All Poems

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from The Faerie Queene: Book I, Canto I

© Edmund Spenser

Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,

As time her taught in lowly Shepheards weeds,

The Resolution

© Mary Barber

The Favours of Fortune I once hop'd to gain,
And often invok'd her, but ever in vain.
She despis'd my Addresses, which gave me such Grief,
I flew to the Muses, in Hopes of Relief.

Mild is the Parting Year

© Heather Fuller

Mild is the parting year, and sweet
The odour of the falling spray;
Life passes on more rudely fleet,
And balmless is its closing day.

A Poet's Room (Greenwich Village 1912)

© Harry Kemp

I have a table, cot and chair
And nothing more. The walls are bare
Yet I confess that in my room
Lie Syrian rugs rich from the loom,

We would go down to the fish market early
to cleanse our vision: the fish were silver,
and scarlet, and green, and the color of sea.
The fish were lovlier than even the sea
with its silvery scales. We thought of return.

Jeanes Wedden Day In Mornen

© William Barnes

At last Jeäne come down stairs, a-drest

Wi' weddèn knots upon her breast,

May

© Jonathan Galassi

The backyard apple tree gets sad so soon,
takes on a used-up, feather-duster look
within a week.

A Mock Song

© Richard Lovelace

I.
Now Whitehall's in the grave,
And our head is our slave,
The bright pearl in his close shell of oyster;

Elegy X

© Rainer Maria Rilke

Yet the dead youth must go on alone.
In silence the elder Lament brings him
as far as the gorge where it shimmers in the moonlight:
The Foutainhead of Joy. With reverance she names it,
saying: "In the world of mankind it is a life-bearing stream."

Impromptu

© Alexander Pope

To Lady Winchelsea,
Occasioned by four Satirical Verses on Women Wits,
In The Rape of the Lock

Lycidas

© Patrick Kavanagh

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more

Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,

Tristram And Iseult

© Matthew Arnold

Tristram. Is she not come? The messenger was sure
Prop me upon the pillows once again
Raise me, my page! this cannot long endure.
Christ, what a night! how the sleet whips the pane!
What lights will those out to the northward be?

Breakage

© Michael Ondaatje

I go down to the edge of the sea.

How everything shines in the morning light!

The Heart Of Joy

© Edith Nesbit

Wide is the world, and so many would sigh for you,
Long for and cry for you,
Weep for and die for you,
You being you.

I Close My Eyes

I close my eyes like a good little boy at night in bed,
as I was told to do by my mother when she lived,
and before bed I brush my teeth and slip on my pajamas,
as I was told, and look forward to tomorrow.

The Harp

I HAVE a harp of many strings
But two are enough for me:
One is for love and one for death;
And what would the third one be?

Servants of God, in Joyful Lays

Servants of God, in joyful lays,
Sing ye the Lord Jehovahs praise;
His glorious Name let all adore,
From age to age, forevermore.

Late Confession

© Gary Soto

Monsignor, I believed Jesus followed me

With his eyes, and when I slept,

I dreamed that I was old: in stale declension
Fallen from my prime, when company
Was mine, cat-nimbleness, and green invention,
Before time took my leafy hours away.