All Poems

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What Are Heavy? Sea-Sand And Sorrow

© Christina Georgina Rossetti

What are heavy? Sea-sand and sorrow:
What are brief? To-day and to-morrow:
What are frail? Spring blossoms and youth:
What are deep? The ocean and truth.

I Went Down into the Desert

© Vachel Lindsay

I went down into the desert
To meet Elijah
Arisen from the dead.
I thought to. find him in an echoing cave;
For so my dream had said.

Cell Song

© Etheridge Knight

Night Music Slanted
Light strike the cave of sleep. I alone
tread the red circle
and twist the space with speech

Where Is David, the Next King of Israel?

© Vachel Lindsay

Where is David? . . . O God's people,
Saul has passed, the good and great.
Mourn for Saul the first-anointed
Head and shoulders o'er the state.

Above the Battle's Front

© Vachel Lindsay

St. Francis, Buddha, Tolstoi, and St. John
Friends, if you four, as pilgrims, hand in hand,
Returned, the hate of earth once more to dare,
And walked upon the water and the land,

In Memory Of John Greenleaf Whittier

December 17, l807 - September 7, 1892
THOU, too, hast left us. While with heads bowed low,
And sorrowing hearts, we mourned our summer's dead,
The flying season bent its Parthian bow,
And yet again our mingling tears were shed.

In Praise of Songs that Die

© Vachel Lindsay

AFTER HAVING READ A GREAT DEAL OF GOOD CURRENT POETRY IN THE MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS
Ah, they are passing, passing by,
Wonderful songs, but born to die!
Cries from the infinite human seas,

An Apology for the Bottle Volcanic

© Vachel Lindsay

Sometimes I dip my pen and find the bottle full of fire,
The salamanders flying forth I cannot but admire.
It's Etna, or Vesuvius, if those big things were small,
And then 'tis but itself again, and does not smoke at all.

Rules And Lessons

© Henry Vaughan

When first thine eyes unveil, give thy soul leave
To do the like: our bodies but forerun
The spirit's duty. True hearts spread and heave
Unto their God, as flowers do to the sun.
Give Him thy first thoughts then; so shalt thou keep
Him company all day, and in Him sleep.

The Alchemist's Petition

© Vachel Lindsay

Thou wilt not sentence to eternal life
My soul that prays that it may sleep and sleep
Like a white statue dropped into the deep,
Covered with sand, covered with chests of gold,
And slave-bones, tossed from many a pirate hold.

Limerick: There was Old Man in a pew

© Edward Lear

There was Old Man in a pew,
Whose waistcoat was spotted with blue;
But he tore it in pieces
To give to his nieces,
That cheerful Old Man in a pew.

Eden in Winter

© Vachel Lindsay

Then he did leap and sing
Dancing the clouds among,
Turning the night to noon,
Stinging my eyes with light,
Making the snow retreat,
Making the cave-house bright.

Monuments For A Friendly Girl At A Tenth Grade Party

© William Stafford

Now I learn you died
serving among the natives of Garden City,
Kansas, part of a Peace Corps
before governments thought of it.

The Soul of the City Receives the Gift of the Holy Spirit

© Vachel Lindsay

A BROADSIDE DISTRIBUTED IN SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS
Censers are swinging,
Over the town;
Censers are swinging,

What the Gray-Winged Fairy Said

The moon's a gong, hung in the wild,
Whose song the fays hold dear.
Of course you do not hear it, child.
It takes a FAIRY ear.

How beautiful the Earth is still

How beautiful the Earth is still
To theehow full of Happiness;
How little fraught with real ill
Or shadowy phantoms of distress;

To Buddha

Awake again in Asia, Lord of Peace,
Awake and preach, for her far swordsmen rise.
And would they sheathe the sword before you, friend,
Or scorn your way, while looking in your eyes?