PERMANENT POEMS
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Unwise Wise
Life is a mystery,
There is no clue of its exact history.
Theory once postulated by Darwin,
May go change by some Hardin.
.....
Dr. Nitesh Ahir
Life is a mystery,
There is no clue of its exact history.
Theory once postulated by Darwin,
May go change by some Hardin.
.....
Dr. Nitesh Ahir
In Praise Of Limestone
If it form the one landscape that we, the inconstant ones,
Are consistently homesick for, this is chiefly
Because it dissolves in water. Mark these rounded slopes
With their surface fragrance of thyme and, beneath,
.....
W. H. Auden
If it form the one landscape that we, the inconstant ones,
Are consistently homesick for, this is chiefly
Because it dissolves in water. Mark these rounded slopes
With their surface fragrance of thyme and, beneath,
.....
W. H. Auden
The Man Against The Sky
Between me and the sunset, like a dome
Against the glory of a world on fire,
Now burned a sudden hill,
Bleak, round, and high, by flame-lit height made higher,
.....
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Between me and the sunset, like a dome
Against the glory of a world on fire,
Now burned a sudden hill,
Bleak, round, and high, by flame-lit height made higher,
.....
Edwin Arlington Robinson
The Jackaw Of Rheims
The Jackdaw sat on the Cardinal's chair!
Bishop, and abbot, and prior were there;
Many a monk, and many a friar,
Many a knight, and many a squire,
.....
Richard Harris Barham
The Jackdaw sat on the Cardinal's chair!
Bishop, and abbot, and prior were there;
Many a monk, and many a friar,
Many a knight, and many a squire,
.....
Richard Harris Barham
Ruth
When Ruth was left half desolate,
Her Father took another Mate;
And Ruth, not seven years old,
A slighted child, at her own will
.....
William Wordsworth
When Ruth was left half desolate,
Her Father took another Mate;
And Ruth, not seven years old,
A slighted child, at her own will
.....
William Wordsworth
Peace Not Permanent
Great cities seldom rest; if there be none
T' invade from far, they'll find worse foes at home.
.....
Robert Herrick
Great cities seldom rest; if there be none
T' invade from far, they'll find worse foes at home.
.....
Robert Herrick
Dear Lorca
Dear Lorca,
These letters are to be as temporary as our poetry is to be permanent. They will establish the bulk, the wastage that my sour-stomached contemporaries demand to help them swallow and digest the pure word. We will use up our rhetoric here so that it will not appear in our poems. Let it be consumed paragraph by paragraph, day by day, until nothing of it is left in our poetry and nothing of our poetry is left in it. It is precisely because these letters are unnecessary that they must be written.
In my last letter I spoke of the tradition. The fools that read these letters will think by this we mean what tradition seems to have meant latelyâ??an historical patchwork (whether made up of Elizabethan quotations, guide books of the poetâ??s home town, or obscure bits of magic published by Pantheon) which is used to cover up the nakedness of the bare word. Tradition means much more than that. It means generations of different poets in different countries patiently telling the same story, writing the same poem, gaining and losing something with each transformationâ??but, of course, never really losing anything. This has nothing to do with calmness, classicism, temperament, or anything else. Invention is merely the enemy of poetry.
.....
Jack Spicer
Dear Lorca,
These letters are to be as temporary as our poetry is to be permanent. They will establish the bulk, the wastage that my sour-stomached contemporaries demand to help them swallow and digest the pure word. We will use up our rhetoric here so that it will not appear in our poems. Let it be consumed paragraph by paragraph, day by day, until nothing of it is left in our poetry and nothing of our poetry is left in it. It is precisely because these letters are unnecessary that they must be written.
In my last letter I spoke of the tradition. The fools that read these letters will think by this we mean what tradition seems to have meant latelyâ??an historical patchwork (whether made up of Elizabethan quotations, guide books of the poetâ??s home town, or obscure bits of magic published by Pantheon) which is used to cover up the nakedness of the bare word. Tradition means much more than that. It means generations of different poets in different countries patiently telling the same story, writing the same poem, gaining and losing something with each transformationâ??but, of course, never really losing anything. This has nothing to do with calmness, classicism, temperament, or anything else. Invention is merely the enemy of poetry.
.....
Jack Spicer
Four Quartets 3: The Dry Salvages
(The Dry Salvages-presumably les trois sauvages
- is a small group of rocks, with a beacon, off the N.E.
coast of Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Salvages is pronounced
to rhyme with assuages. Groaner: a whistling buoy.)
.....
T. S. Eliot
(The Dry Salvages-presumably les trois sauvages
- is a small group of rocks, with a beacon, off the N.E.
coast of Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Salvages is pronounced
to rhyme with assuages. Groaner: a whistling buoy.)
.....
T. S. Eliot
Eidà³lons
I MET a Seer,
Passing the hues and objects of the world,
The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense,
To glean Eidólons.
.....
Walt Whitman
I MET a Seer,
Passing the hues and objects of the world,
The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense,
To glean Eidólons.
.....
Walt Whitman
The Municipal Gallery Revisited
I
Around me the images of thirty years:
An ambush; pilgrims at the water-side;
.....
William Butler Yeats
I
Around me the images of thirty years:
An ambush; pilgrims at the water-side;
.....
William Butler Yeats
Time, A Poem
Genius of musings, who, the midnight hour
Wasting in woods or haunted forests wild,
Dost watch Orion in his arctic tower,
Thy dark eye fix'd as in some holy trance;
.....
Henry Kirk White
Genius of musings, who, the midnight hour
Wasting in woods or haunted forests wild,
Dost watch Orion in his arctic tower,
Thy dark eye fix'd as in some holy trance;
.....
Henry Kirk White
Nox Nocti Indicat Scientiam
When I survey the bright
Celestial sphere;
So rich with jewels hung, that Night
Doth like an Ethiop bride appear:
.....
William Habington
When I survey the bright
Celestial sphere;
So rich with jewels hung, that Night
Doth like an Ethiop bride appear:
.....
William Habington
Raja Rao
Raja, I wish I knew
the cause of that malady.
For years I could not accept
the place I was in.
.....
Czeslaw Milosz
Raja, I wish I knew
the cause of that malady.
For years I could not accept
the place I was in.
.....
Czeslaw Milosz
The Bard
Where dwells the spirit of the Bard--what sky
Persuades his daring wing,--
Folded in soft carnation, or in snow
Still sleeping, far o'er summits of the cloud,
.....
William Gilmore Simms
Where dwells the spirit of the Bard--what sky
Persuades his daring wing,--
Folded in soft carnation, or in snow
Still sleeping, far o'er summits of the cloud,
.....
William Gilmore Simms
Poems - The New Edition - Preface
In two small volumes of Poems, published anonymously, one in 1849, the other in 1852, many of the Poems which compose the present volume have already appeared. The rest are now published for the first time.
I have, in the present collection, omitted the Poem from which the volume published in 1852 took its title. I have done so, not because the subject of it was a Sicilian Greek born between two and three thousand years ago, although many persons would think this a sufficient reason. Neither have I done so because I had, in my own opinion, failed in the delineation which I intended to effect. I intended to delineate the feelings of one of the last of the Greek religious philosophers, one of the family of Orpheus and Musaeus, having survived his fellows, living on into a time when the habits of Greek thought and feeling had begun fast to change, character to dwindle, the influence of the Sophists to prevail. Into the feelings of a man so situated there entered much that we are accustomed to consider as exclusively modern; how much, the fragments of Empedocles himself which remain to us are sufficient at least to indicate. What those who are familiar only with the great monuments of early Greek genius suppose to be its exclusive characteristics, have disappeared; the calm, the cheerfulness, the disinterested objectivity have disappeared: the dialogue of the mind with itself has commenced; modern problems have presented themselves; we hear already the doubts, we witness the discouragement, of Hamlet and of Faust.
.....
Matthew Arnold
In two small volumes of Poems, published anonymously, one in 1849, the other in 1852, many of the Poems which compose the present volume have already appeared. The rest are now published for the first time.
I have, in the present collection, omitted the Poem from which the volume published in 1852 took its title. I have done so, not because the subject of it was a Sicilian Greek born between two and three thousand years ago, although many persons would think this a sufficient reason. Neither have I done so because I had, in my own opinion, failed in the delineation which I intended to effect. I intended to delineate the feelings of one of the last of the Greek religious philosophers, one of the family of Orpheus and Musaeus, having survived his fellows, living on into a time when the habits of Greek thought and feeling had begun fast to change, character to dwindle, the influence of the Sophists to prevail. Into the feelings of a man so situated there entered much that we are accustomed to consider as exclusively modern; how much, the fragments of Empedocles himself which remain to us are sufficient at least to indicate. What those who are familiar only with the great monuments of early Greek genius suppose to be its exclusive characteristics, have disappeared; the calm, the cheerfulness, the disinterested objectivity have disappeared: the dialogue of the mind with itself has commenced; modern problems have presented themselves; we hear already the doubts, we witness the discouragement, of Hamlet and of Faust.
.....
Matthew Arnold
Japan,'old And New
The son of a Japanese lord am I,-
A Prince of the olden time;
My hair is white, though black as night
In my youth and early prime;
.....
John L. Stoddard
The son of a Japanese lord am I,-
A Prince of the olden time;
My hair is white, though black as night
In my youth and early prime;
.....
John L. Stoddard
Threnody
The south-wind brings
Life, sunshine, and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire,
.....
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The south-wind brings
Life, sunshine, and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire,
.....
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Coda
There's little in taking or giving,
There's little in water or wine;
This living, this living, this living
Was never a project of mine.
.....
Dorothy Parker
There's little in taking or giving,
There's little in water or wine;
This living, this living, this living
Was never a project of mine.
.....
Dorothy Parker
The Cambridge Ladies Who Live In Furnished Souls
the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also,with the church's protestant blessings
daughters,unscented shapeless spirited)
.....
E. E. Cummings
the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also,with the church's protestant blessings
daughters,unscented shapeless spirited)
.....
E. E. Cummings
Sonnet Ix: There Where The Waves Shatter
There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks
the clear light bursts and enacts its rose,
and the sea-circle shrinks to a cluster of buds,
to one drop of blue salt, falling.
.....
Pablo Neruda
There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks
the clear light bursts and enacts its rose,
and the sea-circle shrinks to a cluster of buds,
to one drop of blue salt, falling.
.....
Pablo Neruda
Chanting The Square Deific
CHANTING the square deific, out of the One advancing, out of the
sides;
Out of the old and new--out of the square entirely divine,
Solid, four-sided, (all the sides needed)... from this side JEHOVAH
.....
Walt Whitman
CHANTING the square deific, out of the One advancing, out of the
sides;
Out of the old and new--out of the square entirely divine,
Solid, four-sided, (all the sides needed)... from this side JEHOVAH
.....
Walt Whitman
Verses Upon The Burning Of Our House, July 18th, 1666
Here follows some verses upon the burning
of our house, July. 18th. 1666. Copyed out of
a loose Paper.
.....
Anne Bradstreet
Here follows some verses upon the burning
of our house, July. 18th. 1666. Copyed out of
a loose Paper.
.....
Anne Bradstreet
Friend, Without That Dark Raptor
Friend, without that Dark raptor
I could not survive.
Mother-in-law shrills at me,
her daughter sneers,
.....
Mirabai
Friend, without that Dark raptor
I could not survive.
Mother-in-law shrills at me,
her daughter sneers,
.....
Mirabai
The Truth Of Woman
Woman's faith, and woman's trust -
Write the characters in the dust;
Stamp them on the running stream,
Print them on the moon's pale beam,
.....
Sir Walter Scott
Woman's faith, and woman's trust -
Write the characters in the dust;
Stamp them on the running stream,
Print them on the moon's pale beam,
.....
Sir Walter Scott
Amoretti Lxxix: Men Call You Fair
Men call you fair, and you do credit it,
For that your self ye daily such do see:
But the true fair, that is the gentle wit,
And vertuous mind, is much more prais'd of me.
.....
Edmund Spenser
Men call you fair, and you do credit it,
For that your self ye daily such do see:
But the true fair, that is the gentle wit,
And vertuous mind, is much more prais'd of me.
.....
Edmund Spenser
Eidolons
I met a seer,
Passing the hues and objects of the world,
The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense,
To glean eidolons.
.....
Walt Whitman
I met a seer,
Passing the hues and objects of the world,
The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense,
To glean eidolons.
.....
Walt Whitman
At Loafing-holt
Since I left the city's heat
For this sylvan, cool retreat,
High upon the hill-side here
Where the air is clean and clear,
.....
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Since I left the city's heat
For this sylvan, cool retreat,
High upon the hill-side here
Where the air is clean and clear,
.....
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Bored And Sad
It's boring and sad, and there's no one around
In times of my spirit's travail...
Desires!...What use is our vain and eternal desire?..
While years pass on by - all the best years!
.....
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov
It's boring and sad, and there's no one around
In times of my spirit's travail...
Desires!...What use is our vain and eternal desire?..
While years pass on by - all the best years!
.....
Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov
Ch 08 On Rules For Conduct In Life - Maxim 21
Whatever takes place quickly is not permanent.
I have heard that eastern loam is made
In forty days into a porcelain cup.
.....
Saadi Shirazi
Whatever takes place quickly is not permanent.
I have heard that eastern loam is made
In forty days into a porcelain cup.
.....
Saadi Shirazi
London Poets
They trod the streets and squares where now I tread,
With weary hearts, a little while ago;
When, thin and grey, the melancholy snow
Clung to the leafless branches overhead;
.....
Amy Levy
They trod the streets and squares where now I tread,
With weary hearts, a little while ago;
When, thin and grey, the melancholy snow
Clung to the leafless branches overhead;
.....
Amy Levy
Rondel. (from Froissart)
Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart of mine?
Naught see I fixed or sure in thee!
I do not know thee,--nor what deeds are thine:
Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart of mine?
.....
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart of mine?
Naught see I fixed or sure in thee!
I do not know thee,--nor what deeds are thine:
Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart of mine?
.....
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Amor Vincit Omnia
Love is no more.
It died as the mind dies: the pure desire
Relinquishing the blissful form it wore,
The ample joy and clarity expire.
.....
Edgar Bowers
Love is no more.
It died as the mind dies: the pure desire
Relinquishing the blissful form it wore,
The ample joy and clarity expire.
.....
Edgar Bowers
To The Rev. George Coleridge
Notus in fratres animi paterni.
Hor. Carm. lib.II.2.
A blesséd lot hath he, who having passed
.....
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Notus in fratres animi paterni.
Hor. Carm. lib.II.2.
A blesséd lot hath he, who having passed
.....
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Passing And Permanent
Stately boats, with happy crowds,
Passing up the lake,
Leaving, under sunset clouds,
Jewels in your wake,
.....
John L. Stoddard
Stately boats, with happy crowds,
Passing up the lake,
Leaving, under sunset clouds,
Jewels in your wake,
.....
John L. Stoddard
Le Donneur De Mauvais Conseils
Par les chemins bordés de pueils
Rôde en maraude
Le donneur de mauvais conseils.
.....
Emile Verhaeren
Par les chemins bordés de pueils
Rôde en maraude
Le donneur de mauvais conseils.
.....
Emile Verhaeren
Youth And Age
“I will gain a fortune,” the young man cried;
“For Gold by the world is deified;
Hence, whether the means be foul or fair,
I will make myself a millionaire,
.....
John L. Stoddard
“I will gain a fortune,” the young man cried;
“For Gold by the world is deified;
Hence, whether the means be foul or fair,
I will make myself a millionaire,
.....
John L. Stoddard
His Shield
The pin-swin or spine-swine
(the edgehog miscalled hedgehog) with all his edges out,
echidna and echinoderm in distressed-
pin-cushion thorn-fur coats, the spiny pig or porcupine,
.....
Marianne Moore
The pin-swin or spine-swine
(the edgehog miscalled hedgehog) with all his edges out,
echidna and echinoderm in distressed-
pin-cushion thorn-fur coats, the spiny pig or porcupine,
.....
Marianne Moore
But I Was Looking At The Permanent Stars
Bugles sang, saddening the evening air,
And bugles answered, sorrowful to hear.
Voices of boys were by the river-side.
.....
Wilfred Owen
Bugles sang, saddening the evening air,
And bugles answered, sorrowful to hear.
Voices of boys were by the river-side.
.....
Wilfred Owen
Soldier's Dream
I dreamed kind Jesus fouled the big-gun gears;
And caused a permanent stoppage in all bolts;
And buckled with a smile Mausers and Colts;
And rusted every bayonet with His tears.
.....
Wilfred Owen
I dreamed kind Jesus fouled the big-gun gears;
And caused a permanent stoppage in all bolts;
And buckled with a smile Mausers and Colts;
And rusted every bayonet with His tears.
.....
Wilfred Owen
Sonnet Lxxix
MEn call you fayre, and you doe credit it,
For that your selfe ye dayly such doe see:
but the trew fayre, that is the gentle wit,
and vertuous mind is much more praysd of me.
.....
Edmund Spenser
MEn call you fayre, and you doe credit it,
For that your selfe ye dayly such doe see:
but the trew fayre, that is the gentle wit,
and vertuous mind is much more praysd of me.
.....
Edmund Spenser
Macaulay's New Zealander
It little profits that, an idle man,
On this worn arch, in sight of wasted halls,
I mope, a solitary pelican,
And glower and glower for ever on Saint Paul's:-
.....
James Brunton Stephens
It little profits that, an idle man,
On this worn arch, in sight of wasted halls,
I mope, a solitary pelican,
And glower and glower for ever on Saint Paul's:-
.....
James Brunton Stephens
The Thames At Mortlake
if only for ten minutes
after the mass feeding of schoolchildren
after the careful inanity of the staff
.....
Ben Jonson
if only for ten minutes
after the mass feeding of schoolchildren
after the careful inanity of the staff
.....
Ben Jonson
Solomon On The Vanity Of The World, A Poem. In Three Books. - Knowledge. Book I.
The bewailing of man's miseries hath been elegantly and copiously set forth by many, in the writings as well of philosophers as divines; and it is both a pleasant and a profitable contemplation.
~ Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning.
The Argument
.....
Matthew Prior
The bewailing of man's miseries hath been elegantly and copiously set forth by many, in the writings as well of philosophers as divines; and it is both a pleasant and a profitable contemplation.
~ Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning.
The Argument
.....
Matthew Prior
The Prelude - Book Second
SCHOOL-TIME (continued)
Thus far, O Friend! have we, though leaving much
Unvisited, endeavoured to retrace
.....
William Wordsworth
SCHOOL-TIME (continued)
Thus far, O Friend! have we, though leaving much
Unvisited, endeavoured to retrace
.....
William Wordsworth
The Prelude - Book Third
RESIDENCE AT CAMBRIDGE
It was a dreary morning when the wheels
Rolled over a wide plain o'erhung with clouds,
.....
William Wordsworth
RESIDENCE AT CAMBRIDGE
It was a dreary morning when the wheels
Rolled over a wide plain o'erhung with clouds,
.....
William Wordsworth
The Prelude - Book Sixth
CAMBRIDGE AND THE ALPS
The leaves were fading when to Esthwaite's banks
And the simplicities of cottage life
.....
William Wordsworth
CAMBRIDGE AND THE ALPS
The leaves were fading when to Esthwaite's banks
And the simplicities of cottage life
.....
William Wordsworth
The Pastime Of Pleasure : The First Part.
Here begynneth the passe tyme of pleasure.
Ryyght myghty prynce / & redoubted souerayne
Saylynge forthe well / in the shyppe of grace
.....
Stephen Hawes
Here begynneth the passe tyme of pleasure.
Ryyght myghty prynce / & redoubted souerayne
Saylynge forthe well / in the shyppe of grace
.....
Stephen Hawes
As A Strong Bird On Pinious Free
AS a strong bird on pinions free,
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
Such be the thought I'd think to-day of thee, America,
Such be the recitative I'd bring to-day for thee.
.....
Walt Whitman
AS a strong bird on pinions free,
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
Such be the thought I'd think to-day of thee, America,
Such be the recitative I'd bring to-day for thee.
.....
Walt Whitman