Interregnum

Related poetry:

1. A Scrap of Paper “Will you go to war just for a scrap of paper?” Question Of the German Chancellor to the British Ambassador, August 5, 1914. A mocking question! Britain’s answer came Swift as the light and searching as the flame. “Yes, for a scrap of paper we will fight Till our last breath, and God defend the […]...
2. Thick-Sprinkled Bunting THICK-SPRINKLED bunting! Flag of stars! Long yet your road, fateful flag!-long yet your road, and lined with bloody death! For the prize I see at issue, at last is the world! All its ships and shores I see, interwoven with your threads, greedy banner! -Dream’d again the flags of kings, highest born, to flaunt unrival’d? […]...
3. Roger Casement (After reading ‘The Forged Casement Diaries’ by Dr. Maloney) I say that Roger Casement Did what he had to do. He died upon the gallows, But that is nothing new. Afraid they might be beaten Before the bench of Time, They turned a trick by forgery And blackened his good name. A perjurer stood ready […]...
4. Decorations My only medals are the scars I’ve won in weary, peacetime wars, A-fighting for my little brood, To win them shelter, shoon and food; But most of all to give them faith In God’s good mercy unto death. My sons have medals gleaming bright, Proud trophies won in foreign fight; But though their crosses bravely […]...
5. When Bryan Speaks When Bryan speaks, the town’s a hive. From miles around, the autos drive. The sparrow chirps. The rooster crows. The place is kicking and alive. When Bryan speaks, the bunting glows. The raw procession onward flows. The small dogs bark. The children laugh A wind of springtime fancy blows. When Bryan speaks, the wigwam shakes. […]...
6. Your Riches taught me Poverty Your Riches taught me Poverty. Myself a Millionaire In little Wealths, as Girls could boast Till broad as Buenos Ayre You drifted your Dominions A Different Peru And I esteemed All Poverty For Life’s Estate with you Of Mines, I little know myself But just the names, of Gems The Colors of the Commonest And […]...
7. The Wedding of the Rose and the Lotos The wide Pacific waters And the Atlantic meet. With cries of joy they mingle, In tides of love they greet. Above the drowned ages A wind of wooing blows: – The red rose woos the lotos, The lotos woos the rose. . . The lotos conquered Egypt. The rose was loved in Rome. Great India […]...
8. Graceland TOMB of a millionaire, A multi-millionaire, ladies and gentlemen, Place of the dead where they spend every year The usury of twenty-five thousand dollars For upkeep and flowers To keep fresh the memory of the dead. The merchant prince gone to dust Commanded in his written will Over the signed name of his last testament […]...
9. The Song of a Man Who has Come Through Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me! A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time. If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me! If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift! If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself […]...
10. Sex Goddess I am THE SEX GODDESS OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE So don’t mess with me I’ve got a big bag full of SEX TOYS And you can’t have any ’cause they’re all mine ’cause I’m The SEX GODDESS OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE. “Hey,” you may say to yourself, “who the hell’s she tryin’ to kid, She’s […]...
11. Plebeian Plutocrat I own a gorgeous Cadillac, A chauffeur garbed in blue; And as I sit behind his back His beefy neck I view. Yet let me whisper, though you may Think me a queer old cuss, From Claude I often sneak away To board a bus. A democrat, I love the crowd, The bustle and the […]...
12. The Fairies Break Their Dances The fairies break their dances And leave the printed lawn, And up from India glances The silver sail of dawn. The candles burn their sockets, The blinds let through the day, The young man feels his pockets And wonders what’s to pay....
13. The Leaden-Eyed Let not young souls be smothered out before They do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride. It is the world’s one crime its babes grow dull, Its poor are ox-like, limp and leaden-eyed. Not that they starve; but starve so dreamlessly, Not that they sow, but that they seldom reap, Not that they serve, […]...
14. Death of the Bird For every bird there is this last migration; Once more the cooling year kindles her heart; With a warm passage to the summer station Love pricks the course in lights across the chart. Year after year a speck on the map, divided By a whole hemisphere, summons her to come; Season after season, sure and […]...
15. Sonnet 16 XVI When I consider how my light is spent, E’re half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one Talent which is death to hide, Lodg’d with me useless, though my Soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, least he returning chide, Doth God exact day-labour, […]...
16. On His Blindness When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide, “Doth God exact day-labour, light […]...
17. Sonnet 19 XIX When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest He returning chide, “Doth God exact day-labour, […]...
18. The Day undressed Herself The Day undressed Herself Her Garter was of Gold Her Petticoat of Purple plain Her Dimities as old Exactly as the World And yet the newest Star Enrolled upon the Hemisphere Be wrinkled much as Her Too near to God to pray Too near to Heaven to fear The Lady of the Occident Retired without […]...
19. Multiplication (For S. M. E.) I take my leave, with sorrow, of Him I love so well; I look my last upon His small and radiant prison-cell; O happy lamp! to serve Him with never ceasing light! O happy flame! to tremble forever in His sight! I leave the holy quiet for the loudly human train, […]...
20. A Requisition to the Queen Smiths Buildings No. 19 Patons Lane, Dundee. Sept the 6th. 1877. Most August! Empress of India, and of great Britain the Queen, I most humbly beg your pardon, hoping you will not think it mean That a poor poet that lives in Dundee, Would be so presumptous to write unto Thee Most lovely Empress of […]...
21. A Dog's Mistake He had drifted in among us as a straw drifts with the tide, He was just a wand’ring mongrel from the weary world outside; He was not aristocratic, being mostly ribs and hair, With a hint of spaniel parents and a touch of native bear. He was very poor and humble and content with what […]...
22. Amelia Garrick Yes, here I lie close to a stunted rose bush In a forgotten place near the fence Where the thickets from Siever’s woods Have crept over, growing sparsely. And you, you are a leader in New York, The wife of a noted millionaire, A name in the society columns, Beautiful, admired, magnified perhaps By the […]...
23. To the Etruscan Poets Dream fluently, still brothers, who when young Took with your mother’s milk the mother tongue, In which pure matrix, joining world and mind, You strove to leave some line of verse behind Like still fresh tracks across a field of snow, Not reckoning that all could melt and go....
24. Henry James Who comes to-night? We open the doors in vain. Who comes? My bursting walls, can you contain The presences that now together throng Your narrow entry, as with flowers and song, As with the air of life, the breath of talk? Lo, how these fair immaculate women walk Behind their jocund maker; and we see […]...
25. Milton (Alcaics) O mighty-mouth’d inventor of harmonies, O skill’d to sing of Time or Eternity, God-gifted organ-voice of England, Milton, a name to resound for ages; Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, Starr’d from Jehovah’s gorgeous armouries, Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean Rings to the roar of an angel onset Me rather all that bowery loneliness, The brooks […]...
26. Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat There’s a whisper down the line at 11.39 When the Night Mail’s ready to depart, Saying “Skimble where is Skimble has he gone to hunt the thimble? We must find him or the train can’t start.” All the guards and all the porters and the stationmaster’s daughters They are searching high and low, Saying “Skimble […]...
27. On the Way LITTLE one, you have been buzzing in the books, Flittering in the newspapers and drinking beer with Lawyers And amid the educated men of the clubs you have been Getting an earful of speech from trained tongues. Take an earful from me once, go with me on a hike Along sand stretches on the great […]...
28. Gunner Did they send me away from my cat and my wife To a doctor who poked me and counted my teeth, To a line on a plain, to a stove in a tent? Did I nod in the flies of the schools? And the fighters rolled into the tracer like rabbits, The blood froze over […]...
29. An Ode to Master Endymion Porter, Upon His Brother's Death Not all thy flushing suns are set, Herrick, as yet ; Nor doth this far-drawn hemisphere Frown and look sullen ev’rywhere. Days may conclude in nights, and suns may rest As dead within the west ; Yet, the next morn, regild the fragrant east. Alas! for me, that I have lost E’en all almost ; […]...
30. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
31. Solidarity Song Peoples of the world, together Join to serve the common cause! So it feeds us all for ever See to it that it’s now yours. Forward, without forgetting Where our strength can be seen now to be! When starving or when eating Forward, not forgetting Our solidarity! Black or white or brown or yellow Leave […]...
32. Hush'd be the Camps To-day 1 HUSH’D be the camps to-day; And, soldiers, let us drape our war-worn weapons; And each with musing soul retire, to celebrate, Our dear commander’s death. No more for him life’s stormy conflicts; Nor victory, nor defeat-no more time’s dark events, Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky. 2 But sing, poet, in our name; […]...
33. Sail On, Sail On Sail on, sail on, thou fearless bark Where’er blows the welcome wind, It cannot lead to scenes more dark, More sad than those we leave behind. Each wave that passes seems to say, “Though death beneath our smile may be, Less cold we are, less false than they, Whose smiling wreck’d thy hopes and thee.” […]...
34. Manhole Covers The beauty of manhole covers what of that? Like medals struck by a great savage khan, Like Mayan calendar stones, unliftable, indecipherable, Not like the old electrum, chased and scored, Mottoed and sculptured to a turn, But notched and whelked and pocked and smashed With the great company names (Gentle Bethlehem, smiling United States). This […]...
35. In The Cool Of The Evening I thought I heard Him calling. Did you hear A sound, a little sound? My curious ear Is dinned with flying noises, and the tree Goes whisper, whisper, whisper silently Till all its whispers spread into the sound Of a dull roar. Lie closer to the ground, The shade is deep and He may pass […]...
36. Doctors 1923 Man dies too soon, beside his works half-planned. His days are counted and reprieve is vain: Who shall entreat with Death to stay his hand; Or cloke the shameful nakedness of pain? Send here the bold, the seekers of the way The passionless, the unshakeable of soul, Who serve the inmost mysteries of man’s […]...
37. My Indian In-laws I remember India: Palm trees, monkey families, Fresh lime juice in the streets, The sensual inundation Of sights and smells And excess in everything. I was exotic and believable there. I was walking through dirt In my sari, To temples of the deities Following the lead Of my Indian in-laws. I was scooping up fire […]...
38. Birdcage Walk When the wind blows her veil And uncovers her laughter I cease, I turn pale. When the wind blows her veil From the woes I bewail Of love and hereafter: When the wind blows her veil I cease, I turn pale....
39. Companions Leave not your bough, my slender song-bird sweet, But pipe me now your roundelay complete. Come, gentle breeze, and tarrying on your way, Whisper my trees what you have seen to-day. Stand, golden cloud, until my song be done, (For he’s too proud) before the face of the sun. So one did sing, and the […]...
40. Ode To The Lemon From blossoms Released By the moonlight, From an Aroma of exasperated Love, Steeped in fragrance, Yellowness Drifted from the lemon tree, And from its plantarium Lemons descended to the earth. Tender yield! The coasts, The markets glowed With light, with Unrefined gold; We opened Two halves Of a miracle, Congealed acid Trickled From the hemispheres […]...