Age poems

/ page 144 of 145 /

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An Old Man

© Constantine Cavafy

At the back of the noisy café
bent over a table sits an old man;
a newspaper in front of him, without company.

Villanelle: The Psychological Hour

© Ezra Pound

I had over prepared the event,
that much was ominous.
With middle-ageing care
I had laid out just the right books.
I had almost turned down the pages.

The Seafarer

© Ezra Pound

(From the early Anglo-Saxon text) May I for my own self song's truth reckon,
Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days
Hardship endured oft.
Bitter breast-cares have I abided,

The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume 1: 1931-1934

"Am I, at bottom, that fervent little Spanish Catholic child who chastised herself for loving toys, who forbade herself the enjoyment of sweet foods, who practiced silence, who humiliated her pride, who adored symbols, statues, burning candles, incense, the caress of nuns, organ music, for whom Communion was a great event? I was so exalted by the idea of eating Jesus's flesh and drinking His blood that I couldn't swallow the host well, and I dreaded harming the it

Rahel to Varnhagen

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

NOTE.Rahel Robert and Varnhagen von Ense were married, after many protestations on her part, in 1814. The marriageso far as he was concerned at any rateappears to have been satisfactory.
Now you have read them all; or if not all,
As many as in all conscience I should fancy
To be enough. There are no more of them

The Three Taverns

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

When the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii Forum, and The Three Taverns.(Acts xxviii, 15)
Herodion, Apelles, Amplias,
And Andronicus? Is it you I see
At last? And is it you now that are gazing

The Book of Annandale

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

IPartly to think, more to be left alone,
George Annandale said something to his friends
A word or two, brusque, but yet smoothed enough
To suit their funeral gazeand went upstairs;

Two Sonnets

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

No, I have not your backward faith to shrink
Lone-faring from the doorway of Gods home
To find Him in the names of buried men;
Nor your ingenious recreance to think
We cherish, in the life that is to come,
The scattered features of dead friends again.

Avon's Harvest

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Mightnt it be as well, my friend, I said,
For you to contemplate the uncompleted
With not such an infernal certainty?

Fragment

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

There are the pillars, and all gone gray.
Briony's hair went white. You may see
Where the garden was if you come this way.
That sun-dial scared him, he said to me;
"Sooner or later they strike," said he,
But he knew too much for the life he led.

The Revealer

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

(ROOSEVELT)He turned aside to see the carcase of the lion: and behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcase of the lion And the men of the city said unto him, What is sweeter than honey? and what is stronger than a lion?Judges, 14.
The palms of Mammon have disowned
The gift of our complacency;
The bells of ages have intoned

The Town Down by the River

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

ISaid the Watcher by the Way
To the young and the unladen,
To the boy and to the maiden,
"God be with you both to-day.

Isaac and Archibald

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

Isaac and Archibald were two old men.
I knew them, and I may have laughed at them
A little; but I must have honored them
For they were old, and they were good to me.

The Wandering Jew

© Edwin Arlington Robinson

I saw by looking in his eyes
That they remembered everything;
And this was how I came to know
That he was here, still wandering.

The False Gods

We are false and evanescent, and aware of our deceit,
From the straw that is our vitals to the clay that is our feet.
You may serve us if you must, and you shall have your wage of ashes,
Though arrears due thereafter may be hard for you to meet.

Merlin

Gawaine, Gawaine, what look ye for to see,
So far beyond the faint edge of the world?
Dye look to see the lady Vivian,
Pursued by divers ominous vile demons

The Man Against the Sky

Between me and the sunset, like a dome
Against the glory of a world on fire,
Now burned a sudden hill,
Bleak, round, and high, by flame-lit height made higher,

London Bridge

Do I hear them? Yes, I hear the children singingand what of it?
Have you come with eyes afire to find me now and ask me that?
If I were not their father and if you were not their mother,
We might believe they made a noise. What are youdriving at!