Poems begining by F
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from Mercian Hymns
© Geoffrey Hill
I
King of the perennial holly-groves, the riven sandstone: overlord of the M5: architect of the historic rampart and ditch, the citadel at Tamworth, the summer hermitage in Holy Cross: guardian of the Welsh Bridge and the Iron Bridge: contractor to the desirable new estates: saltmaster: moneychanger: commissioner for oaths: martyrologist: the friend of Charlemagne.
from War is Kind [“I explain the silvered passing of a ship at night”]
© Stephen Crane
I explain the silvered passing of a ship at night
The sweep of each sad lost wave
The dwindling boom of the steel thing's striving
The little cry of a man to a man
A shadow falling across the greyer night
And the sinking of the small star.
from The Bridge: The Dance
© Hart Crane
The swift red flesh, a winter king
Who squired the glacier woman down the sky?
She ran the neighing canyons all the spring;
She spouted arms; she rose with maizeto die.
Four-Leaf Clover
© Ella Higginson
I know a place where the sun is like gold,
And the cherry blooms burst with snow,
And down underneath is the loveliest nook,
Where the four-leaf clovers grow.
Flowers by the Sea
© William Carlos Williams
When over the flowery, sharp pasture’s
edge, unseen, the salt ocean
Fragment 1: Sea-ward, white gleaming thro' the busy scud
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Sea-ward, white gleaming thro' the busy scud
With arching Wings, the sea-mew o'er my head
Posts on, as bent on speed, now passaging
Edges the stiffer Breeze, now, yielding, drifts,
Now floats upon the air, and sends from far
A wildly-wailing Note.
Fifteen Epitaphs I
© Louise Imogen Guiney
I laid the strewings, darling, on thine urn;
I lowered the torch, I poured the cup to Dis.
Now hushaby, my little child, and learn
Long sleep how good it is.
Faustine
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
Ave Faustina Imperatrix, morituri te salutant.
Lean back, and get some minutes' peace;
Let your head lean
Back to the shoulder with its fleece
Of locks, Faustine.
from Second Book of Odes: 6. What the Chairman Told Tom
© Ted Hughes
Poetry? It’s a hobby.
I run model trains.
Mr Shaw there breeds pigeons.
Final Autumn
© Annie Finch
Maple leaves turn black in the courtyard.
Light drives lower and one bluejay crams
our cold memories out past the sun,
from The Task, Book I: The Sofa
© William Cowper
(excerpt)
Thou know’st my praise of nature most sincere,
from Odes: 14. Gin the Goodwife Stint
© Ted Hughes
The ploughland has gone to bent
and the pasture to heather;
gin the goodwife stint,
she’ll keep the house together.
Funeral Music
© Geoffrey Hill
William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk: beheaded 1450
John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester: beheaded 1470
Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers: beheaded 1483
from The Sleepers
© Walt Whitman
I see a beautiful gigantic swimmer swimming naked through the eddies of the sea,
His brown hair lies close and even to his head, he strikes out with courageous arms, he urges himself with his legs,
I see his white body, I see his undaunted eyes,
I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him head-foremost on the rocks.
Fragment 10: The Three Sorts of Friends
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Though friendships differ endless in degree ,
The sorts , methinks, may be reduced to three.
Ac quaintance many, and Con quaintance few;
But for In quaintance I know only two—
The friend I've mourned with, and the maid I woo!
from Stanzas in Meditation: Stanza I
© Gertrude Stein
I caught a bird which made a ball
And they thought better of it.
from the Last Canto of Paradiso
© Dante Alighieri
xxxiii, 46-48, 52-66
As I drew nearer to the end of all desire,
I brought my longing's ardor to a final height,
Just as I ought. My vision, becoming pure,
Fog
© Louise Imogen Guiney
Thy mood with man’s is broken and blent in,
City of Stains! And ache of thought doth drown
The primitive light in which thy life began;
Great as thy dole is, smirchèd with his sin,
Greater and elder yet the love of man
Full in thy look, tho’ the dark visor’s down.
