In Examination

Related poetry:

1. Before an Examination The little letters dance across the page, Flaunt and retire, and trick the tired eyes; Sick of the strain, the glaring light, I rise Yawning and stretching, full of empty rage At the dull maunderings of a long dead sage, Fling up the windows, fling aside his lies; Choosing to breathe, not stifle and be […]...
2. The Giver of Stars Hold your soul open for my welcoming. Let the quiet of your spirit bathe me With its clear and rippled coolness, That, loose-limbed and weary, I find rest, Outstretched upon your peace, as on a bed of ivory. Let the flickering flame of your soul play all about me, That into my limbs may come […]...
3. Examination at the Womb-Door Who owns those scrawny little feet? Death. Who owns this bristly scorched-looking face? Death. Who owns these still-working lungs? Death. Who owns this utility coat of muscles? Death. Who owns these unspeakable guts? Death. Who owns these questionable brains? Death. All this messy blood? Death. These minimum-efficiency eyes? Death. This wicked little tongue? Death. This […]...
4. A Visitor My father, for example, Who was young once And blue-eyed, Returns On the darkest of nights To the porch and knocks Wildly at the door, And if I answer I must be prepared For his waxy face, For his lower lip Swollen with bitterness. And so, for a long time, I did not answer, But […]...
5. To Qiwu Qian Bound Home After Failing an Examination In a happy reign there should be no hermits; The wise and able should consult together…. So you, a man of the eastern mountains, Gave up your life of picking herbs And came all the way to the Gate of Gold But you found your devotion unavailing. …To spend the Day of No Fire on […]...
6. Psalm 97 v.1,3,5-7,11 C. M. Christ’s incarnation, and the last judgment. Ye islands of the northern sea, Rejoice, the Savior reigns; His word, like fire, prepares his way, And mountains melt to plains. His presence sinks the proudest hills, And makes the valleys rise; The humble soul enjoys his smiles, The haughty sinner dies. The heav’ns his […]...
7. Prologue to Rodin in Rime To Kathleen- Nor I can give, nor you can take; endures The simple truth of me that is yours. Is not the music mingled with the form When all the heavens break in blind black storm? Are we not veiled as Gods, and cruel as they, Smiting our brilliance on the shuddering clay? Silence and […]...
8. Winged Man The moon, a sweeping scimitar, dipped in the stormy straits, The dawn, a crimson cataract, burst through the eastern gates, The cliffs were robed in scarlet, the sands were cinnabar, Where first two men spread wings for flight and dared the hawk afar. There stands the cunning workman, the crafty past all praise, The man […]...
9. Choriambics II Here the flame that was ash, shrine that was void, Lost in the haunted wood, I have tended and loved, year upon year, I in the solitude Waiting, quiet and glad-eyed in the dark, knowing that once a gleam Glowed and went through the wood. Still I abode strong in a golden dream, Unrecaptured. For […]...
10. The Beggar Lad dies early The Beggar Lad dies early It’s Somewhat in the Cold And Somewhat in the Trudging feet And haply, in the World The Cruel smiling bowing World That took its Cambric Way Nor heard the timid cry for “Bread” “Sweet Lady Charity” Among Redeemed Children If Trudging feet may stand The Barefoot time forgotten so The […]...
11. His Confidence Undying love to buy I wrote upon The corners of this eye All wrongs done. What payment were enough For undying love? I broke my heart in two So hard I struck. What matter? for I know That out of rock, Out of a desolate source, Love leaps upon its course....
12. Air And Angels Twice or thrice had I loved thee, Before I knew thy face or name, So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame, Angels affect us oft, and worship’d be; Still when, to where thou wert, I came, Some lovely glorious nothing I did see. But since my soul, whose child love is, Takes limbs […]...
13. Dippold the Optician What do you see now? Globes of red, yellow, purple. Just a moment! And now? My father and mother and sisters. Yes! And now? Knights at arms, beautiful women, kind faces. Try this. A field of grain-a city. Very good! And now? A young woman with angels bending over her. A heavier lens! And now? […]...
14. Dining-Room Tea When you were there, and you, and you, Happiness crowned the night; I too, Laughing and looking, one of all, I watched the quivering lamplight fall On plate and flowers and pouring tea And cup and cloth; and they and we Flung all the dancing moments by With jest and glitter. Lip and eye Flashed […]...
15. Hymn 2 The deity and humanity of Christ. John 1:1,3,14; Col. 1:16. Ere the blue heav’ns were stretched abroad, From everlasting was the Word: With God he was; the Word was God, And must divinely be adored. By his own power were all things made; By him supported all things stand; He is the whole creation’s head, […]...
16. Frenzy I am not lazy. I am on the amphetamine of the soul. I am, each day, Typing out the God My typewriter believes in. Very quick. Very intense, Like a wolf at a live heart. Not lazy. When a lazy man, they say, Looks toward heaven, The angels close the windows. Oh angels, Keep the […]...
17. To E. T I slumbered with your poems on my breast Spread open as I dropped them half-read through Like dove wings on a figure on a tomb To see, if in a dream they brought of you, I might not have the chance I missed in life Through some delay, and call you to your face First […]...
18. Waking In March Last night, again, I dreamed My children were back at home, Small boys huddled in their separate beds, And I went from one to the other Listening to their breathing regular, Almost soundless until a white light Hardened against the bedroom wall, The light of Los Angeles burning south Of here, going at last as […]...
19. If I'm lost now If I’m lost now That I was found Shall still my transport be That once on me those Jasper Gates Blazed open suddenly That in my awkward gazing face The Angels softly peered And touched me with their fleeces, Almost as if they cared I’m banished now you know it How foreign that can be […]...
20. Jabberwocky ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!” He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the […]...
21. Sonnet 22 – When our two souls stand up erect and strong When our two souls stand up erect and strong, Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher, Until the lengthening wings break into fire At either curved point,-what bitter wrong Can the earth do to us, that we should not long Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher, The angels would press on us and […]...
22. An Apprehension IF all the gentlest-hearted friends I know Concentred in one heart their gentleness, That still grew gentler till its pulse was less For life than pity, I should yet be slow To bring my own heart nakedly below The palm of such a friend, that he should press Motive, condition, means, appliances, My false ideal […]...
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. I Fellowed Sleep I fellowed sleep who kissed me in the brain, Let fall the tear of time; the sleeper’s eye, Shifting to light, turned on me like a moon. So, planning-heeled, I flew along my man And dropped on dreaming and the upward sky. I fled the earth and, naked, climbed the weather, Reaching a second ground […]...
25. In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport Here, where the noises of the busy town, The ocean’s plunge and roar can enter not, We stand and gaze around with tearful awe, And muse upon the consecrated spot. No signs of life are here: the very prayers Inscribed around are in a language dead; The light of the “perpetual lamp” is spent That […]...
26. Epistle to Mrs. Tyler It ever was allow’d, dear Madam, Ev’n from the days of father Adam, Of all perfection flesh is heir to, Fair patience is the gentlest virtue; This is a truth our grandames teach, Our poets sing, and parsons preach; Yet after all, dear Moll, the fact is We seldom put it into practice; I’ll warrant […]...
27. The house where I was born (01) I woke up, it was the house where I was born, Sea foam splashed against the rock, Not a single bird, only the wind to open and close the wave, Everywhere on the horizon the smell of ashes, As if the hills were hiding a fire That somewhere else was burning up a universe. I […]...
28. Drying Their Wings What the Carpenter Said THE moon’s a cottage with a door. Some folks can see it plain. Look, you may catch a glint of light, A sparkle through the pane, Showing the place is brighter still Within, though bright without. There, at a cosy open fire Strange babes are grouped about. The children of the […]...
29. In the Stalls My life is like a music-hall, Where, in the impotence of rage, Chained by enchantment to my stall, I see myself upon the stage Dance to amuse a music-hall. ‘Tis I that smoke this cigarette, Lounge here, and laugh for vacancy, And watch the dancers turn; and yet It is my very self I see […]...
30. When You Are Old When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But […]...
31. Love and a Question A stranger came to the door at eve, And he spoke the bridegroom fair. He bore a green-white stick in his hand, And, for all burden, care. He asked with the eyes more than the lips For a shelter for the night, And he turned and looked at the road afar Without a window light. […]...
32. Aphrodite NOT unremembering we pass our exile from the starry ways: One timeless hour in time we caught from the long night of endless days. With solemn gaiety the stars danced far withdrawn on elfin heights: The lilac breathed amid the shade of green and blue and citron lights. But yet the close enfolding night seemed […]...
33. To Sylvia “O love, lean thou thy cheek to mine, And let the tears together flow” Such was the song you sang to me Once, long ago. Such was the song you sang; and yet (O be not wroth!) I scarcely knew What sounds flow’d forth; I only felt That you were you. I scarcely knew your […]...
34. Tavern I’ll keep a little tavern Below the high hill’s crest, Wherein all grey-eyed people May set them down and rest. There shall be plates a-plenty, And mugs to melt the chill Of all the grey-eyed people Who happen up the hill. There sound will sleep the traveller, And dream his journey’s end, But I will […]...
35. Sleeping Out: Full Moon They sleep within. . . . I cower to the earth, I waking, I only. High and cold thou dreamest, O queen, high-dreaming and lonely. We have slept too long, who can hardly win The white one flame, and the night-long crying; The viewless passers; the world’s low sighing With desire, with yearning, To the […]...
36. Vision Of The Archangels, The Slowly up silent peaks, the white edge of the world, Trod four archangels, clear against the unheeding sky, Bearing, with quiet even steps, and great wings furled, A little dingy coffin; where a child must lie, It was so tiny. (Yet, you had fancied, God could never Have bidden a child turn from the spring […]...
37. Sonnet LIX: As Love and I As Love and I, late harbor’d in one inn, With proverbs thus each other entertain: “In Love there is no lack,” thus I begin; “Fair words make fools,” replieth he again; “Who spares to speak doth spare to speed,” quoth I; “As well,” saith he, “too forward as too slow”; “Fortune assists the boldest,” I […]...
38. The Donkey When forests walked and fishes flew And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood, Then, surely, I was born. With monstrous head and sickening bray And ears like errant wings – The devil’s walking parody Of all four-footed things: The battered outlaw of the earth Of ancient crooked will; Scourge, beat, […]...
39. Hymn 23 The sight of God and Christ in heaven. Descend from heav’n, immortal Dove, Stoop down and take us on thy wings, And mount and bear us far above The reach of these inferior things: Beyond, beyond this lower sky, Up where eternal ages roll; Where solid pleasures never die, And fruits immortal feast the soul. […]...
40. The Red Poppy The great thing Is not having A mind. Feelings: Oh, I have those; they Govern me. I have A lord in heaven Called the sun, and open For him, showing him The fire of my own heart, fire Like his presence. What could such glory be If not a heart? Oh my brothers and sisters, […]...