War poems
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Prothalamion
© Delmore Schwartz
"little soul, little flirting,
little perverse one
where are you off to now?
little wan one, firm one
little exposed one...
and never make fun of me again."
Sonnet: O City, City
© Delmore Schwartz
Whence, if ever, shall come the actuality
Of a voice speaking the mind's knowing,
The sunlight bright on the green windowshade,
And the self articulate, affectionate, and flowing,
Ease, warmth, light, the utter showing,
When in the white bed all things are made.
Tired And Unhappy, You Think Of Houses
© Delmore Schwartz
Tired and unhappy, you think of houses
Soft-carpeted and warm in the December evening,
While snow's white pieces fall past the window,
And the orange firelight leaps.
A Young Child And His Pregnant Mother
© Delmore Schwartz
Measured by his distance from the sky,
Spoken in two vowels,
I am I.
A Dream Of Whitman Paraphrased, Recognized And Made More Vivid By Renoir
© Delmore Schwartz
Twenty-eight naked young women bathed by the shore
Or near the bank of a woodland lake
Twenty-eight girls and all of them comely
Worthy of Mack Sennett's camera and Florenz Ziegfield's
Foolish Follies.
America, America!
© Delmore Schwartz
I am a poet of the Hudson River and the heights above it,
the lights, the stars, and the bridges
I am also by self-appointment the laureate of the Atlantic
-of the peoples' hearts, crossing it
to new America.
For The One Who Would Take Man's Life In His Hands
© Delmore Schwartz
Tiger Christ unsheathed his sword,
Threw it down, became a lamb.
Swift spat upon the species, but
Took two women to his heart.
Crucifix In A Deathhand
© Charles Bukowski
yes, they begin out in a willow, I think
the starch mountains begin out in the willow
and keep right on going without regard for
pumas and nectarines
The Forest Reverie
© Edgar Allan Poe
'Tis said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of woe,
Ocean: An Ode. Concluding With A Wish.
© Edward Young
Sweet rural scene Of flocks and green!
At careless ease my limbs are spread;
All nature still, But yonder rill;
And listening pines nod o'er my head:
The Valley Of Unrest
© Edgar Allan Poe
Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
For Annie
© Edgar Allan Poe
And I rest so composedly,
Now, in my bed
That any beholder
Might fancy me dead-
Might start at beholding me,
Thinking me dead.
One Word More
© Robert Browning
There they are, my fifty men and women
Naming me the fifty poems finished!
Take them, Love, the book and me together;
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.
The Jubilee Sov'reign
© Marriott Edgar
On Jubilee Day the Ramsbottoms
Invited relations to tea,
Including young Albert's grandmother-
An awkward old . . party, was she.
Henry the Seventh
© Marriott Edgar
Henry the Seventh of England
Wasn't out of the Royal top drawer,
The only connection of which he could boast,
He were King's nephew's brother-in-law.
Albert and His Savings
© Marriott Edgar
One day, little Albert Ramsbottom
To see 'ow much money 'e'd got
Stuck a knife in 'is money-box slot 'ole
And fiddled and fished out the lot.
What He Thought
© Heather McHugh
were due to leave
tomorrow. For our parting evening then
our host chose something in a family restaurant,
and there we sat and chatted, sat and chewed, till,
sensible it was our last big chance to be Poetic, make
our mark, one of us asked
The Minimal
© Theodore Roethke
I study the lives on a leaf: the little
Sleepers, numb nudgers in cold dimensions,
Beetles in caves, newts, stone-deaf fishes,
Lice tethered to long limp subterranean weeds,
The Far Field
© Theodore Roethke
I learned not to fear infinity,
The far field, the windy cliffs of forever,
The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow,
The wheel turning away from itself,
The sprawl of the wave,
The on-coming water.
Snake
© Theodore Roethke
I saw a young snake glide
Out of the mottled shade
And hang, limp on a stone:
A thin mouth, and a tongue
Stayed, in the still air.
