All Poems

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Sonnet LVII: Being your slave, what should I do but tend

© William Shakespeare

Being your slave, what should I do but tend

Upon the hours and times of your desire?

I Would Have Wept

© Dora Sigerson Shorter

I would have wept with the beast,

The bird, the blossoming flower,

In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 116

© Alfred Tennyson

Is it, then, regret for buried time
That keenlier in sweet April wakes,
And meets the year, and gives and takes
The colours of the crescent prime?

Becoming Anne Bradstreet

© Eavan Boland

It happens again

As soon as I take down her book and open it.

The Vacation

© Wendell Berry

Once there was a man who filmed his vacation.

He went flying down the river in his boat

HOW sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow'd mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

Early Elegy: Headmistress

© Claudia Emerson

The word itself: prim, retired, its artifact

her portrait above the fireplace, on her face

Small Prayer

© Weldon Kees

Change, move, dead clock, that this fresh day
May break with dazzling light to these sick eyes.
Burn, glare, old sun, so long unseen,
That time may find its sound again, and cleanse
Whatever it is that a wound remembers
After the healing ends.

The Musical Carp

© Carolyn Wells

There once was a corpulent carp
Who wanted to play on a harp,
But to his chagrin
So short was his fin
That he couldn't reach up to C sharp.

Oh Lovely Rock

© Robinson Jeffers

We stayed the night in the pathless gorge of Ventana Creek, up the east fork.
The rock walls and the mountain ridges hung forest on forest above our heads, maple and redwood,
Laurel, oak, madrone, up to the high and slender Santa Lucian firs that stare up the cataracts
Of slide-rock to the star-color precipices.

Empire of Dreams

© Charles Simic

On the first page of my dreambook

It’s always evening

Old Idea Of Choan By Rosoriu

© Ezra Pound

I

The narrow streets cut into the wide highway at Choan,

Avalon

© Simon Armitage

To the Metropolitan Police Force, London:
the asylum gates are locked and chained, but undone
by wandering thoughts and the close study of maps.
So from San Francisco, patron city of tramps,
I scribble this note, having overshot Gloucester
by several million strides, having walked on water.

On the birth of his son

© Su Tung-po

Families, when a child is born

Want it to be intelligent.

To a Young Lady, With Some Lampreys

© John Gay

With lovers, twas of old the fashion

By presents to convey their passion;

To The Others

© Lola Ridge

I note your infinite reactions -
In glassware
And sequin
And puddles
And bits of jet -
And here and there a diamond…

To a Young Writer

© Yvor Winters

Achilles Holt, Stanford, 1930
Here for a few short years
Strengthen affections; meet,
Later, the dull arrears
Of age, and be discreet.

Upon A Dying Lady

I

Her Courtesy

Love Sonnet XXVI

Dearest, you had no answer. But your blood
Drawing from mine the primal fires of God,
Leapt, laughed, and shouted, panting into mine
Lovelove is all; and sweeps in mighty flood
Minds, souls and bodies, from the nameless sod
Exultant to the feet of the Divine.

Alea Jacta

Dearest, I know thee wise and good,
Beloved by all the best;
With fancy like Ithuriel's spear,
A judgment proof 'gainst rage or fear,
Heart firm through many a stormy year,
And conscience calm in rest.