Time poems
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The Drunken Boat
© Arthur Rimbaud
As I was going down impassive Rivers,
I no longer felt myself guided by haulers:
Morte d'Arthur
© Alfred Tennyson
To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere:
"It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus,
Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm.
A little thing may harm a wounded man.
Yet I thy hest will all perform at full,
Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word."
The Ghost
© Richard Harris Barham
There stands a City,- neither large nor small,
Its air and situation sweet and pretty;
Jes' Wonderin'!
© Edgar Albert Guest
I WONDER if they're bitin' way off yonder in the bay!
I wonder if they're fightin' very hard t' git away!
I wonder if they're hungry, an' would grab a silver spoon
Th' way that I remember they used t' do in June!
I wonder if Ole Daddy's caught his big one yet this year;
An' I guess the boss is wonderin' why I'm sittin' idle here.
Our God, Our Help
© Isaac Watts
Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home:
The Gardener 38
© Anselm Hollo
My love, once upon a time your poet launched a great epic in his mind.
The Black Destrier. A Ballad Of The Third Crusade
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
FIRST 'mid the lion Richard's host,
Sir Aymer fought in Holy Land;
And they loved him well for his honest heart,
And they feared, for his stalwart hand.
Thrice Toss These Oaken Ashes
© Thomas Campion
Thrice toss these oaken ashes in the air,
Thrice sit thou mute in this enchanted chair,
Then thrice three times tie up this true love's knot,
And murmur soft "She will, or she will not."
Caliban upon Setebos
© Robert Browning
'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match,
But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;
Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that:
Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon,
And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same.
brothers
© Paul Celan
(being a conversation in eight poems between an aged Lucifer and God, though only Lucifer is heard. The time is long after.)
1
invitation
Sunday: New Guinea
© Ishmael Reed
The bugle sounds the measured call to prayers,
The band starts bravely with a clarion hymn,
From every side, singly, in groups, in pairs,
Each to his kind of service comes to worship Him.
The Humbled Heart
© Siegfried Sassoon
Go your seeking, soul.
Mine the proven path of time’s foretelling.
Yours accordance with some mysteried whole.
I am but your passion-haunted dwelling.
Leave the Hand In
© John Ashbery
Furthermore, Mr. Tuttle used to have to run in the streets.
Now, each time friendship happens, they’re fully booked.
Essay on Psychiatrists
© Robert Pinsky
It's crazy to think one could describe them—
Calling on reason, fantasy, memory, eyes and ears—
As though they were all alike any more
Incantation
© Czeslaw Milosz
Human reason is beautiful and invincible.
No bars, no barbed wire, no pulping of books,
Deeply Morbid
© Stevie Smith
Deeply morbid deeply morbid was the girl who typed the letters
Always out of office hours running with her social betters
But when daylight and the darkness of the office closed about her
Not for this ah not for this her office colleagues came to doubt her
It was that look within her eye
Why did it always seem to say goodbye?
The Dream Of A Boy Who Lived At Nine-Elms
© William Brighty Rands
Nine grenadiers, with bayonets in their guns;
Nine bakers' baskets, with hot cross buns;
