No Second Troy

Related poetry:

1. Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing The world is full of women Who’d tell me I should be ashamed of myself If they had the chance. Quit dancing. Get some self-respect And a day job. Right. And minimum wage, And varicose veins, just standing In one place for eight hours Behind a glass counter Bundled up to the neck, instead of […]...
2. Thou Strainest Through The Mountain Fern THOU strainest through the mountain fern, A most exiguously thin Burn. For all thy foam, for all thy din, Thee shall the pallid lake inurn, With well-a-day for Mr. Swin-Burne! Take then this quarto in thy fin And, O thou stoker huge and stern, The whole affair, outside and in, Burn! But save the true […]...
3. The Rose Of The World Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, Mournful that no new wonder may betide, Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, And Usna’s children died. We and the labouring world are passing by: Amid men’s souls, that waver and give place Like the pale […]...
4. 382. Song-I'll meet thee on the Lea Rig WHEN o’er the hill the eastern star Tells bughtin time is near, my jo, And owsen frae the furrow’d field Return sae dowf and weary O; Down by the burn, where birken buds Wi’ dew are hangin clear, my jo, I’ll meet thee on the lea-rig, My ain kind Dearie O. At midnight hour, in […]...
5. Penelope to Ulysses REturn my dearest Lord, at length return, Let me no longer your sad absence mourn, Ilium in Dust, does no more Work afford, No more Employment for your Wit or Sword. Why did not the fore-seeing Gods destroy, Helin the Fire-brand both of Greece and Troy, E’re yet the Fatal Youth her Face had seen, […]...
6. The White House Your door is shut against my tightened face, And I am sharp as steel with discontent; But I possess the courage and the grace To bear my anger proudly and unbent. The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet, A chafing savage, down the decent street; And passion rends my vitals as I pass, Where […]...
7. 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 […]...
8. On Receiving a Crown of Ivy from John Keats It is a lofty feeling, yet a kind, Thus to be topped with leaves; to have a sense Of honour-shaded thought, an influence As from great nature’s fingers, and be twined With her old, sacred, verdurous ivy-bind, As though she hallowed with that sylvan fence A head that bows to her benevolence, Midst pomp of […]...
9. When Helen Lived We have cried in our despair That men desert, For some trivial affair Or noisy, insolent sport, Beauty that we have won From bitterest hours; Yet we, had we walked within Those topless towers Where Helen waked with her boy, Had given but as the rest Of the men and women of Troy, A word […]...
10. 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...
11. 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...
12. 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 […]...
13. 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!...
14. 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 […]...
15. Bank Robber I much admire, I must admit, The man who robs a Bank; It takes a lot of guts and grit, For lack of which I thank The gods: a chap ‘twould make of me You wouldn’t ask to tea. I do not mean a burglar cove Who climbs into a house, From room to room […]...
16. I cannot be ashamed I cannot be ashamed Because I cannot see The love you offer Magnitude Reverses Modesty And I cannot be proud Because a Height so high Involves Alpine Requirements And Services of Snow....
17. Seascape With Sun And Eagle Freer Than most birds An eagle flies up Over San Francisco Freer than most places Soars high up Floats and glides high up In the still Open spaces Flown from the mountains Floated down Far over ocean Where the sunset has begun A mirror of itself He sails high over Turning and turning Where seaplanes […]...
18. MOTIVES IF to a girl who loves us truly Her mother gives instruction duly In virtue, duty, and what not, And if she hearkens ne’er a jot, But with fresh-strengthen’d longing flies To meet our kiss that seems to burn, Caprice has just as much concerned As love in her bold enterprise. But if her mother […]...
19. 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...
20. Your Hay It Is Mow'd, And Your Corn Is Reap'd (Comus.) Your hay it is mow’d, and your corn is reap’d; Your barns will be full, and your hovels heap’d: Come, my boys, come; Come, my boys, come; And merrily roar out Harvest Home. (Chorus.) Come, my boys, come; Come, my boys, come; And merrily roar out Harvest Home. (Man.) We ha’ cheated the parson, […]...
21. 1887 From Clee to heaven the beacon burns, The shires have seen it plain, From north and south the sign returns And beacons burn again. Look left, look right, the hills are bright, The dales are light between, Because ’tis fifty years to-night That God has saved the Queen. Now, when the flame they watch not […]...
22. To A Blossoming Pear Tree Beautiful natural blossoms, Pure delicate body, You stand without trembling. Little mist of fallen starlight, Perfect, beyond my reach, How I envy you. For if you could only listen, I would tell you something, Something human. An old man Appeared to me once In the unendurable snow. He had a singe of white Beard on […]...
23. A Far Cry From Africa A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt Of Africa, Kikuyu, quick as flies, Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt. Corpses are scattered through a paradise. Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries: “Waste no compassion on these separate dead!” Statistics justify and scholars seize The salients of colonial policy. What is that to the […]...
24. Impression De Voyage The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky Burned like a heated opal through the air; We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair For the blue lands that to the eastward lie. From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek, Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak, And all […]...
25. 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 the rites of Nature’s House The Hospitality That opens with an equal width To Beggar and to Bee For Sureties of her staunch Estate Her undecaying Cheer The Purple in the East is set And […]...
26. The Winners What the moral? Who rides may read. When the night is thick and the tracks are blind A friend at a pinch is a friend, indeed, But a fool to wait for the laggard behind. Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne, He travels the fastest who travels alone. White hands cling to the […]...
27. Grammar Maxine, back from a weekend with her boyfriend, Smiles like a big cat and says That she’s a conjugated verb. She’s been doing the direct object With a second person pronoun named Phil, And when she walks into the room, Everybody turns: Some kind of light is coming from her head. Even the geraniums look […]...
28. A Man Young And Old: VI. His Memories We should be hidden from their eyes, Being but holy shows And bodies broken like a thorn Whereon the bleak north blows, To think of buried Hector And that none living knows. The women take so little stock In what I do or say They’d sooner leave their cosseting To hear a jackass bray; My […]...
29. The Solitary Huntsman The solitary huntsman No coat of pink doth wear, But midnight black from cap to spur Upon his midnight mare. He drones a tuneless jingle In lieu of tally-ho: “I’ll catch a fox And put him in a box And never let him go.” The solitary huntsman, He follows silent hounds. No horn proclaims his […]...
30. A Night-Rain in Summer Open the window, and let the air Freshly blow upon face and hair, And fill the room, as it fills the night, With the breath of the rain’s sweet might. Hark! the burthen, swift and prone! And how the odorous limes are blown! Stormy Love’s abroad, and keeps Hopeful coil for gentle sleeps. Not a […]...
31. 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 hue, Cut the width of board and lathe, Carve the feet from myrtle-wood. Let the palings of her bed Be quince and box-wood overlaid With the scented bark of yew. That all the wood in […]...
32. I, or Someone Like Me In a wilderness, in some orchestral swing Through trees, with a wind playing all the high notes, And the prospect of a string bass inside the wood, I, or someone like me, had a kind of vision. As the person on the ground moved, bursting halos Topped first one tree, then another and another, Till […]...
33. The Snapped Thread Desire, first, by a natural miracle United bodies, united hearts, blazed beauty; Transcended bodies, transcended hearts. Two souls, now unalterably one In whole love always and for ever, Soar out of twilight, through upper air, Let fall their sensous burden. Is it kind, though, is it honest even, To consort with none but spirits- Leaving […]...
34. The Iliad: Book VI (excerpt) He said, and pass’d with sad presaging heart To seek his spouse, his soul’s far dearer part; At home he sought her, but he sought in vain: She, with one maid of all her menial train, Had thence retir’d; and, with her second joy, The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy, Pensive she stood on […]...
35. A Note On Wyatt See her come bearing down, a tidy craft! Gaily her topsails bulge, her sidelights burn! There’s jigging in her rigging fore and aft, And beauty’s self, not name, limned on her stern. See at her head the Jolly Roger flutters! “God, is she fully manned? If she’s one short…” Cadet, bargee, longshoreman, shellback mutters; Drowned […]...
36. The Moths There’s a kind of white moth, I don’t know What kind, that glimmers By mid-May In the forest, just As the pink mocassin flowers Are rising. If you notice anything, It leads you to notice More And more. And anyway I was so full of energy. I was always running around, looking At this and […]...
37. Let such pure hate still underprop “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, and Lovers.” Let such pure hate still underprop Our love, that we may be Each other’s conscience, And have our sympathy Mainly from thence. We’ll one another treat like gods, And all the faith we have In virtue and in truth, bestow On either, and suspicion leave To gods below. Two solitary […]...
38. The Lowestoft Boat In Lowestoft a boat was laid, Mark well what I do say! And she was built for the herring-trade, But she has gone a-rovin’, a-rovin’, a-rovin’, The Lord knows where! They gave her Government coal to burn, And a Q. F. gun at bow and stern, And sent her out a-rovin’, etc. Her skipper was […]...
39. A Man Young And Old: X. His Wildness O bid me mount and sail up there Amid the cloudy wrack, For peg and Meg and Paris’ love That had so straight a back, Are gone away, and some that stay Have changed their silk for sack. Were I but there and none to hear I’d have a peacock cry, For that is natural […]...
40. 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 and Company. The Door as instant shut And I I lost was passing by Lost doubly but by contrast most Informing misery...