Positive poems

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Good - Better - Best

© Ellis Parker Butler

When young, in tones quite positive
I said, "The world shall see
That I can keep myself from sin;
A good man I will be."

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Ash Wednesday

© Thomas Stearns Eliot

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

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The Knight's Tale

© Geoffrey Chaucer

Upon that other side, Palamon,
When that he wist Arcita was agone,
Much sorrow maketh, that the greate tower
Resounded of his yelling and clamour
The pure* fetters on his shinnes great *very
Were of his bitter salte teares wet.

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Carol of Words.

© Walt Whitman

1
EARTH, round, rolling, compact—suns, moons, animals—all these are words to be
said;
Watery, vegetable, sauroid advances—beings, premonitions, lispings of the future,

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To a foil’d European Revolutionaire.

© Walt Whitman

1
COURAGE yet! my brother or my sister!
Keep on! Liberty is to be subserv’d, whatever occurs;
That is nothing, that is quell’d by one or two failures, or any number of failures,

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As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario’s Shores.

© Walt Whitman

1
AS I sat alone, by blue Ontario’s shore,
As I mused of these mighty days, and of peace return’d, and the dead that return no
more,

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As the Time Draws Nigh.

© Walt Whitman

1
AS the time draws nigh, glooming, a cloud,
A dread beyond, of I know not what, darkens me.

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Walt Whitman.

© Walt Whitman

1
I CELEBRATE myself;
And what I assume you shall assume;
For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.

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Gannets

© Mary Oliver

I am watching the white gannets
blaze down into the water
with the power of blunt spears
and a stunning accuracy--

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Thoughts about the Person from Porlock

© Stevie Smith

Coleridge received the Person from Porlock 
And ever after called him a curse,
Then why did he hurry to let him in? 
He could have hid in the house.

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Atlantis

© Mark Doty

“I’ve been having these
awful dreams, each a little different,
though the core’s the same—

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Ellen West

© Frank Bidart

I love sweets,—
  heaven
would be dying on a bed of vanilla ice cream ...
But my true self 

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The Sundays of Satin-Legs Smith

© Gwendolyn Brooks

He wakes, unwinds, elaborately: a cat 
Tawny, reluctant, royal. He is fat
And fine this morning. Definite. Reimbursed.

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The Test of Fantasy

© Joanne Kyger

It unfolds and ripples like a banner, downward.  All the stories
come folding out.  The smells and flowers begin to come back, as
the tapestry is brightly colored and brocaded.  Rabbits and violets.

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Hartley Field

© Connie Wanek

And you, whom I have heard breathe all night,
sigh through the water of sleep
with vestigial gills . . .

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An Essay on Criticism: Part 3

© Alexander Pope

  Learn then what morals critics ought to show,
For 'tis but half a judge's task, to know.
'Tis not enough, taste, judgment, learning, join;
In all you speak, let truth and candour shine:
That not alone what to your sense is due,
All may allow; but seek your friendship too.

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from The Vanity of Human Wishes

© Henry James Pye

  Yet still one gen’ral cry the skies assails,
And gain and grandeur load the tainted gales,
Few know the toiling statesman’s fear or care,
Th’ insidious rival and the gaping heir.

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Swift

© Delmore Schwartz

What shall Presto do for pretty prattle
To entertain his dears? Sunday: lightning fifty times!
This week to Flanders goes the Duke of Ormond!
Shall hope of him, although he loves me well!

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When Bells stop ringing—Church—begins

© Emily Dickinson

When Bells stop ringing—Church—begins
The Positive—of Bells—
When Cogs—stop—that's Circumference—
The Ultimate—of Wheels.

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On Torture: A Public Singer

© Hilaire Belloc

Torture will give a dozen pence or more
To keep a drab from bawling at his door.
The public taste is quite a different thing-
Torture is positively paid to sing.