Travel poems
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Stars Over The Dordogne
© Sylvia Plath
Stars are dropping thick as stones into the twiggy
Picket of trees whose silhouette is darker
Than the dark of the sky because it is quite starless.
The woods are a well. The stars drop silently.
A Letter From the Trenches to a School Friend
© Charles Hamilton Sorley
I have not brought my Odyssey
With me here across the sea;
But you'll remember, when I say
How, when they went down Sparta way,
Why East Wind Chills
© Dylan Thomas
When cometh Jack Frost? the children ask.
Shall they clasp a comet in their fists?
Not till, from high and low, their dust
Sprinkles in children's eyes a long-last sleep
And dusk is crowded with the children's ghosts,
Shall a white answer echo from the rooftops.
Dear Reader
© William Taylor Collins
Baudelaire considers you his brother,
and Fielding calls out to you every few paragraphs
as if to make sure you have not closed the book,
and now I am summoning you up again,
attentive ghost, dark silent figure standing
in the doorway of these words.
Nymphidia, The Court Of Fairy (excerpts)
© Michael Drayton
But let us leave Queen Mab a while,
Through many a gate, o'er many a stile,
That now had gotten by this wile,
Her dear Pigwiggen kissing;
Sirena
© Michael Drayton
NEAR to the silver Trent
SIRENA dwelleth;
She to whom Nature lent
All that excelleth;
Sonnet LXII: When First I Ended
© Michael Drayton
When first I ended, then I first began,
The more I travell'd, further from my rest,
Where most I lost, there most of all I wan,
Pined with hunger rising from a feast.
Sonnet I: Like an Advent'rous Seafarer
© Michael Drayton
Like an advent'rous seafarer am I,
Who hath some long and dang'rous voyage been,
And, call'd to tell of his discovery,
How far he sail'd, what countries he had seen;
Italy : 1. The Lake Of Geneva
© Samuel Rogers
Day glimmered in the east, and the white Moon
Hung like a vapour in the cloudless sky,
I have fallen into unconsciousness
© Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi
I have got out of my own control, I have fallen into unconsciousness; in my utter unconsciousness how joyful I am with myself!
The darling sewed up my eyes so that I might not see other than him, so that suddenly I opened my eyes on his face.
My soul fought with me saying, Do not pain me; I said, Take your divorce. She said, Grant it; I granted it.
When my mother saw on my cheek the brand of your love she cut my umbilical cord on that, the moment I was born.
The Death of Cromwell
© Andrew Marvell
That Providence which had so long the care
Of Cromwell's head, and numbered every hair,
Now in itself (the glass where all appears)
Had seen the period of his golden years:
And thenceforh only did attend to trace
What death might least so fair a life deface.
Upon The Hill And Grove At Bill-borow
© Andrew Marvell
To the Lord Fairfax.See how the arched Earth does here
Rise in a perfect Hemisphere!
The stiffest Compass could not strike
A line more circular and like;
A Poem Upon The Death Of O.C.
© Andrew Marvell
That Providence which had so long the care
Of Cromwell's head, and numbred ev'ry hair,
Now in its self (the Glass where all appears)
Had seen the period of his golden Years:
Last Instructions to a Painter
© Andrew Marvell
Here, Painter, rest a little, and survey
With what small arts the public game they play.
For so too Rubens, with affairs of state,
His labouring pencil oft would recreate.
Moon Fishing
© Lisel Mueller
When the moon was full they came to the water.
some with pitchforks, some with rakes,
some with sieves and ladles,
and one with a silver cup.
Servant Girl and Grocer's Boy
© Joyce Kilmer
Her lips' remark was: "Oh, you kid!"
Her soul spoke thus (I know it did):"O king of realms of endless joy,
My own, my golden grocer's boy,
I am a princess forced to dwell
The Twelve-Forty-Five
© Joyce Kilmer
(For Edward J. Wheeler)Within the Jersey City shed
The engine coughs and shakes its head,
The smoke, a plume of red and white,
Waves madly in the face of night.
Gates and Doors
© Joyce Kilmer
(For Richardson Little Wright)There was a gentle hostler
(And blessed be his name!)
He opened up the stable
The night Our Lady came.
Roofs
© Joyce Kilmer
(For Amelia Josephine Burr)The road is wide and the stars are out
and the breath of the night is sweet,
And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet.
But I'm glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my
