Great poems
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Paradise Lost : Book V.
© John Milton
Now Morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime
Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl,
Sotto Voce
© Walter de la Mare
At foot a few sparse harebells: blue
And still as were the friend's dark eyes
That dwelt on mine, transfixèd through
With sudden ecstatic surmise.
Dream Song 115: Her properties, like her of course & frisky & new
© John Berryman
Her properties, like her of course & frisky & new:
a stale cake sold to kids, a 7-foot weed
inside in the Great Neck night,
a record ('great'), her work all over as u-
sual rejected. She odd in a bakery.
The owner stand beside her
Dream Song 33: An apple arc'd toward Kleitos; whose great King
© John Berryman
An apple arc'd toward Kleitos; whose great King
wroth & of wine did study where his sword,
sneaked away, might be . . .
with swollen lids staggered up and clung
dim to the cloth of gold. An un-Greek word
blister, to him guard,
The Laverock
© George MacDonald
Laverock i' the lift,
Hae ye nae sang-thrift,
'At ye scatter 't sae heigh, and lat it a' drift?
Wasterfu laverock!
Dream Song 80: Op. posth. no. 3
© John Berryman
It's buried at a distance, on my insistence, buried.
Weather's severe there, which it will not mind.
I miss it.
O happies before & during & between the times it got married.
I hate the love of leaving it behind,
deteriorating & hopeless that.
Dream Song 59: Henry's Meditation in the Kremlin
© John Berryman
Down on the cathedrals, as from the Giralda
in a land no crueller, and over the walls
to domes & river look
from Great John's belfry, Ivan-Veliky,
whose thirty-one are still
to hail who storms no father's throne. Bell, book
To The Poet On The Subject Of Flowers
© Arthur Rimbaud
Thus continually towards the dark azure,
Where the sea of topazes shimmers,
Will function in your evening
The Lilies, those pessaries of ectasy!
Dream Song 64: Supreme my holdings, greater yet my need
© John Berryman
Supreme my holdings, greater yet my need,
thoughtless I go out. Dawn. Have I my cig's,
my flaskie O,
O crystal cock,âmy kneel has gone to seed,â
and anybody's blessing? (Blast the MIGs
for making funble so
Voices Of The Night : Flowers
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the Castle Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden
Stars, that in the earth's firmament do shine.
The Bridge Builder
© Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
OF old the Winds came romping down,
Oh, wild and free were they!
They bent the prairie grasses low
And made a place to play.
Writ On The Eve Of My 32nd Birthday
© Gregory Corso
I am 32 years old
and finally I look my age, if not more.
To William Wordsworth. Composed On The Night After His Recitation Of A Poem On The Growth Of An Indi
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Friend of the Wise! and Teacher of the Good!
Into my heart have I received that Lay
More than historic, that prophetic Lay
Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright)
Dream Song 67: I don't operate often. When I do
© John Berryman
I don't operate often. When I do,
persons take note.
Nurses look amazed. They pale.
The patient is brought back to life, or so.
The reason I don't do this more (I quote)
is: I have a living to failâ
Dream Song 124: Behold I bring you tidings of great joy
© John Berryman
Behold I bring you tidings of great joyâ
especially now that the snow & gale are stillâ
for Henry is delivered.
Not only is he delivered from the gale
but he has a little one. He's out of jail
also. It is a boy.
Dream Song 19: Here, whence
© John Berryman
Here, whence
all have departed orwill do, here airless, where
that witchy ball
wanted, fought toward, dreamed of, all a green living
drops limply into one's hands
without pleasure or interest
The Lily Pond
© Virna Sheard
ON this little pool where the sunbeams lie,
This tawny gold ring where the shadows die,
God doth enamel the blue of His sky.
The Ring And The Book - Chapter VII - Pompilia
© Robert Browning
There,
Strength comes already with the utterance!
I will remember once more for his sake
The sorrow: for he lives and is belied.
Could he be here, how he would speak for me!
