For Sidney Bechet

Related poetry:

1. PUBLISHERS And then they pretend like owls With marble eyes and wizened stupidity I do not know why they cannot perceive True art But I will write Until sand evaporates And the moon consumes the sun I will write Even for the sake of art For myself and for those who feel Reading could lift them […]...
2. A Superscription On Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, Sent For A Token Whatever in Philoclea the fair Or the discreet Pamela figur’d are, Change but the name the virtues are your owne, And for a fiction there a truth is knowne: If any service here perform’d you see, If duty and affection paynted bee Within these leaves: may you be pleas’d to know They only shadow what […]...
3. Sir Philip Sidney – Astrophel and Stella: XXIII The curious wits, seeing dull pensiveness Bewray itself in my long-settl’d eyes, Whence those same fumes of melancholy rise, With idle pains and missing aim do guess. Some, that know how my spring I did address, Deem that my Muse some fruit of knowledge plies; Others, because the prince my service tries, Think that I […]...
4. Mr. Brain Mr Brain was a hermit dwarf who liked to eat shellfish off The moon. He liked to go into a tree then because there is a Little height to see a little further, which may reveal now the Stone, a pebble it is a twig, it is nothing under the moon that You can make […]...
5. You love the Lord you cannot see You love the Lord you cannot see You write Him every day A little note when you awake And further in the Day. An Ample Letter How you miss And would delight to see But then His House is but a Step And Mine’s in Heaven You see....
6. Nadir If we must cheat ourselves with any dream, Then let it be a dream of nobleness: Since it is necessary to express Gall from black grapes to sew an endless seam With a rusty needle chase a spurious gleam Narrowing to the nothing through the less Since life’s no better than a bitter guess, And […]...
7. For A Poet I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth, And laid them away in a box of gold; Where long will cling the lips of the moth, I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth; I hide no hate; I am not even wroth Who found the earth’s breath so keen and cold; I […]...
8. What Has Happened? The industrialist is having his aeroplane serviced. The priest is wondering what he said in his sermon eight weeks ago About tithes. The generals are putting on civvies and looking like bank clerks. Public officials are getting friendly. The policeman points out the way to the man in the cloth cap. The landlord comes to […]...
9. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
10. Sonnet XV YE tradefull Merchants that with weary toyle, Do seeke most pretious things to make your gain: And both the Indias of their treasures spoile, What needeth you to seeke so farre in vaine? For loe my loue doth in her selfe containe All this worlds riches that may farre be found, If Saphyres, loe her […]...
11. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
12. Sonnet 38 – First time he kissed me, he but only kissed First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’ When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. […]...
13. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
14. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
15. CANZONET I have no store Of gryphon-guarded gold; Now, as before, Bare is the shepherd’s fold. Rubies nor pearls Have I to gem thy throat; Yet woodland girls Have loved the shepherd’s note. Then pluck a reed And bid me sing to thee, For I would feed Thine ears with melody, Who art more fair Than […]...
16. The Three Hermits Three old hermits took the air By a cold and desolate sea, First was muttering a prayer, Second rummaged for a flea; On a windy stone, the third, Giddy with his hundredth year, Sang unnoticed like a bird: ‘Though the Door of Death is near And what waits behind the door, Three times in a […]...
17. Confessions Wanting to know all I overlooked each particle Containing the whole Unknowable. Intent on one great love, perfect, Requited and for ever, I missed love’s everywhere Small presence, thousand-guised. And lifelong have been reading Book after book, searching For wisdom, but bringing Only my own understanding. Forgive me, forgiver, Whether you be infinite omniscient Or […]...
18. For A Coming Extinction Gray whale Now that we are sinding you to The End That great god Tell him That we who follow you invented forgiveness And forgive nothing I write as though you could understand And I could say it One must always pretend something Among the dying When you have left the seas nodding on their […]...
19. First Sight Lambs that learn to walk in snow When their bleating clouds the air Meet a vast unwelcome, know Nothing but a sunless glare. Newly stumbling to and fro All they find, outside the fold, Is a wretched width of cold. As they wait beside the ewe, Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies Hidden round them, […]...
20. Letter Home New Orleans, November 1910 Four weeks have passed since I left, and still I must write to you of no work. I’ve worn down The soles and walked through the tightness Of my new shoes calling upon the merchants, Their offices bustling. All the while I kept thinking My plain English and good writing would […]...
21. Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride? Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my […]...
22. Dear Reader Baudelaire considers you his brother, And Fielding calls out to you every few paragraphs As if to make sure you have not closed the book, And now I am summoning you up again, Attentive ghost, dark silent figure standing In the doorway of these words. Pope welcomes you into the glow of his study, Takes […]...
23. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
24. Vanity My tangoing seemed to delight her; With me it was love at first sight. I mentioned That I was a writer: She asked me: “What is it you write?” “Oh, only best-sellers,” I told her. Their titles? . . . She shook her blonde head; The atmosphere seemed to grow colder: Not one of my […]...
25. "I Love You Sweatheart&quot A man risked his life to write the words. A man hung upside down (an idiot friend Holding his legs?) with spray paint To write the words on a girder fifty feet above A highway. And his beloved, The next morning driving to work…? His words are not (meant to be) so unique. Does she […]...
26. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
27. Circumstantial Evidence She does not mind a good cigar (The kind, that is, I smoke); She thinks all men quite stupid are, (But laughs whene’er I joke). She says she does not care for verse (But praises all I write); She says that punning is a curse, (But then mine are so bright!) She does not like […]...
28. The most important population The most important population Unnoticed dwell, They have a heaven each instant Not any hell. Their names, unless you know them, ‘Twere useless tell. Of bumble-bees and other nations The grass is full....
29. 'Tis little I could care for Pearls ‘Tis little I could care for Pearls Who own the ample sea Or Brooches when the Emperor With Rubies pelteth me Or Gold who am the Prince of Mines Or Diamonds when have I A Diadem to fit a Dom Continual upon me...
30. Dead man's clothes Growing up, I propose, Is like wearing a dead man’s clothes. Death has a way of levelling the ground. I have found the closer your relationship The closer the fit; The unsettling bit is the fear Of not fitting the role, or where Your forbear made a name or leashed A reputation, which by imputation […]...
31. The Missal Makers To visit the Escurial We took a motor bus, And there a guide mercurial Took charge of us. He showed us through room after room, And talked hour after hour, Of place, crypt and royal tomb, Of pomp and power. But in bewilderment of grace What pleased me most of all Were ancient missals proud […]...
32. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
33. The Mountains grow unnoticed The Mountains grow unnoticed Their Purple figures rise Without attempt Exhaustion Assistance or Applause In Their Eternal Faces The Sun with just delight Looks long and last and golden For fellowship at night...
34. I think the longest Hour of all I think the longest Hour of all Is when the Cars have come And we are waiting for the Coach It seems as though the Time Indignant that the Joy was come Did block the Gilded Hands And would not let the Seconds by But slowest instant ends The Pendulum begins to count Like little […]...
35. A Birthday Song. To S. G For ever wave, for ever float and shine Before my yearning eyes, oh! dream of mine Wherein I dreamed that time was like a vine, A creeping rose, that clomb a height of dread Out of the sea of Birth, all filled with dead, Up to the brilliant cloud of Death o’erhead. This vine bore […]...
36. Lines and Squares Whenever I walk in a London street, I’m ever so careful to watch my feet; And I keep in the squares, And the masses of bears, Who wait at the corners all ready to eat The sillies who tread on the lines of the street Go back to their lairs, And I say to them, […]...
37. It Is March It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With […]...
38. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
39. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
40. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...