All Poems
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What Semiramis Said
© Vachel Lindsay
THE moon's a steaming chalice,
Of honey and venom-wine.
A little of it sipped by night
Makes the long hours divine.
The Angels
© William Henry Drummond
Run, shepherds, run where Bethlehem blest appears.
We bring the best of news; be not dismayed:
The Prarie Battlements
© Vachel Lindsay
Alice has a prarie grave.
The King and Queen lie low,
And aged Grandma Silver Dreams,
Four toombstones in a row.
But still in snow and sunshine
Stands our ancestral hall.
The Ideal
© Charles Harpur
Spirit of Dreams! When many a toilsome height
Shut paradise from exiled Adams sight,
The North Star Whispers to the Blacksmith's Son
© Vachel Lindsay
THE North Star whispers: "You are one
Of those whose course no chance can change.
You blunder, but are not undone,
Your spirit-task is fixed and strange.
The Perfect Marriage
© Vachel Lindsay
I hate this yoke; for the world's sake here put it on:
Knowing 'twill weigh as much on you till life is gone.
Knowing you love your freedom dear, as I love mine
Knowing that love unchained has been our life's great wine:
Our one great wine (yet spent too soon, and serving none;
Of the two cups free love at last the deadly one).
The Passions. An Ode to Music
© William Taylor Collins
First Fear his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewilder'd laid,
And back recoil'd, he knew not why,
Ev'n at the sound himself had made.
To Lady Jane
© Vachel Lindsay
Romance was always young.
You come today
Just eight years old
With marvellous dark hair.
Prologue to "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread"
© Vachel Lindsay
Those were his days of glory,
Of faith in his fellow-men.
Therefore to-day the singer
Turns beggar once again.
There Are Holes In The Sky
© Spike Milligan
There are holes in the sky
Where the rain gets in
But they're ever so small
That's why the rain is thin.
Rondel of Merciless Beauty
© Geoffrey Chaucer
Your two great eyes will slay me suddenly;
Their beauty shakes me who was once serene;
Straight through my heart the wound is quick and keen.
Genesis
© Vachel Lindsay
O Eve with the fire-lit breast
And child-face red and white!
I heaped the great logs high!
That was our bridal night.
Canadian Folksong
© William Wilfred Campbell
The doors are shut, the windows fast;
Outside the gust is driving past,
Outside the shivering ivy clings,
While on the hob the kettle sings.
Margery, Margery, make the tea,
Singeth the kettle merrily.
The Moon is a Painter
© Vachel Lindsay
He coveted her portrait.
He toiled as she grew gay.
She loved to see him labor
In that devoted way.
To Gloriana
© Vachel Lindsay
GIRL with the burning golden eyes,
And red-bird song, and snowy throat:
I bring you gold and silver moons,
And diamond stars, and mists that float.
The Whistle by Kathy Mangan : American Life in Poetry #242 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
There are lots of poems in which a poet expresses belated appreciation for a parent, and if you don’t know Robert Hayden’s poem, “Those Winter Sundays,” you ought to look it up sometime. In this lovely sonnet, Kathy Mangan, of Maryland, contributes to that respected tradition.
The Whistle
