Power poems
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Lays of Sorrow
© Lewis Carroll
The day was wet, the rain fell souse
Like jars of strawberry jam, [1] a
sound was heard in the old henhouse,
A beating of a hammer.
The Three Voices
© Lewis Carroll
HE trilled a carol fresh and free,
He laughed aloud for very glee:
There came a breeze from off the sea:
Laodamia
© André Breton
"With sacrifice before the rising morn
Vows have I made by fruitless hope inspired;
And from the infernal Gods, 'mid shades forlorn
Of night, my slaughtered Lord have I required:
Celestial pity I again implore;—
Restore him to my sight—great Jove, restore!"
After the Pleasure Party: Lines Traced Under an Image of Amor Threatening
© Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
Fear me, virgin whosoever
Taking pride from love exempt,
Fear me, slighted. Never, never
Brave me, nor my fury tempt:
Downy wings, but wroth they beat
Tempest even in reason's seat.
The Tongues We Speak
© Patricia Goedicke
I have arrived here after taking many steps
Over the kitchen floors of friends and through their lives.
Sweet Machine
© Mark Doty
hanging his head between his knees,
spent, before he jerks himself up
and starts all over again.
I Am the Woman
© Gerard Malanga
I am the Woman, ark of the law and its breaker,
Who chastened her steps and taught her knees to be meek,
Bridled and bitted her heart and humbled her cheek,
Parcelled her will, and cried "Take more!" to the taker,
Shunned what they told her to shun, sought what they bade her seek,
Locked up her mouth from scornful speaking: now it is open to speak.
The Temper (I)
© George Herbert
How should I praise thee, Lord! How should my rhymes
Gladly engrave thy love in steel,
If what my soul doth feel sometimes,
My soul might ever feel!
The Death of Lincoln
© William Cullen Bryant
Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare,
Gentle and merciful and just!
from The Seasons: Spring
© James Thomson
As rising from the vegetable World
My Theme ascends, with equal Wing ascend,
“I Broke the Spell That Held Me Long”
© William Cullen Bryant
I broke the spell that held me long,
The dear, dear witchery of song.
I said, the poet’s idle lore
Shall waste my prime of years no more,
For Poetry, though heavenly born,
Consorts with poverty and scorn.
The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue
© Geoffrey Chaucer
But for to tellen yow of his array,
His hors weren goode, but he was nat gay;
Of fustian he wered a gypon
Al bismótered with his habergeon;
For he was late y-come from his viage,
And wente for to doon his pilgrymage.
The Lover: A Ballad
© Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
At length, by so much importunity press'd,
Take, C, at once, the inside of my breast;
The Higher Pantheism
© Alfred Tennyson
The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains,-
Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns?
from The Seasons: Winter
© James Thomson
Father of light and life! thou Good Supreme!
O teach me what is good! teach me Thyself!
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,
From every low pursuit; and feed my soul
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure,
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss!
The Operation
© Anne Sexton
Clean of the body’s hair,
I lie smooth from breast to leg.
All that was special, all that was rare
is common here. Fact: death too is in the egg.
Fact: the body is dumb, the body is meat.
And tomorrow the O.R. Only the summer was sweet.
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798
© André Breton
Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
Yarrow Revisited
© André Breton
The gallant Youth, who may have gained,
Or seeks, a "winsome Marrow,"
