Easter Day

Related poetry:

1. Postponement SNOW-BOUND in woodland, a mournful word, Dropt now and then from the bill of a bird, Reached me on wind-wafts; and thus I heard, Wearily waiting: “I planned her a nest in a leafless tree, But the passers eyed and twitted me, And said: ‘How reckless a bird is he, Cheerily mating!’ “Fear-filled, I stayed […]...
2. Early Moon THE BABY moon, a canoe, a silver papoose canoe, sails and sails in the Indian west. A ring of silver foxes, a mist of silver foxes, sit and sit around the Indian moon. One yellow star for a runner, and rows of blue stars for more runners, keep a line of watchers. O foxes, baby […]...
3. Range-Finding The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung And cut a flower beside a ground bird’s nest Before it stained a single human breast. The stricken flower bent double and so hung. And still the bird revisited her young. A butterfly its fall had dispossessed A moment sought in air his flower of rest, Then lightly stooped […]...
4. Song V: Through the Trouble and Tangle Love is enough: through the trouble and tangle From yesterday’s dawning to yesterday’s night I sought through the vales where the prisoned winds wrangle, Till, wearied and bleeding, at end of the light I met him, and we wrestled, and great was my might. O great was my joy, though no rest was around me, […]...
5. Rest ON me to rest, my bird, my bird: The swaying branches of my heart Are blown by every wind toward The home whereto their wings depart. Build not your nest, my bird, on me; I know no peace but ever sway: O lovely bird, be free, be free, On the wild music of the day. […]...
6. The Easter Flower Far from this foreign Easter damp and chilly My soul steals to a pear-shaped plot of ground, Where gleamed the lilac-tinted Easter lily Soft-scented in the air for yards around; Alone, without a hint of guardian leaf! Just like a fragile bell of silver rime, It burst the tomb for freedom sweet and brief In […]...
7. HOLY WEEK AT GENOA I wandered through Scoglietto’s far retreat, The oranges on each o’erhanging spray Burned as bright lamps of gold to shame the day; Some startled bird with fluttering wings and fleet Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet Like silver moons the pale narcissi lay: And the curved waves that streaked the great green […]...
8. Easter Week (In memory of Joseph Mary Plunkett) (“Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave.”) William Butler Yeats. “Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave.” Then, Yeats, what gave that Easter dawn A hue so radiantly brave? There was a rain of blood that day, Red rain in gay […]...
9. Easter Morning I have a life that did not become, That turned aside and stopped, Astonished: I hold it in me like a pregnancy or As on my lap a child Not to grow old but dwell on It is to his grave I most Frequently return and return To ask what is wrong, what was Wrong, […]...
10. Sonnet On Hearing The Dies Irae Sung In The Sistine Chapel Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring, Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove, Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love Than terrors of red flame and thundering. The hillside vines dear memories of Thee bring: A bird at evening flying to its nest Tells me of One who had no place of […]...
11. Escape When foxes eat the last gold grape, And the last white antelope is killed, I shall stop fighting and escape Into a little house I’ll build. But first I’ll shrink to fairy size, With a whisper no one understands, Making blind moons of all your eyes, And muddy roads of all your hands. And you […]...
12. The Wistful One I sought the trails of South and North, I wandered East and West; But pride and passion drove me forth And would not let me rest. And still I seek, as still I roam, A snug roof overhead; Four walls, my own; a quiet home. . . . “You’ll have it when you’re dead.”...
13. The Quest I sought Him on the purple seas, I sought Him on the peaks aflame; Amid the gloom of giant trees And canyons lone I called His name; The wasted ways of earth I trod: In vain! In vain! I found not God. I sought Him in the hives of men, The cities grand, the hamlets […]...
14. Aunt Leaf Needing one, I invented her – The great-great-aunt dark as hickory Called Shining-Leaf, or Drifting-Cloud Or The-Beauty-of-the-Night. Dear aunt, I’d call into the leaves, And she’d rise up, like an old log in a pool, And whisper in a language only the two of us knew The word that meant follow, And we’d travel Cheerful […]...
15. Elegy Since I lost you, my darling, the sky has come near, And I am of it, the small sharp stars are quite near, The white moon going among them like a white bird among snow-berries, And the sound of her gently rustling in heaven like a bird I hear. And I am willing to come […]...
16. The Caged Skylark As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage Man’s mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells- That bird beyond the remembering his free fells; This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life’s age. Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage, Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells, Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in […]...
17. The Lover's Song Bird sighs for the air, Thought for I know not where, For the womb the seed sighs. Now sinks the same rest On mind, on nest, On straining thighs....
18. A Birthday My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a water’d shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these Because my love is come to me. Raise […]...
19. Captivity The lion remembers the forest, The lion in chains; To the bird that is captive a vision Of woodland remains. One strains with his strength at the fetter, In impotent rage; One flutters in flights of a moment, And beats at the cage. If the lion were loosed from the fetter, To wander again; He […]...
20. The Road to Avignon A Minstrel stands on a marble stair, Blown by the bright wind, debonair; Below lies the sea, a sapphire floor, Above on the terrace a turret door Frames a lady, listless and wan, But fair for the eye to rest upon. The minstrel plucks at his silver strings, And looking up to the lady, sings: […]...
21. When I was a Bird I climbed up the karaka tree Into a nest all made of leaves But soft as feathers. I made up a song that went on singing all by itself And hadn’t any words, but got sad at the end. There were daisies in the grass under the tree. I said just to try them: “I’ll […]...
22. Tinuviel The leaves were long, the grass was green, The hemlock-umbels tall and fair, And in the glade a light was seen Of stars in shadow shimmering. Tinuviel was dancing there To music of a pipe unseen, And light of stars was in her hair, And in her raiment glimmering. There Beren came from mountains cold, […]...
23. Night Stuff LISTEN a while, the moon is a lovely woman, a lonely woman, lost in a silver dress, lost in a circus rider’s silver dress. Listen a while, the lake by night is a lonely woman, a lovely woman, circled with birches and pines mixing their green and white among stars shattered in spray clear nights. […]...
24. VI. Evening, as slow thy placid shades descend EVENING, as slow thy placid shades descend, Veiling with gentlest hush the landscape still, The lonely battlement, and farthest hill And wood; I think of those that have no friend; Who now perhaps, by melancholy led, From the broad blaze of day, where pleasure flaunts, Retiring, wander ‘mid thy lonely haunts Unseen; and mark the […]...
25. Retired Shopman He had the grocer’s counter-stoop, That little man so grey and neat; His moustache had a doleful droop, He hailed me in the slushy street. “I’ve sold my shop,” he said to me, Cupping his hand behind his ear. “My deafness got so bad, you see, Folks had to shout to make me hear.” He […]...
26. This heart that broke so long This heart that broke so long These feet that never flagged This faith that watched for star in vain, Give gently to the dead Hound cannot overtake the Hare That fluttered panting, here Nor any schoolboy rob the nest Tenderness builded there....
27. Easter Rise, heart, thy lord is risen. Sing his praise Without delays, Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise With him may’st rise: That, as his death calcinиd thee to dust, His life may make thee gold, and, much more, just. Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part With all thy art, The […]...
28. Easter Hymn Make no mistake; there will be no forgiveness; No voice can harm you and no hand will save; Fenced by the magic of deliberate darkness You walk on the sharp edges of the wave; Trouble with soul again the putrefaction Where Lazarus three days rotten lies content. Your human tears will be the seed of […]...
29. Sonnet XXVI: Where Antique Woods Where antique woods o’er-hang the mountains’s crest, And mid-day glooms in solemn silence lour; Philosophy, go seek a lonely bow’r, And waste life’s fervid noon in fancied rest. Go, where the bird of sorrow weaves her nest, Cooing, in sadness sweet, through night’s dim hour; Go, cull the dew-drops from each potent flow’r That med’cines […]...
30. Easter Morning a stone at dawn Cold water in the basin These walls’ rough plaster Imageless After the hammering Of so much insistence On the need for naming After the travesties That passed as faces, Grace: the unction Of sheer nonexistence Upwelling in this Hyacinthine freshet Of the unnamed The faceless...
31. Easter Communion Pure fasted faces draw unto this feast: God comes all sweetness to your Lenten lips. You striped in secret with breath-taking whips, Those crooked rough-scored chequers may be pieced To crosses meant for Jesu’s; you whom the East With draught of thin and pursuant cold so nips Breathe Easter now; you serged fellowships, You vigil-keepers […]...
32. Easter Bring flowers to strew His way, Yea, sing, make holiday; Bid young lambs leap, And earth laugh after sleep. For now He cometh forth Winter flies to the north, Folds wings and cries Amid the bergs and ice. Yea, Death, great Death is dead, And Life reigns in his stead; Cometh the Athlete New from […]...
33. Easter Wings Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store, Though foolishly he lost the same, Decaying more and more, Till he became Most poor: With thee O let me rise As larks, harmoniously, And sing this day thy victories: Then shall the fall further the flight in me. My tender age in sorrow did begin: And […]...
34. Easter Song I Got me flowers to straw Thy way, I got me boughs off many a tree; But Thou wast up by break of day, And brought’st Thy sweets along with Thee. The sunne arising in the East, Though he give light, and th’ East perfume, If they should offer to contest With Thy arising, they […]...
35. Easter Zunday Last Easter Jim put on his blue Frock cwoat, the vu’st time-vier new; Wi’ yollow buttons all o’ brass, That glitter’d in the zun lik’ glass; An’ pok’d ‘ithin the button-hole A tutty he’d a-begg’d or stole. A span-new wes-co’t, too, he wore, Wi’ yellow stripes all down avore; An’ tied his breeches’ lags below […]...
36. Easter, 1916 I have met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth-century houses. I have passed with a nod of the head Or polite meaningless words, Or have lingered awhile and said Polite meaningless words, And thought before I had done Of a mocking tale or a gibe […]...
37. Easter Week See the land, her Easter keeping, Rises as her Maker rose. Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping, Burst at last from winter snows. Earth with heaven above rejoices; Fields and gardens hail the spring; Shaughs and woodlands ring with voices, While the wild birds build and sing. You, to whom your Maker granted Powers to […]...
38. Easter MOST glorious Lord of Lyfe! that, on this day, Didst make Thy triumph over death and sin; And, having harrowd hell, didst bring away Captivity thence captive, us to win: This joyous day, deare Lord, with joy begin; And grant that we, for whom thou diddest dye, Being with Thy deare blood clene washt from […]...
39. Ambition They brought the mighty chief to town; They showed him strange, unwonted sights; Yet as he wandered up and down, He seemed to scorn their vain delights. His face was grim, his eye lacked fire, As one who mourns a glory dead; And when they sought his heart’s desire: “Me like’um tooth same gold,” he […]...
40. History History has to live with what was here, Clutching and close to fumbling all we had It is so dull and gruesome how we die, Unlike writing, life never finishes. Abel was finished; death is not remote, A flash-in-the-pan electrifies the skeptic, His cows crowding like skulls against high-voltage wire, His baby crying all night […]...