Smile poems
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Being old in the game
© Ivan Donn Carswell
It was a half-life that seemed like a genuine world
wielding hard symbolism over those who ruled it; we
lived vaguely in teen-easy ambivalence whilst our peers
took their chances in ordered existence, wearing
To A Picture Of Eleanor Duse
© Sara Teasdale
Was ever any face like this before
So light a veiling for the soul within,
So pure and yet so pitiful for sin?
They say the soul will pass the Heavy Door,
Love's Prayer
© John Hay
If Heaven would hear my prayer,
My dearest wish would be,
Thy sorrows not to share
But take them all on me;
If Heaven would hear my prayer.
Ah, that Murphy girl
© Ivan Donn Carswell
Lets talk about the weather then,
would that help you take your ease?
Gossip is so rare from you
the noise of falling leaves is louder than
your breathing; if breathing is whatever is
sustaining you.
A few kind words
© Ivan Donn Carswell
A few kind words, what can be bought with that?
In essence just a clique of tidy prose,
a verb, a noun, perhaps an adjectival phrase
offered in the form of venal praise
The Rainwalkers
© Denise Levertov
An old man whose black face
shines golden-brown as wet pebbles
under the streetlamp, is walking two mongrel dogs of dis-
proportionate size, in the rain,
in the relaxed early-evening avenue.
In Memory Of Charles Wentworth Upham, Jr.
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
HE was all sunshine; in his face
The very soul of sweetness shone;
Fairest and gentlest of his race;
None like him we can call our own.
Maiden-Song
© Christina Georgina Rossetti
But I have a will to work,
And a heart for you:
Bid me stay or bid me go.'
Crumble-Hall
© Mary Leapor
When Friends or Fortune frown on Mira's Lay,
Or gloomy Vapours hide the Lamp of Day;
With low'ring Forehead, and with aching Limbs,
Oppress'd with Head-ach, and eternal Whims,
Sad Mira vows to quit the darling Crime:
Yet takes her Farewel, and Repents, in Rhyme.
Lines To ---.
© Frances Anne Kemble
When 'twas my hap to meet you, for awhile
Our paths together layand each one brought
The Shepherd's Week : Monday; or the Squabble
© John Gay
Lobbin Clout.
Ah Blouzelind! I love thee more by half,
Than does their fawns, or cows the new-fallen calf;
Wo worth the tongue! may blisters sore it gall,
That names Buxoma, Blouzelind withal.
In California During the Gulf War
© Denise Levertov
Among the blight-killed eucalypts, among
trees and bushes rusted by Christmas frosts,
the yards and hillsides exhausted by five years of drought,
The Graves Of A Household
© Felicia Dorothea Hemans
They grew in beauty, side by side,
They fill'd one home with glee;
Their graves are sever'd, far and wide,
By mount, and stream, and sea.
Turns And Movies: Rose And Murray
© Conrad Aiken
After the movie, when the lights come up,
He takes her powdered hand behind the wings;
She, all in yellow, like a buttercup,
Lifts her white face, yearns up to him, and clings;
Turns And Movies: Duval's Birds
© Conrad Aiken
The parrot, screeching, flew out into the darkness,
Circled three times above the upturned faces
With a great whir of brilliant outspread wings,
And then returned to stagger on her finger.
"My Fair, no beauty of thine will last"
© Alice Meynell
My Fair, no beauty of thine will last
Save in my love's eternity.
Thy smiles, that light thee fitfully,
Are lost for ever--their moment past--
Except the few thou givest to me.
Eclogue:--A Bit O Sly Coorten
© William Barnes
Now, Fanny, 'tis too bad, you teazèn maïd!
How leäte you be a' come! Where have ye staÿ'd?
How long you have a-meäde me waït about!
I thought you werden gwaïn to come ageän:
I had a mind to goo back hwome ageän.
This idden when you promis'd to come out.
The House Of Dust: Part 04: 04: Counterpoint: Two Rooms
© Conrad Aiken
He, in the room above, grown old and tired,
She, in the room belowhis floor her ceiling
Pursue their separate dreams. He turns his light,
And throws himself on the bed, face down, in laughter. . . .
She, by the window, smiles at a starlight night,
The House Of Dust: Part 04: 03: Palimpsest: A Deceitful Portrait
© Conrad Aiken
Or 'one day dies eventless as another,
Leaving the seeker still unsatisfied,
And more convinced life yields no satisfaction'?
Or 'seek too hard, the sight at length grows callous,
And beauty shines in vain'?
