Sonnet XL: My Heart the Anvil

Related poetry:

1. 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, […]...
2. 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 […]...
3. Sonnet 109: O, never say that I was false of heart O, never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seemed my flame to qualify. As easy might I from my self depart As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie. That is my home of love; if I have ranged, Like him that travels I return again, Just to the time, […]...
4. Sonnet 25 – A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne A heavy heart, Beloved, have I borne From year to year until I saw thy face, And sorrow after sorrow took the place Of all those natural joys as lightly worn As the stringed pearls, each lifted in its turn By a beating heart at dance-time. Hopes apace Were changed to long despairs, till God’s […]...
5. Idylls Of The King: Song From The Marriage Of Geraint Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, and lower the proud; Turn thy wild wheel thro’ sunshine, storm, and cloud; Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate. Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown; With that wild wheel we go not up or down; Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great. […]...
6. Sonnet 46: Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war How to divide the conquest of thy sight; Mine eye my heart thy picture’s sight would bar, My heart mine eye the freedom of that right, My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie- A closet never pierced with crystal eyes- But the defendant […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. The Sea's Wash In The Hollow Of The Heart Turn from that road’s beguiling ease; return To your hunger’s turret. Enter, climb the stair Chill with disuse, where the croaking toad of time Regards from shimmering eyes your slow ascent And the drip, drip, of darkness glimmers on the stone To show you how your longing waits alone. What alchemy shines from under that […]...
9. Sonnet XIV: If He From Heav'n If he from Heav’n that filch’d that living fire Condemn’d by Jove to endless torment be, I greatly marvel how you still go free That far beyond Prometheus did aspire. The fire he stole, although of heav’nly kind, Which from above he craftily did take, Of lifeless clods us living men to make, He did […]...
10. Sonnet 47: Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, And each doth good turns now unto the other, When that mine eye is famished for a look, Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother, With my love’s picture then my eye doth feast And to the painted banquet bids my heart; Another time […]...
11. To His Heart, Bidding It Have No Fear Be you still, be you still, trembling heart; Remember the wisdom out of the old days: Him who trembles before the flame and the flood, And the winds that blow through the starry ways, Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood Cover over and hide, for he has no part With the […]...
12. Sonnet 34 – With the same heart, I said, I'll answer thee With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee As those, when thou shalt call me by my name- Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same, Perplexed and ruffled by life’s strategy? When called before, I told how hastily I dropped my flowers or brake off from a game, To run and answer […]...
13. Not with a Club, the Heart is broken Not with a Club, the Heart is broken Nor with a Stone A Whip so small you could not see it I’ve known To lash the Magic Creature Till it fell, Yet that Whip’s Name Too noble then to tell. Magnanimous as Bird By Boy descried Singing unto the Stone Of which it died Shame […]...
14. My Heart and I I. ENOUGH! we’re tired, my heart and I. We sit beside the headstone thus, And wish that name were carved for us. The moss reprints more tenderly The hard types of the mason’s knife, As heaven’s sweet life renews earth’s life With which we’re tired, my heart and I. II. You see we’re tired, my […]...
15. 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 […]...
16. 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 […]...
17. Sonnet 03 – Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart! Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart! Unlike our uses and our destinies. Our ministering two angels look surprise On one another, as they strike athwart Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art A guest for queens to social pageantries, With gages from a hundred brighter eyes Than tears even can make mine, to […]...
18. A Translation Horace, BK. V., Ode 3 “Regulus” A Diversity of Creatures There are whose study is of smells, And to attentive schools rehearse How something mixed with something else Makes something worse. Some cultivate in broths impure The clients of our body these, Increasing without Venus, cure, Or cause, disease. Others the heated wheel extol, And […]...
19. Sonnet 05 – I lift my heavy heart up solemnly I lift my heavy heart up solemnly, As once Electra her sepulchral urn, And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see What a great heap of grief lay hid in me, And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn Through the ashen grayness. If thy foot in scorn […]...
20. Holy Sonnet XIV: Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. I, like an usurped town, to another due, Labor to admit you, but O, to no end; Reason, […]...
21. A poor torn heart a tattered heart A poor torn heart a tattered heart That sat it down to rest Nor noticed that the Ebbing Day Flowed silver to the West Nor noticed Night did soft descend Nor Constellation burn Intent upon the vision Of latitudes unknown. The angels happening that way This dusty heart espied Tenderly took it up from toil […]...
22. Sonnet 03 Why should you be astonished that my heart, Plunged for so long in darkness and in dearth, Should be revived by you, and stir and start As by warm April now, reviving Earth? I am the field of undulating grass And you the gentle perfumed breath of Spring, And all my lyric being, when you […]...
23. Sonnet XXV: Can'st Thou Forget Can’st thou forget, O! Idol of my Soul! Thy Sappho’s voice, her form, her dulcet Lyre! That melting ev’ry thought to fond desire, Bade sweet delerium o’er thy senses roll? Can’st thou, so soon, renounce the blest control That calm’d with pity’s tears love’s raging fire, While Hope, slow breathing on the trembling wire, In […]...
24. Sonnet XIII: Letters and Lines To the Shadow Letters and lines we see are soon defac’d, Metals do waste and fret with canker’s rust, The diamond shall once consume to dust, And freshest colors with foul stains disgrac’d; Paper and ink can paint but naked words, To write with blood of force offends the sight; And if with tears I […]...
25. My Heart, When First The Black-Bird Sings MY heart, when first the blackbird sings, My heart drinks in the song: Cool pleasure fills my bosom through And spreads each nerve along. My bosom eddies quietly, My heart is stirred and cool As when a wind-moved briar sweeps A stone into a pool But unto thee, when thee I meet, My pulses thicken […]...
26. The Flaming Heart O heart, the equal poise of love’s both parts, Big alike with wounds and darts, Live in these conquering leaves; live all the same, And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame; Live here, great heart, and love and die and kill, And bleed and wound, and yield and conquer still. Let this immortal life, […]...
27. Sonnet XXIII: To Aetna's Scorching Sands To AEtna’s scorching sands my Phaon flies! False Youth! can other charms attractive prove? Say, can Sicilian loves thy passions move, Play round thy heart, and fix thy fickle eyes, While in despair the Lesbian Sappho dies? Has Spring for thee a crown of poppies wove, Or dost thou languish in th’ Idalian grove, Whose […]...
28. 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 […]...
29. The Book of Urizen: Chapter IV a 1. Los smitten with astonishment Frightend at the hurtling bones 2. And at the surging sulphureous Perturbed Immortal mad raging 3. In whirlwinds & pitch & nitre Round the furious limbs of Los 4. And Los formed nets & gins And threw the nets round about 5. He watch’d in shuddring fear The dark […]...
30. Sonnet VII: Love in a Humour Love in a humor play’d the prodigal And bade my Senses to a solemn feast; Yet, more to grace the company withal, Invites my Heart to be the chiefest guest. No other drink would serve this glutton’s turn But precious tears distilling from mine eyne, Which with my sighs this epicure doth burn, Quaffing carouses […]...
31. Because Her Heart Is Tender, for Beth She scrawled soft words in soap: “Never Forget,” Dove-white on her car’s window, and the wren, Because her heart is tender, might regret It called the sun to wake her. As I slept, She heard lost names recounted, one by one. She wrote in sidewalk chalk: “Never Forget,” And kept her heart’s own counsel. No […]...
32. Sonnet LI: Calling to Mind Calling to mind, since first my love begun, Th’uncertain times oft varying in their course, How things still unexpectedly have run, As it please the Fates, by their resistless force. Lastly mine eyes amazedly have seen Essex’ great fall, Tyrone his peace to gain; The quiet end of that long-living Queen; This King’s fair entrance; […]...
33. Grace Before Song Lord God of heaven that with mercy dight Th’alternate prayer wheel of the night and light Eternal hath to thee, and in whose sight Our days as rain drops in the sea surge fall, As bright white drops upon a leaden sea Grant so my songs to this grey folk may be: As drops that […]...
34. Thunder There will be thunder then. Remember me. Say ‘ She asked for storms.’ The entire World will turn the colour of crimson stone, And your heart, as then, will turn to fire. That day, in Moscow, a true prophecy, When for the last time I say goodbye, Soaring to the heavens that I longed to […]...
35. A Process In The Weather Of The Heart A process in the weather of the heart Turns damp to dry; the golden shot Storms in the freezing tomb. A weather in the quarter of the veins Turns night to day; blood in their suns Lights up the living worm. A process in the eye forwarns The bones of blindness; and the womb Drives […]...
36. Sonnet LVIII: In Former Times In former times such as had store of coin, In wars at home, or when for conquests bound, For fear that some their treasure should purloin, Gave it to keep to spirits within the ground, And to attend it them as strongly tied Till they return’d; home when they never came, Such as by art […]...
37. 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, […]...
38. The Scissors-Grinder The old man had his box and wheel For grinding knives and shears. No doubt his bell in village streets Was joy to children’s ears. And I bethought me of my youth When such men came around, And times I asked them in, quite sure The scissors should be ground. The old man turned and […]...
39. Whirls NEITHER rose leaves gathered in a jar-respectably in Boston-these-nor drops of Christ blood for a chalice-decently in Philadelphia or Baltimore. Cinders-these-hissing in a marl and lime of Chicago-also these-the howling of northwest winds across North and South Dakota-or the spatter of winter spray on sea rocks of Kamchatka....
40. This Heart that Flutters Near My Heart This heart that flutters near my heart My hope and all my riches is, Unhappy when we draw apart And happy between kiss and kiss: My hope and all my riches – yes! – And all my happiness. For there, as in some mossy nest The wrens will divers treasures keep, I laid those treasures […]...