Anne Brontë – The Three Guides

Spirit of Earth! thy hand is chill:I've felt its icy clasp;And, shuddering, I remember stillThat stony-hearted grasp.Thine eye bids love and joy depart:Oh, turn its gaze from me!It presses down my shrinking heart;I will not walk with thee!"Wisdom is mine," I've heard thee say:"Beneath...

Emily Dickinson – The morns are meeker than they were - (Poem 32)

The morns are meeker than they were - The nuts are getting brown -The berry’s cheek is plumper -The rose is out of town. The maple wears a gayer scarf -The field a scarlet gown -Lest I sh'd be old-fashioned I’ll put a trinket on.&nb...

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge – He came unto His own, and His own received Him not

As Christ the Lord was passing by, He came, one night, to a cottage door. He came, a poor man, to the poor; He had no bed whereon to lie. He asked in vain for a crust of bread, Standing there in the frozen blast. The door was locked and bolted fast. ‘Only a beggar!’ the poor...

Edgar Allan Poe – Israfel

In Heaven a spirit doth dwell"Whose heart-strings are a lute";None sing so wildly wellAs the angel Israfel,And the giddy stars (so legends tell),Ceasing their hymns, attend the spellOf his voice, all mute.Tottering aboveIn her highest noon,The enamored moonBlushes with love,While,...

Charles Bukowski – Freedom

he drank wine all night of the 28th, and he kept thinking of her: the way she walked and talked and loved the way she told him things that seemed true but were not, and he knew the color of each of her dresses and her shoes-he knew the stock and curve of each heel as well as...

Charlotte Mew – Fin de Fête

Sweetheart, for such a day     One mustn’t grudge the score;Here, then, it’s all to pay,     It’s Good-night at the door. Good-night and good dreams to you,—     Do you remember the picture-book thievesWho left two children sleeping...

Emily Dickinson – I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, (Poem 340)

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading - treading - till it seemed That Sense was breaking through - And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum - Kept beating - beating - till I thought My mind was going numb - And then I heard them...

Emily Dickinson – Now I knew I lost her (Poem 1274)

Now I knew I lost her — Not that she was gone — But Remoteness travelled On her Face and Tongue. Alien, though adjoining As a Foreign Race — Traversed she though pausing Latitudeless Place. Elements Unaltered — Universe the same But Love's transmigration — Somehow this had...

Anne Spencer – Requiem

Oh, I who so wanted to own some earth,Am consumed by the earth instead:Blood into riverBone into landThe grave restores what finds its bed.Oh, I who did drink of Spring’s fragrant clay,Give back its wine for other men:Breath into airHeart into grassMy heart bereft — I might rest...

Charles Bukowski – Rhyming Poem

the goldfish sing all night with guitars, and the whores go down with the stars, the whores go down with the stars I'm sorry, sir, we close at 4:30, besides your mother's neck is dirty, and the whores go down with the etc. the whores. go down. with the etc. I'm sorry jack you...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Realisation

 Hers was a lonely, shadowed lot;Or so the unperceiving thought,Who looked no deeper than her face,Devoid of chiselled lines of grace –No farther than her humble grate,And wondered how she bore her fate.Yet she was neither lone nor sad;So much of love her spirit had,She found...

Thomas Stearns Eliot – The Rum Tum Tugger

The Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat:If you offer him pheasant he would rather have grouse.If you put him in a house he would much prefer a flat,If you put him in a flat then he'd rather have a house.If you set him on a mouse then he only wants a rat,If you set him on a rat then...

Charles Bukowski – Sway With Me

sway with me, everything sad -- madmen in stone houses without doors, lepers steaming love and song frogs trying to figure the sky; sway with me, sad things -- fingers split on a forge old age like breakfast shell used books, used people used flowers, used love I need you I need...

Charles Bukowski – Poetry

it takes a lot of desperation dissatisfaction and disillusion to write a few good poems. it's not for everybody either to write it or even to read it. ...

Charles Bukowski – The Poetry Reading

at high noon at a small college near the beach sober the sweat running down my arms a spot of sweat on the table I flatten it with my finger blood money blood money my god they must think I love this like the others but it's for bread and beer and rent blood money I'm...

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge – We Never Said Farewell

We never said farewell, nor even looked Our last upon each other, for no sign Was made when we the linkèd chain unhooked And broke the level line. And here we dwell together, side by side, Our places fixed for life upon the chart. Two islands that the roaring seas...

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge – Our Lady

Mother of God! no lady thou: Common woman of common earth Our Lady ladies call thee now, But Christ was never of gentle birth; A common man of the common earth. For God’s ways are not as our ways: The noblest lady in the land Would have given up half her days, Would...

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge – Good Friday in my Heart

Good friday in my heart! Fear and affright! My thoughts are the Disciples when they fled, My words the words that priest and soldier said, My deed the spear to desecrate the dead. And day, Thy death therein, is changed to night. Then Easter in my heart sends up the...

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge – Blue and White

Blue is Our Lady’s colour, White is Our Lord’s. To-morrow I will wear a knot Of blue and white cords, That you may see it, where you ride Among the flashing swords. O banner, white and sunny blue, With prayer I wove thee! For love the white, for faith the heavenly...

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge – Affection

The earth that made the rose, She also is thy mother, and not I. The flame wherewith thy maiden spirit glows Was lighted at no hearth that I sit by. I am as far below as heaven above thee. Were I thine angel, more I could not love thee. Bid me defend thee! Thy danger...

Kahlil Gibran – Self-Knowledge XVII

And a man said, "Speak to us of Self-Knowledge." And he answered, saying: Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights. But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge. You would know in words that which you have always know in thought. You...

Sylvia Plath – Apprehensions

There is this white wall, above which the sky creates itself-Infinite, green, utterly untouchable.Angels swim in it, and the stars, in indifference also.They are my medium.The sun dissolves on this wall, bleeding its lights.A grey wall now, clawed and bloody.Is there no way out...

Sylvia Plath – Insomniac

The night is only a sort of carbon paper,Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of starsLetting in the light, peephole after peephole . . .A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.Under the eyes of the stars and the moon's rictusHe suffers his desert pillow, sleeplessnessStretching...

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge – Jealousy

‘The myrtle bush grew shady Down by the ford.’ ‘Is it even so?’ said my lady. ‘Even so!’ said my lord. ‘The leaves are set too thick together For the point of a sword. ‘The arras in your room hangs close, No light between! You wedded one of those that see unseen.’ ‘Is...

Rudyard Kipling – Justice

Across a world where all men grieve    And grieving strive the more, The great days range like tides and leave     Our dead on every shore. Heavy the load we undergo,     And our own hands prepare, If we have parley with the foe,  ...

Anne Brontë – The Narrow Way

Believe not those who sayThe upward path is smooth,Lest thou shouldst stumble in the way,And faint before the truth.It is the only roadUnto the realms of joy;But he who seeks that blest abodeMust all his powers employ.Bright hopes and pure delightUpon his course may beam,And there,...

Sylvia Plath – A Sorcerer Bids Farewell To Seem

I'm through with this grand looking-glass hotel where adjectives play croquet with flamingo nouns; methinks I shall absent me for a while from rhetoric of these rococo queens. Item : chuck out royal rigmarole of props and auction off each rare white-rabbit verb; send...