Transit of the Gods

Related poetry:

1. A Villanelle O singer of Persephone! In the dim meadows desolate Dost thou remember Sicily? Still through the ivy flits the bee Where Amaryllis lies in state; O Singer of Persephone! Simaetha calls on Hecate And hears the wild dogs at the gate; Dost thou remember Sicily? Still by the light and laughing sea Poor Polypheme bemoans […]...
2. The Gods Of Greece Ye in the age gone by, Who ruled the world a world how lovely then! And guided still the steps of happy men In the light leading-strings of careless joy! Ah, flourished then your service of delight! How different, oh, how different, in the day When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright, […]...
3. Prayer To Persephone Be to her, Persephone, All the things I might not be: Take her head upon your knee. She that was so proud and wild, Flippant, arrogant and free, She that had no need of me, Is a little lonely child Lost in Hell,-Persephone, Take her head upon your knee: Say to her, “My dear, my […]...
4. Transit A woman I have never seen before Steps from the darkness of her town-house door At just that crux of time when she is made So beautiful that she or time must fade. What use to claim that as she tugs her gloves A phantom heraldry of all the loves Blares from the lintel? That […]...
5. Upon Watts' Picture Sic Transit “What I spent I had; what I saved, I lost; what I gave, I have.” But yesterday the tourney, all the eager joy of life, The waving of the banners, and the rattle of the spears, The clash of sword and harness, and the madness of the strife; To-night begin the silence and the peace […]...
6. The Pain of Earth DOES the earth grow grey with grief For her hero darling fled? Though her vales let fall no leaf, In our hearts her tears are shed. Still the stars laugh on above: Not to them her grief is said; Mourning for her hero love In our hearts the tears are shed. We her children mourn […]...
7. A Calendar of Sonnets: April No days such honored days as these! While yet Fair Aphrodite reigned, men seeking wide For some fair thing which should forever bide On earth, her beauteous memory to set In fitting frame that no age could forget, Her name in lovely April’s name did hide, And leave it there, eternally allied To all the […]...
8. Summer Dawn Pray but one prayer for me ‘twixt thy closed lips, Think but one thought of me up in the stars. The summer night waneth, the morning light slips, Faint and grey ‘twixt the leaves of the aspen, betwixt the cloud-bars That are patiently waiting there for the dawn: Patient and colourless, though Heaven’s gold Waits […]...
9. You Gote-heard Gods Strephon. You Gote-heard Gods, that loue the grassie mountaines, You Nimphes that haunt the springs in pleasant vallies, You Satyrs ioyde with free and quiet forests, Vouchsafe your silent eares to playning musique, Which to my woes giues still an early morning; And drawes the dolor on till wery euening. Klaius. O Mercurie, foregoer to […]...
10. Guilty Of Dust up or down from the infinite C E N T E R B R I M M I N G at the winking rim of time The voice in my head said LOVE IS THE DISTANCE BETWEEN YOU AND WHAT YOU LOVE WHAT YOU LOVE IS YOUR FATE * Then I saw the parade of […]...
11. The Widower Oh I have worn my mourning out, And on her grave the green grass grows; So I will hang each sorry clout High in the corn to scare the crows. And I will buy a peacock tie, And coat of cloth of Donegal; Then to the Farmer’s Fair I’ll hie And peek in at the […]...
12. Dance Me To The End Of Love Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin Dance me through the panic ’til I’m gathered safely in Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove Dance me to the end of love Dance me to the end of love Oh let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone […]...
13. Gods Ms. Sexton went out looking for the gods. She began looking in the sky -expecting a large white angel with a blue crotch. No one. She looked next in all the learned books And the print spat back at her. No one She made a pilgrimage to the great poet And he belched in her […]...
14. One Of Their Gods When one of them passed through the market place Of Seleucia, toward the hour that night falls As a tall and perfectly handsome youth, With the joy of immortality in his eyes, With his scented black hair, The passers-by would stare at him And one would ask the other if he knew him, And if […]...
15. The Gods! The Gods! People were bathing and posturing themselves on the beach, And all was dreary, great robot limbs, robot breasts, Robot voices, robot even the gay umbrellas. But a woman, shy and alone, was washing herself under a tap and the glimmer of the presence of the gods was like Lilies, and like water-lilies....
16. It was given to me by the Gods It was given to me by the Gods When I was a little Girl They given us Presents most you know When we are new and small. I kept it in my Hand I never put it down I did not dare to eat or sleep For fear it would be gone I heard such […]...
17. Gods 1 THOUGHT of the Infinite-the All! Be thou my God. 2 Lover Divine, and Perfect Comrade! Waiting, content, invisible yet, but certain, Be thou my God. 3 Thou-thou, the Ideal Man! Fair, able, beautiful, content, and loving, Complete in Body, and dilate in Spirit, Be thou my God. 4 O Death-(for Life has served its […]...
18. Evarra And His Gods Read here: This is the story of Evarra man Maker of Gods in lands beyond the sea. Because the city gave him of her gold, Because the caravans brought turquoises, Because his life was sheltered by the King, So that no man should maim him, none should steal, Or break his rest with babble in […]...
19. WHO'LL BUY GODS OF LOVE? OF all the beauteous wares Exposed for sale at fairs, None will give more delight Than those that to your sight From distant lands we bring. Oh, hark to what we sing! These beauteous birds behold, They’re brought here to be sold. And first the big one see, So full of roguish glee! With light […]...
20. A Brief History of Gods First, we worshipped the inanimate. Next, we learned to worship the gods Later, we discovered the Deity. Then, dazzled by our own Reason We returned to the inanimate And ended up worshipping anything, From football to economic growth....
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 False Gods “We are false and evanescent, and aware of our deceit, From the straw that is our vitals to the clay that is our feet. You may serve us if you must, and you shall have your wage of ashes,- Though arrears due thereafter may be hard for you to meet. “You may swear that we […]...
23. Gods In The Gutter I dreamed I saw three demi-gods who in a cafe sat, And one was small and crapulous, and one was large and fat; And one was eaten up with vice and verminous at that. The first he spoke of secret sins, and gems and perfumes rare; And velvet cats and courtesans voluptuously fair: “Who is […]...
24. "Sic transit gloria mundi&quot “Sic transit gloria mundi,” “How doth the busy bee,” “Dum vivimus vivamus,” I stay mine enemy! Oh “veni, vidi, vici!” Oh caput cap-a-pie! And oh “memento mori” When I am far from thee! Hurrah for Peter Parley! Hurrah for Daniel Boone! Three cheers, sir, for the gentleman Who first observed the moon! Peter, put up […]...
25. The Violent Space (Or When Your Sister Sleeps Around For Money) Exchange in greed the ungraceful signs. Thrust The thick notes between green apple breasts. Then the shadow of the devil descends, The violent space cries and angel eyes, Large and dark, retreat in innocence and in ice. (Run sister run-the Bugga man comes!) The violent space cries silently, Like you cried wide years ago In […]...
26. El Cafetal I came with the rising sun and I’ve brought Nothing but two eyes, all I have, Simply two eyes, for the harvest Of grief that’s hidden in this jungle Like the coffee shrubs. Fewer, But they fling themselves upwards, untouchable, Are the trees that invidiously shut out The light from this overwhelming indigence. With my […]...
27. The Gods of the Copybook Headings 1919 As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race, Make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place. ‘eering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all. Ne were living in trees when they met us. They showed […]...
28. Whales Weep Not! They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains The hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent. All the whales in the wider deeps, hot are they, as they urge On and on, and dive beneath the icebergs. The right whales, the sperm-whales, the hammer-heads, the killers There they blow, there […]...
29. Sonnet XXXII: Blest As the Gods Blest as the Gods! Sicilian Maid is he, The youth whose soul thy yielding graces charm; Who bound, O! thraldom sweet! by beauty’s arm, In idle dalliance fondly sports with thee! Blest as the Gods! that iv’ry throne to see, Throbbing with transports, tender, timid, warm! While round thy fragrant lips zephyrs swarm! As op’ning […]...
30. The Idealist Oh you who have daring deeds to tell! And you who have felt Ambition’s spell! Have you heard of the louse who longed to dwell In the golden hair of a queen? He sighed all day and he sighed all night, And no one could understand it quite, For the head of a slut is […]...
31. Words Out of us all That make rhymes Will you choose Sometimes – As the winds use A crack in a wall Or a drain, Their joy or their pain To whistle through – Choose me, You English words? I know you: You are light as dreams, Tough as oak, Precious as gold, As poppies and […]...
32. Purposely Ungrammatical Love Song There’s many and many, and not so far, Is willing to dry my tears away; There’s many to tell me what you are, And never a lie to all they say. It’s little the good to hide my head, It’s never the use to bar my door; There’s many as counts the tears I shed, […]...
33. Harvest Song I am a reaper whose muscles set at sundown. All my oats are cradled. But I am too chilled, and too fatigued to bind them. And I hunger. I crack a grain between my teeth. I do not taste it. I have been in the fields all day. My throat is dry. I hunger. My […]...
34. On The Boulevard Oh, it’s pleasant sitting here, Seeing all the people pass; You beside your bock of beer, I behind my demi-tasse. Chatting of no matter what. You the Mummer, I the Bard; Oh, it’s jolly, is it not? Sitting on the Boulevard. More amusing than a book, If a chap has eyes to see; For, no […]...
35. The Light That Failed So we settled it all when the storm was done As comfy as comfy could be; And I was to wait in the barn, my dears, Because I was only three. And Teddy would run to the rainbow’s foot Because he was five and a man And that’s how it all began, my dears, And […]...
36. A Song of Travel Where’s the lamp that Hero lit Once to call Leander home? Equal Time hath shovelled it ‘Neath the wrack of Greece and Rome. Neither wait we any more That worn sail which Argo bore. Dust and dust of ashes close All the Vestal Virgin’s care; And the oldest altar shows But an older darkness there. […]...
37. The King's Breakfast The King’s Breakfast The King asked The Queen, and The Queen asked The Dairymaid: “Could we have some butter for The Royal slice of bread?” The Queen asked the Dairymaid, The Dairymaid Said, “Certainly, I’ll go and tell the cow Now Before she goes to bed.” The Dairymaid She curtsied, And went and told The […]...
38. Sonnet XXXII: Our Flood's-Queen Thames Our flood’s-queen Thames for ships and swans is crown’d, And stately Severn for her shore is prais’d, The crystal Trent for fords and fish renown’d, And Avon’s fame to Albion’s cliffs is rais’d; Carlegion Chester vaunts her holy Dee, York many wonders of her Ouse can tell, The Peak her Dove, whose banks so fertile […]...
39. The Lobster Quadrille “Will you walk a little faster?” said a whiting to a snail, “There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail. See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! They are waiting on the shingle will you come and join the dance? Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, […]...
40. Beyond It seemeth such a little way to me Across to that strange country – the Beyond; And yet, not strange, for it has grown to be The home of those whom I am so fond, They make it seem familiar and most dear, As journeying friends bring distant regions near. So close it lies, that […]...