Go roll up the collar of your coat To walk in the changing scarf of mist. Tell your sins here to the pearl fog And know for once a deepening night Strange as the half-meanings Alurk in a wise woman’s mousey eyes. Yes, tell your sins And know how careless a […]...
9. Hiawatha And The Pearl-Feather On the shores of Gitche Gumee, Of the shining Big-Sea-Water, Stood Nokomis, the old woman, Pointing with her finger westward, O’er the water pointing westward, To the purple clouds of sunset. Fiercely the red sun descending Burned his way along the heavens, Set the sky on fire behind him, As war-parties, when retreating, Burn the […]...
10. Beyond the Moon [Written to the Most Beautiful Woman in the World] M< sweetheart is the truth beyond the moon, And never have I been in love with Woman, Always aspiring to be set in tune With one who is invisible, inhuman. O laughing girl, cold TRUTH has stepped between, Spoiling the fevers of your virgin face: Making […]...
11. He found my Being set it up He found my Being set it up Adjusted it to place Then carved his name upon it And bade it to the East Be faithful in his absence And he would come again With Equipage of Amber That time to take it Home...
12. When The Sun Come After Rain WHEN the sun comes after rain And the bird is in the blue, The girls go down the lane Two by two. When the sun comes after shadow And the singing of the showers, The girls go up the meadow, Fair as flowers. When the eve comes dusky red And the moon succeeds the sun, […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. With Serving Still With serving still This I have won, For my goodwill To be undone. And for redress Of all my pain, Disdainfulness I have again. And for reward Of all my smart, Lo, thus unheard, I must depart. Wherefore all ye That after shall By fortune be, As I am, thrall, Example take What I have […]...
15. The Moon is distant from the Sea The Moon is distant from the Sea And yet, with Amber Hands She leads Him docile as a Boy Along appointed Sands He never misses a Degree Obedient to Her Eye He comes just so far toward the Town Just so far goes away Oh, Signor, Thine, the Amber Hand And mine the distant Sea […]...
16. Out of sight? What of that? Out of sight? What of that? See the Bird reach it! Curve by Curve Sweep by Sweep Round the Steep Air Danger! What is that to Her? Better ’tis to fail there Than debate here Blue is Blue the World through Amber Amber Dew Dew Seek Friend and see Heaven is shy of Earth that’s […]...
17. Sonnet 96: Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness; Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport; Both grace and faults are loved of more and less; Thou mak’st faults graces that to thee resort. As on the finger of a thronèd queen, The basest jewel will be well esteemed. So are those errors that […]...
18. On Being Brought from Africa to America ‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understand That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too: Once I redemption neither sought nor knew. Some view our sable race with scornful eye, “Their colour is a diabolic die.” Remember, Christians, Negro’s, black as Cain, May be refin’d, and join […]...
19. This World is not Conclusion This World is not Conclusion. A Species stands beyond Invisible, as Music But positive, as Sound It beckons, and it baffles Philosophy don’t know And through a Riddle, at the last Sagacity, must go To guess it, puzzles scholars To gain it, Men have borne Contempt of Generations And Crucifixion, shown Faith slips and laughs, […]...
20. Supremacy There is a drear and lonely tract of hell From all the common gloom removed afar: A flat, sad land it is, where shadows are, Whose lorn estate my verse may never tell. I walked among them and I knew them well: Men I had slandered on life’s little star For churls and sluggards; and […]...
21. Souvenir A vanished house that for an hour I knew By some forgotten chance when I was young Had once a glimmering window overhung With honeysuckle wet with evening dew. Along the path tall dusky dahlias grew, And shadowy hydrangeas reached and swung Ferociously; and over me, among The moths and mysteries, a blurred bat flew. […]...
22. I made slow Riches but my Gain I made slow Riches but my Gain Was steady as the Sun And every Night, it numbered more Than the preceding One All Days, I did not earn the same But my perceiveless Gain Inferred the less by Growing than The Sum that it had grown....
23. Sunset on the Spire All that I dream By day or night Lives in that stream Of lovely light. Here is the earth, And there is the spire; This is my hearth, And that is my fire. From the sun’s dome I am shouted proof That this is my home, And that is my roof. Here is my food, […]...
24. August Why should this Negro insolently stride Down the red noonday on such noiseless feet? Piled in his barrow, tawnier than wheat, Lie heaps of smouldering daisies, sombre-eyed, Their copper petals shriveled up with pride, Hot with a superfluity of heat, Like a great brazier borne along the street By captive leopards, black and burning pied. […]...
25. To lose thee sweeter than to gain To lose thee sweeter than to gain All other hearts I knew. ‘Tis true the drought is destitute, But then, I had the dew! The Caspian has its realms of sand, Its other realm of sea. Without the sterile perquisite, No Caspian could be....
26. Margaret Fuller Slack I would have been as great as George Eliot But for an untoward fate. For look at the photograph of me made by Penniwit, Chin resting on hand, and deep-set eyes Gray, too, and far-searching. But there was the old, old problem: Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity? Then John Slack, the rich druggist, […]...
27. 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 […]...
28. The Widow By Mellstock Lodge and Avenue Towards her door I went, And sunset on her window-panes Reflected our intent. The creeper on the gable nigh Was fired to more than red And when I came to halt thereby “Bright as my joy!” I said. Of late days it had been her aim To meet me in […]...
29. Home And Love Just Home and Love! the words are small Four little letters unto each; And yet you will not find in all The wide and gracious range of speech Two more so tenderly complete: When angels talk in Heaven above, I’m sure they have no words more sweet Than Home and Love. Just Home and Love! […]...
30. Mrs. Purkapile He ran away and was gone for a year. When he came home he told me the silly story Of being kidnapped by pirates on Lake Michigan And kept in chains so he could not write me. I pretended to believe it, though I knew very well What he was doing, and that he met […]...
31. St. Valentine's Day The South is a dream of flowers With a jewel for sky and sea, Rose-crowns for the dancing hours, Gold fruits upon every tree; But cold from the North The wind blows forth That blows my love to me. The stars in the South are gold Like lamps between sky and sea; The flowers that […]...
32. Let America Be America Again Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free. (America never was America to me.) Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed Let it be that great strong land of love Where never […]...
33. Harlem Shadows I hear the halting footsteps of a lass In Negro Harlem when the night lets fall Its veil. I see the shapes of girls who pass To bend and barter at desire’s call. Ah, little dark girls who in slippered feet Go prowling through the night from street to street! Through the long night until […]...
34. You constituted Time You constituted Time I deemed Eternity A Revelation of Yourself ‘Twas therefore Deity The Absolute removed The Relative away That I unto Himself adjust My slow idolatry...
35. The Last Buccaneer OH, England is a pleasant place for them that ‘s rich and high; But England is a cruel place for such poor folks as I; And such a port for mariners I ne’er shall see again, As the pleasant Isle of Avès, beside the Spanish main. There were forty craft in Avès that were both […]...
36. Broadway Under Grand Central’s tattered vault maybe half a dozen electric stars still lit One saxophone blew, and a sheer black scrim Billowed over some minor constellation Under repair. Then, on Broadway, red wings In a storefront tableau, lustrous, the live macaws Preening, beaks opening and closing Like those animated knives that unfold all night In […]...
37. Morning along Shore Hark, oh hark the elfin laughter All the little waves along, As if echoes speeding after Mocked a merry merman’s song! All the gulls are out, delighting In a wild, uncharted quest­ See the first red sunshine smiting Silver sheen of wing and breast! Ho, the sunrise rainbow-hearted Steals athwart the misty brine, And the […]...
38. Impromptu, to Lady Winchelsea In vain you boast Poetic Names of yore, And cite those Sapho’s we admire no more: Fate doom’d the Fall of ev’ry Female Wit, But doom’d it then when first Ardelia writ. Of all Examples by the World confest, I knew Ardelia could not quote the best; Who, like her Mistress on Britannia’s Throne; Fights, […]...
39. Had I presumed to hope Had I presumed to hope The loss had been to Me A Value for the Greatness’ Sake As Giants gone away Had I presumed to gain A Favor so remote The failure but confirm the Grace In further Infinite ‘Tis failure not of Hope But Confident Despair Advancing on Celestial Lists With faint Terrestial power […]...
40. The Manner of its Death The Manner of its Death When Certain it must die ‘Tis deemed a privilege to choose ‘Twas Major Andre’s Way When Choice of Life is past There yet remains a Love Its little Fate to stipulate How small in those who live The Miracle to tease With Bable of the styles How “they are Dying […]...