Failure poems

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``Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! God's child with his dew
``On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and blue
``Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as if no wild beat
``Were now raging to torture the desert!''

A Grammarian's Funeral

© Robert Browning

SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF
LEARNING IN EUROPE.Let us begin and carry up this corpse,
Singing together.
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes

Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came

© Robert Browning

My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

Loneliness

© John Matthew

I pause midway in the in the whirl,
Of deadlines, things undone,
And average the sadness and joys -
There remains only loneliness,
Of which I see no cure,
No bitter palliatives, no anodyne.

In the Smoking Car

© Richard Wilbur

The eyelids meet. He'll catch a little nap.
The grizzled, crew-cut head drops to his chest.
It shakes above the briefcase on his lap.
Close voices breathe, "Poor sweet, he did his best."

At a Window

© Carl Sandburg

Give me hunger,
O you gods that sit and give
The world its orders.
Give me hunger, pain and want,

The Shadow

© Amy Lowell

The Coroner took the body away,
And the watches were sold that Saturday.
The Auctioneer said one could seldom buy
Such watches, and the prices were high.

The Wind Is Without There And Howls In The Trees

© Robert Louis Stevenson

THE wind is without there and howls in the trees,
And the rain-flurries drum on the glass:
Alone by the fireside with elbows on knees
I can number the hours as they pass.

Sorry

© Wilcox Ella Wheeler

There is much in life that makes me sorry as I journey
down lifes way.
And I seem to see more pathos in poor human
Lives each day.

King Candaules And The Doctor Of Laws

© Jean de La Fontaine

IN life oft ills from self-imprudence spring;
As proof, Candaules' story we will bring;
In folly's scenes the king was truly great:
His vassal, Gyges, had from him a bait,
The like in gallantry was rarely known,
And want of prudence never more was shown.

Hope in Failure

© George William Russell

THOUGH now thou hast failed and art fallen, despair not because of defeat,
Though lost for a while be thy heaven and weary of earth be thy feet,
For all will be beauty about thee hereafter through sorrowful years,
And lovely the dews for thy chilling and ruby thy heart-drip of tears.

Sonnet 15 - Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear

© Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear
Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;
For we two look two ways, and cannot shine
With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.

To the Recluse, Wei Pa

© Tu Fu

Often in this life of ours we resemble, in our failure to meet, the Shen and
Shang constellations, one of which rises as the other one sets. What lucky
chance is it, then, that brings us together this evening under the light of
this same lamp? Youth and vigor last but a little time. --- Each of us now has

The Story Of Our Lives

© Mark Strand

1
We are reading the story of our lives
which takes place in a room.
The room looks out on a street.

The Rum Parade

Now ye gallant Sydney boys, who have left your household joys
To march across the sea in search of glory,
I am very much afraid that you do not love parade,
But the rum parade is quite another story.

Against Writing about Children

© Erin Belieu

When I think of the many people
who privately despise children,
I can't say I'm completely shocked,

The Imperfect Lover

I never asked you to be perfectdid I?
Though often Ive called you sweet, in the invasion
Of mastering love. I never prayed that you
Might stand, unsoiled, angelic and inhuman,
Pointing the way toward Sainthood like a sign-post.

Bixby's Landing

They burned lime on the hill and dropped it down
here in an iron car
On a long cable; here the ships warped in
And took their loads from the engine, the water