One Wants A Teller In A Time Like This

Related poetry:

1. The Fortune-Teller, a Gypsy Tale LUBIN and KATE, as gossips tell, Were Lovers many a day; LUBIN the damsel lov’d so well, That folks pretend to say The silly, simple, doting Lad, Was little less than loving mad: A malady not known of late Among the little-loving Great! KATE liked the youth; but woman-kind Are sometimes giv’n to range. And […]...
2. The Fortune-Teller Down in the valley come meet me to-night, And I’ll tell you your fortune truly As ever ’twas told, by the new-moon’s light, To a young maiden, shining as newly. But, for the world, let no one be nigh, Lest haply the stars should deceive me, Such secrets between you and me and the sky […]...
3. Poet's Path My garden hath a slender path With ivy overgrown, A secret place where once would pace A pot all alone; I see him now with fretted brow, Plunged deep in thought; And sometimes he would write maybe, And sometimes he would not. A verse a day he used to say Keeps worry from the door; […]...
4. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
5. Sunday Afternoons I sit at home At my desk alone As I used to do On many sunday afternoons When you came back to me, Your arms ached for me, And your arms would close me in Though they smelled of other women. I think of you On Sunday afternoons. Your sweet head would bow, Like a […]...
6. The Call Out of the nothingness of sleep, The slow dreams of Eternity, There was a thunder on the deep: I came, because you called to me. I broke the Night’s primeval bars, I dared the old abysmal curse, And flashed through ranks of frightened stars Suddenly on the universe! The eternal silences were broken; Hell became […]...
7. Two Schools I put my heart to school In the world, where men grow wise, “Go out,” I said, “and learn the rule; Come back when you win a prize.” My heart came back again: “Now where is the prize?” I cried. “The rule was false, and the prize was pain, And the teacher’s name was Pride.” […]...
8. John Horace Burleson I won the prize essay at school Here in the village, And published a novel before I was twenty-five. I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art; There married the banker’s daughter, And later became president of the bank- Always looking forward to some leisure To write an epic novel of […]...
9. The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...
10. 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 […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. The Song Of Empedocles And you, ye stars, Who slowly begin to marshal, As of old, in the fields of heaven, Your distant, melancholy lines! Have you, too, survived yourselves? Are you, too, what I fear to become? You, too, once lived; You too moved joyfully Among august companions, In an older world, peopled by Gods, In a mightier […]...
13. Oh, For The Time When I Shall Sleep Oh, for the time when I shall sleep Without identity, And never care how rain may steep, Or snow may cover me! No promised heaven these wild desires Could all, or half, fulful; No threatened hell, with quenchless fires, Subdue this quenchless will! So said I, and still say the same; Still, to my death, […]...
14. Called Into Play Fall fell: so that’s it for the leaf poetry: Some flurries have whitened the edges of roads And lawns: time for that, the snow stuff: & Turkeys and old St. Nick: where am I going to Find something to write about I haven’t already Written away: I will have to stop short, look Down, look […]...
15. Fidelity Being a shorty, as you see, A bare five footer, The why my wife is true to me Is my six-shooter. For every time a guy goes by Who looks like a lover, I polish it to catch his eye, And spin it over. He notes its notches as I say: ‘Believe me, Brother, If […]...
16. Two Men (J. L. And R. B.) In the Northland there were three Pukka Pliers of the pen; Two of them had Fame in fee And were loud and lusty men; By them like a shrimp was I – Yet alas! they had to die. Jack was genius through and through. Who his future could foretell? What we sweated blood to do […]...
17. Snow Day Today we woke up to a revolution of snow, Its white flag waving over everything, The landscape vanished, Not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness, And beyond these windows The government buildings smothered, Schools and libraries buried, the post office lost Under the noiseless drift, The paths of trains softly blocked, The world fallen […]...
18. The Things that never can come back, are several The Things that never can come back, are several Childhood some forms of Hope the Dead Though Joys like Men may sometimes make a Journey And still abide We do not mourn for Traveler, or Sailor, Their Routes are fair But think enlarged of all that they will tell us Returning here “Here!” There are […]...
19. Summer In The Country One shows me how to lie down in a field of clover. Another how to slip my hand under her Sunday skirt. Another how to kiss with a mouth full of blackberries. Another how to catch fireflies in jar after dark. Here is a stable with a single black mare And the proof of God’s […]...
20. I never felt at Home Below I never felt at Home Below And in the Handsome Skies I shall not feel at Home I know I don’t like Paradise Because it’s Sunday all the time And Recess never comes And Eden’ll be so lonesome Bright Wednesday Afternoons If God could make a visit Or ever took a Nap So not to […]...
21. 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 […]...
22. I often passed the village I often passed the village When going home from school And wondered what they did there And why it was so still I did not know the year then In which my call would come Earlier, by the Dial, Than the rest have gone. It’s stiller than the sundown. It’s cooler than the dawn The […]...
23. The Rose Of Peace If Michael, leader of God’s host When Heaven and Hell are met, Looked down on you from Heaven’s door-post He would his deeds forget. Brooding no more upon God’s wars In his divine homestead, He would go weave out of the stars A chaplet for your head. And all folk seeing him bow down, And […]...
24. Theme For English B The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here To this college on the hill above Harlem. I am […]...
25. What Fifty Said When I was young my teachers were the old. I gave up fire for form till I was cold. I suffered like a metal being cast. I went to school to age to learn the past. Now when I am old my teachers are the young. What can’t be molded must be cracked and sprung. […]...
26. Finale Here is this vale of sweet abiding, My ultimate and dulcet home, That gently dreams above the chiding Of restless and impatient foam; Beyond the hazards of hell weather, The harceling of wind and sea, With timbers morticed tight together My old hulk havens happily. The dawn exultantly discloses My lawn lit with mimosa gold; […]...
27. If It Is True What the Prophets Write If it is true, what the Prophets write, That the heathen gods are all stocks and stones, Shall we, for the sake of being polite, Feed them with the juice of our marrow-bones? And if Bezaleel and Aholiab drew What the finger of God pointed to their view, Shall we suffer the Roman and Grecian […]...
28. To the seaside to the seaside To the seaside To the change and peace of mind To the easy la- Zy holiday The leave-it-all-behind To the seaside To the sunshine To the body-littered sands To the deckchairs And the funfairs And the burst-your-ears brass bands To the ice-cream To the wasp-stings To the sand-in-every-meal To the castles And […]...
29. Yee Bow They got me into the Sunday-school In Spoon River And tried to get me to drop Confucius for Jesus. I could have been no worse off If I had tried to get them to drop Jesus for Confucius. For, without any warning, as if it were a prank, And sneaking up behind me, Harry Wiley, […]...
30. 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 […]...
31. Taken from men this morning Taken from men this morning Carried by men today Met by the Gods with banners Who marshalled her away One little maid from playmates One little mind from school There must be guests in Eden All the rooms are full Far as the East from Even Dim as the border star Courtiers quaint, in Kingdoms […]...
32. Questions and a Prayer For a New Born Baby So, here you are once more – in a brand new perfect body; An old soul with a brand new life to explore. And my mind is filled with so many things I want to ask you, So many questions that I’ve forgotten the answers to. I don’t want to ask you about your future, […]...
33. The Rains The river rises And the rains keep coming. My Papa says It can’t flood for The water can run Away as fast as It comes down. I believe Him because he’s Papa And because I’m afraid Ofwater I know I can’t stop. All day in school I See the windows darken, And hearing the steady […]...
34. Standardization When, darkly brooding on this Modern Age, The journalist with his marketable woes Fills up once more the inevitable page Of fatuous, flatulent, Sunday-paper prose; Whenever the green aesthete starts to whoop With horror at the house not made with hands And when from vacuum cleaners and tinned soup Another pure theosophist demands Rebirth in […]...
35. The Cottage Here in turn succeed and rule Carter, smith, and village fool, Then again the place is known As tavern, shop, and Sunday-school; Now somehow it’s come to me To light the fire and hold the key, Here in Heaven to reign alone. All the walls are white with lime, Big blue periwinkles climb And kiss […]...
36. 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 […]...
37. Letter Home New Orleans, November 1910 Four weeks have passed since I left, and still I must write to you of no work. I’ve worn down The soles and walked through the tightness Of my new shoes calling upon the merchants, Their offices bustling. All the while I kept thinking My plain English and good writing would […]...
38. 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! […]...
39. Love's Apparition and Evanishment: An Allegoric Romance Like a lone Arab, old and blind, Some caravan had left behind, Who sits beside a ruin’d well, Where the shy sand-asps bask and swell; And now he hangs his ag{‘e}d head aslant, And listens for a human sound in vain! And now the aid, which Heaven alone can grant, Upturns his eyeless face from […]...
40. 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 […]...