Time poems
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Errata
© Charles Simic
Where it says snow
read teeth-marks of a virgin
Where it says knife read
you passed through my bones
The Oldest Child
© Charles Simic
Somewhere perhaps the lovers lie
Under the dark cypress trees,
Trembling with happiness,
But here there's only your beard of many days
And a night moth shivering
Under your hand pressed against your chest.
Think'st thou to seduce me then
© Thomas Campion
Think'st thou to seduce me then with words that have no meaning?
Parrots so can learn to prate, our speech by pieces gleaning;
Nurses teach their children so about the time of weaning.
Transfiguration
© Louisa May Alcott
Mysterious death! who in a single hour
Life's gold can so refine
And by thy art divine
Change mortal weakness to immortal power!
At a Pantomime. By a Bilious One
© William Schwenck Gilbert
An Actor sits in doubtful gloom,
His stock-in-trade unfurled,
In a damp funereal dressing-room
In the Theatre Royal, World.
The Lay of a Golden Goose
© Louisa May Alcott
Long ago in a poultry yard
One dull November morn,
Beneath a motherly soft wing
A little goose was born.
The Parting II
© Anne Brontë
I knew her when her eye was bright,
I knew her when her step was light
And blithesome as a mountain doe's,
And when her cheek was like the rose,
And when her voice was full and free,
And when her smile was sweet to see.
From The Short Story What The Swallows Did
© Louisa May Alcott
Swallow, swallow, neighbor swallow,
Starting on your autumn flight,
Pause a moment at my window,
Twitter softly your good-night;
From The Short Story A Christmas Dream, And How It Came True
© Louisa May Alcott
From our happy home
Through the world we roam
One week in all the year,
Making winter spring
With the joy we bring
For Christmas-tide is here.
Fairy Song
© Louisa May Alcott
The moonlight fades from flower and rose
And the stars dim one by one;
The tale is told, the song is sung,
And the Fairy feast is done.
Peter Sinning And Repenting
© John Newton
When Peter boasted, soon he fell,
Yet was by grace restored;
His case should be regarded well
By all who fear the Lord.
The Colossi Of The Plain
© Mathilde Blind
Ah, once below you through the glittering plain
Stretched avenues of Sphinxes to the Nile;
And, flanked with towers, each consecrated fane
Enshrined its god. The broken gods lie prone
In roofless halls, their hallowed terrors gone,
Helpless beneath Heaven's penetrating smile.
Madge Linsey, Or The Three Souls
© Dora Sigerson Shorter
Then by Madge Linsey's side knelt he a little while,
"So of our wilful sins pay we the toll.
Even as she were I, had I but followed her.
But the Lord succoured me saving my soul."
To Lallie (Outside the British Museum)
© Amy Levy
Up those Museum steps you came,
And straightway all my blood was flame,
O Lallie, Lallie!
In Memoriam Nicol Drysdale Stenhouse
© Henry Kendall
SHALL he, on whom the fair lord, Delphicus,
Turned gracious eyes and countenance of shine,
Be left to lie without a wreath from us,
To sleep without a flower upon his shrine?
The Changeling
© Russell Edson
A man had a son who was an anvil. And then sometimes
he was an automobile tire.
I do wish you would sit still, said the father.
Sometimes his son was a rock.
You
© Russell Edson
Out of nothing there comes a time called childhood, which
is simply a path leading through an archway called
adolescence. A small town there, past the arch called youth.
Soon, down the road, where one almost misses the life
