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The Idols
© Robert Laurence Binyon
I.2
The Forests of the Night awaken blind in heat
Of black stupor; and stirring in its deep retreat,
I hear the heart of Darkness slowly beat and beat.
Grand Rapids Cricket Club
© Julia A Moore
In Grand Rapids is a handsome club,
Of men that cricket play,
We Eat Out Together
© Bernadette Mayer
My heart is a fancy place
Where giant reddish-purple cauliflowers
From The Iron Gate
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
AS on the gauzy wings of fancy flying
From some far orb I track our watery sphere,
Home of the struggling, suffering, doubting, dying,
The silvered globule seems a glistening tear.
LEnvoi: Brussels, Hotel Du Midi
© Dante Gabriel Rossetti
IT'S copied out at last: very poor stuff
Writ in the cold, with pauses of the cramp.
The Troubadour. Canto 1
© Letitia Elizabeth Landon
There is a light step passing by
Like the distant sound of music's sigh;
It is that fair and gentle child,
Whose sweetness has so oft beguiled,
Like sunlight on a stormy day,
His almost sullenness away.
Division Of An Estate
© George Moses Horton
It well bespeaks a man beheaded, quite
Divested of the laurel robe of life,
When every member struggles for its base,
The head; the power of order now recedes,
To Ladies Of A Certain Age
© John Trumbull
Ye ancient Maids, who ne'er must prove
The early joys of youth and love,
Fragment: Yes! All Is Past
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
'Ah! no, I cannot shed the pitying tear,
This breast is cold, this heart can feel no more--
But I can rest me on thy chilling bier,
Can shriek in horror to the tempest's roar.'
Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight
© Roald Dahl
(In Springfield, Illinois)
It is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house pacing up and down.
Tho' I get home how latehow late
© Emily Dickinson
To think just how the fire will burn
Just how long-cheated eyes will turn
To wonder what myself will say,
And what itself, will say to me
Beguiles the Centuries of way!
Grace
© Joy Harjo
Like Coyote, like Rabbit, we could not contain our terror and clowned our way through a season of false midnights. We had to swallow that town with laughter, so it would go down easy as honey. And one morning as the sun struggled to break ice, and our dreams had found us with coffee and pancakes in a truck stop along Highway 80, we found grace.
I could say grace was a woman with time on her hands, or a white buffalo escaped from memory. But in that dingy light it was a promise of balance. We once again understood the talk of animals, and spring was lean and hungry with the hope of children and corn.
I would like to say, with grace, we picked ourselves up and walked into the spring thaw. We didn’t; the next season was worse. You went home to Leech Lake to work with the tribe and I went south. And, Wind, I am still crazy. I know there is something larger than the memory of a dispossessed people. We have seen it.
Mugging (I)
© Allen Ginsberg
I
Tonite I walked out of my red apartment door on East tenth street’s dusk—
Their Bodies
© David Wagoner
They gave away the gift of those useful bodies
Against his wish. (They had their own ways
Of doing everything, always.) If you’re not certain
Which ones are theirs, be gentle to everybody.
from Paragraphs from a Day-Book (section 1 only)
© Marilyn Hacker
For Hayden Carruth
Thought thrusts up, homely as a hyacinth
Michael: A Pastoral Poem
© William Wordsworth
Thus in his Father's sight the Boy grew up:
And now, when he had reached his eighteenth year,
He was his comfort and his daily hope.
If You Said You Would Come With Me
© John Ashbery
In town it was very urban but in the country cows were covering the hills. The clouds were near and very moist. I was walking along the pavement with Anna, enjoying the scattered scenery. Suddenly a sound like a deep bell came from behind us. We both turned to look. “It’s the words you spoke in the past, coming back to haunt you,” Anna explained. “They always do, you know.”
Indeed I did. Many times this deep bell-like tone had intruded itself on my thoughts, scrambling them at first, then rearranging them in apple-pie order. “Two crows,” the voice seemed to say, “were sitting on a sundial in the God-given sunlight. Then one flew away.”
“Yes . . . and then?” I wanted to ask, but I kept silent. We turned into a courtyard and walked up several flights of stairs to the roof, where a party was in progress. “This is my friend Hans,” Anna said by way of introduction. No one paid much attention and several guests moved away to the balustrade to admire the view of orchards and vineyards, approaching their autumn glory. One of the women however came to greet us in a friendly manner. I was wondering if this was a “harvest home,” a phrase I had often heard but never understood.
“Welcome to my home . . . well, to our home,” the woman said gaily. “As you can see, the grapes are being harvested.” It seemed she could read my mind. “They say this year’s vintage will be a mediocre one, but the sight is lovely, nonetheless. Don’t you agree, Mr. . . .”
The Old Major Explains
© Francis Bret Harte
Well, you see, the fact is, Colonel, I don't know as I can come:
For the farm is not half planted, and there's work to do at home;
And my leg is getting troublesome,--it laid me up last fall,--
And the doctors, they have cut and hacked, and never found the ball.
