Wilfred Owen – Training

Not this week nor this month dare I lie down
In languour under lime trees or smooth smile.
Love must not kiss my face pale that is brown.

My lips, parting, shall drink space, mile by mile;
Strong meats be all my hunger; my renown
Be the clean beauty of speed and pride of style.

Cold winds encountered on the racing Down
Shall thrill my heated bareness; but awhile
None else may meet me till I wear my crown.

Charlotte Mew – Sea Love

Tide be runnin' the great world over:

'Twas only last June month I mind that we

Was thinkin' the toss and the call in the breast of the lover

So everlastin' as the sea.

Heer's the same little fishes that sputter an swim,

Wi' the moon's old glim on the grey, wet sand;

An' him no more to me mor me to him

Than the wind goin' over my hand.

Carl Sandburg – Fire Dreams

(Written to be read aloud, if so be, Thanksgiving Day)

I remember here by the fire,

In the flickering reds and saffrons,

They came in a ramshackle tub,

Pilgrims in tall hats,

Pilgrims of iron jaws,

Drifting by weeks on beaten seas,

And the random chapters say

They were glad and sang to God.

And so

Since the iron-jawed men sat down

And said, "Thanks, O God,"

For life and soup and a little less

Than a hobo handout to-day,

Since gray winds blew gray patterns of sleet on Plymouth Rock,

Since the iron-jawed men sang "Thanks, O God,"

You and I, O Child of the West,

Remember more than ever

November and the hunter's moon,

November and the yellow-spotted hills.

And so

In the name of the iron-jawed men

I will stand up and say yes till the finish is come and gone.

God of all broken hearts, empty hands, sleeping soldiers,

God of all star-flung beaches of night sky,

I and my love-child stand up together to-day and sing: "Thanks, O God."

Emily Dickinson – You left me Sire two Legacies (Poem 713)

You left me – Sire – two Legacies –
A Legacy of Love
A Heavenly Father would suffice
Had He the offer of –

You left me Boundaries of Pain –
Capacious as the Sea –
Between Eternity and Time –
Your Consciousness – and me –

Carl Sandburg – Paula

Nothing else in this song-only your face.

Nothing else here-only your drinking, night-gray eyes.

The pier runs into the lake straight as a rifle barrel.

I stand on the pier and sing how I know you mornings.

It is not your eyes, your face, I remember.

It is not your dancing, race-horse feet.

It is something else I remember you for on the pier mornings.

Your hands are sweeter than nut-brown bread when you touch me.

Your shoulder brushes my arm-a south-west wind crosses the pier.

I forget your hands and your shoulder and I say again:

Nothing else in this song-only your face.

Nothing else here-only your drinking, night-gray eyes.