War poems
/ page 463 of 504 /
The Winds Out of the West Land Blow
© Alfred Edward Housman
The winds out of the west land blow,
My friends have breathed them there;
Warm with the blood of lads I know
Comes east the sighing air.
Reveille
© Alfred Edward Housman
Wake: the silver dusk returning
Up the beach of darkness brims,
And the ship of sunrise burning
Strands upon the eastern rims.
When I Watch the Living Meet
© Alfred Edward Housman
When I watch the living meet
And the moving pageant file
Warm and breathing through the street
Where I lodge a little while,
On Wenlock Edge The Wood's In Trouble
© Alfred Edward Housman
On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;
His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
And thick on Severn snow the leaves.
Ode To Meaning
© Robert Pinsky
Untrusting I court you. Wavering
I seek your face, I read
That Crusoe's knife
Reeked of you, that to defile you
The soldier makes the rabbi spit on the torah.
"I'll drown my book" says Shakespeare.
MacDougal Street
© Edna St. Vincent Millay
AS I went walking up and down to take the evening air,
(Sweet to meet upon the street, why must I be so shy?)
I saw him lay his hand upon her torn black hair;
("Little dirty Latin child, let the lady by!")
When We Are Old And These Rejoicing Veins
© Edna St. Vincent Millay
When we are old and these rejoicing veins
Are frosty channels to a muted stream,
And out of all our burning their remains
No feeblest spark to fire us, even in dream,
If Still Your Orchards Bear
© Edna St. Vincent Millay
Brother, that breathe the August air
Ten thousand years from now,
And smellif still your orchards bear
Tart apples on the bough
Sonnet 04: Not In This Chamber Only At My Birth
© Edna St. Vincent Millay
So is no warmth for me at any fire
To-day, when the world's fire has burned so low;
I kneel, spending my breath in vain desire,
At that cold hearth which one time roared so strong,
And straighten back in weariness, and long
To gather up my little gods and go.
Indifference
© Edna St. Vincent Millay
I said,for Love was laggard, O, Love was slow to come,
"I'll hear his step and know his step when I am warm in
bed;
But I'll never leave my pillow, though there be some
Invocation To The Muses
© Edna St. Vincent Millay
Archaic, or obsolescent at the least,
Be thy grave speaking and the careful words of thy clear song,
For the time wrongs us, and the words most common to our speech today
Salute and welcome to the feast
Conspicuous Evil or against him all day long
Cry out, telling of ugly deeds and most uncommon wrong.
Menses
© Edna St. Vincent Millay
(He speaks, but to himself, being aware how it is with her)
Think not I have not heard.
Well-fanged the double word
And well-directed flew.
When The Year Grows Old
© Edna St. Vincent Millay
I cannot but remember
When the year grows old
OctoberNovember
How she disliked the cold!
Interim
© Edna St. Vincent Millay
The room is full of you!As I came in
And closed the door behind me, all at once
A something in the air, intangible,
Yet stiff with meaning, struck my senses sick!
Justice Denied In Massachusetts
© Edna St. Vincent Millay
Let us abandon then our gardens and go home
And sit in the sitting-room
Shall the larkspur blossom or the corn grow under this cloud?
Sour to the fruitful seed
The Death Of Autumn
© Edna St. Vincent Millay
When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes,
And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind
Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned
Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes,
Elegy Before Death
© Edna St. Vincent Millay
There will be rose and rhododendron
When you are dead and under ground;
Still will be heard from white syringas
Heavy with bees, a sunny sound;
Ode To Silence
© Edna St. Vincent Millay
Aye, but she?
Your other sister and my other soul
Grave Silence, lovelier
Than the three loveliest maidens, what of her?
The Suicide
© Edna St. Vincent Millay
Thus I to Life, and ceased, and slightly smiled,
Looking at nothing; and my thin dreams filed
Before me one by one till once again
I set new words unto an old refrain:
Travel
© Edna St. Vincent Millay
The railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn't a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.
