Time poems
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He Has Lived In Many Houses
© Thomas Lux
furnished rooms, flats, a hayloft,
a tent, motels, under a table,
under an overturned rowboat, in a villa (briefly) but not,
as yet, a yurt. In these places
Motel Seedy
© Thomas Lux
The artisans of this room, who designed the lamp base
(a huge red slug with a hole
where its heart should be) or chose this print
of a butterscotch sunset,
Gorgeous Surfaces
© Thomas Lux
They are, the surfaces, gorgeous: a master
pastry chef at work here, the dips and whorls,
the wrist-twist
squeezes of cream from the tube
To The Earl Of Clare
© George Gordon Byron
The recollectlon seems alone
Dearer than all the joys I've known,
When distant far from you:
Though pain, 'tis still a pleasing pain,
To trace those days and hours again,
And sigh again, adieu!
A Voice From The Factories
© Caroline Norton
WHEN fallen man from Paradise was driven,
Forth to a world of labour, death, and care;
Still, of his native Eden, bounteous Heaven
Resolved one brief memorial to spare,
Alexis And Dora
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
FARTHER and farther away, alas! at each moment the vessel
Hastens, as onward it glides, cleaving the foam-cover'd flood!
A Library Of Skulls
© Thomas Lux
Shelves and stacks and shelves of skulls, a Dewey
Decimal number inked on each unfurrowed forehead.
Here's a skull
who, before he lost his fleshy parts
Torn Shades
© Thomas Lux
How, in the first place, did
they get torn-pulled down hard
too many times: to hide a blow,
or sex, or a man
Victoria
© Alfred Austin
The lark went up, the mower whet his scythe,
On golden meads kine ruminating lay,
And all the world felt young again and blithe,
Just as to-day.
The Gay Gordons
© Sir Henry Newbolt
(Dargai, October 20, 1897)
Whos for the Gathering, who's for the Fair?
The Night Cometh
© John McCrae
Cometh the night. The wind falls low,
The trees swing slowly to and fro:
Around the church the headstones grey
Cluster, like children strayed away
But found again, and folded so.
The Dead Master
© John McCrae
Amid earth's vagrant noises, he caught the note sublime:
To-day around him surges from the silences of Time
A flood of nobler music, like a river deep and broad,
Fit song for heroes gathered in the banquet-hall of God.
The Anxious Dead
© John McCrae
O guns, fall silent till the dead men hear
Above their heads the legions pressing on:
(These fought their fight in time of bitter fear,
And died not knowing how the day had gone.)
To Daisies
© Francis Thompson
Ah, drops of gold in whitening flame
Burning, we know your lovely name -
Recompense
© John McCrae
Ere harvest time, upon earth's peaceful breast
Each laid him down among the unreaping dead.
"Labour hath other recompense than rest,
Else were the toiler like the fool," I said;
"God meteth him not less, but rather more
Because he sowed and others reaped his store."
Channels
© Sheldon Allan Silverstein
Channel 1's no fun.
Channel 2's just news.
Channel 3's hard to see.
Channel 4 is just a bore.
Isandlwana
© John McCrae
Scarlet coats, and crash o' the band,
The grey of a pauper's gown,
A soldier's grave in Zululand,
And a woman in Brecon Town.
The Fault Is Not Mine
© Walter Savage Landor
The fault is not mine if I love you too much,
I loved you too little too long,
Such ever your graces, your tenderness such,
And the music the heart gave the tongue.
