Failure poems
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Signs
© Larry Levis
2.
And this evening in the garden
I find the winter
inside a snail shell, rigid and
cool, a little stubborn temple,
its one visitor gone.
The Return
© Frank Bidart
As the retreating Bructeri began to burn their own
possessions, to deny to the Romans every sustenance but
ashes,
Lux In Tenebris
© George Essex Evans
So set they discord in the sweetest singing,
And a sharp thorn about the fairest rose;
And doubt around the cross where faith was clinging,
And fear to haunt the regions of repose;
And dimmed mens eyes, so that they should not see,
Like Gods, the vistas of futurity.
Pro Femina
© John Betjeman
But we need dependency, cosseting, and well-treatment.
So do men sometimes. Why don’t they admit it?
We will be cows for a while, because babies howl for us,
Be kittens or bitches, who want to eat grass now and then
For the sake of our health. But the role of pastoral heroine
Is not permanent, Jack. We want to get back to the meeting.
Lines In Memory Of Edmund Morris
© Duncan Campbell Scott
How shall we transmit in tendril-like images,
The tenuous tremor in the tissues of ether,
Before the round of colour buds like the dome of a shrine,
The preconscious moment when love has fluttered in the bosom,
Before it begins to ache?
Who Understands Me but Me
© James Russell Lowell
They turn the water off, so I live without water,
they build walls higher, so I live without treetops,
The Dream
© Caroline Norton
Ah! bless'd are they for whom 'mid all their pains
That faithful and unalter'd love remains;
Who, Life wreck'd round them,--hunted from their rest,--
And, by all else forsaken or distress'd,--
Claim, in one heart, their sanctuary and shrine--
As I, my Mother, claim'd my place in thine!
Failure
© George Essex Evans
THE BOY went out from the ranges grim,
And the breath of the mountains went with him;
Failures in Infinitives
© Bernadette Mayer
why am i doing this? Failure
to keep my work in order so as
Metamorphoses: Book The Thirteenth
© Ovid
The End of the Thirteenth 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
Others Successes
© Edgar Albert Guest
CAN you go to another who wins in the fight
And give him a hand-shake that "s true?
Safe Conduct
© Edgar Albert Guest
There isn't any danger in the kindly things you say,
There isn't any sorrow in the fine and manly deed,
No deep regret awaits you at the ending of the day,
There's always joy in knowing that you've played the friend in need.
Effort
© Edgar Albert Guest
He brought me his report card from the teacher and he said
He wasn't very proud of it and sadly bowed his head.
Four Riddles
© Lewis Carroll
I
There was an ancient City, stricken down
With a strange frenzy, and for many a day
They paced from morn to eve the crowded town,
And danced the night away.
Sonnet XV: Accuse Me Not
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear
Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;
The Sad Years
© Dora Sigerson Shorter
Is this, indeed, Thy man, that Thou hast made,
Is this Thy likeness, and are these Thy ways?
Oh, Lord of pity, quench these flaming hours,
Restore to peace these sad and tortured years
Wherein Thou breakest the frail heart of man
Or he the heart of God.
A New Year's Morning Song
© Anna Laetitia Waring
Thanksgiving and the voice of melody,
This new year's morning, call me from my sleep;
The Stone Fleet
© Herman Melville
I have a feeling for those ships,
Each worn and ancient one,
With great bluff bows, and broad in the beam:
Ay, it was unkindly done.
But so they serve the Obsolete-
Even so, Stone Fleet!
Further Language From Truthful James
© Francis Bret Harte
Do I sleep? do I dream?
Do I wonder and doubt?
Are things what they seem?
Or is visions about?
Is our civilization a failure?
Or is the Caucasian played out?
