Experience poems
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Amours De Voyage, Canto II
© Arthur Hugh Clough
P.S.
Mary has seen thus far.-I am really so angry, Louisa,-
Quite out of patience, my dearest! What can the man be intending?
I am quite tired; and Mary, who might bring him to in a moment,
Lets him go on as he likes, and neither will help nor dismiss him.
The Shepherd and the Philosopher
© John Gay
A deep philosopher (whose rules
Of moral life were drawn from schools)
The shepherd's homely cottage sought,
And thus explor'd his reach of thought.
Gotham - Book II
© Charles Churchill
How much mistaken are the men who think
That all who will, without restraint may drink,
Letter From Under The Sea
© Nizar Qabbani
I desire you...so teach me not to desire
teach me...
how to cut the roots of your love from the depths
teach me...
how tears may die in the eyes
and love may commit suicide
The Old Cumberland Beggar
© William Wordsworth
. I saw an aged Beggar in my walk;
And he was seated, by the highway side,
Kitchen Poem
© Francis Scarfe
In the hungry kitchen
The dog sings for its dinner.
The housewife is writing her poem
On top of the frigidaire
Something like this:
The Pariah - Legend
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
WATER-FETCHING goes the noble
Brahmin's wife, so pure and lovely;
To ---, Written At Venice
© Richard Monckton Milnes
Not only through the golden haze
Of indistinct surprise,
With which the Ocean--bride displays
Her pomp to stranger eyes;--
Love and Honor
© William Shenstone
Sed neque Medorum silvae, ditissima terra
Nec pulcher Ganges, atque auro turbidus Haemus,
Metamorphoses: Book The Sixth
© Ovid
The End of the Sixth Book.
Translated into English verse under the direction of
Sir Samuel Garth by John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison,
William Congreve and other eminent hands
"Thought is Surrounded by a Halo"
© Gwen Harwood
Show me the order of the world,
the hard-edge light of this-is-so
prior to all experience
and common to both world and thought,
no model, but the truth itself.
Alberto by Warren Woessner: American Life in Poetry #118 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Our species has developed monstrous weapons that can kill not only all of us but everything else on the planet, yet when the wind rises we run for cover, as we have done for as long as we've been on this earth. Here's hoping we never have the skill or arrogance to conquer the weather. And weather stories? We tell them in the same way our ancestors related encounters with fearsome dragons. This poem by Minnesota poet Warren Woessner honors the tradition by sharing an experience with a hurricane.
The Birth Of Love
© William Wordsworth
When Love was born of heavenly line,
What dire intrigues disturbed Cythera's joy!
Till Venus cried, "A mother's heart is mine;
None but myself shall nurse my boy,"
To Woman
© George Gordon Byron
Woman! experience might have told me,
That all must love thee who behold thee:
Surely experience might have taught
Thy firmest promises are nought:
'The Aeneid of Virgil: Book 3
© Publius Vergilius Maro
WHEN Heavn had overturnd the Trojan state
And Priams throne, by too severe a fate;
Summer Downpour on Campus by Juliana Gray: American Life in Poetry #110 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laurea
© Ted Kooser
I've talked a lot in this column about poetry as celebration, about the way in which a poem can make an ordinary experience seem quite special. Here's the celebration of a moment on a campus somewhere, anywhere. The poet is Juliana Gray, who lives in New York. I especially like the little comic surprise with which it closes.
Summer Downpour on Campus
When clouds turn heavy, rich
and mottled as an oyster bed,
Paradiso (English)
© Dante Alighieri
The glory of Him who moveth everything
Doth penetrate the universe, and shine
In one part more and in another less.
