On Violet's Wafers, Sent Me When I Was Ill

Related poetry:

1. There was a land where lived no violets There was a land where lived no violets. A traveller at once demanded : “Why?” The people told him: “Once the violets of this place spoke thus: ‘Until some woman freely gives her lover To another woman We will fight in bloody scuffle.'” Sadly the people added: “There are no violets here.”...
2. Under the Violets HER hands are cold; her face is white; No more her pulses come and go; Her eyes are shut to life and light; Fold the white vesture, snow on snow, And lay her where the violets blow. But not beneath a graven stone, To plead for tears with alien eyes; A slender cross of wood […]...
3. TO VIOLETS Welcome, maids of honour, You do bring In the Spring; And wait upon her. She has virgins many, Fresh and fair; Yet you are More sweet than any. You’re the maiden posies; And so graced, To be placed ‘Fore damask roses. Yet, though thus respected, By and by Ye do lie, Poor girls, neglected....
4. Firelight and Nightfall The darkness steals the forms of all the queens, But oh, the palms of his two black hands are red, Inflamed with binding up the sheaves of dead Hours that were once all glory and all queens. And I remember all the sunny hours Of queens in hyacinth and skies of gold, And morning singing […]...
5. Sea Shell Sea Shell, Sea Shell, Sing me a song, O Please! A song of ships, and sailor men, And parrots, and tropical trees, Of islands lost in the Spanish Main Which no man ever may find again, Of fishes and corals under the waves, And seahorses stabled in great green caves. Sea Shell, Sea Shell, Sing […]...
6. While we were fearing it, it came While we were fearing it, it came But came with less of fear Because that fearing it so long Had almost made it fair There is a Fitting a Dismay A Fitting a Despair ‘Tis harder knowing it is Due Than knowing it is Here. They Trying on the Utmost The Morning it is new […]...
7. Franklin Jones If I could have lived another year I could have finished my flying machine, And become rich and famous. Hence it is fitting the workman Who tried to chisel a dove for me Made it look more like a chicken. For what is it all but being hatched, And running about the yard, To the […]...
8. You'll know Her by Her Foot You’ll know Her by Her Foot The smallest Gamboge Hand With Fingers where the Toes should be Would more affront the Sand Than this Quaint Creature’s Boot Adjusted by a Stern Without a Button I could vouch Unto a Velvet Limb You’ll know Her by Her Vest Tight fitting Orange Brown Inside a Jacket duller […]...
9. The Mother Here I lean over you, small son, sleeping Warm in my arms, And I con to my heart all your dew-fresh charms, As you lie close, close in my hungry hold. . . Your hair like a miser’s dream of gold, And the white rose of your face far fairer, Finer, and rarer Than all […]...
10. THE MAGIC NET Do I see a contest yonder? See I miracles or pastimes? Beauteous urchins, five in number, ‘Gainst five sisters fair contending, Measured is the time they’re beating At a bright enchantress’ bidding. Glitt’ring spears by some are wielded, Threads are others nimbly twining, So that in their snares, the weapons One would think, must needs […]...
11. As the Starved Maelstrom laps the Navies As the Starved Maelstrom laps the Navies As the Vulture teased Forces the Broods in lonely Valleys As the Tiger eased By but a Crumb of Blood, fasts Scarlet Till he meet a Man Dainty adorned with Veins and Tissues And partakes his Tongue Cooled by the Morsel for a moment Grows a fiercer thing […]...
12. Sea horn within the shell swim all the sea’s fish Our ears too are compendiums of sound The big bang exploded – such a long wish Waves and warps towards the present ground Shell to ear – each breeds the other’s cry Infinity in slices sluiced in words Haunting the future in us till we die And […]...
13. Minnie and Winnie Minnie and Winnie Slept in a shell. Sleep, little ladies! And they slept well. Pink was the shell within, Silver without; Sounds of the great sea Wander’d about. Sleep, little ladies! Wake not soon! Echo on echo Dies to the moon. Two bright stars Peep’d into the shell. “What are you dreaming of? Who can […]...
14. The Egg-Shell The wind took off with the sunset The fog came up with the tide, When the Witch of the North took an Egg-shell With a little Blue Devil inside. “Sink,” she said, “or swim,” she said, “It’s all you will bet from me. And that is the finish of him!” she said And the Egg-shell […]...
15. Lines Indited With All The Depravity Of Poverty One way to be very happy is to be very rich For then you can buy orchids by the quire and bacon by the flitch. And yet at the same time People don’t mind if you only tip them a dime, Because it’s very funny But somehow if you’re rich enough you can get away […]...
16. Sonnet X A splendor, flamelike, born to be pursued, With palms extent for amorous charity And eyes incensed with love for all they see, A wonder more to be adored than wooed, On whom the grace of conscious womanhood Adorning every little thing she does Sits like enchantment, making glorious A careless pose, a casual attitude; Around […]...
17. She Sung of Love She sung of Love, while o’er her lyre The rosy rays of evening fell, As if to feed with their soft fire The soul within that trembling shell. The same rich light hung o’er her cheek, And play’d around those lips that sung And spoke, as flowers would sing and speak, If Love could lend […]...
18. Mistinguette He was my one and only love; My world was mirror for his face. We were as close as hand and glove, Until he came with smiling grace To say: ‘We must be wise, my dear. You are the idol of today, But I too plan a proud career, Let’s kiss and go our way.’ […]...
19. 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, […]...
20. At Algeciras – A Meditaton Upon Death The heron-billed pale cattle-birds That feed on some foul parasite Of the Moroccan flocks and herds Cross the narrow Straits to light In the rich midnight of the garden trees Till the dawn break upon those mingled seas. Often at evening when a boy Would I carry to a friend – Hoping more substantial joy […]...
21. Little miss brag Little Miss Brag has much to say To the rich little lady from over the way And the rich little lady puts out a lip As she looks at her own white, dainty slip, And wishes that she could wear a gown As pretty as gingham of faded brown! For little Miss Brag she lays […]...
22. Dolor I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils, Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight, All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage, Desolation in immaculate public places, Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard, The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher, Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma, Endless duplication of lives and objects. And […]...
23. The Secret In the profoundest ocean There is a rainbow shell, It is always there, shining most stilly Under the greatest storm waves That the old Greek called “ripples of laughter.” As you listen, the rainbow shell Sings in the profoundest ocean. It is always there, singing most silently!...
24. If I Should Ever By Chance IF I should ever by chance grow rich I’ll buy Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch, Roses, Pyrgo, and Lapwater, And let them all to my eldest daughter. The rent I shall ask of her will be only Each year’s first violets, white and lonely, The first primroses and orchises She must find them before I do, […]...
25. Sonnet 102: My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming My love is strengthened, though more weak in seeming; I love not less, though less the show appear; That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming The owner’s tongue doth publish everywhere. Our love was new, and then but in the spring When I was wont to greet it with my lays, As Philomel in summer’s […]...
26. Crab When I eat crab, slide the rosy Rubbery claw across my tongue I think of my mother. She’d drive down To the edge of the Bay, tiny woman in a Huge car, she’d ask the crab-man to Crack it for her. She’d stand and wait as the Pliers broke those chalky homes, wild- Red and […]...
27. An Epicure Should you preserve white mice in honey Don’t use imported ones from China, For though they cost you less in money You’ll find the Japanese ones finer. But if Chinese, stuff them with spice, Which certainly improves their savour, And though the Canton mice are nice, The Pekinese have finer flavour. If you should pickle […]...
28. Sonnet CII My love is strengthen’d, though more weak in seeming; I love not less, though less the show appear: That love is merchandized whose rich esteeming The owner’s tongue doth publish every where. Our love was new and then but in the spring When I was wont to greet it with my lays, As Philomel in […]...
29. Sonnets xiv MY love is strengthen’d, though more weak in seeming; I love not less, though less the show appear: That love is merchandised whose rich esteeming The owner’s tongue doth publish everywhere. Our love was new, and then but in the spring, When I was wont to greet it with my lays; As Philomel in summer’s […]...
30. Nothing But Death There are cemeteries that are lonely, Graves full of bones that do not make a sound, The heart moving through a tunnel, In it darkness, darkness, darkness, Like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves, As though we were drowning inside our hearts, As though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul. […]...
31. The Dead Heart After I wrote this, a friend scrawled on this page, “Yes.” And I said, merely to myself, “I wish it could be for a Different seizure as with Molly Bloom and her ‘and Yes I said yes I will Yes.” It is not a turtle Hiding in its little green shell. It is not a […]...
32. Thoreau's Flute We sighing said, “Our Pan is dead; His pipe hangs mute beside the river Around it wistful sunbeams quiver, But Music’s airy voice is fled. Spring mourns as for untimely frost; The bluebird chants a requiem; The willow-blossom waits for him; The Genius of the wood is lost.” Then from the flute, untouched by hands, […]...
33. In Honour Of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez Laybrother of the Society of Jesus Honour is flashed off exploit, so we say; And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field, And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day. On Christ they do and on the martyr may; But be the war within, […]...
34. Songs of Battle Old as the world no other things so old; Nay, older than the world, else, how had sprung Such lusty strength in them when earth was young? Stand valor and its passion hot and bold, Insatiate of battle. How, else, told Blind men, born blind, that red was fitting tongue Mute, eloquent, to show how […]...
35. On a Portrait of a Deaf Man The kind old face, the egg-shaped head, The tie, discreetly loud, The loosely fitting shooting clothes, A closely fitting shroud. He liked old city dining rooms, Potatoes in their skin, But now his mouth is wide to let The London clay come in. He took me on long silent walks In country lanes when young. […]...
36. The wanderer Upon a mountain height, far from the sea, I found a shell, And to my listening ear the lonely thing Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell. How came the shell upon that mountain height? Ah, who can say Whether there dropped by some too careless […]...
37. I went to Heaven I went to Heaven ‘Twas a small Town Lit with a Ruby Lathed with Down Stiller than the fields At the full Dew Beautiful as Pictures No Man drew. People like the Moth Of Mechlin frames Duties of Gossamer And Eider names Almost contented I could be ‘Mong such unique Society...
38. I Do Not Love Thee For That Fair I do not love thee for that fair Rich fan of thy most curious hair; Though the wires thereof be drawn Finer than threads of lawn, And are softer than the leaves On which the subtle spider weaves. I do not love thee for those flowers Growing on thy cheeks, love’s bowers; Though such cunning […]...
39. Craving for Spring I wish it were spring in the world. Let it be spring! Come, bubbling, surging tide of sap! Come, rush of creation! Come, life! surge through this mass of mortification! Come, sweep away these exquisite, ghastly first-flowers, Which are rather last-flowers! Come, thaw down their cool portentousness, dissolve them: Snowdrops, straight, death-veined exhalations of white […]...
40. What tenements of clover What tenements of clover Are fitting for the bee, What edifices azure For butterflies and me What residences nimble Arise and evanesce Without a rhythmic rumor Or an assaulting guess....