Despair

Related poetry:

1. Boots We’re foot slog slog slog sloggin’ over Africa Foot foot foot foot sloggin’ over Africa (Boots boots boots boots movin’ up an’ down again!) There’s no discharge in the war! Seven six eleven five nine-an’-twenty mile to-day Four eleven seventeen thirty-two the day before (Boots boots boots boots movin’ up an’ down again!) There’s no […]...
2. Sonnet 144: Two loves I have, of comfort and despair Two loves I have, of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still: The better angel is a man right fair, The worser spirit a woman coloured ill. To win me soon to hell, my female evil Tempteth my better angel from my side, And would corrupt my saint to be a […]...
3. The Things We Dare Not Tell The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun’s still shining there, But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear; Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we’re doing well, But we break our hearts, oh, we break our hearts! for the […]...
4. Despair Who is he? A railroad track toward hell? Breaking like a stick of furniture? The hope that suddenly overflows the cesspool? The love that goes down the drain like spit? The love that said forever, forever And then runs you over like a truck? Are you a prayer that floats into a radio advertisement? Despair, […]...
5. A Meeting With Despair AS evening shaped I found me on a moor Which sight could scarce sustain: The black lean land, of featureless contour, Was like a tract in pain. “This scene, like my own life,” I said, “is one Where many glooms abide; Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun Lightless on every side. I glanced […]...
6. The Charge Of The Light Brigade Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. “Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!” he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. “Forward, the Light Brigade!” Was there a man dismayed? Not tho’ the soldiers knew Someone had […]...
7. The Only Son She dropped the bar, she shot the bolt, she fed the fire anew For she heard a whimper under the sill and a great grey paw came through. The fresh flame comforted the hut and shone on the roof-beam, And the Only Son lay down again and dreamed that he dreamed a dream. The last […]...
8. Charge of the Light Brigade I. Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. ‘Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!’ he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. II. ‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’ Was there a man dismay’d? Not tho’ the soldier knew […]...
9. Ode to Despair TERRIFIC FIEND! thou Monster fell, Condemn’d in haunts profane to dwell, Why quit thy solitary Home, O’er wide Creation’s paths to roam? Pale Tyrant of the timid Heart, Whose visionary spells can bind The strongest passions of the mind, Freezing Life’s current with thy baneful Art. Nature recoils when thou art near, For round thy […]...
10. The Lie Go, Soul, the body’s guest, Upon a thankless errand; Fear not to touch the best; The truth shall be thy warrant: Go, since I needs must die, And give the world the lie. Say to the court, it glows And shines like rotten wood; Say to the church, it shows What’s good, and doth no […]...
11. Idyll In the grey summer garden I shall find you With day-break and the morning hills behind you. There will be rain-wet roses; stir of wings; And down the wood a thrush that wakes and sings. Not from the past you’ll come, but from that deep Where beauty murmurs to the soul asleep: And I shall […]...
12. The Worst And The Best in the hospitals and jails It’s the worst In madhouses It’s the worst In penthouses It’s the worst In skid row flophouses It’s the worst At poetry readings At rock concerts At benefits for the disabled It’s the worst At funerals At weddings It’s the worst At parades At skating rinks At sexual orgies It’s […]...
13. The Testimony Of Light Our life is a fire dampened, or a fire shut up in stone. Jacob Boehme, De Incarnatione Verbi Outside everything visible and invisible a blazing maple. Daybreak: a seam at the curve of the world. The trousered legs of the women shimmered. They held their arms in front of them like ghosts. The coal bones […]...
14. To Reformers in Despair ‘Tis not too late to build our young land right, Cleaner than Holland, courtlier than Japan, Devout like early Rome, with hearths like hers, Hearths that will recreate the breed called man....
15. A Song Of Despair The memory of you emerges from the night around me. The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea. Deserted like the dwarves at dawn. It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one! Cold flower heads are raining over my heart. Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked. In you the wars […]...
16. In Black Despair In grayish doubt and black despair, I drafted hymns to the earth and the air, Pretending to joy, although I lacked it. The age had made lament redundant. So here’s the question who can answer it Was he a brave man or a hypocrite?...
17. The difference between Despair The difference between Despair And Fear is like the One Between the instant of a Wreck And when the Wreck has been The Mind is smooth no Motion Contented as the Eye Upon the Forehead of a Bust That knows it cannot see...
18. No Man can compass a Despair No Man can compass a Despair As round a Goalless Road No faster than a Mile at once The Traveller proceed Unconscious of the Width Unconscious that the Sun Be setting on His progress So accurate the One At estimating Pain Whose own has just begun His ignorance the Angel That pilot Him along...
19. Delight's Despair at setting Delight’s Despair at setting Is that Delight is less Than the sufficing Longing That so impoverish. Enchantment’s Perihelion Mistaken oft has been For the Authentic orbit Of its Anterior Sun....
20. Despair's advantage is achieved Despair’s advantage is achieved By suffering Despair To be assisted of Reverse One must Reverse have bore The Worthiness of Suffering like The Worthiness of Death Is ascertained by tasting As can no other Mouth Of Savors make us conscious As did ourselves partake Affliction feels impalpable Until Ourselves are struck...
21. Safe Despair it is that raves Safe Despair it is that raves Agony is frugal. Puts itself severe away For its own perusal. Garrisoned no Soul can be In the Front of Trouble Love is one, not aggregate Nor is Dying double...
22. Ballade to Our Lady of Czestochowa I Lady and Queen and Mystery manifold And very Regent of the untroubled sky, Whom in a dream St. Hilda did behold And heard a woodland music passing by: You shall receive me when the clouds are high With evening and the sheep attain the fold. This is the faith that I have held and […]...
23. Quarantine In the worst hour of the worst season of the worst year of a whole people A man set out from the workhouse with his wife. He was walking-they were both walking-north. She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up. He lifted her and put her on his back. He walked like […]...
24. My Last Will When I am safely laid away, Out of work and out of play, Sheltered by the kindly ground From the world of sight and sound, One or two of those I leave Will remember me and grieve, Thinking how I made them gay By the things I used to say; But the crown of their […]...
25. Tie the Strings to my Life, My Lord Tie the Strings to my Life, My Lord, Then, I am ready to go! Just a look at the Horses Rapid! That will do! Put me in on the firmest side So I shall never fall For we must ride to the Judgment And it’s partly, down Hill But never I mind the steeper And […]...
26. My Favourite Fan Being a writer I receive Sweet screeds from folk of every land; Some are so weird you’d scarce believe, And some quite hard to understand: But as a conscientious man I type my thanks to all I can. So when I got a foreign scrawl That spider-webbed across the page, Said I: “This is the […]...
27. And do you think that love itself And do you think that love itself, Living in such an ugly house, Can prosper long? We meet and part; Our talk is all of heres and nows, Our conduct likewise; in no act Is any future, any past; Under our sly, unspoken pact, I KNOW with whom I saw you last, But I say […]...
28. The Tunnel Toil’s a tunnel, there’s no way out For fellows, the like o’ me; A beggar wi’ only a crust an’ a clout At the worst o’ the worst is free; But I work to eat, an’ I eat to work; It’s always the same old round, And I dassent fail for the day I shirk […]...
29. To the United States of America Brothers in blood! They who this wrong began To wreck our commonwealth, will rue the day When first they challenged freeman to the fray, And with the Briton dared the American. Now are we pledged to win the Rights of man: Labour and Justice now shall have their way, And in a League of Peace […]...
30. The Wattle I saw it in the days gone by, When the dead girl lay at rest, And the wattle and the native rose We placed upon her breast. I saw it in the long ago (And I’ve seen strong men die), And who, to wear the wattle, Hath better right than I? I’ve fought it through […]...
31. The Cautious Lovers Silvia, let’s from the Crowd retire; For, What to you and me (Who but each other do desire) Is all that here we see? Apart we’ll live, tho’ not alone; For, who alone can call Those, who in Desarts live with One, If in that One they’ve All? The World a vast Meander is, Where […]...
32. Metonymy as an Approach to a Real World Whether what we sense of this world Is the what of this world only, or the what Of which of several possible worlds which what? something of what we sense May be true, may be the world, what it is, what we sense. For the rest, a truce is possible, the tolerance Of travelers, eating […]...
33. O Why Do You Walk (a Parody) O why do you walk through the fields in boots, Missing so much and so much? O fat white woman whom nobody shoots, Why do you walk through the fields in boots, When the grass is soft as the breast of coots And shivering-sweet to the touch?...
34. War Song In anguish we uplift A new unhallowed song: The race is to the swift; The battle to the strong. Of old it was ordained That we, in packs like curs, Some thirty million trained And licensed murderers, In crime should live and act, If cunning folk say sooth Who flay the naked fact And carve […]...
35. Equinox I must keep from breaking into the story by force For if I do I will find myself with a war club in my hand And the smoke of grief staggering toward the sun, Your nation dead beside you. I keep walking away though it has been an eternity And from each drop of blood […]...
36. Bindle Stiff When I was brash and gallant-gay Just fifty years ago, I hit the ties and beat my way From Maine to Mexico; For though to Glasgow gutter bred A hobo heart had I, And followed where adventure led, Beneath a brazen sky. And as I tramped the railway track I owned a single shirt; Like […]...
37. A PARANAETICALL, OR ADVISIVE VERSETO HIS FRIEND, MR JOHN WICKS Is this a life, to break thy sleep, To rise as soon as day doth peep? To tire thy patient ox or ass By noon, and let thy good days pass, Not knowing this, that Jove decrees Some mirth, t’ adulce man’s miseries? No; ’tis a life to have thine oil Without extortion from thy […]...
38. If I weep If I weep, if I come with excuses, my beloved puts cotton wool in his ears. Every cruelty which he commits becomes him, every cruelty which he commits I endure. If he accounts me nonexistent, I account his tyranny generosity. The cure of the ache of my heart is the ache for him; how shall […]...
39. Sonnet XCII But do thy worst to steal thyself away, For term of life thou art assured mine, And life no longer than thy love will stay, For it depends upon that love of thine. Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs, When in the least of them my life hath end. I see […]...
40. Sonnet 92: But do thy worst to steal thy self away But do thy worst to steal thy self away, For term of life thou art assurèd mine, And life no longer than thy love will stay, For it depends upon that love of thine. Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs, When in the least of them my life hath end; I […]...