Great poems
/ page 266 of 549 /
A Cooking Egg
© Thomas Stearns Eliot
PIPIT sate upright in her chair
Some distance from where I was sitting;
Views of the Oxford Colleges
Lay on the table, with the knitting.
Ash Wednesday
© Thomas Stearns Eliot
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.
Duino Elegies: The Tenth Elegy
© Rainer Maria Rilke
Yet the dead youth must go on alone.
In silence the elder Lament brings him
as far as the gorge where it shimmers in the moonlight:
The Foutainhead of Joy. With reverance she names it,
saying: "In the world of mankind it is a life-bearing stream."
Along The Sun-Drenched Roadside
© Rainer Maria Rilke
Thus, if you came, I could be satisfied
to let my hand rest lightly, for a moment,
lightly, upon your shoulder or your breast.
The Neighbor
© Rainer Maria Rilke
Strange violin, why do you follow me?
In how many foreign cities did you
speak of your lonely nights and those of mine.
Are you being played by hundreds? Or by one?
Girl's Lament
© Rainer Maria Rilke
And I still imagined, that life
would always keep providing
for one to dwell on things within,
Am I within myself not in what's greatest?
Shall what's mine no longer soothe
and understand me as a child?
Heartbeat
© Rainer Maria Rilke
Only mouths are we. Who sings the distant heart
which safely exists in the center of all things?
His giant heartbeat is diverted in us
into little pulses. And his giant grief
As Once The Winged Energy Of Delight
© Rainer Maria Rilke
As once the winged energy of delight
carried you over childhood's dark abysses,
now beyond your own life build the great
arch of unimagined bridges.
Sense Of Something Coming
© Rainer Maria Rilke
I already know the storm, and I am troubled as the sea.
I leap out, and fall back,
and throw myself out, and am absolutely alone
in the great storm.
Duino Elegies: The First Elegy
© Rainer Maria Rilke
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
M'Fingal - Canto IV
© John Trumbull
"For me, before that fatal time,
I mean to fly th' accursed clime,
And follow omens, which of late
Have warn'd me of impending fate.
M'Fingal - Canto III
© John Trumbull
By this, M'Fingal with his train
Advanced upon th' adjacent plain,
And full with loyalty possest,
Pour'd forth the zeal, that fired his breast.
M'Fingal - Canto II
© John Trumbull
"T' evade these crimes of blackest grain
You prate of liberty in vain,
And strive to hide your vile designs
In terms abstruse, like school-divines.
Breaking and Entering
© Ralph Angel
Many setups. At least as many falls.
Winter is paralyzing the country, but not here.
Here, the boys are impersonating songs of indigenous
wildlife. Mockingbird on the roof of the Gun Shop,
Now i lay(with everywhere around)... (44)
© Edward Estlin Cummings
Now i lay(with everywhere around)
me(the great dim deep sound
of rain;and of always and of nowhere)and
what a gently welcoming darkestness--
Epithalamion
© Edward Estlin Cummings
I.Thou aged unreluctant earth who dost
with quivering continual thighs invite
the thrilling rain the slender paramour
to toy with thy extraordinary lust,
Skating (4)
© Edward Estlin Cummings
Spring is past, and Summer's past,
Autumn's come, and going;
Weather seems as though at last
We might get some snowing.
if everything happens that can't be done
© Edward Estlin Cummings
if everything happens that can't be done
(and anything's righter
than books
could plan)
the way to hump a cow is not... (14)
© Edward Estlin Cummings
the way to hump a cow is not
to get yourself a stool
but draw a line around the spot
and call it beautifool
