Work poems
/ page 339 of 355 /
The Star
© Henry Vaughan
1 Whatever 'tis, whose beauty here below
2 Attracts thee thus and makes thee stream and flow,
3 And wind and curl, and wink and smile,
4 Shifting thy gate and guile;
The Old And The New Masters
© Randall Jarrell
About suffering, about adoration, the old masters
Disagree. When someone suffers, no one else eats
Or walks or opens the window--no one breathes
As the sufferers watch the sufferer.
The Orient Express
© Randall Jarrell
One looks from the train
Almost as one looked as a child. In the sunlight
What I see still seems to me plain,
I am safe; but at evening
Next Day
© Randall Jarrell
Moving from Cheer to Joy, from Joy to All,
I take a box
And add it to my wild rice, my Cornish game hens.
The slacked or shorted, basketed, identical
Food-gathering flocks
Are selves I overlook. Wisdom, said William James,
90 North
© Randall Jarrell
At home, in my flannel gown, like a bear to its floe,
I clambered to bed; up the globe's impossible sides
I sailed all nighttill at last, with my black beard,
My furs and my dogs, I stood at the northern pole.
The Woman At The Washington Zoo
© Randall Jarrell
The saris go by me from the embassies.Cloth from the moon. Cloth from another planet.
They look back at the leopard like the leopard.And I. . . .
this print of mine, that has kept its color
Alive through so many cleanings; this dull null
Losses
© Randall Jarrell
It was not dying: everybody died.
It was not dying: we had died before
In the routine crashes-- and our fields
Called up the papers, wrote home to our folks,
For Catherine: Juana, Infanta of Navarre
© Erin Belieu
Once you were a daughter, too,
then a wife and now the mother
of a baby with a Spanish name.
Prelude to an Unwritten Masterpiece
© Siegfried Sassoon
You like my bird-sung gardens: wings and flowers;
Calm landscapes for emotion; star-lit lawns;
And Youth against the sun-rise ... Not profound;
But such a haunting music in the sound:
Do it once more; it helps us to forget.
Middle-Ages
© Siegfried Sassoon
I heard a clash, and a cry,
And a horseman fleeing the wood.
The moon hid in a cloud.
Deep in shadow I stood.
The Old Huntsman
© Siegfried Sassoon
Id have been prosperous if Id took a farm
Of fifty acres, drove my gig and haggled
At Monday markets; now Ive squandered all
My savings; nigh three hundred pound I got
As testimonial when Id grown too stiff
And slow to press a beaten fox.
A Working Party
© Siegfried Sassoon
Three hours ago, he stumbled up the trench;
Now he will never walk that road again:
He must be carried back, a jolting lump
Beyond all needs of tenderness and care.
To Any Dead Officer
© Siegfried Sassoon
Well, how are things in Heaven? I wish youd say,
Because Id like to know that youre all right.
Tell me, have you found everlasting day,
Or been sucked in by everlasting night?
The Redeemer
© Siegfried Sassoon
Darkness: the rain sluiced down; the mire was deep;
It was past twelve on a mid-winter night,
When peaceful folk in beds lay snug asleep;
There, with much work to do before the light,
Does It Matter?
© Siegfried Sassoon
Does it matter?-losing your legs?
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When others come in after hunting
My Dreams, My Works, Must Wait Till After Hell
© Gwendolyn Brooks
I hold my honey and I store my bread
In little jars and cabinets of my will.
I label clearly, and each latch and lid
I bid, Be firm till I return from hell.
The Mother
© Gwendolyn Brooks
Believe me, I loved you all.
Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you
All.
She, To Him III
© Thomas Hardy
I WILL be faithful to thee; aye, I will!
And Death shall choose me with a wondering eye
That he did not discern and domicile
One his by right ever since that last Good-bye!
The Bullfinches
© Thomas Hardy
Bother Bulleys, let us sing
From the dawn till evening! -
For we know not that we go not
When the day's pale pinions fold
Unto those who sang of old.
Additions
© Thomas Hardy
She cried, "O pray pity me!" Nought would he hear;
Then with wild rainy eyes she obeyed,
She chid when her Love was for clinking off wi' her.
The pa'son was told, as the season drew near
To throw over pu'pit the names of the pe?ir
As fitting one flesh to be made.
