In Praise of Songs that Die

Related poetry:

1. The Sands of Dee 1 “O Mary, go and call the cattle home, 2 And call the cattle home, 3 And call the cattle home 4 Across the sands of Dee”; 5 The western wind was wild and dank with foam, 6 And all alone went she. 7 The western tide crept up along the sand, 8 And o’er […]...
2. People Who Live People who live by the sea Understand eternity. They copy the curves of the waves, Their hearts beat with the tides, & the saltiness of their blood Corresponds with the sea. They know that the house of flesh Is only a sandcastle Built on the shore, That skin breaks Under the waves Like sand under […]...
3. Introduction to the Songs of Innocence Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me: ‘Pipe a song about a Lamb!’ So I piped with merry cheer. ‘Piper, pipe that song again;’ So I piped: he wept to hear. ‘Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe; Sing thy […]...
4. Songs Of Innocence: Introduction Piping down the valleys wild Piping songs of pleasant glee On a cloud I saw a child. And he laughing said to me. Pipe a song about a Lamb: So I piped with merry chear, Piper, pipe that song again So I piped, he wept to hear. Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe Sing thy […]...
5. In Former Songs 1 IN former songs Pride have I sung, and Love, and passionate, joyful Life, But here I twine the strands of Patriotism and Death. And now, Life, Pride, Love, Patriotism and Death, To you, O FREEDOM, purport of all! (You that elude me most-refusing to be caught in songs of mine,) I offer all to […]...
6. Rondeau Redoublé I know the rules and hear myself agree Not to invest beyond this one night stand. I know your patter: in, out, like the sea. The sharp north wind must blow away the sand. Soon my supply will meet your last demand And you will have no further use for me. I will not swim […]...
7. Four Songs Of Four Seasons I. WINTER IN NORTHUMBERLAND OUTSIDE the garden The wet skies harden; The gates are barred on The summer side: “Shut out the flower-time, Sunbeam and shower-time; Make way for our time,” Wild winds have cried. Green once and cheery, The woods, worn weary, Sigh as the dreary Weak sun goes home: A great wind grapples […]...
8. Concert Party (EGYPTIAN BASE CAMP) They are gathering round…. Out of the twilight; over the grey-blue sand, Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to the sound – The jangle and throb of a piano… tum-ti-tum… Drawn by a lamp, they come Out of the glimmering lines of their tents, over the shuffling sand. O sing us the […]...
9. These Little Songs These little Songs, Found here and there, Floating in air By forest and lea, Or hill-side heather, In houses and throngs, Or down by the sea – Have come together, How, I can’t tell: But I know full well No witty goose-wing On an inkstand begot ’em; Remember each place And moment of grace, In […]...
10. Home, My Little Children, Hear Are Songs For You COME, my little children, here are songs for you; Some are short and some are long, and all, all are new. You must learn to sing them very small and clear, Very true to time and tune and pleasing to the ear. Mark the note that rises, mark the notes that fall, Mark the time […]...
11. Songs Dawn coming in over the fields Of darkness takes me by surprise And I look up from my solitary road Pleased not to be alone, the birds Now choiring from the orange groves Huddling to the low hills. But sorry That this night has ended, a night In which you spoke of how little love […]...
12. Where Go the Boats? Dark brown is the river, Golden is the sand. It flows along for ever, With trees on either hand. Green leaves a-floating, Castles of the foam, Boats of mine a-boating – Where will all come home? On goes the river And out past the mill, Away down the valley, Away down the hill. Away down […]...
13. Go, songs, for ended is our brief, sweet play Go, songs, for ended is our brief, sweet play; Go, children of swift joy and tardy sorrow: And some are sung, and that was yesterday, And some are unsung, and that may be tomorrow. Go forth; and if it be o’er stony way, Old joy can lend what newer grief must borrow: And it was […]...
14. The Sea-Child Into the world you sent her, mother, Fashioned her body of coral and foam, Combed a wave in her hair’s warm smother, And drove her away from home In the dark of the night she crept to the town And under a doorway she laid her down, The little blue child in the foam-fringed gown. […]...
15. Songs of Joy Sing out, my soul, thy songs of joy; Sing as a happy bird will sing Beneath a rainbow’s lovely arch In the spring. Think not of death in thy young days; Why shouldst thou that grim tyrant fear? And fear him not when thou art old, And he is near. Strive not for gold, for […]...
16. Pretty Halcyon Days How pleasant to sit on the beach, On the beach, on the sand, in the sun, With ocean galore within reach, And nothing at all to be done! No letters to answer, No bills to be burned, No work to be shirked, No cash to be earned, It is pleasant to sit on the beach […]...
17. Lines in Praise of Tommy Atkins Success to Tommy Atkins, he’s a very brave man, And to deny it there’s few people can; And to face his foreign foes he’s never afraid, Therefore he’s not a beggar, as Rudyard Kipling has said. No, he’s paid by our Government, and is worthy of his hire; And from our shores in time of […]...
18. I Saw From the Beach I saw from the beach, when the morning was shining, A bark o’er the waters move gloriously on; I came when the sun o’er that beach was declining, The bark was still there, but the waters were gone. And such is the fate of our life’s early promise, So passing the spring-tide of joy we […]...
19. The Dream Said Will: “I’ll stay and till the land.” Said Jack: “I’ll sail the sea.” So one went forth kit-bag in hand, The other ploughed the lea. They met again at Christmas-tide, And wistful were the two. Said Jack: “you’re lucky here to bide.” Said Will: “I envy you.” “For in your eyes a light I […]...
20. Stars, Songs, Faces GATHER the stars if you wish it so. Gather the songs and keep them. Gather the faces of women. Gather for keeping years and years. And then… Loosen your hands, let go and say good-by. Let the stars and songs go. Let the faces and years go. Loosen your hands and say good-by....
21. A Leave-Taking Let us go hence, my songs; she will not hear. Let us go hence together without fear; Keep silence now, for singing-time is over, And over all old things and all things dear. She loves not you nor me as all we love her. Yea, though we sang as angels in her ear, She would […]...
22. Praise for the Fountain Opened (Zecheriah, xiii.1) There is a fountain fill’d with blood, Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins; And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains. The dying thief rejoiced to see That fountain in his day; And there have I, as vile as he, Wash’d all my sins away. Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood Shall […]...
23. Sand Scribblings THE WIND stops, the wind begins. The wind says stop, begin. A sea shovel scrapes the sand floor. The shovel changes, the floor changes. The sandpipers, maybe they know. Maybe a three-pointed foot can tell. Maybe the fog moon they fly to, guesses. The sandpipers cheep “Here” and get away. Five of them fly and […]...
24. Heroic Poem in Praise of Wine To exalt, enthrone, establish and defend, To welcome home mankind’s mysterious friend Wine, true begetter of all arts that be; Wine, privilege of the completely free; Wine the recorder; wine the sagely strong; Wine, bright avenger of sly-dealing wrong, Awake, Ausonian Muse, and sing the vineyard song! Sing how the Charioteer from Asia came, And […]...
25. SONGS SONGS are like painted window-panes! In darkness wrapp’d the church remains, If from the market-place we view it; Thus sees the ignoramus through it. No wonder that he deems it tame, And all his life ’twill be the same. But let us now inside repair, And greet the holy Chapel there! At once the whole […]...
26. Land, Ho! I know ’tis but a loom of land, Yet is it land, and so I will rejoice, I know I cannot hear His voice Upon the shore, nor see Him stand; Yet is it land, ho! land. The land! the land! the lovely land! ‘Far off,’ dost say? Far off-ah, blessиd home! Farewell! farewell! thou […]...
27. Her Praise She is foremost of those that I would hear praised. I have gone about the house, gone up and down As a man does who has published a new book, Or a young girl dressed out in her new gown, And though I have turned the talk by hook or crook Until her praise should […]...
28. Safe-home don’t be so lazy maisie maisie Don’t be so lazy please I know it’s snowing And a hard wind’s blowing But nobody knows At the rate we’re going What time we’ll get home tonight Keep to the path for me timothy timothy Keep to the path for me please My legs are aching And my […]...
29. In Praise of Meter The earth is full of rhythms so precise The octave of the crystal can produce A trillion oscillations, yet not lose A second’s beat. The ear needs no device To hear the unsprung rhythms of the couch Drown out the mouth’s; the lips can be debauched By kisses, should the heart put back its watch […]...
30. Potato Blossom Songs and Jigs RUM tiddy um, tiddy um, tiddy um tum tum. My knees are loose-like, my feet want to sling their selves. I feel like tickling you under the chin-honey-and a-asking: Why Does a Chicken Cross the Road? When the hens are a-laying eggs, and the roosters pluck-pluck-put-akut and you-honey-put new potatoes and gravy on the table, […]...
31. Lines in Praise of Professor Blackie Alas! the people’s hearts are now full of sorrow For the deceased Professor Blackie, of Edinboro’; Because he was a Christian man, affable and kind, And his equal in charitable actions would be hard to find ‘Twas in the year of 1895, March the 2nd, he died at 10 o’clock. Which to his dear wife, […]...
32. In Praise Of Henna A KOKILA called from a henna-spray: Lira! liree! Lira! liree! Hasten, maidens, hasten away To gather the leaves of the henna-tree. Send your pitchers afloat on the tide, Gather the leaves ere the dawn be old, Grind them in mortars of amber and gold, The fresh green leaves of the henna-tree. A kokila called from […]...
33. Walt Whitman The master-songs are ended, and the man That sang them is a name. And so is God A name; and so is love, and life, and death, And everything. But we, who are too blind To read what we have written, or what faith Has written for us, do not understand: We only blink, and […]...
34. I Will Praise the Lord at All Times Winter has a joy for me, While the Saviour’s charms I read, Lowly, meek, from blemish free, In the snowdrop’s pensive head. Spring returns, and brings along Life-invigorating suns: Hark! the turtle’s plaintive song Seems to speak His dying groans! Summer has a thousand charms, All expressive of His worth; ‘Tis His sun that lights […]...
35. Love Songs In Age She kept her songs, they kept so little space, The covers pleased her: One bleached from lying in a sunny place, One marked in circles by a vase of water, One mended, when a tidy fit had seized her, And coloured, by her daughter – So they had waited, till, in widowhood She found them, […]...
36. Sonnet V A tide of beauty with returning May Floods the fair city; from warm pavements fume Odors endeared; down avenues in bloom The chestnut-trees with phallic spires are gay. Over the terrace flows the thronged cafe; The boulevards are streams of hurrying sound; And through the streets, like veins when they abound, The lust for pleasure […]...
37. For Joseph Your ears will never hear sounds that to me are ordinary as air. From the hour that you were born the tight white shell of silence closed around you. You edged away from friendship. Silence clung and stung like sand, smothering words before they could break free. Sand has a brittle sound as it stutters […]...
38. A Passing Glimpse To Ridgely Torrence On Last Looking into His ‘Hesperides’ I often see flowers from a passing car That are gone before I can tell what they are. I want to get out of the train and go back To see what they were beside the track. I name all the flowers I am sure they […]...
39. A Paumanok Picture TWO boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still, Ten fishermen waiting-they discover a thick school of mossbonkers-they drop the join’d seine-ends in the water, The boats separate and row off, each on its rounding course to the beach, enclosing the mossbonkers, The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop […]...
40. An Ending Early March. The cold beach deserted. My kids Home in a bare house, bundled up And listening to rock music Pirated from England. My wife Waiting for me in a bar, alone For an hour over her sherry, and none Of us knows why I have to pace Back and forth on this flat And […]...