Sonnet II: High on a Rock

Related poetry:

1. Sonnet XXX: Those Priests To the Vestals Those priests which first the Vestal fire begun, Which might be borrow’d from no earthly flame, Devis’d a vessel to receive the Sun, Being steadfastly opposed to the same; Where, with sweet wood, laid curiously by art, On which the Sun might by reflection beat, Receiving strength from every secret part, The […]...
2. The Pile of Years is not so high The Pile of Years is not so high As when you came before But it is rising every Day From recollection’s Floor And while by standing on my Heart I still can reach the top Efface the mountain with your face And catch me ere I drop...
3. Poems On The Slave Trade – Sonnet III Oh he is worn with toil! the big drops run Down his dark cheek; hold hold thy merciless hand, Pale tyrant! for beneath thy hard command O’erwearied Nature sinks. The scorching Sun, As pityless as proud Prosperity, Darts on him his full beams; gasping he lies Arraigning with his looks the patient skies, While that […]...
4. Sonnet 05 Hard by the road, where on that little mound The high grass rustles to the passing breeze, The child of Misery rests her head in peace. Pause there in sadness. That unhallowed ground Inshrines what once was Isabel. Sleep on Sleep on, poor Outcast! lovely was thy cheek, And thy mild eye was eloquent to […]...
5. Sonnet CXXX My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask’d, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And […]...
6. My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130) My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And […]...
7. High in the air exposed High in the air exposed the slave is hung, To all the birds of heaven, their living food! He groans not, though awaked by that fierce sun New torturers live to drink their parent blood; He groans not, though the gorging vulture tear The quivering fiber. Hither look, O ye Who tore this man from […]...
8. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 02: One, from his high bright window in a tower One, from his high bright window in a tower, Leans out, as evening falls, And sees the advancing curtain of the shower Splashing its silver on roofs and walls: Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city, And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea, Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark […]...
9. Sonnet XXXVI: Lead Me, Sicilian Maids Lead me, Sicilian Maids, to haunted bow’rs, While yon pale moon displays her faintest beams O’er blasted woodlands, and enchanted streams, Whose banks infect the breeze with pois’nous flow’rs. Ah! lead me, where the barren mountain tow’rs, Where no sounds echo, but the night-owl’s screams, Where some lone spirit of the desart gleams, And lurid […]...
10. Men Of The High North Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing; Islands of opal float on silver seas; Swift splendors kindle, barbaric, amazing; Pale ports of amber, golden argosies. Ringed all around us the proud peaks are glowing; Fierce chiefs in council, their wigwam the sky; Far, far below us the big Yukon flowing, Like threaded […]...
11. THE GARLANDS KLOPSTOCK would lead us away from Pindus; no longer For laurel May we be eager the homely acorn alone must content us; Yet he himself his more-than-epic crusade is conducting High on Golgotha’s summit, that foreign gods he may honour! Yet, on what hill he prefers, let him gather the angels together, Suffer deserted disciples […]...
12. Sonnet to Ingratitude He that’s ungrateful, has no guilt but one; All other crimes may pass for virtues in him. – YOUNG. I COULD have borne affliction’s sharpest thorn; The sting of malice­poverty’s deep wound; The sneers of vulgar pride, the idiot’s scorn; Neglected Love, false Friendship’s treach’rous sound; I could, with patient smile, extract the dart Base […]...
13. Lenten Thoughts of a High Anglican Isn’t she lovely, “the Mistress”? With her wide-apart grey-green eyes, The droop of her lips and, when she smiles, Her glance of amused surprise? How nonchalantly she wears her clothes, How expensive they are as well! And the sound of her voice is as soft and deep As the Christ Church tenor bell. But why […]...
14. The Grey Rock Poets with whom I learned my trade. Companions of the Cheshire Cheese, Here’s an old story I’ve remade, Imagining ‘twould better please Your cars than stories now in fashion, Though you may think I waste my breath Pretending that there can be passion That has more life in it than death, And though at bottling […]...
15. In the High Leaves of a Walnut In the high leaves of a walnut, On the very topmost boughs, A boy that climbed the branching bole His cradled limbs would house. On the airy bed that rocked him Long, idle hours he’d lie Alone with white clouds sailing The warm blue of the sky. I remember not what his dreams were; But […]...
16. Inside Ayers Rock Inside Ayers Rock is lit With paired fluorescent lights On steel pillars supporting the ceiling Of haze-blue marquee cloth High above the non-slip pavers. Curving around the cafeteria Throughout vast inner space Is a Milky way of plastic chairs In foursomes around tables All the way to the truck drivers’ enclave. Dusted coolabah trees grow […]...
17. Sonnet XXXVIII: Oh Sigh Oh Sigh! thou steal’st, the herald of the breast, The lover’s fears, the lover’s pangs to tell; Thou bid’st with timid grace the bosom swell, Cheating the day of joy, the night of rest! Oh! lucid Tears! with eloquence confest, Why on my fading cheek unheeded dwell, Meek, as the dew-drops on the flowret’s bell […]...
18. Rock And Hawk Here is a symbol in which Many high tragic thoughts Watch their own eyes. This gray rock, standing tall On the headland, where the seawind Lets no tree grow, Earthquake-proved, and signatured By ages of storms: on its peak A falcon has perched. I think here is your emblem To hang in the future sky; […]...
19. By Broad Potomac's Shore 1 BY broad Potomac’s shore-again, old tongue! (Still uttering-still ejaculating-canst never cease this babble?) Again, old heart so gay-again to you, your sense, the full flush spring returning; Again the freshness and the odors-again Virginia’s summer sky, pellucid blue and silver, Again the forenoon purple of the hills, Again the deathless grass, so noiseless, soft […]...
20. The New Love If it shine or if it rain, Little will I care or know. Days, like drops upon a pane, Slip, and join, and go. At my door’s another lad; Here’s his flower in my hair. If he see me pale and sad, Will he see me fair? I sit looking at the floor. Little will […]...
21. Sonnet IX Amid the florid multitude her face Was like the full moon seen behind the lace Of orchard boughs where clouded blossoms part When Spring shines in the world and in the heart. As the full-moon-beams to the ferny floor Of summer woods through flower and foliage pour, So to my being’s innermost recess Flooded the […]...
22. We never know how high we are We never know how high we are Till we are asked to rise And then if we are true to plan Our statures touch the skies The Heroism we recite Would be a normal thing Did not ourselves the Cubits warp For fear to be a King...
23. Sonnet XXII: Love, Banish'd Heav'n Love, banish’d Heav’n, on Earth was held in scorn, Wand’ring abroad in need and beggary, And wanting friends, though of a Goddess born, Yet crav’d the alms of such as passed by. I, like a man devout and charitable, Clothed the naked, lodg’d this wand’ring guest, With sighs and tears still furnishing his table With […]...
24. I stood upon a high place I stood upon a high place, And saw, below, many devils Running, leaping, And carousing in sin. One looked up, grinning, And said, “Comrade! Brother!”...
25. High Talk Processions that lack high stilts have nothing that catches the eye. What if my great-granddad had a pair that were twenty foot high, And mine were but fifteen foot, no modern Stalks upon higher, Some rogue of the world stole them to patch up a fence or a fire. Because piebald ponies, led bears, caged […]...
26. Opposition Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill, Complain no more; for these, O heart, Direct the random of the will As rhymes direct the rage of art. The lute’s fixt fret, that runs athwart The strain and purpose of the string, For governance and nice consort Doth bar his wilful wavering. The dark hath […]...
27. At Night On The High Seas At night, when the sea cradles me And the pale star gleam Lies down on its broad waves, Then I free myself wholly From all activity and all the love And stand silent and breathe purely, Alone, alone cradled by the sea That lies there, cold and silent, with a thousand lights. Then I have […]...
28. Sonnet 115 – All we were going strong last night this time All we were going strong last night this time, The mosts were flying & the frozen daiquiris Were downing, supine on the floor lay Lise Listening to Schubert grievous & sublime, My head was frantic with a following rime: It was a good evening, and evening to please, I kissed her in the kitchen – […]...
29. Ode to the Goddess Ceres Dear Goddess of Corn, whom the ancients we know, (Among other odd whims of those comical bodies,) Adorn’d with somniferous poppies, to show, Thou wert always a true Country-gentleman’s Goddess. Behold in his best, shooting-jacket, before thee, An eloquent ‘Squire, who most humbly beseeches, Great Queen of the Mark-lane (if the thing doesn’t bore thee), […]...
30. Sonnet 117 – All we were going strong All we were going strong last night this time, The mots were flying & the frozen daiquiris Were downing, supine on the floor lay Lise Listening to Schubert grievous & sublime, My head was frantic with a following rime: It was a good evening, an evening to please, I kissed her in the kitchen-ecstasies- Among […]...
31. Sonnet XXXVII: When, in the Gloomy Mansion When, in the gloomy mansion of the dead, This with’ring heart, this faded form shall sleep; When these fond eyes, at length shall cease to weep, And earth’s cold lap receive this fev’rish head; Envy shall turn away, a tear to shed, And Time’s obliterating pinions sweep The spot, where poets shall their vigils keep, […]...
32. Sonnet XIII: Bring, Brick to Deck My Brow Bring, bring to deck my brow, ye Sylvan girls, A roseate wreath; nor for my waving hair The costly band of studded gems prepare, Of sparkling crysolite or orient pearls: Love, o’er my head his canopy unfurls, His purple pinions fan the whisp’ring air; Mocking the golden sandal, rich and rare, Beneath my feet the […]...
33. The House Of Dust: Part 01: 04: Up high black walls, up sombre terraces Up high black walls, up sombre terraces, Clinging like luminous birds to the sides of cliffs, The yellow lights went climbing towards the sky. From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain, Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye. They trembled from coign to coign, and tower to tower, Along high terraces quicker […]...
34. Before the Altar Before the Altar, bowed, he stands With empty hands; Upon it perfumed offerings burn Wreathing with smoke the sacrificial urn. Not one of all these has he given, No flame of his has leapt to Heaven Firesouled, vermilion-hearted, Forked, and darted, Consuming what a few spare pence Have cheaply bought, to fling from hence In […]...
35. Swing high and swing low Swing high and swing low While the breezes they blow – It’s off for a sailor thy father would go; And it’s here in the harbor, in sight of the sea, He hath left his wee babe with my song and with me: “Swing high and swing low While the breezes they blow!” Swing high […]...
36. Poems On The Slave Trade – Sonnet I Hold your mad hands! for ever on your plain Must the gorged vulture clog his beak with blood? For ever must your Nigers tainted flood Roll to the ravenous shark his banquet slain? Hold your mad hands! what daemon prompts to rear The arm of Slaughter? on your savage shore Can hell-sprung Glory claim the […]...
37. The Rock Cries Out to Us Today A Rock, A River, A Tree Hosts to species long since departed, Mark the mastodon. The dinosaur, who left dry tokens Of their sojourn here On our planet floor, Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages. But today, the Rock cries out to us, […]...
38. Trickle, Drops TRICKLE, drops! my blue veins leaving! O drops of me! trickle, slow drops, Candid, from me falling-drip, bleeding drops, From wounds made to free you whence you were prison’d, From my face-from my forehead and lips, From my breast-from within where I was conceal’d-press forth, red drops-confession drops; Stain every page-stain every song I sing, […]...
39. Sonnet II: My Heart Was Slain My heart was slain, and none but you and I; Who should I think the murther should commit, Since but yourself there was no creature by, But only I, guiltless of murth’ring it? It slew itself; the verdict on the view Doth quit the dead, and me not accessary. Well, well, I fear it will […]...
40. High Windows When I see a couple of kids And guess he’s fucking her and she’s Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm, I know this is paradise Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives Bonds and gestures pushed to one side Like an outdated combine harvester, And everyone young going down the long slide To happiness, […]...