To Belloc

Related poetry:

1. Hilaire Belloc – The South Country When I am living in the Midlands That are sodden and unkind, I light my lamp in the evening: My work is left behind; And the great hills of the South Country Come back into my mind. The great hills of the South Country They stand along the sea; And it’s there walking in the […]...
2. Take This Waltz (After Lorca) Now in Vienna there are ten pretty women. There’s a shoulder where death comes to cry. There’s a lobby with nine hundred windows. There’s a tree where the doves go to die. There’s a piece that was torn from the morning, And it hangs in the Gallery of Frost- Ay, ay ay ay […]...
3. A Waltz-Quadrille The band was playing a waltz-quadrille, I felt as light as a wind-blown feather, As we floated away, at the caller’s will, Through the intricate, mazy dance together. Like mimic armies our lines were meeting, Slowly advancing, and then retreating, All decked in their bright array; And back and forth to the music’s rhyme We […]...
4. Little Viennese Waltz In Vienna there are ten little girls, A shoulder for death to cry on, And a forest of dried pigeons. There is a fragment of tomorrow In the museum of winter frost. There is a thousand-windowed dance hall. Ay, ay, ay, ay! Take this close-mouthed waltz. Little waltz, little waltz, little waltz, Of itself of […]...
5. Dirge for Two Veterans 1 THE last sunbeam Lightly falls from the finish’d Sabbath, On the pavement here-and there beyond, it is looking, Down a new-made double grave. 2 Lo! the moon ascending! Up from the east, the silvery round moon; Beautiful over the house tops, ghastly phantom moon; Immense and silent moon. 3 I see a sad procession, […]...
6. Blizzard Notes I DON’T blame the kettle drums-they are hungry. And the snare drums-I know what they want-they are empty too. And the harring booming bass drums-they are hungriest of all.. . . The howling spears of the Northwest die down. The lullabies of the Southwest get a chance, a mother song. A cradle moon rides out […]...
7. After Hearing a Waltz by Bartok But why did I kill him? Why? Why? In the small, gilded room, near the stair? My ears rack and throb with his cry, And his eyes goggle under his hair, As my fingers sink into the fair White skin of his throat. It was I! I killed him! My God! Don’t you hear? I […]...
8. Change Change Said the sun to the moon, You cannot stay. Change Says the moon to the waters, All is flowing. Change Says the fields to the grass, Seed-time and harvest, Chaff and grain. You must change said, Said the worm to the bud, Though not to a rose, Petals fade That wings may rise Borne […]...
9. River Moons THE DOUBLE moon, one on the high back drop of the west, one on the curve of the river face, The sky moon of fire and the river moon of water, I am taking these home in a basket, hung on an elbow, such a teeny weeny elbow, in my head. I saw them last […]...
10. Mid-ocean in War-time (For My Mother) The fragile splendour of the level sea, The moon’s serene and silver-veiled face, Make of this vessel an enchanted place Full of white mirth and golden sorcery. Now, for a time, shall careless laughter be Blended with song, to lend song sweeter grace, And the old stars, in their unending race, Shall […]...
11. The Scissors-Grinder The old man had his box and wheel For grinding knives and shears. No doubt his bell in village streets Was joy to children’s ears. And I bethought me of my youth When such men came around, And times I asked them in, quite sure The scissors should be ground. The old man turned and […]...
12. Beat! Beat! Drums! 1 BEAT! beat! drums!-Blow! bugles! blow! Through the windows-through doors-burst like a ruthless force, Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation; Into the school where the scholar is studying; Leave not the bridegroom quiet-no happiness must he have now with his bride; Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, plowing his field or gathering his […]...
13. Piccolo Valzer Viennese A Vienna ci sono dieci ragazze, Una spalla dove piange la morte E un bosco di colombe disseccate. C’e’ un frammento del mattino Nel museo della brina. C’è un salone con mille vetrate. Ahi! Ahi! Ahi! Ahi! Prendi questo valzer con la bocca chiusa. Questo valzer, questo valzer, questo valzer, Di sì, di morte e […]...
14. Baltic Fog Notes (Bergen)SEVEN days all fog, all mist, and the turbines pounding through high seas. I was a plaything, a rat’s neck in the teeth of a scuffling mastiff. Fog and fog and no stars, sun, moon. Then an afternoon in fjords, low-lying lands scrawled in granite languages on a gray sky, A night harbor, blue dusk […]...
15. Two Poems from the War Oh, not the loss of the accomplished thing! Not dumb farewells, nor long relinquishment Of beauty had, and golden summer spent, And savage glory of the fluttering Torn banners of the rain, and frosty ring Of moon-white winters, and the imminent Long-lunging seas, and glowing students bent To race on some smooth beach the gull’s […]...
16. Moon Fishing When the moon was full they came to the water. Some with pitchforks, some with rakes, Some with sieves and ladles, And one with a silver cup. And they fished til a traveler passed them and said, “Fools, To catch the moon you must let your women Spread their hair on the water Even the […]...
17. Dinner in a Quick Lunch Room Soup should be heralded with a mellow horn, Blowing clear notes of gold against the stars; Strange entrees with a jangle of glass bars Fantastically alive with subtle scorn; Fish, by a plopping, gurgling rush of waters, Clear, vibrant waters, beautifully austere; Roast, with a thunder of drums to stun the ear, A screaming fife, […]...
18. Jazz Fantasia DRUM on your drums, batter on your banjoes, sob on the long cool winding saxophones. Go to it, O jazzmen. Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy tin pans, let your trombones ooze, and go hushahusha-hush with the slippery sand-paper. Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome tree-tops, moan soft like […]...
19. The Heart of Night When all the stars are sown Across the night-blue space, With the immense unknown, In silence face to face. We stand in speechless awe While Beauty marches by, And wonder at the Law Which wears such majesty. How small a thing is man In all that world-sown vast, That he should hope or plan Or […]...
20. On Looking Up By Chance At The Constellations You’ll wait a long, long time for anything much To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves. The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch, Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud. The planets seem to interfere in their […]...
21. Six Significant Landscapes I An old man sits In the shadow of a pine tree In China. He sees larkspur, Blue and white, At the edge of the shadow, Move in the wind. His beard moves in the wind. The pine tree moves in the wind. Thus water flows Over weeds. II The night is of the colour […]...
22. The Black Swan When the swans turned my sister into a swan I would go to the lake, at night, from milking: The sun would look out through the reeds like a swan, A swan’s red beak; and the beak would open And inside there was darkness, the stars and the moon. Out on the lake, a girl […]...
23. The Old Song A livid sky on London And like the iron steeds that rear A shock of engines halted And I knew the end was near: And something said that far away, over the hills and far away There came a crawling thunder and the end of all things here. For London Bridge is broken down, broken […]...
24. That One Oh days devoted to the useless burden Of putting out of mind the biography Of a minor poet of the Southem Hemisphere, To whom the fates or perhaps the stars have given A body which will leave behind no child, And blindness, which is semi-darkness and jail, And old age, which is the dawn of […]...
25. The River In my first sleep I came to the river And looked down Through the clear water – Only in dream Water so pure, Laced and undulant Lines of flow On its rocky bed Water of life Streaming for ever. A house was there Beside the river And I, arrived, An expected guest About to explore […]...
26. Athor and Asar [Dedicated to Frank Harris, editor of Vanity Fair] On the black night, beneath the winter moon, I clothed me in the limbs of Codia, Swooning my soul out into her red throat, So that the glimmer of our skins, the tune Og our ripe rythm, seemed the hideous play Of death-worms crawling on a corpse, […]...
27. The Boy The Boy from his bedroom-window Look’d over the little town, And away to the bleak black upland Under a clouded moon. The moon came forth from her cavern, He saw the sudden gleam Of a tarn in the swarthy moorland; Or perhaps the whole was a dream. For I never could find that water In […]...
28. Thing Language This ocean, humiliating in its disguises Tougher than anything. No one listens to poetry. The ocean Does not mean to be listened to. A drop Or crash of water. It means Nothing. It Is bread and butter Pepper and salt. The death That young men hope for. Aimlessly It pounds the shore. White and aimless […]...
29. The Pond Night covers the pond with its wing. Under the ringed moon I can make out Your face swimming among minnows and the small Echoing stars. In the night air The surface of the pond is metal. Within, your eyes are open. They contain A memory I recognize, as though We had been children together. Our […]...
30. Charles Webster The pine woods on the hill, And the farmhouse miles away, Showed clear as though behind a lens Under a sky of peacock blue! But a blanket of cloud by afternoon Muffled the earth. And you walked the road And the clover field, where the only sound Was the cricket’s liquid tremolo. Then the sun […]...
31. Loon Point Softly the water ripples Against the canoe’s curving side, Softly the birch trees rustle Flinging over us branches wide. Softly the moon glints and glistens As the water takes and leaves, Like golden ears of corn Which fall from loose-bound sheaves, Or like the snow-white petals Which drop from an overblown rose, When Summer ripens […]...
32. The Art Of Poetry To gaze at a river made of time and water And remember Time is another river. To know we stray like a river And our faces vanish like water. To feel that waking is another dream That dreams of not dreaming and that the death We fear in our bones is the death That every […]...
33. New Year's Eve It’s cruel cold on the water-front, silent and dark and drear; Only the black tide weltering, only the hissing snow; And I, alone, like a storm-tossed wreck, on this night of the glad New Year, Shuffling along in the icy wind, ghastly and gaunt and slow. They’re playing a tune in McGuffy’s saloon, and it’s […]...
34. The Little Hill Oh, here the air is sweet and still, And soft’s the grass to lie on; And far away’s the little hill They took for Christ to die on. And there’s a hill across the brook, And down the brook’s another; But, oh, the little hill they took,- I think I am its mother! The moon […]...
35. Daily Trials by a Sensitive Man Oh, there are times When all this fret and tumult that we hear Do seem more stale than to the sexton’s ear His own dull chimes. Ding dong! ding dong! The world is in a simmer like a sea Over a pent volcano, woe is me All the day long! From crib to shroud! Nurse […]...
36. In this World The hill pasture, an open place among the trees, Tilts into the valley. The clovers and tall grasses Are in bloom. Along the foot of the hill Dark floodwater moves down the river. The sun sets. Ahead of nightfall the birds sing. I have climbed up to water the horses And now sit and rest, […]...
37. The End After the blast of lightning from the east, The flourish of loud clouds, the Chariot throne, After the drums of time have rolled and ceased And from the bronze west long retreat is blown, Shall Life renew these bodies? Of a truth All death will he annul, all tears assuage? Or fill these void veins […]...
38. In Midnight Sleep 1 IN midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish, Of the look at first of the mortally wounded-of that indescribable look; Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide, I dream, I dream, I dream. 2 Of scenes of nature, fields and mountains; Of skies, so beauteous after a storm-and at night […]...
39. Places and Men In Sussex here, by shingle and by sand, Flat fields and farmsteads in their wind-blown trees, The shallow tide-wave courses to the land, And all along the down a fringe one sees Of ducal woods. That ‘dim discovered spire’ Is Chichester, where Collins felt a fire Touch his sad lips; thatched Felpham roofs are these, […]...
40. Evening Song Of Senlin from Senlin: A Biography It is moonlight. Alone in the silence I ascend my stairs once more, While waves, remote in a pale blue starlight, Crash on a white sand shore. It is moonlight. The garden is silent. I stand in my room alone. Across my wall, from the far-off moon, A rain of fire […]...