All Poems
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The Progress of Advice. A Common Case
© William Shenstone
Suade, nam cerium est.
Explanation.
Advise it, for 'tis fixed.
Flirtation
© Claude McKay
UPON thy purple mat thy body bare
Is fine and limber like a tender tree.
The motion of thy supple form is rare,
Like a lithe panther lolling languidly,
Sniper
© Bernard Gutteridge
I saw the sniper in the afternoon. The rifle
Lay there beside him neatly like his shooting,
The grass twined all about his cap.
He had killed neatly but we had set
Ten men about him to write death in jags
Cutting and spoiling on his face and broken body.
Flame-Heart
© Claude McKay
So much have I forgotten in ten years,
So much in ten brief years! I have forgot
What time the purple apples come to juice,
And what month brings the shy forget-me-not.
A Poet
© Thomas Hardy
Attentive eyes, fantastic heed,
Assessing minds, he does not need,
Nor urgent writs to sup or dine,
Nor pledges in the roseate wine.
Italy : 40. Banditti
© Samuel Rogers
'Tis a wild life, fearful and full of change,
The mountain-robber's. On the watch he lies,
Levelling his carbine at the passenger;
And, when his work is done, he dares not sleep.
Noonday Grace
© John Crowe Ransom
MY good old father tucked his head,
(His face the color of gingerbread)
Over the table my mother had spread,
And folded his leathery hands and said:
December, 1919
© Claude McKay
Last night I heard your voice, mother,
The words you sang to me
When I, a little barefoot boy,
Knelt down against your knee.
Dawn in New York
© Claude McKay
The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes
Out of the low still skies, over the hills,
Manhattan's roofs and spires and cheerless domes!
The Dawn! My spirit to its spirit thrills.
Reed Call For April
© Madison Julius Cawein
When April comes, and pelts with buds
And apple-blooms each orchard space,
And takes the dog-wood-whitened woods
With rain and sunshine of her moods,
Like your fair face, like your fair face:
Courage
© Claude McKay
O lonely heart so timid of approach,
Like the shy tropic flower that shuts its lips
To the faint touch of tender finger tips:
What is your word? What question would you broach?
To my dead friend Ben Johnson
© Henry King
I see that wreath which doth the wearer arm
'Gainst the quick strokes of thunder, is no charm
To keep off deaths pale dart. For, Johnson then
Thou hadst been number'd still with living men.
Commemoration
© Claude McKay
When first your glory shone upon my face
My body kindled to a mighty flame,
And burnt you yielding in my hot embrace
Until you swooned to love, breathing my name.
"As when a child..."
© Charles Lamb
As when a child on some long winter's night
Affrighted clinging to its Grandam's knees
Birds of Prey
© Claude McKay
Their shadow dims the sunshine of our day,
As they go lumbering across the sky,
Squawking in joy of feeling safe on high,
Beating their heavy wings of owlish gray.
Baptism
© Claude McKay
Into the furnace let me go alone;
Stay you without in terror of the heat.
I will go naked in--for thus ''tis sweet--
Into the weird depths of the hottest zone.
Not My Enemies Ever Invade Me
© Walt Whitman
NOT my enemies ever invade me-no harm to my pride from them I fear;
But the lovers I recklessly love-lo! how they master me!
Lo! me, ever open and helpless, bereft of my strength!
Utterly abject, grovelling on the ground before them.
Beautiful Lofty Things
© William Butler Yeats
BEAUTIFUL lofty things: O'Leary's noble head;
My father upon the Abbey stage, before him a raging crowd:
Alfonso, Dressing to Wait at Table
© Claude McKay
Alfonso is a handsome bronze-hued lad
Of subtly-changing and surprising parts;
His moods are storms that frighten and make glad,
His eyes were made to capture women's hearts.
