Poems begining by A
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A Festal Ode Complimenting An Officer
© Confucius
On dashed my four steeds, without halt, without stay,
Though toilsome and winding from Chow was the way.
I wished to return--but the monarch's command
Forbade that his business be done with slack hand;
And my heart was with sadness oppressed.
Absence
© Claude McKay
Your words dropped into my heart like pebbles into a pool,
Rippling around my breast and leaving it melting cool. Your kisses fell sharp on my flesh like dawn-dews from the limb,
Of a fruit-filled lemon tree when the day is young and dim. But a silence vasty-deep, oh deeper than all these ties
Now, through the menacing miles, brooding between us lies. And more than the songs I sing, I await your written word,
After The Storm
© William Baylebridge
The storm is done-the lightning with its lust
To rend the unhallowed dome in ruin dire;
A Red Flower
© Claude McKay
Your lips are like a southern lily red,
Wet with the soft rain-kisses of the night,
In which the brown bee buries deep its head,
When still the dawn's a silver sea of light.
A Prayer
© Claude McKay
'Mid the discordant noises of the day I hear thee calling;
I stumble as I fare along Earth's way; keep me from falling. Mine eyes are open but they cannot see for gloom of night:
I can no more than lift my heart to thee for inward light. The wild and fiery passion of my youth consumes my soul;
In agony I turn to thee for truth and self-control. For Passion and all the pleasures it can give will die the death;
A Memory of June
© Claude McKay
When June comes dancing o'er the death of May,
With scarlet roses tinting her green breast,
And mating thrushes ushering in her day,
And Earth on tiptoe for her golden guest,
A Toast to the Men
© Edgar Albert Guest
Here's to the men! Since Adam's time
They've always been the same;
Whenever anything goes wrong,
The woman is to blame.
Australia's Peril [The Warning]
© Henry Lawson
We must suffer, husband and father, we must suffer, daughter and son,
For the wrong we have taken part in and the wrong that we have seen done.
Let the bride of frivolous fashion, and of ease, be ashamed and dumb,
For I tell you the nations shall rule us who have let their children come!
A Coincidence
© Robert Fuller Murray
Every critic in the town
Runs the minor poet down;
Every critic-don't you know it?
Is himself a minor poet.
Alice Has Never Been In China
© Eli Siegel
Here have we China,
And here have we: Alice.
Alice has never been in China,
China never has had Alice;
A Comparison
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
I THINK, ofttimes, that lives of men may be
Likened to wandering winds that come and go,
Not knowing whence they rise, whither they blow
O'er the vast globe, voiceful of grief or glee.
A qui donc sommes-nous?
© Victor Marie Hugo
A qui donc sommes-nous ? Qui nous a ? qui nous mène ?
Vautour fatalité, tiens-tu la race humaine ?
Oh ! parlez, cieux vermeils,
L'âme sans fond tient-elle aux étoiles sans nombre ?
Chaque rayon d'en haut est-il un fil de l'ombre
Liant l'homme aux soleils ?
A Mixed Battle Song
© Henry Lawson
Lo! the Boars tail is salted, and the Kangaroos exalted,
And his right eye is extinguished by a man-o-warsmans cap;
An Indian at the Burial-Place of his Fathers.
© William Cullen Bryant
It is the spot I came to seek,--
My fathers' ancient burial-place
Ere from these vales, ashamed and weak,
Withdrew our wasted race.
It is the spot--I know it well--
Of which our old traditions tell.
A New Pilgrimage: Sonnet VIII
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
I will sit down awhile in dalliance
With my dead life, and dream that it is young.
My earliest memories have their home in France,
The chestnut woods of Bearn and streams among,
A Song
© Ernest Christopher Dowson
All that a man may pray,
Have I not prayed to thee?
What were praise left to say,
Has not been said by me
_O, ma mie?_
Au peuple
© Victor Marie Hugo
Il te ressemble ; il est terrible et pacifique.
Il est sous l'infini le niveau magnifique ;
Il a le mouvement, il a l'immensité.
Apaisé d'un rayon et d'un souffle agité,
Aftermath
© Sylvia Plath
Mother Medea in a green smock
Moves humbly as any housewife through
Her ruined apartments, taking stock
Of charred shoes, the sodden upholstery:
Cheated of the pyre and the rack,
The crowd sucks her last tear and turns away.
