THE WASSAIL

Related poetry:

1. Sonnet 13: O, that you were your self! But, love, you are O, that you were your self! But, love, you are No longer yours than you yourself here live. Against this coming end you should prepare, And your sweet semblance to some other give. So should that beauty which you hold in lease Find no determination; then you were Yourself again after yourself’s decease, When your […]...
2. Artist's Life Of all the waltzes the great Strauss wrote, Mad with melody, rhythm rife From the very first to the final note, Give me his “Artist’s Life!” It stirs my blood to my finger ends, Thrills me and fills me with vague unrest, And all that is sweetest and saddest blends Together within my breast. It […]...
3. Strong Beer “What do you think The bravest drink Under the sky?” “Strong beer,” said I. “There’s a place for everything, Everything, anything, There’s a place for everything Where it ought to be: For a chicken, the hen’s wing; For poison, the bee’s sting; For almond-blossom, Spring; A beerhouse for me.” “There’s a prize for every one […]...
4. Leave Me, O Love Which Reachest But To Dust Leave me, O love which reachest but to dust, And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things; Grow rich in that which never taketh rust: Whatever fades but fading pleasure brings. Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be, Which breaks the clouds and opens forth […]...
5. Cotton Song Come, brother, come. Lets lift it; Come now, hewit! roll away! Shackles fall upon the Judgment Day But lets not wait for it. God’s body’s got a soul, Bodies like to roll the soul, Cant blame God if we dont roll, Come, brother, roll, roll! Cotton bales are the fleecy way, Weary sinner’s bare feet […]...
6. Big Night On The Town drunk on the dark streets of some city, It’s night, you’re lost, where’s your Room? You enter a bar to find yourself, Order scotch and water. Damned bar’s sloppy wet, it soaks Part of one of your shirt Sleeves. It’s a clip joint-the scotch is weak. You order a bottle of beer. Madame Death walks […]...
7. Farewell I have got my leave. Bid me farewell, my brothers! I bow to you all and take my departure. Here I give back the keys of my door – and I give up all claims to my house. I only ask for last kind words from you. We were neighbors for long, But I received […]...
8. HIS GRANGE, OR PRIVATE WEALTH Though clock, To tell how night draws hence, I’ve none, A cock I have to sing how day draws on: I have A maid, my Prue, by good luck sent, To save That little, Fates me gave or lent. A hen I keep, which, creeking day by day, Tells when She goes her long white […]...
9. Novel I. No one’s serious at seventeen. On beautiful nights when beer and lemonade And loud, blinding cafés are the last thing you need You stroll beneath green lindens on the promenade. Lindens smell fine on fine June nights! Sometimes the air is so sweet that you close your eyes; The wind brings sounds the town […]...
10. FAITHFUL ECKART “OH, would we were further! Oh, would we were home, The phantoms of night tow’rd us hastily come, The band of the Sorceress sisters. They hitherward speed, and on finding us here, They’ll drink, though with toil we have fetch’d it, the beer, And leave us the pitchers all empty.” Thus speaking, the children with […]...
11. No Beer, No Work The shades of night was fallin’ slow As through New York a guy did go And nail on ev’ry barroom door A card that this here motter bore: “No beer, no work.” His brow was sad, his mouth was dry; It was the first day of July, And where, all parched and scorched it hung, […]...
12. New Feet EMPTY battlefields keep their phantoms. Grass crawls over old gun wheels And a nodding Canada thistle flings a purple Into the summer’s southwest wind, Wrapping a root in the rust of a bayonet, Reaching a blossom in rust of shrapnel....
13. TO SILVIA TO WED Let us, though late, at last, my Silvia, wed; And loving lie in one devoted bed. Thy watch may stand, my minutes fly post haste; No sound calls back the year that once is past. Then, sweetest Silvia, let’s no longer stay; True love, we know, precipitates delay. Away with doubts, all scruples hence remove! […]...
14. At a Window Give me hunger, O you gods that sit and give The world its orders. Give me hunger, pain and want, Shut me out with shame and failure From your doors of gold and fame, Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger! But leave me a little love, A voice to speak to me in the day […]...
15. The Caged Skylark As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage Man’s mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells- That bird beyond the remembering his free fells; This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life’s age. Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage, Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells, Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in […]...
16. Giving Myself Up I give up my eyes which are glass eggs. I give up my tongue. I give up my mouth which is the contstant dream of my tongue. I give up my throat which is the sleeve of my voice. I give up my heart which is a burning apple. I give up my lungs which […]...
17. 369. Song-My Collier Laddie WHARE live ye, my bonie lass? And tell me what they ca’ ye; My name, she says, is mistress Jean, And I follow the Collier laddie. My name, she says, &c. See you not yon hills and dales The sun shines on sae brawlie; They a’ are mine, and they shall be thine, Gin ye’ll […]...
18. To S. M If he should lie a-dying I AM not willing you should go Into the earth, where Helen went; She is awake by now, I know. Where Cleopatra’s anklets rust You will not lie with my consent; And Sappho is a roving dust; Cressid could love again; Dido, Rotted in state, is restless still; You leave […]...
19. No Need The elephant’s trunk Is for picking up pistachios: No need to bend over. The giraffe’s neck Is for grazing on stars: No need to fly. The chameleon’s skin, Green, blue, lavender, white, As it wishes, Is for hiding from ravenous animals: No need to flee. The turtle’s shell, Is for sleeping inside, Even in winter: […]...
20. All Lovely Things All lovely things will have an ending, All lovely things will fade and die, And youth, that’s now so bravely spending, Will beg a penny by and by. Fine ladies soon are all forgotten, And goldenrod is dust when dead, The sweetest flesh and flowers are rotten And cobwebs tent the brightest head. Come back, […]...
21. Revolt In The Ranks I have just spent one-hour-and-a-half Handicapping tomorrow’s Card. When am I going to get at the poems? Well, they’ll just have to wait They’ll have to warm their feet in the Anteroom Where they’ll sit gossiping about Me. “this Chinaski, doesn’t he realize that Without us he would have long ago Gone mad, been dead?” […]...
22. Bump Things that go ‘bump’ in the night Should not really give one a fright. It’s the hole in each ear That lets in the fear, That, and the absence of light!...
23. THE SUCCESSION OF THE FOUR SWEET MONTHS First, April, she with mellow showers Opens the way for early flowers; Then after her comes smiling May, In a more rich and sweet array; Next enters June, and brings us more Gems than those two that went before; Then, lastly, July comes, and she More wealth brings in than all those three....
24. Remorse For Any Death Free of memory and of hope, Limitless, abstract, almost future, The dead man is not a dead man: he is death. Like the God of the mystics, Of Whom anything that could be said must be denied, The dead one, alien everywhere, Is but the ruin and absence of the world. We rob him of […]...
25. Dutch Interiors Christ has been done to death In the cold reaches of northern Europe A thousand thousand times. Suddenly bread And cheese appear on a plate Beside a gleaming pewter beaker of beer. Now tell me that the Holy Ghost Does not reside in the play of light On cutlery! A Woman makes lace, With a […]...
26. My House I have a house I’ve lived in long: I can’t recall my going in. ‘Twere better bartered for a song Ere ruin, rot and rust begin. When it was fresh and fine and fair, I used it with neglect, I fear; But now I husband it with care And cherish it form year to year. […]...
27. Sonnet VI: Some Lovers Speak Some lovers speak when they their Muses entertain, Of hopes begot by fear, of wot not what desires: Of force of heav’nly beams, infusing hellish pain: Of living deaths, dear wounds, fair storms, and freezing fires. Some one his song in Jove, and Jove’s strange tales attires, Broidered with bulls and swans, powdered with golden […]...
28. Limited I AM riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains Of the nation. Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air Go fifteen all-steel coaches holding a thousand people. (All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men And women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall Pass […]...
29. To John Donne Donne, the delight of Phoebus and each Muse Who, to thy one, all other brains refuse; Whose every work of thy most early wit Came forth example, and remains so yet; Longer a-knowing than most wits do live; And which no affection praise enough can give! To it, thy language, letters, arts, best life, Which […]...
30. The Old Song A livid sky on London And like the iron steeds that rear A shock of engines halted And I knew the end was near: And something said that far away, over the hills and far away There came a crawling thunder and the end of all things here. For London Bridge is broken down, broken […]...
31. The Houses ‘Twixt my house and thy house the pathway is broad, In thy house or my house is half the world’s hoard; By my house and thy house hangs all the world’s fate, On thy house and my house lies half the world’s hate. For my house and thy house no help shall we find Save […]...
32. Sonnet 33 – Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear The name I used to run at, when a child, From innocent play, and leave the cowslips piled, To glance up in some face that proved me dear With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled Into […]...
33. Weep no more WEEP no more, nor sigh, nor groan, Sorrow calls no time that ‘s gone: Violets pluck’d, the sweetest rain Makes not fresh nor grow again. Trim thy locks, look cheerfully; Fate’s hid ends eyes cannot see. Joys as winged dreams fly fast, Why should sadness longer last? Grief is but a wound to woe;...
34. Alone Over the fence, the dead settle in For a journey. Nine o’clock. You are alone for the first time Today. Boys asleep. Husband out. A beer bottle sweats in your hand, And sea lavender clogs the air With perfume. Think of yourself. Your arms rest with nothing to do After weeks spent attending to others. […]...
35. The Young British Soldier When the ‘arf-made recruity goes out to the East ‘E acts like a babe an’ ‘e drinks like a beast, An’ ‘e wonders because ‘e is frequent deceased Ere ‘e’s fit for to serve as a soldier. Serve, serve, serve as a soldier, Serve, serve, serve as a soldier, Serve, serve, serve as a soldier, […]...
36. Sonnet XIII: Letters and Lines To the Shadow Letters and lines we see are soon defac’d, Metals do waste and fret with canker’s rust, The diamond shall once consume to dust, And freshest colors with foul stains disgrac’d; Paper and ink can paint but naked words, To write with blood of force offends the sight; And if with tears I […]...
37. You Asked How (formerly Even Now She Is Turning, Saying Everything I Always Wanted Her to Say) At the end there were straws In her glove compartment, I’d split them open To taste the familiar bitter residue, near the end I ate all her Percodans, hungry to know How far they could take me. A bottle of red wine each night moved her along As she wrote, I feel too much, again […]...
38. I Look Into My Glass I look into my glass, And view my wasting skin, And say, “Would God it came to pass My heart had shrunk as thin!” For then, I, undistrest By hearts grown cold to me, Could lonely wait my endless rest With equanimity. But Time, to make me grieve, Part steals, lets part abide; And shakes […]...
39. Bar Italia How beautiful it would be to wait for you again In the usual place, Not looking at the door, Keeping a lookout in the long mirror, Knowing that if you are late It will not be too late, Knowing that all I have to do Is wait a little longer And you will be pushing […]...
40. Underground System Set the foot down with distrust upon the crust of the world-it is thin. Moles are at work beneath us; they have tunneled the sub-soil With separate chambers; which at an appointed knock Could be as one, could intersect and interlock. We walk on the skin Of life. No toil Of rake or hoe, no […]...