poems
here are a few of my favorite poems.
hope you enjoy.
Funeral Blues
W. H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My moon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one:
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods:
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
Night
Lois Weakley
My kitten walks on velvet feet
And makes no sound at all;
And in the doorway nightly sits
To watch the darkness fall
I think he loves the lady, night
And feels akin to her
Whose footsteps are as still as his,
Whose touch as soft as fur
Love
unknown
Funny how love is everywhere, just look and see.
Funny how love is every song in every key.
Funny how love can break your heart so suddenly.
At the Party
W. H. Auden
Unrhymed, unrythmical, the chatter goes:
Yet no one hears his own remarks as prose.
Beneath each topic tunelessly discussed
The ground-bass is reciprocal mistrust.
The names in fashion shuttling to and fro
Yield, when deciphered, messages of woe.
You cannot read me like an open book.
I'm more myself than you will ever look.
Will no one listen to my little song?
Perhaps I shan't be with you very long.
A howl for recognition, shrill with fear,
Shakes the jam-packed apartment, but each ear
Is listening to its hearing, so none hear.
To Earthward
Robert Frost
Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air
That crossed me from sweet things,
The flow of - was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Down hill at dusk?
I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they're gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle.
I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.
Now no joy but lacks salt
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain
Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.
When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it hard
in grass and sand,
The hurt is not enough:
I long for weight and strength
To feel the earth as rough
To all my length.
Solitude
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it's mirth,
But has trouble enough of it's own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.
Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
To Night
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Swiftly walk o'er the western wave, Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear-
Swift be thy flight!
Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
Srat-inwrought!
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;
Kiss her until she be wearied out,
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,
Touching all with thy opiate wand--
Come, long-sought!
When I rose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee;
When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary Day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest,
I sighed for thee.
Thy brother Death came, and cried,
"Wouldst thou me?"
Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmured like a noontide bee,
"Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me?" -And I replied,
"No, not thee!"
Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon-
Sleep will come when thou art fled;
Of neither would I ask the boon
I asked of thee, beloved Night-
Swift be thy approaching flight,
Come soon, soon!
Love's Philosophy
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things, by a law divine,
In one another's being mingle--
Why not I with thine?
Perfect Woman
William Wordsworth
She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleam'd upon my sight;
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;
Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn;
A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.
I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly plann'd,
To warm, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.
Good Night
Rose Fyleman
The rabbits play no more,
The little birds are weary,
The buttercups are folded up -
Good night, good night, my dearie.
The children in the country,
The children in the city,
Go to their beds with nodding heads -
Good night, good night, my pretty.
Sigh no More
William Shakespeare
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blith and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.
Sing no more ditties, sing no more
Of dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since summer first was leavy.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blith and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.
She Walks In Beauty
Lord Byron
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudess climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
This mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.
To Celia
Ben Jonson
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup
And I'll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope that there
It could not withered be;
But thou thereon didst only breathe,
And sent'st it back to me;
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself but thee!
Gather Ye Rose Buds
Robert Herrick
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying;
And the same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And, while ye may, go marry;
For, having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
Annabel Lee
Edgar Allen Poe
It was many and many a year ago
In this kingdom by the sea
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child, and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love,
I and my Annabel Lee,
With a love that the winged seraphs in heaven
Coveted her and me.
And that was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee,
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me--
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know
In this kingdom by the sea)
That a wind blew out of a cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those that were older than we,
Of many far wiser than we,
And neither the angels in heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee,
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
And so, all the night tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride,
In her sepulcher there by the sea--
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
Untitled
James O'Barr
Still, so still, in the city tonight
Twelve o'clock tick-tock,
When all that is good slinks
Away like a beaten dog and the
Black black shadows are alive
With the dead, twisted poetry
In broken english, flesh and
Blood and staring faces...
So grey and despairing, strong
As steel but collapsed inside,
The Crow laughs under a
Street light, a voodoo smile of
One who lived and died and
Still yet lives...
He makes his way home where
He can be shapeless in the dark
And paint his face in the colours
Of joy...
Tonight, hell sends an angel
Bearing gifts...
Fear
James O'Barr
He screams and screams and pounds his head
Against the wall until wailing phantom firetrucks
Race across his vision.
Pain, Pain is all he wants
and hate, yes hate.
We shall never forget and never forgive
and never ever fear.
Fear is for the enemy.
Fear and bullets.
Irony
James O'Barr
The tides of sin draw tighter and brighter,
The hours become heavier and weighted,
And the shadows smile, dark and wild.
This is when hope and desire collapse.
The arc of the dream descends into despair,
When innocent lovers dance
Like angels on fire.
This is when the night comes down,
A hammer on an anvil,
And the only absolution accepted
Is a legacy of brutality.
A single note rings on and on and on.
Despair
James O'Barr
Here dwells a snake, one thousand miles long
Coiled, one thousand miles deep
Eyes like candy, it has eyes like candy
Hard and blue, but soft as kittens feet
Out of sight or in the element of light
It could be a devil, it could be an angel
With spiders inside a vision from hell
Its spine is a vertical scream
Slow as concrete, blurred as a dream
It spins round and down on an axis of atrocity
Fueled by inertia, depth, radius, and velocity.
Its soul - a twisted wreckage of despair and pain
And the spiders inside are just praying for rain
Killing time killing time
And praying for rain
One thousand miles deep
Concave Scream
James O'Barr
In the city, where angels fear to hover and devils come to croon,
the sex of the night lets down her black narcotic hair under a yellow opium moon.
Here a shadow of a shadow, an earthbound ghost
shivers, not from October chill, but in erotic pain.
He says to his dead lover, "We should never have come here,
with flesh so soft and hearts so unwise, but like tigers in tall tall grass,
like Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, we sucked in our fear
and we came here. Now all the atrocitites are replayed, like a late late show.
We came here but we never should have stayed.
Though we had inertia and radius and depth, we took the last
train with velocity and passed our own deaths.
So, The Crow spirals down through a collapsed dream and the only sound he makes is...
Like a concave scream.
Lost Love
anonymous
He smiles as he goes through his day at work,
a kind word and support for friends.
But inside he cries and cries again;
the river of pain that never ends.
At night when no one else is near
his pillow is drenched in salty tears.
In the morning, the face he gives the world
hides his loneliness and fear.
An accomplished young man, fierce, with style,
he strides thru life, a confident stride,
yet hidden away beneath the facade
curled up in the dark is a sad, lonely child.
A smiling face with empty eyes,
a tortured soul and broken heart.
On the outside he just goes on living
while inside he slowly dies.
As couples pass, walking hand in hand
his pain grows ever deeper.
The love he lost but can't forget,
in darkness ever keeps him.
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