Morning poems
/ page 266 of 310 /
To Constantia, Singing
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
I.
Thus to be lost and thus to sink and die,
Perchance were death indeed!Constantia, turn!
In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie,
Une Charogne (The Carcass)
© Charles Baudelaire
Rappelez-vous l'objet que nous vîmes, mon âme,
Ce beau matin d'été si doux:
Au détour d'un sentier une charogne infâme
Sur un lit semé de cailloux,
Adventures Of Isabel
© Ogden Nash
Isabel met an enormous bear,
Isabel, Isabel, didn't care;
The bear was hungry, the bear was ravenous,
The bear's big mouth was cruel and cavernous.
A Lady Who Thinks She Is Thirty
© Ogden Nash
Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.
The Obesion
© Craig Erick Chaffin
Hawaiians once believed
that mana was proportional to mass,
so royalty were encouraged to overeat,
confirming Newton's laws before they knew
Europeans thought it gauche
to serve Captain Cooke stew.
Leaf Sermon
© Craig Erick Chaffin
I have been spiritually poisoned
by the unclean, in ignorance
blessed their springs.
In consequence I withered
Nearly A Valediction
© Marilyn Hacker
You happened to me. I was happened to
like an abandoned building by a bull-
dozer, like the van that missed my skull
happened a two-inch gash across my chin.
Morning News
© Marilyn Hacker
Spring wafts up the smell of bus exhaust, of bread
and fried potatoes, tips green on the branches,
repeats old news: arrogance, ignorance, war.
A cinder-block wall shared by two houses
For K. J., Leaving and Coming Back
© Marilyn Hacker
August First: it was a year ago
we drove down from St.-Guilhem-le-Désert
to open the house in St. Guiraud
The Story of Sigurd the Volsung (excerpt)
© William Morris
"When thou hearest the fool rejoicing, and he saith, 'It is over and past,
And the wrong was better than right, and hate turns into love at the last,
And we strove for nothing at all, and the Gods are fallen asleep;
For so good is the world a-growing that the evil good shall reap:'
Then loosen thy sword in the scabbard and settle the helm on thine head,
For men betrayed are mighty, and great are the wrongfully dead.
Summer Dawn
© William Morris
Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips,
Think but one thought of me up in the stars.
The summer night waneth, the morning light slips,
Faint and grey 'twixt the leaves of the aspen, betwixt the cloud-bars
Song VIII: While Ye Deemed Him A-Sleeping
© William Morris
Love is enough: while ye deemed him a-sleeping,
There were signs of his coming and sounds of his feet;
His touch it was that would bring you to weeping,
When the summer was deepest and music most sweet:
Song VI: Cherish Life that Abideth
© William Morris
Love is enough: cherish life that abideth,
Lest ye die ere ye know him, and curse and misname him;
For who knows in what ruin of all hope he hideth,
On what wings of the terror of darkness he rideth?
And what is the joy of man's life that ye blame him
For his bliss grown a sword, and his rest grown a fire?
Song IX: Ho Ye Who Seek Saving
© William Morris
Love is enough: ho ye who seek saving,
Go no further; come hither; there have been who have found it,
And these know the House of Fulfilment of Craving;
These know the Cup with the roses around it;
These know the World's Wound and the balm that hath bound it:
Cry out, the World heedeth not, 'Love, lead us home!'
Song III: It Grew Up Without Heeding
© William Morris
Love is enough: it grew up without heeding
In the days when ye knew not its name nor its measure,
And its leaflets untrodden by the light feet of pleasure
Had no boast of the blossom, no sign of the seeding,
As the morning and evening passed over its treasure.
Song II: Have No Thought for Tomorrow
© William Morris
Love is enough: have no thought for to-morrow
If ye lie down this even in rest from your pain,
Ye who have paid for your bliss with great sorrow:
For as it was once so it shall be again.
Ye shall cry out for death as ye stretch forth in vain
Sir Galahad, a Christmas Mystery
© William Morris
It is the longest night in all the year,
Near on the day when the Lord Christ was born;
Six hours ago I came and sat down here,
And ponder'd sadly, wearied and forlorn.
King Arthur's Tomb
© William Morris
Hot August noon: already on that day
Since sunrise through the Wiltshire downs, most sad
Of mouth and eye, he had gone leagues of way;
Ay and by night, till whether good or bad
In Arthur's House
© William Morris
"As quoth the lion to the mouse,"
The man said; "in King Arthur's House
Men are not names of men alone,
But coffers rather of deeds done."
