They Feed They Lion by Philip Levine
They Feed They Lion by Philip Levine Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter, Out of black bean and wet slate bread, Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar, Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies, They Lion grow. Out of the gray hills Of industrial barns, out of rain, […]
Gangrene by Philip Levine
Gangrene by Philip Levine Vous êtes sorti sain et sauf des basses calomnies, vous avey conquis les coeurs. Zola, J’accuse One was kicked in the stomach until he vomited, then made to put back into his mouth what they had brought forth; when he tried to drown in his own stew he was recovered. “You […]
Gangrene by Philip Levine
Gangrene by Philip Levine Vous êtes sorti sain et sauf des basses calomnies, vous avey conquis les coeurs. Zola, J’accuse One was kicked in the stomach until he vomited, then made to put back into his mouth what they had brought forth; when he tried to drown in his own stew he was recovered. “You […]
Astrophel and Stella LXXXIV: HIGHWAY by Sir Philip Sidney
Astrophel and Stella LXXXIV: HIGHWAY by Sir Philip Sidney Highway, since you my chief Parnassus be, And that my Muse, to some ears not unsweet, Tempers her words to trampling horses’ feet More oft than to a chamber melody. Now, blessed you bear onward blessed me To her, where I my heart, safe-left, shall meet: […]
Niobe in Distress by Phillis Wheatley
Apollo’s wrath to man the dreadful spring Of ills innum’rous, tuneful goddess, sing! Thou who did’st first th’ ideal pencil give, And taught’st the painter in his works to live, Inspire with glowing energy of thought, What Wilson painted, and what Ovid wrote. Muse! lend thy aid, nor let me sue in vain, Tho’ last […]
To a Beloved Child by Patrick Pearse
To a Beloved Child by Patrick Pearse Laughing mouth, what tortures me is That thou shalt be weeping; Lovely face, it is my pity That thy brightness shall grow grey. Noble head, thou art proud, But thou shalt bow with sorrow; And it is a pitiful thing I forbode for thee Whenever I kiss thee. […]
Deaf Mute in the Pear Tree by P. K. Page
His clumsy body is a golden fruit pendulous in the pear tree Blunt fingers among the multitudinous buds Adriatic blue the sky above and through the forking twigs Sun ruddying tree’s trunk, his trunk his massive head thick-knobbed with burnished curls tight-clenched in bud (Painting by Generalic. Primitive.) I watch him prune with silent secateurs […]
Canal Bank Walk by Patrick Kavanagh
Canal Bank Walk by Patrick Kavanagh Leafy-with-love banks and the green waters of the canal Pouring redemption for me, that I do The will of God, wallow in the habitual, the banal, Grow with nature again as before I grew. The bright stick trapped, the breeze adding a third Party to the couple kissing on […]
And Then It Rained by Pamela Griffiths
And Then It Rained by Pamela Griffiths In two thousand and twelve, a year to be proud The Olympic flame arrived in a big dark cloud The spring was lovely, like a summer’s day And then it rained, and washed everything away It rained some more, it was getting rather bad This was our summer, […]
You are coming! by Preeth Nambiar
How will I colour this home, O dear, for I do not remember those that would delight your eyes? How will I paint these walls for they are broken and torn by years bygone? Puzzled I am, yet let me ask rainbow to brush our home the colours celestial! Within this inn lone for ages, […]
When the universe speaks by Preeth Nambiar
With the anklets’ jingling bells the naughty streams play hide and seek. Upon the woods, looking at her growing young- with paces slow holding hands with her eternal love- a flow of tranquility toward a world to fetch the love of an eternal quest. O waters of deepest woods, take me with you to the […]
Wake Oslo up again by Philo Ikonya
Menu+ Home 100 Poetry Monster Poets Directory Best Love Poems Free Poetry Quotes Publish your Poems but it left the cloud above, now pale blue, and came down touching buildings. Not minding mincing icy ways, I do not know why it had avoided the church spire, perhaps it was too high to inspire. We saw […]
The Theatre of Illusion by Pierre Corneille
The Theatre of Illusion by Pierre Corneille Act 2, Scene 2 Clindor, a young picaresque hero, has been living by his wits in Paris, but has now drifted to Bordeaux, to become the valet of a braggart bravo named Matamore. He is chiefly employed as a go-between, carrying Matamore’s amorous messages to the beautiful Isabelle—who […]
Moonbeam flowers by Preeth Nambiar
The sanctum sanctorum is ready, I have bathed the idol and lit lights divine. With a corbeille when I stood amidst the green, I wanted those flowers to offer unto His feet. Alas! here I am left with frozen fingers unable to pluck them from their very being. The leaves of Tulsi are still, awaiting […]
Love Dale by Preeth Nambiar
Dance joyfully, oh gathered souls, the bliss of your life, upon the stage that I built for you! May the colours melt, masks faint, the soul rejoice the moments of togetherness! Sing aloud the songs of love, play the orchestra of strings alive! May the fragrance of the courses join the merry, to evoke the […]
Letter to my father by Preeth Nambiar
O father, beneath my feet, see there flares of ice and my feet drenching; and above head the burning sun that erases the images; between the chilled winter and red hot summer I would faint; hold me on your arms tight close to you! Be the moonlight in this darkness that takes me from the […]
I threaded a garland with the memories of a spring… by Preeth Nambiar
Look at the sky of the fragrant freshness; inhale deep the spirit of life. Through the half-opened window, tender rays paint your hair golden shine; from the cages sing the birds the melody of morning; let me kiss you a good morning and whisper on your ears the prayers for you for a day. Life […]
A man who set his journey back to time by Preeth Nambiar
Through the falling lids of jaded eyes, show me a land dense of green, amidst the woods appear the streams, the bells of anklets of a naughty girl hide beneath the huge tree trunks. Chasing the shyness deep in the woods, lead me to the virgin lands, unseen, worn! Show me a hut there to […]
“Wonkavite…” by Roald Dahl
“If you are old and have the shakes, If all your bones are full of aches, If you can hardly walk at all, If living drives you up the wall, If you’re a grump and full of spite, If you’re a human parasite, THEN WHAT YOU NEED IS WONKA-VITE! Your eyes will shine, your hair […]
Of Myself – the Essay and Poems on Myself by Abraham Cowley
OF MYSELF. It is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of himself; it grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement and the reader’s ears to hear anything of praise for him. There is no danger from me of offending him in this kind; neither my mind, nor my body, […]
ON THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE AND UNCERTAINTY OF RICHES by Abraham Cowley
THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE AND UNCERTAINTY OF RICHES. If you should see a man who were to cross from Dover to Calais, run about very busy and solicitous, and trouble himself many weeks before in making provisions for the voyage, would you commend him for a cautious and discreet person, or laugh at him for a […]
CLAUDIAN’S OLD MAN OF VERONA by Abraham Cowley
CLAUDIAN’S OLD MAN OF VERONA. Happy the man who his whole time doth bound Within the enclosure of his little ground. Happy the man whom the same humble place (The hereditary cottage of his race) From his first rising infancy has known, And by degrees sees gently bending down, With natural propension to that earth Which […]
THE DANGERS OF AN HONEST MAN IN MUCH COMPANY by Abraham Cowley
THE DANGERS OF AN HONEST MAN IN MUCH COMPANY. If twenty thousand naked Americans were not able to resist the assaults of but twenty well-armed Spaniards, I see little possibility for one honest man to defend himself against twenty thousand knaves, who are all furnished cap-à-pie with the defensive arms of worldly prudence, and the offensive, too, of […]
The Garden by Abraham Cowley
THE GARDEN To J. Evelyn, Esquire. I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life only to the […]
O fortunatus nimium, etc., a translation out of Virgil by Abraham Cowley
O fortunatus nimium, etc., a translation out of Virgil by Abraham Cowley Continued from the Essay on Agriculture by Abraham Cowley Virg. Georg. O fortunatus nimium, etc. A TRANSLATION OUT OF VIRGIL. Oh happy (if his happiness he knows) The country swain, on whom kind Heaven bestows At home all riches that wise Nature needs; Whom the just […]
Obscurity, the Essay and Poems on Obscurity by Abraham Cowley
OF OBSCURITY. Nam neque divitibus contingunt gaudia solis, Nec vixit male, qui natus moriensque fefellit. God made not pleasures only for the rich, Nor have those men without their share too lived, Who both in life and death the world deceived. This seems a strange sentence thus literally translated, and looks as if it were in vindication […]
The Breast by Russell Edson
The Breast by Russell Edson One night a woman’s breast came to a man’s room and began to talk about her twin sister. Her twin sister this and her twin sister that. Finally the man said, but what about you, dear breast? And so the breast spent the rest of the night talking about herself. […]
Conjugal by Russell Edson
Conjugal by Russell Edson A man is bending his wife. He is bending her around something that she has bent herself around. She is around it, bent as he has bent her. He is convincing her. It is all so private. He is bending her around the bedpost. No, he is bending her around the […]
Hauntings by Rupert Brooke
In the grey tumult of these after years Oft silence falls; the incessant wranglers part; And less-than-echoes of remembered tears Hush all the loud confusion of the heart; And a shade, through the toss’d ranks of mirth and crying Hungers, and pains, and each dull passionate mood, — Quite lost, and all but all forgot, […]
Goddess In The Wood, The by Rupert Brooke
In a flowered dell the Lady Venus stood, Amazed with sorrow. Down the morning one Far golden horn in the gold of trees and sun Rang out; and held; and died. . . . She thought the wood Grew quieter. Wing, and leaf, and pool of light Forgot to dance. Dumb lay the unfalling stream; […]
Flight by Rupert Brooke
Voices out of the shade that cried, And long noon in the hot calm places, And children’s play by the wayside, And country eyes, and quiet faces — All these were round my steady paces. Those that I could have loved went by me; Cool gardened homes slept in the sun; I heard the whisper […]
Finding by Rupert Brooke
From the candles and dumb shadows, And the house where love had died, I stole to the vast moonlight And the whispering life outside. But I found no lips of comfort, No home in the moon’s light (I, little and lone and frightened In the unfriendly night), And no meaning in the voices. . . […]
Failure by Rupert Brooke
Because God put His adamantine fate Between my sullen heart and its desire, I swore that I would burst the Iron Gate, Rise up, and curse Him on His throne of fire. Earth shuddered at my crown of blasphemy, But Love was as a flame about my feet; Proud up the Golden Stair I strode; […]
Dust by Rupert Brooke
When the white flame in us is gone, And we that lost the world’s delight Stiffen in darkness, left alone To crumble in our separate night; When your swift hair is quiet in death, And through the lips corruption thrust Has stilled the labour of my breath — When we are dust, when we are […]
Doubts by Rupert Brooke
When she sleeps, her soul, I know, Goes a wanderer on the air, Wings where I may never go, Leaves her lying, still and fair, Waiting, empty, laid aside, Like a dress upon a chair. . . . This I know, and yet I know Doubts that will not be denied. For if the soul […]
Dining-Room Tea by Rupert Brooke
When you were there, and you, and you, Happiness crowned the night; I too, Laughing and looking, one of all, I watched the quivering lamplight fall On plate and flowers and pouring tea And cup and cloth; and they and we Flung all the dancing moments by With jest and glitter. Lip and eye Flashed […]
Desertion by Rupert Brooke
So light we were, so right we were, so fair faith shone, And the way was laid so certainly, that, when I’d gone, What dumb thing looked up at you? Was it something heard, Or a sudden cry, that meekly and without a word You broke the faith, and strangely, weakly, slipped apart. You gave […]
Dead Men’s Love by Rupert Brooke
There was a damned successful Poet; There was a Woman like the Sun. And they were dead. They did not know it. They did not know their time was done. They did not know his hymns Were silence; and her limbs, That had served Love so well, Dust, and a filthy smell. And so one […]
Day That I Have Loved by Rupert Brooke
Tenderly, day that I have loved, I close your eyes, And smooth your quiet brow, and fold your thin dead hands. The grey veils of the half-light deepen; colour dies. I bear you, a light burden, to the shrouded sands, Where lies your waiting boat, by wreaths of the sea’s making Mist-garlanded, with all grey […]
Day And Night by Rupert Brooke
Through my heart’s palace Thoughts unnumbered throng; And there, most quiet and, as a child, most wise, High-throned you sit, and gracious. All day long Great Hopes gold-armoured, jester Fantasies, And pilgrim Dreams, and little beggar Sighs, Bow to your benediction, go their way. And the grave jewelled courtier Memories Worship and love and tend […]