Poems begining by B
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Billet-Doux
© Georg Trakl
For S. S.
She reads by the light of a guttering candle
and likes the feel of each page's gilt edge
as she lifts it slightly at the corner, readying
Break of Day (another of the same)
© John Donne
'Tis true, 'tis day; what though it be?
O wilt thou therefore rise from me?
Why should we rise, because 'tis light?
Did we lie down, because 'twas night?
Love which in spite of darkness brought us hither
Should in despite of light keep us together.
Banana Trees by Joseph Stanton: American Life in Poetry #119 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-200
© Ted Kooser
I'm especially attracted to poems that describe places I might not otherwise visit, in the manner of good travel writing. I'm a dedicated stay-at-home and much prefer to read something fascinating about a place than visit it myself. Here the Hawaii poet, Joseph Stanton, describes a tree that few of us have seen but all of us have eaten from.
Banana Trees
They are tall herbs, really, not trees,
though they can shoot up thirty feet
if all goes well for them. Cut in cross
Beidaihe
© Mao Zedong
A rainstorm sweeps down on the northern land,
White breakers leap to the sky.
No fishing boats off Qinhuangdao
Are seen on the boundless ocean.
Where are they gone?
But in the Wine-presses the Human Grapes Sing not nor Dance
© William Blake
They dance around the dying and they drink the howl and groan,
They catch the shrieks in cups of gold, they hand them to one another:
These are the sports of love, and these the sweet delights of amorous play,
Tears of the grape, the death sweat of the cluster, the last sigh
Of the mild youth who listens to the luring songs of Luvah.--
Book Of Suleika - Suleika 03
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
ZEPHYR, for thy humid wing,
Oh, how much I envy thee!
Ballades III - Of Blue China
© Andrew Lang
Come, snarl at my ecstasies, do,
Kind critic; your tongue has a tang,
Buta sage never heeded a shrew
In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.
Beyond The Potomac
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
THEY slept on the field which their valor had won,
But arose with the first early blush of the sun,
For they knew that a great deed remained to be done,
When they passed o'er the river.
Balade
© Sir Henry Newbolt
Nay--for Narcissus, in the forest pond
Seeing his image, made entreaty fond,
"Beloved, comfort on my longing pour":
So for a while he soothed his passion sore;
So cannot I, for all too far is she---
The lady who is queen and love to me.
Between the Wars
© Robert Hass
When I ran, it rained. Late in the afternoon—
midsummer, upstate New York, mornings I wrote,
Bolero
© Gerald Stern
So one day when the azalea bush was firing
away and the Japanese maple was roaring I
Baby Villon
© Philip Levine
He tells me in Bangkok he’s robbed
Because he’s white; in London because he’s black;
In Barcelona, Jew; in Paris, Arab:
Everywhere and at all times, and he fights back.
Benjamin Pantier
© Edgar Lee Masters
Together in this grave lie Benjamin Pantier, attorney at law,
And Nig, his dog, constant companion, solace and friend.
Belated
© Augusta Davies Webster
BLITHE summer blossom, born too late,
Wilt make my desert garden fair?
Lo Winter's hand is on the gate,
His breath is in the curdling air.
Baudelaire
© Delmore Schwartz
When I fall asleep, and even during sleep,
I hear, quite distinctly, voices speaking
Whole phrases, commonplace and trivial,
Having no relation to my affairs.
Bereavement.
© Robert Crawford
The little feet have left the house,
The little voice is still:
Without, the wan wind-weary boughs;
Within, the will
To go and hear the wee feet tread
Within the garden of the dead.
