Beauty poems

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The Wife of Bath's Tale

© Geoffrey Chaucer

7. "But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and
silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and
some to dishonour." -- 2 Tim. ii 20.

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The General Prologue

© Geoffrey Chaucer

There was also a Reeve, and a Millere,
A Sompnour, and a Pardoner also,
A Manciple, and myself, there were no mo'.

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The Knight's Tale

© Geoffrey Chaucer

Upon that other side, Palamon,
When that he wist Arcita was agone,
Much sorrow maketh, that the greate tower
Resounded of his yelling and clamour
The pure* fetters on his shinnes great *very
Were of his bitter salte teares wet.

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If I Were King

© William Ernest Henley

If I were king, my pipe should be premier.
The skies of time and chance are seldom clear,
We would inform them all with bland blue weather.
Delight alone would need to shed a tear,
For dream and deed should war no more together.

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The Dark and the Fair

© Stanley Kunitz

A roaring company that festive night;
The beast of dialectic dragged his chains,
Prowling from chair to chair is the smoking light,
While the snow hissed against the windowpanes.

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Not Youth Pertains to Me.

© Walt Whitman

NOT youth pertains to me,
Nor delicatesse—I cannot beguile the time with talk;
Awkward in the parlor, neither a dancer nor elegant;
In the learn’d coterie sitting constrain’d and still—for learning. inures

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Of the Visage of Things.

© Walt Whitman

OF the visages of things—And of piercing through to the accepted hells beneath;
Of ugliness—To me there is just as much in it as there is in beauty—And now the
ugliness of human beings is acceptable to me;
Of detected persons—To me, detected persons are not, in any respect, worse than

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Song of the Exposition.

© Walt Whitman

1
AFTER all, not to create only, or found only,
But to bring, perhaps from afar, what is already founded,
To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free;

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Eidólons.

© Walt Whitman

I MET a Seer,
Passing the hues and objects of the world,
The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense, To glean Eidólons.
Put in thy chants, said he,

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Now List to my Morning’s Romanza.

© Walt Whitman

1
NOW list to my morning’s romanza—I tell the signs of the Answerer;
To the cities and farms I sing, as they spread in the sunshine before me.

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Apostroph.

© Walt Whitman

O MATER! O fils!
O brood continental!
O flowers of the prairies!
O space boundless! O hum of mighty products!

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Delicate Cluster.

© Walt Whitman

DELICATE cluster! flag of teeming life!
Covering all my lands! all my sea-shores lining!
Flag of death! (how I watch’d you through the smoke of battle pressing!
How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant!)

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City Dead-House, The.

© Walt Whitman

BY the City Dead-House, by the gate,
As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor,
I curious pause—for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought;
Her corpse they deposit unclaim’d—it lies on the damp brick pavement;

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Assurances.

© Walt Whitman

I NEED no assurances—I am a man who is preoccupied, of his own Soul;
I do not doubt that from under the feet, and beside the hands and face I am cognizant of,
are
now looking faces I am not cognizant of—calm and actual faces;

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Indications, The.

© Walt Whitman

THE indications, and tally of time;
Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs;
Time, always without flaw, indicates itself in parts;
What always indicates the poet, is the crowd of the pleasant company of singers, and their

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A Riddle Song.

© Walt Whitman

THAT which eludes this verse and any verse,
Unheard by sharpest ear, unform’d in clearest eye or cunningest mind,
Nor lore nor fame, nor happiness nor wealth,
And yet the pulse of every heart and life throughout the world incessantly,

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Proud Music of The Storm.

© Walt Whitman

1
PROUD music of the storm!
Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies!
Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the mountains!

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Sleepers, The.

© Walt Whitman

1
I WANDER all night in my vision,
Stepping with light feet, swiftly and noiselessly stepping and stopping,
Bending with open eyes over the shut eyes of sleepers,

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Passage to India.

© Walt Whitman

1
SINGING my days,
Singing the great achievements of the present,
Singing the strong, light works of engineers,

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Old Ireland.

© Walt Whitman

FAR hence, amid an isle of wondrous beauty,
Crouching over a grave, an ancient, sorrowful mother,
Once a queen—now lean and tatter’d, seated on the ground,
Her old white hair drooping dishevel’d round her shoulders;