52 Poems
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LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE Little Orphant Annie’s come to our house to stay, An’ wash the cups an’ saucers up, an’ brush the crumbs away, An’ shoo the chickens off the porch, an’ dust the hearth, an’ sweep, An’ make the fire, an’ bake the bread, an’ earn her board-an’-keep; An’ all us other children, when
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NOTE TO J. ALFRED PRUFROCK I just dared to eat a really big peach as ripe as it could be and I have on a pair of plaid shorts and a blue tee shirt with a hole in it and little rivers of juice are now running down my chin and wrist and dripping onto
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LE ROI S’AMUSE Jove gazed On woven mazes Of patterned movement as the atoms whirled. His glance turned Into dancing, burning Colour-gods who rushed upon that sullen world, Waking, re-making, exalting it anew – Silver and purple, shrill-voiced yellow, turgid crimson, and virgin blue. Jove stared On overbearing And aching splendour of the naked
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DEUS, EGO AMO TE O God, I love thee, I love thee— Not out of hope of heaven for me Nor fearing not to love and be In the everlasting burning. Thou, thou, my Jesus, after me Didst reach thine arms out dying, For my sake sufferedst nails and lance, Mocked and marred countenance, Sorrows
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I consider this to be one of the major lyric poems of the 19th century. A lot of people would agree with me. If I had continued my literature studies many years ago, I would have specialized in the Victorians. They understood the crisis that was coming upon our civilization with the fading of Christianity.
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I meant to mention: formatting poetry for the web can be a problem if the poem's format is very irregular or unusual. Simple line and stanza breaks are no problem. They do require some manual editing on my part, because when you force a line break in your word processing software it ends up being
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Some believe the slumber Of trees is in December When timber’s naked under sky And squirrel keeps his chamber. But I believe their fibres Awake to life and labour When turbulence comes roaring up The land in loud October, And plunders, strips, and sunders And sends the leaves to wander And undisguises prickly shapes Beneath
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When I came across this poem by Denise Levertov (1923–1997), I was surprised because I’d assumed her work was only on secular themes. I didn’t know she’d become a Catholic late in her life and that she’d written poems about her faith. The Servant-Girl At Emmaus (A Painting by Velázquez) She listens, listens, holding
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Edna St. Vincent Millay was one of the poets I was introduced to in high school. I remember my English teacher talking about how her poem “Renassance” won recognition in a literary contest when she was just nineteen, and that many were astounded that a nineteen year old could have actually written such a poem.
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This has got to be one of my favorites: This Is Just To Say I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold (1934, William Carlos Williams, 1883 – 1963) Those last three lines are exhilarating,
Light On Dark Water 