The Artist's Duty

Related poetry:

1. The Artists How gracefully, O man, with thy palm-bough, Upon the waning century standest thou, In proud and noble manhood’s prime, With unlocked senses, with a spirit freed, Of firmness mild, though silent, rich in deed, The ripest son of Time, Through meekness great, through precepts strong, Through treasures rich, that time had long Hid in thy […]...
2. The Crowd At The Ball Game The crowd at the ball game Is moved uniformly By a spirit of uselessness Which delights them – All the exciting detail Of the chase And the escape, the error The flash of genius – All to no end save beauty The eternal – So in detail they, the crowd, Are beautiful For this To […]...
3. The Black Hawk War of the Artists WRITTEN FOR LORADO TAFT’S STATUE OF BLACK HAWK AT OREGON, ILLINOIS To be given in the manner of the Indian Oration and the Indian War-Cry. Hawk of the Rocks, Yours is our cause to-day. Watching your foes Here in our war array, Young men we stand, Wolves of the West at bay. Power, power for […]...
4. Devotion to Duty I was near the King that day. I saw him snatch And briskly scan the G. H. Q. dispatch. Thick-voiced, he read it out. (His face was grave.) ‘This officer advanced with the first wave, ‘And when our first objective had been gained, ‘(Though wounded twice), reorganized the line: ‘The spirit of the troops was […]...
5. Duty Surviving Self-Love Unchanged within, to see all changed without, Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others’ Wanings should’st thou fret? Then only might’st thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings […]...
6. Trench Duty Shaken from sleep, and numbed and scarce awake, Out in the trench with three hours’ watch to take, I blunder through the splashing mirk; and then Hear the gruff muttering voices of the men Crouching in cabins candle-chinked with light. Hark! There’s the big bombardment on our right Rumbling and bumping; and the dark’s a […]...
7. Partnership Yes, you have it; I can see. Beautiful?… Dear, look at me! Look and let my shame confess Triumph after weariness. Beautiful? Ah, yes. Lift it where the beams are bright; Hold it where the western light, Shining in above my bed, Throws a glory on your head. Now it is all said. All there […]...
8. Forgive Me Poem by Anne-Marie Derése, translated by Judith Skillman. Forgive me if I have laughed In your chapels, Forgive me if I have slammed The hospital door, Forgive me for the noise, For life, For the love to which I have no right. Forgive me for not resembling you....
9. Balmoral Castle Beautiful Balmoral Castle, Most handsome to be seen, Highland home of the Empress of India, Great Britain’s Queen. Your woods and waters and Mountains high are most Beautiful to see, Near by Balmoral Castle And the dark river Dee. Then there’s the hill of Cairngorm To be seen from afar, And the beautiful heathery hills […]...
10. The Symbol Seduces THERE in her old-world garden smiles A symbol of the world’s desire, Striving with quaint and lovely wiles To bind to earth the soul of fire. And while I sit and listen there, The robe of Beauty falls away From universal things to where Its image dazzles for a day. Away! the great life calls; […]...
11. Sonnet 101: O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed? Both truth and beauty on my love depends; So dost thou too, and therein dignified. Make answer, Muse. Wilt thou not haply say, “Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed, Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay, But […]...
12. Sonnet CI O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed? Both truth and beauty on my love depends; So dost thou too, and therein dignified. Make answer, Muse: wilt thou not haply say ‘Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix’d; Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay; But […]...
13. The Alligator Bride The clock of my days winds down. The cat eats sparrows outside my window. Once, she brought me a small rabbit Which we devoured together, under The Empire Table While the men shrieked Repossessing the gold umbrella. Now the beard on my clock turns white. My cat stares into dark corners Missing her gold umbrella. […]...
14. From "Vashti&quot WHAT thing shall be held up to woman’s beauty? Where are the bounds of it? Yea, what is all The world, but an awning scaffolded amid The waste perilous Eternity, to lodge This Heaven-wander’d princess, woman’s beauty? The East and West kneel down to thee, the North And South; and all for thee their shoulders […]...
15. FAREWELL To break one’s word is pleasure-fraught, To do one’s duty gives a smart; While man, alas! will promise nought, That is repugnant to his heart. Using some magic strains of yore, Thou lurest him, when scarcely calm, On to sweet folly’s fragile bark once more, Renewing, doubling chance of harm. Why seek to hide thyself […]...
16. Autumn Whoever has no house now will never have one. Whoever is alone will stay alone Will sit, read, write long letters through the evening And wander on the boulevards, up and down… – from Autumn Day, Rainer Maria Rilke Its stain is everywhere. The sharpening air Of late afternoon Is now the colour of tea. […]...
17. Nightclub You are so beautiful and I am a fool To be in love with you Is a theme that keeps coming up In songs and poems. There seems to be no room for variation. I have never heard anyone sing I am so beautiful And you are a fool to be in love with me, […]...
18. The Poetry Of Life “Who would himself with shadows entertain, Or gild his life with lights that shine in vain, Or nurse false hopes that do but cheat the true? Though with my dream my heaven should be resigned Though the free-pinioned soul that once could dwell In the large empire of the possible, This workday life with iron […]...
19. The Star 1 Whatever ’tis, whose beauty here below 2 Attracts thee thus and makes thee stream and flow, 3 And wind and curl, and wink and smile, 4 Shifting thy gate and guile; 5 Though thy close commerce nought at all imbars 6 My present search, for eagles eye not stars, 7 And still the lesser […]...
20. The Bayadere Flaked, drifting clouds hide not the full moon’s rays More than her beautiful bright limbs were hid By the light veils they burned and blushed amid, Skilled to provoke in soft, lascivious ways, And there was invitation in her voice And laughing lips and wonderful dark eyes, As though above the gates of Paradise Fair […]...
21. Last Words to Miriam Yours is the shame and sorrow, But the disgrace is mine; Your love was dark and thorough, Mine was the love of the sun for a flower He creates with his shine. I was diligent to explore you, Blossom you stalk by stalk, Till my fire of creation bore you Shrivelling down in the final […]...
22. The Choice Some inherit manly beauty, Some come into worldly wealth; Some have lofty sense of duty, Others boast exultant health. Though the pick may be confusing, Health, wealth, charm or character, If you had the chance of choosing Which would you prefer? I’m not sold on body beauty, Though health I appreciate; Character and sense of […]...
23. Modern Love XXIV: The Misery Is Greater The misery is greater, as I live! To know her flesh so pure, so keen her sense, That she does penance now for no offence, Save against Love. The less can I forgive! The less can I forgive, though I adore That cruel lovely pallor which surrounds Her footsteps; and the low vibrating sounds That […]...
24. Epitaph In The Form Of A Ballade Freres humains qui apres nous vivez, N’ayez les coeurs contre nous endurcis… Men, brother men, that after us yet live, Let not your hearts too hard against us be; For if some pity of us poor men ye give, The sooner God shall take of you pity. Here are we five or six strung up, […]...
25. Saint Judas When I went out to kill myself, I caught A pack of hoodlums beating up a man. Running to spare his suffering, I forgot My name, my number, how my day began, How soldiers milled around the garden stone And sang amusing songs; how all that day Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone Bargained […]...
26. Small Comfort Coffee and cigarettes in a clean cafe, Forsythia lit like a damp match against A thundery sky drunk on its own ozone, The laundry cool and crisp and folded away Again in the lavender closet-too late to find Comfort enough in such small daily moments Of beauty, renewal, calm, too late to imagine People would […]...
27. The Beautiful American Word, Sure The beautiful American word, Sure, As I have come into a room, and touch The lamp’s button, and the light blooms with such Certainty where the darkness loomed before, As I care for what I do not know, and care Knowing for little she might not have been, And for how little she would be […]...
28. The Witch I HAVE walked a great while over the snow, And I am not tall nor strong. My clothes are wet, and my teeth are set, And the way was hard and long. I have wandered over the fruitful earth, But I never came here before. Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in […]...
29. At the Gym This salt-stain spot Marks the place where men Lay down their heads, Back to the bench, And hoist nothing That need be lifted But some burden they’ve chosen This time: more reps, More weight, the upward shove Of it leaving, collectively, This sign of where we’ve been: Shroud-stain, negative Flashed onto the vinyl Where we […]...
30. I died for Beauty but was scarce I died for Beauty but was scarce Adjusted in the Tomb When One who died for Truth, was lain In an adjoining room He questioned softly “Why I failed”? “For Beauty”, I replied “And I for Truth Themself are One We Brethren, are”, He said And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night We talked between […]...
31. Blanche Sweet MOVING-PICTURE ACTRESS (After seeing the reel called “Oil and Water.”) Beauty has a throne-room In our humorous town, Spoiling its hob-goblins, Laughing shadows down. Rank musicians torture Ragtime ballads vile, But we walk serenely Down the odorous aisle. We forgive the squalor And the boom and squeal For the Great Queen flashes From the moving […]...
32. 157. Prologue, spoken by Mr. Woods at Edinburgh WHEN, by a generous Public’s kind acclaim, That dearest meed is granted-honest fame; Waen here your favour is the actor’s lot, Nor even the man in private life forgot; What breast so dead to heavenly Virtue’s glow, But heaves impassion’d with the grateful throe? Poor is the task to please a barb’rous throng, It needs […]...
33. Saints In our family, there were two saints, My aunt and my grandmother. But their lives were different. My grandmother’s was tranquil, even at the end. She was like a person walking in calm water; For some reason The sea couldn’t bring itself to hurt her. When my aunt took the same path, The waves broke […]...
34. A Hymn To God The Father Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun, Which is my sin, though it were done before? Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I run, And do run still, though still I do deplore? When thou hast done, thou hast not done, For I have more. Wilt thou forgive that sin by which I […]...
35. At The Hop ‘Tis time to dress. Dost hear the music surging Like sobbing waves that roll up from the sea? Yes, yes, I hear – I yield – no need of urging; I know your wishes, – send Lisette to me. I hate the ballroom; hate its gilded pleasure; I hate the crowd within it, well you […]...
36. Sonnet V A tide of beauty with returning May Floods the fair city; from warm pavements fume Odors endeared; down avenues in bloom The chestnut-trees with phallic spires are gay. Over the terrace flows the thronged cafe; The boulevards are streams of hurrying sound; And through the streets, like veins when they abound, The lust for pleasure […]...
37. Psalm 25 part 1 v.1-11 S. M. Waiting for pardon and direction. I Lift my soul to God, My trust is in his name: Let not my foes that seek my blood Still triumph in my shame. Sin, and the powers of hell, Persuade me to despair: Lord, make me know thy cov’nant well, That I may ‘scape the […]...
38. Psalm 71 part 3 v.17-21 C. M. The aged Christian’s prayer and song. God of my childhood and my youth, The guide of all my days, I have declared thy heav’nly truth, And told thy wondrous ways. Wilt thou forsake my hoary hairs, And leave my fainting heart? Who shall sustain my sinking years, If God my strength depart? […]...
39. Hamlet Off-Stage: Mona Gator Our mascot lives low, a baby alligator. She’s our happy-and-sad mask all at once, Mona Lisa her name. She’s my ideal, Her wrap-around grin both a smile and snarl....
40. An Epitaph Here lies a most beautiful lady, Light of step and heart was she; I think she was the most beautiful lady That ever was in the West Country. But beauty vanishes, beauty passes; However rare rare it be; And when I crumble, who will remember This lady of the West Country....