The Traveller

Related poetry:

1. DIRECTIONS/MISDIRECTIONS I sit inside the train of tears The station mellow in shade Unoriginal phrases air-brush the canvas. Puzzling minds I wonder If all are like my own Closed to stillness. From girders hang the acrobats of gone Pearl grey Whistlers. We sat on A train like this once, you and I, Face to face but […]...
2. THE TRAVELLER AND THE FARM~MAIDEN HE. CANST thou give, oh fair and matchless maiden, ‘Neath the shadow of the lindens yonder, Where I’d fain one moment cease to wander, Food and drink to one so heavy laden? SHE. Wouldst thou find refreshment, traveller weary, Bread, ripe fruit and cream to meet thy wishes, None but Nature’s plain and homely dishes, […]...
3. The Wait It is life in slow motion, It’s the heart in reverse, It’s a hope-and-a-half: Too much and too little at once. It’s a train that suddenly Stops with no station around, And we can hear the cricket, And, leaning out the carriage Door, we vainly contemplate A wind we feel that stirs The blooming meadows, […]...
4. A Mountain Station I bought a run a while ago, On country rough and ridgy, Where wallaroos and wombats grow The Upper Murrumbidgee. The grass is rather scant, it’s true, But this a fair exchange is, The sheep can see a lovely view By climbing up the ranges. And She-oak Flat’s the station’s name, I’m not surprised at […]...
5. On Death TEll me thou safest End of all our Woe, Why wreched Mortals do avoid thee so: Thou gentle drier o’th’ afflicteds Tears, Thou noble ender of the Cowards Fears; Thou sweet Repose to Lovers sad dispaire, Thou Calm t’Ambitions rough Tempestuous Care. If in regard of Bliss thou wert a Curse, And then the Joys […]...
6. The Gentle Traveller Through many a land your journey ran, And showed the best the world can boast: Now tell me, traveller, if you can, The place that pleased you most.” She laid her hands upon my breast, And murmured gently in my ear, “The place I loved and liked the best Was in your arms, my dear!”...
7. The Traveller-Heart (To a Man who maintained that the Mausoleum is the Stateliest Possible Manner of Interment) I would be one with the dark, dark earth: Follow the plough with a yokel tread. I would be part of the Indian corn, Walking the rows with the plumes o’erhead. I would be one with the lavish earth, Eating […]...
8. Travellers Whom We Met Another fork away ahead Exactly like the one behind And twists and turns to leave you dead As choices in your mind. We’ve travelled here before you know And had this conversation yet We learned a way to ask for more Than empty signposts that we met. Of travellers whom we met And journeys we […]...
9. George Gray I have studied many times The marble which was chiseled for me A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor. In truth it pictures not my destination But my life. For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment; Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid; Ambition called […]...
10. Warsaw I was in Warsaw when the first bomb fell; I was in Warsaw when the Terror came – Havoc and horror, famine, fear and flame, Blasting from loveliness a living hell. Barring the station towered a sentinel; Trainward I battled, blind escape my aim. ENGLAND! I cried. He kindled at the name: With lion-leap he […]...
11. First Impressions: Budapest 1992 is many a love-struck couple kissing and hugging with passion by the Margit híd; Is a lone acquaintance of mine fighting solo against the world for 8.000 forint spending hours in a library, trying hard to keep dreaming; Is bereft single grannies in dilapidated post-communist apartment blocks; Is hawk eyed hollowed women, with palms upwards […]...
12. Dream Song 50: In a motion of night they massed nearer my post In a motion of night they massed nearer my post. I hummed a short blues. When the stars went out I studied my weapons system. Grenades, the portable rack, the yellow spout Of the anthrax-ray: in order. Yes, and most Of my pencils were sharp. This edge of the galaxy has often seen A defence […]...
13. At The Railway Station, Upways ‘There is not much that I can do, For I’ve no money that’s quite my own!’ Spoke up the pitying child A little boy with a violin At the station before the train came in, ‘But I can play my fiddle to you, And a nice one ’tis, and good in tone!’ The man in […]...
14. Train Train. Distant Train. Praise the glorious distance of Train. Dogs bark, reply to the mournful echo of Train’s whistle. Train looks back, keeps moving. Train carries its boxcars of secrets further and further away (and even further still) from those who profess to love Train, but who do not run after him. Eyes brimmed with […]...
15. Observation Car To be put on the train and kissed and given my ticket, Then the station slid backward, the shops and the neon lighting, Reeling off in a drunken blur, with a whole pound note in my pocket And the holiday packed with Perhaps. It used to be very exciting. The present and past were enough. […]...
16. Psalm 72 part 2 Christ’s kingdom among the Gentiles. Jesus shall reign where’er the sun Does his successive journeys run; His kingdom stretch from shore to shore, Till moons shall wax and wane no more. [Behold the islands with their kings, And Europe her best tribute brings; From north to south the princes meet, To pay their homage at […]...
17. "Truth," said a traveller “Truth,” said a traveller, “Is a rock, a mighty fortress; Often have I been to it, Even to its highest tower, From whence the world looks black.” “Truth,” said a traveller, “Is a breath, a wind, A shadow, a phantom; Long have I pursued it, But never have I touched The hem of its garment.” […]...
18. The Ships Are Made Ready In Silence Moored to the same ring: The hour, the darkness and I, Our compasses hooded like falcons. Now the memory of you comes aching in With a wash of broken bits which never left port In which once we planned voyages, They come knocking like hearts asking: What departures on this tide? Breath of land, warm […]...
19. Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat There’s a whisper down the line at 11.39 When the Night Mail’s ready to depart, Saying “Skimble where is Skimble has he gone to hunt the thimble? We must find him or the train can’t start.” All the guards and all the porters and the stationmaster’s daughters They are searching high and low, Saying “Skimble […]...
20. Psalm 128 Family blessings. O happy man, whose soul is filled With zeal and reverent awe! His lips to God their honors yield, His life adorns the law. A careful providence shall stand And ever guard thy head, Shall on the labors of thy hand Its kindly blessings shed. [Thy wife shall be a fruitful vine; Thy […]...
21. Psalm 45 part 1 The glory of Christ, and power of his gospel. Now be my heart inspired to sing The glories of my Savior King, Jesus the Lord; how heav’nly fair His form! how bright his beauties are! O’er all the sons of human race He shines with a superior grace; Love from his lips divinely flows, And […]...
22. Base of all Metaphysics, The AND now, gentlemen, A word I give to remain in your memories and minds, As base, and finale too, for all metaphysics. (So, to the students, the old professor, At the close of his crowded course.) Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and Germanic systems, Kant having studied and stated-Fichte and Schelling and […]...
23. Beautiful Lofty Things Beautiful lofty things: O’Leary’s noble head; My father upon the Abbey stage, before him a raging crowd: ‘This Land of Saints,’ and then as the applause died out, ‘Of plaster Saints’; his beautiful mischievous head thrown back. Standish O’Grady supporting himself between the tables Speaking to a drunken audience high nonsensical words; Augusta Gregory seated […]...
24. Sonnet VIII: Love, Born In Greece Love, born in Greece, of late fled from his native place, Forc’d by a tedious proof, that Turkish harden’d heart Is no fit mark to pierce with his fine pointed dart, And pleas’d with our soft peace, stayed here his flying race. But finding these north climes do coldly him embrace, Not used to frozen […]...
25. Mockingbirds This morning Two mockingbirds In the green field Were spinning and tossing The white ribbons Of their songs Into the air. I had nothing Better to do Than listen. I mean this Seriously. In Greece, A long time ago, An old couple Opened their door To two strangers Who were, It soon appeared, Not men […]...
26. The Buried Train Tell me about the train that people say got buried By the avalanche was it snow? It was In Colorado, and no one saw it happen. There was smoke from the engine curling up Lightly through fir tops, and the engine sounds. There were all those people reading some From Thoreau, some from Henry Ward […]...
27. Bob's Lane Women he liked, did shovel-bearded Bob, Old Farmer Hayward of the Heath, but he Loved horses. He himself was like a cob And leather-coloured. Also he loved a tree. For the life in them he loved most living things, But a tree chiefly. All along the lane He planted elms where now the stormcock sings […]...
28. 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 […]...
29. Sonnet LXXXIV Who is it that says most? which can say more Than this rich praise, that you alone are you? In whose confine immured is the store Which should example where your equal grew. Lean penury within that pen doth dwell That to his subject lends not some small glory; But he that writes of you, […]...
30. Sonnet 84: Who is it that says most, which can say more Who is it that says most, which can say more, Than this rich praise that you alone are you, In whose confine immurГЕd is the store Which should example where your equal grew? Lean penury within that pen doth dwell That to his subject lends not some small glory; But he that writes of you, […]...
31. No, You Be A Lone Eagle I find it very hard to be fair-minded About people who go around being air-minded. I just can’t see any fun In soaring up up up into the sun When the chances are still a fresh cool orchid to a paper geranium That you’ll unsoar down down down onto your (to you) invaluable Cranium. I […]...
32. Two Travellers perishing in Snow Two Travellers perishing in Snow The Forests as they froze Together heard them strengthening Each other with the words That Heaven if Heaven must contain What Either left behind And then the cheer too solemn grew For language, and the wind Long steps across the features took That Love had touched the Morn With reverential […]...
33. Ida Chicken After I had attended lectures At our Chautauqua, and studied French For twenty years, committing the grammar Almost by heart, I thought I’d take a trip to Paris To give my culture a final polish. So I went to Peoria for a passport (Thomas Rhodes was on the train that morning.) And there the clerk […]...
34. The house where I was born (06) I woke up, but I was travelling, The train had rolled throughout the night, It was now going toward huge clouds That were standing, packed together, down there, Dawn rent from time to time by forks of lightning. I watched the advent of the world In the bushes of the embankment; and all at once […]...
35. As I lay with Head in your Lap, Camerado AS I lay with my head in your lap, Camerado, The confession I made I resume-what I said to you in the open air I resume: I know I am restless, and make others so; I know my words are weapons, full of danger, full of death; (Indeed I am myself the real soldier; It […]...
36. Psalm 98 part 2 The Messiah’s coming and kingdom. Joy to the world! the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare him room, And heav’n and nature sing. Joy to the earth! the Savior reigns! Let men their songs employ, While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains, Repeat the sounding joy. No more […]...
37. Oh give it Motion deck it sweet Oh give it Motion deck it sweet With Artery and Vein Upon its fastened Lips lay words Affiance it again To that Pink stranger we call Dust Acquainted more with that Than with this horizontal one That will not lift its Hat...
38. Travel The railroad track is miles away, And the day is loud with voices speaking, Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day But I hear its whistle shrieking. All night there isn’t a train goes by, Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming, But I see its cinders red on the sky, […]...
39. If I Should Learn, In Some Quite Casual Way IF I should learn, in some quite casual way, That you were gone, not to return again – Read from the back-page of a paper, say, Held by a neighbor in a subway train, How at the corner of this avenue And such a street (so are the papers filled) A hurrying man-who happened to […]...
40. Morning Express Along the wind-swept platform, pinched and white, The travellers stand in pools of wintry light, Offering themselves to morn’s long, slanting arrows. The train’s due; porters trundle laden barrows. The train steams in, volleying resplendent clouds Of sun-blown vapour. Hither and about, Scared people hurry, storming the doors in crowds. The officials seem to waken […]...