To a Very Wise Man

Related poetry:

1. Song of the Wise Children 1902 When the darkened Fifties dip to the North, And frost and the fog divide the air, And the day is dead at his breaking-forth, Sirs, it is bitter beneath the Bear! Far to Southward they wheel and glance, The million molten spears of morn The spears of our deliverance That shine on the house […]...
2. Wise Men In Their Bad Hours Wise men in their bad hours have envied The little people making merry like grasshoppers In spots of sunlight, hardly thinking Backward but never forward, and if they somehow Take hold upon the future they do it Half asleep, with the tools of generation Foolishly reduplicating Folly in thirty-year periods; the eat and laugh too, […]...
3. To An Isle In The Water Shy one, shy one, Shy one of my heart, She moves in the firelight Pensively apart. She carries in the dishes, And lays them in a row. To an isle in the water With her would I go. With catries in the candles, And lights the curtained room, Shy in the doorway And shy in […]...
4. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
5. The Wise Dead men are wisest, for they know How far the roots of flowers go, How long a seed must rot to grow. Dead men alone bear frost and rain On throbless heart and heatless brain, And feel no stir of joy or pain. Dead men alone are satiate; They sleep and dream and have no […]...
6. Lord when the wise men came from farr LORD when the wise men came from farr Ledd to thy Cradle by A Starr, Then did the shepheards too rejoyce, Instructed by thy Angells voyce, Blest were the wisemen in their skill, 5 And shepheards in their harmelesse will. Wisemen in tracing natures lawes Ascend unto the highest cause, Shepheards with humble fearefulnesse Walke […]...
7. The Wise Brothers FIRST VOICE So long adrift, so fast aground, What foam and ruin have we found – We, the Wise Brothers? Could heaven and earth be framed amiss, That we should land in fine like this- We, and no others? SECOND VOICE Convoyed by what accursèd thing Made we this evil reckoning – We, the Wise […]...
8. The Seven Ages of Wise Parliament’s a stage, And all the Politicians merely players! They have their exits and entrances, And Wise doth in his time play many parts, His acts being seven changes. First the Runner, With spiked shoe he spurns the cinder track, And just for once runs straight. The next the Student, Burning the midnight oil with […]...
9. But Wise Men Perceive Approaching Things Because gods perceive future things, men what is happening now, but wise men perceive approaching things. Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, VIII, 7. Men know what is happening now. The gods know the things of the future, The full and sole possessors of all lights. Of the future things, wise men perceive Approaching things. […]...
10. Sonnet 140: Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain, Lest sorrow lend me words and words express The manner of my pity-wanting pain. If I might teach thee wit, better it were, Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so, As testy sick men, when their […]...
11. It Is March It is March and black dust falls out of the books Soon I will be gone The tall spirit who lodged here has Left already On the avenues the colorless thread lies under Old prices When you look back there is always the past Even when it has vanished But when you look forward With […]...
12. Snow In the gloom of whiteness, In the great silence of snow, A child was sighing And bitterly saying: “Oh, They have killed a white bird up there on her nest, The down is fluttering from her breast!” And still it fell through that dusky brightness On the child crying for the bird of the snow....
13. "Houses" so the Wise Men tell me “Houses” so the Wise Men tell me “Mansions”! Mansions must be warm! Mansions cannot let the tears in, Mansions must exclude the storm! “Many Mansions,” by “his Father,” I don’t know him; snugly built! Could the Children find the way there Some, would even trudge tonight!...
14. After Auschwitz Anger, As black as a hook, Overtakes me. Each day, Each Nazi Took, at 8:00 A. M., a baby And sauteed him for breakfast In his frying pan. And death looks on with a casual eye And picks at the dirt under his fingernail. Man is evil, I say aloud. Man is a flower That […]...
15. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
16. A Birthday Song. To S. G For ever wave, for ever float and shine Before my yearning eyes, oh! dream of mine Wherein I dreamed that time was like a vine, A creeping rose, that clomb a height of dread Out of the sea of Birth, all filled with dead, Up to the brilliant cloud of Death o’erhead. This vine bore […]...
17. Night on the Convoy (ALEXANDRIA-MARSEILLES) Out in the blustering darkness, on the deck A gleam of stars looks down. Long blurs of black, The lean Destroyers, level with our track, Plunging and stealing, watch the perilous way Through backward racing seas and caverns of chill spray. One sentry by the davits, in the gloom Stands mute: the boat heaves […]...
18. The Dragon & The Undying All night the flares go up; the Dragon sings And beats upon the dark with furious wings; And, stung to rage by his own darting fires, Reaches with grappling coils from town to town; He lusts to break the loveliness of spires, And hurls their martyred music toppling down. Yet, though the slain are homeless […]...
19. In a Vale WHEN I was young, we dwelt in a vale By a misty fen that rang all night, And thus it was the maidens pale I knew so well, whose garments trail Across the reeds to a window light. The fen had every kind of bloom, And for every kind there was a face, And a […]...
20. Because 'twas Riches I could own Because ’twas Riches I could own, Myself had earned it Me, I knew the Dollars by their names It feels like Poverty An Earldom out of sight to hold, An Income in the Air, Possession has a sweeter chink Unto a Miser’s Ear...
21. Secret Music I keep such music in my brain No din this side of death can quell; Glory exulting over pain, And beauty, garlanded in hell. My dreaming spirit will not heed The roar of guns that would destroy My life that on the gloom can read Proud-surging melodies of joy. To the world’s end I went, […]...
22. Willard Fluke My wife lost her health, And dwindled until she weighed scarce ninety pounds. Then that woman, whom the men Styled Cleopatra, came along. And we we married ones All broke our vows, myself among the rest. Years passed and one by one Death claimed them all in some hideous form, And I was borne along […]...
23. All the letters I can write All the letters I can write Are not fair as this Syllables of Velvet Sentences of Plush, Depths of Ruby, undrained, Hid, Lip, for Thee Play it were a Humming Bird And just sipped me...
24. 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...
25. IN SUMMER How plain and height With dewdrops are bright! How pearls have crown’d The plants all around! How sighs the breeze Thro’ thicket and trees! How loudly in the sun’s clear rays The sweet birds carol forth their lays! But, ah! above, Where saw I my love, Within her room, Small, mantled in gloom, Enclosed around, […]...
26. The Troops Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloom Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky Haggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten down The stale despair of night, must now renew Their desolation in the truce of dawn, Murdering the livid hours […]...
27. 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...
28. Borderland Am I waking, am I sleeping? As the first faint dawn comes creeping Thro’ the pane, I am aware Of an unseen presence hovering, Round, above, in the dusky air: A downy bird, with an odorous wing, That fans my forehead, and sheds perfume, As sweet as love, as soft as death, Drowsy-slow through the […]...
29. 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 […]...
30. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
31. 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!...
32. THANKS HER griefs were the hours When my struggle was sore, Her joys were the powers That the climber upbore. Her home is the boundless Free ocean that seems To rock, calm and soundless, My galleon of dreams. Half hers are the glancing Creations that throng With pageant and dancing The ways of my song. My […]...
33. Violence ( Goya "The Third of May 1808") The brain – the brush Here celebrate That long red stain Seeping the universe. Was not the chink of light Peeping between the walls Of birth – of death Transient enough? – And yet this trivial massacre Must shorten it. And only one protests – That man White-shirted – arms upraised In one last gesturing […]...
34. 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 […]...
35. The Loss of Love All through an empty place I go, And find her not in any room; The candles and the lamps I light Go down before a wind of gloom. Thick-spraddled lies the dust about, A fit, sad place to write her name Or draw her face the way she looked That legendary night she came. The […]...
36. 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 […]...
37. May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, Dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles. From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives […]...
38. Milton: But in the Wine-presses the Human Grapes Sing not nor Dance But in the Wine-presses the human grapes sing not nor dance: They howl and writhe in shoals of torment, in fierce flames consuming, In chains of iron and in dungeons circled with ceaseless fires, In pits and dens and shades of death, in shapes of torment and woe: The plates and screws and racks and […]...
39. 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...
40. 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 […]...