Robert-Frost – Acquainted with the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.I have outwalked the furthest city light.I have looked down the saddest city lane.I have passed by the watchman on his beatAnd dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.I have stood still and stopped...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox – A Lover's Quarrel

We two were lovers, the Sea and I;We plighted our troth 'neath a summer sky.And all through the riotous, ardent weatherWe dreamed, and loved, and rejoiced together.At times my lover would rage and storm.I said: 'No matter, his heart is warm.'Whatever his humour, I loved his ways,And...

William Shakespeare – Sonnet 100

Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so longTo speak of that which gives thee all thy might?Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeemIn gentle numbers time so idly spent;Sing to the...

Robert-Frost – After Apple-Picking

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a treeToward heaven still,And there's a barrel that I didn't fillBeside it, and there may be two or threeApples I didn't pick upon some bough.But I am done with apple-picking now.Essence of winter sleep is on the night,The scent of apples:...

William Shakespeare – Sonnet 18

Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck,And yet methinks I have astronomy,But not to tell of good, or evil luck,Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality,Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell;Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,Or say with princes if it shall go wellBy...

Robert-Frost – The Aim Was Song

Before man to blow to rightThe wind once blew itself untaught,And did its loudest day and nightIn any rough place where it caught.Man came to tell it what was wrong:It hadn't found the place to blow;It blew too hard - the aim was song.And listen - how it ought to go!He took a little...

W. H. Auden – In Memory of Sigmund Freud

When there are so many we shall have to mourn, when grief has been made so public, and exposed      to the critique of a whole epoch    the frailty of our conscience and anguish, of whom shall we speak? For every day they die among us, those...

Rabindranath Tagore – The Gardener 59

O woman, you are not merely thehandiwork of God, but also of men;these are ever endowing you withbeauty from their hearts.Poets are weaving for you a webwith threads of golden imagery;painters are giving your form evernew immortality.The sea gives its pearls, the minestheir gold,...

Wilfred Owen – Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-- The shrill, demented choirs...

W. H. Auden – On the Circuit

Among pelagian travelers,Lost on their lewd conceited wayTo Massachusetts, Michigan,Miami or L.A.,An airborne instrument I sit,Predestined nightly to fulfillColumbia-Giesen-Management'sUnfathomable will,By whose election justified,I bring my gospel of the MuseTo fundamentalists,...

Rabindranath Tagore – The Gardener 51

Then finish the last song and let usleave.Forget this night when the night isno more.Whom do I try to clasp in myarms? Dreams can never be made captive.My eager hands press emptiness tomy heart and it bruises my brea...

Wilfred Owen – Asleep

Under his helmet, up against his pack, After so many days of work and waking, Sleep took him by the brow and laid him back. There, in the happy no-time of his sleeping, Death took him by the heart. There heaved a quaking Of the aborted life within him leaping, Then chest and...

George Gordon Byron – Stanzas for Music

There be none of Beauty's daughters With a magic like thee; And like music on the waters Is thy sweet voice to me: When, as if its sound were causing The charmed ocean's pausing, The waves lie still and gleaming, And the lull'd winds seem dreaming: And the midnight...

Rabindranath Tagore – The Gardener 41

I long to speak the deepest words I have to say to you; but Idare not, for fear you should laugh.That is why I laugh at myself and shatter my secret in jest.I make light of my pain, afraid you should do so.I long to tell you the truest words I have to say to you; but Idare not,...

George Gordon Byron – Lachin Y Gair

Away, ye gay landscapes, ye garden of roses!In you let the minions of luxury rove;Restore me to the rocks, where the snowflake reposes,Though still they are sacred to freedom and love:Yet, Caledonia, beloved are thy mountains,Round their white summits though elements war;Though cataracts...

W. H. Auden – Grub First, Then Ethics

Should the shade of PlatoVisit us, anxious to knowhow anthropos is, we could say to him: "Well,we can read to ourselves, our useof holy numbers would shock you, and a poetmay lament—'Where is Telfordwhose bridged canals are still a Shropshire glorywhere Muir who on a Douglas Sprucerode...

Anne Spencer – Translation

We trekked into a far country, My friend and I. Our deeper content was never spoken, But each knew all the other said. He told me how calm his soul was laid By the lack of anvil and strife. "The wooing kestrel," I said, "mutes his mating-note To please the harmony of...

Wilfred Owen – 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. Sleep mothered them; and left the twilight sad. The shadow of the morrow weighed on men. Voices of old despondency resigned, Bowed by the shadow of the morrow,...

George Gordon Byron – The Vision Of Judgment

ISaint Peter sat by the celestial gate:His keys were rusty, and the lock was dull,So little trouble had been given of late;Not that the place by any means was full,But since the Gallic era 'eight-eight'The devils had ta'en a longer, stronger pull,And 'a pull altogether,' as they...

W. H. Auden – The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite wellThat, for all they care, I can go to hell,But on earth indifference is the leastWe have to dread from man or beast.How should we like it were stars to burnWith a passion for us we could not return?If equal affection cannot be,Let the more...

Anne Spencer – At the Carnival

Gay little Girl-of-the-Diving-Tank,I desire a name for you,Nice, as a right glove fits;For you—who amid the malodorousMechanics of this unlovely thing,Are darling of spirit and form.I know you—a glance, and what you areSits-by-the-fire in my heart.My Limousine-Lady knows you, orWhy...

Rabindranath Tagore – The Gardener 55

It was mid-day when you wentaway .The sun was strong in the sky.I had done my work and sat aloneon my balcony when you went away.Fitful gusts came winnowingthrough the smells of may distantfields.The doves cooed tireless in the shade,and a bee strayed in my room hum-ming the news...

Wilfred Owen – Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All...

W. H. Auden – In Memory of W. B. Yeats

IHe disappeared in the dead of winter:The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,And snow disfigured the public statues;The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.What instruments we have agreeThe day of his death was a dark cold day.Far from his illnessThe wolves ran...

Anne Spencer – Dunbar

Ah, how poets sing and die!Make one song and Heaven takes it;Have one heart and Beauty breaks it;Chatterton, Shelley, Keats and I—Ah, how poets sing and d...