Sonnet XVI: Mongst All the Creatures

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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. Sonnet 1: From fairest creatures we desire increase From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty’s rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory; But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet […]...
3. Holy Sonnet XII: Why Are We By All Creatures Waited On? Why are we by all creatures waited on? Why do the prodigal elements supply Life and food to me, being more pure than I, Simple, and further from corruption? Why brook’st thou, ignorant horse, subjection? Why dost thou, bull, and bore so seelily, Dissemble weakness, and by one man’s stroke die, Whose whole kind you […]...
4. Sonnet XL: My Heart the Anvil My heart the anvil where my thoughts do beat; My words the hammers fashioning my desire; My breast the forge including all the heat; Love is the fuel which maintains the fire; My sighs the bellows which the flame increaseth, Filling mine ears with noise and nightly groaning; Toiling with pain, my labor never ceaseth, […]...
5. Sonnet 04: Not In This Chamber Only At My Birth Not in this chamber only at my birth- When the long hours of that mysterious night Were over, and the morning was in sight- I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth; And never shall one room contain me quite Who in so many rooms […]...
6. 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 […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. Sonnet LIV: Yet Read at Last Yet read at last the story of my woe, The dreary abstracts of my endless cares, With my life’s sorrow interlined so, Smok’d with my sighs and blotted with my tears, The sad memorials of my miseries, Penn’d in the grief of mine afflicted ghost, My life’s complaint in doleful elegies, With so pure love […]...
9. Winter Night It snowed and snowed, the whole world over, Snow swept the world from end to end. A candle burned on the table; A candle burned. As during summer midges swarm To beat their wings against a flame Out in the yard the snowflakes swarmed To beat against the window pane The blizzard sculptured on the […]...
10. Sonnet CLIV The little Love-god lying once asleep Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, Whilst many nymphs that vow’d chaste life to keep Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand The fairest votary took up that fire Which many legions of true hearts had warm’d; And so the general of hot desire Was sleeping by […]...
11. Sonnet 154: The little Love-god lying once asleep The little love god lying once asleep Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand, The fairest votary took up that fire Which many legions of true hearts had warmed, And so the general of hot desire Was sleeping […]...
12. Sonnet On Approaching Italy I reached the Alps: the soul within me burned, Italia, my Italia, at thy name: And when from out the mountain’s heart I came And saw the land for which my life had yearned, I laughed as one who some great prize had earned: And musing on the marvel of thy fame I watched the […]...
13. My Delight and Thy Delight My delight and thy delight Walking, like two angels white, In the gardens of the night: My desire and thy desire Twining to a tongue of fire, Leaping live, and laughing higher: Thro’ the everlasting strife In the mystery of life. Love, from whom the world begun, Hath the secret of the sun. Love can […]...
14. 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 […]...
15. Sonnet XXXIV: Marvel Not, Love To Admiration Marvel not, Love, though I thy power admire, Ravish’d a world beyond the farthest thought, And knowing more than ever hath been taught, That I am only starv’d in my desire. Marvel not, Love, though I thy power admire, Aiming at things exceeding all perfection, To Wisdom’s self to minister correction, That I […]...
16. Sonnet 30 (Fire And Ice) My love is like to ice, and I to fire: How comes it then that this her cold so great Is not dissolv’d through my so hot desire, But harder grows, the more I her entreat? Or how comes it that my exceeding heat Is not delayed by her heart frozen cold, But that I […]...
17. Sonnet XLV The other two, slight air and purging fire, Are both with thee, wherever I abide; The first my thought, the other my desire, These present-absent with swift motion slide. For when these quicker elements are gone In tender embassy of love to thee, My life, being made of four, with two alone Sinks down to […]...
18. Fire-Caught The gold moth did not love him So, gorgeous, she flew away. But the gray moth circled the flame Until the break of day. And then, with wings like a dead desire, She fell, fire-caught, into the flame....
19. The Alchemist I burned my life, that I may find A passion wholly of the mind, Thought divorced from eye and bone Ecstasy come to breath alone. I broke my life, to seek relief From the flawed light of love and grief. With mounting beat the utter fire Charred existence and desire. It died low, ceased its […]...
20. Sonnet 45: The other two, slight air and purging fire The other two, slight air and purging fire, Are both with thee, wherever I abide; The first my thought, the other my desire, These present-absent with swift motion slide. For when these quicker elements are gone In tender embassy of love to thee, My life, being made of four, with two alone Sinks down to […]...
21. Modern Love XLI: How Many a Thing How many a thing which we cast to the ground, When others pick it up becomes a gem! We grasp at all the wealth it is to them; And by reflected light its worth is found. Yet for us still ’tis nothing! and that zeal Of false appreciation quickly fades. This truth is little known […]...
22. Sonnet LXII: When First I Ended When first I ended, then I first began, The more I travell’d, further from my rest, Where most I lost, there most of all I wan, Pined with hunger rising from a feast. Methinks I fly, yet want I legs to go, Wise in conceit, in act a very sot, Ravish’d with joy amid a […]...
23. Sonnet II: Farewell Song Let me for somewhere I should stroll Bid thee farewell. You, eternal wonder That enthralls my soul, will always tolls Like a muezzin’s serene call yonder. Who can really reckon the lines on the palm? But I must believe in voices that compel That at the end of the tunnel, a day will come When […]...
24. Sonnet LXXXIIII LEt not one sparke of filthy lustfull fyre Breake out, that may her sacred peace molest: Ne one light glance of sensuall desyre: Attempt to work her gentle mindes vnrest. But pure affections bred in spotlesse brest, & modest thoughts breathd fro[m] wel te[m]pred sprites Goe visit her in her bowre of rest, Accompanyde with […]...
25. Makers And Creatures It is a curious experience And one you”re bound to know, though probably In other realms than that of literature, Though I speak of poems now, assuming That you are interested, otherwise, Of course, you wouldn”t be reading this. It is strange to come across a poem In an old magazine, perhaps, and fail At […]...
26. Sonnet 12 Clouds rosy-tinted in the setting sun, Depths of the azure eastern sky between, Plains where the poplar-bordered highways run, Patched with a hundred tints of brown and green, Beauty of Earth, when in thy harmonies The cannon’s note has ceased to be a part, I shall return once more and bring to these The worship […]...
27. What Soft Cherubic Creatures What Soft Cherubic Creatures These Gentlewomen are One would as soon assault a Plush Or violate a Star Such Dimity Convictions A Horror so refined Of freckled Human Nature Of Deity ashamed It’s such a common Glory A Fisherman’s Degree Redemption Brittle Lady Be so ashamed of Thee...
28. Cold-Blooded Creatures Man, the egregious egoist (In mystery the twig is bent) Imagines, by some mental twist, That he alone is sentient Of the intolerable load That on all living creatures lies, Nor stoops to pity in the toad The speechless sorrow of his eyes. He asks no questions of the snake, Nor plumbs the phosphorescent gloom […]...
29. Sonnet LV SO oft as I her beauty doe behold, And therewith doe her cruelty compare: I maruaile of what substance was the mould The which her made attonce so cruell faire. Not earth; for her high thoghts more heauenly are, Not water; for her loue doth burne like fyre: Not ayre; for she is not so […]...
30. Failure Because God put His adamantine fate Between my sullen heart and its desire, I swore that I would burst the Iron Gate, Rise up, and curse Him on His throne of fire. Earth shuddered at my crown of blasphemy, But Love was as a flame about my feet; Proud up the Golden Stair I strode; […]...
31. The Furious Gun The furious gun in his raging ire, When that the bowl is rammed in too sore And that the flame cannot part from the fire, Cracketh in sunder, and in the air doth roar The shivered pieces; right so doth my desire, Whose flame increaseth from more to more, Which to let out I dare […]...
32. Sonnet VIII MOre then most faire, full of the liuing fire, Kindled aboue vnto the maker neere: No eies buy ioyes, in which al powers conspire, That to the world naught else be counted deare. Thrugh your bright beams doth not ye blinded guest, Shoot out his darts to base affections wound: But Angels come to lead […]...
33. Sonnet LX: Define My Weal Define my weal, and tell the joys of Heav’n; Express my woes, and show the pains of Hell; Declare what fate unlucky stars have giv’n, And ask a world upon my life to dwell; Make known the faith that Fortune could not move; Compare myu worth with others’ base desert; Let virtue be the touchstone […]...
34. A Sunrise Song Young palmer sun, that to these shining sands Pourest thy pilgrim’s tale, discoursing still Thy silver passages of sacred lands, With news of Sepulchre and Dolorous Hill, Canst thou be he that, yester-sunset warm, Purple with Paynim rage and wrack desire, Dashed ravening out of a dusty lair of Storm, Harried the west, and set […]...
35. The Other Side of a Mirror I sat before my glass one day, And conjured up a vision bare, Unlike the aspects glad and gay, That erst were found reflected there – The vision of a woman, wild With more than womanly despair. Her hair stood back on either side A face bereft of loveliness. It had no envy now to […]...
36. On Sitting Down To Read King Lear Once Again O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute! Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away! Leave melodizing on this wintry day, Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute: Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute, Betwixt damnation and impassion’d clay Must I burn through; once more humbly assay The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit. Chief Poet! […]...
37. Little Ballads Of Timely Warning; II: On Malicious Cruelty To Harmless Creatures The cruelty of P. L. Brown- (He had ten toes as good as mine) Was known to every one in town, And, if he never harmed a noun, He loved to make verbs shriek and whine. The “To be” family’s just complaints- (Brown had ten toes as good as mine) Made Brown cast off the […]...
38. Written Before Re-Reading King Lear O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute! Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away! Leave melodizing on this wintry day, Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute. Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute Betwixt damnation and impassioned clay Must I burn through; once more humbly assay The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit. Chief Poet! […]...
39. Sonnet XCII: Be Your Words Made Be your words made, good sir, of Indian ware, That you allow me them by so small rate? Or do you cutted Spartans imitate? Or do you mean my tender ears to spare, That to my questions you so total are? When I demand of Phœnix Stella’s state, You say, forsooth, you left her well […]...
40. Sonnet CXV Those lines that I before have writ do lie, Even those that said I could not love you dearer: Yet then my judgment knew no reason why My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer. But reckoning time, whose million’d accidents Creep in ‘twixt vows and change decrees of kings, Tan sacred beauty, blunt the […]...