Verse

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1. Sonnet 86: Was it the proud full sail of his great verse Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, Bound for the prize of all-too-precious you, That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew? Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead? No, neither he, nor […]...
2. Sonnet 76: Why is my verse so barren of new pride? Why is my verse so barren of new pride? So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my […]...
3. Verse-Making Was Least of My Virtues Verse-making was least of my virtues: I viewed with despair Wealth that never yet was but might be all that verse-making were If the life would but lengthen to wish, let the mind be laid bare. So I said, “To do little is bad, to do nothing is worse” And made verse. Love-making, how simple […]...
4. Sonnet 17: Who will believe my verse in time to come Who will believe my verse in time to come If it were filled with your most high deserts? Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts: If I could write the beauty of your eyes, And in fresh numbers number all your graces, […]...
5. Farewell To Verse In youth when oft my muse was dumb, My fancy nighly dead, To make my inspiration come I stood upon my head; And thus I let the blood down flow Into my cerebellum, And published every Spring or so Slim tomes in vellum. Alas! I am rheumatic now, Grey is my crown; I can no […]...
6. Loving In Truth, And Fain In Verse My Love To Show Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That She, dear She, might take some pleasure of my pain, -Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain – I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine, […]...
7. NOT EVERY DAY FIT FOR VERSE ‘Tis not ev’ry day that I Fitted am to prophesy: No, but when the spirit fills The fantastic pannicles, Full of fire, then I write As the Godhead doth indite. Thus enraged, my lines are hurl’d, Like the Sibyl’s, through the world: Look how next the holy fire Either slakes, or doth retire; So the […]...
8. For A Lady Who Must Write Verse Unto seventy years and seven, Hide your double birthright well- You, that are the brat of Heaven And the pampered heir to Hell. Let your rhymes be tinsel treasures, Strung and seen and thrown aside. Drill your apt and docile measures Sternly as you drill your pride. Show your quick, alarming skill in Tidy mockeries […]...
9. Advice to the Grub Street Verse-writers Ye poets ragged and forlorn, Down from your garrets haste; Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born, Not yet consign’d to paste; I know a trick to make you thrive; O, ’tis a quaint device: Your still-born poems shall revive, And scorn to wrap up spice. Get all your verses printed fair, Then let them […]...
10. The Mountaineer OH, at the eagle’s height To lie i’ the sweet of the sun, While veil after veil takes flight And God and the world are one. Oh, the night on the steep! All that his eyes saw dim Grows light in the dusky deep, And God is alone with him....
11. Sonnet LXXXVI Was it the proud full sail of his great verse, Bound for the prize of all too precious you, That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew? Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead? No, neither […]...
12. In My Craft Or Sullen Art In my craft or sullen art Exercised in the still night When only the moon rages And the lovers lie abed With all their griefs in their arms I labour by singing light Not for ambition or bread Or the strut and trade of charms On the ivory stages But for the common wages Of […]...
13. 260. Sketch in Verse, inscribed to the Right Hon. C. J. Fox HOW wisdom and Folly meet, mix, and unite, How Virtue and Vice blend their black and their white, How Genius, th’ illustrious father of fiction, Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction, I sing: If these mortals, the critics, should bustle, I care not, not I-let the Critics go whistle! But now for a Patron whose […]...
14. Amateurs of Heaven Two lovers to a midnight meadow came High in the hills, to lie there hand and hand Like effigies and look up at the stars, The never-setting ones set in the North To circle the Pole in idiot majesty, And wonder what was given them to wonder. Being amateurs, they knew some of the names […]...
15. Autobiographical The lover in these poems Is me; The doctor, Love. He appears As husband, lover Analyst & muse, As father, son & maybe even God & surely death. All this is true. The man you turn to In the dark Is many men. This is an open secret Women share & yet agree to hide […]...
16. The Earth Breath FROM the cool and dark-lipped furrows Breathes a dim delight Through the woodland’s purple plumage To the diamond night. Aureoles of joy encircle Every blade of grass Where the dew-fed creatures silent And enraptured pass. And the restless ploughman pauses, Turns and, wondering, Deep beneath his rustic habit Finds himself a king; For a fiery […]...
17. The Show My soul looked down from a vague height with Death, As unremembering how I rose or why, And saw a sad land, weak with sweats of dearth, Gray, cratered like the moon with hollow woe, And fitted with great pocks and scabs of plaques. Across its beard, that horror of harsh wire, There moved thin […]...
18. Verse For a Certain Dog Such glorious faith as fills your limpid eyes, Dear little friend of mine, I never knew. All-innocent are you, and yet all-wise. (For Heaven’s sake, stop worrying that shoe!) You look about, and all you see is fair; This mighty globe was made for you alone. Of all the thunderous ages, you’re the heir. (Get […]...
19. This Be The Verse They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at […]...
20. Prelude They say that rhyme and rhythm are Outmoded now. I do not know, for I am far From high of brow. But if the twain you take away, Since basely bred, Proud Poetry, I dare to say, Would scarce be read. With humble heart I thus define My rôle in rhyme: Oh may I never […]...
21. Free Verse I now delight In spite Of the might And the right Of classic tradition, In writing And reciting Straight ahead, Without let or omission, Just any little rhyme In any little time That runs in my head; Because, I’ve said, My rhymes no longer shall stand arrayed Like Prussian soldiers on parade That march, Stiff […]...
22. Sympathy My Muse is simple, yet it’s nice To think you don’t need to think twice On words I write. I reckon I’ve a common touch And if you say I cuss too much I answer: ‘Quite!’ I envy not the poet’s lot; He has something I haven’t got, Alas, I know. But I have something […]...
23. I Feel (Verse Libre) I feel Very much Like taking Its unholy perpetrators By the hair Of their heads (If they have any hair) And dragging them around A few times, And then cutting them Into small, irregular pieces And burying them In the depths of the blue sea. They are without form And void,/ Or at least The […]...
24. The Genesis of the Butterfly The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings, That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide, With muffled music, murmured far and wide. Ah, the Spring time, when we […]...
25. 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 […]...
26. Sonnet 21: So is it not with me as with that muse So is it not with me as with that muse, Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse, Who heaven it self for ornament doth use And every fair with his fair doth rehearse, Making a couplement of proud compare With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems, With April’s first-born flowers, and […]...
27. Sonnet XXI So is it not with me as with that Muse Stirr’d by a painted beauty to his verse, Who heaven itself for ornament doth use And every fair with his fair doth rehearse Making a couplement of proud compare, With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems, With April’s first-born flowers, and all […]...
28. My Lute Awake My lute awake! perform the last Labour that thou and I shall waste, And end that I have now begun; For when this song is sung and past, My lute be still, for I have done. As to be heard where ear is none, As lead to grave in marble stone, My song may pierce […]...
29. The Danger Of Writing Defiant Verse And now I have another lad! No longer need you tell How all my nights are slow and sad For loving you too well. His ways are not your wicked ways, He’s not the like of you. He treads his path of reckoned days, A sober man, and true. They’ll never see him in the […]...
30. Sonnet 38 – First time he kissed me, he but only kissed First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’ When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. […]...
31. 362. Song-Thou Gloomy December ANCE mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December! Ance mair I hail thee wi’ sorrow and care; Sad was the parting thou makes me remember- Parting wi’ Nancy, oh, ne’er to meet mair! Fond lovers’ parting is sweet, painful pleasure, Hope beaming mild on the soft parting hour; But the dire feeling, O farewell for […]...
32. Sonnet XXVII FAire proud now tell me why should faire be proud; Sith all worlds glorie is but drosse vncleane: And in the shade of death it selfe shall shroud, How euer now thereof ye little weene. That goodly Idoll now so gay beseene, Shall doffe her fleshes borowd fayre attyre: And be forgot as it had […]...
33. The Mole Said he: “I’ll dive deep in the Past, And write a book of direful days When summer skies were overcast With smoke of humble hearths ablaze; When War was rampant in the land, And poor folk cowered in the night, While ruin gaped on every hand – Of ravishing and wrath I’ll write.” Ten years […]...
34. Humayun To Zobeida (From the Urdu) You flaunt your beauty in the rose, your glory in the dawn, Your sweetness in the nightingale, your white – ness in the swan. You haunt my waking like a dream, my slumber like a moon, Pervade me like a musky scent, possess me like a tune. Yet, when I crave of you, my sweet, […]...
35. The King of Yellow Butterflies (A Poem Game.) The King of Yellow Butterflies, The King of Yellow Butterflies, The King of Yellow Butterflies, Now orders forth his men. He says “The time is almost here When violets bloom again.” Adown the road the fickle rout Goes flashing proud and bold, A down the road the fickle rout Goes flashing proud […]...
36. Take, Oh Take Those Lips Away Take, oh take those lips away, That so sweetly were forsworn, And those eyes, the break of day, Lights that do mislead the morn: But my kisses bring again, Seals of love, but sealed in vain. Hide, oh hide those hills of snow, Which thy frozen bosom bears, On whose tops the pinks that grow […]...
37. Our Hills Dear Mother-Earth Of Titan birth, Yon hills are your large breasts, and often I Have climbed to their top-nipples, fain and dry To drink my mother’s-milk so near the sky. O ye hill-stains, Red, for all rains! The blood that made you has all bled for us, The hearts that paid you are all dead […]...
38. Ernie Pyle I wish I had a simple style In writing verse, As in his prose had Ernie Pyle, So true and terse; Springing so forthright from the heart With guileless art. I wish I could put back a dram As Ernie could; I wish that I could cuss and damn As soldier should; And fain with […]...
39. The Floods The rain it rains without a stay In the hills above us, in the hills; And presently the floods break way Whose strength is in the hills. The trees they suck from every cloud, The valley brooks they roar aloud Bank-high for the lowlands, lowlands, Lowlands under the hills! The first wood down is sere […]...
40. An Almost Made Up Poem I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny Blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny They are small, and the fountain is in France Where you wrote me that last letter and I answered and never heard from you again. You used to write insane poems about ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper […]...