The Recommendation

Related poetry:

1. Letter Of Recommendation From My Father To My Future Wife During the war, I was in China. Every night we blew the world to hell. The sky was purple and yellow Like his favorite shirt. I was in India once On the Ganges in a tourist boat. There were soldiers, Some women with parasols. A dead body floated by Going in the opposite direction. My […]...
2. The Buyers Father drank himself to death, Quite enjoyed it. Urged to draw a sober breath He’d avoid it. ‘Save your sympathy,’ said Dad; ‘Never sought it. Hob-nail liver, gay and glad, Sure, I bought it.’ Uncle made a heap of dough, Ponies playing. ‘Easy come and easy go,’ Was his saying. Though he died in poverty […]...
3. A Song Lord, when the sense of thy sweet grace Sends up my soul to seek thy face. Thy blessed eyes breed such desire, I dy in love’s delicious Fire. O love, I am thy Sacrifice. Be still triumphant, blessed eyes. Still shine on me, fair suns! that I Still may behold, though still I dy. Though […]...
4. Psalm 69 part 3 Christ’s obedience and death; or, God glorified and sinners saved. Father, I sing thy wondrous grace, I bless my Savior’s name; He bought salvation for the poor, And bore the sinner’s shame. His deep distress has raised us high; His duty and his zeal Fulfilled the law which mortals broke, And finished all thy will. […]...
5. A Song From The Italian (LIMBERHAM: OR, THE KIND KEEPER) By a dismal cypress lying, Damon cried, all pale and dying, Kind is death that ends my pain, But cruel she I lov’d in vain. The mossy fountains Murmur my trouble, And hollow mountains My groans redouble: Ev’ry nymph mourns me, Thus while I languish; She only scorns me, Who […]...
6. Nothing To Be Said For nations vague as weed, For nomads among stones, Small-statured cross-faced tribes And cobble-close families In mill-towns on dark mornings Life is slow dying. So are their separate ways Of building, benediction, Measuring love and money Ways of slow dying. The day spent hunting pig Or holding a garden-party, Hours giving evidence Or birth, advance […]...
7. Too scanty 'twas to die for you Too scanty ’twas to die for you, The merest Greek could that. The living, Sweet, is costlier I offer even that The Dying, is a trifle, past, But living, this include The dying multifold without The Respite to be dead....
8. 'Tis not that Dying hurts us so ‘Tis not that Dying hurts us so ‘Tis Living hurts us more But Dying is a different way A Kind behind the Door The Southern Custom of the Bird That ere the Frosts are due Accepts a better Latitude We are the Birds that stay. The Shrivers round Farmers’ doors For whose reluctant Crumb We […]...
9. Remembrances Of The Renowned Knight, Sir Rowland Cotton, Of Bellaport In Shropshire, Concerning Renowned Champion full of wrestling Art, And made for victory in every part, Whose active Limbes, oyl’d Tongue, and vertuous Mind, Subdu’d both Foe and Friend, the Rough and Kind, Yea, ev’n Thy-selfe, and thy Diseases too, And all but Death (which won with much adoe And shall at last be vanquish’d,) where are now […]...
10. Psalm 31 part 1 v.5,13-19,22,23 C. M. Deliverance from death. Unto thine hand, O God of truth, My spirit I commit; Thou hast redeemed my soul from death, And saved me from the pit. The passions of my hope and fear Maintained a doubtful strife, While sorrow, pain, and sin conspired To take away my life. “My times are […]...
11. Euthanasia When Time, or soon or late, shall bring The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead, Oblivion! may thy languid wing Wave gently o’er my dying bed! No band of friends or heirs be there, To weep, or wish, the coming blow: No maiden, with dishevelled hair, To feel, or feign, decorous woe. But silent let […]...
12. Thanatos Basileos The serpent dips his head beneath the sea His mother, source of all his energy Eternal, thence to draw the strength he needs On earth to do indomitable dees Once more; and they, who saw but understood Naught of his nature of beatitude Were awed: they murmured with abated breath; Alas the Master; so he […]...
13. Since Thou Hast Given Me This Good Hope, O God SINCE thou hast given me this good hope, O God, That while my footsteps tread the flowery sod And the great woods embower me, and white dawn And purple even sweetly lead me on From day to day, and night to night, O God, My life shall no wise miss the light of love; But […]...
14. Coda There’s little in taking or giving, There’s little in water or wine; This living, this living, this living Was never a project of mine. Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is The gain of the one at the top, For art is a form of catharsis, And love is a permanent flop, And work […]...
15. In a Disused Graveyard The living come with grassy tread To read the gravestones on the hill; The graveyard draws the living still, But never anymore the dead. The verses in it say and say: “The ones who living come today To read the stones and go away Tomorrow dead will come to stay.” So sure of death the […]...
16. Faith HERE where the loves of others close The vision of my heart begins. The wisdom that within us grows Is absolution for our sins. We took forbidden fruit and ate Far in the garden of His mind. The ancient prophecies of hate We proved untrue, for He was kind. He does not love the bended […]...
17. The Complaint of Lisa There is no woman living who draws breath So sad as I, though all things sadden her. There is not one upon life’s weariest way Who is weary as I am weary of all but death. Toward whom I look as looks the sunflower All day with all his whole soul toward the sun; While […]...
18. A Wish I ask not that my bed of death From bands of greedy heirs be free; For these besiege the latest breath Of fortune’s favoured sons, not me. I ask not each kind soul to keep Tearless, when of my death he hears; Let those who will, if any, weep! There are worse plagues on earth […]...
19. Suttee LAMP of my life, the lips of Death Hath blown thee out with their sudden breath; Naught shall revive thy vanished spark. . . Love, must I dwell in the living dark? Tree of my life, Death’s cruel foot Hath crushed thee down to thy hidden root; Nought shall restore thy glory fled. . . […]...
20. Psalm 35 part 1 v.1-9 C. M. Prayer and faith of persecuted saints. Now plead my cause, Almighty God, With all the sons of strife; And fight against the men of blood, Who fight against my life. Draw out thy spear and stop their way, Lift thine avenging rod; But to my soul in mercy say, “I am thy […]...
21. Dying! To be afraid of thee Dying! To be afraid of thee One must to thine Artillery Have left exposed a Friend Than thine old Arrow is a Shot Delivered straighter to the Heart The leaving Love behind. Not for itself, the Dust is shy, But, enemy, Beloved be Thy Batteries divorce. Fight sternly in a Dying eye Two Armies, Love […]...
22. Lights Out “Lights out” along the land, “Lights out” upon the sea. The night must put her hiding hand O’er peaceful towns where children sleep, And peaceful ships that darkly creep Across the waves, as if they were not free. The dragons of the air, The hell-hounds of the deep, Lurking and prowling everywhere, Go forth to […]...
23. John Donne – The Paradox No Lover saith, I love, nor any other Can judge a perfect Lover; Hee thinkes that else none can, nor will agree That any loves but hee; I cannot say I’lov’d. for who can say Hee was kill’d yesterday? Lover withh excesse of heat, more yong than old, Death kills with too much cold; Wee […]...
24. SPROUT It could be Valley Oak or Snap-bean, Elderberry, or Cattail rising out of the creek; All began the same, a spark of life inside, The need to be coaxing their will into action. Seed and pod, nut and bulb, cajoled awake, called By the warmth of the sun, moisture in the soil, Swelling them, filling […]...
25. Margaret Fuller Slack I would have been as great as George Eliot But for an untoward fate. For look at the photograph of me made by Penniwit, Chin resting on hand, and deep-set eyes Gray, too, and far-searching. But there was the old, old problem: Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity? Then John Slack, the rich druggist, […]...
26. 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 […]...
27. 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 […]...
28. An Autograph I write my name as one, On sands by waves o’errun Or winter’s frosted pane, Traces a record vain. Oblivion’s blankness claims Wiser and better names, And well my own may pass As from the strand or glass. Wash on, O waves of time! Melt, noons, the frosty rime! Welcome the shadow vast, The silence […]...
29. O Living Always-Always Dying O LIVING always-always dying! O the burials of me, past and present! O me, while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever! O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not-I am content;) O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and look at, where I cast […]...
30. Where Is the Real Non-Resistant (Matthew V, 38-48.) Who can surrender to Christ, dividing his best with the stranger, Giving to each what he asks, braving the uttermost danger All for the enemy, MAN? Who can surrender till death His words and his works, his house and his lands, His eyes and his heart and his breath? Who can surrender […]...
31. Sonnet for Mother Decked in blooms, Swaddled in gold filigreed shrouds, Smeared with perfumes, She traveled into the clouds. A life of love lived, A life of more giving than taking, Living a life of tears shed, Turnings, and missed crossings. She lies still beside father, In an earthen grave dug for her, On ere visits she knew […]...
32. Colophon TO LAYLAH EIGHT-AND-TWENTY Lamp of living loveliness, Maid miraculously male, Rapture of thine own excess Blushing through the velvet veil Where the olive cheeks aglow Shadow-soften into snow, Breasts like Bacchanals afloat Under the proudly phallic throat! Be thou to my pilgrimage Light, and laughter sweet and sage, Till the darkling day expire Of my […]...
33. Dedication MY first gift and my last, to you I dedicate this fascicle of songs – The only wealth I have: Just as they are, to you. I speak the truth in soberness, and say I had rather bring a light to your clear eyes, Had rather hear you praise This bosomful of songs Than that […]...
34. Hymn 31 Christ’s presence makes death easy. Why should we start, and fear to die What timorous worms we mortals are! Death is the gate of endless joy, And yet we dread to enter there. The pains, the groans, and dying strife, Fright our approaching souls away; Still we shrink back again to life, Fond of our […]...
35. Sonnet XVI: Mongst All the Creatures An Allusion to the Phoenix ‘Mongst all the creatures in this spacious round Of the birds’ kind, the Phoenix is alone, Which best by you of living things is known; None like to that, none like to you is found. Your beauty is the hot and splend’rous sun, The precious spices be your chaste desire, […]...
36. Sardis (Revelations, iii. 1-6) “Write to Sardis,” saith the Lord, “And write what He declares, He whose Spirit, and whose word, Upholds the seven stars: All thy works and ways I search, Find thy zeal and love decay’d; Thou art call’d a living church, But thou art cold and dead. “Watch, remember, seek, and strive, Exert […]...
37. Death Nor dread nor hope attend A dying animal; A man awaits his end Dreading and hoping all; Many times he died, Many times rose again. A great man in his pride Confronting murderous men Casts derision upon Supersession of breath; He knows death to the bone – Man has created death....
38. Pensive and Faltering PENSIVE and faltering, The words, the dead, I write; For living are the Dead; (Haply the only living, only real, And I the apparition-I the spectre.) 5...
39. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
40. Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell Down through the tomb’s inward arch He has shouldered out into Limbo To gather them, dazed, from dreamless slumber: The merciful dead, the prophets, The innocents just His own age and those Unnumbered others waiting here Unaware, in an endless void He is ending Now, stooping to tug at their hands, To pull them from […]...