STRAIGHT POEMS

The Plain

I was alone with a chair on a plain
Which lost itself in an empty horizon.

The plain was flawlessly paved.
.....

Jean Arp

Interim

The room is full of you!-As I came in
And closed the door behind me, all at once
A something in the air, intangible,
Yet stiff with meaning, struck my senses sick!-
.....

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Snake

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
.....

D. H. Lawrence

A Servant To Servants

I didn't make you know how glad I was
To have you come and camp here on our land.
I promised myself to get down some day
And see the way you lived, but I don't know!
.....

Robert Frost

My Pen

My Pen
It keeps me busy in my bookish cage
Gliding and sliding on the open page
It rest so quiet but not dumb
.....

Abdullahi Lawal

Fits And Befits

Ten rolling fingers
Few bold and straight
Rest not assured
With faith and fate.
.....

Debjani Chatterjee

Afflictions Sanctified By The Word

Oh how I love Thy holy Word,
Thy gracious covenant, O Lord!
It guides me in the peaceful way;
I think upon it all the day.
.....

William Cowper

My King

Like a molten plastic I become
To stand straight I forget
Hoping I'm not misdemeanoring
For as a fool I don't want to be described
.....

Reneilwe Mathipa

I'm Sorry For The Dead-today

529

I'm sorry for the Deadâ??Todayâ??
It's such congenial times
.....

Emily Dickinson

Mother's Job

ke a kite,
Or wrestle on the floor and play
Those rough and tumble games, but say!
Just let him get an ache or pain,
.....

Edgar Albert Guest

The Old Huntsman

I've never ceased to curse the day I signed
A seven years' bargain for the Golden Fleece.
'Twas a bad deal all round; and dear enough
It cost me, what with my daft management,
.....

Siegfried Sassoon

Sandpiper

The roaring alongside he takes for granted,
and that every so often the world is bound to shake.
He runs, he runs to the south, finical, awkward,
in a state of controlled panic, a student of Blake.
.....

Elizabeth Bishop

Wounded

Is it not strange? A year ago to-day,
With scarce a thought beyond the hum-drum round,
I did my decent job and earned my pay;
Was averagely happy, I'll be bound.
.....

Robert Service

The River-merchant's Wife: A Letter

After Li Po

While my hair was still cut straight
across my forehead
.....

Ezra Pound

Venus And Adonis

Even as the sun with purple-coloured face
Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase;
Hunting he loved, but love he laughed to scorn.
.....

William Shakespeare

The Old Grey Mare

There's a line of rails on an upland green
With a good take-off and a landing sound,
Six fences grim as were ever seen,
And it's there I would be with fox and hound.
.....

R. C. Lehmann

Bénédiction (benediction)

Lorsque, par un décret des puissances suprêmes,
Le Poète apparaît en ce monde ennuyé,
Sa mère épouvantée et pleine de blasphèmes
Crispe ses poings vers Dieu, qui la prend en pitié:
.....

Charles Baudelaire

God's Garden

God made a beatous garden
With lovely flowers strown,
But one straight, narrow pathway
That was not overgrown.
.....

Robert Frost

The Divine Comedy By Dante: The Vision Of Hell, Or The Inferno: Canto Xix

Woe to thee, Simon Magus! woe to you,
His wretched followers! who the things of God,
Which should be wedded unto goodness, them,
Rapacious as ye are, do prostitute
.....

Dante Alighieri

Endymion: Book I

ENDYMION.

A Poetic Romance.

.....

John Keats

The Roll Of The Kettledrum; Or, The Lay Of The Last Charger

“You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget
The nobler and the manlier one?”-Byron.
.....

Adam Lindsay Gordon

Listen To Me

O Heart,Hold on,
Find a reason to live,
Don't get afraid of grief,
Find the way to your happiness,
.....

Pallavi Deepchand

Triumph

Why am I full of joy although
It drizzles on the links?
Why am I buying Veuve Cliquot,
And setting up the drinks?
.....

Robert Service

The Sonnets Cxl - Be Wise As Thou Art Cruel; Do Not Press

Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
.....

William Shakespeare

Advice

I must do as you do? Your way I own
Is a very good way, and still,
There are sometimes two straight roads to a town,
One over, one under the hill.
.....

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Corydon

A PASTORAL

SCENE: A roadside in Arcady

.....

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Sonnet 24 - Let The World's Sharpness, Like A Clasping Knife

XXIV

Let the world's sharpness, like a clasping knife,
Shut in upon itself and do no harm
.....

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Englishman In Italy

(PIANO DI SORRENTO.)

Fortu, Frotu, my beloved one,
Sit here by my side,
.....

Robert Browning

Snow

The three stood listening to a fresh access
Of wind that caught against the house a moment,
Gulped snow, and then blew free again-the Coles
Dressed, but dishevelled from some hours of sleep,
.....

Robert Frost

The Odyssey: Book 09

And Ulysses answered, “King Alcinous, it is a good thing to hear a
bard with such a divine voice as this man has. There is nothing better
or more delightful than when a whole people make merry together,
with the guests sitting orderly to listen, while the table is loaded
.....

Homer

Incident

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
.....

Countee Cullen

The Sonnets Cxxi - 'tis Better To Be Vile Than Vile Esteem'd

'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,
When not to be receives reproach of being;
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:
.....

William Shakespeare

The Flower And The Leaf: Or, The Lady In The Arbour.[1]

A VISION.


Now turning from the wintry signs, the sun,
.....

John Dryden

Tina

i could never believe that one day i could fall
from our tower down and roll
Tina i worked hard never dwell
but this sky is a jungle
.....

Malagala Umar

Cleared

(In Memory of a Commission)

Help for a patriot distressed, a spotless spirit hurt,
Help for an honourable clan sore trampled in the dirt!
.....

Rudyard Kipling

On A Shadow In A Glass

By something form'd, I nothing am,
Yet everything that you can name;
In no place have I ever been,
Yet everywhere I may be seen;
.....

Jonathan Swift

Girls Spinning

FIRST GIRL
MALLO lero iss im bo nero!
Go where they're threshing and find me my lover,
Mallo lero iss im bo bairn!
.....

Padraic Colum

The Head And The Tail Of The Serpent.

[1]

Two parts the serpent has -
Of men the enemies -
.....

Jean De La Fontaine

Child

The young child, Christ, is straight and wise
And asks questions of the old men, questions
Found under running water for all children
And found under shadows thrown on still waters
.....

Carl Sandburg

The Ballad Of Blasphemous Bill

I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill MacKie,
Whenever, wherever or whatsoever the manner of death he die-
Whether he die in the light o' day or under the peak-faced moon;
In cabin or dance-hall, camp or dive, mucklucks or patent shoon;
.....

Robert Service

I Rose'because He Sank

616

I rose-because He sank-
I thought it would be opposite-
.....

Emily Dickinson

The Iliad: Book 03

When the companies were thus arrayed, each under its own captain,
the Trojans advanced as a flight of wild fowl or cranes that scream
overhead when rain and winter drive them over the flowing waters of
Oceanus to bring death and destruction on the Pygmies, and they
.....

Homer

Ophelia

My locks are shorn for sorrow
Of love which may not be;
Tomorrow and tomorrow
Are plotting cruelty.
.....

Elinor Morton Wylie

Values '67

Pass by citizen
don't look left or right
Keep those drip dry eyes straight ahead
A tree? Chop it down- it's a danger
.....

Spike Milligan

Brown's Descent, Or The Willy-nilly Slide

Brown lived at such a lofty farm
That everyone for miles could see
His lantern when he did his chores
In winter after half-past three.
.....

Robert Frost

The Sonnets Cxlv - Those Lips That Love's Own Hand Did Make

Those lips that Love's own hand did make,
Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate',
To me that languish'd for her sake:
But when she saw my woeful state,
.....

William Shakespeare

Wrestling Match

What guts he had, the Dago lad
Who fought that Frenchman grim with guile;
For nigh an hour they milled like mad,
And mauled the mat in rare old style.
.....

Robert Service

Undine

Spirit of Como, whose rhythmical call
Murmurs caressingly under my wall,
Why are thy feet, though the hour be late,
Mounting the moon-silvered steps of my gate?
.....

John L. Stoddard

Tell Me

“Traveller, what lies over the hill?
Traveller, tell to me:
Tip-toe-high on the window-sill
Over I cannot see.”
.....

George Macdonald

The Haystack In The Floods

Had she come all the way for this,
To part at last without a kiss?
Yea, had she borne the dirt and rain
That her own eyes might see him slain
.....

William Morris