Act of Union

Related poetry:

1. For the Union Dead “Relinquunt Omnia Servare Rem Publicam.” The old South Boston Aquarium stands In a Sahara of snow now. Its broken windows are boarded. The bronze weathervane cod has lost half its scales. The airy tanks are dry. Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass; My hand tingled To burst the bubbles Drifting from […]...
2. A Day At Union Station Departure At last, I’m leaving the familiar roof! I’m undeterred by rain and wind. This presentation should be quite a feather In my cap. Eager, I clutch my ticket. I’m going places. Not letting any grass Grow, not under these clever feet! Pigeons We admire one another’s tiny coral feet. Coooooo, coooooo under the roof. […]...
3. Union and Liberty FLAG of the heroes who left us their glory, Borne through their battle-fields’ thunder and flame, Blazoned in song and illumined in story, Wave o’er us all who inherit their fame! Up with our banner bright, Sprinkled with starry light, Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore, While through the sounding sky Loud rings […]...
4. The Choral Union He staggered in from night and frost and fog And lampless streets: he’d guzzled like a hog And drunk till he was dazed. And now he came To hear-he couldn’t call to mind the name – But he’d been given a ticket for the show, And thought he’d (hiccup) chance his luck and go. The […]...
5. 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...
6. 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 […]...
7. Golgotha Through darkness curves a spume of falling flares That flood the field with shallow, blanching light. The huddled sentry stares On gloom at war with white, And white receding slow, submerged in gloom. Guns into mimic thunder burst and boom, And mirthless laughter rakes the whistling night. The sentry keeps his watch where no one […]...
8. The Changeling A man had a son who was an anvil. And then sometimes He was an automobile tire. I do wish you would sit still, said the father. Sometimes his son was a rock. I realize that you have quite lost boundary, where no Excess seems excessive, nor to where poverty roots hunger to Need. But […]...
9. Piano Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me; Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings. In spite of myself, the insidious mastery […]...
10. Typographical The Editor wrote his political screed In ink that was fainter and fainter; He rose to the call of his country’s need, And in spiderish characters wrote with speed, A column on “Cutting the Painter”. The “reader” sat in his high-backed chair, For literals he was a hunter; But he stared aghast at the column […]...
11. Boadicea While about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess, Far in the East Boadicea, standing loftily charioted, Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility, Girt by half the tribes of Britain, near the colony Camulodune, Yell’d and shriek’d between […]...
12. Richard Cory Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, “Good-morning,” and he glittered when he […]...
13. My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
14. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
15. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
16. From Citron-Bower From citron-bower be her bed, Cut from branch of tree a-flower, Fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, Cut the width of board and lathe, Carve the feet from myrtle-wood. Let the palings of her bed Be quince and box-wood overlaid With the scented bark of yew. That all the wood in […]...
17. Blanche Sweet MOVING-PICTURE ACTRESS (After seeing the reel called “Oil and Water.”) Beauty has a throne-room In our humorous town, Spoiling its hob-goblins, Laughing shadows down. Rank musicians torture Ragtime ballads vile, But we walk serenely Down the odorous aisle. We forgive the squalor And the boom and squeal For the Great Queen flashes From the moving […]...
18. Witness Here is the city- Its worn-down mountains, Its grass and iron, Its smoky coast Seen from the high roads On the Wicklow side. From Dalkey Island To the North Wall, To the blue distance seizing its perimeter, Its old divisions are deep within it. And in me also. And always will be. Out of my […]...
19. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...
20. To May I have no heart to write verses to May; I have no heart-yet I’m cheerful today; I have no heart-she has won mine away So-I have no heart to write verses to May....
21. View Of The Capitol From The Library Of Congress Moving from left to left, the light Is heavy on the Dome, and coarse. One small lunette turns it aside And blankly stares off to the side Like a big white old wall-eyed horse. On the east steps the Air Force Band In uniforms of Air Force blue Is playing hard and loud, but queer […]...
22. At leisure is the Soul At leisure is the Soul That gets a Staggering Blow The Width of Life before it spreads Without a thing to do It begs you give it Work But just the placing Pins Or humblest Patchwork Children do To Help its Vacant Hands...
23. The time has come for us to become madmen in your chain The time has come for us to become madmen in your chain, to Burst our bonds and become estranged from all; To yield up our souls, no more to bear the disgrace of such a Soul, to set fire to our house, and run like fire to the tavern. Until we ferment, we shall not […]...
24. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
25. The Young Ones, Flip Side In tight pants, tight skirts, Stretched or squeezed, Youth hurts, Crammed in, bursting out, Flesh will sing And hide its doubt In nervous hips, hopping glance, Usurping rouge, Provoking stance. Put off, or put on, Youth hurts. And then It’s gone....
26. Affinity YOU and I have found the secret way, None can bar our love or say us nay: All the world may stare and never know You and I are twined together so. You and I for all his vaunted width Know the giant Space is but a myth; Over miles and miles of pure deceit […]...
27. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
28. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
29. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
30. Poetry it Takes A lot of Desperation Dissatisfaction And Disillusion To Write A Few Good Poems. It’s not For Everybody Either to Write It Or even to Read It....
31. 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 […]...
32. Mine Sweepers Dawn off the Foreland the young flood making Jumbled and short and steep Black in the hollows and bright where it’s breaking Awkward water to sweep. “Mines reported in the fairway, “Warn all traffic and detain. “‘Sent up Unity, Cralibel, Assyrian, Stormcock, and Golden Gain.” Noon off the Foreland the first ebb making Lumpy and […]...
33. Philomela Hark! ah, the nightingale – The tawny-throated! Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst! What triumph! hark!-what pain! O wanderer from a Grecian shore, Still, after many years, in distant lands, Still nourishing in thy bewildered brain That wild, unquenched, deep-sunken, old-world pain – Say, will it never heal? And can this fragrant lawn […]...
34. On Pain Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses Your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its Heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the Daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem Less […]...
35. The Bombardment Slowly, without force, the rain drops into the City. It stops a moment On the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping And trickling Over his stone cloak. It splashes from the lead conduit Of a gargoyle, And falls from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral square. Where are […]...
36. These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
37. The Room Through that window-all else being extinct Except itself and me-I saw the struggle Of darkness against darkness. Within the room It turned and turned, dived downward. Then I saw How order might-if chaos wished-become: And saw the darkness crush upon itself, Contracting powerfully; it was as if It killed itself, slowly: and with much pain. […]...
38. Night Thoughts Over A Sick Child Numb, stiff, broken by no sleep, I keep night watch. Looking for Signs to quiet fear, I creep Closer to his bed and hear His breath come and go, holding My own as if my own were All I paid. Nothing I bring, Say, or do has meaning here. Outside, ice crusts on river And […]...
39. Mysterious Humanity I shall tell you stories about scores of troops Sent to the distant Croatian borders Medical soldiers of fortune with a sacred mission: To ease the pain and cure the wounds Of sons and daughters in genocized Bosnia Of which a moment later one would read, Heroic newspeaks roared by a government “We’re healing, we’re […]...
40. The Scottish Engineer With eyes that searched in the dark, Peering along the line, Stood the grim Scotsman, Hector Clark, Driver of “Forty-nine”. And the veldt-fire flamed on the hills ahead, Like a blood-red beacon sign. There was word of a fight to the north, And a column too hardly pressed, So they started the Highlanders forth. Heedless […]...