Contrast

Related poetry:

1. Stopping at Incense Storing Temple Not know incense store temple Few enter cloud peaks Ancient trees no person path Deep hills what place bell Spring sound choke sheer rock Sun colour cold green pines Dusk empty pool bend Peace meditation control fierce dragon I did not know the incense storing temple, I walked a few miles into the clouded peaks. […]...
2. "What says the sea, little shell?&quot “What says the sea, little shell? What says the sea? Long has our brother been silent to us, Kept his message for the ships, Awkward ships, stupid ships.” “The sea bids you mourn, O Pines, Sing low in the moonlight. He sends tale of the land of doom, Of place where endless falls A rain […]...
3. From The Short Story A Christmas Dream, And How It Came True From our happy home Through the world we roam One week in all the year, Making winter spring With the joy we bring For Christmas-tide is here. Now the eastern star Shines from afar To light the poorest home; Hearts warmer grow, Gifts freely flow, For Christmas-tide has come. Now gay trees rise Before young […]...
4. Contrast “Carry your suitcase, Sir?” he said. I turned away to hide a grin, For he was shorter by a head Than I and pitiably thin. I could have made a pair of him, So with my load I stoutly legged; But his tenacity was grim: “Please let me help you, sir,” he begged. I could […]...
5. The Contrast Fat lady, in your four-wheeled chair, Dolled up to beat the band, At me you arrogantly stare With gold lorgnette in hand. Oh how you differ from the dame So shabby, gaunt and grey, With legs rheumatically lame, Who steers you on your way. Nay, jewelled lady, look not back Lest you should be disturbed […]...
6. To E I have remembered beauty in the night, Against black silences I waked to see A shower of sunlight over Italy And green Ravello dreaming on her height; I have remembered music in the dark, The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach’s, And running water singing on the rocks When once in English woods […]...
7. My Dead Dream HAVE YOU found me, at last, O my Dream? Seven eons ago You died and I buried you deep under forests of snow. Why have you come hither? Who bade you awake from your sleep And track me beyond the cerulean foam of the deep? Would you tear from my lintels these sacred green garlands […]...
8. Clouds Gathering It seemed the kind of life we wanted. Wild strawberries and cream in the morning. Sunlight in every room. The two of us walking by the sea naked. Some evenings, however, we found ourselves Unsure of what comes next. Like tragic actors in a theater on fire, With birds circling over our heads, The dark […]...
9. The Bell From Europe The tower bell in the Tenth Street Church Rang out nostalgia for the refugee Who knew the source of bells by sound. We liked it, but in ignorance. One meets authorities on bells infrequently. Europe alone made bells with such a tone, Herr Mannheim said. The bell Struck midnight, and it shook the room. He […]...
10. Trees Against The Sky Pines against the sky, Pluming the purple hill; Pines. . . and I wonder why, Heart, you quicken and thrill? Wistful heart of a boy, Fill with a strange sweet joy, Lifting to Heaven nigh – Pines against the sky. Palms against the sky, Failing the hot, hard blue; Stark on the beach I lie, […]...
11. Wonderment Then a wind blew; And he who had forgot he moved Lonely amid the green and silver morning weather, Suddenly grew Aware of clouds and trees Gleaming and white and shafted, shaken together And blown to music by the ruffling breeze. Like flush of wings The moment passed: he stood Dazzled with blossom in the […]...
12. Archibald's Example Old Archibald, in his eternal chair, Where trespassers, whatever their degree, Were soon frowned out again, was looking off Across the clover when he said to me: “My green hill yonder, where the sun goes down Without a scratch, was once inhabited By trees that injured him-an evil trash That made a cage, and held […]...
13. Christmas Trees (A Christmas Circular Letter) THE CITY had withdrawn into itself And left at last the country to the country; When between whirls of snow not come to lie And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove A stranger to our yard, who looked the city, Yet did in country fashion in that there He […]...
14. The Fury Of Sunrises Darkness As black as your eyelid, Poketricks of stars, The yellow mouth, The smell of a stranger, Dawn coming up, Dark blue, No stars, The smell of a love, Warmer now As authenic as soap, Wave after wave Of lightness And the birds in their chains Going mad with throat noises, The birds in their […]...
15. THE CEREMONIES FOR CANDLEMAS DAY Kindle the Christmas brand, and then Till sunset let it burn; Which quench’d, then lay it up again, Till Christmas next return. Part must be kept, wherewith to teend The Christmas log next year; And where ’tis safely kept, the fiend Can do no mischief there....
16. Sea The Sea called I lay on the rocks and said: “I am come.” She mocked and showed her teeth, Stretching out her long green arms. “Go away!” she thundered. “Then tell me what I am to do,” I begged. “If I leave you, you will not be silent, But cry my name in the cities […]...
17. At Nightfall The dark is coming o’er the world, my playmate, And the fields where poplars stand are very still, All our groves of green delight have been invaded, There are voices quite unknown upon the hill; The wind has grown too weary for a comrade, It is keening in the rushes spent and low, Let us […]...
18. A Map Of Love Your face more than others’ faces Maps the half-remembered places I have come to I while I slept- Continents a dream had kept Secret from all waking folk Till to your face I awoke, And remembered then the shore, And the dark interior....
19. Christmas in a box the policeman on the streets Found christmas in a box Tipped it down a manhole It wasn’t wearing socks A little old lady nearby – The poor sod’s done no harm She got hit with a truncheon For spreading false alarm The policeman then went home Pleased his job was done Called for his christmas […]...
20. The Czar’s Last Christmas Letter: A Barn in the Urals You were never told, Mother, how old Illyawas drunk That last holiday, for five days and nights He stumbled through Petersburg forming A choir of mutes, he dressed them in pink ascension gowns And, then, sold Father’s Tirietz stallion so to rent A hall for his Christmas recital: the audience Was rowdy but Illya in […]...
21. The Man Rock A man is a rock in a garden of chairs and waits For a longtime to be over. It is easier for a rock in a garden than a man Inside his mother. He decided to be a rock when He got outside. A rock asks only what is a rock. A rock waits to […]...
22. The Book of Urizen: Chapter VII 1. They named the child Orc, he grew Fed with milk of Enitharmon 2. Los awoke her; O sorrow & pain! A tight’ning girdle grew, Around his bosom. In sobbings He burst the girdle in twain, But still another girdle Opressd his bosom, In sobbings Again he burst it. Again Another girdle succeeds The girdle […]...
23. A Green Stream I have sailed the River of Yellow Flowers, Borne by the channel of a green stream, Rounding ten thousand turns through the mountains On a journey of less than thirty miles…. Rapids hum over heaped rocks; But where light grows dim in the thick pines, The surface of an inlet sways with nut-horns And weeds […]...
24. Sonnet V Not undelightful, friend, our rustic ease To grateful hearts; for by especial hap, Deep nested in the hill’s enormous lap, With its own ring of walls and grove of trees, Sits, in deep shelter, our small cottage – nor Far-off is seen, rose carpeted and hung With clematis, the quarry whence she sprung, O mater […]...
25. Young and Old 1 When all the world is young, lad, 2 And all the trees are green; 3 And every goose a swan, lad, 4 And every lass a queen; 5 Then hey for boot and horse, lad, 6 And round the world away! 7 Young blood must have its course, lad, 8 And every dog his […]...
26. Vivien Her eyes under their lashes were blue pools Fringed round with lilies; her bright hair unfurled Clothed her as sunshine clothes the summer world. Her robes were gauzes gold and green and gules, All furry things flocked round her, from her hand Nibbling their foods and fawning at her feet. Two peacocks watched her where […]...
27. The Ballad Of The Proverbs So rough the goat will scratch, it cannot sleep. So often goes the pot to the well that it breaks. So long you heat iron, it will glow; So heavily you hammer it, it shatters. So good is the man as his praise; So far he will go, and he’s forgotten; So bad he behaves, […]...
28. Memorial Verses Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, Long since, saw Byron’s struggle cease. But one such death remain’d to come; The last poetic voice is dumb We stand to-day by Wordsworth’s tomb. When Byron’s eyes were shut in death, We bow’d our head and held our breath. He taught us little; but our soul Had felt […]...
29. A Winter Day I The air is silent save where stirs A bugling breeze among the firs; The virgin world in white array Waits for the bridegroom kiss of day; All heaven blooms rarely in the east Where skies are silvery and fleeced, And o’er the orient hills made glad The morning comes in wonder clad; Oh, ’tis […]...
30. Nor We Of Her To Him He said no word of her to us Nor we of her to him, But oh it saddened us to see How wan he grew and thin. We said: she eats him day and night And draws the blood from him, We did not know but said we thought This was why he grew thin. […]...
31. A Christmas Carol Welcome, sweet Christmas, blest be the morn That Christ our Saviour was born! Earth’s Redeemer, to save us from all danger, And, as the Holy Record tells, born in a manger. Chorus Then ring, ring, Christmas bells, Till your sweet music o’er the kingdom swells, To warn the people to respect the morn That Christ […]...
32. Spring Pools These pools that, though in forests, still reflect The total sky almost without defect, And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver, Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone, And yet not out by any brook or river, But up by roots to bring dark foliage on. The trees that have it […]...
33. The Christmas Tree In the dark and damp of the alley cold, Lay the Christmas tree that hadn’t been sold; By a shopman dourly thrown outside; With the ruck and rubble of Christmas-tide; Trodden deep in the muck and mire, Unworthy even to feed a fire… So I stopped and salvaged that tarnished tree, And thus is the […]...
34. At The Fishhouses Although it is a cold evening, Down by one of the fishhouses An old man sits netting, His net, in the gloaming almost invisible, A dark purple-brown, And his shuttle worn and polished. The air smells so strong of codfish It makes one’s nose run and one’s eyes water. The five fishhouses have steeply peaked […]...
35. So Many Blood-Lakes We have now won two world-wars, neither of which concerned us, we were Slipped in. We have levelled the powers Of Europe, that were the powers of the world, into rubble and Dependence. We have won two wars and a third is comming. This one will not be so easy. We were at ease while […]...
36. Peace on Earth He took a frayed hat from his head, And “Peace on Earth” was what he said. “A morsel out of what you’re worth, And there we have it: Peace on Earth. Not much, although a little more Than what there was on earth before I’m as you see, I’m Ichabod,- But never mind the ways […]...
37. The Book of Urizen: Chapter I 1. Lo, a shadow of horror is risen In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific! Self-closd, all-repelling: what Demon Hath form’d this abominable void This soul-shudd’ring vacuum? Some said “It is Urizen”, But unknown, abstracted Brooding secret, the dark power hid. 2. Times on times he divided, & measur’d Space by space in his ninefold darkness Unseen, unknown! […]...
38. Yes! No! How necessary it is to have opinions! I think the spotted trout Lilies are satisfied, standing a few inches above the earth. I Think serenity is not something you just find in the world, Like a plum tree, holding up its white petals. The violets, along the river, are opening their blue faces, like Small […]...
39. Rosemary Beauty and Beauty’s son and rosemary – Venus and Love, her son, to speak plainly – Born of the sea supposedly, At Christmas each, in company, Braids a garland of festivity. Not always rosemary – Since the flight to Egypt, blooming indifferently. With lancelike leaf, green but silver underneath, Its flowers – white originally – […]...
40. Sojourns in the Parallel World We live our lives of human passions, Cruelties, dreams, concepts, Crimes and the exercise of virtue In and beside a world devoid Of our preoccupations, free From apprehension though affected, Certainly, by our actions. A world Parallel to our own though overlapping. We call it “Nature”; only reluctantly Admitting ourselves to be “Nature” too. Whenever […]...