Dolphin

Related poetry:

1. On the Mystery of the Incarnation It’s when we face for a moment The worst our kind can do, and shudder to know The taint in our own selves, that awe Cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart: Not to a flower, not to a dolphin, To no innocent form But to this creature vainly sure It and no other […]...
2. Arion to a Dolphin, On His Majesty's passage into England Whom does this stately Navy bring? O! ’tis Great Britain’s Glorious King, Convey him then, ye Winds and Seas, Swift as Desire and calm as Peace. In your Respect let him survey What all his other Subjects pay; And prophesie to them again The splendid smoothness of his Reign. Charles and his mighty hopes you […]...
3. Sonnet XXXVIII ARion, when through tempests cruel wracke, He forth was thrown into the greedy seas: Through the sweet musick which his harp did make Allu’rd a Dolphin him from death to ease. But my rude musick, which was wont to please Some dainty eares, cannot with any skill, The dreadfull tempest of her wrath appease, Nor […]...
4. Before you knew you owned it Expect nothing. Live frugally On surprise. Become a stranger To need of pity Or, if compassion be freely Given out Take only enough Stop short of urge to plead Then purge away the need. Wish for nothing larger Than your own small heart Or greater than a star; Tame wild disappointment With caress unmoved and […]...
5. The Debate Between Villon And His Heart Who’s that I hear?-It’s me-Who?-Your heart Hanging on by the thinnest thread I lose all my strength, substance, and fluid When I see you withdrawn this way all alone Like a whipped cur sulking in the corner Is it due to your mad hedonism?- What’s it to you?-I have to suffer for it- Leave me […]...
6. Understanding The years of my youth, my sensual life How clearly I see their meaning now. What needless repentances, how futile…. But I did not understand the meaning then. In the dissolute life of my youth The desires of my poetry were being formed, The scope of my art was being plotted. This is why my […]...
7. THE IRISH GUARDS 1918 We’re not so old in the Army List, But we’re not so young at our trade, For we had the honour at Fontenoy Of meeting the Guards’Brigade. ‘Twas Lally, Dillon, Bulkeley, Clare, And Lee that led us then, And after a hundred and seventy years We’re fighting for France again! Old Days! The wild […]...
8. Drink of This Cup Drink of this cup; you’ll find there’s a spell in Its every drop ‘gainst the ills of mortality; Talk of the cordial that sparkled for Helen; Her cup was a fiction, but this is reality. Would you forget the dark world we are in Just taste of the bubble that gleams on the top of […]...
9. Hidden dangers Which things excited you the most when you were young, Can you recall the pleasures they would bring? Indulge Yourself, dispose your mind of daily care and take The plunge – but beware, there’s hidden dangers here. Have you ever sucked your thumb? And if you did would You admit you did? Did you ever […]...
10. The Silent Lover ii WRONG not, sweet empress of my heart, The merit of true passion, With thinking that he feels no smart, That sues for no compassion. Silence in love bewrays more woe Than words, though ne’er so witty: A beggar that is dumb, you know, May challenge double pity. Then wrong not, dearest to my heart, My […]...
11. Elizabeth Elizabeth, it surely is most fit [Logic and common usage so commanding] In thy own book that first thy name be writ, Zeno and other sages notwithstanding; And I have other reasons for so doing Besides my innate love of contradiction; Each poet – if a poet – in pursuing The muses thro’ their bowers […]...
12. Ninth Inning He woke up in New York City on Valentine’s Day, Speeding. The body in the booth next to his was still warm, Was gone. He had bought her a sweater, a box of chocolate Said her life wasn’t working he looked stricken she said You’re all bent out of shape, accusingly, and when he She […]...
13. I saw that the Flake was on it I saw that the Flake was on it But plotted with Time to dispute “Unchanged” I urged with a candor That cost me my honest Heart But “you” she returned with valor Sagacious of my mistake “Have altered Accept the pillage For the progress’ sake”...
14. The Poet in the Nursery The youngest poet down the shelves was fumbling In a dim library, just behind the chair From which the ancient poet was mum-mumbling A song about some Lovers at a Fair, Pulling his long white beard and gently grumbling That rhymes were beastly things and never there. And as I groped, the whole time I […]...
15. To Him Who Ever Thought with Love of Me To him who ever thought with love of me Or ever did for my sake some good deed I will appear, looking such charity And kind compassion, at his life’s last need That he will out of hand and heartily Repent he sinned and all his sins be freed....
16. Modern Love X: But Where Began the Change But where began the change; and what’s my crime? The wretch condemned, who has not been arraigned, Chafes at his sentence. Shall I, unsustained, Drag on Love’s nerveless body thro’ all time? I must have slept, since now I wake. Prepare, You lovers, to know Love a thing of moods: Not like hard life, of […]...
17. Half-And-Half You can’t be, says a Palestinian Christian On the first feast day after Ramadan. So, half-and-half and half-and-half. He sells glass. He knows about broken bits, Chips. If you love Jesus you can’t love Anyone else. Says he. At his stall of blue pitchers on the Via Dolorosa, He’s sweeping. The rubbed stones Feel holy. […]...
18. Grown-Up Talk Half-Past-Six and I were talking In a very grown-up way; We had got so tired with running That we did not want to play. “How do babies come, I wonder,” He said, looking at the sky, “Does God mix the things together An’ just make it-like a pie?” I was really not quite certain, But […]...
19. Two Men (J. L. And R. B.) In the Northland there were three Pukka Pliers of the pen; Two of them had Fame in fee And were loud and lusty men; By them like a shrimp was I – Yet alas! they had to die. Jack was genius through and through. Who his future could foretell? What we sweated blood to do […]...
20. Purple Martins IF we were such and so, the same as these, Maybe we too would be slingers and sliders, Tumbling half over in the water mirrors, Tumbling half over at the horse heads of the sun, Tumbling our purple numbers. Twirl on, you and your satin blue. Be water birds, be air birds. Be these purple […]...
21. Forth went the candid man Forth went the candid man And spoke freely to the wind When he looked about him he was in a far strange country. Forth went the candid man And spoke freely to the stars Yellow light tore sight from his eyes. “My good fool,” said a learned bystander, “Your operations are mad.” “You are too […]...
22. The Realists Hope that you may understand! What can books of men that wive In a dragon-guarded land, Paintings of the dolphin-drawn Sea-nymphs in their pearly wagons Do, but awake a hope to live That had gone With the dragons?...
23. Hymn 93 Christ, or Wisdom, obeyed or resisted. Prov. 8:34-36. Thus saith the Wisdom of the Lord, “Blest is the man that hears my word, Keeps daily watch before my gates, And at my feet for mercy waits. “The soul that seeks me shall obtain Immortal wealth and heav’nly gain; Immortal life is his reward; Life, and […]...
24. Old Age Gets Up Stirs its ashes and embers, its burnt sticks An eye powdered over, half melted and solid again Ponders Ideas that collapse At the first touch of attention The light at the window, so square and so same So full-strong as ever, the window frame A scaffold in space, for eyes to lean on Supporting the […]...
25. Byzantium The unpurged images of day recede; The Emperor’s drunken soldiery are abed; Night resonance recedes, night walkers’ song After great cathedral gong; A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains All that man is, All mere complexities, The fury and the mire of human veins. Before me floats an image, man or shade, Shade more than […]...
26. Shut Not Your Doors, &c SHUT not your doors to me, proud libraries, For that which was lacking on all your well-fill’d shelves, yet needed most, I bring; Forth from the army, the war emerging-a book I have made, The words of my book nothing-the drift of it everything; A book separate, not link’d with the rest, nor felt by […]...
27. Alfred Moir Why was I not devoured by self-contempt, And rotted down by indifference And impotent revolt like Indignation Jones? Why, with all of my errant steps Did I miss the fate of Willard Fluke? And why, though I stood at Burchard’s bar, As a sort of decoy for the house to the boys To buy the […]...
28. Love Constrained to Obedience No strength of nature can suffice To serve the Lord aright: And what she has she misapplies, For want of clearer light. How long beneath the law I lay In bondage and distress; I toll’d the precept to obey, But toil’d without success. Then, to abstain from outward sin Was more than I could do; […]...
29. Chant For Dark Hours Some men, some men Cannot pass a Book shop. (Lady, make your mind up, and wait your life away.) Some men, some men Cannot pass a Crap game. (He said he’d come at moonrise, and here’s another day!) Some men, some men Cannot pass a Bar-room. (Wait about, and hang about, and that’s the way […]...
30. 'Twas fighting for his Life he was ‘Twas fighting for his Life he was That sort accomplish well The Ordnance of Vitality Is frugal of its Ball. It aims once kills once conquers once There is no second War In that Campaign inscrutable Of the Interior....
31. See it Through When you’re up against a trouble, Meet it squarely, face to face; Lift your chin and set your shoulders, Plant your feet and take a brace. When it’s vain to try to dodge it, Do the best that you can do; You may fail, but you may conquer, See it through! Black may be the […]...
32. Crossroads The second half of my life will be black To the white rind of the old and fading moon. The second half of my life will be water Over the cracked floor of these desert years. I will land on my feet this time, Knowing at least two languages and who My friends are. I […]...
33. To a Childless Woman You think I cannot understand. Ah, but I do… I have been wrung with anger and compassion for you. I wonder if you’d loathe my pity, if you knew. But you shall know. I’ve carried in my heart too long This secret burden. Has not silence wrought your wrong— Brought you to dumb and wintry […]...
34. Village in Late Summer LIPS half-willing in a doorway. Lips half-singing at a window. Eyes half-dreaming in the walls. Feet half-dancing in a kitchen. Even the clocks half-yawn the hours And the farmers make half-answers....
35. Nothing grows except the grass Nothing grows except the grass. Nothing leaps into sight except some stone And what the stone contains and protects. Here, far from the beach, Far from the place where the water Returns every so often Rusted metal, mouldy wood, The corpse of a dolphin or a turtle. The wind does not blow with the force […]...
36. There is a Gentle Thought There is a gentle thought that often springs To life in me, because it speaks of you. Its reasoning about love’s so sweet and true, The heart is conquered, and accepts these things. ‘Who is this’ the mind enquires of the heart, ‘who comes here to seduce our intellect? Is his power so great we […]...
37. When I read the Book WHEN I read the book, the biography famous, And is this, then, (said I,) what the author calls a man’s life? And so will some one, when I am dead and gone, write my life? (As if any man really knew aught of my life; Why, even I myself, I often think, know little or […]...
38. Editorial Impressions He seemed so certain ‘all was going well’, As he discussed the glorious time he’d had While visiting the trenches. ‘One can tell You’ve gathered big impressions!’ grinned the lad Who’d been severely wounded in the back In some wiped-out impossible Attack. ‘Impressions? Yes, most vivid! I am writing A little book called Europe on […]...
39. Thermopylae Honor to those who in the life they lead Define and guard a Thermopylae. Never betraying what is right, Consistent and just in all they do But showing pity also, and compassion; Generous when they’re rich, and when they’re poor, Still generous in small ways, Still helping as much as they can; Always speaking the […]...
40. Enemy Conscript What are we fighting for, We fellows who go to war? Fighting for Freedom’s sake! (You give me the belly-ache.) Freedom to starve or slave! Freedom! aye, in the grave. Fighting for “hearth and home,” Who haven’t an inch of loam? Hearth? Why even a byre Can only be ours for hire. Dying for future […]...