Life poems
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For The One Who Would Not Take His Life In His Hands
© Delmore Schwartz
Athlete, virtuoso,
Training for happiness,
Bend arm and knee, and seek
The body's sharp distress,
Prothalamion
© Delmore Schwartz
"little soul, little flirting,
little perverse one
where are you off to now?
little wan one, firm one
little exposed one...
and never make fun of me again."
From: A King Of Kings, A King Among The Kings
© Delmore Schwartz
Come, let us rejoice in James Joyce, in the greatness of this poet,
king, and king of poets
For he is our poor dead king, he is the monarch and Caesar of English,
he is the veritable King of the King's English
Poem (Remember midsummer: the fragrance of box)
© Delmore Schwartz
Remember midsummer: the fragrance of box, of white
roses
And of phlox. And upon a honeysuckle branch
Three snails hanging with infinite delicacy
Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day
© Delmore Schwartz
Calmly we walk through this April's day,
Metropolitan poetry here and there,
In the park sit pauper and rentier,
The screaming children, the motor-car
Phoenix Lyrics
© Delmore Schwartz
Purple black cloud at sunset: it is late August
and the light begins to look cold, and as we look,
listen and look, we hear the first drums of autumn.
All Night, All Night
© Delmore Schwartz
Looked out at the night, unable to distinguish
Lights in the towns of passage from the yellow lights
Numb on the ceiling. And the bird flew parallel and still
As the train shot forth the straight line of its whistle,
Forward on the taut tracks, piercing empty, familiar --
The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me
© Delmore Schwartz
"the withness of the body" --Whitehead
The heavy bear who goes with me,
A manifold honey to smear his face,
Clumsy and lumbering here and there,
For The One Who Would Take Man's Life In His Hands
© Delmore Schwartz
Tiger Christ unsheathed his sword,
Threw it down, became a lamb.
Swift spat upon the species, but
Took two women to his heart.
The Batchelors Song
© Thomas Flatman
Like a Dog with a bottle, fast ti'd to his tail,
Like Vermin in a trap, or a Thief in a Jail,
Or like a Tory in a Bog,
Or an Ape with a Clog:
Advice To An Old Man of Sixty Three About To Marry a Girle of Sixteen
© Thomas Flatman
Now fie upon him! what is Man,
Whose life at best is but a span?
When to an inch it dwindles down,
Ice in his bones, snow on his Crown,
A Real Motorcycle
© Erin Moure
Inside: an iris, candle, poster of the
many-breasted Artemis in a stone hat
from Anatolia
To M.L.S.
© Edgar Allan Poe
Of all who hail thy presence as the morning-
Of all to whom thine absence is the night-
The blotting utterly from out high heaven
The sacred sun- of all who, weeping, bless thee
The Forest Reverie
© Edgar Allan Poe
'Tis said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of woe,
Stanzas
© Edgar Allan Poe
How often we forget all time, when lone
Admiring Nature's universal throne;
Her woods- her wilds- her mountains- the intense
Reply of HERS to OUR intelligence! [BYRON, The Island.]
Ocean: An Ode. Concluding With A Wish.
© Edward Young
Sweet rural scene Of flocks and green!
At careless ease my limbs are spread;
All nature still, But yonder rill;
And listening pines nod o'er my head:
Tamerlane
© Edgar Allan Poe
On mountain soil I first drew life:
The mists of the Taglay have shed
Nightly their dews upon my head,
And, I believe, the winged strife
And tumult of the headlong air
Have nestled in my very hair.
Al Aaraaf
© Edgar Allan Poe
"My Angelo! and why of them to be?
A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee-
And greener fields than in yon world above,
And woman's loveliness- and passionate love."
Imitation
© Edgar Allan Poe
A dark unfathomed tide
Of interminable pride -
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
In Youth I have Known One
© Edgar Allan Poe
How often we forget all time, when lone
Admiring Nature's universal throne;
Her woods - her winds - her mountains - the intense
Reply of Hers to Our intelligence!
