All Poems
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thought for the ordinary
© Rg Gregory
be moved by your own time
but move it too
the sun hasn't all the answers
it can be made to listen to you
Blazon
© Rubén Dario
The snow-white Olympic swan,
with beak of rose-red agate,
preens his eucharistic wing,
which he opens to the sun like a fan.
Young Blood
© Stephen Vincent Benet
"But, sir," I said, "they tell me the man is like to die!" The Canon shook his head indulgently. "Young blood, Cousin," he boomed. "Young blood! Youth will be served!"
-- D'Hermonville's Fabliaux.
He woke up with a sick taste in his mouth
And lay there heavily, while dancing motes
Winged Man
© Stephen Vincent Benet
The moon, a sweeping scimitar, dipped in the stormy straits,
The dawn, a crimson cataract, burst through the eastern gates,
The cliffs were robed in scarlet, the sands were cinnabar,
Where first two men spread wings for flight and dared the hawk afar.
The Quality of Courage
© Stephen Vincent Benet
Was it not better so to lie?
The fight was done. Even gods tire
Of fighting. . . . My way was the wrong.
Now I should drift and drift along
To endless quiet, golden peace . . .
And let the tortured body cease.
Benedetta Minelli
© Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
IT is near morning. Ere the next night fall
I shall be made the bride of heaven. Then home
To my still marriage chamber I shall come,
And spouseless, childless, watch the slow years crawl.
The Lover in Hell
© Stephen Vincent Benet
Eternally the choking steam goes up
From the black pools of seething oil. . . .
How merry
Those little devils are! They've stolen the pitchfork
The Cause
© Robert Laurence Binyon
Out of these throes that search and sear
What is it so deep arises in us
Above the shaken thoughts of fear,--
Whatever thread the Fates may spin us,--
Above the horror that would drown
And tempest that would strike us down?
The Loss Of Female Character
© George Moses Horton
See that fallen Princess! her splendor is gone--
The pomp of her morning is over;
Her day-star of pleasure refuses to dawn,
She wanders a nocturnal rover.
The Hemp
© Stephen Vincent Benet
Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas
(Black is the gap below the plank)
From the Great North Bank to the Caribbees
(Down by the marsh the hemp grows rank).
Song of The Waiting Dead
© George MacDonald
With us there is no gray fearing,
With us no aching for lack!
The Fiddling Wood
© Stephen Vincent Benet
Gods, what a black, fierce day! The clouds were iron,
Wrenched to strange, rugged shapes; the red sun winked
Over the rough crest of the hairy wood
In angry scorn; the grey road twisted, kinked,
Like a sick serpent, seeming to environ
The trees with magic. All the wood was still --
Tuckered Out
© Edgar Albert Guest
YOU don't weigh more than thirty pounds,
Your legs are little, plump and fat,
The General Public
© Stephen Vincent Benet
"Ah, did you once see Shelley plain?" -- Browning.
"Shelley? Oh, yes, I saw him often then,"
The old man said. A dry smile creased his face
With many wrinkles. "That's a great poem, now!
That one of Browning's! Shelley? Shelley plain?
The time that I remember best is this --
"Knocking"
© Harriet Beecher Stowe
Knocking, knocking, ever knocking?
Who is there?
'T is a pilgrim, strange and kingly,
Never such was seen before;-
Ah, sweet soul, for such a wonder
Undo the door.
The Drug-Shop, or, Endymion in Edmonstoun
© Stephen Vincent Benet
No herbage broke the barren flats of land,
No winds dared loiter within smiling trees,
Nor were there any brooks on either hand,
Only the dry, bright sand,
Naked and golden, lay before the seas.
The City Revisited
© Stephen Vincent Benet
Nothing was gone, nothing was changed,
The smallest wave was unestranged
By all the long ache of the years
Since last I saw them, blind with tears.
Their welcome like the hills stood fast:
And I, I had come home at last.
A Confession
© Peter McArthur
DEAR little boy, with wondering eyes
That for the light of knowledge yearn,
