TORTOISE POEMS

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The Best Is Yet To Come

As my heart pounds,
It melted into an ice-berg
As the stream of regret,
flowing from my eyeball,
.....
Steve Anc

Steve Anc
The Barefoot Boy

Blessings on thee, little man,
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!
With thy turned-up pantaloons,
And thy merry whistled tunes;
.....
John Greenleaf Whittier

John Greenleaf Whittier
Telling The Bees

Here is the place; right over the hill
Runs the path I took;
You can see the gap in the old wall still,
And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook.
.....
John Greenleaf Whittier

John Greenleaf Whittier
The King Of Brentford-s Testament

The noble King of Brentford
Was old and very sick,
He summon'd his physicians
To wait upon him quick;
.....
William Makepeace Thackeray

William Makepeace Thackeray
At Putney

When eight strong fellows are out to row,
With a slip of a lad to guide them,
I warrant they'll make the light ship go,
Though the coach on the launch may chide them,
.....
R. C. Lehmann

R. C. Lehmann
Tortoise Family Connections

On he goes, the little one,
Bud of the universe,
Pediment of life.
Setting off somewhere, apparently.
.....
D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence
Tortoise Shell

The Cross, the Cross
Goes deeper in than we know,
Deeper into life;
Right into the marrow
.....
D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence
Bring Me The Sunset In A Cup

128

Bring me the sunset in a cup,
Reckon the morning's flagons up
.....
Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson
The Bestiary: Or Orpheus-s Procession

(Le Bestiaire ou Cortège dâ??Orphée)

Orpheus

.....
Guillaume Apollinaire

Guillaume Apollinaire
On The Death Of A Favourite Cat, Drowned In A Tub Of Gold Fishes

'Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow,
Demurest of the tabby kind,
.....
Thomas Gray

Thomas Gray
Tortoise Gallantry

Making his advances
He does not look at her, nor sniff at her,
No, not even sniff at her, his nose is blank.
Only he senses the vulnerable folds of skin
.....

David Herbert Lawrence
The Words

Clouds scattered across the sky       &nbs p;all so far away
and then the space between         this strange 'distance'
What does 'normal' mean, after all?       &nb sp;you move
toward the window       & nbsp;lights marking the headland
.....

Lee Harwood
Sappho

She lay among the myrtles on the cliff;
Above her glared the noon; beneath, the sea.
Upon the white horizon Atho's peak
Weltered in burning haze; all airs were dead;
.....
Charles Kingsley

Charles Kingsley
Marco Polo

READING how Marco Polo came
By bridle-path to Kanbalu,
Forgotten fibres wake to flame,
And smoke old memories anew . . . .
.....

Kenneth Slessor
Ode On The Death Of A Favourite Cat Drowned In A Tub Of Goldfishes

'Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dy'd
The azure flow'rs that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
.....
Thomas Gray

Thomas Gray
A Fairy Tale In The Ancient English Style

In Britain's Isle and Arthur's days,
When Midnight Faeries daunc'd the Maze,
Liv'd Edwin of the Green;
Edwin, I wis, a gentle Youth,
.....
Thomas Parnell

Thomas Parnell
Tortoise Family Connections

On he goes, the little one,
Bud of the universe,
Pediment of life.
Setting off somewhere, apparently.
.....

David Herbert Lawrence
The Tortoise In Keystone Heights

When I knew, it was raining.
Winter in decline. I was tired.
You in your soaked shirt diffused
into the western sky bulging with clouds,
.....

Deborah Ager
Tortoise Shell

The Cross, the Cross
Goes deeper in than we know,
Deeper into life;
Right into the marrow
.....

David Herbert Lawrence
Baby Tortoise

You know what it is to be born alone,
Baby tortoise!
The first day to heave your feet little by little from the shell,
Not yet awake,
.....
D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence
Metamorphoses: Book 02

The Sun's bright palace, on high columns rais'd,
With burnish'd gold and flaming jewels blaz'd;
The folding gates diffus'd a silver light,
And with a milder gleam refresh'd the sight;
.....
Ovid

Ovid
There Was An Old Person Of Ickley

There was an old person of Ickley,
Who could not abide to ride quickly,
He rode to Karnak,
On a tortoise's back,
.....
Edward Lear

Edward Lear
Charmides I

He was a Grecian lad, who coming home
With pulpy figs and wine from Sicily
Stood at his galley's prow, and let the foam
Blow through his crisp brown curls unconsciously,
.....
Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde
The Culprit Fay

“My visual orbs are purged from film, and lo!
“Instead of Anster's turnip-bearing vales
“I see old fairy land's miraculous show!
“Her trees of tinsel kissed by freakish gales,
.....
Joseph Rodman Drake

Joseph Rodman Drake
An Athenian Reverie

How the returning days, one after one,
Came ever in their rhythmic round, unchanged,
Yet from each looped robe for every man
Some new thing falls. Happy is he
.....

Archibald Lampman
The Times Editorials

Lovely Antiques, breathing in every line
The perfume of an age long passed away,
Wafting us back to 1829,
Museum pieces of a by-gone day,
.....

Alice Duer Miller
The Tortoise In Eternity

Within my house of patterned horn
I sleep in such a bed
As men may keep before they're born
And after when they're dead.
.....

Elinor Morton Wylie
A Nocturne

The Moon has gone to her rest,
A full hour ago.
The Pleiads have found a nest
In the waves below.
.....
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
You Are Disappointed? You Thought...

You are disappointed? You thought that in peace we
Would part to the sound of a requiem, a swan-song?
You counted on grief, with your pupils dilated,
Their invincibility trying in tears on?
.....
Boris Pasternak

Boris Pasternak
I Took My Lyre

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.....

Sappho
I Took My Lyre And Said

I took my lyre and said:
Come now, my heavenly
tortoise shell: become
a speaking instrument
.....

Sappho
Doomsday

So this is the day
The day Leo will burn his paintings
It should be safe to call it Ragnarok
The day of the blood sun
.....
Apollos Alpha

Apollos Alpha
Baby Tortoise

You know what it is to be born alone,
Baby tortoise!
The first day to heave your feet little by little from the shell,
Not yet awake,
.....

David Herbert Lawrence
Seer Of The Cycles

I am that saint uncanonized,who saw
the copulation of the toad-like stones
and spawning of the seer, sun-mumbled bones
to golden efts and flowers without flaw.
.....

Clark Ashton Smith
A Dream Of Fair Women

I read, before my eyelids dropt their shade,
'The Legend of Good Women,' long ago
Sung by the morning star of song, who made
His music heard below;
.....
Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred Lord Tennyson
Eureka - A Prose Poem (an Essay On The Material And Spiritual Universe)

It is with humility really unassumed, it is with a sentiment even of awe, that I pen the opening sentence of this work: for of all conceivable subjects I approach the reader with the most solemn, the most comprehensive, the most difficult, the most august.

What terms shall I find sufficiently simple in their sublimity -- sufficiently sublime in their simplicity, for the mere enunciation of my theme?

.....
Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe
The Angler - Prose

This day Dame Nature seem'd in love,
The lusty sap began to move,
Fresh juice did stir th' embracing vines,
And birds had drawn their valentines.
.....

Washington Irving
Sordello: Book The Third

And the font took them: let our laurels lie!
Braid moonfern now with mystic trifoly
Because once more Goito gets, once more,
Sordello to itself! A dream is o'er,
.....
Robert Browning

Robert Browning
Scientific (prose)

After the annual excursion of the Lowly Dale Scientific Society, the members were addressed by Mr. Evertrot Gagthorp. New specimens, the product of their recent journey, now enrich the Museum: viz. In Geology - Limestone, pumice stone, soft stone, white stone, plum stone, and cherry stone. Conchology - Egg shell Tortoise shell nut shell and satchel. Botany - Corn flour, grog blossom, and many leaves from the book of nature. Entomology - a swallow tail had been obtained, but the president going to a dress party, had got the loan of it.



.....

John Hartley
The Lay Of St. Odille

Odille was a maid of a dignified race;
Her father, Count Otto, was lord of Alsace;
Such an air, such a grace,
Such a form, such a face,
.....

Richard Harris Barham
Tortoise

On the stony spurs of Pierius
The Muses conducted the first round dance
So like bees, blind lyrists might give us Ionic honey.
A great chill blew
.....

Osip Emilevich Mandelstam
The Persevering Tortoise And The Pretentious Hare

Once a turtle, finding plenty
In seclusion to bewitch,
Lived a dolce far niente
Kind of life within a ditch;
.....

Guy Wetmore Carryl
Tortoise Gallantry

Making his advances
He does not look at her, nor sniff at her,
No, not even sniff at her, his nose is blank.
Only he senses the vulnerable folds of skin
.....
D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence
Upon Appleton House, To My Lord Fairfax

Within this sober frame expect
Work of no foreign architect;
That unto caves the quarries drew,
And forests did to pastures hew;
.....
Andrew Marvell

Andrew Marvell
The Character Of Holland

Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land,
As but the off-scouring of the British sand;
And so much earth as was contributed
By English pilots when they heaved the lead;
.....
Andrew Marvell

Andrew Marvell
A Grave

Man looking into the sea,
taking the view from those who have as much right to it as
you have to it yourself,
it is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing,
.....
Marianne Moore

Marianne Moore
Epistle To The Honourable C. B.

When B*** invites me, and inviting sings,
Instant I'd fly, (had heaven vouchsafed me wings)
To hail him in that calm sequestered seat,
Whence he looks down with pity on the great;
.....

James Beattie
Nonsense Alphabet

A was an ant
Who seldom stood still,
And who made a nice house
In the side of a hill.
.....
Edward Lear

Edward Lear
Bring Me The Sunset In A Cup

128

Bring me the sunset in a cup,
Reckon the morning's flagons up
.....
Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson
The Fan : A Poem. Book Iii.

Thus Mommus spoke. When sage Minerva rose,
From her sweet lips smooth elocution flows,
Her skilful hand an ivory pallet grac'd,
Where shining colours were in order plac'd.
.....
John Gay

John Gay