All Things Can Tempt Me
All things can tempt me from this craft of verse:
One time it was a woman’s face, or worse –
The seeming needs of my fool-driven land;
Now nothing but comes readier to the hand
Than this accustomed toil. When I was young,
I had not given a penny for a song
Did not the poet Sing it with such airs
That one believed he had a sword upstairs;
Yet would be now, could I but have my wish,
Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish.





Related poetry:
- Upstairs I TOO have a garret of old playthings. I have tin soldiers with broken arms upstairs. I have a wagon […]...
- Tцrnfallet There is a meadow in Sweden Where I lie smitten, Eyes stained with clouds’ White ins and outs. And about […]...
- 'Tis my first night beneath the Sun ‘Tis my first night beneath the Sun If I should spend it here Above him is too low a height […]...
- Menelaus and Helen I Hot through Troy’s ruin Menelaus broke To Priam’s palace, sword in hand, to sate On that adulterous whore a […]...
- The People Upstairs The people upstairs all practise ballet Their living room is a bowling alley Their bedroom is full of conducted tours. […]...
- Blue Maroons “YOU slut,” he flung at her. It was more than a hundred times He had thrown it into her face […]...
- 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 […]...
- Variation On A Theme By Rilke A certain day became a presence to me; There it was, confronting me a sky, air, light: A being. And […]...
- Colder He was six foot four, and forty-six And even colder than he thought he was James Thurber, The Thirteen Clocks […]...
- Sacrifice THOSE delicate wanderers, The wind, the star, the cloud, Ever before mine eyes, As to an altar bowed, Light and […]...
- The Fish The first fish I ever caught Would not lie down Quiet in the pail But flailed and sucked At the […]...
- Marine Snow At Mid-Depths And Down As you descend, slowly, falling faster past You this snow, Ghostly, some flakes bio- Luminescent (you plunge, And this lit […]...
- Privacy Oh you who are shy of the popular eye, (Though most of us seek to survive it) Just think of […]...
- Womanly Qualms When I go rowing on the lake, I long to be a man; I’ll give my Sunday frock to have […]...
- 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 […]...
- Fish Crier I KNOW a Jew fish crier down on Maxwell Street with a Voice like a north wind blowing over corn […]...
- 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 […]...
- Symbols A storm-beaten old watch-tower, A blind hermit rings the hour. All-destroying sword-blade still Carried by the wandering fool. Gold-sewn silk […]...
- English In 1819 An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who Through public scorn, mud […]...
- 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 […]...
- Heaven Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June, Dawdling away their wat’ry noon) Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear, Each secret fishy […]...
- 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 […]...
- May 24, 1980 I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages, Carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, Lived […]...
- Our biggest fish When in the halcyon days of old, I was a little tyke, I used to fish in pickerel ponds for […]...
- 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 […]...
- Cruisers As our mother the Frigate, bepainted and fine, Made play for her bully the Ship of the Line; So we, […]...
- The Vanishing Red He is said to have been the last Red man In Action. And the Miller is said to have laughed […]...
- The Bait Come live with me, and be my love, And we will some new pleasures prove, Of golden sand, and crystal […]...
- Habitation Marriage is not A house or even a tent It is before that, and colder: The edge of the forest, […]...
- These are the Signs to Nature's Inns These are the Signs to Nature’s Inns Her invitation broad To Whosoever famishing To taste her mystic Bread These are […]...
- House TWO Swede families live downstairs and an Irish policeman upstairs, and an old soldier, Uncle Joe. Two Swede boys go […]...
- Innocence The height of wisdom seems to me That of a child; So let my ageing vision be Serene and mild. […]...
- Hymn 14 The triumph of faith or, Christ’s unchangeable love. Rom. 8:33ff. Who shall the Lord’s elect condemn? ‘Tis God that justifies […]...
- Shack Dye The white men played all sorts of jokes on me. They took big fish off my hook And put little […]...
- From Citron-Bower From citron-bower be her bed, Cut from branch of tree a-flower, Fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of […]...
- The Look The Saviour looked on Peter. Ay, no word, No gesture of reproach; the Heavens serene Though heavy with armed justice, […]...
- Ophelia My locks are shorn for sorrow Of love which may not be; Tomorrow and tomorrow Are plotting cruelty. The winter […]...
- Supposing that I should have the courage Supposing that I should have the courage To let a red sword of virtue Plunge into my heart, Letting to […]...
- A Door just opened on a street A Door just opened on a street I lost was passing by An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed And Wealth […]...
- JOY AND SORROW As a fisher-boy I fared To the black rock in the sea, And, while false gifts I prepared. Listen’d and […]...