On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer

Related poetry:

1. To Homer Standing aloof in giant ignorance, Of thee I hear and of the Cyclades, As one who sits ashore and longs perchance To visit dolphin-coral in deep seas. So thou wast blind; but then the veil was rent, For Jove uncurtain’d Heaven to let thee live, And Neptune made for thee a spumy tent, And Pan […]...
2. What Kisses Had John Keats? I scanned two lines with some surmise As over Keats I chanced to pore: ‘And there I shut her wild, wild eyes With kisses four.’ Says I: ‘Why was it only four, Not five or six or seven? I think I would have made it more, Even eleven. ‘Gee! If she’d lured a guy like […]...
3. Homer's Seeing-Eye Dog Most of the time he worked, a sort of sleep With a purpose, so far as I could tell. How he got from the dark of sleep To the dark of waking up I’ll never know; The lax sprawl sleep allowed him Began to set from the edges in, Like a custard, and then he […]...
4. Homer Clapp Often Aner Clute at the gate Refused me the parting kiss, Saying we should be engaged before that; And just with a distant clasp of the hand She bade me good-night, as I brought her home From the skating rink or the revival. No sooner did my departing footsteps die away Than Lucius Atherton, (So […]...
5. A Woman Homer Sung If any man drew near When I was young, I thought, ‘He holds her dear,’ And shook with hate and fear. But O! ’twas bitter wrong If he could pass her by With an indifferent eye. Whereon I wrote and wrought, And now, being grey, I dream that I have brought To such a pitch […]...
6. Insomnia. Homer. Taut canvas Insomnia. Homer. Taut canvas. Half the catalogue of ships is mine: That flight of cranes, long stretched-out line, That once rose, out of Hellas. To an alien land, like a phalanx of cranes – Foam of the gods on the heads of kings – Where do you sail? What would the things Of Troy, be […]...
7. The Wild Old Wicked Man Because I am mad about women I am mad about the hills,’ Said that wild old wicked man Who travels where God wills. ‘Not to die on the straw at home. Those hands to close these eyes, That is all I ask, my dear, From the old man in the skies. Daybreak and a candle-end. […]...
8. They May Rail at this Life They may rail at this life from the hour I began it I found it a life full of kindness and bliss; And, until they can show me some happier planet, More social and bright, I’ll content me with this. As long as the world has such lips and such eyes As before me this […]...
9. Sonnet Suggested By Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Paul Vakzy, James Joyce, Et Al Let me not, ever, to the marriage in Cana Of Galilee admit the slightest sentiment Of doubt about the astonishing and sustaining manna Of chance and choice to throw a shadow’s element Of disbelief in truth Love is not love Nor is the love of love its truth in consciousness If it can be made […]...
10. Before you thought of Spring Before you thought of Spring Except as a Surmise You see God bless his suddenness A Fellow in the Skies Of independent Hues A little weather worn Inspiriting habiliments Of Indigo and Brown With specimens of Song As if for you to choose Discretion in the interval With gay delays he goes To some superior […]...
11. Modern Love XXVI: Love Ere He Bleeds Love ere he bleeds, an eagle in high skies, Has earth beneath his wings: from reddened eve He views the rosy dawn. In vain they weave The fatal web below while far he flies. But when the arrow strikes him, there’s a change. He moves but in the track of his spent pain, Whose red […]...
12. THE BUBBLE: A SONG To my revenge, and to her desperate fears, Fly, thou made bubble of my sighs and tears! In the wild air, when thou hast roll’d about, And, like a blasting planet, found her out; Stoop, mount, pass by to take her eye then glare Like to a dreadful comet in the air: Next, when thou […]...
13. Sonnet LX THey that in course of heauenly spheares are skild, To euery planet point his sundry yeare: In which her circles voyage is fulfild, As Mars in three score yeares doth run his spheare So since the winged God his planet cleare, Began in me to moue, one yeare is spent: The which doth longer vnto […]...
14. An Indian Summer Day on the Prarie (IN THE BEGINNING) THE sun is a huntress young, The sun is a red, red joy, The sun is an indian girl, Of the tribe of the Illinois. (MID-MORNING) The sun is a smouldering fire, That creeps through the high gray plain, And leaves not a bush of cloud To blossom with flowers of rain. […]...
15. The Eye The Atlantic is a stormy moat; and the Mediterranean, The blue pool in the old garden, More than five thousand years has drunk sacrifice Of ships and blood, and shines in the sun; but here the Pacific Our ships, planes, wars are perfectly irrelevant. Neither our present blood-feud with the brave dwarfs Nor any future […]...
16. 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 […]...
17. Size and Tears When on the sandy shore I sit, Beside the salt sea-wave, And fall into a weeping fit Because I dare not shave – A little whisper at my ear Enquires the reason of my fear. I answer “If that ruffian Jones Should recognise me here, He’d bellow out my name in tones Offensive to the […]...
18. Love Song My own dear love, he is strong and bold And he cares not what comes after. His words ring sweet as a chime of gold, And his eyes are lit with laughter. He is jubilant as a flag unfurled Oh, a girl, she’d not forget him. My own dear love, he is all my world, […]...
19. Influence The fervent, pale-faced Mother ere she sleep, Looks out upon the zigzag-lighted square, The beautiful bare trees, the blue night-air, The revelation of the star-strewn deep, World above world, and heaven over heaven. Between the tree-tops and the skies, her sight Rests on a steadfast, ruddy-shining light, High in the tower, an earthly star of […]...
20. Excerpts from "Poetry&quot Poetry, I found you Where at last they chained and bound you; With devices all around you To torture and confound you, I found you-shivering, bare. They had shorn your raven hair And taken both your eyes Which, once cerulean as the skies, Had leapt at dawn to wild surmise Of what was waiting there. […]...
21. The Light of Stars The night is come, but not too soon; And sinking silently, All silently, the little moon Drops down behind the sky. There is no light in earth or heaven But the cold light of stars; And the first watch of night is given To the red planet Mars. Is it the tender star of love? […]...
22. The Town Down by the River I Said the Watcher by the Way To the young and the unladen, To the boy and to the maiden, “God be with you both to-day. First your song came ringing, Now you come, you two Knowing naught of what you do, Or of what your dreams are bringing. “O you children who go singing […]...
23. Fancy Dress Some Brave, awake in you to-night, Knocked at your heart: an eagle’s flight Stirred in the feather on your head. Your wide-set Indian eyes, alight Above high cheek-bones smeared with red, Unveiled cragg’d centuries, and led You, the snared wraith of bygone things – Wild ancestries of trackless Kings – Out of the past… So […]...
24. Gone IN Collins Street standeth a statute tall, A statue tall, on a pillar of stone, Telling its story, to great and small, Of the dust reclaimed from the sand waste lone; Weary and wasted, and worn and wan, Feeble and faint, and languid and low, He lay on the desert a dying man; Who has […]...
25. At That Hour At that hour when all things have repose, O lonely watcher of the skies, Do you hear the night wind and the sighs Of harps playing unto Love to unclose The pale gates of sunrise? When all things repose, do you alone Awake to hear the sweet harps play To Love before him on his […]...
26. I watcher her face to see which way I watcher her face to see which way She took the awful news Whether she died before she heard Or in protracted bruise Remained a few slow years with us Each heavier than the last A further afternoon to fail, As Flower at fall of Frost....
27. To Ailsa Rock Hearken, thou craggy ocean-pyramid, Give answer by thy voice-the sea-fowls’ screams! When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams? When from the sun was thy broad forehead hid? How long is’t since the mighty Power bid Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams – Sleep in the lap of thunder or sunbeams – Or […]...
28. 146. Address to Edinburgh EDINA! Scotia’s darling seat! All hail thy palaces and tow’rs, Where once, beneath a Monarch’s feet, Sat Legislation’s sov’reign pow’rs: From marking wildly scatt’red flow’rs, As on the banks of Ayr I stray’d, And singing, lone, the lingering hours, I shelter in they honour’d shade. Here Wealth still swells the golden tide, As busy Trade […]...
29. Captain Stratton's Fancy OH some are fond of red wine, and some are fond of white, And some are all for dancing by the pale moonlight; But rum alone’s the tipple, and the heart’s delight Of the old bold mate of Henry Morgan. Oh some are fond of Spanish wine, and some are fond of French, And some’ll […]...
30. On Huntingdon's "Miranda&quot The storm hath blown thee a lover, sweet, And laid him kneeling at thy feet. But, guerdon rich for favor rare! The wind hath all thy holy hair To kiss and to sing through and to flare Like torch-flames in the passionate air, About thee, O Miranda. Eyes in a blaze, eyes in a daze, […]...
31. Boldness in Love Mark how the bashful morn in vain Courts the amorous marigold, With sighing blasts and weeping rain, Yet she refuses to unfold. But when the planet of the day Approacheth with his powerful ray, The she spreads, then she receives His warmer beams into her virgin leaves. So shalt thou thrive in love, fond boy; […]...
32. The Dead-Beat He dropped, more sullenly than wearily, Lay stupid like a cod, heavy like meat, And none of us could kick him to his feet; Just blinked at my revolver, blearily; Didn’t appear to know a war was on, Or see the blasted trench at which he stared. “I’ll do ’em in,” he whined, “If this […]...
33. A Song of Enchantment A song of Enchantment I sang me there, In a green-green wood, by waters fair, Just as the words came up to me I sang it under the wild wood tree. Widdershins turned I, singing it low, Watching the wild birds come and go; No cloud in the deep dark blue to be seen Under […]...
34. Music Swims Back To Me Wait Mister. Which way is home? They turned the light out And the dark is moving in the corner. There are no sign posts in this room, Four ladies, over eighty, In diapers every one of them. La la la, Oh music swims back to me And I can feel the tune they played The […]...
35. The Pelagian Drinking Song Pelagius lived at Kardanoel And taught a doctrine there How, whether you went to heaven or to hell It was your own affair. It had nothing to do with the Church, my boy, But was your own affair. No, he didn’t believe In Adam and Eve He put no faith therein! His doubts began With […]...
36. Hillcrest (To Mrs. Edward MacDowell) No sound of any storm that shakes Old island walls with older seas Comes here where now September makes An island in a sea of trees. Between the sunlight and the shade A man may learn till he forgets The roaring of a world remade, And all his ruins and regrets; […]...
37. The Men Who Wear My Clothes Sleepless I lay last night and watched the slow Procession of the men who wear my clothes: First, the grey man with bloodshot eyes and sly Gestures miming what he loves and loathes. Next came the cheery knocker-back of pints, The beery joker, never far from tears, Whose loud and public vanity acquaints The careful […]...
38. Old Poets (For Robert Cortez Holliday) If I should live in a forest And sleep underneath a tree, No grove of impudent saplings Would make a home for me. I’d go where the old oaks gather, Serene and good and strong, And they would not sigh and tremble And vex me with a song. The pleasantest sort […]...
39. The Mask ‘Put off that mask of burning gold With emerald eyes.’ ‘O no, my dear, you make so bold To find if hearts be wild and wise, And yet not cold.’ ‘I would but find what’s there to find, Love or deceit.’ ‘It was the mask engaged your mind, And after set your heart to beat, […]...
40. Tormented I will not reason, wrestle here with you, Though you pursue and worry me about; As well put forth my swarthy arm to stop The wild wind howling, darkly mad without. The night is yours for revels; day will light. I will not fight you, bold and tigerish, For I am weak, while you are […]...