Misgiving

Related poetry:

1. Trickle, Drops TRICKLE, drops! my blue veins leaving! O drops of me! trickle, slow drops, Candid, from me falling-drip, bleeding drops, From wounds made to free you whence you were prison’d, From my face-from my forehead and lips, From my breast-from within where I was conceal’d-press forth, red drops-confession drops; Stain every page-stain every song I sing, […]...
2. I had a daily Bliss I had a daily Bliss I half indifferent viewed Till sudden I perceived it stir It grew as I pursued Till when around a Height It wasted from my sight Increased beyond my utmost scope I learned to estimate....
3. Boxer's Wife She phoned them when the Round was Eight: ‘How is my Joe?’ they heard her say. They answered: ‘Gee! He’s going great, Your guy’s Okay.’ She phoned them when the Round was Nine: ‘How is my hero in the fray?’ They yelled: ‘He leads; he’s doing fine, Joe’s sure Okay.’ She phoned them when the […]...
4. The Expiration So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss, Which sucks two souls, and vapors both away, Turn thou ghost that way, and let me turn this, And let our selves benight our happiest day, We ask none leave to love; nor will we owe Any, so cheap a death, as saying, Go; Go; and if […]...
5. Poets to Come POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! Not to-day is to justify me, and answer what I am for; But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known, Arouse! Arouse-for you must justify me-you must answer. I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future, I but advance […]...
6. To A Child Dancing In The Wind Dance there upon the shore; What need have you to care For wind or water’s roar? And tumble out your hair That the salt drops have wet; Being young you have not known The fool’s triumph, nor yet Love lost as soon as won, Nor the best labourer dead And all the sheaves to bind. […]...
7. Dream Variations To fling my arms wide In some place of the sun, To whirl and to dance Till the white day is done. Then rest at cool evening Beneath a tall tree While night comes on gently, Dark like me- That is my dream! To fling my arms wide In the face of the sun, Dance! […]...
8. The Glory The glory of the beauty of the morning, – The cuckoo crying over the untouched dew; The blackbird that has found it, and the dove That tempts me on to something sweeter than love; White clouds ranged even and fair as new-mown hay; The heat, the stir, the sublime vacancy Of sky and meadow and […]...
9. High Conspiratorial Person OUT of the testimony of such reluctant lips, out of the oaths and mouths of such scrupulous liars, out of perjurers whose hands swore by God to the white sun before all men, Out of a rag saturated with smears and smuts gathered from the footbaths of kings and the loin cloths of whores, from […]...
10. Sonnet V: Nothing But No Nothing but “No,” and “Aye,” and “Aye,” and “No”? How falls it out so strangely you reply? I tell ye, Fair, I’ll not be answer’d so, With this affirming “No,” denying “Aye.” I say, “I love,” you slightly answer “Aye”; I say, “You love,” you pule me out a “No”; I say, “I die,” you […]...
11. 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 […]...
12. Old Timers I AM an ancient reluctant conscript. On the soup wagons of Xerxes I was a cleaner of pans. On the march of Miltiades’ phalanx I had a haft and head; I had a bristling gleaming spear-handle. Red-headed Cæsar picked me for a teamster. He said, “Go to work, you Tuscan bastard, Rome calls for a […]...
13. He Reproves The Curlew O curlew, cry no more in the air, Or only to the water in the West; Because your crying brings to my mind Passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair That was shaken out over my breast: There is enough evil in the crying of wind....
14. The Night-Fire No engines shrieking rescue storm the night, And hose and hydrant cannot here avail; The flames laugh high and fling their challenging light, And clouds turn gray and black from silver-pale. The fire leaps out and licks the ancient walls, And the big building bends and twists and groans. A bar drops from its place; […]...
15. The Quip The merry world did on a day With his train-bands and mates agree To meet together where I lay, And all in sport to jeer at me. First, Beauty crept into a rose, Which when I plucked not, “Sir,” said she, “Tell me, I pray, whose hands are those?” But thou shalt answer, Lord, for […]...
16. TO WILLIAM E. CHANNING The pages of thy book I read, And as I closed each one, My heart, responding, ever said, “Servant of God! well done!” Well done! Thy words are great and bold; At times they seem to me, Like Luther’s, in the days of old, Half-battles for the free. Go on, until this land revokes The […]...
17. An Almost Made Up Poem I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny Blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny They are small, and the fountain is in France Where you wrote me that last letter and I answered and never heard from you again. You used to write insane poems about ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper […]...
18. Music: An Ode WAS it light that spake from the darkness, Or music that shone from the word, When the night was enkindled with sound Of the sun or the first-born bird? Souls enthralled and entrammelled in bondage Of seasons that fall and rise, Bound fast round with the fetters of flesh, And blinded with light that dies, […]...
19. Grace Before Song Lord God of heaven that with mercy dight Th’alternate prayer wheel of the night and light Eternal hath to thee, and in whose sight Our days as rain drops in the sea surge fall, As bright white drops upon a leaden sea Grant so my songs to this grey folk may be: As drops that […]...
20. The Song Of The Blindman I am blind, you out there that is a curse, Against one’s will, a contradiction, A heavy daily burden. I lay my hand on the arm of my wife, My grey hand upon her greyer grey, As she guides me through empty spaces. You move about and stir, and imagine Your sounds differing from stone […]...
21. Sonnet CXXXIV So, now I have confess’d that he is thine, And I myself am mortgaged to thy will, Myself I’ll forfeit, so that other mine Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still: But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free, For thou art covetous and he is kind; He learn’d but surety-like to […]...
22. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 15. To-night the winds begin to rise To-night the winds begin to rise And roar from yonder dropping day: The last red leaf is whirl’d away, The rooks are blown about the skies; The forest crack’d, the waters curl’d, The cattle huddled on the lea; And wildly dash’d on tower and tree The sunbeam strikes along the world: And but for fancies, […]...
23. The Rose Family – Song 1 O flower at my window Why blossom you so fair, With your green and purple cup Upturned to sun and air? ‘I bloom, blithesome Bessie, To cheer your childish heart; The world is full of labor, And this shall be my part.’ Whirl, busy wheel, faster, Spin, little thread, spin; The sun shines fair without, […]...
24. Sonnet 134: So, now I have confessed that he is thine So, now I have confessed that he is thine, And I my self am mortgaged to thy will, Myself I’ll forfeit, so that other mine Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still. But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free, For thou art covetous, and he is kind, He learned but surety-like […]...
25. On Going Unnoticed As vain to raise a voice as a sigh In the tumult of free leaves on high. What are you in the shadow of trees Engaged up there with the light and breeze? Less than the coral-root you know That is content with the daylight low, And has no leaves at all of its own; […]...
26. 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 […]...
27. Amor Intellectualis Oft have we trod the vales of Castaly And heard sweet notes of sylvan music blown From antique reeds to common folk unknown: And often launched our bark upon that sea Which the nine Muses hold in empery, And ploughed free furrows through the wave and foam, Nor spread reluctant sail for more safe home […]...
28. Bilbo's Last Song (At the Grey Havens) Day is ended, dim my eyes, But journey long before me lies. Farewell, friends! I hear the call. The ship’s beside the stony wall. Foam is white and waves are grey; Beyond the sunset leads my way. Foam is salt, the wind is free; I hear the rising of the sea. Farewell, friends! The sails […]...
29. 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 […]...
30. Bells in the Rain Sleep falls, with limpid drops of rain, Upon the steep cliffs of the town. Sleep falls; men are at peace again While the small drops fall softly down. The bright drops ring like bells of glass Thinned by the wind, and lightly blown; Sleep cannot fall on peaceful grass So softly as it falls on […]...
31. Poetry it Takes A lot of Desperation Dissatisfaction And Disillusion To Write A Few Good Poems. It’s not For Everybody Either to Write It Or even to Read It....
32. The Isle Of Portland The star-filled seas are smooth tonight From France to England strown; Black towers above Portland light The felon-quarried stone. On yonder island; not to rise, Never to stir forth free, Far from his folk a dead lad lies That once was friends with me. Lie you easy, dream you light, And sleep you fast for […]...
33. The Trusting Heart Oh, I’d been better dying, Oh, I was slow and sad; A fool I was, a-crying About a cruel lad! But there was one that found me, That wept to see me weep, And had his arm around me, And gave me words to keep. And I’d be better dying, And I am slow and […]...
34. The Answer You have spoken the answer. A child searches far sometimes Into the red dust On a dark rose leaf And so you have gone far For the answer is: Silence. In the republic Of the winking stars and spent cataclysms Sure we are it is off there the answer Is hidden and folded over, Sleeping […]...
35. Sonnet LXIII: Truce, Gentle Love Truce, gentle Love, a parley now I crave; Methinks ’tis long since first these wars begun; Nor thou nor I the better yet can have; Bad is the match where neither party won. I offer free conditions of fair peace, My heart for hostage that it shall remain; Discharge our forces, here let malice cease, […]...
36. The Waradgery Tribe Harried we were, and spent, Broken and falling, Ere as the cranes we went, Crying and calling. Summer shall see the bird Backward returning; Never shall there be heard Those, who went yearning. Emptied of us the land; Ghostly our going; Fallen like spears the hand Dropped in the throwing. We are the lost who […]...
37. Theme For English B The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here To this college on the hill above Harlem. I am […]...
38. 507. Song-Bonie Peg-a-Ramsay CAULD is the e’enin blast, O’ Boreas o’er the pool, An’ dawin’ it is dreary, When birks are bare at Yule. Cauld blaws the e’enin blast, When bitter bites the frost, And, in the mirk and dreary drift, The hills and glens are lost: Ne’er sae murky blew the night That drifted o’er the hill, […]...
39. Poetics I look for the way Things will turn Out spiralling from a center, The shape Things will take to come forth in So that the birch tree white Touched black at branches Will stand out Wind-glittering Totally its apparent self: I look for the forms Things want to come as From what black wells of […]...
40. One Inch Tall If you were only one inch tall, you’d ride a worm to school. The teardrop of a crying ant would be your swimming pool. A crumb of cake would be a feast And last you seven days at least, A flea would be a frightening beast If you were one inch tall. If you were […]...