The Flight

Related poetry:

1. 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 […]...
2. Delight is as the flight Delight is as the flight Or in the Ratio of it, As the Schools would say The Rainbow’s way A Skein Flung colored, after Rain, Would suit as bright, Except that flight Were Aliment “If it would last” I asked the East, When that Bent Stripe Struck up my childish Firmament And I, for glee, […]...
3. Flight 93 I held the switch in trembling fingers, asked Why existence felt so small, so purposeless, Like a minnow wriggling feebly in my grasp… Vibrations of huge engines thrummed my arms As, glistening with sweat, I nudged the switch To OFF… I heard the klaxon-shrill alarms Like vultures’ shriekings… earthward, in a stall… We floated… earthward… […]...
4. Flight On silver sand where ripples curled I counted sea-gulls seven; Shy, secret screened from all the world, And innocent as heaven. They did not of my nearness know, For dawn was barely bright, And they were still, like spots of snow In that pale, pearly light. Then one went forth unto the sea That rippled […]...
5. The Schooner 'Flight&#039 1 Adios, Carenage In idle August, while the sea soft, And leaves of brown islands stick to the rim Of this Carribean, I blow out the light By the dreamless face of Maria Concepcion To ship as a seaman on the schooner Flight. Out in the yard turning gray in the dawn, I stood like […]...
6. Old Boy Scout A bonny bird I found today Mired in a melt of tar; Its silky breast was silver-grey, Its wings were cinnabar. So still it lay right in the way Of every passing car. Yet as I gently sought to pry It loose, it glared at me; You would have thought its foe was I, It […]...
7. As In Their Flight The Birds Of Song AS in their flight the birds of song Halt here and there in sweet and sunny dales, But halt not overlong; The time one rural song to sing They pause; then following bounteous gales Steer forward on the wing: Sun-servers they, from first to last, Upon the sun they wait To ride the sailing blast. […]...
8. Daybreak In A Garden I heard the farm cocks crowing, loud, and faint, and thin, When hooded night was going and one clear planet winked: I heard shrill notes begin down the spired wood distinct, When cloudy shoals were chinked and gilt with fires of day. White-misted was the weald; the lawns were silver-grey; The lark his lonely field […]...
9. Saltbush Bill's Second Flight The news came down on the Castlereagh, and went to the world at large, That twenty thousand travelling sheep, with Saltbush Bill in charge, Were drifting down from a dried-out run to ravage the Castlereagh; And the squatters swore when they heard the news, and wished they were well away: For the name and the […]...
10. Down on the Shore Down on the shore, on the sunny shore! Where the salt smell cheers the land; Where the tide moves bright under boundless light, And the surge on the glittering strand; Where the children wade in the shallow pools, Or run from the froth in play; Where the swift little boats with milk-white wings Are crossing […]...
11. September 1913 What need you, being come to sense, But fumble in a greasy till And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer, until You have dried the marrow from the bone? For men were born to pray and save: Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone, It’s with O’Leary in the grave. Yet they […]...
12. Flight Voices out of the shade that cried, And long noon in the hot calm places, And children’s play by the wayside, And country eyes, and quiet faces All these were round my steady paces. Those that I could have loved went by me; Cool gardened homes slept in the sun; I heard the whisper of […]...
13. The Flight Of The Duchess I. You’re my friend: I was the man the Duke spoke to; I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too; So here’s the tale from beginning to end, My friend! II. Ours is a great wild country: If you climb to our castle’s top, I don’t see where your eye can stop; For […]...
14. On a Hillside A FRIENDLY mountain I know; As I lie on the green slope there It sets my heart in a glow And closes the door on care. A thought I try to frame- I was with you long ago; My soul from your heart out-came; Mountain, is that not so? Take me again, dear hills, Open […]...
15. Snow Geese Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last! What a task To ask Of anything, or anyone, Yet it is ours, And not by the century or the year, but by the hours. One fall day I heard Above me, and above the sting of the wind, a sound I did not know, […]...
16. Robin Hood's Flight Robin Hood’s mother, these twelve years now, Has been gone from her earthly home; And Robin has paid, he scarce knew how, A sum for a noble tomb. The church-yard lies on a woody hill, But open to sun and air: It seems as if the heaven still Were looking and smiling there. Often when […]...
17. Cruisers As our mother the Frigate, bepainted and fine, Made play for her bully the Ship of the Line; So we, her bold daughters by iron and fire, Accost and decoy to our masters’ desire. Now, pray you, consider what toils we endure, Night-walking wet sea-lanes, a guard and a lure; Since half of our trade […]...
18. By the Pool of the Third Rosses I heard the sighing of the reed In the grey pool in the green land, The sea-wind in the long reeds sighing Between the green hill and the sand. I heard the sighing of the reeds Day after day, night after night; I heard the whirring wild ducks flying, I saw the sea-gull’s wheeling flight. […]...
19. In Examination Lo! from quiet skies In through the window my Lord the Sun! And my eyes Were dazzled and drunk with the misty gold, The golden glory that drowned and crowned me Eddied and swayed through the room. . . Around me, To left and to right, Hunched figures and old, Dull blear-eyed scribbling fools, grew […]...
20. In Flight Convergence Serene, almost angelic, The lights of the city attend Upon lumbering behemoths Shrilly screeching displeasure; they say That nothing is certain, That nothing man dreams or ordains Long endures his command. Here the streetlights that flicker And those burning steady Seem one, From a distance. Descend, They abruptly part ways, So that nothing is one […]...
21. Tell Me a Story Long ago, in Kentucky, I, a boy, stood By a dirt road, in first dark, and heard The great geese hoot northward. I could not see them, there being no moon And the stars sparse. I heard them. I did not know what was happening in my heart. It was the season before the elderberry […]...
22. The Cuckoo The cuckoo, like a hawk in flight, With narrow pointed wings Whews o’er our heads-soon out of sight And as she flies she sings: And darting down the hedgerow side She scares the little bird Who leaves the nest it cannot hide While plaintive notes are heard. I’ve watched it on an old oak tree […]...
23. Sonnet XXII: With Fools and Children To Folly With fools and children, good discretion bears; Then, honest people, bear with Love and me, Nor older yet, nor wiser made by years, Amongst the rest of fools and children be; Love, still a baby, plays with gauds and toys, And, like a wanton, sports with every feather, And idiots still are running […]...
24. The Anniversary “This bunch of violets,” he said, “Is for my daughter dear. Since that glad morn when she was wed It is today a year. She lives atop this flight of stairs Please give an arm to me: If we can take her unawares How glad she’ll be!” We climbed the stairs; the flight was four, […]...
25. A Story For Rose On The Midnight Flight To Boston Until tonight they were separate specialties, Different stories, the best of their own worst. Riding my warm cabin home, I remember Betsy’s Laughter; she laughed as you did, Rose, at the first Story. Someday, I promised her, I’ll be someone Going somewhere and we plotted it in the humdrum School for proper girls. The next […]...
26. From The Short Story What The Swallows Did Swallow, swallow, neighbor swallow, Starting on your autumn flight, Pause a moment at my window, Twitter softly your good-night; For the summer days are over, All your duties are well done, And the happy homes you builded Have grown empty, one by one. Swallow, swallow, neighbor swallow, Are you ready for your flight? Are all […]...
27. 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; […]...
28. Lines Composed in a Wood on a Windy Day My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze; For above and around me the wild wind is roaring, Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas. The long withered grass in the sunshine is glancing, The bare trees are tossing their branches on high; The dead […]...
29. Concert Party (EGYPTIAN BASE CAMP) They are gathering round…. Out of the twilight; over the grey-blue sand, Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to the sound – The jangle and throb of a piano… tum-ti-tum… Drawn by a lamp, they come Out of the glimmering lines of their tents, over the shuffling sand. O sing us the […]...
30. Buddha at Kamakura 1892 “And there is a Japanese idol at Kamakura” Oye who treated the Narrow Way By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day, Be gentle when “the heathen” pray To Buddha at Kamakura! To him the Way, the Law, apart, Whom Maya held beneath her heart, Ananda’s Lord, the Bodhisat, The Buddha of Kamakura. For though he neither […]...
31. Bas-Relief FIVE geese deploy mysteriously. Onward proudly with flagstaffs, Hearses with silver bugles, Bushels of plum-blossoms dropping For ten mystic web-feet- Each his own drum-major, Each charged with the honor Of the ancient goose nation, Each with a nose-length surpassing The nose-lengths of rival nations. Somberly, slowly, unimpeachably, Five geese deploy mysteriously....
32. The Poplar Why do you always stand there shivering Between the white stream and the road? The people pass through the dust On bicycles, in carts, in motor-cars; The waggoners go by at down; The lovers walk on the grass path at night. Stir from your roots, walk, poplar! You are more beautiful than they are. I […]...
33. The Open Sea From my window I can see, Where the sandhills dip, One far glimpse of open sea. Just a slender slip Curving like a crescent moon – Yet a greater prize Than the harbour garden-fair Spread beneath my eyes. Just below me swings the bay, Sings a sunny tune, But my heart is far away Out […]...
34. Stony Grey Soil O stony grey soil of Monaghan The laugh from my love you thieved; You took the gay child of my passion And gave me your clod-conceived. You clogged the feet of my boyhood And I believed that my stumble Had the poise and stride of Apollo And his voice my thick tongued mumble. You told […]...
35. Moon Fishing When the moon was full they came to the water. Some with pitchforks, some with rakes, Some with sieves and ladles, And one with a silver cup. And they fished til a traveler passed them and said, “Fools, To catch the moon you must let your women Spread their hair on the water Even the […]...
36. Lukannon I met my mates in the morning (and oh, but I am old!) Where roaring on the ledges the summer ground-swell rolled; I heard them lift the chorus that dropped the breakers’ song The beaches of Lukannon two million voices strong! The song of pleasant stations beside the salt lagoons, The song of blowing squadrons […]...
37. From The Shore A LONE gray bird, Dim-dipping, far-flying, Alone in the shadows and grandeurs and tumults Of night and the sea And the stars and storms. Out over the darkness it wavers and hovers, Out into the gloom it swings and batters, Out into the wind and the rain and the vast, Out into the pit of […]...
38. Land Mine A grey gull hovered overhead, Then wisely flew away. ‘In half a jiffy you’ll be dead,’ I thought I heard it say; As there upon the railway line, Checking an urge to cough, I laboured to de-fuse the mine That had not yet gone off. I tapped around the time-clock rim, Then something worried me. […]...
39. 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 […]...
40. Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...