Attitude poems
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Preludes
© Madison Julius Cawein
A thought to lift me up to those
Sweet wildflowers of the pensive woods;
The lofty, lowly attitudes
Of bluet and of bramble-rose:
To lift me where my mind may reach
The lessons which their beauties teach.
American Feuillage
© Walt Whitman
Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divine leaves, that you also
be eligible as I am?
How can I but, as here, chanting, invite you for yourself to collect
bouquets of the incomparable feuillage of These States?
Tales Of A Wayside Inn : The Theologian's Tale; The Legend Beautiful
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Straightway to his feet he started,
And with longing look intent
On the Blessed Vision bent,
Slowly from his cell departed,
Slowly on his errand went.
The Spectral Attitudes
© André Breton
I attach no importance to life
I pin not the least of life's butterflies to importance
The Spagnoletto. Act IV
© Emma Lazarus
Night. RIBERA'S bedroom. RIBERA discovered in his dressing-gown,
seated reading beside a table, with a light upon it. Enter from
an open door at the back of the stage, MARIA. She stands
irresolute for a moment on the threshold behind her father,
watching him, passes her hand rapidly over her brow and eyes,
and then knocks.
Granta: A Medley
© George Gordon Byron
Oh! could Le Sage's demon's gift
Be realized at my desire,
This night my trembling form he'd lift
To place it on St. Mary's spire.
An Arundel Tomb
© Philip Larkin
Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd -
The little dogs under their feet.
Queen Mab: Part VII.
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
'Even the murderer's cheek
Was blanched with horror, and his quivering lips
Scarce faintly uttered-"O almighty one,
I tremble and obey!"
The Siege of Corinth
© Lord Byron
Still the old man stood erect,
And Alp's career a moment check'd.
"Yield thee, Minotti; quarter take,
For thine own, thy daughter's sake."
The Vision of Judgment
© Lord Byron
BY
QUEVEDO REDIVIVUS
SUGGESTED BY THE COMPOSITION SO ENTITLED BY THE AUTHOR OF 'WAT TYLER' 'A Daniel come to judgment! yes a Daniel!
I thank thee, Jew for teaching me that word.' PREFACE It hath been wisely said, that 'One fool makes many;' and it hath been poetically observed 'That fools rush in where angels fear to tread.' - Pope If Mr. Southey had not rushed in where he had no business, and where he never was before, and never will be again, the following poem would not have been written. It is not impossible that it may be as good as his own, seeing that it cannot, by any species of stupidity, natural or acquired, be worse. The gross flattery, the dull impudence, the renegado intolerance, and impious cant, of the poem by the author if 'Wat Tyler,' are something so stupendous as to form the sublime of himself containing the quintessence of his own attributes. So much for his poem a word on his preface. In this preface it has pleased the magnanimous Laureate to draw the picture of a supposed 'Satanic School,' the which he doth recommend to the notice of the legislature; thereby adding to his other laurels, the ambition of those of an informer. If there exists anywhere, except in his imagination, such a School, is he not sufficiently armed against it by his own intense vanity? The truth is, that there are certain writers whom Mr. S. imagines, like Scrub, to have 'talked of him; for they have laughed consumedly.' I think I know enough of most of the writers to whom he is supposed to allude, to assert, that they, in their individual capacities, have done more good, in the charities of life, to their fellow-creatures, in any one year, than Mr. Southey has done harm to himself by his absurdities in his whole life; and this is saying a great deal. But I have a few questions to ask. 1stly, Is Mr. Southey the author of 'Wat Tyler'? 2ndly, Was he not refused a remedy at law by the highest judge of his beloved England, because it was a blasphemous and seditious publication? 3rdly, Was he not entitled by William Smith, in full Parliament, 'a rancorous renegado'? 4thly, Is he not poet laureate, with his own lines on Martin the regicide staring him in the face? And 5thly, Putting the four preceding items together, with what conscience dare he call the attention of the laws to the publications of others, be they what they may? I say nothing of the cowardice of such a proceeding, its meanness speaks for itself; but I wish to touch upon the motive, which is neither more nor less than that Mr. S. has been laughed at a little in some recent publications, as he was of yore in the 'Anti-jacobin,' by his present patrons. Hence all this 'skimble-scamble stuff' about 'Satanic,' and so forth. However, it is worthy of him 'qualis ab incepto.' If there is anything obnoxious to the political opinions of a portion of the public in the following poem, they may thank Mr. Southey. He might have written hexameters, as he has written everything else, for aught that the writer cared had they been upon another subject. But to attempt to canonise a monarch, who, whatever where his household virtues, was neither a successful nor a patriot king, inasmuch as several years of his reign passed in war with America and Ireland, to say nothing of the aggression upon France, like all other exaggeration, necessarily begets opposition. In whatever manner he may be spoken of in this new 'Vision,' his public career will not be more favourably transmitted by history. Of his private virtues (although a little expense to the nation) there can be no doubt. With regard to the supernatural personages treated of, I can only say that I know as much about them, and (as an honest man) have a better right to talk of them than Robert Southey. I have also treated them more tolerantly. The way in which that poor insane creature, the Laureate, deals about his judgments in the next world, is like his own judgment in this. If it was not completely ludicrous, it would be something worse. I don't think that there is much more to say at present. QUEVEDO REDIVIVUS P.S. It is possible that some readers may object, in these objectionable times, to the freedom with which saints, angels, and spiritual persons discourse in this 'Vision.' But, for precedents upon such points, I must refer him to Fielding's 'Journey from the World to the next,' and to the Visions of myself, the said Quevedo, in Spanish or translated. The reader is also requested to observe, that no doctrinal tenets are insisted upon or discussed; that the person of the Deity is carefully withheld from sight, which is more than can be said for the Laureate, who hath thought proper to make him talk, not 'like a school-divine,' but like the unscholarlike Mr. Southey. The whole action passes on the outside of heaven; and Chaucer's 'Wife of Bath,' Pulci's 'Morgante Maggiore,' Swift's 'Tale of a Tub,' and the other
Request to a Year
© Judith Wright
If the year is meditating a suitable gift,
I should like it to be the attitude
of my great- great- grandmother,
legendary devotee of the arts,
Attitude To A Miss
© Vladimir Mayakovsky
That night was to decide
if she and I
were to be lovers.
Under cover
Of Bronzeand Blaze
© Emily Dickinson
My Splendors, are Menagerie
But their Completeless Show
Will entertain the Centuries
When I, am long ago,
An Island in dishonored Grass
Whom none but Beetlesknow.
The Lesson
© Rudyard Kipling
Not on a single issue, or in one direction or twain,
But conclusively, comprehensively, and several times and
again,
A Birthday
© Aleister Crowley
Then Easter, and the days of all delight!
God's sun lit noontide and his moon midnight,
While above all, true centre of our world,
True source of light, our great love passion-pearled
Gave all its life and splendour to the sea
Above whose tides stood our stability.
Oh! Mr. Malthus!
© Stephen Leacock
Turn back to Malthus as he walked o'er English Fields and Downs
And walked at night the crooked Streets of crooked English Towns,
Lifeless, undying, Shade or Man, as one that could not die
A hundred years his Shadow fell, a hundred Years to lie,
The Shadow on the Window Pane when Malthus' Ghost went by.
Aechdeacon Barbour
© John Greenleaf Whittier
THROUGH the long hall the shuttered windows shed
A dubious light on every upturned head;
On locks like those of Absalom the fair,
On the bald apex ringed with scanty hair,
Prometheus, Or, The Poet's Forethought. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The First)
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Of Prometheus, how undaunted
On Olympus' shining bastions
His audacious foot he planted,
Myths are told and songs are chanted,
Full of promptings and suggestions.
