Morning poems
/ page 290 of 310 /
Waiting
© George William Russell
WHEN the dawn comes forth I wonder
Will our sad, sad hearts awaken,
And the grief we laboured under
From the new-in-joy be shaken?
Day
© George William Russell
IN day from some titanic past it seems
As if a thread divine of memory runs;
Born ere the Mighty One began his dreams,
Or yet were stars and suns.
Night
© George William Russell
HEART-HIDDEN from the outer things I rose;
The spirit woke anew in nightly birth
Unto the vastness where forever glows
The star-soul of the earth.
Verses Turned...
© John Betjeman
Across the wet November night
The church is bright with candlelight
And waiting Evensong.
A single bell with plaintive strokes
Pleads louder than the stirring oaks
The leafless lanes along.
Winter Landscape
© John Betjeman
The three men coming down the winter hill
In brown, with tall poles and a pack of hounds
At heel, through the arrangement of the trees,
Past the five figures at the burning straw,
Sun and Fun
© John Betjeman
I walked into the night-club in the morning;
There was kummel on the handle of the door.
The ashtrays were unemptied.
The cleaning unattempted,
And a squashed tomato sandwich on the floor.
Business Girls
© John Betjeman
From the geyser ventilators
Autumn winds are blowing down
On a thousand business women
Having baths in Camden Town
Christmas
© John Betjeman
The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.
Diary of a Church Mouse
© John Betjeman
Here among long-discarded cassocks,
Damp stools, and half-split open hassocks,
Here where the vicar never looks
I nibble through old service books.
The Norbert Dentressangle Van
© Sophie Hannah
I heave my morning like a sack
of signs that don't appear,
say August, August, takes me back...
That it was not this year...
Le Manteau De Pascal
© Jorie Graham
I have put on my great coat it is cold.It is an outer garment.Coarse, woolen.Of unknown origin. *It has a fine inner lining but it is
as an exterior that you see it a grace. *I have a coat I am wearing. It is a fine admixture.
The woman who threw the threads in the two directions
has made, skillfully, something dark-true,
The Guardian Angel Of The Private Life
© Jorie Graham
All this was written on the next day's list.
On which the busyness unfurled its cursive roots,
pale but effective,
and the long stem of the necessary, the sum of events,
Redolence
© Michael Burch
Now darkness ponds upon the violet hills;
cicadas sing; the tall elms gently sway;
and night bends near, a deepening shade of gray;
the bass concerto of a bullfrog fills
what silence there once was; globed searchlights play.
A Song at Weicheng.
© Wang Wei
A morning-rain has settled the dust in Weicheng;
Willows are green again in the tavern dooryard....
Wait till we empty one more cup --
West of Yang Gate there'll be no old friends.
Seeing Off Yuan the Second on a Mission to Anxi
© Wang Wei
Weicheng morning rain moisten light dust
Visitor house green green willow colour new
Urge gentleman further finish one cup alcohol
West outside Yang Pass no friend person
An Early Audience at the Palace of Light. (Harmonizing a poem for Secretary Jia Zhi.)
© Wang Wei
The red-capped Cock-Man has just announced morning;
The Keeper of the Robes brings Jade-Cloud Furs;
Heaven's nine doors reveal the palace and its courtyards;
And the coats of many countries bow to the Pearl Crown.
In My Lodge at Wang Chuan,(After a Long Rain.)
© Wang Wei
The woods have stored the rain, and slow comes the smoke
As rice is cooked on faggots and carried to the fields;
Over the quiet marsh-land flies a white egret,
And mango-birds are singing in the full summer trees....
Harmonizing a Poem, (beside Palace Attendant Guo.)
© Wang Wei
High beyond the thick wall a tower shines with sunset
Where peach and plum are blooming and the willowcotton flies.
You have heard in your office the court-bell of twilight;
Birds find perches, officials head for home.
Wei City Song
© Wang Wei
Wei City morning rain
dampens the light dust. By this inn, green,
newly green willows. I urge you to drink
another cup of wine; west of Yang Pass
A Song of Peach-Blossom River
© Wang Wei
A fisherman is drifting, enjoying the spring mountains,
And the peach-trees on both banks lead him to an ancient source.
Watching the fresh-coloured trees, he never thinks of distance
Till he comes to the end of the blue stream and suddenly- strange men!
