All Poems

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The Vacuum

© Howard Nemerov

The house is so quiet now
The vacuum cleaner sulks in the corner closet,
Its bag limp as a stopped lung, its mouth
Grinning into the floor, maybe at my
Slovenly life, my dog-dead youth.

Death Sonnet I

© Gabriela Mistral

From the icy niche where men placed you
I lower your body to the sunny, poor earth.
They didn't know I too must sleep in it
and dream on the same pillow.

Idylls of the King: Song from The Marriage of Geraint

© Alfred Tennyson

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, and lower the proud;
Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and cloud;
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

. AS oftentimes the too resplendent sun
Hurries the pallid and reluctant moon
Back to her sombre cave, ere she hath won
A single ballad from the nightingale,
So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail,
And all my sweetest singing out of tune.

Service

© Edgar Albert Guest

TO the cause one man gave gold,
Then withdrew into his den
From the battle line, and told
How he served his fellowmen.

To The Lady Dursley

© Matthew Prior

Here reading how fond Adam was betray'd,
And how by sin Eve's blasted charms decay'd,
Our common loss unjustly you complain,
So small that part of it which you sustain.

The Elements of San Joaquin

© Gary Soto

The wind sprays pale dirt into my mouth
The small, almost invisible scars
On my hands.

I Love My Love

© Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

I LOVE my love for she is like a garden in the dawn,
Pale, yet pink-flushed, with softly waking eyes,
And primrose hair that brightens to gold skies,
And petalled lips for dew to linger on.

Mother and Child, Body and Soul

© Jean Valentine

Mother
It was autumn
I couldn't hear the students
only the music coming in the window,
Se tu m’ami
If you love me

The Death of Allegory

© Billy Collins

I am wondering what became of all those tall abstractions
that used to pose, robed and statuesque, in paintings
and parade about on the pages of the Renaissance
displaying their capital letters like license plates.

A Prophecy. February 1807

© William Wordsworth

HIGH deeds, O Germans, are to come from you!
Thus in your books the record shall be found,
"A watchword was pronounced, a potent sound--
ARMINIUS!--all the people quaked like dew

A Graveyard

© Marianne Clarke Moore

Man, looking into the sea—

taking the view from those who have as much right to it as you have it to yourself—

Benjamin Pantier

© Edgar Lee Masters

Together in this grave lie Benjamin Pantier, attorney at law,

And Nig, his dog, constant companion, solace and friend.

Belated

BLITHE summer blossom, born too late,
Wilt make my desert garden fair?
Lo Winter's hand is on the gate,
His breath is in the curdling air.

To Marguerite: Continued

Yes! in the sea of life enisled,
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless watery wild,
We mortal millions live alone.
The islands feel the enclasping flow,
And then their endless bounds they know.