All Poems
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The Fellowship Of Books
© Edgar Albert Guest
I care not who the man may be,
Nor how his tasks may fret him,
Nor where he fares, nor how his cares
And troubles may beset him,
If books have won the love of him,
Maturity
© Philip Larkin
A stationary sense... as, I suppose,
I shall have, till my single body grows
Inaccurate, tired;
Then I shall start to feel the backward pull
Take over, sickening and masterful -
Some say, desired.
Winter - The Fourth Pastoral, or Daphne
© Alexander Pope
Lycidas.
Thyrsis, the music of that murm'ring spring,
The School In August
© Philip Larkin
The cloakroom pegs are empty now,
And locked the classroom door,
The hollow desks are lined with dust,
And slow across the floor
A sunbeam creeps between the chairs
Till the sun shines no more.
Venetian Morning
© Rainer Maria Rilke
Windows pampered like princes always see
what on occasion deigns to trouble us:
the city that, time and again, where a shimmer
of sky strikes a feeling of floodtide,
Continuing To Live
© Philip Larkin
Continuing to live -- that is, repeat
A habit formed to get necessaries --
Is nearly always losing, or going without.
It varies.
The Old Fools
© Philip Larkin
What do they think has happened, the old fools,
To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose
It's more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools,
And you keep on pissing yourself, and can't remember
The Georges
© Walter Savage Landor
George the First was always reckoned
Vile, but viler George the Second;
And what mortal ever heard
Any good of George the Third?
When from earth the Fourth descended
(God be praised!) the Georges ended.
Days
© Philip Larkin
What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?
If, After I Die
© Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa
If, after I die, they should want to write my biography,
There's nothing simpler.
I've just two dates - of my birth, and of my death.
In between the one thing and the other all the days are
mine.
Home Is So Sad
© Philip Larkin
Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped in the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft.
Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room
© William Wordsworth
Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room;
And hermits are contented with their cells;
Why Did I Dream Of You Last Night?
© Philip Larkin
Why did I dream of you last night?
Now morning is pushing back hair with grey light
Memories strike home, like slaps in the face;
Raised on elbow, I stare at the pale fog
beyond the window.
Adelgitha
© Thomas Campbell
For he is dead and in a foreign land
Whose arm should now have set me free;
And I must wear the willow garland
For him that's dead, or false to me."
Talking In Bed
© Philip Larkin
Talking in bed ought to be easiest
Lying together there goes back so far
An emblem of two people being honest.
At 14 by Don Welch: American Life in Poetry #201 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Don Welch lives in Nebraska and is one of those many talented American poets who have never received as much attention as they deserve. His poems are distinguished by the meticulous care he puts into writing them, and by their deep intelligence. Here is Welch's picture of a 14-year-old, captured at that awkward and painfully vulnerable step on the way to adulthood.
At 14
To be shy,
to lower your eyes
after making a greeting.
Poetry Of Departures
© Philip Larkin
Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand,
As epitaph:
He chucked up everything
And just cleared off,
Reply to Mr. Liu Yazi 1950
© Mao Zedong
The night was long and dawn came slow to the Crimson Land.
For a century demons and monsters whirled in a wild dance,
And the five hundred million people were disunited.
To My Wife
© Philip Larkin
So for your face I have exchanged all faces,
For your few properties bargained the brisk
Baggage, the mask-and-magic-man's regalia.
Now you become my boredom and my failure,
Another way of suffering, a risk,
A heavier-than-air hypostasis.
