Life poems
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The Errand
© Anne Sexton
I've been going right on, page by page,
since we last kissed, two long dolls in a cage,
two hunger-mongers throwing a myth in and out,
double-crossing out lives with doubt,
leaving us separate now, fogy with rage.
The Missionary - Canto Eighth
© William Lisle Bowles
Oh, shout for Lautaro, the young and the brave!
The arm of whose strength was uplifted to save,
When the steeds of the strangers came rushing amain,
And the ghosts of our fathers looked down on the slain!
Ghost Glen
© Henry Kendall
"Shut your ears, stranger, or turn from Ghost Glen now,
For the paths are grown over, untrodden by men now;
Shut your ears, stranger," saith the grey mother, crooning
Her sorcery runic, when sets the half-moon in.
The Interrogation Of The Man Of Many Hearts
© Anne Sexton
She's the one I carried my bones to
and built a house that was just a cot
and built a life that was over an hour
and built a castle where no one lives
and built, in the end, a song
to go with the ceremony.
The Coal-Fire
© Christopher Pearse Cranch
1.
COME, we 'll light the parlor fire;
Winter sets in sharp and rough.
Wood is dear, but coal's provided,
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.
The Legend Of The One-Eyed Man
© Anne Sexton
Like Oedipus I am losing my sight.
LIke Judas I have done my wrong.
Their punishment is over;
the shame and disgrace of it
Translation From Catullus
© George Gordon Byron
[Lugete, Veneres, Cupidinesque, &c.]
Ye Cupids, droop each little head,
Nor let your wings with joy be spread;
My Lesbia's favourite bird is dead,
In The Deep Museum
© Anne Sexton
My God, my God, what queer corner am I in?
Didn't I die, blood running down the post,
lungs gagging for air, die there for the sin
of anyone, my sour mouth giving up the ghost?
A Spirit Present
© Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
IF, coming from that unknown sphere
Where I believe thou art,--
The world unseen which girds our world
So close, yet so apart,--
The Division Of Parts
© Anne Sexton
1.
Mother, my Mary Gray,
once resident of Gloucester
and Essex County,
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
The Robin Redbreast
© Mathilde Blind
But hearken! Yonder russet bird among
The crimson clusters of the homely thorn
Still bubbles o'er with little rills of song-
A blending of sweet hope and resignation:
Even so, when life of love and youth is shorn,
One friend becomes its last, best consolation.
A Destiny
© Caroline Norton
And his two sons in careless beauty grew,
Like wild-flowers in his path: he mark'd them not,
Nor reck'd he what they needed, learnt, or knew,
Or what might be on earth their future lot;
But they died young--which is a thought of rest!
Unscorn'd, untempted, undefiled--so best.
Four Years
© Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
At the Midsummer, when the hay was down,
Said I mournful - Though my life be in its prime,
Bare lie my meadows all shorn before their time,
O'er my sere woodlands the leaves are turning brown;
The Gray Chief
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
'T is sweet to fight our battles o'er,
And crown with honest praise
The gray old chief, who strikes no more
The blow of better days.
Patmos
© Friedrich Hölderlin
The god
Is near, and hard to grasp.
But where there is danger,
A rescuing element grows as well.
The Play
© Anne Sexton
I am the only actor.
It is difficult for one woman
to act out a whole play.
The play is my life,
