Animal poems
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Of The Nature Of Things: Book V - Part 05 - Origins Of Vegetable And Animal Life
© Lucretius
And now to what remains!- Since I've resolved
By what arrangements all things come to pass
Yardley Oak
© William Cowper
Survivor sole, and hardly such, of all
That once lived here, thy brethren, at my birth,
Two Campers In Cloud Country
© Sylvia Plath
In this country there is neither measure nor balance
To redress the dominance of rocks and woods,
The passage, say, of these man-shaming clouds.
Noey Bixler
© James Whitcomb Riley
Another hero of those youthful years
Returns, as Noey Bixler's name appears.
The Vision Of Piers Plowman - Part 14
© William Langland
"I have but oon hool hater,' quod Haukyn, "I am the lasse to blame
Though it be soiled and selde clene - I slepe therinne o nyghtes;
And also I have an houswif, hewen and children -
Uxorem duxi, et ideo non possum venire -
That wollen bymolen it many tyme, maugree my chekes.
Maha-Bharata, The Epic Of Ancient India - Book XII - Aswa-Medha - (Sacrifice Of The Horse)
© Romesh Chunder Dutt
The real Epic ends with the war and the funerals of the deceased
warriors. Much of what follows in the original Sanscrit poem is
La Araucana - Canto I
© Alonso de Ercilla y Zuniga
El cual declara el asiento y descripción de la provincia de Chile y Estado de Arauco, con las costumbres y modos de guerra que los naturales tienen; y asimismo trata en suma la entrada y conquista que los españoles hicieron hasta que Arauco se comenzó a rebelar
No las damas, amor, no gentilezas
Balloons
© Sylvia Plath
Since Christmas they have lived with us,
Guileless and clear,
Oval soul-animals,
Taking up half the space,
Moving and rubbing on the silk
Bread Soup: An Old Icelandic Recipe by Bill Holm: American Life in Poetry #90 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet
© Ted Kooser
Anyone can write a poem that nobody can understand, but poetry is a means of communication, and this column specializes in poems that communicate. What comes more naturally to us than to instruct someone in how to do something? Here the Minnesota poet and essayist Bill Holm, who is of Icelandic parentage, shows us how to make something delicious to eat.
Les Chats (Cats)
© Charles Baudelaire
Les amoureux fervents et les savants austères
Aiment également, dans leur mûre saison,
Les chats puissants et doux, orgueil de la maison,
Qui comme eux sont frileux et comme eux sédentaires.
Ajanta
© Muriel Rukeyser
CAME in my full youth to the midnight cave
nerves ringing; and this thing I did alone.
The Trenches
© Frederic Manning
Endless lanes sunken in the clay,
Bays, and traverses, fringed with wasted herbage,
Tray
© Robert Browning
Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst
Of soul, ye bards!
Quoth Bard the first:
"Sir Olaf, the good knight, did don
His helm, and eke his habergeon ..."
Sir Olaf and his bard----!
Lord Lundy, Who was too Freely Moved to Tears, and thereby ruined his Political Career
© Hilaire Belloc
Lord Lundy from his earliest years
Was far too freely moved to Tears.
Hellenistics
© Robinson Jeffers
I look at the Greek-derived design that nourished my infancy
this Wedgwood copy of the Portland vase:
Someone had given it to my father my eyes at five years old
used to devour it by the hour.
Seasonal Cycle - Chapter 01 - Summer
© Kalidasa
"Oh, dear, this utterly sweltering season of the highly rampant sun is drawing nigh, and it will always be good enough to go on taking daytime baths, as the lakes and rivers will still be with plenteous waters, and at the end of the day, nightfall will be pleasant with fascinating moon, and in such nights Love-god can somehow be almost mollified…[who tortured us in the previous vernal season… but now without His sweltering us, we can happily enjoy the nights devouring cool soft drinks and dancing and merrymaking in outfields…]
"Oh, beloved one, somewhere the moon shoved the blackish columns of night aside, somewhere else the palace-chambers with water [showering, sprinkling and splashing] machines are highly exciting, and else where the matrices of gems, [like coolant pearls and moon-stone, etc.,] are there, and even the pure sandalwood is liquefied [besides other coolant scents,] thus this season gets an adoration from all the people…
"The beloved ones will enjoy the summer's clear late nights while they are atop the rooftops of buildings that are delightful and fragranced well, while they savour the passion intensifiers like strong drinks and while the ladylove's face suspires the bouquets of those drinks together with melodious instrumental and vocal music…
"The women are ameliorating the heat of their lovers with their chicly silken coolant fineries gliding onto their rotund fundaments, for they are knotted loosely, and on those silks glissading are their golden cinctures with their dangling tassels that are unfastened on and off, and with their buxom bosoms that are bedaubed with sandal-paste and semi-covered with pearly strings and golden lavalieres, and with their locks of hair that are sliding onto their faces, which locks are fragrant with bath-time emulsions, which are just applied before their oil bath…
