THE BOUNDARIES OF HUMANITY

Related poetry:

1. An Hymn To Humanity (To S. P. G. Esp) O! for this dark terrestrial ball Forsakes his azure-paved hall A prince of heav’nly birth! Divine Humanity behold, What wonders rise, what charms unfold At his descent to earth! II. The bosoms of the great and good With wonder and delight he view’d, And fix’d his empire there: Him, close compressing to his breast, The […]...
2. Mysterious Humanity I shall tell you stories about scores of troops Sent to the distant Croatian borders Medical soldiers of fortune with a sacred mission: To ease the pain and cure the wounds Of sons and daughters in genocized Bosnia Of which a moment later one would read, Heroic newspeaks roared by a government “We’re healing, we’re […]...
3. Psalm 135 Praise due to God, not to idols. Awake, ye saints; to praise your King, Your sweetest passions raise, Your pious pleasure, while you sing, Increasing with the praise. Great is the Lord, and works unknown Are his divine employ; But still his saints are near his throne, His treasure and his joy. Heav’n, earth, and […]...
4. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
5. Hymn 170 God incomprehensible and sovereign. [Can creatures to perfection find Th’ eternal, uncreated Mind? Or can the largest stretch of thought Measure and search his nature out? ‘Tis high as heav’n, ’tis deep as hell And what can mortals know or tell? His glory spreads beyond the sky, And all the shining worlds on high. But […]...
6. Morning Song Of Senlin from Senlin: A Biography It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning When the light drips through the shutters like the dew, I arise, I face the sunrise, And do the things my fathers learned to do. Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die, […]...
7. SOLITUDE OH ye kindly nymphs, who dwell ‘mongst the rocks and the thickets, Grant unto each whatsoe’er he may in silence desire! Comfort impart to the mourner, and give to the doubter instruction, And let the lover rejoice, finding the bliss that he craves. For from the gods ye received what they ever denied unto mortals, […]...
8. Evening Oh! thou bright-beaming god, the plains are thirsting, Thirsting for freshening dew, and man is pining; Wearily move on thy horses Let, then, thy chariot descend! Seest thou her who, from ocean’s crystal billows, Lovingly nods and smiles? Thy heart must know her! Joyously speed on thy horses, Tethys, the goddess, ’tis nods! Swiftly from […]...
9. SPIRIT SONG OVER THE WATERS THE soul of man Resembleth water: From heaven it cometh, To heaven it soareth. And then again To earth descendeth, Changing ever. Down from the lofty Rocky wall Streams the bright flood, Then spreadeth gently In cloudy billows O’er the smooth rock, And welcomed kindly, Veiling, on roams it, Soft murmuring, Tow’rd the abyss. Cliffs […]...
10. As plan for Noon and plan for Night As plan for Noon and plan for Night So differ Life and Death In positive Prospective The Foot upon the Earth At Distance, and Achievement, strains, The Foot upon the Grave Makes effort at conclusion Assisted faint of Love....
11. TAME XENIA THE Epigrams bearing the title of XENIA were written By Goethe and Schiller together, having been first occasioned by Some violent attacks made on them by some insignificant writers. They are extremely numerous, but scarcely any of them could be translated Into English. Those here given are merely presented as a specimen. GOD gave to […]...
12. TO THE GRASSHOPPER AFTER ANACREON. [The strong resemblance of this fine poem to Cowley’s Ode bearing the same name, and beginning “Happy insect! What can be,” will be at once seen.] HAPPY art thou, darling insect, Who, upon the trees’ tall branches, By a modest draught inspired, Singing, like a monarch livest! Thou possessest as thy portion All […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. Anticipation How beautiful the earth is still, To thee – how full of happiness! How little fraught with real ill, Or unreal phantoms of distress! How spring can bring thee glory, yet, And summer win thee to forget December’s sullen time! Why dost thou hold the treasure fast, Of youth’s delight, when youth is past, And […]...
15. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
16. 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 […]...
17. Psalm 95 A Psalm before prayer. Sing to the Lord Jehovah’s name, And in his strength rejoice; When his salvation is our theme, Exalted be our voice. With thanks approach his awful sight, And psalms of honor sing; The Lord’s a God of boundless might, The whole creation’s King. Let princes hear, let angels know, How mean […]...
18. 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 […]...
19. Encounter Those who have touched it or been touched by it Or brushed by something that the vine has brushed, Or burning it, have stood where the sly smoke Has touched them-Know the meaning of its name. The leaf is smooth. Its green is innocence. A clean, unblemished leaf, glossy when young. A leaf the unobserving […]...
20. 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 […]...
21. 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 […]...
22. The Voices The rich and fortunate do well to keep silent, For no one cares to know who and what they are. But those in need must reveal themselves, Must say: I am blind, Or: I’m on the verge of going blind, Or: nothing goes well with me on earth, Or: I have a sickly child, Or: […]...
23. A Child of the Snows There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim, And never before or again, When the nights are strong with a darkness long, And the dark is alive with rain. Never we know but in sleet and in snow, The place where the great fires are, That the midst of the earth is a […]...
24. John Cabanis Neither spite, fellow citizens, Nor forgetfulness of the shiftlessness, And the lawlessness and waste Under democracy’s rule in Spoon River Made me desert the party of law and order And lead the liberal party. Fellow citizens! I saw as one with second sight That every man of the millions of men Who give themselves to […]...
25. Good Friday O my chief good, How shall I measure out thy blood? How shall I count what thee befell, And each grief tell? Shall I thy woes Number according to thy foes? Or, since one star show’d thy first breath, Shall all thy death? Or shall each leaf, Which falls in Autumn, score a grief? Or […]...
26. Dumb Gabriel whispered in mine ear His archangelic poesie. How can I write? I only hear The sobbing murmur of the sea. Raphael breathed and bade me pass His rapt evangel to mankind; I cannot even match, alas! The ululation of the wind. The gross grey gods like gargoyles spit On every poet’s holy head; No […]...
27. Night (O you whose countenance) Night. O you whose countenance, dissolved In deepness, hovers above my face. You who are the heaviest counterweight To my astounding contemplation. Night, that trembles as reflected in my eyes, But in itself strong; Inexhaustible creation, dominant, Enduring beyond the earth’s endurance; Night, full of newly created stars that leave Trails of fire streaming from […]...
28. St. Francis of Assisi Would I might wake St. Francis in you all, Brother of birds and trees, God’s Troubadour, Blinded with weeping for the sad and poor; Our wealth undone, all strict Franciscan men, Come, let us chant the canticle again Of mother earth and the enduring sun. God make each soul the lonely leper’s slave; God make […]...
29. Sun and Shadow As I look from the isle, o’er its billows of green, To the billows of foam-crested blue, Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen, Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue: Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray As the chaff in the stroke of the flail; Now white as the sea-gull, […]...
30. Song of the Red War-Boat Shove off from the wharf-edge! Steady! Watch for a smooth! Give way! If she feels the lop already She’ll stand on her head in the bay. It’s ebb it’s dusk it’s blowing The shoals are a mile of white, But ( snatch her along! ) we’re going To find our master to-night. For we hold […]...
31. The Opening and the Close The Opening and the Close Of Being, are alike Or differ, if they do, As Bloom upon a Stalk. That from an equal Seed Unto an equal Bud Go parallel, perfected In that they have decayed....
32. Dear Colette Dear Colette, I want to write to you About being a woman For that is what you write to me. I want to tell you how your face Enduring after thirty, forty, fifty. . . Hangs above my desk Like my own muse. I want to tell you how your hands Reach out from your […]...
33. An Ode to Master Endymion Porter, Upon His Brother's Death Not all thy flushing suns are set, Herrick, as yet ; Nor doth this far-drawn hemisphere Frown and look sullen ev’rywhere. Days may conclude in nights, and suns may rest As dead within the west ; Yet, the next morn, regild the fragrant east. Alas! for me, that I have lost E’en all almost ; […]...
34. Amoretti III: The Sovereign Beauty The sovereign beauty which I do admire, Witness the world how worthy to be praised: The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised; That being now with her huge brightness dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view; But looking still on her, I stand […]...
35. Sonnet III THe souerayne beauty which I doo admyre, Witnesse the world how worthy to be prayzed: The light wherof hath kindled heauenly iyre, In my fraile spirit by her from basenesse raysed. That being now with her huge brightnesse dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view: But looking still on her I stand […]...
36. Dithyramb Believe me, together The bright gods come ever, Still as of old; Scarce see I Bacchus, the giver of joy, Than comes up fair Eros, the laugh-loving boy, And Phoebus, the stately, behold! They come near and nearer, The heavenly ones all The gods with their presence Fill earth as their hall! Say, how shall […]...
37. The Haunted Beach Upon a lonely desart Beach Where the white foam was scatter’d, A little shed uprear’d its head Though lofty Barks were shatter’d. The Sea-weeds gath’ring near the door, A sombre path display’d; And, all around, the deaf’ning roar, Re-echo’d on the chalky shore, By the green billows made. Above, a jutting cliff was seen Where […]...
38. Psalm 73 v.22,3,6,17-20 L. M. The prosperity of sinners cursed. Lord, what a thoughtless wretch was I, To mourn, and murmur, and repine, To see the wicked placed on high, In pride and robes of honor shine! But O their end, their dreadful end! Thy sanctuary taught me so; On slipp’ry rocks I see them stand, And […]...
39. Psalm 65 part 2 v.5-13 L. M. Divine providence in air, earth, and sea. The God of our salvation hears The groans of Zion mixed with tears; Yet when he comes with kind designs, Through all the way his terror shines. On him the race of man depends, Far as the earth’s remotest ends, Where the Creator’s name is […]...
40. Autumn overlooked my Knitting Autumn overlooked my Knitting Dyes said He have I Could disparage a Flamingo Show Me them said I Cochineal I chose for deeming It resemble Thee And the little Border Dusker For resembling Me...