Affection

Related poetry:

1. Give Me Strength This is my prayer to thee, my lord – strike, Strike at the root of penury in my heart. Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows. Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service. Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before […]...
2. Love Thyself Last Love thyself last. Look near, behold thy duty To those who walk beside thee down life’s road; Make glad their days by little acts of beauty, And help them bear the burden of earth’s load. Love thyself last. Look far and find the stranger, Who staggers ‘neath his sin and his despair; Go lend a […]...
3. For All We Have And Are For all we have and are, For all our children’s fate, Stand up and take the war. The Hun is at the gate! Our world has passed away In wantonness o’erthrown. There is nothing left to-day But steel and fire and stone! Tough all we knew depart, The old Commandments stand: “In courage keep your […]...
4. Rearrange a "Wife's" affection! Rearrange a “Wife’s” affection! When they dislocate my Brain! Amputate my freckled Bosom! Make me bearded like a man! Blush, my spirit, in thy Fastness Blush, my unacknowledged clay Seven years of troth have taught thee More than Wifehood every may! Love that never leaped its socket Trust entrenched in narrow pain Constancy thro’ fire […]...
5. Sonnet CXXXIII Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan For that deep wound it gives my friend and me! Is’t not enough to torture me alone, But slave to slavery my sweet’st friend must be? Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken, And my next self thou harder hast engross’d: Of him, myself, and […]...
6. Sonnet 133: Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan For that deep wound it gives my friend and me! Is’t not enough to torture me alone, But slave to slavery my sweet’st friend must be? Me from my self thy cruel eye hath taken, And my next self thou harder hast engrossed. Of him, myself, […]...
7. Night Piece, to Julia Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee, The shooting stars attend thee, And the elves also, Whose little eyes glow Like sparks of fire befriend thee. No will-o’th’-wisp mislight thee; No snake or slow-worm bite thee; But on, on thy way, Not making a stay, Since ghost there’s none to affright thee. Let not the dark […]...
8. Stars (For the Rev. James J. Daly, S. J.) Bright stars, yellow stars, flashing through the air, Are you errant strands of Lady Mary’s hair? As she slits the cloudy veil and bends down through, Do you fall across her cheeks and over heaven too? Gay stars, little stars, you are little eyes, Eyes of baby […]...
9. The Night Piece, to Julia Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee, The shooting stars attend thee; And the elves also, Whose little eyes glow Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee. No Will-o’-th’-Wisp mis-light thee, Nor snake or slow-worm bite thee; But on, on thy way, Not making a stay, Since ghost there’s none to affright thee. Let not the […]...
10. A Year's Burden 1870 Fire and wild light of hope and doubt and fear, Wind of swift change, and clouds and hours that veer As the storm shifts of the tempestuous year; Cry wellaway, but well befall the right. Hope sits yet hiding her war-wearied eyes, Doubt sets her forehead earthward and denies, But fear brought hand to hand […]...
11. Speech is one symptom of Affection Speech is one symptom of Affection And Silence one The perfectest communication Is heard of none Exists and its indorsement Is had within Behold, said the Apostle, Yet had not seen!...
12. Remember with affection They’ll always tell a story those Obscure mementos stacked on Dusty shelves, demure and silent like The other gaudy tributes tacked To walls in floodlit halls and if you Could suppose their lusty origins And still allow the glory They impute you are in thrall. I recall that tiny pot, A plastic flower in pink […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. Introspection If you go deep Into the heart What do you find there? Fear, fear, Fear of the jaws of the rock, Fear of the teeth and splinters of iron that tear Flesh from the bone, and the moist Blood, running unfelt From the wound, and the hand Suddenly moist and red. If you go deep […]...
15. Cameron's Heart The diggings were just in their glory when Alister Cameron came, With recommendations, he told me, from friends and a parson ‘at hame’; He read me his recommendations he called them a part of his plant The first one was signed by an Elder, the other by Cameron’s aunt. The meenister called him ‘ungodly a […]...
16. Our Eyes Our eyes are limpid drops of water. In each drop exists a tiny sign of our genius Which has given life to cold iron. Our eyes are limpid drops of water Merged absolutely in the Ocean That you could hardly recognize the drop in a block of ice in a boiling pan. The masterpiece of […]...
17. Summer Holiday When the sun shouts and people abound One thinks there were the ages of stone and the age of bronze And the iron age; iron the unstable metal; Steel made of iron, unstable as his mother; the tow- ered-up cities Will be stains of rust on mounds of plaster. Roots will not pierce the heaps […]...
18. A Clasp Of Hands SOFT, small, and sweet as sunniest flowers That bask in heavenly heat When bud by bud breaks, breathes, and cowers, Soft, small, and sweet. A babe’s hands open as to greet The tender touch of ours And mock with motion faint and fleet The minutes of the new strange hours That earth, not heaven, must […]...
19. Call To Account! The drum of war thunders and thunders. It calls: thrust iron into the living. From every country Slave after slave Are thrown onto bayonet steel. For the sake of what? The earth shivers Hungry And stripped. Mankind is vapourised in a blood bath Only so Someone Somewhere Can get hold of Albania. Human gangs bound […]...
20. Psalm 7 God’s care of his people. My trust is in my heav’nly Friend, My hope in thee, my God; Rise, and my helpless life defend From those that seek my blood. With insolence and fury they My soul in pieces tear, As hungry lions rend the prey, When no deliverer’s near. If I had e’er provoked […]...
21. Fog Portrait RINGS of iron gray smoke; a woman’s steel face… looking… looking. Funnels of an ocean liner negotiating a fog night; pouring a taffy mass down the wind; layers of soot on the top deck; a taffrail… and a woman’s steel face… looking… looking. Cliffs challenge humped; sudden arcs form on a gull’s wing in the […]...
22. Sonnet XXXV: Some, Misbelieving To Miracle Some, misbelieving and profane in love, When I do speak of miracles by thee, May say, that thou art flattered by me, Who only write my skill in verse to prove. See miracles, ye unbelieving, see A dumb-born Muse made t’express the mind, A cripple hand to write, yet lame by kind, One […]...
23. Any Other Time ALL of us play our very best game – Any other time. Golf or billiards, it’s all the same – Any other time. Lose a match and you always say, “Just my luck! I was ‘off’ to-day! I could have beaten him quite half-way – Any other time!” After a fiver you ought to go […]...
24. 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 […]...
25. Vision X There in the middle of the field, by the side of a crystalline stream, I saw a bird-cage whose rods and hinges were fashioned by an expert’s hands. In one corner lay a dead bird, and in another were two basins one empty of water and the other of seeds. I stood there reverently, as […]...
26. A Prayer My God (oh, let me call Thee mine, Weak, wretched sinner though I be), My trembling soul would fain be Thine; My feeble faith still clings to Thee. Not only for the Past I grieve, The Future fills me with dismay; Unless Thou hasten to relieve, Thy suppliant is a castaway. I cannot say my […]...
27. Psalm 02 Done Aug. 8. 1653. Terzetti. Why do the Gentiles tumult, and the Nations Muse a vain thing, the Kings of th’earth upstand With power, and Princes in their Congregations Lay deep their plots together through each Land, Against the Lord and his Messiah dear. Let us break off; say they, by strength of hand Their […]...
28. RHYMED DISTICHS RHYMED DISTICHS. [The Distichs, of which these are given as a Specimen, are about forty in number.] WHO trusts in God, Fears not His rod. THIS truth may be by all believed: Whom God deceives, is well deceived. HOW? when? and where? No answer comes from high; Thou wait’st for the Because, and yet thou […]...
29. Cold Iron Cold is for the mistress silver for the maid Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.” “Good!” said the Baron, sitting in his hall, “But Iron Cold Iron is master of them all.” So he made rebellion ‘gainst the King his liege, Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege. “Nay!” said the […]...
30. My God! O let me call Thee mine! My God! O let me call Thee mine! Weak wretched sinner though I be, My trembling soul would fain be Thine, My feeble faith still clings to Thee, My feeble faith still clings to Thee. Not only for the past I grieve, The future fills me with dismay; Unless Thou hasten to relieve, I know […]...
31. A Fence NOW the stone house on the lake front is finished and the Workmen are beginning the fence. The palings are made of iron bars with steel points that Can stab the life out of any man who falls on them. As a fence, it is a masterpiece, and will shut off the rabble And all […]...
32. Savior! I've no one else to tell Savior! I’ve no one else to tell And so I trouble thee. I am the one forgot thee so Dost thou remember me? Nor, for myself, I came so far That were the little load I brought thee the imperial Heart I had not strength to hold The Heart I carried in my own Till […]...
33. Psalm 73 part 2 v.23-28 C. M. God our portion here and hereafter. God, my supporter and my hope, My help for ever near, Thine arm of mercy held me up, When sinking in despair. Thy counsels, Lord, shall guide my feet Through this dark wilderness; Thine hand conduct me near thy seat, To dwell before thy face. Were […]...
34. Temptation The billows swell, the winds are high, Clouds overcast my wintry sky; Out of the depths to Thee I call, My fears are great, my strength is small. O Lord, the pilot’s part perform, And guard and guide me through the storm; Defend me from each threatening ill, Control the waves, say, “Peace! be still.” […]...
35. Sonnet CXXXIX O, call not me to justify the wrong That thy unkindness lays upon my heart; Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue; Use power with power and slay me not by art. Tell me thou lovest elsewhere, but in my sight, Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside: What need’st thou […]...
36. On a Dead Child Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee, With promise of strength and manhood full and fair! Though cold and stark and bare, The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee. Thy mother’s treasure wert thou;-alas! no longer To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be Thy father’s pride:-ah, […]...
37. Death My body, eh? Friend Death, how now? Why all this tedious pomp of writ? Thou hast reclaimed it sure and slow For half a century bit by bit. In faith thou knowest more to-day Than I do, where it can be found! This shrivelled lump of suffering clay, To which I am now chained and […]...
38. Sonnet: July 18th 1787 O Time! who know’st a lenient hand to lay Softest on sorrow’s wound, and slowly thence (Lulling to sad repose the weary sense) The faint pang stealest unperceived away; On thee I rest my only hope at last, And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear That flows in vain o’er all my soul […]...
39. Time and Grief O TIME! who know’st a lenient hand to lay Softest on sorrow’s wound, and slowly thence (Lulling to sad repose the weary sense) The faint pang stealest unperceived away; On thee I rest my only hope at last, And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear That flows in vain o’er all my soul […]...
40. XIII. O Time! Who Know'st a Lenient Hand to Lay O TIME! who know’st a lenient hand to lay Softest on sorrow’s wound, and slowly thence, (Lulling to sad repose the weary sense) Stealest the long-forgotten pang away; On Thee I rest my only hope at last, And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear That flows in vain o’er all my soul held […]...