All Poems
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Belisarius. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Fourth)
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I am poor and old and blind;
The sun burns me, and the wind
Blows through the city gate
And covers me with dust
From the wheels of the august
Justinian the Great.
The Oldest Child
© Charles Simic
Somewhere perhaps the lovers lie
Under the dark cypress trees,
Trembling with happiness,
But here there's only your beard of many days
And a night moth shivering
Under your hand pressed against your chest.
Tragic Dawn
© Arthur Symons
And in the midst of the flames I was suddenly aware
Of a flame-bird that fluttered on feverish wings
And the night was no longer there nor the night of her hair.
And I was more lonely than God in the heart of things.
When shall the last dawn come with cloudy chariotings?
I shall awake perhaps after that and not find you there.
Think'st thou to seduce me then
© Thomas Campion
Think'st thou to seduce me then with words that have no meaning?
Parrots so can learn to prate, our speech by pieces gleaning;
Nurses teach their children so about the time of weaning.
Windflowers
© Edith Nesbit
When I was little and good
I walked in the dappled wood
Where light white windflowers grew,
And hyacinths heavy and blue.
Mummy's Curse
© Charles Simic
Befriending an eccentric young woman
The sole resident of a secluded Victorian mansion.
She takes long walks in the evening rain,
And so do I, with my hair full of dead leaves.
"Vision of peace, Joy without stain"
© Robert Laurence Binyon
Vision of peace, Joy without stain,
That on my vext heart sweetly shinest,
Hast thou, too, known the touch of pain,
Cares and dark hours, when in vain
For thy lost quiet thou repinest?
Read Your Fate
© Charles Simic
A world's disappearing.
Little street,
You were too narrow,
Too much in the shade already.
Sestina
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
I saw my soul at rest upon a day
As a bird sleeping in the nest of night,
Among soft leaves that give the starlight way
To touch its wings but not its eyes with light;
So that it knew as one in visions may,
And knew not as men waking, of delight.
Summer In The Country
© Charles Simic
One shows me how to lie down in a field of clover.
Another how to slip my hand under her Sunday skirt.
Another how to kiss with a mouth full of blackberries.
Another how to catch fireflies in jar after dark.
Against Winter
© Charles Simic
The truth is dark under your eyelids.
What are you going to do about it?
The birds are silent; there's no one to ask.
All day long you'll squint at the gray sky.
When the wind blows you'll shiver like straw.
The Wooden Toy
© Charles Simic
The brightly-painted horse
Had a boy's face,
And four small wheels
Under his feet,
Talking To Little Birdies
© Charles Simic
Not a peep out of you now
After the bedlam early this morning.
Are you begging pardon of me
Hidden up there among the leaves,
Or are your brains momentarily overtaxed?
Answering Age
© Edgar Albert Guest
AGE is calling to me, with his finger long and grim,
It is urging me to wander down the dreary lanes with him,
It has lined my cheeks with furrows, and has tinged my hair with gray,
And is ever whispering to me that I've grown too old to play;
But the heart of me keeps saying, "Let us dance our way along,
Let us answer age with laughter, let us drive him off with song."
Transfiguration
© Louisa May Alcott
Mysterious death! who in a single hour
Life's gold can so refine
And by thy art divine
Change mortal weakness to immortal power!
Written in Northampton County Asylum
© John Clare
I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?
My friends forsake me like a memory lost.
I am the self-consumer of my woes;
They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
And yet I amI livethough I am tossd
Thoreau's Flute
© Louisa May Alcott
We sighing said, "Our Pan is dead;
His pipe hangs mute beside the river
Around it wistful sunbeams quiver,
But Music's airy voice is fled.
Envoy
© Francis Thompson
Go, songs, for ended is our brief, sweet play;
Go, children of swift joy and tardy sorrow:
And some are sung, and that was yesterday,
And some unsung, and that may be to-morrow.
