Fable

Related poetry:

1. The Vine & Oak, A Fable A vine from noblest lineage sprung And with the choicest clusters hung, In purple rob’d, reclining lay, And catch’d the noontide’s fervid ray; The num’rous plants that deck the field Did all the palm of beauty yield; Pronounc’d her fairest of their train And hail’d her empress of the plain. A neighb’ring oak whose spiry […]...
2. Carry On It’s easy to fight when everything’s right, And you’re mad with the thrill and the glory; It’s easy to cheer when victory’s near, And wallow in fields that are gory. It’s a different song when everything’s wrong, When you’re feeling infernally mortal; When it’s ten against one, and hope there is none, Buck up, little […]...
3. The wanderer Upon a mountain height, far from the sea, I found a shell, And to my listening ear the lonely thing Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell. How came the shell upon that mountain height? Ah, who can say Whether there dropped by some too careless […]...
4. Fable Oh, there once was a lady, and so I’ve been told, Whose lover grew weary, whose lover grew cold. “My child,” he remarked, “though our episode ends, In the manner of men, I suggest we be friends.” And the truest of friends ever after they were- Oh, they lied in their teeth when they told […]...
5. A Fable Securely sunning in a forest glade, A mild, well-meaning snake Approved the adaptations he had made For safety’s sake. He liked the skin he had- Its mottled camouflage, its look of mail, And was content that he had thought to add A rattling tail. The tail was not for drumming up a fight; No, nothing […]...
6. Bone-fable one morning the bone was there Set in the centre of waste ground Against the early morning sun The frost along its concave rim Sparkled – raised a hundredfold The price a passing dog Would place on it but the dogs Who came (barking amongst themselves About the food shining at them Across the rubbled […]...
7. The Crane & The Fox, a Fable In long gone years a fox and crane Were bound in friendship’s golden chain; Whene’er they met, the fox would bow And madame Crane would curtsie low- -My lovely Crane how do you do? -I’m very well – pray how are you? Thus time passed on, both very civil Till Reynard in an hour evil […]...
8. 548. The Dean of Faculty: A new Ballad DIRE was the hate at old Harlaw, That Scot to Scot did carry; And dire the discord Langside saw For beauteous, hapless Mary: But Scot to Scot ne’er met so hot, Or were more in fury seen, Sir, Than ‘twixt Hal and Bob for the famous job, Who should be the Faculty’s Dean, Sir. This […]...
9. I Remember Galileo I remember Galileo describing the mind As a piece of paper blown around by the wind, And I loved the sight of it sticking to a tree, Or jumping into the backseat of a car, And for years I watched paper leap through my cities; But yesterday I saw the mind was a squirrel caught […]...
10. A Message to Commissioner Li At Zizhou From ten thousand valleys the trees touch heaven; On a thousand peaks cuckoos are calling; And, after a night of mountain rain, From each summit come hundreds of silken cascades. …If girls are asked in tribute the fibre they weave, Or farmers quarrel over taro fields, Preside as wisely as Wenweng did…. Is fame to […]...
11. The Meditation Of The Old Fisherman You waves, though you dance by my feet like children at play, Though you glow and you glance, though you purr and you dart; In the Junes that were warmer than these are, the waves were more gay, When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart. The herring are not in […]...
12. Super Samson Simpson I am Super Samson Simpson, I’m superlatively strong, I like to carry elephants, I do it all day long, I pick up half a dozen And hoist them in the air, It’s really somewhat simple, For I have strength to spare. My muscles are enormous, They bulge from top to toe, And when I carry […]...
13. Anthem The birds they sang At the break of day Start again I heard them say Don’t dwell on what Has passed away Or what is yet to be. Ah the wars they will Be fought again The holy dove She will be caught again Bought and sold And bought again The dove is never free. […]...
14. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
15. Well Water What a girl called “the dailiness of life” (Adding an errand to your errand. Saying, “Since you’re up. . .” Making you a means to A means to a means to) is well water Pumped from an old well at the bottom of the world. The pump you pump the water from is rusty And […]...
16. The Opening and the Close The Opening and the Close Of Being, are alike Or differ, if they do, As Bloom upon a Stalk. That from an equal Seed Unto an equal Bud Go parallel, perfected In that they have decayed....
17. Out Back The old year went, and the new returned, in the withering weeks of drought, The cheque was spent that the shearer earned, And the sheds were all cut out; The publican’s words were short and few, And the publican’s looks were black And the time had come, as the shearer knew, to carry his swag […]...
18. 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...
19. The Three Sorts of Friends (fragment) Though friendships differ endless in degree, The sorts, methinks, may be reduced to three. Ac quaintance many, and Con quaintance few; But for In quaintance I know only two The friend I’ve mourned with, and the maid I woo!...
20. 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...
21. 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 […]...
22. Those Dancing Days Are Gone Come, let me sing into your ear; Those dancing days are gone, All that silk and satin gear; Crouch upon a stone, Wrapping that foul body up In as foul a rag: I carry the sun in a golden cup. The moon in a silver bag. Curse as you may I sing it through; What […]...
23. The Twelve III Our sons have gone To serve the Reds To serve the Reds To risk their heads! O bitter, bitter pain, Sweet living! A torn overcoat An Austrian gun! -To get the bourgeosie We’ll start a fire A worldwide fire, and drench it In blood – The good Lord bless us! -O you bitter bitterness, […]...
24. 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!...
25. 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 […]...
26. 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...
27. The Moon, how definite its orb! (fragment) The Moon, how definite its orb! Yet gaze again, and with a steady gaze ‘Tis there indeed, but where is it not? It is suffused o’er all the sapphire Heaven, Trees, herbage, snake-like stream, unwrinkled Lake, Whose very murmur does of it partake And low and close the broad smooth mountain Is more a thing […]...
28. Light is sufficient to itself Light is sufficient to itself If Others want to see It can be had on Window Panes Some Hours in the Day. But not for Compensation It holds as large a Glow To Squirrel in the Himmaleh Precisely, as to you....
29. Let Me Not Forget If it is not my portion to meet thee in this life Then let me ever feel that I have missed thy sight – let me not forget for a moment, Let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams And in my wakeful hours. As my days pass in the crowded market […]...
30. As plan for Noon and plan for Night As plan for Noon and plan for Night So differ Life and Death In positive Prospective The Foot upon the Earth At Distance, and Achievement, strains, The Foot upon the Grave Makes effort at conclusion Assisted faint of Love....
31. TRUTH? There are 16 million shades of grey There is no black There is no white You have to draw your own line It may or may not be straight There are always mitigating circumstances Judgement can only be based On passed-down wisdom and self-experience Stopping to take stock Is not an option You can never […]...
32. Wedding Wind The wind blew all my wedding-day, And my wedding-night was the night of the high wind; And a stable door was banging, again and again, That he must go and shut it, leaving me Stupid in candlelight, hearing rain, Seeing my face in the twisted candlestick, Yet seeing nothing. When he came back He said […]...
33. Sestina: Here In Katmandu We have climbed the mountain. There’s nothing more to do. It is terrible to come down To the valley Where, amidst many flowers, One thinks of snow, As formerly, amidst snow, Climbing the mountain, One thought of flowers, Tremulous, ruddy with dew, In the valley. One caught their scent coming down. It is difficult to […]...
34. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
35. Twice had Summer her fair Verdure Twice had Summer her fair Verdure Proffered to the Plain Twice a Winter’s silver Fracture On the Rivers been Two full Autumns for the Squirrel Bounteous prepared Nature, Had’st thou not a Berry For thy wandering Bird?...
36. Cruisers As our mother the Frigate, bepainted and fine, Made play for her bully the Ship of the Line; So we, her bold daughters by iron and fire, Accost and decoy to our masters’ desire. Now, pray you, consider what toils we endure, Night-walking wet sea-lanes, a guard and a lure; Since half of our trade […]...
37. Winter Sleep When against earth a wooden heel Clicks as loud as stone on steel, When stone turns flour instead of flakes, And frost bakes clay as fire bakes, When the hard-bitten fields at last Crack like iron flawed in the cast, When the world is wicked and cross and old, I long to be quit of […]...
38. Attraction The meadow and the mountain with desire Gazed on each other, till a fierce unrest Surged ‘neath the meadow’s seemingly calm breast, And all the mountain’s fissures ran with fire. A mighty river rolled between them there. What could the mountain do but gaze and burn? What could the meadow do but look and yearn, […]...
39. Learning the Trees Before you can learn the trees, you have to learn The language of the trees. That’s done indoors, Out of a book, which now you think of it Is one of the transformations of a tree. The words themselves are a delight to learn, You might be in a foreign land of terms Like samara, […]...
40. Bloom upon the Mountain stated Bloom upon the Mountain stated Blameless of a Name Efflorescence of a Sunset Reproduced the same Seed, had I, my Purple Sowing Should endow the Day Not a Topic of a Twilight Show itself away Who for tilling to the Mountain Come, and disappear Whose be Her Renown, or fading, Witness, is not here While […]...