Poems begining by I
/ page 125 of 145 /
In the Womb
© George William Russell
STILL rests the heavy share on the dark soil:
Upon the black mould thick the dew-damp lies:
The horse waits patient: from his lowly toil
The ploughboy to the morning lifts his eyes.
Inheritance
© George William Russell
And not alone unto your birth
Their gifts the weeping ages bore,
The old descents of God on earth
Have dowered thee with celestial lore:
So, wise, and filled with sad and gay
You pass unto the further day.
Indian Song
© George William Russell
SHADOWY-PETALLED, like the lotus, loom the mountains with their snows:
Through the sapphire Soma rising such a flood of glory throws
As when first in yellow splendour Brahma from the Lotus rose.
Illusion
© George William Russell
WHAT is the love of shadowy lips
That know not what they seek or press,
From whom the lure for ever slips
And fails their phantom tenderness?
In As Much
© George William Russell
WHEN for love it was fain of
The wild heart was chidden,
When the white limbs were clothed
And the beauty was hidden;
Inspiration
© George William Russell
LIGHTEST of dancers, with no thought
Thy glimmering feet beat on my heart,
Gayest of singers, with no care
Waking to beauty the still air,
In Memoriam
© George William Russell
POOR little child, my pretty boy,
Why did the hunter mark thee out?
Wert thou betrayed by thine own joy?
Singled through childhoods merry shout?
Immortality
© George William Russell
WE must pass like smoke or live within the spirits fire;
For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return
If our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire,
As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn.
Ireland With Emily
© John Betjeman
Bells are booming down the bohreens,
White the mist along the grass,
Now the Julias, Maeves and Maureens
Move between the fields to Mass.
Inexpensive Progress
© John Betjeman
Encase your legs in nylons,
Bestride your hills with pylons
O age without a soul;
Away with gentle willows
And all the elmy billows
That through your valleys roll.
In A Bath Teashop
© John Betjeman
"Let us not speak, for the love we bear one another
Let us hold hands and look."
She such a very ordinary little woman;
He such a thumping crook;
But both, for a moment, little lower than the angels
In the teashop's ingle-nook.
In Westminster Abbey
© John Betjeman
Let me take this other glove off
As the vox humana swells,
And the beauteous fields of Eden
Bask beneath the Abbey bells.
Here, where England's statesmen lie,
Listen to a lady's cry.
In Flight Convergence
© Michael Burch
Serene, almost angelic,
the lights of the city attend
upon lumbering behemoths
shrilly screeching displeasure;
In Praise of Meter
© Michael Burch
If moons and tides in interlocking dance
obey their numbers, what is left to chance?
Should poets be more laxtheir circumstance
as humble as it is?or readers wince
to see their ragged numbers thin, to hear
of Neros death, yet mourn the Cavalier?
In My Lodge at Wang Chuan,(After a Long Rain.)
© Wang Wei
The woods have stored the rain, and slow comes the smoke
As rice is cooked on faggots and carried to the fields;
Over the quiet marsh-land flies a white egret,
And mango-birds are singing in the full summer trees....
In The Hills
© Wang Wei
White rocks jutting from Ching stream
The weather's cold, red leaves few
No rain at all on the paths in the hills
Clothes are wet with the blue air.
I Know, You Walk--
© Hermann Hesse
I walk so often, late, along the streets,
Lower my gaze, and hurry, full of dread,
Suddenly, silently, you still might rise
And I would have to gaze on all your grief
I Am 25
© Gregory Corso
With a love a madness for Shelley
Chatterton Rimbaud
and the needy-yap of my youth
has gone from ear to ear:
I Held A Shelley Manuscript
© Gregory Corso
Quickly, my eyes moved quickly,
sought for smell for dust for lace
for dry hair!
Iii
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart !
Unlike our uses and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise
On one another, as they strike athwart
