Reliance

Related poetry:

1. FLOWER-SALUTE THIS nosegay, ’twas I dress’d it, Greets thee a thousand times! Oft stoop’d I, and caress’d it, Ah! full a thousand times, And ‘gainst my bosom press’d it A hundred thousand times! 1815.*...
2. OBSTACLES A thousand visits to the supermarket A thousand acts of sexual intimacy Spread over forty years. Your essence was quite other A smile of absolute connection Repeated a thousand times. Your daily visits to the outside lavatory While I stood talking outside, An intimacy I have sought With no other. My greatest fear is that […]...
3. Authorship You say that father write a lot of books, but what he write I don’t Understand. He was reading to you all the evening, but could you really Make out what he meant? What nice stores, mother, you can tell us! Why can’t father Write like that, I wonder? Did he never hear from his […]...
4. Between Us Now Between us now and here Two thrown together Who are not wont to wear Life’s flushest feather Who see the scenes slide past, The daytimes dimming fast, Let there be truth at last, Even if despair. So thoroughly and long Have you now known me, So real in faith and strong Have I now shown […]...
5. Loving In Truth, And Fain In Verse My Love To Show Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That She, dear She, might take some pleasure of my pain, -Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain – I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine, […]...
6. Sonnet I: Loving In Truth Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That she (dear She) might take some pleasure of my pain: Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain; I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine, her […]...
7. Astrophel and Stella: I ASTROPHEL AND STELLA: I Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain, Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain, I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe; […]...
8. Exchanges All that I had I brought, Little enough I know; A poor rhyme roughly wrought, A rose to match thy snow: All that I had I brought. Little enough I sought: But a word compassionate, A passing glance, or thought, For me outside the gate: Little enough I sought. Little enough I found: All that […]...
9. Not A Child ‘Not a child: I call myself a boy,’ Says my king, with accent stern yet mild, Now nine years have brought him change of joy; ‘Not a child.’ How could reason be so far beguiled, Err so far from sense’s safe employ, Stray so wide of truth, or run so wild? Seeing his face bent […]...
10. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
11. Failure He wrote a play; by day and night He strove with passion and delight; Yet knew, long ere the curtain drop, His drama was a sorry flop. In Parliament he sought a seat; Election Day brought dire defeat; Yet he had wooed with word and pen Prodigiously his fellow men. And then he wrote a […]...
12. 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 […]...
13. The Little Boy Found The little boy lost in the lonely fen, Led by the wand’ring light, Began to cry, but God ever nigh, Appeared like his father in white. He kissed the child & by the hand led And to his mother brought, Who in sorrow pale. thro’ the lonely dale Her little boy weeping sought....
14. Hymn 120 Faith of things unseen. Heb. 11 Faith is the brightest evidence Of things beyond our sight, Breaks through the clouds of flesh and sense, And dwells in heav’nly light. It sets times past in present view, Brings distant prospects home, Of things a thousand years ago, Or thousand years to come. By faith we know […]...
15. The Quest I sought Him on the purple seas, I sought Him on the peaks aflame; Amid the gloom of giant trees And canyons lone I called His name; The wasted ways of earth I trod: In vain! In vain! I found not God. I sought Him in the hives of men, The cities grand, the hamlets […]...
16. He Never Expected Much Well, World, you have kept faith with me, Kept faith with me; Upon the whole you have proved to be Much as you said you were. Since as a child I used to lie Upon the leaze and watch the sky, Never, I own, expected I That life would all be fair. ‘Twas then you […]...
17. Star of the east Star of the East, that long ago Brought wise men on their way Where, angels singing to and fro, The Child of Bethlehem lay Above that Syrian hill afar Thou shinest out to-night, O Star! Star of the East, the night were drear But for the tender grace That with thy glory comes to cheer […]...
18. On the Death of the Rev. Dr. Sewell Ere yet the morn its lovely blushes spread, See Sewell number’d with the happy dead. Hail, holy man, arriv’d th’ immortal shore, Though we shall hear thy warning voice no more. Come, let us all behold with wishful eyes The saint ascending to his native skies; From hence the prophet wing’d his rapt’rous way To […]...
19. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
20. Sonnet XIV IT may be for the world of weeds and tares And dearth in Nature of sweet Beauty’s rose That oft as Fortune from ten thousand shows One from the train of Love’s true courtiers Straightway on him who gazes, unawares, Deep wonder seizes and swift trembling grows, Reft by that sight of purpose and repose, […]...
21. Child The young child, Christ, is straight and wise And asks questions of the old men, questions Found under running water for all children And found under shadows thrown on still waters By tall trees looking downward, old and gnarled. Found to the eyes of children alone, untold, Singing a low song in the loneliness. And […]...
22. The stork Last night the Stork came stalking, And, Stork, beneath your wing Lay, lapped in dreamless slumber, The tiniest little thing! From Babyland, out yonder Beside a silver sea, You brought a priceless treasure As gift to mine and me! Last night my dear one listened – And, wife, you knew the cry – The dear […]...
23. TO HIS CONSCIENCE Can I not sin, but thou wilt be My private protonotary? Can I not woo thee, to pass by A short and sweet iniquity? I’ll cast a mist and cloud upon My delicate transgression, So utter dark, as that no eye Shall see the hugg’d impiety. Gifts blind the wise, and bribes do please And […]...
24. Jazz Chick Music from her breast, vibrating Soundseared into burnished velvet. Silent hips deceiving fools. Rivulets of trickling ecstacy From the alabaster pools of Jazz Where music cools hot souls. Eyes more articulately silent Than Medusa’s thousand tongues. A bridge of eyes, consenting smiles Reveal her presence singing Of cool remembrance, happy balls Wrapped in swinging Jazz […]...
25. A Warning To My Readers Do not think me gentle Because I speak in praise Of gentleness, or elegant Because I honor the grace That keeps this world. I am A man crude as any, Gross of speech, intolerant, Stubborn, angry, full Of fits and furies. That I May have spoken well At times, is not natural. A wonder is […]...
26. 1914 IV: The Dead These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth. These had seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat […]...
27. Come hither, child Come hither, child who gifted thee With power to touch that string so well? How darest thou rouse up thoughts in me, Thoughts that I would but cannot quell? Nay, chide not, lady; long ago I heard those notes in Ula’s hall, And had I known they’d waken woe I’d weep their music to recall. […]...
28. However grown up six…six…why only yesterday It seems that fist shot out That one eye winked…and yet Now that this day’s arrived It really is as if six years Have blinked – and you’ve sprung Through a thousand instant snaps Into this boy whose tongue Can’t help but say thought not thinked Who’s no longer to be fed […]...
29. The Country Justice TWO lawyers to their cause so well adhered, A country justice quite confused appeared, By them the facts were rendered so obscure With which the truth remained he was not sure. At length, completely tired, two straws he sought Of diff’rent lengths, and to the parties brought. These in his hand he held: the plaintiff […]...
30. Second Best Here in the dark, O heart; Alone with the enduring Earth, and Night, And Silence, and the warm strange smell of clover; Clear-visioned, though it break you; far apart From the dead best, the dear and old delight; Throw down your dreams of immortality, O faithful, O foolish lover! Here’s peace for you, and surety; […]...
31. 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 […]...
32. Longing Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again! For so the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day. Come, as thou cam’st a thousand times, A messenger from radiant climes, And smile on thy new world, and be As kind to others as to […]...
33. Examples of Early Piety What blest examples do I find Writ in the Word of Truth Of children that began to mind Religion in their youth! Jesus, who reigns above the sky, And keeps the world in awe, Was once a child as young as I, And kept His Father’s law. At twelve years old he talked with men, […]...
34. The Fisherman Although I can see him still. The freckled man who goes To a grey place on a hill In grey Connemara clothes At dawn to cast his flies, It’s long since I began To call up to the eyes This wise and simple man. All day I’d looked in the face What I had hoped […]...
35. The Birds When Jesus Christ was four years old The angels brought Him toys of gold, Which no man ever had bought or sold. And yet with these He would not play. He made Him small fowl out of clay, And blessed them till they flew away: Tu creasti Domine Jesus Christ, Thou child so wise, Bless […]...
36. Ode To The Only Girl I’ve seen you many times in many places Theater, bus, train, or on the street; Smiling in spring rain, in winter sleet, Eyes of any hue in myriad faces; Midnight black, all shades of brown your hair, Long, short, bronze or honey-fair. Instantly have I loved, have never spoken; Slowly a truck passed, a light […]...
37. To the True Romance Thy face is far from this our war, Our call and counter-cry, I shall not find Thee quick and kind, Nor know Thee till I die, Enough for me in dreams to see And touch Thy garments’ hem: Thy feet have trod so near to God I may not follow them. Through wantonness if men […]...
38. To Dora Dorian Child of two strong nations, heir Born of high-souled hope that smiled, Seeing for each brought forth a fair Child, By thy gracious brows, and wild Golden-clouded heaven of hair, By thine eyes elate and mild, Hope would fain take heart to swear Men should yet be reconciled, Seeing the sign she bids thee bear, […]...
39. The Child Is Father To The Man ‘The child is father to the man.’ How can he be? The words are wild. Suck any sense from that who can: ‘The child is father to the man.’ No; what the poet did write ran, ‘The man is father to the child.’ ‘The child is father to the man!’ How can he be? The […]...
40. The Message Waking from tender sleep, My neighbour’s little child Put out his baby hand to me, Looked in my face, and smiled. It seemed as if he came Home from a happy land, To tell me something that my heart Would surely understand. Somewhere, among bright dreams, A child that once was mine Had whispered wordless […]...