All Poems
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The Persian Version
© Robert Graves
Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon
The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.
As for the Greek theatrical tradition
Which represents that summer's expedition
A Boy in Church
© Robert Graves
Gabble-gabble,
brethren,
gabble-gabble!
My window frames forest and heather.
I hardly hear the tuneful babble,
Not knowing nor much caring whether
The text is praise or exhortation,
Prayer or thanksgiving, or damnation.
Marigolds
© Robert Graves
With a fork drive Nature out,
She will ever yet return;
Hedge the flowerbed all about,
Pull or stab or cut or burn,
She will ever yet return.
The Thieves
© Robert Graves
Lovers in the act despense
With such meum-tuum sense
As might warningly reveal
What they must not pick or steal,
And their nostrum is to say:
'I and you are both away.'
The Oak
© Alfred Tennyson
Live thy Life,
Young and old,
Like yon oak,
Bright in spring,
Living gold;
The Next War
© Robert Graves
You young friskies who today
Jump and fight in Fathers hay
With bows and arrows and wooden spears,
Playing at Royal Welch Fusiliers,
Three Flower Petals
© Archibald Lampman
When saw I yesterday walking apart
In a leafy place where the cattle wait?
Not Dead
© Robert Graves
Walking through trees to cool my heat and pain,
I know that Davids with me here again.
All that is simple, happy, strong, he is.
Caressingly I stroke
Sorleys Weather
© Robert Graves
When outside the icy rain
Comes leaping helter-skelter,
Shall I tie my restive brain
Snugly under shelter?
I Love This White And Slender Body
© Heinrich Heine
I Love this white and slender body,
These limbs that answer Love's caresses,
The Cruel Moon
© Robert Graves
The cruel Moon hangs out of reach
Up above the shadowy beech.
Her face is stupid, but her eye
Is small and sharp and very sly.
Hello, How Are You?
© Charles Bukowski
at least they are not out on the street, they
are careful to stay indoors, those
pasty mad who sit alone before their tv sets,
their lives full of canned, mutilated laughter.
Not Understood
© Thomas Bracken
Not understood, we move along asunder;
Our paths grow wider as the seasons creep
Along the years; we marvel and we wonder
Why life is life, and then we fall asleep
Not understood.
Double Red Daisies
© Robert Graves
Double red daisies, theyre my flowers,
Which nobody else may grow.
In a big quarrelsome house like ours
They try it sometimesbut no,
I root them up because theyre my flowers,
Which nobody else may grow.
The River And The Road
© Roderic Quinn
THE merrymaking's over
The riverside is still,
The Sun, a radiant rover,
Gone down behind the hill.
Cherry-Time
© Robert Graves
Cherries of the night are riper
Than the cherries pluckt at noon
Gather to your fairy piper
When he pipes his magic tune:
Post Mortem
© Robinson Jeffers
Happy people die whole, they are all dissolved in a moment,
they have had what they wanted,
Dead Cow Farm
© Robert Graves
An ancient saga tells us how
In the beginning the First Cow
(For nothing living yet had birth
But Elemental Cow on earth)
Antara
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Though thou thy fair face concealest still in thy veil from me,
yet am I he that hath captured horse--riders how many!
Give me the praise of my fair deeds. Lady, thou knowest it,
kindly am I and forbearing, save when wrong presseth me.
Only when evil assaileth, deal I with bitterness;
then am I cruel in vengeance, bitter as colocynth.
