The Other Side of a Mirror

Related poetry:

1. The Mirror Seeing is believing. Whatever was thought or said, These persistent, inexorable deaths Make faith as such absent, Our humanness a question, A disgust for what we are. Whatever the hope, Here it is lost. Because we coveted our difference, Here is the cost....
2. Sonnet XVI: Mongst All the Creatures An Allusion to the Phoenix ‘Mongst all the creatures in this spacious round Of the birds’ kind, the Phoenix is alone, Which best by you of living things is known; None like to that, none like to you is found. Your beauty is the hot and splend’rous sun, The precious spices be your chaste desire, […]...
3. A Hand-Mirror HOLD it up sternly! See this it sends back! (Who is it? Is it you?) Outside fair costume-within ashes and filth, No more a flashing eye-no more a sonorous voice or springy step; Now some slave’s eye, voice, hands, step, A drunkard’s breath, unwholesome eater’s face, venerealee’s flesh, Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and […]...
4. 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 […]...
5. Epilogue Those blessиd structures, plot and rhyme Why are they no help to me now I want to make Something imagined, not recalled? I hear the noise of my own voice: The painter’s vision is not a lens, it trembles to caress the light. But sometimes everything I write With the threadbare art of my eye […]...
6. Goody for Our Side and Your Side Too Foreigners are people somewhere else, Natives are people at home; If the place you’re at Is your habitat, You’re a foreigner, say in Rome. But the scales of Justice balance true, And tit leads into tat, So the man who’s at home When he stays in Rome Is abroad when he’s where you’re at. When […]...
7. Commemoration When first your glory shone upon my face My body kindled to a mighty flame, And burnt you yielding in my hot embrace Until you swooned to love, breathing my name. And wonder came and filled our night of sleep, Like a new comet crimsoning the sky; And stillness like the stillness of the deep […]...
8. Song IV: Draw Near and Behold Me Love is enough: draw near and behold me Ye who pass by the way to your rest and your laughter, And are full of the hope of the dawn coming after; For the strong of the world have bought me and sold me And my house is all wasted from threshold to rafter. Pass by […]...
9. To Be Written On The Mirror In Whitewash I live only here, between your eyes and you, But I live in your world. What do I do? Collect no interest otherwise what I can; Above all I am not that staring man....
10. On the Deaths of Thomas Carlyle and George Eliot Two souls diverse out of our human sight Pass, followed one with love and each with wonder: The stormy sophist with his mouth of thunder, Clothed with loud words and mantled in the might Of darkness and magnificence of night; And one whose eye could smite the night in sunder, Searching if light or no […]...
11. Holy Sonnet XI: Spit In My Face You Jews, And Pierce My Side Spit in my face you Jews, and pierce my side, Buffet, and scoff, scourge, and crucify me, For I have sinned, and sinned, and only he Who could do no iniquity hath died: But by my death can not be satisfied My sins, which pass the Jews’ impiety: They killed once an inglorious man, but […]...
12. Sonnet 103: Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth, That having such a scope to show her pride, The argument all bare is of more worth Than when it hath my added praise beside. O, blame me not if I no more can write! Look in your glass, and there appears a face That overgoes my blunt […]...
13. Jesus Hasting to Suffer The Saviour, what a noble flame Was kindled in his breast, When hasting to Jerusalem, He march’d before the rest. Good will to men, and zeal for God, His every thought engross; He longs to be baptized with blood, He pants to reach the cross! With all His suffering full in view, And woes to […]...
14. Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror As Parmigianino did it, the right hand Bigger than the head, thrust at the viewer And swerving easily away, as though to protect What it advertises. A few leaded panes, old beams, Fur, pleated muslin, a coral ring run together In a movement supporting the face, which swims Toward and away like the hand Except […]...
15. By The Fire-Side I. How well I know what I mean to do When the long dark autumn-evenings come: And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue? With the music of all thy voices, dumb In life’s November too! II. I shall be found by the fire, suppose, O’er a great wise book as beseemeth age, While the […]...
16. To Thomas Butts TO my friend Butts I write My first vision of light, On the yellow sands sitting. The sun was emitting His glorious beams From Heaven’s high streams. Over sea, over land, My eyes did expand Into regions of air, Away from all care; Into regions of fire, Remote from desire; The light of the morning […]...
17. The Quest A part, immutable, unseen, Being, before itself had been, Became. Like dew a triple queen Shone as the void uncovered: The silence of deep height was drawn A veil across the silver dawn On holy wings that hovered. The music of three thoughts became The beauty, that is one white flame, The justice that surpasses […]...
18. This Side Of The Truth (for Llewelyn) This side of the truth, You may not see, my son, King of your blue eyes In the blinding country of youth, That all is undone, Under the unminding skies, Of innocence and guilt Before you move to make One gesture of the heart or head, Is gathered and spilt Into the winding […]...
19. To a Child of Quality, Five Years Old, 1704. The Author then Forty LORDS, knights, and squires, the numerous band That wear the fair Miss Mary’s fetters, Were summoned by her high command To show their passions by their letters. My pen amongst the rest I took, Lest those bright eyes, that cannot read, Should dart their kindling fire, and look The power they have to be obey’d. […]...
20. I stood musing in a black world I stood musing in a black world, Not knowing where to direct my feet. And I saw the quick stream of men Pouring ceaselessly, Filled with eager faces, A torrent of desire. I called to them, “Where do you go? What do you see?” A thousand voices called to me. A thousand fingers pointed. “Look! […]...
21. Mirror, Mirror A young spring-tender girl Combed her joyous hair ‘You are very ugly’ said the mirror. But, On her lips hung A smile of dove-secret loveliness, For only that morning had not The blind boy said, ‘You are beautiful’?...
22. Mirror There are no lies In the morning No cheating of age An illusion of eye Smoothing skin over bone. No portrait hidden away Becoming skeletal And demanding release. Another day to face, My confessor, so laugh At this charting of years....
23. THE MUSE'S MIRROR EARLY one day, the Muse, when eagerly bent on adornment, Follow’d a swift-running streamlet, the quietest nook by it seeking. Quickly and noisily flowing, the changeful surface distorted Ever her moving form; the goddess departed in anger. Yet the stream call’d mockingly after her, saying: “What, truly! Wilt thou not view, then, the truth, in […]...
24. Lady At A Mirror As in sleeping-drink spices Softly she loosens in the liquid-clear Mirror her fatigued demeanor; And she puts her smile deep inside. And she waits while the liquid Rises from it; then she pours her hair Into the mirror, and, lifting one Wondrous shoulder from the evening gown, She drinks quietly from her image. She drinks […]...
25. THE LIVING FLAME THEY pass before me, these Eyes full of light, Eyes made magnetic by some angel wise; The holy brothers pass before my sight, And cast their diamond fires in my dim eyes. They keep me from all sin and error grave, They set me in the path whence Beauty came; They are my servants, and […]...
26. A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnight They mouth love’s language. Gnash The thirteen teeth Your lean jaws grin with. Lash Your itch and quailing, nude greed of the flesh. Love’s breath in you is stale, worded or sung, As sour as cat’s breath, Harsh of tongue. This grey that stares Lies not, stark skin and bone. Leave greasy lips their kissing. […]...
27. 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 […]...
28. Sonnet III THe souerayne beauty which I doo admyre, Witnesse the world how worthy to be prayzed: The light wherof hath kindled heauenly iyre, In my fraile spirit by her from basenesse raysed. That being now with her huge brightnesse dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view: But looking still on her I stand […]...
29. I Dreamed Of Forest Alleys fair I. I DREAMED of forest alleys fair And fields of gray-flowered grass, Where by the yellow summer moon My Jenny seemed to pass. I dreamed the yellow summer moon, Behind a cedar wood, Lay white on fields of rippling grass Where I and Jenny stood. I dreamed – but fallen through my dream, In a […]...
30. The Wonderer I wish that I could understand The moving marvel of my Hand; I watch my fingers turn and twist, The supple bending of my wrist, The dainty touch of finger-tip, The steel intensity of grip; A tool of exquisite design, With pride I think: “It’s mine! It’s mine!” Then there’s the wonder of my Eyes, […]...
31. Nursery Rhyme For A Twenty-First Birthday You cannot see the walls that divide your hand From his or hers or mine when you think you touch it. You cannot see the walls because they are glass, And glass is nothing until you try to pass it. Beat on it if you like, but not too hard, For glass will break you […]...
32. Historion No man hath dared to write this thing as yet, And yet I know, how that the souls of all men great At times pass athrough us, And we are melted into them, and are not Save reflexions of their souls. Thus am I Dante for a space and am One Francois Villon, ballad-lord and […]...
33. Beaumont and Fletcher An hour ere sudden sunset fired the west, Arose two stars upon the pale deep east. The hall of heaven was clear for night’s high feast, Yet was not yet day’s fiery heart at rest. Love leapt up from his mother’s burning breast To see those warm twin lights, as day decreased, Wax wider, till […]...
34. Reuben Pantier Well, Emily Sparks, your prayers were not wasted, Your love was not all in vain. I owe whatever I was in life To your hope that would not give me up, To your love that saw me still as good. Dear Emily Sparks, let me tell you the story. I pass the effect of my […]...
35. Father Malloy You are over there, Father Malloy, Where holy ground is, and the cross marks every grave, Not here with us on the hill Us of wavering faith, and clouded vision And drifting hope, and unforgiven sins. You were so human, Father Malloy, Taking a friendly glass sometimes with us, Siding with us who would rescue […]...
36. By the Bivouac's Fitful Flame BY the bivouac’s fitful flame, A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow;-but first I note, The tents of the sleeping army, the fields’ and woods’ dim outline, The darkness, lit by spots of kindled fire-the silence; Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving; The shrubs and trees, (as I […]...
37. At the Sea-Side When I was down beside the sea A wooden spade they gave to me To dig the sandy shore. My holes were empty like a cup. In every hole the sea came up, Till it could come no more....
38. Other side The dung was recent, not an event Unusual in itself but difficult to explain Of cows grazing the other side of the fence. Too new to be dismissed without a thought, Disturbing evidence which brought A desired state of bovine restraint Into an irksome disgrace. We couldn’t see a beast Ranging free, eating And defecating […]...
39. Notes from the Other Side I divested myself of despair And fear when I came here. Now there is no more catching One’s own eye in the mirror, There are no bad books, no plastic, No insurance premiums, and of course No illness. Contrition Does not exist, nor gnashing Of teeth. No one howls as the first Clod of earth […]...
40. Because Your Voice Was at My Side Because your voice was at my side I gave him pain, Because within my hand I held Your hand again. There is no word nor any sign Can make amend – He is a stranger to me now Who was my friend....