Beauty poems
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So Much I Gazed
© Constantine Cavafy
So much I gazed on beauty,
that my vision is replete with it.Contours of the body. Red lips. Voluptuous limbs.
Hair as if taken from greek statues;
always beautiful, even when uncombed,
Villanelle: The Psychological Hour
© Ezra Pound
I had over prepared the event,
that much was ominous.
With middle-ageing care
I had laid out just the right books.
I had almost turned down the pages.
Statement of Being
© Ezra Pound
I am a grave poetic hen
That lays poetic eggs
And to enhance my temperament
A little quiet begs.
Hugh Selwyn Mauberly (Part I)
© Ezra Pound
For three years, out of key with his time,
He strove to resuscitate the dead art
Of poetry; to maintain "the sublime"
In the old sense. Wrong from the start --
The Seafarer
© Ezra Pound
(From the early Anglo-Saxon text) May I for my own self song's truth reckon,
Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days
Hardship endured oft.
Bitter breast-cares have I abided,
E.P. Ode Pour L'election De Son Sepulchre
© Ezra Pound
For three years, out of key with his time,
He strove to resuscitate the dead art
Of poetry; to maintain "the sublime"
In the old sense. Wrong from the start--
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume 1: 1931-1934
© Anais Nin
"Am I, at bottom, that fervent little Spanish Catholic child who chastised herself for loving toys, who forbade herself the enjoyment of sweet foods, who practiced silence, who humiliated her pride, who adored symbols, statues, burning candles, incense, the caress of nuns, organ music, for whom Communion was a great event? I was so exalted by the idea of eating Jesus's flesh and drinking His blood that I couldn't swallow the host well, and I dreaded harming the it
Ontological
© Maggie Anderson
This is going to cost you.
If you really want to hear a
country fiddle, you have to listen
hard, high up in its twang and needle.
My Country
© Dorothea Mackellar
My Country The love of field and coppice
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Rahel to Varnhagen
© Edwin Arlington Robinson
NOTE.Rahel Robert and Varnhagen von Ense were married, after many protestations on her part, in 1814. The marriageso far as he was concerned at any rateappears to have been satisfactory.
Now you have read them all; or if not all,
As many as in all conscience I should fancy
To be enough. There are no more of them
The Book of Annandale
© Edwin Arlington Robinson
IPartly to think, more to be left alone,
George Annandale said something to his friends
A word or two, brusque, but yet smoothed enough
To suit their funeral gazeand went upstairs;
Llewellyn and the Tree
© Edwin Arlington Robinson
Could he have made Priscilla share
The paradise that he had planned,
Llewellyn would have loved his wife
As well as any in the land.
Leonora
© Edwin Arlington Robinson
They have made for Leonora this low dwelling in the ground,
And with cedar they have woven the four walls round.
Like a little dryad hiding shell be wrapped all in green,
Better kept and longer valued than by ways that would have been.
The Poor Relation
© Edwin Arlington Robinson
No longer torn by what she knows
And sees within the eyes of others,
Her doubts are when the daylight goes,
Her fears are for the few she bothers.
The Valley of the Shadow
© Edwin Arlington Robinson
There were faces to remember in the Valley of the Shadow,
There were faces unregarded, there were faces to forget;
There were fires of grief and fear that are a few forgotten ashes,
There were sparks of recognition that are not forgotten yet.
For a Dead Lady
© Edwin Arlington Robinson
No more with overflowing light
Shall fill the eyes that now are faded,
Nor shall another's fringe with night
Their woman-hidden world as they did.
The IX Ode to Horace
© Major Henry Livingston, Jr.
While I was pleasing to your arms,
Nor any youth, of happier charms,
Thy snowy bosom blissful prest,
Not Portia's like me was blest.
The Vine & Oak, A Fable
© Major Henry Livingston, Jr.
He saw her all defenseless lay
To each invading beast a prey,
And wish'd to clasp her in his arms
And bear her far away from harms.
'Twas love -- 'twas tenderness -- 'twas all
That men the tender passion call.
1819 New Year's Carrier's Address
© Major Henry Livingston, Jr.
Believe me, dear patrons, I have wand'red too far,
Without any compass, or planet or star;
My dear native village I scarcely can see
So I'll hie to my hive like the tempest-tost bee.
