Work poems
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Prosopopoia: or Mother Hubbard's Tale
© Edmund Spenser
By that he ended had his ghostly sermon,
The fox was well induc'd to be a parson,
And of the priest eftsoons gan to inquire,
How to a benefice he might aspire.
Epithalamion
© Edmund Spenser
YE learned sisters, which have oftentimes
Beene to me ayding, others to adorne,
Whom ye thought worthy of your gracefull rymes,
That even the greatest did not greatly scorne
Sonnet 81
© Edmund Spenser
Fair is my love, when her fair golden hears
with the loose wind the waving chance to mark:
fair when the rose in her red cheeks appears,
or in her eyes the fire of love does spark.
Machines
© Michael Donaghy
Dearest, note how these two are alike:
This harpsicord pavane by Purcell
And the racer's twelve-speed bike.
Watching The Mayan Women
© Luisa Villani
I hang the window inside out
like a shirt drying in a breeze
and the arms that are missing come to me
Yes, it's a song, one I don't quite comprehend
Alan Dugan Telling Me I Have A Problem With Time
© Nick Flynn
He reads my latest attempt at a poem
and is silent for a long time, until it feels
like that night we waited for Apollo,
my mother wandering in and out of her bedroom, asking,
Musketaquid
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Because I was content with these poor fields,
Low open meads, slender and sluggish streams,
And found a home in haunts which others scorned,
The partial wood-gods overpaid my love,
Monadnoc
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
I heard and I obeyed,
Assured that he who pressed the claim,
Well-known, but loving not a name,
Was not to be gainsaid.
Threnody
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
The south-wind brings
Life, sunshine, and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire,
The Sphynx
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thorough a thousand voices
Spoke the universal dame,
"Who telleth one of my meanings,
Is master of all I am."
Mithridates
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
I cannot spare water or wine,
Tobacco-leaf, or poppy, or rose;
From the earth-poles to the Line,
All between that works or grows,
Every thing is kin of mine.
Ode To William H. Channing
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Though loth to grieve
The evil time's sole patriot,
I cannot leave
My buried thought
For the priest's cant,
Or statesman's rant.
Alphonso Of Castile
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
I Alphonso live and learn,
Seeing nature go astern.
Things deteriorate in kind,
Lemons run to leaves and rind,
The Sphinx
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Through a thousand voices
Spoke the universal dame
"Who telleth one of my meanings
Is master of all I am."
The Snow-Storm
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,
Initial Love
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
He palmistry can understand,
Imbibing virtue by his hand
As if it were a living root;
The pulse of hands will make him mute;
With all his force he gathers balms
Into those wise thrilling palms.
Account Of A Visit From St. Nicholas
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
1Later revised to "Donder and Blitzen" by Clement Clarke
Moore when he took credit for the poem in Poems (New York: Bartlett
and Welford, 1844).
Celestial Love
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Higher far,
Upward, into the pure realm,
Over sun or star,
Over the flickering Dæmon film,
Ballad of the Old Cypress
© Tu Fu
In front of the temple of Chu-ko Liang there is an old cypress. Its branches
are like green bronze; its roots like rocks; around its great girth of forty
spans its rimy bark withstands the washing of the rain. Its jet-colored top
rises two thousand feet to greet the sky. Prince and statesman have long since
