Duddingstone

Related poetry:

1. 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 […]...
2. LOVE DISLIKES NOTHING Whatsoever thing I see, Rich or poor although it be, ‘Tis a mistress unto me. Be my girl or fair or brown, Does she smile, or does she frown; Still I write a sweet-heart down. Be she rough, or smooth of skin; When I touch, I then begin For to let affection in. Be she […]...
3. This Is A Photograph Of Me It was taken some time ago. At first it seems to be A smeared Print: blurred lines and grey flecks Blended with the paper; Then, as you scan It, you see in the left-hand corner A thing that is like a branch: part of a tree (balsam or spruce) emerging And, to the right, halfway […]...
4. 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 […]...
5. Variation On A Theme By Rilke A certain day became a presence to me; There it was, confronting me a sky, air, light: A being. And before it started to descend From the height of noon, it leaned over And struck my shoulder as if with The flat of a sword, granting me Honor and a task. The day’s blow Rang […]...
6. Picking Blueberries, Austerlitz, New York,1957 Once, in summer In the blueberries, I fell asleep, and woke When a deer stumbled against me. I guess She was so busy with her own happiness She had grown careless And was just wandering along Listening To the wind as she leaned down To lip up the sweetness. So, there we were With nothing […]...
7. Salome's Dancing-Lesson She that begs a little boon (Heel and toe! Heel and toe!) Little gets – and nothing, soon. (No, no, no! No, no, no!) She that calls for costly things Priceless finds her offerings- What’s impossible to kings? (Heel and toe! Heel and toe!) Kings are shaped as other men. (Step and turn! Step and […]...
8. To a Waterfowl Whither, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler’s eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong As, darkly seen against the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along. Seek’st thou the plashy brink Of […]...
9. Heel & Toe To The End Gagarin says, in ecstasy, He could have Gone on forever He floated At and sang And when he emerged from that One hundred eight minutes off The surface of The earth he was smiling. Then he returned To take his place Among the rest of us From all that division and Subtraction a measure To […]...
10. Flight Of Stairs Stairs fly as straight as hawks; Or else in spirals, curve out of curve, pausing At a ledge to poise their wings before relaunching. Stairs sway at the height of their flight Like a melody in Tristan; Or swoop to the ground with glad spread of their feathers Before they close them. They curiously investigate […]...
11. Upon The Nipples Of Julia's Breast Have ye beheld (with much delight) A red rose peeping through a white? Or else a cherry (double graced) Within a lily? Centre placed? Or ever marked the pretty beam A strawberry shows half drowned in cream? Or seen rich rubies blushing through A pure smooth pearl, and orient too? So like to this, nay […]...
12. There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a Temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest. For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the World. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I Cover her against any hurt. Using the pen of rivers and […]...
13. Tцrnfallet There is a meadow in Sweden Where I lie smitten, Eyes stained with clouds’ White ins and outs. And about that meadow Roams my widow Plaiting a clover Wreath for her lover. I took her in marriage In a granite parish. The snow lent her whiteness, A pine was a witness. She’d swim in the […]...
14. The Mountaineer OH, at the eagle’s height To lie i’ the sweet of the sun, While veil after veil takes flight And God and the world are one. Oh, the night on the steep! All that his eyes saw dim Grows light in the dusky deep, And God is alone with him....
15. Justification See how the Rainbow in the skie Seems gaudy through the Suns bright eye; Harke how an Eccho answere makes, Feele how a board is smooth’d with waxe, Smell how a glove putts on perfume, Tast how theyr sweetnesse pills assume: So by imputed Justice, Clay Seemes faire, well spoke, smooth, sweet, each way. The […]...
16. A Prodigal The brown enormous odor he lived by Was too close, with its breathing and thick hair, For him to judge. The floor was rotten; the sty Was plastered halfway up with glass-smooth dung. Light-lashed, self-righteous, above moving snouts, The pigs’ eyes followed him, a cheerful stare Even to the sow that always ate her young […]...
17. Design I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth, And dead wings […]...
18. Through Agony I All night, through the eternity of night, Pain was my potion though I could not feel. Deep in my humbled heart you ground your heel, Till I was reft of even my inner light, Till reason from my mind had taken flight, And all my world went whirling in a reel. And all my […]...
19. 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 […]...
20. Luna Lake Haiku New moon on the lake. Your voice and the nightingale Serenade springtime. Full moon on the lake. Your voice and the waterbirds Celebrate summer. Old moon on the lake. Owls hunting autumnal food – Your voice still singing....
21. When Night is almost done When Night is almost done And Sunrise grows so near That we can touch the Spaces It’s time to smooth the Hair And get the Dimples ready And wonder we could care For that old faded Midnight That frightened but an Hour...
22. A Cat She had a name among the children; But no one loved though someone owned Her, locked her out of doors at bedtime And had her kittens duly drowned. In Spring, nevertheless, this cat Ate blackbirds, thrushes, nightingales, And birds of bright voice and plume and flight, As well as scraps from neighbours’ pails. I loathed […]...
23. The Flood I thought my true love slept; Behind her chair I crept And pulled out a long pin; The golden flood came out, She shook it all about, With both our faces in. Ah! little wren, I know Your mossy, small nest now A windy, cold place is; No eye can see my face, Howe’er it […]...
24. The Flight 1930 When the grey geese heard the Fool’s tread Too near to where they lay, They lifted neither voice nor head, But took themselves away. No water broke, no pinion whirred- There went no warning call. The steely, sheltering rushes stirred A little that was all. Only the osiers understood, And the drowned meadows spied […]...
25. Flying Fish I HAVE lived in many half-worlds myself… and so I know you. I leaned at a deck rail watching a monotonous sea, the same circling birds and the same plunge of furrows carved by the plowing keel. I leaned so… and you fluttered struggling between two waves in the air now… and then under the […]...
26. The Lake The yard half a yard, Half a lake blue as a corpse. The lake will tell things you long to hear: Get away from here. Three o’clock. Dry leaves rat-tat like maracas. Whisky-colored grass Breaks at every step and trees Are slowly realizing they are nude. How long will you stay? For the lake asks […]...
27. 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...
28. Poet's Path My garden hath a slender path With ivy overgrown, A secret place where once would pace A pot all alone; I see him now with fretted brow, Plunged deep in thought; And sometimes he would write maybe, And sometimes he would not. A verse a day he used to say Keeps worry from the door; […]...
29. Lucifer in Starlight On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose. Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend Above the rolling ball in cloud part screened, Where sinners hugged their spectre of repose. Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those. And now upon his western wing he leaned, Now his huge bulk o’er Afric’s sands […]...
30. 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...
31. An English Breeze UP with the sun, the breeze arose, Across the talking corn she goes, And smooth she rustles far and wide Through all the voiceful countryside. Through all the land her tale she tells; She spins, she tosses, she compels The kites, the clouds, the windmill sails And all the trees in all the dales. God […]...
32. The Frost Spirit He comes, – he comes, – the Frost Spirit comes! You may trace his footsteps now On the naked woods and the blasted fields And the brown hill’s withered brow. He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees Where their pleasant green came forth, And the winds, which follow wherever he goes, Have […]...
33. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
34. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
35. Mrs. Purkapile He ran away and was gone for a year. When he came home he told me the silly story Of being kidnapped by pirates on Lake Michigan And kept in chains so he could not write me. I pretended to believe it, though I knew very well What he was doing, and that he met […]...
36. The Leaning Tower Having an aged hate of height I forced myself to climb the Tower, Yet paused at every second flight Because my heart is scant of power; Then when I gained the sloping summit Earthward I stared, straight as a plummet. When like a phantom by my side I saw a man cadaverous; At first I […]...
37. 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 […]...
38. One Almost Might Wouldn’t you say, Wouldn’t you say: one day, With a little more time or a little more patience, one might Disentangle for separate, deliberate, slow delight One of the moment’s hundred strands, unfray Beginnings from endings, this from that, survey Say a square inch of the ground one stands on, touch Part of oneself or […]...
39. To a Child of Quality, Five Years Old, 1704. The Author then Forty LORDS, knights, and squires, the numerous band That wear the fair Miss Mary’s fetters, Were summoned by her high command To show their passions by their letters. My pen amongst the rest I took, Lest those bright eyes, that cannot read, Should dart their kindling fire, and look The power they have to be obey’d. […]...
40. 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!...