To My Brothers

Related poetry:

1. The Wise Brothers FIRST VOICE So long adrift, so fast aground, What foam and ruin have we found – We, the Wise Brothers? Could heaven and earth be framed amiss, That we should land in fine like this- We, and no others? SECOND VOICE Convoyed by what accursèd thing Made we this evil reckoning – We, the Wise […]...
2. Reading The Brothers Grimm To Jenny Jenny, your mind commands Kingdoms of black and white: You shoulder the crow on your left, The snowbird on your right; For you the cinders part And let the lentils through, And noise falls into place As screech or sweet roo-coo, While in my own, real, world Gray foxes and gray wolves Bargain eye to […]...
3. Ebony Life A frightening stillness will mark that day And the shadow of streetlights and fire-alarms will exhaust the light All things, the quietest and the loudest, will be silent The suckling brats will die The tugboats the locomotives the wind will glide by in silence We will hear the great voice which coming from far away […]...
4. The Four Brothers MAKE war songs out of these; Make chants that repeat and weave. Make rhythms up to the ragtime chatter of the machine guns; Make slow-booming psalms up to the boom of the big guns. Make a marching song of swinging arms and swinging legs, Going along, Going along, On the roads from San Antonio to […]...
5. Elegy X: The Dream Image of her whom I love, more than she, Whose fair impression in my faithful heart Makes me her medal, and makes her love me, As Kings do coins, to which their stamps impart The value: go, and take my heart from hence, Which now is grown too great and good for me: Honours oppress […]...
6. Brothers, let us glorify freedom's twilight Brothers, let us glorify freedom’s twilight – The great, darkening year. Into the seething waters of the night Heavy forests of nets disappear. O Sun, judge, people, your light Is rising over sombre years Let us glorify the deadly weight The people’s leader lifts with tears. Let us glorify the dark burden of fate, Power’s […]...
7. The Sound of the Trees I wonder about the trees. Why do we wish to bear Forever the noise of these More than another noise So close to our dwelling place? We suffer them by the day Till we lose all measure of pace, And fixity in our joys, And acquire a listening air. They are that that talks of […]...
8. The Shepherds Sweet, harmless lives! (on whose holy leisure Waits innocence and pleasure), Whose leaders to those pastures, and clear springs, Were patriarchs, saints, and kings, How happened it that in the dead of night You only saw true light, While Palestine was fast asleep, and lay Without one thought of day? Was it because those first […]...
9. Born Brothers Equality is absolute or no. Nothing between can stand. We are the sons Of the same sire, or madness breaks and runs Through the rude world. Ridiculous our woe If single pity does not love it. So Our separate fathers love us. No man shuns His poorest child’s embrace. We are the sons Of such, […]...
10. Seven Strophes I was but what you’d brush With your palm, what your leaning Brow would hunch to in evening’s Raven-black hush. I was but what your gaze In that dark could distinguish: A dim shape to begin with, Later – features, a face. It was you, on my right, On my left, with your heated Sighs, […]...
11. Brothers How lovely the elder brother’s Life all laced in the other’s, Lóve-laced!-what once I well Witnessed; so fortune fell. When Shrovetide, two years gone, Our boys’ plays brought on Part was picked for John, Young Jóhn: then fear, then joy Ran revel in the elder boy. Their night was come now; all Our company thronged […]...
12. My Brothers While I make rhymes my brother John Makes shiny shoes which dames try on, And finding to their fit and stance They buy and wear with elegance; But mine is quite another tale, For song there is no sale. My brother Tom a tailor shop Is owner of, and ladies stop To try the models […]...
13. The Surprise As there I left the road in May, And took my way along a ground, I found a glade with girls at play, By leafy boughs close-hemmed around, And there, with stores of harmless joys, They plied their tongues, in merry noise: Though little did they seem to fear So queer a stranger might be […]...
14. Sonnet 25 – A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne From year to year until I saw thy face, And sorrow after sorrow took the place Of all those natural joys as lightly worn As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn By a beating heart at dance-time. Hopes apace Were changed to long despairs, till God’s […]...
15. "How Great My Grief" (Triolet) How great my grief, my joys how few, Since first it was my fate to know thee! – Have the slow years not brought to view How great my grief, my joys how few, Nor memory shaped old times anew, Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee How great my grief, my joys how few, Since […]...
16. Hymn 16 Part 2 The enjoyment of Christ; or, Delight in ordinances. Lord, what a heav’n of saving grace Shines through the beauties of thy face, And lights our passions to a flame! Lord, how we love thy charming name! When I can say, “My God is mine,” When I can feel thy glories shine, I tread the world […]...
17. The Good-Morrow I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we loved? were we not weaned till then, But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the seven sleepers’ den? ‘Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be. If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got, ’twas but […]...
18. Face To Face Day after day, O lord of my life, Shall I stand before thee face to face. With folded hands, O lord of all worlds, Shall I stand before thee face to face. Under thy great sky in solitude and silence, With humble heart shall I stand before thee face to face. In this laborious world […]...
19. Amoretti LXXIX: Men Call you Fair Men call you fair, and you do credit it, For that your self ye daily such do see: But the true fair, that is the gentle wit, And vertuous mind, is much more prais’d of me. For all the rest, how ever fair it be, Shall turn to naught and lose that glorious hue: But […]...
20. TO CHARLOTTE ‘MIDST the noise of merriment and glee, ‘Midst full many a sorrow, many a care, Charlotte, I remember, we remember thee, How, at evening’s hour so fair, Thou a kindly hand didst reach us, When thou, in some happy place Where more fair is Nature s face, Many a lightly-hidden trace Of a spirit loved […]...
21. Dungeon He whom I enclose with my name is weeping in this dungeon. I am ever busy building this wall all around; and as this wall goes up into The sky day by day I lose sight of my true being in its dark shadow. I take pride in this great wall, and I plaster it […]...
22. Dancing Tango Oh, Orlando! Remember the night we danced Quietly on the sands where music Was played? Your words were Wonderers, said quietly In the pockets of my ears. Oh, Esphahan! With your turquoise blue mosques And lovers hiding under the sands By the Zayandehrood and its haunting Blue skies. Still the words did Wonders when they […]...
23. 263. Song-The Gardener wi' his Paidle WHEN rosy May comes in wi’ flowers, To deck her gay, green-spreading bowers, Then busy, busy are his hours, The Gard’ner wi’ his paidle. The crystal waters gently fa’, The merry bards are lovers a’, The scented breezes round him blaw- The Gard’ner wi’ his paidle. When purple morning starts the hare To steal upon […]...
24. To my dear Sister, Mrs. C. P. on her Nuptial We will not like those men our offerings pay Who crown the cup, then think they crown the day. We make no garlands, nor an altar build, Which help not Joy, but Ostentation yield. Where mirth is justly grounded these wild toyes Are but a troublesome, and empty noise. 2. But these shall be my […]...
25. On Retirement A HERMIT’S house beside a stream With forests planted round, Whatever it to you may seem More real happiness I deem Than if I were a monarch crowned. A cottage I could call my own Remote from domes of care; A little garden, walled with stone, The wall with ivy overgrown, A limpid fountain near, […]...
26. Departure It was not like your great and gracious ways! Do you, that have naught other to lament, Never, my Love, repent Of how, that July afternoon, You went, With sudden, unintelligible phrase, And frighten’d eye, Upon your journey of so many days Without a single kiss, or a good-bye? I knew, indeed, that you were […]...
27. How Many Bards Gild The Lapses Of Time! How many bards gild the lapses of time! A few of them have ever been the food Of my delighted fancy,-I could brood Over their beauties, earthly, or sublime: And often, when I sit me down to rhyme, These will in throngs before my mind intrude: But no confusion, no disturbance rude Do they occasion; […]...
28. Psalm 63 Longing after God; or, The love of God better than life. Great God, indulge my humble claim, Thou art my hope, my joy, my rest; The glories that compose thy name Stand all engaged to make me blest. Thou great and good, thou just and wise, Thou art my Father and my God; And I […]...
29. An Apprehension IF all the gentlest-hearted friends I know Concentred in one heart their gentleness, That still grew gentler till its pulse was less For life than pity, I should yet be slow To bring my own heart nakedly below The palm of such a friend, that he should press Motive, condition, means, appliances, My false ideal […]...
30. The Rose Family – Song 1 O flower at my window Why blossom you so fair, With your green and purple cup Upturned to sun and air? ‘I bloom, blithesome Bessie, To cheer your childish heart; The world is full of labor, And this shall be my part.’ Whirl, busy wheel, faster, Spin, little thread, spin; The sun shines fair without, […]...
31. On the desert On the desert A silence from the moon’s deepest valley. Fire rays fall athwart the robes Of hooded men, squat and dumb. Before them, a woman Moves to the blowing of shrill whistles And distant thunder of drums, While mystic things, sinuous, dull with terrible colour, Sleepily fondle her body Or move at her will, […]...
32. THE BLISS OF ABSENCE DRINK, oh youth, joy’s purest ray From thy loved one’s eyes all day, And her image paint at night! Better rule no lover knows, Yet true rapture greater grows, When far sever’d from her sight. Powers eternal, distance, time, Like the might of stars sublime, Gently rock the blood to rest, O’er my senses softness […]...
33. Longfellow In a great land, a new land, a land full of labour And riches and confusion, Where there were many running to and fro, and Shouting, and striving together, In the midst of the hurry and the troubled noise, I heard the voice of one singing. “What are you doing there, O man, singing Quietly […]...
34. Song My silks and fine array, My smiles and languish’d air, By love are driv’n away; And mournful lean Despair Brings me yew to deck my grave; Such end true lovers have. His face is fair as heav’n When springing buds unfold; O why to him was’t giv’n Whose heart is wintry cold? His breast is […]...
35. Out of the Rolling Ocean, the Crowd 1 OUT of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me, Whispering, I love you, before long I die, I have travel’d a long way, merely to look on you, to touch you, For I could not die till I once look’d on you, For I fear’d I might afterward lose you. […]...
36. And We Shall Not Get Excited And we shall not get excited. Because a translator May not get excited. Calmly, we shall pass on Words from man to son, from one tongue To others’ lips, un- Knowingly, like a father who passes on The features of his dead father’s face To his son, and he himself is like neither of them. […]...
37. THE TREASURE-DIGGER ALL my weary days I pass’d Sick at heart and poor in purse. Poverty’s the greatest curse, Riches are the highest good! And to end my woes at last, Treasure-seeking forth I sped. “Thou shalt have my soul instead!” Thus I wrote, and with my blood. Ring round ring I forthwith drew, Wondrous flames collected […]...
38. The End of Love Now he is dead How should I know My true love’s arms From wind and snow? No man I meet In field or house Though in the street A hundred pass. The hurrying dust Has never a face, No longer human In man or woman. Now he is gone Why should I mourn My true […]...
39. Finding From the candles and dumb shadows, And the house where love had died, I stole to the vast moonlight And the whispering life outside. But I found no lips of comfort, No home in the moon’s light (I, little and lone and frightened In the unfriendly night), And no meaning in the voices. . . […]...
40. Love and the Gentle Heart Love and the gentle heart are one thing, Just as the poet says in his verse, Each from the other one as well divorced As reason from the mind’s reasoning. Nature craves love, and then creates love king, And makes the heart a palace where he’ll stay, Perhaps a shorter or a longer day, Breathing […]...