War poems
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Jerusalem Delivered - Book 06 - part 01
© Torquato Tasso
THE ARGUMENT.
Argantes calls the Christians out to just:
An Explanation
© James Weldon Johnson
Look heah! 'Splain to me de reason
Why you said to Squire Lee,
Der wuz twelve ole chicken thieves
In dis heah town, includin' me.
Laus Veneris
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
Asleep or waking is it? for her neck,
Kissed over close, wears yet a purple speck
Wherein the pained blood falters and goes out;
Soft, and stung softly — fairer for a fleck.
Town Eclogues: Thursday; the Bassette-Table
© Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
CARDELIA. THE bassette-table spread, the tallier come,
Why stays SMILINDA in the dressing-room ?
Rise, pensive nymph ! the tallier stays for you.
Dead Cleopatra
© Conrad Aiken
Dead Cleopatra lies in a crystal casket,
Wrapped and spiced by the cunningest of hands.
Around her neck they have put a golden necklace
Her tatbebs, it is said, are worn with sands.
Kaddish
© Allen Ginsberg
Magnificent, mourned no more, marred of heart, mind behind, married dreamed, mortal changed—Ass and face done with murder.
In the world, given, flower maddened, made no Utopia, shut under pine, almed in Earth, balmed in Lone, Jehovah, accept.
Nameless, One Faced, Forever beyond me, beginningless, endless, Father in death. Tho I am not there for this Prophecy, I am unmarried, I’m hymnless, I’m Heavenless, headless in blisshood I would still adore
Thee, Heaven, after Death, only One blessed in Nothingness, not light or darkness, Dayless Eternity—
Take this, this Psalm, from me, burst from my hand in a day, some of my Time, now given to Nothing—to praise Thee—But Death
This is the end, the redemption from Wilderness, way for the Wonderer, House sought for All, black handkerchief washed clean by weeping—page beyond Psalm—Last change of mine and Naomi—to God’s perfect Darkness—Death, stay thy phantoms!
I started Early – Took my Dog – (656)
© Emily Dickinson
I started Early – Took my Dog –
And visited the Sea –
The Mermaids in the BasementBasement i.e., the bottom of the ocean
Came out to look at me –
Benevolent Assimilation
© George Ade
We haven't the appearance, goodness knows,
Of plain commercial men;
The Unknown Eros. Book I.
© Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore
Well dost thou, Love, thy solemn Feast to hold
In vestal February;
Not rather choosing out some rosy day
From the rich coronet of the coming May,
When all things meet to marry!
Dupont’s Round Fight (November, 1861)
© Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
In time and measure perfect moves
All Art whose aim is sure;
Evolving rhyme and stars divine
Have rules, and they endure.
Grandfather Bridgeman
© George Meredith
'Heigh, boys!' cried Grandfather Bridgeman, 'it's time before dinner to-day.'
He lifted the crumpled letter, and thumped a surprising 'Hurrah!'
Up jumped all the echoing young ones, but John, with the starch in his throat,
Said, 'Father, before we make noises, let's see the contents of the note.'
The old man glared at him harshly, and twinkling made answer: 'Too bad!
John Bridgeman, I'm always the whisky, and you are the water, my lad!'
“I have been a stranger in a strange land”
© Rita Dove
And there was no voice in her head,
no whispered intelligence lurking
in the leaves—just an ache that grew
until she knew she'd already lost everything
except desire, the red heft of it
warming her outstretched palm.
Folk Tune
© Joseph Brodsky
It's not that the Muse feels like clamming up,
it's more like high time for the lad's last nap.
And the scarf-waving lass who wished him the best
drives a steamroller across his chest.
from The Congo: Section 1
© Roald Dahl
I. THEIR BASIC SAVAGERY
Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room,
Three Women
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
My love is young, so young;
Young is her cheek, and her throat,
And life is a song to be sung
With love the word for each note.
Riding Home
© Katharine Tynan
Who are these that go to the high peaks and the snow?
Side by side do they ride, their steady eyes aglow.
Gallant gentlemen, they go spurring o'er the plain;
Home from the war again.
Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter
© Pindar
There was such speed in her little body,
And such lightness in her footfall,
It is no wonder her brown study
Astonishes us all.
Trouble with Math in a One-Room Country School
© Jane Kenyon
The others bent their heads and started in.
Confused, I asked my neighbor
Caelica 22: [I, with whose colours Myra dress’d her head]
© Fulke Greville
I, with whose colours Myra dress’d her head,
I, that ware posies of her own hand-making,
I, that mine own name in the chimneys read
By Myra finely wrought ere I was waking:
Must I look on, in hope time coming may
With change bring back my turn again to play?
