Art poems
/ page 65 of 137 /Jazz Chick
© Bob Kaufman
Music from her breast, vibrating
Soundseared into burnished velvet.
Silent hips deceiving fools.
Rivulets of trickling ecstacy
The Artist as an Old Man
© Erica Jong
He has come to like his resignation.
In his sketch books, ink-dark cossacks hear
the snorts of horses in the crunch of snow.
His pen alone recalls that years ago,
one horseman set his teeth and aimed his spear
which, poised, seemed pointed straight to pierce the sun.
After the Earthquake
© Erica Jong
After the first astounding rush,
after the weeks at the lake,
the crystal, the clouds, the water lapping the rocks,
the snow breaking under our boots like skin,
& the long mornings in bed. . .
Eurydice
© James Russell Lowell
Heaven's cup held down to me I drain,
The sunshine mounts and spurs my brain;
On Mr Colliers Essay On The Stage
© Thomas Parnell
Thus (say the bards) some worthy knight maintains
A warr wth fairy states, enchanted scenes,
When he moves on the bright delusion fly's,
& dismall dungeons gape before his eyes
Beachy Head
© Charlotte Turner Smith
ON thy stupendous summit, rock sublime !
That o'er the channel rear'd, half way at sea
Castles In Spain. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Fifth)
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
How much of my young heart, O Spain,
Went out to thee in days of yore!
What dreams romantic filled my brain,
And summoned back to life again
The Paladins of Charlemagne,
The Cid Campeador!
The Missionary - Canto Third
© William Lisle Bowles
Come,--for the sun yet hangs above the bay,--
And whilst our time may brook a brief delay
Lines Written in 1799.
© Amelia Opie
Now, pleased I mark the painter's skilful line,
And now, rejoice the skill I mark is thine:
And while I prize the gift by thee bestow'd,
My heart proclaims, I'm of the giver proud.
Thus pride and friendship war with equal strife,
And now the friend exults, and now the wife.
The Centerarian's Story
© Walt Whitman
GIVE me your hand, old Revolutionary;
The hill-top is nigh-but a few steps, (make room, gentlemen
Up the path you have follow'd me well, spite of your hundred and
extra years;
You can walk, old man, though your eyes are almost done;
Your faculties serve you, and presently I must have them serve me.
The Seasons: Winter
© James Thomson
OH! bear me then to high, embowering, Shades;
To twilight Groves, and visionary Vales;
To weeping Grottos, and to hoary Caves;
Where Angel-Forms are seen, and Voices heard,
Sigh'd in low Whispers, that abstract the Soul,
From outward Sense, far into Worlds remote.
The Last Man
© Thomas Campbell
All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom,
The Sun himself must die,
Before this mortal shall assume
Its Immortality!
Hohenlinden
© Thomas Campbell
1 On Linden, when the sun was low,
2 All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,
3 And dark as winter was the flow
4 Of Iser, rolling rapidly.
Samson And Delilah
© Edgar Lee Masters
Because thou wast most delicate,
A woman fair for men to see,
The earth did compass thy estate,
Thou didst hold life and death in fee,
And every soul did bend the knee.
Alfred. Book IV.
© Henry James Pye
"I come," the stranger said, "from fields of fame,
A Saxon born, and Aribert my name.
I come from Devon's shores, where Devon's lord
Waves o'er the prostrate Dane the British sword.
Freedom might yet revisit Britain's coast,
Did Alfred live to lead her victor host."
The Task: Book II. -- The Time-Piece
© William Cowper
In man or woman, but far most in man,
And most of all in man that ministers
And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe
All affectation. 'Tis my perfect scorn;
Object of my implacable disgust.
A Gardener-Sage
© Katharine Tynan
Here in the garden-bed,
Hoeing the celery,
Wonders the Lord has made
Pass ever before me.
Our Orders
© Julia Ward Howe
WEAVE no more silks, ye Lyons looms,
To deck our girls for gay delights!
The crimson flower of battle blooms,
And solemn marches fill the night.