Looking For A Monk And Not Finding Him

Related poetry:

1. The Family Monkey We bought an electric monkey, experimenting rather Recklessly with funds carefully gathered since Grandfather’s time for the purchase of a steam monkey. We had either, by this time, the choice of an electric Or gas monkey. The steam monkey is no longer being made, said the monkey Merchant. But the family always planned on a […]...
2. 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. . . […]...
3. The Grey Monk “I die, I die!” the Mother said, “My children die for lack of bread. What more has the merciless Tyrant said?” The Monk sat down on the stony bed. The blood red ran from the Grey Monk’s side, His hands and feet were wounded wide, His body bent, his arms and knees Like to the […]...
4. The Bad Monk On the great walls of ancient cloisters were nailed Murals displaying Truth the saint, Whose effect, reheating the pious entrails Brought to an austere chill a warming paint. In the times when Christ was seeded around, More than one illustrious monk, today unknown Took for a studio the funeral grounds And glorified Death as the […]...
5. The Owl The path was purple in the dusk. I saw an owl, perched, On a branch. And when the owl stirred, a fine dust Fell from its wings. I was Silent then. And felt The owl quaver. And at dawn, waking, The path was green in the May light....
6. Finding is the first Act Finding is the first Act The second, loss, Third, Expedition for The “Golden Fleece” Fourth, no Discovery Fifth, no Crew Finally, no Golden Fleece Jason sham too....
7. Range-Finding The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung And cut a flower beside a ground bird’s nest Before it stained a single human breast. The stricken flower bent double and so hung. And still the bird revisited her young. A butterfly its fall had dispossessed A moment sought in air his flower of rest, Then lightly stooped […]...
8. The Leal The friends I made have slipped and strayed, And who’s the one that cares? A trifling lot and best forgot- And that’s my tale, and theirs. Then if my friendships break and bend, There’s little need to cry The while I know that every foe Is faithful till I die....
9. God fashioned the ship of the world carefully God fashioned the ship of the world carefully. With the infinite skill of an All-Master Made He the hull and the sails, Held He the rudder Ready for adjustment. Erect stood He, scanning His work proudly. Then at fateful time a wrong called, And God turned, heeding. Lo, the ship, at this opportunity, slipped slyly, […]...
10. Welcome if you believe nothing is always what’s left After a while, as I did, If you believe you have this collection Of ungiven gifts, as I do (right here Behind the silence and the averted eyes) If you believe an afternoon can collapse Into strange privacies- How in your backyard, for example, The shyness of […]...
11. Finding A Long Gray Hair I scrub the long floorboards In the kitchen, repeating The motions of other women Who have lived in this house. And when I find a long gray hair Floating in the pail, I feel my life added to theirs....
12. Down Stream Comrades, up! Let us row down stream in this first rare dawnlight, While far in the clear north-west the late moon whitens and wanes; Before us the sun will rise, deep-purpling headland and islet, It is well to meet him thus, with the life astir in our veins! The wakening birds will sing for us […]...
13. Sonnet LXVII Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn, When beauty lived and died as flowers do now, Before the bastard signs of fair were born, Or durst inhabit on a living brow; Before the golden tresses of the dead, The right of sepulchres, were shorn away, To live a second life on second head; […]...
14. Sonnet 68: Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn, When beauty lived and died as flowers do now, Before these bastard signs of fair were born, Or durst inhabit on a living brow; Before the golden tresses of the dead, The right of sepulchres, were shorn away To live a second life on second head; […]...
15. Song A rowan like a lipsticked girl. Between the by-road and the main road Alder trees at a wet and dripping distance Stand off among the rushes. There are the mud-flowers of dialect And the immortelles of perfect pitch And that moment when the bird sings very close To the music of what happens....
16. A Farewell to False Love Farewell, false love, the oracle of lies, A mortal foe and enemy to rest, An envious boy, from whom all cares arise, A bastard vile, a beast with rage possessed, A way of error, a temple full of treason, In all effects contrary unto reason. A poisoned serpent covered all with flowers, Mother of sighs, […]...
17. The Death of the Flowers The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit’s tread; The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs […]...
18. North Country North Country, filled with gesturing wood, With trees that fence, like archers’ volleys, The flanks of hidden valleys Where nothing’s left to hide But verticals and perpendiculars, Like rain gone wooden, fixed in falling, Or fingers blindly feeling For what nobody cares; Or trunks of pewter, bangled by greedy death, Stuck with black staghorns, quietly […]...
19. The Question to Lisetta WHAT nymph should I admire or trust, But Chloe beauteous, Chloe just? What nymph should I desire to see, But her who leaves the plain for me? To whom should I compose the lay, But her who listens when I play? To whom in song repeat my cares, But her who in my sorrow shares? […]...
20. To One Departed Seraph! thy memory is to me Like some enchanted far-off isle In some tumultuous sea – Some ocean vexed as it may be With storms; but where, meanwhile, Serenest skies continually Just o’er that one bright island smile. For ‘mid the earnest cares and woes That crowd around my earthly path, (Sad path, alas, where […]...
21. Moon Then are you the dense everywhere that moves, The dark matter they haven’t yet walked through? No, I’m not. I’m just the shining sun, Sometimes covered up by the darkness. But in your beauty-yes, I know you see- There is no covering, no constant light....
22. I Wait For You I wait for you. The years in silence pass And as the image, one, I wait for you again. The distance is in flame and clear one as glass, I, silent, wait with sadness, love and pain. The distance is in flame, and you are coming fast, But I’m afraid that you will change your […]...
23. Death in the Family They call it stroke. Two we loved were stunned By that same blow of cudgel Or axe to the brow. Lost on the earth They left our circle Broken. One spent five months Falling from our grasp Mute, her grace, wit, Beauty erased. Her green eyes gazed at us As if asking, as if aware, […]...
24. Self-Abandonment I sat srinking and did not notice the dusk, Till falling petals filled the folds of my dress. Drunken I rose and walked to the moonlit stream; The birds were gone, and men also few....
25. In Memory of a Child I The angels guide him now, And watch his curly head, And lead him in their games, The little boy we led. II He cannot come to harm, He knows more than we know, His light is brighter far Than daytime here below. III His path leads on and on, Through pleasant lawns and flowers, […]...
26. The Little Match Girl It was biting cold, and the falling snow, Which filled a poor little match girl’s heart with woe, Who was bareheaded and barefooted, as she went along the street, Crying, “Who’ll buy my matches? for I want pennies to buy some meat!” When she left home she had slippers on; But, alas! poor child, now […]...
27. The Day is Done The day is done, and the darkness Falls from the wings of Night, As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight. I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist, And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me That my soul cannot resist: A feeling of […]...
28. A Serenade At The Villa I. That was I, you heard last night, When there rose no moon at all, Nor, to pierce the strained and tight Tent of heaven, a planet small: Life was dead and so was light. II. Not a twinkle from the fly, Not a glimmer from the worm; When the crickets stopped their cry, When […]...
29. Aftermath When the summer fields are mown, When the birds are fledged and flown, And the dry leaves strew the path; With the falling of the snow, With the cawing of the crow, Once again the fields we mow And gather in the aftermath. Not the sweet, new grass with flowers Is this harvesting of ours; […]...
30. How Could You Not for Jane kenyon It is a day after many days of storms. Having been washed and washed, the air glitters; Small heaped cumuli blow across the sky; a shower Visible against the firs douses the crocuses. We knew it would happen one day this week. Now, when I learn you have died, I go To […]...
31. Music When music sounds, gone is the earth I know, And all her lovely things even lovelier grow; Her flowers in vision flame, her forest trees Lift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies. When music sounds, out of the water rise Naiads whose beauty dims my waking eyes, Rapt in strange dreams burns each enchanted face, With […]...
32. Sing To Me Sing to me! Something of sunlight and bloom, I am so compassed with sorrow and gloom, I am so sick with the world’s noisse and strife, – Sing of the beauty and brightness of life – Sing to me, sing to me! Sing to me! Something that’s jubilant, glad! I am so weary, my soul […]...
33. The Lantern Out Of Doors Sometimes a lantern moves along the night, That interests our eyes. And who goes there? I think; where from and bound, I wonder, where, With, all down darkness wide, his wading light? Men go by me whom either beauty bright In mould or mind or what not else makes rare: They rain against our much-thick […]...
34. Picture Of A 23-Year-Old Youth Painted By His Friend Of The Same Age, An Amature He finished the painting yesterday noon. Now He studies it in detail. He has painted him in a Gray unbuttoned coat, a deep gray; without Any vest or any tie. With a rose-colored shirt; Open at the collar, so something might be seen Also of the beauty of his chest, of his neck. The right […]...
35. Absences It’s snowing this afternoon and there are no flowers. There is only this sound of falling, quiet and remote, Like the memory of scales descending the white keys Of a childhood piano outside the window, palms! And the heavy head of the cereus, inclining, Soon to let down its white or yellow-white. Now, only these […]...
36. Carrowmore IT’S a lonely road through bogland to the lake at Carrowmore, And a sleeper there lies dreaming where the water laps the shore; Though the moth-wings of the twilight in their purples are unfurled, Yet his sleep is filled with music by the masters of the world. There’s a hand is white as silver that […]...
37. The Poet VIII He is a link between this and the coming world. He is A pure spring from which all thirsty souls may drink. He is a tree watered by the River of Beauty, bearing Fruit which the hungry heart craves; He is a nightingale, soothing the depressed Spirit with his beautiful melodies; He is a white […]...
38. The Breaking Point It was not when temptation came, Swiftly and blastingly as flame, And seared me white with burning scars; When I stood up for age-long wars And held the very Fiend at grips; When all my mutinous body rose To range itself beside my foes, And, like a greyhound in the slips, The Beast that dwells […]...
39. The Pilgrims An uphill path, sun-gleams between the showers, Where every beam that broke the leaden sky Lit other hills with fairer ways than ours; Some clustered graves where half our memories lie; And one grim Shadow creeping ever nigh: And this was Life. Wherein we did another’s burden seek, The tired feet we helped upon the […]...
40. The World is with Me The world is with me, and its many cares, Its woes its wants the anxious hopes and fears That wait on all terrestrial affairs The shades of former and of future years Forboding fancies and prophetic tears, Quelling a spirit that was once elate. Heavens! what a wilderness the world appears, Where youth, and mirth, […]...