Wish poems
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Albert's Return
© Marriott Edgar
You've `eard `ow young Albert Ramsbottom
At the zoo up at Blackpool one year
With a stick with an `orse's `ead `andle
Gave a lion a poke in the ear?
I Knew A Woman
© Theodore Roethke
I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
A Hymn to the Name and Honour of the Admirable Saint Teresa
© Richard Crashaw
Farewell then, all the world, adieu!
Teresa is no more for you.
Farewell all pleasures, sports, and joys,
Never till now esteemed toys!
Wishes To His (Supposed) Mistress
© Richard Crashaw
Whoe'er she be,
That not impossible she
That shall command my heart and me;
Ye Flags of Picadilly
© Arthur Hugh Clough
Ye flags of Piccadilly,
Where I posted up and down,
And wished myself so often
Well away from you and town--
Through a Glass Darkly
© Arthur Hugh Clough
What we, when face to face we see
The Father of our souls, shall be,
John tells us, doth not yet appear;
Ah! did he tell what we are here!
The Monument
© Elizabeth Bishop
Now can you see the monument? It is of wood
built somewhat like a box. No. Built
like several boxes in descending sizes
one above the other.
The Joyous Malingerer
© Ogden Nash
Stove-wise he's the perpetual backward learner
Who can't turn on or off the proper burner.
If faced with washing up he never gripes,
But simply drops more dishes than he wipes.
She finds his absence preferable to his aid,
And thus all mealtime chores doth he evade.
Scars on Paper
© Marilyn Hacker
An unwrapped icon, too potent to touch,
she freed my breasts from the camp Empire dress.
Now one of them's the shadow of a breast
with a lost object's half-life, with as much
Nearly A Valediction
© Marilyn Hacker
You happened to me. I was happened to
like an abandoned building by a bull-
dozer, like the van that missed my skull
happened a two-inch gash across my chin.
King Arthur's Tomb
© William Morris
Hot August noon: already on that day
Since sunrise through the Wiltshire downs, most sad
Of mouth and eye, he had gone leagues of way;
Ay and by night, till whether good or bad
Atalanta's Race
© William Morris
Through such fair things unto the gates he came,
And found them open, as though peace were there;
Wherethrough, unquestioned of his race or name,
He entered, and along the streets 'gan fare,
Which at the first of folk were well-nigh bare;
But pressing on, and going more hastily,
Phillis, Or, the Progress of Love
© Jonathan Swift
Desponding Phillis was endu'd
With ev'ry Talent of a Prude,
She trembled when a Man drew near;
Salute her, and she turn'd her Ear:
Verses on the Death of Doctor Swift
© Jonathan Swift
As Rochefoucauld his maxims drew
From nature, I believe 'em true:
They argue no corrupted mind
In him; the fault is in mankind.
Summons To Love
© William Henry Drummond
Phoebus, arise!
And paint the sable skies
With azure, white, and red:
Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's bed
Young Munro the Sailor
© William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas on a sunny morning in the month of May,
I met a pretty damsel on the banks o' the Tay;
I said, My charming fair one, come tell to me I pray,
Why do you walk alone on the banks o' the Tay.
The Voyage Of Columbus
© Samuel Rogers
Unclasp me, Stranger; and unfold,
With trembling care my leaves of gold,
Rich in gothic portraiture--
If yet, alas, a leaf endure.
The Little Match Girl
© William Topaz McGonagall
It was biting cold, and the falling snow,
Which filled a poor little match girl's heart with woe,
Who was bareheaded and barefooted, as she went along the street,
Crying, "Who'll buy my matches? for I want pennies to buy some meat!"
The Great Franchise Demonstration
© William Topaz McGonagall
'Twas in the year of 1884, and on Saturday the 20th of September,
Which the inhabitants of Dundee will long remember
The great Liberal Franchise Demonstration,
Which filled their minds with admiration.
