History poems
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Corporal Stare
© Robert Graves
Back from the line one night in June,
I gave a dinner at Bethune
Seven courses, the most gorgeous meal
Money could buy or batman steal.
A Farewell to Agassiz
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
How the mountains talked together,
Looking down upon the weather,
When they heard our friend had planned his
Little trip among the Andes
Some Foreign Letters
© Anne Sexton
I knew you forever and you were always old,
soft white lady of my heart. Surely you would scold
me for sitting up late, reading your letters,
as if these foreign postmarks were meant for me.
A Day In The Castle Of Envy
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
The castle walls are full of eyes,
And not a mouse may creep unseen.
All the window slits are spies;
And the towers stand sentinel
Festina Lente
© James Russell Lowell
But vain was all their hoarsest bass,
Their old experience out of place,
And spite of croaking and entreating,
The vote was carried in marsh-meeting.
The Wedding Ring Dance
© Anne Sexton
I dance in circles holding
the moth of the marriage,
thin, sticky, fluttering
its skirts, its webs.
Natural History
© Sylvia Plath
That lofty monarch, Monarch Mind,
Blue-blooded in coarse contry reigned;
Though he bedded in ermine, gorged on roast,
Pure Philosophy his love engrossed:
While subjects hungered, empty-pursed,
With stars, with angels, he conversed
Unknown Girl In A Maternity Ward
© Anne Sexton
Child, the current of your breath is six days long.
You lie, a small knuckle on my white bed;
lie, fisted like a snail, so small and strong
at my breast. Your lips are animals; you are fed
Flee On Your Donkey
© Anne Sexton
Today an intern knocks my knees,
testing for reflexes.
Once I would have winked and begged for dope.
Today I am terribly patient.
Today crows play black-jack
on the stethoscope.
The Touch
© Anne Sexton
The trouble is
that I'd let my gestures freeze.
The trouble was not
in the kitchen or the tulips
but only in my head, my head.
Run to Death
© Amy Levy
A True Incident of Pre-Revolutionary French History.
Now the lovely autumn morning breathes its freshness in earth's face,
In the crowned castle courtyard the blithe horn proclaims the chase;
And the ladies on the terrace smile adieux with rosy lips
A Library Of Skulls
© Thomas Lux
Shelves and stacks and shelves of skulls, a Dewey
Decimal number inked on each unfurrowed forehead.
Here's a skull
who, before he lost his fleshy parts
Side Show
© Arthur Rimbaud
Very sturdy rogues.
Several have exploited your worlds.
With no needs, and in no hurry
to make use of their brilliant faculties
and their knowledge of your conveniences.
The delectable ballad of the waller lot
© Eugene Field
Up yonder in Buena Park
There is a famous spot,
In legend and in history
Yclept the Waller Lot.
Goblins And Rainbows
© James Baker
The colours will rein supreme,
Shining above all who can gaze.
There she is, the last sound,
Never peace, only slaves.
Prof. vere de blaw
© Eugene Field
Achievin' sech distinction with his moddel tabble dote
Ez to make his Red Hoss Mountain restauraw a place uv note,
Our old friend Casey innovated somewhat round the place,
In hopes he would ameliorate the sufferin's uv the race;
Little Mack
© Eugene Field
This talk about the journalists that run the East is bosh,
We've got a Western editor that's little, but, O gosh!
He lives here in Mizzoora where the people are so set
In ante-bellum notions that they vote for Jackson yet;
