Time poems
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The Waggoner - Canto Fourth
© William Wordsworth
THUS they, with freaks of proud delight,
Beguile the remnant of the night;
And many a snatch of jovial song
Regales them as they wind along;
Don't Tell the World that You're Waiting for Me
© Eliza Cook
THREE summers have gone since the first time we met, love,
And still 'tis in vain that I ask thee to wed ;
I hear no reply but a gentle " Not yet, love,"
With a smile of your lip, and a shake of your head.
December 27, 1879
© George MacDonald
Every time would have its song
If the heart were right,
Seeing Love all tender-strong
Fills the day and night.
"Cease smilng, Dear! a little while be sad "
© Ernest Christopher Dowson
Cease smiling, Dear! a little while be sad,
Here in the silence, under the wan moon;
Sweet are thine eyes, but how can I be glad,
Knowing they change so soon?
Impression Fausse
© Paul Verlaine
Dame mouse patters
Black against the shadow grey;
Dame mouse patters
Grey against the black.
Allegiances
© William Stafford
It is time for all the heroes to go home
if they have any, time for all of us common ones
to locate ourselves by the real things
we live by.
Thinking For Berky
© William Stafford
In the late night listening from bed
I have joined the ambulance or the patrol
screaming toward some drama, the kind of end
that Berky must have some day, if she isn't dead.
Stanzas In Meditation: Stanza I
© Gertrude Stein
I caught a bird which made a ball
And they thought better of it.
Security
© William Stafford
Tomorrow will have an island. Before night
I always find it. Then on to the next island.
These places hidden in the day separate
and come forward if you beckon.
But you have to know they are there before they exist.
Europe, MDCCCCI To Napoleon
© Robert Laurence Binyon
Soars still thy spirit, Child of Fire?
Dost hear the camps of Europe hum?
On eagle wings dost hover nigher
At the far rolling of the drum?
To see the harvest thou hast sown
Smilest thou now, Napoleon?
Ask Me
© William Stafford
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
Lives
© Arthur Rimbaud
I remember silver hours and sunlight by the rivers,
the hand of the country on my shoulder
and our carresses standing on the spicy plains.--
A flight of scarlet pigeons thunders round my thoughts.
From The Woolworth Tower
© Sara Teasdale
Vivid with love, eager for greater beauty
Out of the night we come
Into the corridor, brilliant and warm.
A metal door slides open,
June 6
© David Lehman
No two are identical though
they begin from the same
point in time the same point in
the dream when the radio shuts
May 8
© David Lehman
700 francs will get you $109.91
on this muggy May afternoon
which is good to know since
I just found 700 francs in my wallet
The Buried Chief
© Sir Henry Parkes
With speechless lips and solemn tread
They brought the Lawyer-Statesman home:
They laid him with the gather'd dead,
Where rich and poor like brothers come.
December 25
© David Lehman
Christmas defeated Chanukah
once again last night
by a margin of three billion dollars
or so, but every time I hear
Operation Memory
© David Lehman
We were smoking some of this knockout weed when
Operation Memory was announced. To his separate bed
Each soldier went, counting backwards from a hundred
With a needle in his arm. And there I was, in the middle
Of a recession, in the middle of a strange city, between jobs
And apartments and wives. Nobody told me the gun was loaded.
Ninth Inning
© David Lehman
He woke up in New York City on Valentine's Day,
Speeding. The body in the booth next to his was still warm,
Was gone. He had bought her a sweater, a box of chocolate
Said her life wasn't working he looked stricken she said
