Poems begining by P
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Prisoners
© Denise Levertov
We taste other food that life,
like a charitable farm-girl,
holds out to us as we pass—
but our mouths are puckered,
a taint of ash on the tongue.
Portrait
© Daniel Nester
All moods: at a party everybody’s delight;
Intent while brown curls shadow the serious page;
When people are stuffy (more correct than right)
The stamp and turn on heel of a little girl’s rage.
But woman mostly, as winter moonlight sees,
Impetuous midnight, and the dune’s dark trees.
Paradise Lost: Book IV
© Patrick Kavanagh
"Which of those rebel Spirits adjudg'd to Hell
Com'st thou, escap'd thy prison? and, transform'd,
Why satt'st thou like an enemy in wait,
Here watching at the head of these that sleep?"
Peace In A Palace
© Alfred Noyes
_"All but the whimper of the sea gulls flying,
Endlessly round and round,
Waiting for the faces, the faces from the darkness,
The dreadful rising faces of the drowned._
Portico
© Rubén Dario
I am the singer who of late put by
The verse azulean and the chant profane,
Across whose nights a rossignol would cry
And prove himself a lark at morn again.
Phyllis
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
Sunshine or shadow, or gold day or gray day,
Life must be lived as our destinies rule;
Leisure or labor or work day or play day
Feasts for the famous and fun for the fool;
Phyllis, ah, Phyllis, my life is a gray day.
Poems - Written On The Deaths Of Three Lovely Children
© Jean Ingelow
Yellow leaves, how fast they flutter-woodland hollows thickly strewing,
Where the wan October sunbeams scantly in the mid-day win,
While the dim gray clouds are drifting, and in saddened hues imbuing
All without and all within!
Pygmaeo-gerano-machia: The Battle Of The Pygmies and Cranes
© James Beattie
Nor less th' alarm that shook the world below,
Where march'd in pomp of war th' embattled foe;
Where mannikins with haughty step advance,
And grasp the shield, and couch the quivering lance;
To right and left the lengthening lines they form,
And rank'd in deep array await the storm.
Preface
© Margaret Elizabeth Sangster
The candlelight sweeps softly through the room,
Filling dim surfaces with golden laughter,
Touching with mystery each high hung rafter,
Cutting a path of promise through the gloom.
Prayer of a Soldier in France
© Joyce Kilmer
My shoulders ache beneath my pack
(Lie easier, Cross, upon His back).
Portrait of a Figure near Water
© Jane Kenyon
Rebuked, she turned and ran
uphill to the barn. Anger, the inner
arsonist, held a match to her brain.
She observed her life: against her will
it survived the unwavering flame.
Parting: 1940
© Daniel Nester
Not knowing in what season this again
Not knowing when again the arms outyearning
Nor the flung smile in eyes not knowing when
Passion for Solitude
© Cesare Pavese
The night doesn’t matter. The square patch of sky
whispers all the loud noises to me, and a small star
struggles in emptiness, far from all foods,
from all houses, alien. It isn’t enough for itself,
it needs too many companions. Here in the dark, alone,
my body is calm, it feels it’s in charge.
Pauline, A Fragment of a Question
© Robert Browning
And I can love nothing-and this dull truth
Has come the last: but sense supplies a love
Encircling me and mingling with my life.
Prologue
© Heinrich Heine
Good-Fortune is a giddy maid,
Fickle and restless as a fawn;
She smoothes your hair; and then the jade
Kisses you quickly, and is gone.
Planetarium
© Adrienne Rich
Thinking of Caroline Herschel (1750—1848)
astronomer, sister of William; and others.
A woman in the shape of a monster
a monster in the shape of a woman
the skies are full of them
