As thus the patient dam assiduous sits,
Not to be tempted from her tender task,
Or by sharp hunger, or by smooth delight,
Tho' the whole loosen'd spring around her blows,

The Wheel Revolves

© Kenneth Rexroth

You were a girl of satin and gauze

Now you are my mountain and waterfall companion.

We Wear the Mask

© Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

A Jacobite's Exile

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

The weary day runs down and dies,
The weary night wears through:
And never an hour is fair wi' flower,
And never a flower wi' dew.

Vespers ["Once I believed in you..."]

© Louise Gluck

Once I believed in you; I planted a fig tree.
Here, in Vermont, country
of no summer. It was a test: if the tree lived,
it would mean you existed.

John Barleycorn: A Ballad

© Robert Burns

There was three kings unto the east,
Three kings both great and high,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn should die.

[Murmurs from the earth of this land?]

© Katha Pollitt

Murmurs from the earth of this land, from the caves and craters,

from the bowl of darkness. Down watercourses of our

The Fair Youth Sonnets (18 - 77, 87 - 126)

Comprising the largest grouping of poems, the Fair Youth sonnets are addressed to the same young man in the Procreation Sonnets. But their themes and subjects are more drastically varied.

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You Would Know

© Marvin Bell

That you, Father, are “in my mind,”

some will argue, who cherish the present

The coast hills at Sovranes Creek;

No trees, but dark scant pasture drawn thin

"You want a lily"

You want a lily
And you plead with me
"Give me my lily back."
I went to see

A Mounted Umbrella

WHAT was the use of not leaving it there where it would hang what was the use if there was no chance of ever seeing it come there and show that it was handsome and right in the way it showed it