All Poems
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The Racer
© John Masefield
I saw the racer coming to the jump, Staring with fiery eyeballs as he rusht,I heard the blood within his body thump, I saw him launch, I heard the toppings crusht
Posted as Missing
© John Masefield
Under all her topsails she trembled like a stag,The wind made a ripple in her bonny red flag;They cheered her from the shore and they cheered her from the pier,And under all her topsails she trembled like a deer
[Let that which is to come be as it may...]
© John Masefield
Let that which is to come be as it may,Darkness, extinction, justice, life intenseThe flies are happy in the summer day,Flies will be happy many summers hence
Cape Horn Gospel -- I
© John Masefield
"I was in a hooker once," said Karlssen,"And Bill, as was a seaman, died,So we lashed him in an old tarpaulinAnd tumbled him across the side;And the fun of it was that all his gear wasDivided up among the crewBefore that blushing human error,Our crawling little captain, knew
Blown Hilcote Manor
© John Masefield
In perfect June we reached the house to let,In remote woodland, up a private lane,Beyond a pond that seemed as black as jetWhereon a moorhen oared with chickens twain;And from the first a sense of want or debtSeemed to possess the place from ancient pain
The Blacksmith
© John Masefield
The blacksmith in his sparky forge,Beat on the white-hot softness there;Even as he beat he sang an airTo keep the sparks out of his gorge.
The Wind Our Enemy
© Marriott Anne
Windflattening its gaunt furious self againstthe naked siding, knifing in the woundsof time, pausing to tear aside the lastold scab of paint.
Prairie Graveyard
© Marriott Anne
Wind mutters thinly on the sagging wirebinding the graveyard from the gouged dirt road,bends thick-bristled Russian thistle,sifts listless dustinto cracks in hard grey ground
On Reading that I am ‘Elderly’
© Marriott Anne
As if the wordhas some dragging magicshe appearsthat woman who bentso carefully her black laced feetto fit the curveof the beachside walk(Victoria: a long moist springor was it autumn?)
Crying in Sleep
© Marriott Anne
The old dog cries out in sleephis blind head pressedagainst my ankle.I run my hand for comfort
XIII. The First Feminist
© Marquis Donald Robert Perry
When first I chased and beat you to your kneesAnd wried your arm and marked your temple boneAnd wooed you, Sweet, and won you for my own,Those were not hairless-chested times like these!Wing'd saurians slithered down the charnel seasAnd giant insects glistened, basked, and shone,And snag-toothed ape-men fought with knives of stone --And wise she-spouses mostly aimed to please!But were not you the Primal FeministTen hundred thousand years ago, my Love,When we were first incarnate? I will sayWomen Expressed themselves e'en then, Sweet Dove!I do recall as if 'twere yesterdayThat time your teeth met through my dexter wrist
Romeo and Juliet
© Marquis Donald Robert Perry
Pop Montague's old brain was wried Through all its convolutionsWith constant thoughts of Homicide And kindred institutions.
Protest of a Young Intellectual
© Marquis Donald Robert Perry
God never plucks me by the sleeve And begs for my advice,And since He doesn't all His works Leave me cold as ice.
Frustration
© Marquis Donald Robert Perry
The things that I can't have I want And what I have seems second-rate,The things I want to do I can't And what I have to do I hate, The things I want at once come late,I am not feeling gay nor gleg, I'm really in an awful state,My life is like a scrambled egg
Breath
© Marquis Donald Robert Perry
We are the shaken slaves of Breath:For logic leaves the race unstirred;But cadence, and the vibrant word,Are lords of life, are lords of death.
From The Jew of Malta ("Content, but we will leave this paltry land")
© Christopher Marlowe
And sail from hence to Greece, to lovely Greece;I'll be thy Jason, thou my golden fleece;Where painted carpets o'er the the meads are hurledAnd Bacchus's vineyards o'er-spread the world,Where woods and forests go in goodly green,I'll be Adonis, thou shalt be Love's Queen;The meads, the orchards, and the primrose lanesInstead of sedge and reed bear sugar-canes;Thou in those groves, by Dis above,Shalt live with me and be my love
From Tamburlaine the Great, Part One ("What is Beauty? saith my sufferings, then")
© Christopher Marlowe
What is Beauty? saith my sufferings then,If all the pens that poets ever heldHad fed the feeling of their master's thoughts,And every sweetness that inspired their hearts,Their minds, and muses on admired themes,If all the heavenly quintessence they stillFrom their immortal flowers of Poesy,Wherein, as in a mirror, we perceiveThe highest reaches of a human wit,If these had made one poem's periodAnd all combined in Beauty's worthiness,Yet should there hover in their restless headsOne thought, one grace, one wonder at the least,Which into words no virtue can digest
From Tamburlaine the Great, Part One ("Nature that framed us of four elements")
© Christopher Marlowe
Nature that framed us of four elements,Warring within our breast for regiment,Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds:Our souls, whose faculties can comprehendThe wondrous architecture of the worldAnd measure every wandering planet's course,Still climbing after knowledge infiniteAnd always moving as the restless spheres,Wills us to wear ourselves and never restUntil we reach the ripest fruit of all,That perfect bliss and sole felicity,The sweet fruition of an earthly crown
