Emily Dickinson – I dwell in Possibility – (Poem 466)

I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of eye –
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –
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Anne Spencer – 1975

Turn an earth clod

Peel a shaley rock

In fondness molest a curly worm

Whose familiar is everywhere

Kneel

And the curly worm sentient now

Will light the word that tells the poet what a poem is.

Emily Dickinson – The Moon is distant from the Sea (Poem 387)

The Moon is distant from the Sea –
And yet, with Amber Hands –
She leads Him – docile as a Boy –
Along appointed Sands –

He never misses a Degree –
Obedient to Her eye –
He comes just so far – toward the Town –
Just so far – goes away –

Oh, Signor, Thine, the Amber Hand –
And mine – the distant Sea –
Obedient to the least command
Thine eye impose on me –

Wilfred Owen – Conscious

His fingers wake, and flutter; up the bed.
His eyes come open with a pull of will,
Helped by the yellow mayflowers by his head.
The blind-cord drawls across the window-sill...
What a smooth floor the ward has! What a rug!
Who is that talking somewhere out of sight?
Three flies creeping round the shiny jug...
'Nurse! Doctor!'-'Yes; all right, all right.'

But sudden evening muddles all the air.
There seems no time to want a drink of water.
Nurse looks so far away. And here and there
Music and roses burst through crimson slaughter.
He can't remember where he saw blue sky...
The trench is narrower. Cold, he's cold; yet hot --
And there's no light to see the voices by...
There is no time to ask... he knows not what.

Charlotte Mew – The Peddler

Lend me, a little while, the key

That locks your heavy heart, and I'll give you back--

Rarer than books and ribbons and beads bright to see,

This little Key of Dreams out of my pack.

The road, the road, beyond men's bolted doors,

There shall I walk and you go free of me,

For yours lies North across the moors,

And mine lies South. To what seas?

How if we stopped and let our solemn selves go by,

While my gay ghost caught and kissed yours, as ghosts don't do,

And by the wayside, this forgotten you and I

Sat, and were twenty-two?

Give me the key that locks your tired eyes,

And I will lend you this one from my pack,

Brighter than colored beads and painted books that make men wise:

Take it. No, give it back!