Great poems
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Warning
© George William Russell
PURE at heart we wander now:
Comrade on the quest divine,
Turn not from the stars your brow
That your eyes may rest on mine.
A Womans Voice
© George William Russell
HIS head within my bosom lay,
But yet his spirit slipped not through:
I only felt the burning clay
That withered for the cooling dew.
The Dawn of Darkness
© George William Russell
COME earths little children pit-pat from their burrows on the hill;
Hangs within the gloom its weary head the shining daffodil.
In the valley underneath us through the fragrance flit along
Over fields and over hedgerows little quivering drops of song.
By the Margin of the Great Deep
© George William Russell
WHEN the breath of twilight blows to flame the misty skies,
All its vaporous sapphire, violet glow and silver gleam
With their magic flood me through the gateway of the eyes;
I am one with the twilights dream.
The City
© George William Russell
WHAT domination of what darkness dies this hour,
And through what new, rejoicing, winged, ethereal power
Oerthrown, the cells opened, the heart released from fear?
Gay twilight and grave twilight pass. The stars appear
The Great Breath
© George William Russell
ITS edges foamed with amethyst and rose,
Withers once more the old blue flower of day:
There where the ether like a diamond glows
Its petals fade away.
The Last Hero
© George William Russell
WE laid him to rest with tenderness;
Homeward we turned in the twilights gold;
We thought in ourselves with dumb distress
All the story of earth is told.
The Symbol Seduces
© George William Russell
THERE in her old-world garden smiles
A symbol of the worlds desire,
Striving with quaint and lovely wiles
To bind to earth the soul of fire.
Symbolism
© George William Russell
Nearer to Thee, not by delusion led,
Though there no house fires burn nor bright eyes gaze:
We rise, but by the symbol charioted,
Through loved things rising up to Loves own ways:
By these the soul unto the vast has wings
And sets the seal celestial on all mortal things.
The Olympic Girl
© John Betjeman
The sort of girl I like to see
Smiles down from her great height at me.
She stands in strong, athletic pose
And wrinkles her retrouss? nose.
The Irish Unionist's farewell to Greta Hellastrom in 1922
© John Betjeman
Golden haired and golden hearted
I would ever have you be,
As you were when last we parted
Smiling slow and sad at me.
Le Manteau De Pascal
© Jorie Graham
I have put on my great coat it is cold.It is an outer garment.Coarse, woolen.Of unknown origin. *It has a fine inner lining but it is
as an exterior that you see it a grace. *I have a coat I am wearing. It is a fine admixture.
The woman who threw the threads in the two directions
has made, skillfully, something dark-true,
The Guardian Angel Of The Private Life
© Jorie Graham
All this was written on the next day's list.
On which the busyness unfurled its cursive roots,
pale but effective,
and the long stem of the necessary, the sum of events,
Elegy VI
© John Donne
Oh, let me not serve so, as those men serve
Whom honour's smokes at once fatten and starve;
Poorly enrich't with great men's words or looks;
Nor so write my name in thy loving books
Elegy II: The Anagram
© John Donne
Marry, and love thy Flavia, for she
Hath all things whereby others beautious be,
For, though her eyes be small, her mouth is great,
Though they be ivory, yet her teeth be jet,
Holy Sonnet XII: Why Are We By All Creatures Waited On?
© John Donne
Why are we by all creatures waited on?
Why do the prodigal elements supply
Life and food to me, being more pure than I,
Simple, and further from corruption?
Elegy IV: The Perfume
© John Donne
Once, and but once found in thy company,
All thy supposed escapes are laid on me;
And as a thief at bar is questioned there
By all the men that have been robed that year,
Elegy X: The Dream
© John Donne
Image of her whom I love, more than she,
Whose fair impression in my faithful heart
Makes me her medal, and makes her love me,
As Kings do coins, to which their stamps impart
Elegy XVI: On His Mistress
© John Donne
By our first strange and fatal interview,
By all desires which thereof did ensue,
By our long starving hopes, by that remorse
Which my words' masculine persuasive force
