Yes And No

Related poetry:

1. Full of Life, Now FULL of life, now, compact, visible, I, forty years old the Eighty-third Year of The States, To one a century hence, or any number of centuries hence, To you, yet unborn, these, seeking you. When you read these, I, that was visible, am become invisible; Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking […]...
2. PUBLISHERS And then they pretend like owls With marble eyes and wizened stupidity I do not know why they cannot perceive True art But I will write Until sand evaporates And the moon consumes the sun I will write Even for the sake of art For myself and for those who feel Reading could lift them […]...
3. Amoretti III: The Sovereign Beauty The sovereign beauty which I do admire, Witness the world how worthy to be praised: The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised; That being now with her huge brightness dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view; But looking still on her, I stand […]...
4. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
5. The Thread of Truth Truth is a golden thread, seen here and there In small bright specks upon the visible side Of our strange being’s parti-coloured web. How rich the universe! ‘Tis a vein of ore Emerging now and then on Earth’s rude breast, But flowing full below. Like islands set At distant intervals on Ocean’s face, We see […]...
6. My Fancy I painted her a gushing thing, With years about a score; I little thought to find they were A least a dozen more; My fancy gave her eyes of blue, A curly auburn head: I came to find the blue a green, The auburn turned to red. She boxed my ears this morning, They tingled […]...
7. Shakespeare Would that in body and spirit Shakespeare came Visible emperor of the deeds of Time, With Justice still the genius of his rhyme, Giving each man his due, each passion grace, Impartial as the rain from Heaven’s face Or sunshine from the heaven-enthroned sun. Sweet Swan of Avon, come to us again. Teach us to […]...
8. Glass Words of a poem should be glass But glass so simple-subtle its shape Is nothing but the shape of what it holds. A glass spun for itself is empty, Brittle, at best Venetian trinket. Embossed glass hides the poem of its absence. Words should be looked through, should be windows. The best word were invisible. […]...
9. Farewell To Verse In youth when oft my muse was dumb, My fancy nighly dead, To make my inspiration come I stood upon my head; And thus I let the blood down flow Into my cerebellum, And published every Spring or so Slim tomes in vellum. Alas! I am rheumatic now, Grey is my crown; I can no […]...
10. Because I could not stop for Death Because I could not stop for Death He kindly stopped for me The Carriage held but just Ourselves And Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For his civility. We passed the School, where Children strove At recess in the ring We passed […]...
11. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
12. Ibant Obscurж To-night I saw three maidens on the beach, Dark-robed descending to the sea, So slow, so silent of all speech, And visible to me Only by that strange drift-light, dim, forlorn, Of the sun’s wreck and clashing surges born. Each after other went, And they were gathered to his breast It seemed to me a […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
15. Corn Grinders O little mouse, why dost thou cry While merry stars laugh in the sky? Alas! alas! my lord is dead! Ah, who will ease my bitter pain? He went to seek a millet-grain In the rich farmer’s granary shed; They caught him in a baited snare, And slew my lover unaware: Alas! alas! my lord […]...
16. The Olive Garden (Rainer Maria Rilke) He went up under the gray leaves All gray and lost in the olive lands And laid his forehead, gray with dust, Deep in the dustiness of his hot hands. After everything this. And this was the end. Now I must go, as I am going blind. And why is it Thy […]...
17. Life in a Bottle Escape me? Never Beloved! While I am I, and you are you, So long as the world contains us both, Me the loving and you the loth, While the one eludes, must the other pursue. My life is a fault at last, I fear: It seems too much like a fate, indeed! Though I do […]...
18. The Locker All the dull hollow clamor has died And what was contained, Removed, Reproved Adulation or sentiment, Left with the pungent darkness As remembered as the sudden light. Originally published by The Raintown Review...
19. On Chillon Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind! Brightest in dungeons, Liberty, thou art; For there thy habitation is the heart— The heart which love of thee alone can bind; And when thy sons to fetters are consigned, – To fetters, and the damp vault’s dayless gloom— Their country conquers with their martyrdom, And Freedom’s fame finds […]...
20. Ring Out Your Bells Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread; For Love is dead All love is dead, infected With plague of deep disdain; Worth, as nought worth, rejected, And Faith fair scorn doth gain. From so ungrateful fancy, From such a female franzy, From them that use men thus, Good Lord, deliver us! Weep, neighbours, […]...
21. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
22. Life In A Love Escape me? Never – Beloved! While I am I, and you are you, So long as the world contains us both, Me the loving and you the loth, While the one eludes, must the other pursue. My life is a fault at last, I fear – It seems too much like a fate, indeed! Though […]...
23. Lament (Whom will you cry to, heart?) Whom will you cry to, heart? More and more lonely, Your path struggles on through incomprehensible Mankind. All the more futile perhaps For keeping to its direction, Keeping on toward the future, Toward what has been lost. Once. You lamented? What was it? A fallen berry Of jubilation, unripe. But now the whole tree of […]...
24. Song To Celia – I Come, my Celia, let us prove While we may the sports of love; Time will not be ours forever, He at length our good will sever. Spend not then his gifts in vain; Suns that set may rise again, But if once we lose this light, ‘Tis with us perpetual night. Why should we defer […]...
25. Come, My Celia Come, my Celia, let us prove While we may, the sports of love; Time will not be ours forever; He at length our good will sever. Spend not then his gifts in vain. Suns that set may rise again; But if once we lose this light, ‘Tis with us perpetual night. Why should we defer […]...
26. Elegy In A Country Churchyard The men that worked for England They have their graves at home: And bees and birds of England About the cross can roam. But they that fought for England, Following a falling star, Alas, alas for England They have their graves afar. And they that rule in England, In stately conclave met, Alas, alas for […]...
27. No Notice gave She, but a Change No Notice gave She, but a Change No Message, but a Sigh For Whom, the Time did not suffice That She should specify. She was not warm, though Summer shone Nor scrupulous of cold Though Rime by Rime, the steady Frost Upon Her Bosom piled Of shrinking ways she did not fright Though all the […]...
28. Sonnet 01 Go Valentine and tell that lovely maid Whom Fancy still will pourtray to my sight, How her Bard lingers in this sullen shade, This dreary gloom of dull monastic night. Say that from every joy of life remote At evening’s closing hour he quits the throng, Listening alone the ring-dove’s plaintive note Who pours like […]...
29. Go, Valentine Go, Valentine, and tell that lovely maid Whom fancy still will portray to my sight, How here I linger in this sullen shade, This dreary gloom of dull monastic night; Say, that every joy of life remote At evening’s closing hour I quit the throng, Listening in solitude the ring-dome’s note, Who pours like me […]...
30. Prayer Over a dock railing, I watch the minnows, thousands, swirl Themselves, each a minuscule muscle, but also, without the Way to create current, making of their unison (turning, re- infolding, Entering and exiting their own unison in unison) making of themselves a Visual current, one that cannot freight or sway by Minutest fractions the water’s […]...
31. For Annie Thank Heaven! the crisis – The danger is past, And the lingering illness Is over at last – And the fever called “Living” Is conquered at last. Sadly, I know I am shorn of my strength, And no muscle I move As I lie at full length – But no matter!-I feel I am better […]...
32. The Blue Swallows Across the millstream below the bridge Seven blue swallows divide the air In shapes invisible and evanescent, Kaleidoscopic beyond the mind’s Or memory’s power to keep them there. “History is where tensions were,” “Form is the diagram of forces.” Thus, helplessly, there on the bridge, While gazing down upon those birds – How strange, to […]...
33. Dreams Are Best I just think that dreams are best, Just to sit and fancy things; Give your gold no acid test, Try not how your silver rings; Fancy women pure and good, Fancy men upright and true: Fortressed in your solitude, Let Life be a dream to you. For I think that Thought is all; Truth’s a […]...
34. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
35. Marsh Hymns Between Dawn and Sunrise. Were silver pink, and had a soul, Which soul were shy, which shyness might A visible influence be, and roll Through heaven and earth ’twere thou, O light! O rhapsody of the wraith of red, O blush but yet in prophecy, O sun-hint that hath overspread Sky, marsh, my soul, and […]...
36. LOVE DISLIKES NOTHING Whatsoever thing I see, Rich or poor although it be, ‘Tis a mistress unto me. Be my girl or fair or brown, Does she smile, or does she frown; Still I write a sweet-heart down. Be she rough, or smooth of skin; When I touch, I then begin For to let affection in. Be she […]...
37. NOT EVERY DAY FIT FOR VERSE ‘Tis not ev’ry day that I Fitted am to prophesy: No, but when the spirit fills The fantastic pannicles, Full of fire, then I write As the Godhead doth indite. Thus enraged, my lines are hurl’d, Like the Sibyl’s, through the world: Look how next the holy fire Either slakes, or doth retire; So the […]...
38. Love TELL me where is Fancy bred, Or in the heart or in the head? How begot, how nourished? Reply, reply. It is engender’d in the eyes, With gazing fed; and Fancy dies In the cradle where it lies. Let us all ring Fancy’s knell: I’ll begin it, Ding, dong, bell. All. Ding, dong, bell....
39. Sandpipers Sandland where the salt water kills the sweet potatoes. Homes for sandpipers-the script of their feet is on the sea shingles-they write in the morning, it is gone at noon-they write at noon, it is gone at night. Pity the land, the sea, the ten mile flats, pity anything but the sandpiper’s wire legs and […]...
40. The Testimony Of Light Our life is a fire dampened, or a fire shut up in stone. Jacob Boehme, De Incarnatione Verbi Outside everything visible and invisible a blazing maple. Daybreak: a seam at the curve of the world. The trousered legs of the women shimmered. They held their arms in front of them like ghosts. The coal bones […]...