The Poet

Related poetry:

1. The Poet's Love-Song In noon-tide hours, O Love, secure and strong, I need thee not; mad dreams are mine to bind The world to my desire, and hold the wind A voiceless captive to my conquering song. I need thee not, I am content with these: Keep silence in thy soul, beyond the seas! But in the desolate […]...
2. To a Poet There is a lovely noise about your name, Above the shoutings of the city clear, More than a moment’s merriment, whose claim Will greater grow with every mellowed year. The people will not bear you down the street, Dancing to the strong rhythm of your words, The modern kings will throttle you to greet The […]...
3. Lonesome Night You brothers, who are mine, Poor people, near and far, Longing for every star, Dream of relief from pain, You, stumbling dumb At night, as pale stars break, Lift your thin hands for some Hope, and suffer, and wake, Poor muddling commonplace, You sailors who must live Unstarred by hopelessness, We share a single face. […]...
4. A Poet's Death is His Life IV The dark wings of night enfolded the city upon which Nature had spread a pure white garment of snow; and men deserted the streets for their houses in search of warmth, while the north wind probed in contemplation of laying waste the gardens. There in the suburb stood an old hut heavily laden with snow […]...
5. A Poet's Voice XV Part One The power of charity sows deep in my heart, and I reap and gather the wheat in bundles and give them to the hungry. My soul gives life to the grapevine and I press its bunches and give the juice to the thirsty. Heaven fills my lamp with oil and I place it […]...
6. Theology There is a heaven, for ever, day by day, The upward longing of my soul doth tell me so. There is a hell, I’m quite as sure; for pray If there were not, where would my neighbours go?...
7. To own the Art within the Soul To own the Art within the Soul The Soul to entertain With Silence as a Company And Festival maintain Is an unfurnished Circumstance Possession is to One As an Estate perpetual Or a reduceless Mine....
8. The Proud Poet (For Shaemas O Sheel) One winter night a Devil came and sat upon my bed, His eyes were full of laughter for his heart was full of crime. “Why don’t you take up fancy work, or embroidery?” he said, “For a needle is as manly a tool as a pen that makes a rhyme!” “You […]...
9. Just Before April Came THE SNOW piles in dark places are gone. Pools by the railroad tracks shine clear. The gravel of all shallow places shines. A white pigeon reels and somersaults. Frogs plutter and squdge-and frogs beat the air with a recurring thin steel sliver of melody. Crows go in fives and tens; they march their black feathers […]...
10. Sonnet VII: Sweet Poet of the Woods Sweet poet of the woods – a long adieu! Farewel, soft minstrel of the early year! Ah! ’twill be long ere thou shalt sing anew, And pour thy music on the ‘night’s dull ear,’ Whether on spring thy wandering flights await, Or whether silent in our groves ye dwell, The pensive muse shall own thee […]...
11. The Poet VIII He is a link between this and the coming world. He is A pure spring from which all thirsty souls may drink. He is a tree watered by the River of Beauty, bearing Fruit which the hungry heart craves; He is a nightingale, soothing the depressed Spirit with his beautiful melodies; He is a white […]...
12. The Twenty-Third Psalm My Shepherd is the Lord my God, There is no want I know; His flock He leads in verdant meads, Where tranquil waters flow. He doth restore my fainting soul With His divine caress, And, when I stray, He points the way To paths of righteousness. Yea, though I walk the vale of death, What […]...
13. I'll have to change my mind I’ll have to change my mind on war, I need to take a break From structured thought; there’s more to peace – it dictates A longer oar to keep the calm than takes to make a little war. Our history as a people is a theatre of strife and where We celebrate the life of […]...
14. The Poet And His Book Down, you mongrel, Death! Back into your kennel! I have stolen breath In a stalk of fennel! You shall scratch and you shall whine Many a night, and you shall worry Many a bone, before you bury One sweet bone of mine! When shall I be dead? When my flesh is withered, And above my […]...
15. A Prayer Since that I may not have Love on this side the grave, Let me imagine Love. Since not mine is the bliss Of ‘claspt hands and lips that kiss,’ Let me in dreams it prove. What tho’ as the years roll No soul shall melt to my soul, Let me conceive such thing; Tho’ never […]...
16. The Poet What instinct forces man to journey on, Urged by a longing blind but dominant! Nothing he sees can hold him, nothing daunt His never failing eagerness. The sun Setting in splendour every night has won His vassalage; those towers flamboyant Of airy cloudland palaces now haunt His daylight wanderings. Forever done With simple joys and […]...
17. Old St David's at Radnor What an image of peace and rest Is this little church among its graves! All is so quiet; the troubled breast, The wounded spirit, the heart oppressed, Here may find the repose it craves. See, how the ivy climbs and expands Over this humble hermitage, And seems to caress with its little hands The rough, […]...
18. The Poet's Calendar January Janus am I; oldest of potentates; Forward I look, and backward, and below I count, as god of avenues and gates, The years that through my portals come and go. I block the roads, and drift the fields with snow; I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen; My frosts congeal the rivers in […]...
19. Poseidonians The Poseidonians forgot the Greek language After so many centuries of mingling With Tyrrhenians, Latins, and other foreigners. The only thing surviving from their ancestors Was a Greek festival, with beautiful rites, With lyres and flutes, contests and wreaths. And it was their habit toward the festival’s end To tell each other about their ancient […]...
20. The Song of the Garden-Toad Down, down beneath the daisy beds, O hear the cries of pain! And moaning on the cinder-path They’re blind amid the rain. Can murmurs of the worms arise To higher hearts than mine? I wonder if that gardener hears Who made the mold all fine And packed each gentle seedling down So carefully in line? […]...
21. The Flowers All the names I know from nurse: Gardener’s garters, Shepherd’s purse, Bachelor’s buttons, Lady’s smock, And the Lady Hollyhock. Fairy places, fairy things, Fairy woods where the wild bee wings, Tiny trees for tiny dames These must all be fairy names! Tiny woods below whose boughs Shady fairies weave a house; Tiny tree-tops, rose or […]...
22. Sinfonia Eroica (To Sylvia.) My Love, my Love, it was a day in June, A mellow, drowsy, golden afternoon; And all the eager people thronging came To that great hall, drawn by the magic name Of one, a high magician, who can raise The spirits of the past and future days, And draw the dreams from out […]...
23. Psalm 107 part 4 Deliverance from storms and shipwreck; or, The seaman’s song. Would you behold the works of God, His wonders in the world abroad, Go with the mariners, and trace The unknown regions of the seas. They leave their native shores behind, And seize the favor of the wind; Till God command, and tempests rise That heave […]...
24. Louise Smith Herbert broke our engagement of eight years When Annabelle returned to the village From the Seminary, ah me! If I had let my love for him alone It might have grown into a beautiful sorrow Who knows? filling my life with healing fragrance. But I tortured it, I poisoned it, I blinded its eyes, and […]...
25. The Seraph and the Poet THE seraph sings before the manifest God-One, and in the burning of the Seven, And with the full life of consummate Heaving beneath him like a mother’s Warm with her first-born’s slumber in that The poet sings upon the earth grave-riven, Before the naughty world, soon self-forgiven For wronging him, and in the darkness prest […]...
26. The People Upstairs The people upstairs all practise ballet Their living room is a bowling alley Their bedroom is full of conducted tours. Their radio is louder than yours, They celebrate week-ends all the week. When they take a shower, your ceilings leak. They try to get their parties to mix By supplying their guests with Pogo sticks, […]...
27. Kemang Afternoon Blues 1/ Had it not been for the traffic jam You’d have thought being elsewhere Most the niceties seemed so foreign Speaking a tongue so unfamiliar 2/ The bookstore you were in Saw a sea of printed words Of books beyond reach So beautiful they were doomed 3/ Even a minute you were denied A meeting […]...
28. The Poet Fears Failure The poet fears failure & so she says “Hold on pen What if the critics Hate me?” & with that question She blots out more lines Than any critic could. The critic is only doing his job: Keeping the poet lonely. He barks Like a dog at the door When the master comes home. It’s […]...
29. I Am The People, The Mob I AM the people the mob the crowd the mass. Do you know that all the great work of the world is Done through me? I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the World’s food and clothes. I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons Come from me and the Lincolns. They […]...
30. Come O'er the Sea Come o’er the sea, Maiden with me, Mine through sunshine, storm, and snows; Seasons may roll, But the true soul Burns the same, where’er it goes. Let fate frown on, so we love and part not; ‘Tis life where thou art, ’tis death were thou are not. Then come o’er the sea, Maiden with me, […]...
31. A Man Young And Old: XI. From Oedipus At Colonus Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span; Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man; Delight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain. Even from that delight memory treasures so, Death, despair, division of families, all entanglements of mankind grow, As that old wandering beggar and these God-hated children […]...
32. To A New England Poet Though skilled in Latin and in Greek, And earning fifty cents a week, Such knowledge, and the income, too, Should teach you better what to do: The meanest drudges, kept in pay, Can pocket fifty cents a day. Why stay in such a tasteless land, Where all must on a level stand, (Excepting people, at […]...
33. Now What Is Love Now what is Love, I pray thee, tell? It is that fountain and that well Where pleasure and repentance dwell; It is, perhaps, the sauncing bell That tolls all into heaven or hell; And this is Love, as I hear tell. Yet what is Love, I prithee, say? It is a work on holiday, It […]...
34. To the dead poet of obscurity (In honor of the dead unpublished poet) Well done! You have won! You should not feel sorry. Your unpublished poems -always remember- Have not been buried, Haven’t bent Under the strength of time. Like gold Inside the soil They remain, They never melt. They may be late But they will be given To their people […]...
35. 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 […]...
36. 489. Song-Behold, my love, how green the groves BEHOLD, my love, how green the groves, The primrose banks how fair; The balmy gales awake the flowers, And wave thy flowing hair. The lav’rock shuns the palace gay, And o’er the cottage sings: For Nature smiles as sweet, I ween, To Shepherds as to Kings. Let minstrels sweep the skilfu’ string, In lordly lighted […]...
37. The Poet The riches of the poet are equal to his poetry His power is his left hand It is idle weak and precious His poverty is his wealth, a wealth which may destroy him like Midas Because it is that laziness which is a form of impatience And this he may be destroyed by the gold […]...
38. Hymn 67 Seeking the pastures of Christ the Shepherd. SS 1:7. Thou whom my soul admires above All earthly joy and earthly love, Tell me, dear Shepherd, let me know, Where doth thy sweetest pasture grow? Where is the shadow of that rock, That from the sun defends thy flock? Fain would I feed among thy sheep, […]...
39. On – On – Poet I to the open road, You to the hunchbacked street – Which of us two Shall the earlier rue That day we chanced to meet? I with a heart that’s sound, You with sick fancies of pain – Which of us two Would the earlier rue If we chanced to meet again? I jingle homely […]...
40. A Work Of Artifice The bonsai tree In the attractive pot Could have grown eighty feet tall On the side of a mountain Till split by lightning. But a gardener Carefully pruned it. It is nine inches high. Every day as he Whittles back the branches The gardener croons, It is your nature To be small and cozy, Domestic […]...