Shine, Perishing Republic

Related poetry:

1. Two Travellers perishing in Snow Two Travellers perishing in Snow The Forests as they froze Together heard them strengthening Each other with the words That Heaven if Heaven must contain What Either left behind And then the cheer too solemn grew For language, and the wind Long steps across the features took That Love had touched the Morn With reverential […]...
2. Dark Prophecy: I Sing Of Shine And, yeah brothers While white America sings about the unsinkable molly brown (who was hustling the titanic When it went down) I sing to thee of Shine The stoker who was hip enough to flee the fucking ship And let the white folks drown With screams on their lips (jumped his black ass into the […]...
3. Should Lanterns Shine Should lanterns shine, the holy face, Caught in an octagon of unaccustomed light, Would wither up, an any boy of love Look twice before he fell from grace. The features in their private dark Are formed of flesh, but let the false day come And from her lips the faded pigments fall, The mummy cloths […]...
4. Battle Hymn of the Republic Howe’s Final version Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fatal lightning of his terrible swift sword: His Truth is marching on. I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling […]...
5. The Absence I speak to you across cities I speak to you across plains My mouth is upon your pillow Both faces of the walls come meeting My voice discovering you I speak to you of eternity O cities memories of cities Cities wrapped in our desires Cities come early cities come lately Cities strong and cities […]...
6. A Song of the Republic Sons of the South, awake! arise! Sons of the South, and do. Banish from under your bonny skies Those old-world errors and wrongs and lies. Making a hell in a Paradise That belongs to your sons and you. Sons of the South, make choice between (Sons of the South, choose true), The Land of Morn […]...
7. Corinna, from Athens, to Tanagra Tanagra! think not I forget Thy beautifully-storey’d streets; Be sure my memory bathes yet In clear Thermodon, and yet greets The blythe and liberal shepherd boy, Whose sunny bosom swells with joy When we accept his matted rushes Upheaved with sylvan fruit; away he bounds, and blushes. I promise to bring back with me What […]...
8. Rain Or Shine the vultures at the zoo (all three of the) Sit very quietly in their Caged tree And below On the ground Are chunks of rotten meat. The vultures are over-full. Our taxes have fed them Well. We move on to the next Cage. A man is in there Sitting on the ground Eating His own […]...
9. Dedication To the City of Bombay The Cities are full of pride, Challenging each to each This from her mountain-side, That from her burthened beach. They count their ships full tale Their corn and oil and wine, Derrick and loom and bale, And rampart’s gun-flecked line; City by City they hail: “Hast aught to match with […]...
10. Be Angry At The Sun That public men publish falsehoods Is nothing new. That America must accept Like the historical republics corruption and empire Has been known for years. Be angry at the sun for setting If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn, They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors. This republic, […]...
11. The Purse-Seine Our sardine fishermen work at night in the dark of the moon; daylight or moonlight They could not tell where to spread the net, unable to see the phosphorescence of the shoals of fish. They work northward from Monterey, coasting Santa Cruz; off New Year’s Point or off Pigeon Point The look-out man will see […]...
12. Contemplation Of The Sword Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide. The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel, formerly used to kill men, but here In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms and counter-storms of general destruction; killing of men, Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or […]...
13. The Singing Silences WHILE the yellow constellations shine with pale and tender glory, In the lilac-scented stillness let us listen to earth’s story. All the flowers like moths a-flutter glimmer rich with dusky hues; Everywhere around us seem to fall from nowhere the sweet dews. Through the drowsy lull, the murmur, stir of leaf and sleepy hum, We […]...
14. THE BUYERS To an apple-woman’s stall Once some children nimbly ran; Longing much to purchase all, They with joyous haste began Snatching up the piles there raised, While with eager eyes they gazed On the rosy fruit so nice; But when they found out the price, Down they threw the whole they’d got, Just as if they […]...
15. Sersmith the Dentist Do you think that odes and sermons, And the ringing of church bells, And the blood of old men and young men, Martyred for the truth they saw With eyes made bright by faith in God, Accomplished the world’s great reformations? Do you think that the Battle Hymn of the Republic Would have been heard […]...
16. Psalm 96 v.1,10ff C. M. Christ’s first and second coming. Sing to the Lord, ye distant lands, Ye tribes of every tongue; His new-discovered grace demands A new and nobler song. Say to the nations, Jesus reigns, God’s own almighty Son; His power the sinking world sustains, And grace surrounds his throne. Let heav’n proclaim the joyful […]...
17. The Lifeguard In a stable of boats I lie still, From all sleeping children hidden. The leap of a fish from its shadow Makes the whole lake instantly tremble. With my foot on the water, I feel The moon outside Take on the utmost of its power. I rise and go our through the boats. I set […]...
18. Heat O wind, rend open the heat, Cut apart the heat, Rend it to tatters. Fruit cannot drop Through this thick air Fruit cannot fall into heat That presses up and blunts The points of pears And rounds the grapes. Cut the heat Plough through it, Turning it on either side Of your path....
19. Silence and Stealth of Days Silence, and stealth of days! ’tis now Since thou art gone, Twelve hundred hours, and not a brow But clouds hang on. As he that in some cave’s thick damp Lockt from the light, Fixeth a solitary lamp, To brave the night, And walking from his sun, when past That glim’ring ray Cuts through the […]...
20. The Rose Sweet serene sky-like flower, Haste to adorn her bower; From thy long cloudy bed Shoot forth thy damask head! New-startled blush of Flora, The grief of pale Aurora, Who will contest no more, Haste, haste to strew her floor! Vermilion ball that’s given From lip to lip in heaven, Love’s couch’s coverlet, Haste, haste to […]...
21. The Broken Balance I. Reference to a Passage in Plutarch’s Life of Sulla The people buying and selling, consuming pleasures, talking in the archways, Were all suddenly struck quiet And ran from under stone to look up at the sky: so shrill and mournful, So fierce and final, a brazen Pealing of trumpets high up in the air, […]...
22. Making It Work 3-foot blue cannisters of nitro Along a conveyor belt, slow fish Speaking the language of silence. On the roof, I in my respirator Patching the asbestos gas lines As big around as the thick waist Of an oak tree. “These here are The veins of the place, stuff Inside’s the blood.” We work in rain, […]...
23. A Call DUSK its ash-grey blossoms sheds on violet skies, Over twilight mountains where the heart songs rise, Rise and fall and fade away from earth to air. Earth renews the music sweeter. Oh, come there. Come, acushla, come, as in ancient times Rings aloud the underland with faery chimes. Down the unseen ways as strays each […]...
24. The Treasure When colour goes home into the eyes, And lights that shine are shut again, With dancing girls and sweet birds’ cries Behind the gateways of the brain; And that no-place which gave them birth, shall close The rainbow and the rose:- Still may Time hold some golden space Where I’ll unpack that scented store Of […]...
25. Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End? Don’t call this world adorable, or useful, that’s not it. It’s frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds. The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil. The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold. But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white Feet of the trees Whose mouths open. Doesn’t […]...
26. The Lantern Out Of Doors Sometimes a lantern moves along the night, That interests our eyes. And who goes there? I think; where from and bound, I wonder, where, With, all down darkness wide, his wading light? Men go by me whom either beauty bright In mould or mind or what not else makes rare: They rain against our much-thick […]...
27. The Book of Urizen: Chapter IX 1. Then the Inhabitants of those Cities: Felt their Nerves change into Marrow And hardening Bones began In swift diseases and torments, In throbbings & shootings & grindings Thro’ all the coasts; till weaken’d The Senses inward rush’d shrinking, Beneath the dark net of infection. 2. Till the shrunken eyes clouded over Discernd not the […]...
28. Titian Would that such hills and cities round us sang, Such vistas of the actual earth and man As kindled Titian when his life began; Would that this latter Greek could put his gold, Wisdom and splendor in our brushes bold Till Greece and Venice, children of the sun, Become our every-day, and we aspire To […]...
29. Pear Tree Silver dust Lifted from the earth, Higher than my arms reach, You have mounted. O silver, Higher than my arms reach You front us with great mass; No flower ever opened So staunch a white leaf, No flower ever parted silver From such rare silver; O white pear, Your flower-tufts, Thick on the branch, Bring […]...
30. Psalm 65 part 2 v.5-13 L. M. Divine providence in air, earth, and sea. The God of our salvation hears The groans of Zion mixed with tears; Yet when he comes with kind designs, Through all the way his terror shines. On him the race of man depends, Far as the earth’s remotest ends, Where the Creator’s name is […]...
31. The Verdicts Not in the thick of the fight, Not in the press of the odds, Do the heroes come to their height, Or we know the demi-gods. That stands over till peace. We can only perceive Men returned from the seas, Very grateful for leave. They grant us sudden days Snatched from their business of war; […]...
32. The Free THEY bathed in the fire-flooded fountains: Life girdled them round and about: They slept in the clefts of the mountains: The stars called them forth with a shout. They prayed, but their worship was only The wonder at nights and at days, As still as the lips of the lonely Though burning with dumbness of […]...
33. Rutherford McDowell They brought me ambrotypes Of the old pioneers to enlarge. And sometimes one sat for me- Some one who was in being When giant hands from the womb of the world Tore the republic. What was it in their eyes?- For I could never fathom That mystical pathos of drooped eyelids, And the serene sorrow […]...
34. The Traveller-Heart (To a Man who maintained that the Mausoleum is the Stateliest Possible Manner of Interment) I would be one with the dark, dark earth: Follow the plough with a yokel tread. I would be part of the Indian corn, Walking the rows with the plumes o’erhead. I would be one with the lavish earth, Eating […]...
35. Sea-Gulls of Manhattan Children of the elemental mother, Born upon some lonely island shore Where the wrinkled ripples run and whisper, Where the crested billows plunge and roar; Long-winged, tireless roamers and adventurers, Fearless breasters of the wind and sea, In the far-off solitary places I have seen you floating wild and free! Here the high-built cities rise […]...
36. Archaic Torso Of Apollo We cannot know his legendary head With eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso Is still suffused with brilliance from inside, Like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low, Gleams in all its power. Otherwise The curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could A smile run through the placid […]...
37. To Those Born After To the cities I came in a time of disorder That was ruled by hunger. I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar And then I joined in their rebellion. That’s how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth. I ate my dinners between the battles, I lay […]...
38. Mentana : First Anniversary At the time when the stars are grey, And the gold of the molten moon Fades, and the twilight is thinned, And the sun leaps up, and the wind, A light rose, not of the day, A stronger light than of noon. As the light of a face much loved Was the face of the […]...
39. The Litany Of Nations CHORUS If with voice of words or prayers thy sons may reach thee, We thy latter sons, the men thine after-birth, We the children of thy grey-grown age, O Earth, O our mother everlasting, we beseech thee, By the sealed and secret ages of thy life; By the darkness wherein grew thy sacred forces; By […]...
40. Archimedes To Archimedes once a scholar came, “Teach me,” he said, “the art that won thy fame; The godlike art which gives such boons to toil, And showers such fruit upon thy native soil; The godlike art that girt the town when all Rome’s vengeance burst in thunder on the wall!” “Thou call’st art godlike it […]...