Age poems
/ page 78 of 145 /
Laodamia
© André Breton
"With sacrifice before the rising morn
Vows have I made by fruitless hope inspired;
And from the infernal Gods, 'mid shades forlorn
Of night, my slaughtered Lord have I required:
Celestial pity I again implore;—
Restore him to my sight—great Jove, restore!"
Slowly: a plainsong from an older woman to a younger woman
© Judy Grahn
wanting, wanting
am I not broken
stolen common
from Totem Poem [If every step taken is a step well-lived]
© Luke Davies
And if every step taken is a step well-lived but a foot
towards death, every pilgrimage a circle, every flight-path
The Swamp Angel
© Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
Is this the proud City? the scorner
Which never would yield the ground?
Which mocked at the coal-black Angel?
The cup of despair goes round.
Ulysses
© Alfred Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
from Queen Mab: Part VI
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
(excerpt)
"Throughout these infinite orbs of mingling light,
The Way to the River
© William Stanley Merwin
The way to the river leads past the names of
Ash the sleeves the wreaths of hinges
Through the song of the bandage vendor
Paradise Lost: Book VII (1674)
© Patrick Kavanagh
DEscend from Heav'n Urania, by that name
If rightly thou art call'd, whose Voice divine
Lincoln
© Delmore Schwartz
Manic-depressive Lincoln, national hero!
How just and true that this great nation, being conceived
In liberty by fugitives should find
—Strange ways and plays of monstrous History—
This Hamlet-type to be the President—
from The Triumph of Love
© Geoffrey Hill
Rancorous, narcissistic old sod—what
makes him go on? We thought, hoped rather,
he might be dead. Too bad. So how
much more does he have of injury time?
Nox Borealis
© Louis Zukofsky
If Socrates drank his portion of hemlock willingly,
if the Appalachians have endured unending ages of erosion,
if the wind can learn to read our minds
and moonlight moonlight as a master pickpocket,
surely we can contend with contentment as our commission.
Sun and Moon
© Jane Kenyon
For Donald Clark
Drugged and drowsy but not asleep
I heard my blind roommate's daughter
helping her with her meal:
“What's that? Squash?”
“No. It's spinach.”
On the Gift of a Book to a Child
© Hilaire Belloc
Child! do not throw this book about!
Refrain from the unholy pleasure
Of cutting all the pictures out!
Preserve it as your chiefest treasure.
In Memoriam, July 19, 1914
© Anna Akhmatova
We aged a hundred years and this descended
In just one hour, as at a stroke.
The summer had been brief and now was ended;
The body of the ploughed plains lay in smoke.
Parable of the Hostages
© Louise Gluck
The Greeks are sitting on the beach
wondering what to do when the war ends. No one
from Mercian Hymns
© Geoffrey Hill
I
King of the perennial holly-groves, the riven sandstone: overlord of the M5: architect of the historic rampart and ditch, the citadel at Tamworth, the summer hermitage in Holy Cross: guardian of the Welsh Bridge and the Iron Bridge: contractor to the desirable new estates: saltmaster: moneychanger: commissioner for oaths: martyrologist: the friend of Charlemagne.
The Skylark
© John Clare
The rolls and harrows lie at rest beside
The battered road; and spreading far and wide
Hotel François 1er
© Gertrude Stein
It was a very little while and they had gone in front of it. It was that they had liked it would it bear. It was a very much adjoined a follower. Flower of an adding where a follower.
Have I come in. Will in suggestion.
They may like hours in catching.
It is always a pleasure to remember.
