Theme with Variations

Related poetry:

1. Tema con Variazioni Why is it that Poetry has never yet been subjected to that process of Dilution which has proved so advantageous to her sister-art Music? The Diluter gives us first a few notes of some well-known Air, then a dozen bars of his own, then a few more notes of the Air, and so on alternately: […]...
2. Variations on an Elizabethan Theme Long days, short nights, this Southern summer Fixes the mind within its timeless place. Athwart pale limbs the brazen hummer Hangs and is gone, warm sound its quickened space. Butterfly weed and cardinal flower, Orange and red, with indigo the band, Perfect themselves unto the hour. And blood suffused within the sunlit hand, Within the […]...
3. Variations On A Theme By William Carlos Williams 1 I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer. I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do And its wooden beams were so inviting. 2 We laughed at the hollyhocks together And then I sprayed them with lye. Forgive me. I simply do […]...
4. Theme For English B The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here To this college on the hill above Harlem. I am […]...
5. The Eve of Crecy Gold on her head, and gold on her feet, And gold where the hems of her kirtle meet, And a golden girdle round my sweet; Ah! qu’elle est belle La Marguerite. Margaret’s maids are fair to see, Freshly dress’d and pleasantly; Margaret’s hair falls down to her knee; Ah! qu’elle est belle La Marguerite. If […]...
6. Variation On A Theme By Rilke A certain day became a presence to me; There it was, confronting me a sky, air, light: A being. And before it started to descend From the height of noon, it leaned over And struck my shoulder as if with The flat of a sword, granting me Honor and a task. The day’s blow Rang […]...
7. Variations of Greek Themes I A HAPPY MAN (Carphyllides) When these graven lines you see, Traveler, do not pity me; Though I be among the dead, Let no mournful word be said. Children that I leave behind, And their children, all were kind; Near to them and to my wife, I was happy all my life. My three sons […]...
8. Tцrnfallet There is a meadow in Sweden Where I lie smitten, Eyes stained with clouds’ White ins and outs. And about that meadow Roams my widow Plaiting a clover Wreath for her lover. I took her in marriage In a granite parish. The snow lent her whiteness, A pine was a witness. She’d swim in the […]...
9. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
10. Variations of an Air Old King Cole Was a merry old soul And a merry old soul was he He called for his pipe And he called for his bowl And he called for his fiddlers three After Lord Tennyson Cole, that unwearied prince of Colchester, Growing more gay with age and with long days Deeper in laughter and […]...
11. Dream Variations To fling my arms wide In some place of the sun, To whirl and to dance Till the white day is done. Then rest at cool evening Beneath a tall tree While night comes on gently, Dark like me- That is my dream! To fling my arms wide In the face of the sun, Dance! […]...
12. Variations on ‘The short night Below are eleven Buson haiku Beginning with the phrase ‘The short night ‘ The short night On the hairy caterpillar Beads of dew. The short night Patrolmen Washing in the river. The short night Bubbles of crab froth Among the river reeds. The short night A broom thrown away On the beach. The short night […]...
13. Variations on the Word Love This is a word we use to plug Holes with. It’s the right size for those warm Blanks in speech, for those red heart- Shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing Like real hearts. Add lace And you can sell It. We insert it also in the one empty Space on the printed form […]...
14. A New Theme I FAIN would leave the tender songs I sang to you of old, Thinking the oft-sung beauty wrongs The magic never told. And touch no more the thoughts, the moods, That win the easy praise; But venture in the untrodden woods To carve the future ways. Though far or strange or cold appear The shadowy […]...
15. On a Theme by Thomas Merton “Adam, where are you?” God’s hands Palpate darkness, the void That is Adam’s inattention, His confused attention to everything, Impassioned by multiplicity, his despair. Multiplicity, his despair; God’s hands Enacting blindness. Like a child At a barbaric fairgrounds Noise, lights, the violent odors Adam fragments himself. The whirling rides! Fragmented Adam stares. God’s hands Unseen, […]...
16. On a Theme in the Greek Anthology Thy petals yet are closely curled, Rose of the world, Around their scented, golden core; Nor yet has Summer purpled o’er Thy tender clusters that begin To swell within The dewy vine-leaves’ early screen Of sheltering green. O hearts that are Love’s helpless prey, While yet you may, Fly, ere the shaft is on the […]...
17. On a Theme by Frost Amherst never had a witch O Coos or of Grafton But once upon a time There were three old women. One wore a small beard And carried a big umbrella. One stood in the middle Of the road hailing cars. One drove an old cart All over the town collecting junk. They were not weird […]...
18. Theme In Yellow I spot the hills With yellow balls in autumn. I light the prairie cornfields Orange and tawny gold clusters And I am called pumpkins. On the last of October When dusk is fallen Children join hands And circle round me Singing ghost songs And love to the harvest moon; I am a jack-o’-lantern With terrible […]...
19. 156. Verses inscribed under a Noble Earl's Picture WHOSE 1 is that noble, dauntless brow? And whose that eye of fire? And whose that generous princely mien, E’en rooted foes admire? Stranger! to justly show that brow, And mark that eye of fire, Would take His hand, whose vernal tints His other works admire. Bright as a cloudless summer sun, With stately port […]...
20. Impromptu, to Lady Winchelsea In vain you boast Poetic Names of yore, And cite those Sapho’s we admire no more: Fate doom’d the Fall of ev’ry Female Wit, But doom’d it then when first Ardelia writ. Of all Examples by the World confest, I knew Ardelia could not quote the best; Who, like her Mistress on Britannia’s Throne; Fights, […]...
21. 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. […]...
22. 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 […]...
23. Restless Leg Syndrome After the burial We returned to our units And assumed our poses. Our posture was the new posture And not the old sick posture. When we left our stations It was just to prove we could, Not a serious departure Or a search for yet another beginning. We were done with all that. We were […]...
24. Admire their style I’m reading fellow poets’ blogs today, A sustaining source of entertainment; I admire their style without exciting comment Or resorting to an unkind eye, simple though It is to sigh about uneasy affirmation. I hope when they read me (if they ever do) They rest as easy on my lack of finished form, The hazy, […]...
25. On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour Give me a golden pen, and let me lean On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far; Bring me a tablet whiter than a star, Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen The silver strings of heavenly harp atween: And let there glide by many a pearly car Pink robes, and wavy hair, and […]...
26. You love the Lord you cannot see You love the Lord you cannot see You write Him every day A little note when you awake And further in the Day. An Ample Letter How you miss And would delight to see But then His House is but a Step And Mine’s in Heaven You see....
27. Sonnet 38 – First time he kissed me, he but only kissed First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’ When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. […]...
28. Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride? Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my […]...
29. Sonnet XXXIV: Marvel Not, Love To Admiration Marvel not, Love, though I thy power admire, Ravish’d a world beyond the farthest thought, And knowing more than ever hath been taught, That I am only starv’d in my desire. Marvel not, Love, though I thy power admire, Aiming at things exceeding all perfection, To Wisdom’s self to minister correction, That I […]...
30. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
31. Dream Song 58: Industrious, affable, having brain on fire Industrious, affable, having brain on fire, Henry perplexed himself; others gave up; Good girls gave in; Geography was hard on friendship, Sire; Marriages lashed & languished, anguished; dearth of group And what else had been; The splendour & the lose grew all the same, Sire. His heart stiffened, and he failed to smile, Catching (enfit) […]...
32. 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 […]...
33. There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a Temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest. For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the World. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I Cover her against any hurt. Using the pen of rivers and […]...
34. The Bonnie Lass o' Ruily ‘Twas in the village of Ruily there lived a bonnie lass With red, pouting lips which few lasses could surpass, And her eyes were as azure the blue sky, Which caused Donald McNeill to heave many a love sigh Beyond the township of Ruily she never had been, This pretty maid with tiny feet and […]...
35. To The King's Most Excellent Majesty YOUR subjects hope, dread Sire The crown upon your brows may flourish long, And that your arm may in your God be strong! O may your sceptre num’rous nations sway, And all with love and readiness obey! But how shall we the British king reward! Rule thou in peace, our father, and our lord! Midst […]...
36. Change Change Said the sun to the moon, You cannot stay. Change Says the moon to the waters, All is flowing. Change Says the fields to the grass, Seed-time and harvest, Chaff and grain. You must change said, Said the worm to the bud, Though not to a rose, Petals fade That wings may rise Borne […]...
37. Causation Said darling daughter unto me: “oh Dad, how funny it would be If you had gone to Mexico A score or so of years ago. Had not some whimsey changed your plan I might have been a Mexican. With lissome form and raven hair, Instead of being fat and fair. “Or if you’d sailed the […]...
38. Sonnet CXXIII No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change: Thy pyramids built up with newer might To me are nothing novel, nothing strange; They are but dressings of a former sight. Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire What thou dost foist upon us that is old, And rather make them born to […]...
39. Song For The Severed Head In 'The King Of The Great Clock Tower&#039 Saddle and ride, I heard a man say, Out of Ben Bulben and Knocknarea, What says the Clock in the Great Clock Tower? All those tragic characters ride But turn from Rosses’ crawling tide, The meet’s upon the mountain-side. A slow low note and an iron bell. What brought them there so far from their […]...
40. Parable Of The Dove A dove lived in a village. When it opened its mouth Sweetness came out, sound Like a silver light around The cherry bough. But The dove wasn’t satisfied. It saw the villagers Gathered to listen under The blossoming tree. It didn’t think: I Am higher that they are. It wanted to wealk among them, To […]...