Advice to a Prophet

Related poetry:

1. Advice to a young sylv-i-an dragon on going to school when you step out of the wood and go first time to school You have to be so specially careful if you’re really a dragon To put the most innocent expression on your face you can find And not flip your flappers (unless the others don’t mind) You must be very strict with yourself – […]...
2. Yes, the Fish Music A trout-colored wind blows Through my eyes, through my fingers, And I remember how the trout Used to hide from the dinosaurs When they came to drink at the river. The trout hid in subways, castles, And automobiles. They waited patiently for the dinosaurs to go away....
3. The Prophet Ah, my darling, when over the purple horizon shall loom The shrouded mother of a new idea, men hide their faces, Cry out and fend her off, as she seeks her procreant groom, Wounding themselves against her, denying her fecund embraces....
4. When the prophet, a complacent fat man When the prophet, a complacent fat man, Arrived at the mountain-top, He cried: “Woe to my knowledge! I intended to see good white lands And bad black lands, But the scene is grey.”...
5. Advice I must do as you do? Your way I own Is a very good way, and still, There are sometimes two straight roads to a town, One over, one under the hill. You are treading the safe and the well-worn way, That the prudent choose each time; And you think me reckless and rash to-day […]...
6. The Advice Revolving in their destin’d sphere, The hours begin another year As rapidly to fly; Ah! think, Maria, (e’er in grey Those auburn tresses fade away So youth and beauty die. Tho’ now the captivating throng Adore with flattery and song, And all before you bow; Whilst unattentive to the strain, You hear the humble muse […]...
7. Some Advice To Those Who Will Serve Time In Prison If instead of being hanged by the neck you’re thrown inside for not giving up hope In the world, your country, your people, if you do ten or fifteen years apart from the time you have left, You won’t say, “Better I had swung from the end of a rope like a flag” You’ll put […]...
8. Advice To An Old Man of Sixty Three About To Marry a Girle of Sixteen Now fie upon him! what is Man, Whose life at best is but a span? When to an inch it dwindles down, Ice in his bones, snow on his Crown, That he within his crazy brain, Kind thoughts of Love should entertain, That he, when Harvest comes should plow And when ’tis time to reap, […]...
9. Advice to the Grub Street Verse-writers Ye poets ragged and forlorn, Down from your garrets haste; Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born, Not yet consign’d to paste; I know a trick to make you thrive; O, ’tis a quaint device: Your still-born poems shall revive, And scorn to wrap up spice. Get all your verses printed fair, Then let them […]...
10. The Trout Naughty little speckled trout, Can’t I coax you to come out? Is it such great fun to play In the water every day? Do you pull the Naiads’ hair Hiding in the lilies there? Do you hunt for fishes’ eggs, Or watch tadpoles grow their legs? Do the little trouts have school In some deep […]...
11. The Last Rose ‘O WHICH is the last rose?’ A blossom of no name. At midnight the snow came; At daybreak a vast rose, In darkness unfurl’d, O’er-petall’d the world. Its odourless pallor Blossom’d forlorn, Till radiant valour Establish’d the morn Till the night Was undone In her fight With the sun. The brave orb in state rose, […]...
12. Three Violins THREE violins are trying their hearts. The piece is MacDowell’s Wild Rose. And the time of the wild rose And the leaves of the wild rose And the dew-shot eyes of the wild rose Sing in the air over three violins. Somebody like you was in the heart of MacDowell. Somebody like you is in […]...
13. 538. Song-Now Spring has clad the grove in green NOW spring has clad the grove in green, And strew’d the lea wi’ flowers; The furrow’d, waving corn is seen Rejoice in fostering showers. While ilka thing in nature join Their sorrows to forego, O why thus all alone are mine The weary steps o’ woe! The trout in yonder wimpling burn That glides, a […]...
14. The Rose Family The rose is a rose, And was always a rose. But the theory now goes That the apple’s a rose, And the pear is, and so’s The plum, I suppose. The dear only know What will next prove a rose. You, of course, are a rose But were always a rose....
15. Pied Beauty Glory be to God for dappled things- For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings; Landscape plotted and pieced-fold, fallow, and plough; And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim. All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who […]...
16. Thou Strainest Through The Mountain Fern THOU strainest through the mountain fern, A most exiguously thin Burn. For all thy foam, for all thy din, Thee shall the pallid lake inurn, With well-a-day for Mr. Swin-Burne! Take then this quarto in thy fin And, O thou stoker huge and stern, The whole affair, outside and in, Burn! But save the true […]...
17. The Fairy Bridal-Hymn [This is the hymn to Eleanor, daughter of Mab and a golden drone, sung by the Locust choir when the fairy child marries her God, the yellow rose] This is a song to the white-armed one Cold in the breast as the frost-wrapped Spring, Whose feet are slow on the hills of life, Whose round […]...
18. Edward Hirsch In Memory of Dennis Turner, 1946-1984 A hook shot kisses the rim and Hangs there, helplessly, but doesn’t drop, And for once our gangly starting center Boxes out his man and times his jump Perfectly, gathering the orange leather From the air like a cherished possession And spinning around to throw a strike To the […]...
19. Sonnet to Lake Leman Rousseau Voltaire our Gibbon De Staлl Leman! these names are worthy of thy shore, Thy shore of names like these! wert thou no more, Their memory thy remembrance would recall: To them thy banks were lovely as to all, But they have made them lovelier, for the lore Of mighty minds doth hallow in the […]...
20. Still hear the waves It was a brave day under an endlessly clear sky That extended forever from our valley To the unfathomably distant sea. It was a day to remember amongst days of Classical splendour and wonderment, From an unoccupied beach and the virgin Sand crisp and crumbling under flying feet, To the tumbling vastness of twinkling ocean […]...
21. Written in a Volume of the Comtesse de Noailles Be my companion under cool arcades That frame some drowsy street and dazzling square Beyond whose flowers and palm-tree promenades White belfries burn in the blue tropic air. Lie near me in dim forests where the croon Of wood-doves sounds and moss-banked water flows, Or musing late till the midsummer moon Breaks through some ruined […]...
22. The Christ of the 'Never&#039 With eyes that are narrowed to pierce To the awful horizons of land, Through the blaze of hot days, and the fierce White heat-waves that flow on the sand; Through the Never Land westward and nor’ward, Bronzed, bearded, and gaunt on the track, Low-voiced and hard-knuckled, rides forward The Christ of the Outer Out-back. For […]...
23. Your Hay It Is Mow'd, And Your Corn Is Reap'd (Comus.) Your hay it is mow’d, and your corn is reap’d; Your barns will be full, and your hovels heap’d: Come, my boys, come; Come, my boys, come; And merrily roar out Harvest Home. (Chorus.) Come, my boys, come; Come, my boys, come; And merrily roar out Harvest Home. (Man.) We ha’ cheated the parson, […]...
24. Length of Moon Then the golden hour Will tick its last And the flame will go down in the flower. A briefer length of moon Will mark the sea-line and the yellow dune. Then we may think of this, yet There will be something forgotten And something we should forget. It will be like all things we know: […]...
25. To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days! Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways: Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide; The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed, Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold; And thine own sadness, where of stars, grown old In dancing silver-sandalled on the sea, Sing in […]...
26. The Song of the Garden-Toad Down, down beneath the daisy beds, O hear the cries of pain! And moaning on the cinder-path They’re blind amid the rain. Can murmurs of the worms arise To higher hearts than mine? I wonder if that gardener hears Who made the mold all fine And packed each gentle seedling down So carefully in line? […]...
27. On The Fire Suicides Of The Buddhists “They only burn themselves to reach Paradise” – Mne. Nhu Original courage is good, Motivation be damned, And if you say they are trained To feel no pain, Are they Guarenteed this? Is it still not possible To die for somebody else? You sophisticates Who lay back and Make statements of explanation, I have seen […]...
28. Life CHILDREN, ye have not lived, to you it seems Life is a lovely stalactite of dreams, Or carnival of careless joys that leap About your hearts like billows on the deep In flames of amber and of amethyst. Children, ye have not lived, ye but exist Till some resistless hour shall rise and move Your […]...
29. Gliding Over All GLIDING o’er all, through all, Through Nature, Time, and Space, As a ship on the waters advancing, The voyage of the soul-not life alone, Death, many deaths I’ll sing. 5...
30. The King The King beneath the mountains, The King of carven stone, The lord of silver fountains, Shall come into his own! His crown shall be upholden, His harp shall be restrung, His halls shall echo golden, To songs of yore re-sung. The woods shall wave on mountains, And grass beneath the sun; His wealth shall flow […]...
31. Dave Lilly There’s a brook on the side of Greylock that used To be full of trout, But there’s nothing there now but minnows; they say it is all fished Out. I fished there many a Summer day some twenty years ago, And I never quit without getting a mess of a dozen or so. There was […]...
32. A winged spark doth soar about A winged spark doth soar about I never met it near For Lightning it is oft mistook When nights are hot and sere Its twinkling Travels it pursues Above the Haunts of men A speck of Rapture first perceived By feeling it is gone Rekindled by some action quaint...
33. Psalm 62 v.5-12 L. M. No trust in the creatures; or, Faith in Divine grace and power. My spirit looks to God alone; My rock and refuge is his throne; In all my fears, in all my straits, My soul on his salvation waits. Trust him, ye saints, in all your ways, Pour out your hearts before […]...
34. THE PRISM Through the windows the sun’s light Turns to amber, the moon’s to jade; All night long I lie awake, wondering How much your stunned heart can take. That moment’s ‘sudden interminable splendour’, Our love kept up through the years of stress, Strange dark-haired creature, the light over the water Burns and beckons through our emptiness....
35. A Prayer O HOLY SPIRIT of the Hazel, hearken now: Though shining suns and silver moons burn on the bough, And though the fruit of stars by many myriads gleam, Yet in the undergrowth below, still in thy dream, Lighting the monstrous maze and labyrinthine gloom Are many gem-winged flowers with gay and delicate bloom. And in […]...
36. On The Picture Of Two Dolphins In A Fountayne These dolphins twisting each on either side For joy leapt upp, and gazing there abide; And whereas other waters fish doe bring, Here from the fishes doe the waters spring, Who think it is more glorious to give Than to receive the juice whereby they live: And by this milk-white bason learne you may That […]...
37. Modern Love XIII: I Play for Seasons, Not Eternities ‘I play for Seasons; not Eternities!’ Says Nature, laughing on her way. ‘So must All those whose stake is nothing more than dust!’ And lo, she wins, and of her harmonies She is full sure! Upon her dying rose, She drops a look of fondness, and goes by, Scarce any retrospection in her eye; For […]...
38. 433. Song-Down the Burn, Davie love AS down the burn they took their way, And thro’ the flowery dale; His cheek to hers he aft did lay, And love was aye the tale: With “Mary, when shall we return, Sic pleasure to renew?” Quoth Mary-“Love, I like the burn, And aye shall follow you.”...
39. The Pact We played dolls in that house where Father staggered with the Thanksgiving knife, where Mother wept at noon into her one ounce of Cottage cheese, praying for the strength not to Kill herself. We kneeled over the Rubber bodies, gave them baths Carefully, scrubbed their little Orange hands, wrapped them up tight, Said goodnight, never […]...
40. To His Watch Mortal my mate, bearing my rock-a-heart Warm beat with cold beat company, shall I Earlier or you fail at our force, and lie The ruins of, rifled, once a world of art? The telling time our task is; time’s some part, Not all, but we were framed to fail and die – One spell and […]...