Wish poems
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Memory As a Hearing Aid
© Tony Hoagland
Somewhere, someone is asking a question,
and I stand squinting at the classroom
with one hand cupped behind my ear,
trying to figure out where that voice is coming from.
Idem the Same: A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson
© Gertrude Stein
I knew too that through them I knew too that he was through, I knew too that he threw them. I knew too that they were through, I knew too I knew too, I knew I knew them.
The Times
© Charles Churchill
The time hath been, a boyish, blushing time,
When modesty was scarcely held a crime;
Town Eclogues: Wednesday; The Tête à Tête
© Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
DANCINDA. " NO, fair DANCINDA, no ; you strive in vain
" To calm my care and mitigate my pain ;
" If all my sighs, my cares, can fail to move,
" Ah ! sooth me not with fruitless vows of love."
Absolution
© Edith Nesbit
He stood beside her, young and strong, and swayed
With pity for the sorrow in her eyes--
Which, as she raised them to his own, conveyed
Into his soul a sort of sad surprise--
A Vagabond
© James Tate
Well, if it’s permitted, then
let’s regulate him, let’s testify
against his thimble, and moderate his gloves
before they sew an apron.
"Needs must I sing"
© Thibaut de Champagne
Lady, relent: thou whom all gifts adorn,
Who dost all worth and every grace display,
More than all other dames that e'er were born,
And give me kindly succour, since you may.
Rescue The Slave
© Anonymous
This song was composed while George Latimer, the fugitive slave, was
confined in Leverett Street Jail, Boston, expecting to be carried back
to Virginia by James B. Gray, his claimant.
Bel Canto
© Kenneth Koch
The sun is high, the seaside air is sharp,
And salty light reveals the Mayan School.
The Chosen
© Thomas Hardy
A woman for whom great gods might strive!
I said, and kissed her there:
And then I thought of the other five,
And of how charms outwear.
Silchester
© John Kenyon
My travels' dream and talk for many a year,
At length I view thee, hoary Silchester!
Pilgrim long vowed; now only hither led,
As with new zeal by fervent Mitford fed,
Whose voice of poesy and classic grace
Had breathed a new religion on the place.
Venus And Adonis
© William Shakespeare
TO THE
RIGHT HONORABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY,
EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, AND BARON OF TICHFIELD.
RIGHT HONORABLE,
The Choosing Of Valentines
© Thomas Nashe
It was the merie moneth of Februarie,
When yong men, in their iollie roguerie,
Rose earelie in the morne fore breake of daie,
To seeke them valentines soe trimme and gaie;
The Pleasures of Hope: Part 1
© Thomas Campbell
At summer eve, when Heaven's ethereal bow
Spans with bright arch the glittering bills below,
Valeries Confession. To A Friend.
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
THEY declare that I'm gracefully pretty,
The very best waltzer that whirls;
They say I am sparkling and witty,
The pearl, the queen rose-bud of girls.
Aside
© Ishmael Reed
Mail-day, and over the world in a thousand drag-nets
The bundles of letters are dumped on the docks and beaches,
And all that is dear to the personal conscious reaches
Around us again like filings around iron magnets,
And war stands aside for an hour and looks at our faces
Of total absorption that seem to have lost their places.
The Three Graves. A Fragment Of A Sexton's Tale
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The grapes upon the Vicar's wall
Were ripe as ripe could be;
And yellow leaves in sun and wind
Were falling from the tree.
From “Old English Rune Poem”
© Pierre Reverdy
i (feoh)
Wealth is a comfort to every man
yet every man must divide it mightily
If ??he wishes to have the measurer’s mercy
Aileen
© Henry Kendall
A splendid sun betwixt the trees
Long spikes of flame did shoot,
When turning to the fragrant South,
With longing eyes and burning mouth,
I stretched a hand athwart the drouth,
And plucked at cooling fruit.
