When the Astronomer stops seeking

Related poetry:

1. When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; […]...
2. There comes an hour when begging stops There comes an hour when begging stops, When the long interceding lips Perceive their prayer is vain. “Thou shalt not” is a kinder sword Than from a disappointing God “Disciple, call again.”...
3. More Life went out when He went More Life went out when He went Than Ordinary Breath Lit with a finer Phosphor Requiring in the Quench A Power of Renowned Cold, The Climate of the Grave A Temperature just adequate So Anthracite, to live For some an Ampler Zero A Frost more needle keen Is necessary, to reduce The Ethiop within. Others […]...
4. The Astronomer I only said, “When in the evening the round full moon gets Entangled among the beaches of that Dadam tree, couldn’t somebody Catch it?” But dada laughed at me and said, “Baby, you are the silliest Child I have ever known. The moon is ever so far from us, how could Anybody catch it?” I […]...
5. Seeking Beauty Cold winds can never freeze, nor thunder sour The cup of cheer that Beauty draws for me Out of those Azure heavens and this green earth I drink and drink, and thirst the more I see. To see the dewdrops thrill the blades of grass, Makes my whole body shake; for here’s my choice Of […]...
6. Seeking the Beloved To those who love the Lord I speak; Is my Beloved near? The Bridegroom of my soul I seek, Oh! when will He appear? Though once a man of grief and shame, Yet now He fills a throne, And bears the greatest, sweetest name, That earth or heaven have known. Grace flies before, and love […]...
7. The Treason of an accent The Treason of an accent Might Ecstasy transfer Of her effacing Fathom Is no Recoverer The Treason of an Accent Might vilify the Joy To breathe corrode the rapture Of Sanctity to be...
8. Stars and the Soul To Charles A. Young, Astronomer “Two things,” the wise man said, “fill me with awe: The starry heavens and the moral law.” Nay, add another wonder to thy roll, The living marvel of the human soul! Born in the dust and cradled in the dark, It feels the fire of an immortal spark, And learns […]...
9. Mating Saliva A girl in a green mini- Skirt, not very pretty, walks Down the street. A businessman stops, turns To stare at her ass That looks like a moldy Refrigerator. There are now 200,000,000 people In America....
10. Don't put up my Thread and Needle Don’t put up my Thread and Needle I’ll begin to Sew When the Birds begin to whistle Better Stitches so These were bent my sight got crooked When my mind is plain I’ll do seams a Queen’s endeavor Would not blush to own Hems too fine for Lady’s tracing To the sightless Knot Tucks of […]...
11. There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a Temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest. For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the World. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I Cover her against any hurt. Using the pen of rivers and […]...
12. Supplication The sea took a sailor to its depths. His mother, unsuspecting, goes and lights A tall candle before the Virgin Mary For his speedy return and for fine weather And always she turns her ear to the wind. But while she prays and implores, The icon listens, solemn and sad, Knowing that the son she […]...
13. 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...
14. 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...
15. 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 […]...
16. 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!...
17. 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...
18. Snowbanks North of the House Those great sweeps of snow that stop suddenly six Feet from the house… Thoughts that go so far. The boy gets out of high school and reads no more Books; The son stops calling home. The mother puts down her rolling pin and makes no More bread. And the wife looks at her husband one […]...
19. With The Face With the face goes a mirror As with the mind a world. Likeness tells the doubting eye That strangeness is not strange. At an early hour and knowledge Identity not yet familiar Looks back upon itself from later, And seems itself. To-day seems now. With reality-to-be goes time. With the mind goes a world. Wit […]...
20. 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 […]...
21. Soldier an' Sailor Too As I was spittin’ into the Ditch aboard o’ the Crocodile, I seed a man on a man-o’-war got up in the Reg’lars’ style. ‘E was scrapin’ the paint from off of ‘er plates, an’ I sez to ‘im, “‘Oo are you?” Sez ‘e, “I’m a Jolly ‘Er Majesty’s Jolly soldier an’ sailor too!” Now […]...
22. The Needle Come, or the stellar tide will slip away. Eastward avoid the hour of its decline, Now! for the needle trembles in my soul! Here we have had our vantage, the good hour. Here we have had our day, your day and mine. Come now, before this power That bears us up, shall turn against the […]...
23. 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 […]...
24. Careers Father is quite the greatest poet That ever lived anywhere. You say you’re going to write great music – I chose that first: it’s unfair. Besides, now I can’t be the greatest painter and do Christ and angels, or lovely pears and apples and grapes on a green dish, or storms at sea, or anything […]...
25. Cirque D'Hiver Across the floor flits the mechanical toy, Fit for a king of several centuries back. A little circus horse with real white hair. His eyes are glossy black. He bears a little dancer on his back. She stands upon her toes and turns and turns. A slanting spray of artificial roses Is stitched across her […]...
26. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
27. To mend each tattered Faith To mend each tattered Faith There is a needle fair Though no appearance indicate ‘Tis threaded in the Air And though it do not wear As if it never Tore ‘Tis very comfortable indeed And spacious as before...
28. 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, […]...
29. I shall not murmur if at last I shall not murmur if at last The ones I loved below Permission have to understand For what I shunned them so Divulging it would rest my Heart But it would ravage theirs Why, Katie, Treason has a Voice But mine dispels in Tears....
30. Visits To St. Elizabeths This is the house of Bedlam. This is the man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is the time Of the tragic man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is a wristwatch Telling the time Of the talkative man That lies in the house of Bedlam. This is a sailor Wearing […]...
31. The Soul unto itself The Soul unto itself Is an imperial friend Or the most agonizing Spy An Enemy could send Secure against its own No treason it can fear Itself its Sovereign of itself The Soul should stand in Awe...
32. 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...
33. Child In Red Sometimes she walks through the village in her little red dress All absorbed in restraining herself, And yet, despite herself, she seems to move According to the rhythm of her life to come. She runs a bit, hesitates, stops, Half-turns around… And, all while dreaming, shakes her head For or against. Then she dances a […]...
34. This Life Which Seems So Fair This Life, which seems so fair, Is like a bubble blown up in the air By sporting children’s breath, Who chase it everywhere And strive who can most motion it bequeath. And though it sometimes seem of its own might Like to an eye of gold to be fixed there, And firm to hover in […]...
35. Sweet is the swamp with its secrets Sweet is the swamp with its secrets, Until we meet a snake; ‘Tis then we sigh for houses, And our departure take At that enthralling gallop That only childhood knows. A snake is summer’s treason, And guile is where it goes....
36. They shut me up in Prose They shut me up in Prose As when a little Girl They put me in the Closet Because they liked me “still” Still! Could themself have peeped And seen my Brain go round They might as wise have lodged a Bird For Treason in the Pound Himself has but to will And easy as a […]...
37. The Satin Dress Needle, needle, dip and dart, Thrusting up and down, Where’s the man could ease a heart Like a satin gown? See the stitches curve and crawl Round the cunning seams- Patterns thin and sweet and small As a lady’s dreams. Wantons go in bright brocade; Brides in organdie; Gingham’s for the plighted maid; Satin’s for […]...
38. Lost Anchors Like a dry fish flung inland far from shore, There lived a sailor, warped and ocean-browned, Who told of an old vessel, harbor-drowned, And out of mind a century before, Where divers, on descending to explore A legend that had lived its way around The world of ships, in the dark hulk had found Anchors, […]...
39. Modern Love XXII: What May the Woman What may the woman labour to confess? There is about her mouth a nervous twitch. ‘Tis something to be told, or hidden: which? I get a glimpse of hell in this mild guess. She has desires of touch, as if to feel That all the household things are things she knew. She stops before the […]...
40. The Spanish Needle Lovely dainty Spanish needle With your yellow flower and white, Dew bedecked and softly sleeping, Do you think of me to-night? Shadowed by the spreading mango, Nodding o’er the rippling stream, Tell me, dear plant of my childhood, Do you of the exile dream? Do you see me by the brook’s side Catching crayfish ‘neath […]...