Fear poems
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King Arthur's Tomb
© William Morris
Hot August noon: already on that day
Since sunrise through the Wiltshire downs, most sad
Of mouth and eye, he had gone leagues of way;
Ay and by night, till whether good or bad
In Arthur's House
© William Morris
"As quoth the lion to the mouse,"
The man said; "in King Arthur's House
Men are not names of men alone,
But coffers rather of deeds done."
Earth the Healer, Earth the Keeper
© William Morris
So swift the hours are moving
Unto the time unproved:
Farewell my love unloving,
Farewell my love beloved!
Atalanta's Race
© William Morris
Through such fair things unto the gates he came,
And found them open, as though peace were there;
Wherethrough, unquestioned of his race or name,
He entered, and along the streets 'gan fare,
Which at the first of folk were well-nigh bare;
But pressing on, and going more hastily,
The White Cliffs
© Alice Duer Miller
Yet I have loathed those voices when the sense
Of what they said seemed to me insolence,
As if the dominance of the whole nation
Lay in that clear correct enunciation.
The Puritan's Ballad
© Elinor Wylie
My love came up from Barnegat,
The sea was in his eyes;
He trod as softly as a cat
And told me terrible lies.
The Lost Path
© Elinor Wylie
Or will my clamorous knocking shake the trees
With lonely thunder through the stillnesses,
And then lie down--the coldest fear of all--
To nothing, and deliberate silence fall
On the house deep in the silence, and no one come
To door or window, staring blind and dumb?
The Child on the Curbstone
© Elinor Wylie
The headlights raced; the moon, death-faced,
Stared down on that golden river.
I saw through the smoke the scarlet cloak
Of a boy who could not shiver.
Now let no charitable hope
© Elinor Wylie
Now let no charitable hope
Confuse my mind with images
Of eagle and of antelope:
I am by nature none of these.
Death and the Maiden
© Elinor Wylie
Fair youth with the rose at your lips,
A riddle is hid in your eyes;
Discard conversational quips,
Give over elaborate disguise.
A Crowded Trolley-Car
© Elinor Wylie
The rain's cold grains are silver-gray
Sharp as golden sands,
A bell is clanging, people sway
Hanging by their hands.
Oysters
© Jonathan Swift
Charming oysters I cry:
My masters, come buy,
So plump and so fresh,
So sweet is their flesh,
Verses on the Death of Doctor Swift
© Jonathan Swift
As Rochefoucauld his maxims drew
From nature, I believe 'em true:
They argue no corrupted mind
In him; the fault is in mankind.
A Description of a City Shower
© Jonathan Swift
Careful Observers may fortel the Hour
(By sure Prognosticks) when to dread a Show'r:
While Rain depends, the pensive Cat gives o'er
Her Frolicks, and pursues her Tail no more.
A Beautiful Young Nymph Going To Bed
© Jonathan Swift
Corinna, Pride of Drury-Lane,
For whom no Shepherd sighs in vain;
Never did Covent Garden boast
So bright a batter'd, strolling Toast;
The Pangolin
© Marianne Clarke Moore
Another armored animal--scale
lapping scale with spruce-cone regularity until they
form the uninterrupted central
tail-row! This near artichoke with head and legs and grit-equipped
The Height of Land
© Duncan Campbell Scott
Here is the height of land:
The watershed on either hand
Goes down to Hudson Bay
Or Lake Superior;
Withstanders
© William Barnes
When weakness now do strive wi' might
In struggles ov an e'thly trial,
The Half-breed Girl
© Duncan Campbell Scott
She is free of the trap and the paddle,
The portage and the trail,
But something behind her savage life
Shines like a fragile veil.
Ode for the Keats Centenary
© Duncan Campbell Scott
Where, searching through the ferny breaks,
The moose-fawns find the springs;
Where the loon laughs and diving takes
Her young beneath her wings;
