A Rondeau of College Rhymes

Related poetry:

1. The Inauguration of the University College Good people of Dundee, your voices raise, And to Miss Baxter give great praise; Rejoice and sing and dance with glee, Because she has founded a College in Bonnie Dundee. Therefore loudly in her praise sing, And make Dundee with your voices ring, And give honour to whom honour is due, Because ladies like her […]...
2. He Gives His Beloved Certain Rhymes Fasten your hair with a golden pin, And bind up every wandering tress; I bade my heart build these poor rhymes: It worked at them, day out, day in, Building a sorrowful loveliness Out of the battles of old times. You need but lift a pearl-pale hand, And bind up your long hair and sigh; […]...
3. If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain'd If by dull rhymes our English must be chain’d, And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet Fetter’d, in spite of pained loveliness; Let us find out, if we must be constrain’d, Sandals more interwoven and complete To fit the naked foot of poesy; Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress Of every chord, and […]...
4. Prologue to "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread&quot EVEN the shrewd and bitter, Gnarled by the old world’s greed, Cherished the stranger softly Seeing his utter need. Shelter and patient hearing, These were their gifts to him, To the minstrel chanting, begging, As the sunset-fire grew dim. The rich said “you are welcome.” Yea, even the rich were good. How strange that in […]...
5. Farewell Farewell to thee! but not farewell To all my fondest thoughts of thee: Within my heart they still shall dwell; And they shall cheer and comfort me. O, beautiful, and full of grace! If thou hadst never met mine eye, I had not dreamed a living face Could fancied charms so far outvie. If I […]...
6. To Women As Far As I'm Concerned The feelings I don’t have I don’t have. The feeling I don’t have, I won’t say I have. The feelings you say you have, you don’t have. The feelings you would like us both to have, we neither of us have. The feelings people ought to have, they never have. If people say they’ve got […]...
7. To the President of Magdalen College, Oxford Since now from woodland mist and flooded clay I am fled beside the steep Devonian shore, Nor stand for welcome at your gothic door, ‘Neath the fair tower of Magdalen and May, Such tribute, Warren, as fond poets pay For generous esteem, I write, not more Enhearten’d than my need is, reckoning o’er My life-long […]...
8. Rhymes for Gloriana I. THE DOLL UPON THE TOPMOST BOUGH This doll upon the topmost bough, This playmate-gift, in Christmas dress, Was taken down and brought to me One sleety night most comfortless. Her hair was gold, her dolly-sash Was gray brocade, most good to see. The dear toy laughed, and I forgot The ill the new year […]...
9. Verses on Sir Joshua Reynold’s Painted Window at New College, Oxford Ah, stay thy treacherous hand, forbear to trace Those faultless forms of elegance and grace! Ah, cease to spread the bright transparent mass, With Titian’s pencil, o’er the speaking glass! Nor steal, by strokes of art with truth combin’d, The fond illusions of my wayward mind! For long, enamour’d of a barbarous age, A faithless […]...
10. Rondeau Redoublé I know the rules and hear myself agree Not to invest beyond this one night stand. I know your patter: in, out, like the sea. The sharp north wind must blow away the sand. Soon my supply will meet your last demand And you will have no further use for me. I will not swim […]...
11. Rondeau at the Train Stop It bothers me: the genital smell of the bay Drifting toward me on the T stop, the train Circling the city like a dingy, year-round Christmas display. The Puritans were right! Sin Is everywhere in Massachusetts, hell-bound In the population. it bothers me Because it’s summer now and sticky – no rain To cool things […]...
12. The Sun-Dial at Wells College The shadow by my finger cast Divides the future from the past: Before it, sleeps the unborn hour In darkness, and beyond thy power: Behind its unreturning line, The vanished hour, no longer thine: One hour alone is in thy hands, The NOW on which the shadow stands....
13. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
14. Urbs Coronata (Song for the City College of New York) O youngest of the giant brood Of cities far-renowned; In wealth and power thou hast passed Thy rivals at a bound; And now thou art a queen, New York; And how wilt thou be crowned? “Weave me no palace-wreath of pride,” The royal city said; “Nor forge […]...
15. Just Think! Just think! some night the stars will gleam Upon a cold, grey stone, And trace a name with silver beam, And lo! ’twill be your own. That night is speeding on to greet Your epitaphic rhyme. Your life is but a little beat Within the heart of Time. A little gain, a little pain, A […]...
16. Memorial To D. C (Vassar College, 1918) O, loveliest throat of all sweet throats, Where now no more the music is, With hands that wrote you little notes I write you little elegies!...
17. Ode On A Distant Prospect Of Eton College Ye distant spires, ye antique towers, That crown the watery glade, Where grateful Science still adores Her Henry’s holy shade; And ye, that from the stately brow Of Windsor’s heights th’ expanse below Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey, Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among Wanders the hoary Thames along His silver-winding way. […]...
18. With a Copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets on Leaving College As one of some fat tillage dispossessed, Weighing the yield of these four faded years, If any ask what fruit seems loveliest, What lasting gold among the garnered ears, Ah, then I’ll say what hours I had of thine, Therein I reaped Time’s richest revenue, Read in thy text the sense of David’s line, Through […]...
19. On The Death Of Dr. Lancton President Of Maudlin College When men for injuryes unsatisfy’d, For hopes cutt off, for debts not fully payd, For legacies in vain expected, mourne Over theyr owne respects within the urne, Races of tears all striveing first to fall As frequent are as eye and funerall; Then high swolne sighes drawne in and sent out strong Seeme to call […]...
20. For Harry (My College Room-mate who Died) He cut his hand and it bled, the flesh Inside was red and the hurt discounted the flood Of red and vibrant blood that pulsed From the wound. But he was a warrior, A son whose mien would not countenance the pain And he bound the wound in strips of flax And stalked from the […]...
21. Portrait Of An Old Woman On The College Tavern Wall Oh down at the tavern The children are singing Around their round table And around me still. Did you hear what it said? I only said How there is a pewter urn Pinned to the tavern wall, As old as old is able To be and be there still. I said, the poets are tere […]...
22. Go, Little Book – The Ancient Phrase GO, little book – the ancient phrase And still the daintiest – go your ways, My Otto, over sea and land, Till you shall come to Nelly’s hand. How shall I your Nelly know? By her blue eyes and her black brow, By her fierce and slender look, And by her goodness, little book! What […]...
23. This that would greet an hour ago This that would greet an hour ago Is quaintest Distance now Had it a Guest from Paradise Nor glow, would it, nor bow Had it a notice from the Noon Nor beam would it nor warm Match me the Silver Reticence Match me the Solid Calm...
24. Golden Days Another day of toil and strife, Another page so white, Within that fateful Log of Life That I and all must write; Another page without a stain To make of as I may, That done, I shall not see again Until the Judgment Day. Ah, could I, could I backward turn The pages of that […]...
25. Unforgotten I know a garden where the lilies gleam, And one who lingers in the sunshine there; She is than white-stoled lily far more fair, And oh, her eyes are heaven-lit with dream! I know a garret, cold and dark and drear, And one who toils and toils with tireless pen, Until his brave, sad eyes […]...
26. Sunrise Along Shore Athwart the harbor lingers yet The ashen gleam of breaking day, And where the guardian cliffs are set The noiseless shadows steal away; But all the winnowed eastern sky Is flushed with many a tender hue, And spears of light are smiting through The ranks where huddled sea-mists fly. Across the ocean, wan and gray, […]...
27. Over The Alley Here in my office I sit and write Hour on hour, and day on day, With no one to speak to from morn till night, Though I have a neighbour just over the way. Across the alley that yawns between A maiden sits sewing the whole day long; A face more lovely is seldom seen […]...
28. O Word I Love to Sing O word I love to sing! thou art too tender For all the passions agitating me; For all my bitterness thou art too tender, I cannot pour my red soul into thee. O haunting melody! thou art too slender, Too fragile like a globe of crystal glass; For all my stormy thoughts thou art too […]...
29. 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 […]...
30. 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; […]...
31. MORNING LAMENT OH thou cruel deadly-lovely maiden, Tell me what great sin have I committed, That thou keep’st me to the rack thus fasten’d, That thou hast thy solemn promise broken? ‘Twas but yestere’en that thou with fondness Press’d my hand, and these sweet accents murmured: “Yes, I’ll come, I’ll come when morn approacheth, Come, my friend, […]...
32. Then And Now Beneath her window in the fragrant night I half forget how truant years have flown Since I looked up to see her chamber-light, Or catch, perchance, her slender shadow thrown Upon the casement; but the nodding leaves Sweep lazily across the unlit pane, And to and fro beneath the shadowy eaves, Like restless birds, the […]...
33. 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 […]...
34. Honors When the column of light on the waters is glassed, As blent in one glow seem the shine and the stream; But wave after wave through the glory has passed, Just catches, and flies as it catches, the beam So honors but mirror on mortals their light; Not the man but the place that he […]...
35. At Cheyenne Young Lochinvar came in from the West, With fringe on his trousers and fur on his vest; The width of his hat-brim could nowhere be beat, His No. Brogans were chuck full of feet, His girdle was horrent with pistols and things, And he flourished a handful of aces on kings. The fair Mariana sate […]...
36. TO LIDA THE only one whom, Lida, thou canst love, Thou claim’st, and rightly claim’st, for only thee; He too is wholly thine; since doomed to rove Far from thee, in life’s turmoils nought I see Save a thin veil, through which thy form I view, As though in clouds; with kindly smile and true, It cheers […]...
37. To a Child of Quality, Five Years Old, 1704. The Author then Forty LORDS, knights, and squires, the numerous band That wear the fair Miss Mary’s fetters, Were summoned by her high command To show their passions by their letters. My pen amongst the rest I took, Lest those bright eyes, that cannot read, Should dart their kindling fire, and look The power they have to be obey’d. […]...
38. Sadie and Maud Maud went to college. Sadie stayed home. Sadie scraped life With a fine toothed comb. She didn’t leave a tangle in Her comb found every strand. Sadie was one of the livingest chicks In all the land. Sadie bore two babies Under her maiden name. Maud and Ma and Papa Nearly died of shame. When […]...
39. 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...
40. E TENEBRIS Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand, For I am drowning in a stormier sea Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee: The wine of life is spilt upon the sand, My heart is as some famine-murdered land Whence all good things have perished utterly, And well I know my soul in […]...