To Live

Related poetry:

1. Sonnet 81: Or I shall live your epitaph to make Or I shall live your epitaph to make, Or you survive when I in earth am rotten, From hence your memory death cannot take, Although in me each part will be forgotten. Your name from hence immortal life shall have, Though I, once gone, to all the world must die; The earth can yield me […]...
2. I live with Him I see His face I live with Him I see His face I go no more away For Visitor or Sundown Death’s single privacy The Only One forestalling Mine And that by Right that He Presents a Claim invisible No wedlock granted Me I live with Him I hear His Voice I stand alive Today To witness to the […]...
3. The Human Face I. Soon Of all the springtimes of the world This one is the ugliest Of all of my ways of being To be trusting is the best Grass pushes up snow Like the stone of a tomb But I sleep within the storm And awaken eyes bright Slowness, brief time ends Where all streets must […]...
4. Daybreak In Alabama When I get to be a composer I’m gonna write me some music about Daybreak in Alabama And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist And falling out of heaven like soft dew. I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it And the scent […]...
5. Those not live yet Those not live yet Who doubt to live again “Again” is of a twice But this is one The Ship beneath the Draw Aground is he? Death so the Hyphen of the Sea Deep is the Schedule Of the Disk to be Costumeless Consciousness That is he...
6. People Who Live People who live by the sea Understand eternity. They copy the curves of the waves, Their hearts beat with the tides, & the saltiness of their blood Corresponds with the sea. They know that the house of flesh Is only a sandcastle Built on the shore, That skin breaks Under the waves Like sand under […]...
7. Sonnet 67: Ah, wherefore with infection should he live Ah, wherefore with infection should he live, And with his presence grace impiety, That sin by him advantage should achieve, And lace it self with his society? Why should false painting imitate his cheek, And steal dead seeming of his living hue? Why should poor beauty indirectly seek Roses of shadow, since his rose is […]...
8. Sonnet XXI: Why Do I Live Why do I live to loath the cheerful day, To shun the smiles of Fame, and mark the hours On tardy pinions move, while ceaseless show’rs Down my wan cheek in lucid currents stray? My tresses all abound, nor gems display, Nor scents Arabian! on my path no flow’rs Imbibe the morn’s resuscitating pow’rs, For […]...
9. So Live, So Love, So Use That Fragile Hour SO live, so love, so use that fragile hour, That when the dark hand of the shining power Shall one from other, wife or husband, take, The poor survivor may not weep and wake....
10. A Letter to a Live Poet Sir, since the last Elizabethan died, Or, rather, that more Paradisal muse, Blind with much light, passed to the light more glorious Or deeper blindness, no man’s hand, as thine, Has, on the world’s most noblest chord of song, Struck certain magic strains. Ears satiate With the clamorous, timorous whisperings of to-day, Thrilled to perceive […]...
11. A Prayer to All the Dead among Mine Own People Are these your presences, my clan from Heaven? Are these your hands upon my wounded soul? Mine own, mine own, blood of my blood be with me, Fly by my path till you have made me whole!...
12. Continuing To Live Continuing to live that is, repeat A habit formed to get necessaries Is nearly always losing, or going without. It varies. This loss of interest, hair, and enterprise Ah, if the game were poker, yes, You might discard them, draw a full house! But it’s chess. And once you have walked the length of your […]...
13. Valentine To The Girl In Black In hand I take this pen of mine To write you, sweet, a valentine; I’d take your dainty hand instead, But-you’re a drawing-I am wed- And that is why, you understand, I only take my pen in hand....
14. A Mystic As Soldier I lived my days apart, Dreaming fair songs for God; By the glory in my heart Covered and crowned and shod. Now God is in the strife, And I must seek Him there, Where death outnumbers life, And fury smites the air. I walk the secret way With anger in my brain. O music through […]...
15. A Curse For A Nation I heard an angel speak last night, And he said ‘Write! Write a Nation’s curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea.’ I faltered, taking up the word: ‘Not so, my lord! If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother. ‘For I am bound by gratitude, By love […]...
16. I cannot live with You I cannot live with You It would be Life And Life is over there Behind the Shelf The Sexton keeps the Key to Putting up Our Life His Porcelain Like a Cup Discarded of the Housewife Quaint or Broke A newer Sevres pleases Old Ones crack I could not die with You For One must […]...
17. Fairy Tale Now this is the story of Olaf Who ages and ages ago Lived right on the top of a mountain, A mountain all covered with snow. And he was quite pretty and tiny With beautiful curling fair hair And small hands like delicate flowers Cheeks kissed by the cold mountain air. He lived in a […]...
18. To a Lock of Hair Thy hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright As in that well – remember’d night When first thy mystic braid was wove, And first my Agnes whisper’d love. Since then how often hast thou prest The torrid zone of this wild breast, Whose wrath and hate have sworn to dwell With the first sin that […]...
19. Where We Live Now 1 We live here because the houses Are clean, the lawns run Right to the street And the streets run away. No one walks here. No one wakens at night or dies. The cars sit open-eyed In the driveways. The lights are on all day. 2 At home forever, she has removed Her long foreign […]...
20. A Watch In The Night Watchman, what of the night? – Storm and thunder and rain, Lights that waver and wane, Leaving the watchfires unlit. Only the balefires are bright, And the flash of the lamps now and then From a palace where spoilers sit, Trampling the children of men. Prophet, what of the night? – I stand by the […]...
21. In The Well My father cinched the rope, A noose around my waist, And lowered me into The darkness. I could taste My fear. It tasted first Of dark, then earth, then rot. I swung and struck my head And at that moment got Another then: then blood, Which spiked my mouth with iron. Hand over hand, my […]...
22. Sleepless If I could have your arms tonight- But half the world and the broken sea Lie between you and me. The autumn rain reverberates in the courtyard, Beating all night against the barren stone, The sound of useless rain in the desolate courtyard Makes me more alone. If you were here, if you were only […]...
23. Lord Let Me Live Lord, let me live, that more and more Your wonder world I may adore; With every dawn to grow and grow Alive to graciousness aglow; And every eve in beauty see Reason for rhapsody. Lord, let me bide, that I may prove The buoyant brightness of my love For sapphire sea and lyric sky And […]...
24. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
25. Mentana : First Anniversary At the time when the stars are grey, And the gold of the molten moon Fades, and the twilight is thinned, And the sun leaps up, and the wind, A light rose, not of the day, A stronger light than of noon. As the light of a face much loved Was the face of the […]...
26. The House Of Dust: Part 03: 02: The Screen Maiden You read-what is it, then that you are reading? What music moves so silently in your mind? Your bright hand turns the page. I watch you from my window, unsuspected: You move in an alien land, a silent age. . . . . . The poet-what was his name-? Tokkei-Tokkei- The poet walked alone in […]...
27. To Live Merrily, And To Trust To Good Verses Now is the time for mirth, Nor cheek or tongue be dumb; For with the flow’ry earth The golden pomp is come. The golden pomp is come; For now each tree does wear, Made of her pap and gum, Rich beads of amber here. Now reigns the rose, and now Th’ Arabian dew besmears My […]...
28. 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 […]...
29. Live Live or die, but don’t poison everything… Well, death’s been here For a long time It has a hell of a lot To do with hell And suspicion of the eye And the religious objects And how I mourned them When they were made obscene By my dwarf-heart’s doodle. The chief ingredient Is mutilation. And […]...
30. Rebirth If any God should say, “I will restore The world her yesterday Whole as before My Judgment blasted it” who would not lift Heart, eye, and hand in passion o’er the gift? If any God should will To wipe from mind The memory of this ill Which is Mankind In soul and substance now who […]...
31. Footsteps of Angels When the hours of Day are numbered, And the voices of the Night Wake the better soul, that slumbered, To a holy, calm delight; Ere the evening lamps are lighted, And, like phantoms grim and tall, Shadows from the fitful firelight Dance upon the parlor wall; Then the forms of the departed Enter at the […]...
32. The Last Judgment With beating heart and lagging feet, Lord, I approach the Judgment-seat. All bring hither the fruits of toil, Measures of wheat and measures of oil; Gold and jewels and precious wine; No hands bare like these hands of mine. The treasure I have nor weighs nor gleams: Lord, I can bring you only dreams. In […]...
33. The Touch For months my hand was sealed off In a tin box. Nothing was there but the subway railings. Perhaps it is bruised, I thought, And that is why they have locked it up. You could tell time by this, I thought, Like a clock, by its five knuckles And the thin underground veins. It lay […]...
34. Denied The winds came out of the west one day, And hurried the clouds before them; And drove the shadows and mists away, And over the mountains bore them. And I wept, ‘Oh, wind, blow into my mind, Blow into my soul and heart, And scatter the clouds that hang lile shrouds, And make the shadows […]...
35. Byzantium The unpurged images of day recede; The Emperor’s drunken soldiery are abed; Night resonance recedes, night walkers’ song After great cathedral gong; A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains All that man is, All mere complexities, The fury and the mire of human veins. Before me floats an image, man or shade, Shade more than […]...
36. 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 […]...
37. The Temple To leave the earth was my wish, and no will stayed my rising. Early, before sun had filled the roads with carts Conveying folk to weddings and to murders; Before men left their selves of sleep, to wander In the dark of the world like whipped beasts. I took no pack. I had no horse, […]...
38. The Book of Urizen: Chapter III 1. The voice ended, they saw his pale visage Emerge from the darkness; his hand On the rock of eternity unclasping The Book of brass. Rage siez’d the strong 2. Rage, fury, intense indignation In cataracts of fire blood & gall In whirlwinds of sulphurous smoke: And enormous forms of energy; All the seven deadly […]...
39. Considering The Snail The snail pushes through a green Night, for the grass is heavy With water and meets over The bright path he makes, where rain Has darkened the earth’s dark. He Moves in a wood of desire, Pale antlers barely stirring As he hunts. I cannot tell What power is at work, drenched there With purpose, […]...
40. The Rain and the Wind The rain and the wind, the wind and the rain They are with us like a disease: They worry the heart, they work the brain, As they shoulder and clutch at the shrieking pane, And savage the helpless trees. What does it profit a man to know These tattered and tumbling skies A million stately […]...