Modesties

Related poetry:

1. Shuffle-Shoon and Amber-Locks Shuffle-Shoon and Amber-Locks Sit together, building blocks; Shuffle-Shoon is old and grey, Amber-Locks a little child, But together at their play Age and Youth are reconciled, And with sympathetic glee Build their castles fair to see. “When I grow to be a man” (So the wee one’s prattle ran), “I shall build a castle so […]...
2. Cheery Beggar Beyond Mбgdalen and by the Bridge, on a place called there the Plain, In Summer, in a burst of summertime Following falls and falls of rain, When the air was sweet-and-sour of the flown fineflower of Those goldnails and their gaylinks that hang along a lime; . . . . . . . . The […]...
3. You Remain As a perfume doth remain In the folds where it hath lain, So the thought of you, remaining Deeply folded in my brain, Will not leave me; all things leave me – You remain. Other thoughts may come and go, Other moments I may know That shall waft me, in their going, As a breath […]...
4. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
5. Saturday Paseo: Adelina Oranges Do not grow in the sea Neither is there love in Sevilla. You in Dark and the I the sun that’s hot, Loan me your parasol. I’ll wear my jealous reflection, Juice of lemon and lime- And your words, Your sinful little words- Will swim around awhile. Oranges Do not grow in the sea, […]...
6. Sonnet 85: My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise, richly compiled, Reserve their character with golden quill, And precious phrase by all the Muses filed. I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words, And like unlettered clerk still cry “Amen” To every hymn that able spirit affords In polished form […]...
7. Sonnet LXXXV My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still, While comments of your praise, richly compiled, Reserve their character with golden quill And precious phrase by all the Muses filed. I think good thoughts whilst other write good words, And like unletter’d clerk still cry ‘Amen’ To every hymn that able spirit affords In polish’d form […]...
8. Love Again Love again: wanking at ten past three (Surely he’s taken her home by now?), The bedroom hot as a bakery, The drink gone dead, without showing how To meet tomorrow, and afterwards, And the usual pain, like dysentery. Someone else feeling her breasts and cunt, Someone else drowned in that lash-wide stare, And me supposed […]...
9. Sonnet 69: Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend; All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due, Utt’ring bare truth, even so as foes commend. Thy outward thus with outward praise is crowned, But those same tongues that give thee so thine own […]...
10. Sonnet LXIX Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend; All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due, Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend. Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown’d; But those same tongues that give thee so thine own […]...
11. Said The Poet To The Analyst My business is words. Words are like labels, Or coins, or better, like swarming bees. I confess I am only broken by the sources of things; As if words were counted like dead bees in the attic, Unbuckled from their yellow eyes and their dry wings. I must always forget who one words is able […]...
12. Resolve Build on resolve, and not upon regret, The structure of thy future. Do not grope Among the shadows of old sins, but let Thine own soul’s light shine on the path of hope And dissipate the darkness. Waste no tears Upon the blotted record of lost years, But turn the leaf, and smile, oh! smile, […]...
13. Words I had this thought a while ago, ‘My darling cannot understand What I have done, or what would do In this blind bitter land.’ And I grew weary of the sun Until my thoughts cleared up again, Remembering that the best I have done Was done to make it plain; That every year I have […]...
14. The Beer Was Cold Enough It is amazing, while I lay in bed, I had the lines Roaring through my head like locusts on the wing, The unabashed extravagance of such a flock Of stunning words shocked me out of brittle sleep; And sleep avoids me now like something way too out of vogue, So I rise and try to […]...
15. TO THE GENIUS OF HIS HOUSE Command the roof, great Genius, and from thence Into this house pour down thy influence, That through each room a golden pipe may run Of living water by thy benizon; Fulfil the larders, and with strength’ning bread Be ever-more these bins replenished. Next, like a bishop consecrate my ground, That lucky fairies here may dance […]...
16. Lesson In Grammar THE SENTENCE Perhaps I can make it plain by analogy. Imagine a machine, not yet assembled, Each part being quite necessary To the functioning of the whole: if the job is fumbled And a vital piece mislaid The machine is quite valueless, The workers will not be paid. It is just the same when constructing […]...
17. The Flower Shop Because I have no garden and No pence to buy, Before the flower shop I stand And sigh. The beauty of the Springtide spills In glowing posies Of voilets and daffodils And roses. And as I see that joy of bloom, Sad sighing, I think of Mother in her room, Lone lying. She babbles of […]...
18. Pain In Pleasure A THOUGHT ay like a flower upon mine heart, And drew around it other thoughts like bees For multitude and thirst of sweetnesses; Whereat rejoicing, I desired the art Of the Greek whistler, who to wharf and mart Could lure those insect swarms from orange-trees That I might hive with me such thoughts and please […]...
19. Sin's Round Sorry I am, my God, sorry I am, That my offences course it in a ring. My thoughts are working like a busy flame, Until their cockatrice they hatch and bring: And when they once have perfected their draughts, My words take fire from my inflamed thoughts. My words take fire fro m my inflamed […]...
20. "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 […]...
21. 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 […]...
22. The Jester There are three degrees of bliss At the foot of Allah’s Throne And the highest place is his Who saves a brother’s soul At peril of his own. There is the Power made known! There are three degrees of bliss In Garden of Paradise, And the second place is his Who saves his brother’s soul […]...
23. Sleep is supposed to be Sleep is supposed to be By souls of sanity The shutting of the eye. Sleep is the station grand Down which, on either hand The hosts of witness stand! Morn is supposed to be By people of degree The breaking of the Day. Morning has not occurred! That shall Aurora be East of Eternity One […]...
24. CURFEW I. Solemnly, mournfully, Dealing its dole, The Curfew Bell Is beginning to toll. Cover the embers, And put out the light; Toil comes with the morning, And rest with the night. Dark grow the windows, And quenched is the fire; Sound fades into silence, All footsteps retire. No voice in the chambers, No sound in […]...
25. Weeds FROM the time of the early radishes To the time of the standing corn Sleepy Henry Hackerman hoes. There are laws in the village against weeds. The law says a weed is wrong and shall be killed. The weeds say life is a white and lovely thing And the weeds come on and on in […]...
26. A Late Walk When I go up through the mowing field, The headless aftermath, Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew, Half closes the garden path. And when I come to the garden ground, The whir of sober birds Up from the tangle of withered weeds Is sadder than any words A tree beside the wall stands bare, […]...
27. MY PERFECT ROSE At ten she came to me, three years ago, There was ‘something between us’ even then; Watching her write like Eliot every day, Turn prose into haiku in ten minutes flat, Write a poem in Greek three weeks from learning the alphabet; Then translate it as ‘Sun on a tomb, gold place, small sacred horse’. […]...
28. The Mower's Song My Mind was once the true survey Of all these Medows fresh and gay; And in the greenness of the Grass Did see its Hopes as in a Glass; When Juliana came, and she What I do to the Grass, does to my Thoughts and Me. But these, while I with Sorrow pine, Grew more […]...
29. Good Friday in my Heart GOOD FRIDAY in my heart! Fear and affright! My thoughts are the Disciples when they fled, My words the words that priest and soldier said, My deed the spear to desecrate the dead. And day, Thy death therein, is changed to night. Then Easter in my heart sends up the sun. My thoughts are Mary, […]...
30. Talisman it is written The act of writing is Holy words are Sacred and your breath Brings out the God in them I write these words Quickly repeat them Softly to myself This talisman for you Fold this prayer Around your neck fortify Your back with these Whispers May you walk ever Loved and in love […]...
31. The Chatterbox From morning till night it was Lucy’s delight To chatter and talk without stopping: There was not a day but she rattled away, Like water for ever a-dropping. No matter at all if the subjects were small, Or not worth the trouble of saying, ‘Twas equal to her, she would talking prefer To working, or […]...
32. The Child Is Father To The Man ‘The child is father to the man.’ How can he be? The words are wild. Suck any sense from that who can: ‘The child is father to the man.’ No; what the poet did write ran, ‘The man is father to the child.’ ‘The child is father to the man!’ How can he be? The […]...
33. The Pains Of Sleep Ere on my bed my limbs I lay, It hath not been my use to pray With moving lips or bended knees ; But silently, by slow degrees, My spirit I to Love compose, In humble trust mine eye-lids close, With reverential resignation, No wish conceived, no thought exprest, Only a sense of supplication ; […]...
34. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 5. Sometimes I Hold it half a Sin I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within. But, for the unquiet heart and brain, A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise, Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. In words, like weeds, I’ll wrap […]...
35. Belated Conscience To buy for school a copy-book I asked my Dad for two-pence; He gave it with a gentle look, Although he had but few pence. ‘Twas then I proved myself a crook And came a moral cropper, I bought a penny copy-book And blued the other copper. I spent it on a sausage roll Gulped […]...
36. October Ay, thou art welcome, heaven’s delicious breath! When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf, And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief And the year smiles as it draws near its death. Wind of the sunny south! oh, still delay In the gay woods and in the golden air, Like to a […]...
37. Infirmities Because my teeth are feebly few I cannot bolt my grub like you, But have to chew and chew and chew As you can see; Yet every mouthful seems so good I would not haste it if I could, And so I salivate my food With ecstasy. Because my purse is poor in pence I […]...
38. Carbonara eyes Nicky said I couldn’t write, she’s got a charming Sense of social etiquette – given she’s a bitch (the canine sort, can’t spell for shit or even write A word) but then she has the most expressive eyes. So what she said was no surprise, she’d heard My lamentations, licked my hands, rested forepaws On […]...
39. The Hangman's Great Hands And all that is this day. . . The boy with cap slung over what had been a face. .. Somehow the cop will sleep tonight, will make love to his Wife… Anger won’t help. I was born angry. Angry that my father was Being burnt alive in the mills; Angry that none of us […]...
40. The God Of Common-Sense My Daddy used to wallop me for every small offense: “Its takes a hair-brush back,” said he, “to teach kids common-sense.” And still to-day I scarce can look a hair-brush in the face. Without I want in sympathy to pat a tender place. For Dad declared with unction: “Spare the brush and spoil the brat.” […]...