poems.json

{"73355481dbedaee421abdd1aa4f880bc":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45322/the-eagle-56d224c9a41d1","title":"The Eagle","author":"Alfred, Lord Tennyson","poem":["He clasps the crag with crooked hands;","Close to the sun in lonely lands,","Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.","The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;","He watches from his mountain walls,","And like a thunderbolt he falls."]},"f0bf2a610c971d9a453ea05a7334b7eb":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50271/amoretti-xxx-my-love-is-like-to-ice-and-i-to-fire","title":"Amoretti XXX: My Love is like to ice, and I to fire","author":"Edmund Spenser","poem":["My Love is like to ice, and I to fire:","How comes it then that this her cold so great","Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,","But harder grows the more I her entreat?","Or how comes it that my exceeding heat","Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,","But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,","And feel my flames augmented manifold?","What more miraculous thing may be told,","That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,","And ice, which is congeal'd with senseless cold,","Should kindle fire by wonderful device?","Such is the power of love in gentle mind,","That it can alter all the course of kind."]},"411060d2a96d79a6ba02fb8fcca2eb97":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43763/love-among-the-ruins","title":"Love among the Ruins","author":"Robert Browning","poem":["Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,","Miles and miles","On the solitary pastures where our sheep","Half-asleep","Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop","As they crop-","Was the site once of a city great and gay,","(So they say)","Of our country's very capital, its prince","Ages since","Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far","Peace or war.","Now the country does not even boast a tree,","As you see,","To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills","From the hills","Intersect and give a name to, (else they run","Into one)","Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires","Up like fires","O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall","Bounding all","Made of marble, men might march on nor be prest","Twelve abreast.","And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass","Never was!","Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'er-spreads","And embeds","Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,","Stock or stone-","Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe","Long ago;","Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame","Struck them tame;","And that glory and that shame alike, the gold","Bought and sold.","Now-the single little turret that remains","On the plains,","By the caper overrooted, by the gourd","Overscored,","While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks","Through the chinks-","Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time","Sprang sublime,","And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced","As they raced,","And the monarch and his minions and his dames","Viewed the games.","And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve","Smiles to leave","To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece","In such peace,","And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey","Melt away-","That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair","Waits me there","In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul","For the goal,","When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb","Till I come.","But he looked upon the city, every side,","Far and wide,","All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades'","Colonnades,","All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,-and then","All the men!","When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,","Either hand","On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace","Of my face,","Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech","Each on each.","In one year they sent a million fighters forth","South and North,","And they built their gods a brazen pillar high","As the sky","Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force-","Gold, of course.","O heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!","Earth's returns","For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!","Shut them in,","With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!","Love is best."]},"7ad88829159ee64054366c34f4b653c4":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44639/morituri-salutamus-poem-for-the-fiftieth-anniversary-of-the-class-of-1825-in-bowdoin-college","title":"Morituri Salutamus: Poem for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Class of 1825 in Bowdoin College","author":"Henry Wadsworth Longfellow","poem":["Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis,","Et fugiunt freno non remorante dies.","Ovid, Fastorum",", Lib. vi.","\"O Caesar, we who are about to die","Salute you!\" was the gladiators' cry","In the arena, standing face to face","With death and with the Roman populace.","O ye familiar scenes,-ye groves of pine,","That once were mine and are no longer mine,-","Thou river, widening through the meadows green","To the vast sea, so near and yet unseen,-","Ye halls, in whose seclusion and repose","Phantoms of fame, like exhalations, rose","And vanished,-we who are about to die,","Salute you; earth and air and sea and sky,","And the Imperial Sun that scatters down","His sovereign splendors upon grove and town.","Ye do not answer us! ye do not hear!","We are forgotten; and in your austere","And calm indifference, ye little care","Whether we come or go, or whence or where.","What passing generations fill these halls,","What passing voices echo from these walls,","Ye heed not; we are only as the blast,","A moment heard, and then forever past.","Not so the teachers who in earlier days","Led our bewildered feet through learning's maze;","They answer us-alas! what have I said?","What greetings come there from the voiceless dead?","What salutation, welcome, or reply?","What pressure from the hands that lifeless lie?","They are no longer here; they all are gone","Into the land of shadows,-all save one.","Honor and reverence, and the good repute","That follows faithful service as its fruit,","Be unto him, whom living we salute.","The great Italian poet, when he made","His dreadful journey to the realms of shade,","Met there the old instructor of his youth,","And cried in tones of pity and of ruth:","\"Oh, never from the memory of my heart","Your dear, paternal image shall depart,","Who while on earth, ere yet by death surprised,","Taught me how mortals are immortalized;","How grateful am I for that patient care","All my life long my language shall declare.\"","To-day we make the poet's words our own,","And utter them in plaintive undertone;","Nor to the living only be they said,","But to the other living called the dead,","Whose dear, paternal images appear","Not wrapped in gloom, but robed in sunshine here;","Whose simple lives, complete and without flaw,","Were part and parcel of great Nature's law;","Who said not to their Lord, as if afraid,","\"Here is thy talent in a napkin laid,\"","But labored in their sphere, as men who live","In the delight that work alone can give.","Peace be to them; eternal peace and rest,","And the fulfilment of the great behest:","\"Ye have been faithful over a few things,","Over ten cities shall ye reign as kings.\"","And ye who fill the places we once filled,","And follow in the furrows that we tilled,","Young men, whose generous hearts are beating high,","We who are old, and are about to die,","Salute you; hail you; take your hands in ours,","And crown you with our welcome as with flowers!","How beautiful is youth! how bright it gleams","With its illusions, aspirations, dreams!","Book of Beginnings, Story without End,","Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend!","Aladdin's Lamp, and Fortunatus' Purse,","That holds the treasures of the universe!","All possibilities are in its hands,","No danger daunts it, and no foe withstands;","In its sublime audacity of faith,","\"Be thou removed!\" it to the mountain saith,","And with ambitious feet, secure and proud,","Ascends the ladder leaning on the cloud!","As ancient Priam at the Scaean gate","Sat on the walls of Troy in regal state","With the old men, too old and weak to fight,","Chirping like grasshoppers in their delight","To see the embattled hosts, with spear and shield,","Of Trojans and Achaians in the field;","So from the snowy summits of our years","We see you in the plain, as each appears,","And question of you; asking, \"Who is he","That towers above the others? Which may be","Atreides, Menelaus, Odysseus,","Ajax the great, or bold Idomeneus?\"","Let him not boast who puts his armor on","As he who puts it off, the battle done.","Study yourselves; and most of all note well","Wherein kind Nature meant you to excel.","Not every blossom ripens into fruit;","Minerva, the inventress of the flute,","Flung it aside, when she her face surveyed","Distorted in a fountain as she played;","The unlucky Marsyas found it, and his fate","Was one to make the bravest hesitate.","Write on your doors the saying wise and old,","\"Be bold! be bold!\" and everywhere, \"Be bold;","Be not too bold!\" Yet better the excess","Than the defect; better the more than less;","Better like Hector in the field to die,","Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly.","And now, my classmates; ye remaining few","That number not the half of those we knew,","Ye, against whose familiar names not yet","The fatal asterisk of death is set,","Ye I salute! The horologe of Time","Strikes the half-century with a solemn chime,","And summons us together once again,","The joy of meeting not unmixed with pain.","Where are the others? Voices from the deep","Caverns of darkness answer me: \"They sleep!\"","I name no names; instinctively I feel","Each at some well-remembered grave will kneel,","And from the inscription wipe the weeds and moss,","For every heart best knoweth its own loss.","I see their scattered gravestones gleaming white","Through the pale dusk of the impending night;","O'er all alike the impartial sunset throws","Its golden lilies mingled with the rose;","We give to each a tender thought, and pass","Out of the graveyards with their tangled grass,","Unto these scenes frequented by our feet","When we were young, and life was fresh and sweet.","What shall I say to you? What can I say","Better than silence is? When I survey","This throng of faces turned to meet my own,","Friendly and fair, and yet to me unknown,","Transformed the very landscape seems to be;","It is the same, yet not the same to me.","So many memories crowd upon my brain,","So many ghosts are in the wooded plain,","I fain would steal away, with noiseless tread,","As from a house where some one lieth dead.","I cannot go;-I pause;-I hesitate;","My feet reluctant linger at the gate;","As one who struggles in a troubled dream","To speak and cannot, to myself I seem.","Vanish the dream! Vanish the idle fears!","Vanish the rolling mists of fifty years!","Whatever time or space may intervene,","I will not be a stranger in this scene.","Here every doubt, all indecision, ends;","Hail, my companions, comrades, classmates, friends!","Ah me! the fifty years since last we met","Seem to me fifty folios bound and set","By Time, the great transcriber, on his shelves,","Wherein are written the histories of ourselves.","What tragedies, what comedies, are there;","What joy and grief, what rapture and despair!","What chronicles of triumph and defeat,","Of struggle, and temptation, and retreat!","What records of regrets, and doubts, and fears!","What pages blotted, blistered by our tears!","What lovely landscapes on the margin shine,","What sweet, angelic faces, what divine","And holy images of love and trust,","Undimmed by age, unsoiled by damp or dust!","Whose hand shall dare to open and explore","These volumes, closed and clasped forevermore?","Not mine. With reverential feet I pass;","I hear a voice that cries, \"Alas! alas!","Whatever hath been written shall remain,","Nor be erased nor written o'er again;","The unwritten only still belongs to thee:","Take heed, and ponder well what that shall be.\"","As children frightened by a thunder-cloud","Are reassured if some one reads aloud","A tale of wonder, with enchantment fraught,","Or wild adventure, that diverts their thought,","Let me endeavor with a tale to chase","The gathering shadows of the time and place,","And banish what we all too deeply feel","Wholly to say, or wholly to conceal.","In mediaeval Rome, I know not where,","There stood an image with its arm in air,","And on its lifted finger, shining clear,","A golden ring with the device, \"Strike here!\"","Greatly the people wondered, though none guessed","The meaning that these words but half expressed,","Until a learned clerk, who at noonday","With downcast eyes was passing on his way,","Paused, and observed the spot, and marked it well,","Whereon the shadow of the finger fell;","And, coming back at midnight, delved, and found","A secret stairway leading underground.","Down this he passed into a spacious hall,","Lit by a flaming jewel on the wall;","And opposite, in threatening attitude,","With bow and shaft a brazen statue stood.","Upon its forehead, like a coronet,","Were these mysterious words of menace set:","\"That which I am, I am; my fatal aim","None can escape, not even yon luminous flame!\"","Midway the hall was a fair table placed,","With cloth of gold, and golden cups enchased","With rubies, and the plates and knives were gold,","And gold the bread and viands manifold.","Around it, silent, motionless, and sad,","Were seated gallant knights in armor clad,","And ladies beautiful with plume and zone,","But they were stone, their hearts within were stone;","And the vast hall was filled in every part","With silent crowds, stony in face and heart.","Long at the scene, bewildered and amazed","The trembling clerk in speechless wonder gazed;","Then from the table, by his greed made bold,","He seized a goblet and a knife of gold,","And suddenly from their seats the guests upsprang,","The vaulted ceiling with loud clamors rang,","The archer sped his arrow, at their call,","Shattering the lambent jewel on the wall,","And all was dark around and overhead;-","Stark on the floor the luckless clerk lay dead!","The writer of this legend then records","Its ghostly application in these words:","The image is the Adversary old,","Whose beckoning finger points to realms of gold;","Our lusts and passions are the downward stair","That leads the soul from a diviner air;","The archer, Death; the flaming jewel, Life;","Terrestrial goods, the goblet and the knife;","The knights and ladies, all whose flesh and bone","By avarice have been hardened into stone;","The clerk, the scholar whom the love of pelf","Tempts from his books and from his nobler self.","The scholar and the world! The endless strife,","The discord in the harmonies of life!","The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,","And all the sweet serenity of books;","The market-place, the eager love of gain,","Whose aim is vanity, and whose end is pain!","But why, you ask me, should this tale be told","To men grown old, or who are growing old?","It is too late! Ah, nothing is too late","Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.","Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles","Wrote his grand Oedipus, and Simonides","Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers,","When each had numbered more than fourscore years,","And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten,","Had but begun his \"Characters of Men.\"","Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales,","At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales;","Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,","Completed Faust when eighty years were past.","These are indeed exceptions; but they show","How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow","Into the arctic regions of our lives,","Where little else than life itself survives.","As the barometer foretells the storm","While still the skies are clear, the weather warm","So something in us, as old age draws near,","Betrays the pressure of the atmosphere.","The nimble mercury, ere we are aware,","Descends the elastic ladder of the air;","The telltale blood in artery and vein","Sinks from its higher levels in the brain;","Whatever poet, orator, or sage","May say of it, old age is still old age.","It is the waning, not the crescent moon;","The dusk of evening, not the blaze of noon;","It is not strength, but weakness; not desire,","But its surcease; not the fierce heat of fire,","The burning and consuming element,","But that of ashes and of embers spent,","In which some living sparks we still discern,","Enough to warm, but not enough to burn.","What then? Shall we sit idly down and say","The night hath come; it is no longer day?","The night hath not yet come; we are not quite","Cut off from labor by the failing light;","Something remains for us to do or dare;","Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear;","Not Oedipus Coloneus, or Greek Ode,","Or tales of pilgrims that one morning rode","Out of the gateway of the Tabard Inn,","But other something, would we but begin;","For age is opportunity no less","Than youth itself, though in another dress,","And as the evening twilight fades away","The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day."]},"c723225852d1d13efd1b455f7941d800":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43294/a-dialogue-of-self-and-soul","title":"A Dialogue of Self and Soul","author":"William Butler Yeats","poem":["I","My Soul.","I summon to the winding ancient stair;","Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,","Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,","Upon the breathless starlit air,","Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;","Fix every wandering thought upon","That quarter where all thought is done:","Who can distinguish darkness from the soul?","My Self.","The consecrated blade upon my knees","Is Sato's ancient blade, still as it was,","Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass","Unspotted by the centuries;","That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn","From some court-lady's dress and round","The wooden scabbard bound and wound,","Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn.","My Soul.","Why should the imagination of a man","Long past his prime remember things that are","Emblematical of love and war?","Think of ancestral night that can,","If but imagination scorn the earth","And intellect its wandering","To this and that and t'other thing,","Deliver from the crime of death and birth.","My Self.","Montashigi, third of his family, fashioned it","Five hundred years ago, about it lie","Flowers from I know not what embroidery-","Heart's purple-and all these I set","For emblems of the day against the tower","Emblematical of the night,","And claim as by a soldier's right","A charter to commit the crime once more.","My Soul.","Such fullness in that quarter overflows","And falls into the basin of the mind","That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind,","For intellect no longer knows","Is","from the","Ought",", or","Knower","from the","Known","-","That is to say, ascends to Heaven;","Only the dead can be forgiven;","But when I think of that my tongue's a stone.","II","My Self.","A living man is blind and drinks his drop.","What matter if the ditches are impure?","What matter if I live it all once more?","Endure that toil of growing up;","The ignominy of boyhood; the distress","Of boyhood changing into man;","The unfinished man and his pain","Brought face to face with his own clumsiness;","The finished man among his enemies?-","How in the name of Heaven can he escape","That defiling and disfigured shape","The mirror of malicious eyes","Casts upon his eyes until at last","He thinks that shape must be his shape?","And what's the good of an escape","If honour find him in the wintry blast?","I am content to live it all again","And yet again, if it be life to pitch","Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch,","A blind man battering blind men;","Or into that most fecund ditch of all,","The folly that man does","Or must suffer, if he woos","A proud woman not kindred of his soul.","I am content to follow to its source","Every event in action or in thought;","Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!","When such as I cast out remorse","So great a sweetness flows into the breast","We must laugh and we must sing,","We are blest by everything,","Everything we look upon is blest."]},"2b91469698fbfaccd6aa4fb9324bbdd4":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50702/discipline","title":"Discipline","author":"George Herbert","poem":["Throw away thy rod,","Throw away thy wrath:","O my God,","Take the gentle path.","For my heart's desire","Unto thine is bent:","I aspire","To a full consent.","Not a word or look","I affect to own,","But by book,","And thy book alone.","Though I fail, I weep:","Though I halt in pace,","Yet I creep","To the throne of grace.","Then let wrath remove;","Love will do the deed:","For with love","Stony hearts will bleed.","Love is swift of foot;","Love's a man of war,","And can shoot,","And can hit from far.","Who can 'scape his bow?","That which wrought on thee,","Brought thee low,","Needs must work on me.","Throw away thy rod;","Though man frailties hath,","Thou art God:","Throw away thy wrath."]},"6abfdba6f2e6f41735b97de54f8952ed":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51786/song-of-myself-35","title":"Song of Myself: 35","author":"Walt Whitman","poem":["Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight?","Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?","List to the yarn, as my grandmother's father the sailor told it to me.","Our foe was no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,)","His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be;","Along the lower'd eve he came horribly raking us.","We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touch'd,","My captain lash'd fast with his own hands.","We had receiv'd some eighteen pound shots under the water,","On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire, killing all around and blowing up overhead.","Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark,","Ten o'clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain, and five feet of water reported,","The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after-hold to give them a chance for themselves.","The transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels,","They see so many strange faces they do not know whom to trust.","Our frigate takes fire,","The other asks if we demand quarter?","If our colors are struck and the fighting done?","Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain,","We have not struck,","he composedly cries, we have just begun our part of the fighting.","Only three guns are in use,","One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy's mainmast,","Two well serv'd with grape and canister silence his musketry and clear his decks.","The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially the main-top,","They hold out bravely during the whole of the action.","Not a moment's cease,","The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the powder-magazine.","One of the pumps has been shot away, it is generally thought we are sinking.","Serene stands the little captain,","He is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low,","His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns.","Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon they surrender to us."]},"48d3ba22b461ae59b0826d7f24ff717f":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45003/when-i-am-dead-my-dearest","title":"When I am dead, my dearest","author":"Christina Rossetti","poem":["When I am dead, my dearest,","Sing no sad songs for me;","Plant thou no roses at my head,","Nor shady cypress tree:","Be the green grass above me","With showers and dewdrops wet;","And if thou wilt, remember,","And if thou wilt, forget.","I shall not see the shadows,","I shall not feel the rain;","I shall not hear the nightingale","Sing on, as if in pain:","And dreaming through the twilight","That doth not rise nor set,","Haply I may remember,","And haply may forget."]},"9aca8162e4280ae57a676a176e8c23aa":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46666/my-dream-about-being-white","title":"my dream about being white","author":"Lucille Clifton","poem":["hey music and","me","only white,","hair a flutter of","fall leaves","circling my perfect","line of a nose,","no lips,","no behind, hey","white me","and i'm wearing","white history","but there's no future","in those clothes","so i take them off and","wake up","dancing."]},"9b578c468a9abad56189ab540fd4e5b1":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44451/cynthias-revels-queen-and-huntress-chaste-and-fair","title":"Cynthia's Revels: Queen and huntress, chaste and fair","author":"Ben Jonson","poem":["Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,","Now the sun is laid to sleep,","Seated in thy silver chair","State in wonted manner keep:","Hesperus entreats thy light,","Goddess excellently bright.","Earth, let not thy envious shade","Dare itself to interpose;","Cynthia's shining orb was made","Heaven to clear when day did close:","Bless us then with wished sight,","Goddess excellently bright.","Lay thy bow of pearl apart","And thy crystal-shining quiver;","Give unto the flying hart","Space to breathe, how short soever:","Thou that mak'st a day of night,","Goddess excellently bright."]},"17a081dff821741287bd780f525304c5":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50376/on-a-dream","title":"On a Dream","author":"John Keats","poem":["As Hermes once took to his feathers light,","When lulled Argus, baffled, swoon'd and slept,","So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright","So play'd, so charm'd, so conquer'd, so bereft","The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes;","And seeing it asleep, so fled away,","Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,","Nor unto Tempe where Jove griev'd that day;","But to that second circle of sad Hell,","Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw","Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell","Their sorrows-pale were the sweet lips I saw,","Pale were the lips I kiss'd, and fair the form","I floated with, about that melancholy storm."]},"817ac2e8ec81a21849cc300b363fa6ba":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50013/patience-though-i-have-not","title":"Patience, Though I Have Not","author":"Sir  Thomas Wyatt","poem":["Patience, though I have not","The thing that I require,","I must of force, God wot,","Forbear my most desire;","For no ways can I find","To sail against the wind.","Patience, do what they will","To work me woe or spite,","I shall content me still","To think both day and night,","To think and hold my peace,","Since there is no redress.","Patience, withouten blame,","For I offended nought;","I know they know the same,","Though they have changed their thought.","Was ever thought so moved","To hate that it hath loved?","Patience of all my harm,","For fortune is my foe;","Patience must be the charm","To heal me of my woe:","Patience without offence","Is a painful patience."]},"ed5202eff9e93e1187e338bce004b618":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43990/the-knights-tomb","title":"The Knight's Tomb","author":"Samuel Taylor Coleridge","poem":["Where is the grave of Sir Arthur O'Kellyn?","Where may the grave of that good man be?-","By the side of a spring, on the breast of Helvellyn,","Under the twigs of a young birch tree!","The oak that in summer was sweet to hear,","And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year,","And whistled and roared in the winter alone,","Is gone,-and the birch in its stead is grown.-","The Knight's bones are dust,","And his good sword rust;-","His soul is with the saints, I trust."]},"e256b65f9510aae70664cbfbf6abb060":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44709/modern-love-xxxiv","title":"Modern Love: XXXIV","author":"George Meredith","poem":["Madam would speak with me. So, now it comes:","The Deluge or else Fire! She's well, she thanks","My husbandship. Our chain on silence clanks.","Time leers between, above his twiddling thumbs.","Am I quite well? Most excellent in health!","The journals, too, I diligently peruse.","Vesuvius is expected to give news:","Niagara is no noisier. By stealth","Our eyes dart scrutinizing snakes. She's glad","I'm happy, says her quivering under-lip.","\"And are not you?\" \"How can I be?\" \"Take ship!","For happiness is somewhere to be had.\"","\"Nowhere for me!\" Her voice is barely heard.","I am not melted, and make no pretence.","With commonplace I freeze her, tongue and sense.","Niagara or Vesuvius is deferred."]},"3267786b4922c935df07efca69a7d0f8":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42892/fireflies-in-the-garden","title":"Fireflies in the Garden","author":"Robert Frost","poem":["Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,","And here on earth come emulating flies,","That though they never equal stars in size,","(And they were never really stars at heart)","Achieve at times a very star-like start.","Only, of course, they can't sustain the part."]},"87fa6c6a1c1158346b659e1d40533e82":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47330/his-wish-to-god","title":"His Wish to God","author":"Robert Herrick","poem":["I would to God, that mine old age might have","Before my last, but here a living grave;","Some one poor almshouse, there to lie, or stir,","Ghost-like, as in my meaner sepulchre;","A little piggin, and a pipkin by,","To hold things fitting my necessity,","Which, rightly us'd, both in their time and place,","Might me excite to fore, and after, grace.","Thy cross, my Christ, fix'd 'fore mine eyes should be,","Not to adore that, but to worship Thee.","So here the remnant of my days I'd spend,","Reading Thy bible, and my book;","so end."]},"9bf2d69a332e21fc53c690e19ef70c7a":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57341/i-looked-up-from-my-writing","title":"I Looked Up from My Writing","author":"Thomas Hardy","poem":["I looked up from my writing,","And gave a start to see,","As if rapt in my inditing,","The moon's full gaze on me.","Her meditative misty head","Was spectral in its air,","And I involuntarily said,","'What are you doing there?'","'Oh, I've been scanning pond and hole","And waterway hereabout","For the body of one with a sunken soul","Who has put his life-light out.","'Did you hear his frenzied tattle?","It was sorrow for his son","Who is slain in brutish battle,","Though he has injured none.","'And now I am curious to look","Into the blinkered mind","Of one who wants to write a book","In a world of such a kind.'","Her temper overwrought me,","And I edged to shun her view,","For I felt assured she thought me","One who should drown him too."]},"ab305ffa3c3a58dd40647d9df31b3d9a":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46784/a-pict-song","title":"A Pict Song","author":"Rudyard Kipling","poem":["('The Winged Hats' -","Puck of Pook's Hill",")","Rome never looks where she treads.","Always her heavy hooves fall","On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;","And Rome never heeds when we bawl.","Her sentries pass on-that is all,","And we gather behind them in hordes,","And plot to reconquer the Wall,","With only our tongues for our swords.","We are the Little Folk-we!","Too little to love or to hate.","Leave us alone and you'll see","How we can drag down the State!","We are the worm in the wood!","We are the rot at the root!","We are the taint in the blood!","We are the thorn in the foot!","Mistletoe killing an oak-","Rats gnawing cables in two-","Moths making holes in a cloak-","How they must love what they do!","Yes-and we Little Folk too,","We are busy as they-","Working our works out of view-","Watch, and you'll see it some day!","No indeed! We are not strong,","But we know Peoples that are.","Yes, and we'll guide them along","To smash and destroy you in War!","We","shall be slaves just the same?","Yes, we have always been slaves,","But you-you will die of the shame,","And then we shall dance on your graves!","We are the Little Folk, we, etc."]},"e80fe0ff06af3a28c2806b793524b318":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45558/there-was-a-boy","title":"There was a Boy","author":"William Wordsworth","poem":["There was a Boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs","And islands of Winander! many a time,","At evening, when the earliest stars began","To move along the edges of the hills,","Rising or setting, would he stand alone,","Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake;","And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands","Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth","Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,","Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls","That they might answer him.-And they would shout","Across the watery vale, and shout again,","Responsive to his call,-with quivering peals,","And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud","Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild","Of jocund din! And, when there came a pause","Of silence such as baffled his best skill:","Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung","Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise","Has carried far into his heart the voice","Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene","Would enter unawares into his mind","With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,","Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received","Into the bosom of the steady lake.","This boy was taken from his mates, and died","In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old.","Pre-eminent in beauty is the vale","Where he was born and bred: the churchyard hangs","Upon a slope above the village-school;","And through that churchyard when my way has led","On summer-evenings, I believe that there","A long half-hour together I have stood","Mute-looking at the grave in which he lies!"]},"fc5e7b8138b892482235be065fd74111":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47421/song-orpheus-with-his-lute-made-trees","title":"Song: \"Orpheus with his lute made trees\"","author":"William Shakespeare","poem":["(from","Henry VIII",")","Orpheus with his lute made trees,","And the mountain tops that freeze,","Bow themselves when he did sing:","To his music plants and flowers","Ever sprung; as sun and showers","There had made a lasting spring.","Every thing that heard him play,","Even the billows of the sea,","Hung their heads, and then lay by.","In sweet music is such art,","Killing care and grief of heart","Fall asleep, or hearing, die."]},"762b9357d890d1e85129ed5d5123b30f":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44104/the-good-morrow","title":"The Good-Morrow","author":"John Donne","poem":["I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I","Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?","But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?","Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?","'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.","If ever any beauty I did see,","Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.","And now good-morrow to our waking souls,","Which watch not one another out of fear;","For love, all love of other sights controls,","And makes one little room an everywhere.","Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,","Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,","Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.","My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,","And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;","Where can we find two better hemispheres,","Without sharp north, without declining west?","Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;","If our two loves be one, or, thou and I","Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die."]},"ec0b31baa85179fa871694b3cd154b78":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/148569/on-teaching","title":"On Teaching","author":"Kahlil Gibran","poem":["Then said a teacher, Speak to us of Teach-","ing.","And he said:","No man can reveal to you aught but that","which already lies half asleep in the dawn-","ing of your knowledge.","The teacher who walks in the shadow of","the temple, among his followers, gives not","of his wisdom but rather of his faith and","his lovingness.","If he is indeed wise he does not bid you","enter the house of his wisdom, but rather","leads you to the threshold of your own","mind.","The astronomer may speak to you of his","understanding of space, but he cannot give","you his understanding.","The musician may sing to you of the","rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot","give you the ear which arrests the rhythm","nor the voice that echoes it.","And he who is versed in the science of","numbers can tell of the regions of weight","and measure, but he cannot conduct you","thither.","For the vision of one man lends not its","wings to another man.","And even as each one of you stands alone","in God's knowledge, so must each one of","you be alone in his knowledge of God and","in his understanding of the earth."]},"57f9326bc760b342e0577d794966519c":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52165/this-room-56d2306b75e91","title":"This Room","author":"John Ashbery","poem":["The room I entered was a dream of this room.","Surely all those feet on the sofa were mine.","The oval portrait","of a dog was me at an early age.","Something shimmers, something is hushed up.","We had macaroni for lunch every day","except Sunday, when a small quail was induced","to be served to us. Why do I tell you these things?","You are not even here."]},"474bb53098d0a18fff862a7c2ece2c51":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/92195/matilda-gathering-flowers","title":"Matilda Gathering Flowers","author":"Percy Bysshe Shelley","poem":["from the","Purgatorio","of Dante, Canto 28, lines 1-51","And earnest to explore within-around-","The divine wood, whose thick green living woof","Tempered the young day to the sight-I wound","Up the green slope, beneath the forest's roof,","With slow, soft steps leaving the mountain's steep,","And sought those inmost labyrinths, motion-proof","Against the air, that in that stillness deep","And solemn, struck upon my forehead bare,","The slow, soft stroke of a continuous ...","In which the ... leaves tremblingly were","All bent towards that part where earliest","The sacred hill obscures the morning air.","Yet were they not so shaken from the rest,","But that the birds, perched on the utmost spray,","Incessantly renewing their blithe quest,","With perfect joy received the early day,","Singing within the glancing leaves, whose sound","Kept a low burden to their roundelay,","Such as from bough to bough gathers around","The pine forest on bleak Chiassi's shore,","When Aeolus Sirocco has unbound.","My slow steps had already borne me o'er","Such space within the antique wood, that I","Perceived not where I entered any more,-","When, lo! a stream whose little waves went by,","Bending towards the left through grass that grew","Upon its bank, impeded suddenly","My going on. Water of purest hue","On earth, would appear turbid and impure","Compared with this, whose unconcealing dew,","Dark, dark, yet clear, moved under the obscure","Eternal shades, whose interwoven looms","The rays of moon or sunlight ne'er endure.","I moved not with my feet, but mid the glooms","Pierced with my charmed eye, contemplating","The mighty multitude of fresh May blooms","Which starred that night, when, even as a thing","That suddenly, for blank astonishment,","Charms every sense, and makes all thought take wing,-","A solitary woman! and she went","Singing and gathering flower after flower,","With which her way was painted and besprent.","Bright lady, who, if looks had ever power","To bear true witness of the heart within,","Dost bask under the beams of love, come lower","Towards this bank. I prithee let me win","This much of thee, to come, that I may hear","Thy song: like Proserpine, in Enna's glen,","Thou seemest to my fancy, singing here","And gathering flowers, as that fair maiden when","She lost the Spring, and Ceres her more dear."]},"2bc7a481daa1aa180dfef1e3bc5c9987":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45750/paradise-regaind-book-2-1671-version","title":"Paradise Regain'd: Book 2 (1671 version)","author":"John Milton","poem":["MEan while the new-baptiz'd, who yet remain'd","At","Jordan","with the Baptist, and had seen","Him whom they heard so late expresly call'd","Jesus Messiah Son of God declar'd,","And on that high Authority had believ'd,","And with him talkt, and with him lodg'd, I mean","Andrew","and","Simon",", famous after known","With others though in Holy Writ not nam'd,","Now missing him thir joy so lately found,","So lately found, and so abruptly gone,","Began to doubt, and doubted many days,","And as the days increas'd, increas'd thir doubt:","Sometimes they thought he might be only shewn,","And for a time caught up to God, as once","Moses","was in the Mount, and missing long;","And the great","Thisbite","who on fiery wheels","Rode up to Heaven, yet once again to come.","Therefore as those young Prophets then with care","Sought lost","Eliah",", so in each place these","Nigh to","Bethabara","; in","Jerico","The City of Palms,","AEnon",", and","Salem","Old,","Machaerus","and each Town or City wall'd","On this side the broad lake","Genezaret",",","Or in","Perea",", but return'd in vain.","Then on the bank of","Jordan",", by a Creek:","Where winds with Reeds, and Osiers whisp'ring play","Plain Fishermen, no greater men them call,","Close in a Cottage low together got","Thir unexpected loss and plaints out breath'd.","Alas, from what high hope to what relapse","Unlook'd for are we fall'n, our eyes beheld","Messiah certainly now come, so long","Expected of our Fathers; we have heard","His words, his wisdom full of grace and truth,","Now, now, for sure, deliverance is at hand,","The Kingdom shall to","Israel","be restor'd:","Thus we rejoyc'd, but soon our joy is turn'd","Into perplexity and new amaze:","For whither is he gone, what accident","Hath rapt him from us? will he now retire","After appearance, and again prolong","Our expectation?   God of","Israel",",","Send thy Messiah forth, the time is come;","Behold the Kings of the Earth how they oppress","Thy chosen, to what highth thir pow'r unjust","They have exalted, and behind them cast","All fear of thee, arise and vindicate","Thy Glory, free thy people from thir yoke,","But let us wait; thus far he hath perform'd,","Sent his Anointed, and to us reveal'd him,","By his great Prophet, pointed at and shown,","In publick, and with him we have convers'd;","Let us be glad of this, and all our fears","Lay on his Providence; he will not fail","Nor will withdraw him now, nor will recall,","Mock us with his blest sight, then snatch him hence,","Soon we shall see our hope, our joy return.","Thus they out of their plaints new hope resume","To find whom at the first they found unsought:","But to his Mother","Mary",", when she saw","Others return'd from Baptism, not her Son,","Nor left at","Jordan",", tydings of him none;","Within her brest, though calm; her brest though pure,","Motherly cares and fears got head, and rais'd","Some troubl'd thoughts, which she in sighs thus clad.","O what avails me now that honour high","To have conceiv'd of God, or that salute","Hale highly favour'd, among women blest;","While I to sorrows am no less advanc't,","And fears as eminent, above the lot","Of other women, by the birth I bore,","In such a season born when scarce a Shed","Could be obtain'd to shelter him or me","From the bleak air; a Stable was our warmth,","A Manger his, yet soon enforc't to flye","Thence into","Egypt",", till the Murd'rous King","Were dead, who sought his life, and missing fill'd","With Infant blood the streets of","Bethlehem",";","From","Egypt","home return'd, in","Nazareth","Hath been our dwelling many years, his life","Private, unactive, calm, contemplative,","Little suspicious to any King; but now","Full grown to Man, acknowledg'd, as I hear,","By","John","the Baptist, and in publick shown,","Son own'd from Heaven by his Father's voice;","I look't for some great change; to Honour? no,","But trouble, as old","Simeon","plain fore-told,","That to the fall and rising he should be","Of many in","Israel",", and to a sign","Spoken against, that through my very Soul","A sword shall pierce, this is my favour'd lot,","My Exaltation to Afflictions high;","Afflicted I may be, it seems, and blest;","I will not argue that, nor will repine.","But where delays he now? some great intent","Conceals him: when twelve years he scarce had seen,","I lost him, but so found, as well I saw","He could not lose himself; but went about","His Father's business; what he meant I mus'd,","Since understand; much more his absence now","Thus long to some great purpose he obscures.","But I to wait with patience am inur'd;","My heart hath been a store-house long of things","And sayings laid up, portending strange events.","Thus","Mary","pondering oft, and oft to mind","Recalling what remarkably had pass'd","Since first her Salutation heard, with thoughts","Meekly compos'd awaited the fulfilling:","The while her Son tracing the Desert wild,","Sole but with holiest Meditations fed,","Into himself descended, and at once","All his great work to come before him set;","How to begin, how to accomplish best","His end of being on Earth, and mission high:","For Satan with slye preface to return","Had left him vacant, and with speed was gon","Up to the middle Region of thick Air,","Where all his Potentates in Council sate;","There without sign of boast, or sign of joy,","Sollicitous and blank he thus began.","Princes, Heavens antient Sons, AEthereal Thrones,","Demonian Spirits now, from the Element","Each of his reign allotted, rightlier call'd,","Powers of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth beneath,","So may we hold our place and these mild seats","Without new trouble; such an Enemy","Is ris'n to invade us, who no less","Threat'ns then our expulsion down to Hell;","I, as I undertook, and with the vote","Consenting in full frequence was impowr'd,","Have found him, view'd him, tasted him, but find","Far other labour to be undergon","Then when I dealt with","Adam","first of Men,","Though","Adam","by his Wives allurement fell,","However to this Man inferior far,","If he be Man by Mothers side at least,","With more then humane gifts from Heaven adorn'd,","Perfections absolute, Graces divine,","And amplitude of mind to greatest Deeds.","Therefore I am return'd, lest confidence","Of my success with","Eve","in Paradise","Deceive ye to perswasion over-sure","Of like succeeding here; I summon all","Rather to be in readiness, with hand","Or counsel to assist; lest I who erst","Thought none my equal, now be over-match'd.","So spake the old Serpent doubting, and from all","With clamour was assur'd thir utmost aid","At his command; when from amidst them rose","Belial","the dissolutest Spirit that fell,","The sensuallest, and after","Asmodai","The fleshliest Incubus, and thus advis'd.","Set women in his eye and in his walk,","Among daughters of men the fairest found;","Many are in each Region passing fair","As the noon Skie; more like to Goddesses","Then Mortal Creatures, graceful and discreet,","Expert in amorous Arts, enchanting tongues","Perswasive, Virgin majesty with mild","And sweet allay'd, yet terrible to approach,","Skill'd to retire, and in retiring draw","Hearts after them tangl'd in Amorous Nets.","Such object hath the power to soft'n and tame","Severest temper, smooth the rugged'st brow,","Enerve, and with voluptuous hope dissolve,","Draw out with credulous desire, and lead","At will the manliest, resolutest brest,","As the Magnetic hardest Iron draws.","Women, when nothing else, beguil'd the heart","Of wisest","Solomon",", and made him build,","And made him bow to the Gods of his Wives.","To whom quick answer Satan thus return'd.","Belial",", in much uneven scale thou weigh'st","All others by thy self; because of old","Thou thy self doat'st on womankind, admiring","Thir shape, thir colour, and attractive grace,","None are, thou think'st, but taken with such toys.","Before the Flood thou with thy lusty Crew,","False titl'd Sons of God, roaming the Earth","Cast wanton eyes on the daughters of men,","And coupl'd with them, and begot a race.","Have we not seen, or by relation heard,","In Courts and Regal Chambers how thou lurk'st,","In Wood or Grove by mossie Fountain side,","In Valley or Green Meadow to way-lay","Some beauty rare,","Calisto",",","Clymene",",","Daphne",", or","Semele",",","Antiopa",",","Or","Amymone",",","Syrinx",", many more","Too long, then lay'st thy scapes on names ador'd,","Apollo",",","Neptune",",","Jupiter",", or","Pan",",","Satyr, or Fawn, or Silvan?   But these haunts","Delight not all; among the Sons of Men,","How many have with a smile made small account","Of beauty and her lures, easily scorn'd","All her assaults, on worthier things intent?","Remember that","Pellean","Conquerour,","A youth, how all the Beauties of the East","He slightly view'd, and slightly over-pass'd;","How hee sirnam'd of","Africa","dismiss'd","In his prime youth the fair","Iberian","maid.","For","Solomon","he liv'd at ease, and full","Of honour, wealth, high fare, aim'd not beyond","Higher design then to enjoy his State;","Thence to the bait of Women lay expos'd;","But he whom we attempt is wiser far","Then","Solomon",", of more exalted mind,","Made and set wholly on the accomplishment","Of greatest things; what woman will you find,","Though of this Age the wonder and the fame,","On whom his leisure will vouchsafe an eye","Of fond desire? or should she confident,","As sitting Queen ador'd on Beauties Throne,","Descend with all her winning charms begirt","To enamour, as the Zone of","Venus","once","Wrought that effect on","Jove",", so Fables tell;","How would one look from his Majestick brow","Seated as on the top of Vertues hill,","Discount'nance her despis'd, and put to rout","All her array; her female pride deject,","Or turn to reverent awe? for Beauty stands","In the admiration only of weak minds","Led captive; cease to admire, and all her Plumes","Fall flat and shrink into a trivial toy,","At every sudden slighting quite abasht:","Therefore with manlier objects we must try","His constancy, with such as have more shew","Of worth, of honour, glory, and popular praise;","Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wreck'd;","Or that which only seems to satisfie","Lawful desires of Nature, not beyond;","And now I know he hungers where no food","Is to be found, in the wide Wilderness;","The rest commit to me, I shall let pass","No advantage, and his strength as oft assay.","He ceas'd, and heard thir grant in loud acclaim;","Then forthwith to him takes a chosen band","Of Spirits likest to himself in guile","To be at hand, and at his beck appear,","If cause were to unfold some active Scene","Of various persons each to know his part;","Then to the Desert takes with these his flight;","Where still from shade to shade the Son of God","After forty days fasting had remain'd,","Now hungring first, and to himself thus said.","Where will this end? four times ten days I have pass'd","Wandring this woody maze, and humane food","Nor tasted, nor had appetite; that Fast","To Vertue I impute not, or count part","Of what I suffer here; if Nature need not,","Or God support Nature without repast","Though needing, what praise is it to endure?","But now I feel I hunger, which declares,","Nature hath need of what she asks; yet God","Can satisfie that need some other way,","Though hunger still remain: so it remain","Without this bodies wasting, I content me,","And from the sting of Famine fear no harm,","Nor mind it, fed with better thoughts that feed","Mee hungring more to do my Fathers will.","It was the hour of night, when thus the Son","Commun'd in silent walk, then laid him down","Under the hospitable covert nigh","Of Trees thick interwoven; there he slept,","And dream'd, as appetite is wont to dream,","Of meats and drinks, Natures refreshment sweet;","Him thought, he by the Brook of","Cherith","stood","And saw the Ravens with their horny beaks","Food to","Elijah","bringing Even and Morn,","Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought:","He saw the Prophet also how he fled","Into the Desert, and how there he slept","Under a Juniper; then how awakt,","He found his Supper on the coals prepar'd,","And by the Angel was bid rise and eat,","And eat the second time after repose,","The strength whereof suffic'd him forty days;","Sometimes that with","Elijah","he partook,","Or as a guest with","Daniel","at his pulse.","Thus wore out night, and now the Herald Lark","Left his ground-nest, high towring to descry","The morns approach, and greet her with his Song:","As lightly from his grassy Couch up rose","Our Saviour, and found all was but a dream,","Fasting he went to sleep, and fasting wak'd.","Up to a hill anon his steps he rear'd,","From whose high top to ken the prospect round,","If Cottage were in view, Sheep-cote or Herd;","But Cottage, Herd or Sheep-cote none he saw,","Only in a bottom saw a pleasant Grove,","With chaunt of tuneful Birds resounding loud;","Thither he bent his way, determin'd there","To rest at noon, and entr'd soon the shade","High rooft and walks beneath, and alleys brown","That open'd in the midst a woody Scene,","Natures own work it seem'd (Nature taught Art)","And to a Superstitious eye the haunt","Of Wood-Gods and Wood-Nymphs; he view'd it round,","When suddenly a man before him stood,","Not rustic as before, but seemlier clad,","As one in City, or Court, or Palace bred,","And with fair speech these words to him address'd.","With granted leave officious I return,","But much more wonder that the Son of God","In this wild solitude so long should bide","Of all things destitute, and well I know,","Not without hunger.   Others of some note,","As story tells, have trod this Wilderness;","The Fugitive Bond-woman with her Son","Out cast","Nebaioth",", yet found he relief","By a providing Angel; all the race","Of","Israel","here had famish'd, had not God","Rain'd from Heaven Manna, and that Prophet bold","Native of","Thebes","wandring here was fed","Twice by a voice inviting him to eat.","Of thee these forty days none hath regard,","Forty and more deserted here indeed.","To whom thus Jesus; what conclud'st thou hence?","They all had need, I as thou seest have none.","How hast thou hunger then? Satan reply'd,","Tell me if Food were now before thee set,","Would'st thou not eat? Thereafter as I like","The giver, answer'd Jesus. Why should that","Cause thy refusal, said the subtle Fiend,","Hast thou not right to all Created things,","Owe not all Creatures by just right to thee","Duty and Service, nor to stay till bid,","But tender all their power? nor mention I","Meats by the Law unclean, or offer'd first","To Idols, those young","Daniel","could refuse;","Nor proffer'd by an Enemy, though who","Would scruple that, with want opprest? behold","Nature asham'd, or better to express,","Troubl'd that thou shouldst hunger, hath purvey'd","From all the Elements her choicest store","To treat thee as beseems, and as her Lord","With honour, only deign to sit and eat.","He spake no dream, for as his words had end,","Our Saviour lifting up his eyes beheld","In ample space under the broadest shade","A Table richly spred, in regal mode,","With dishes pill'd, and meats of noblest sort","And savour, Beasts of chase, or Fowl of game,","In pastry built, or from the spit, or boyl'd,","Gris-amber-steam'd; all Fish from Sea or Shore,","Freshet, or purling Brook, of shell or fin,","And exquisitest name, for which was drain'd","Pontus","and","Lucrine","Bay, and","Afric","Coast.","Alas how simple, to these Cates compar'd,","Was that crude Apple that diverted","Eve","!","And at a stately side-board by the wine","That fragrant smell diffus'd, in order stood","Tall stripling youths rich clad, of fairer hew","Then","Ganymed","or","Hylas",", distant more","Under the Trees now trip'd, now solemn stood","Nymphs of","Diana","'s train, and","Naiades","With fruits and flowers from","Amalthea","'s horn,","And Ladies of th'","Hesperides",", that seem'd","Fairer then feign'd of old, or fabl'd since","Of Fairy Damsels met in Forest wide","By Knights of","Logres",", or of","Lyones",",","Lancelot","or","Pelleas",", or","Pellenore",",","And all the while Harmonious Airs were heard","Of chiming strings, or charming pipes and winds","Of gentlest gale","Arabian","odors fann'd","From their soft wings, and","Flora","'s earliest smells.","Such was the Splendour, and the Tempter now","His invitation earnestly renew'd.","What doubts the Son of God to sit and eat?","These are not Fruits forbidden, no interdict","Defends the touching of these viands pure,","Thir taste no knowledge works, at least of evil,","But life preserves, destroys life's enemy,","Hunger, with sweet restorative delight.","All these are Spirits of Air, and Woods, and Springs,","Thy gentle Ministers, who come to pay","Thee homage, and acknowledge thee thir Lord:","What doubt'st thou Son of God? sit down and eat.","To whom thus Jesus temperately reply'd:","Said'st thou not that to all things I had right?","And who withholds my pow'r that right to use?","Shall I receive by gift what of my own,","When and where likes me best, I can command?","I can at will, doubt not, as soon as thou,","Command a Table in this Wilderness,","And call swift flights of Angels ministrant","Array'd in Glory on my cup to attend:","Why shouldst thou then obtrude this diligence,","In vain, where no acceptance it can find,","And with my hunger what has thou to do?","Thy pompous Delicacies I contemn,","And count thy specious gifts no gifts but guiles.","To whom thus answer'd Satan malecontent:","That I have also power to give thou seest,","If of that pow'r I bring thee voluntary","What I might have bestow'd on whom I pleas'd,","And rather opportunely in this place","Chose to impart to thy apparent need,","Why shouldst thou not accept it? but I see","What I can do or offer is suspect;","Of these things others quickly will dispose","Whose pains have earn'd the far fet spoil. With that","Both Table and Provision vanish'd quite","With sound of Harpies wings, and Talons heard;","Only the importune Tempter still remain'd,","And with these words his temptation pursu'd.","By hunger, that each other Creature tames,","Thou art not to be harm'd, therefore not mov'd;","Thy temperance invincible besides,","For no allurement yields to appetite,","And all thy heart is set on high designs,","High actions; but wherewith to be atchiev'd?","Great acts require great means of enterprise,","Thou art unknown, unfriended, low of birth,","A Carpenter thy Father known, thy self","Bred up in poverty and streights at home;","Lost in a Desert here and hunger-bit:","Which way or from what hope dost thou aspire","To greatness? whence Authority deriv'st,","What Followers, what Retinue canst thou gain,","Or at thy heels the dizzy Multitude,","Longer then thou canst feed them on thy cost?","Money brings Honour, Friends, Conquest, and Realms;","What rais'd","Antipater","the","Edomite",",","And his Son","Herod","plac'd on","Juda","'s Throne;","(Thy throne) but gold that got him puissant friends?","Therefore, if at great things thou wouldst arrive,","Get Riches first, get Wealth, and Treasure heap,","Not difficult, if thou hearken to me,","Riches are mine, Fortune is in my hand;","They whom I favour thrive in wealth amain,","While Virtue, Valour, Wisdom sit in want.","To whom thus Jesus patiently reply'd;","Yet Wealth without these three is impotent,","To gain dominion or to keep it gain'd.","Witness those antient Empires of the Earth,","In highth of all thir flowing wealth dissolv'd:","But men endu'd with these have oft attain'd","In lowest poverty to highest deeds;","Gideon","and","Jephtha",", and the Shepherd lad,","Whose off-spring on the Throne of","Juda","sat","So many Ages, and shall yet regain","That seat, and reign in","Israel","without end.","Among the Heathen, (for throughout the World","To me is not unknown what hath been done","Worthy of Memorial) canst thou not remember","Quintius",",","Fabricius",",","Curius",",","Regulus","?","For I esteem those names of men so poor","Who could do mighty things, and could contemn","Riches though offer'd from the hand of Kings.","And what in me seems wanting, but that I","May also in this poverty as soon","Accomplish what they did, perhaps and more?","Extol not Riches then, the toyl of Fools,","The wise mans cumbrance if not snare, more apt","To slacken Virtue, and abate her edge,","Then prompt her to do aught may merit praise.","What if with like aversion I reject","Riches and Realms; yet not for that a Crown,","Golden in shew, is but a wreath of thorns,","Brings dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights","To him who wears the Regal Diadem,","When on his shoulders each mans burden lies;","For therein stands the office of a King,","His Honour, Vertue, Merit and chief Praise,","That for the Publick all this weight he bears.","Yet he who reigns within himself, and rules","Passions, Desires, and Fears, is more a King;","Which every wise and vertuous man attains:","And who attains not, ill aspires to rule","Cities of men or head-strong Multitudes,","Subject himself to Anarchy within,","Or lawless passions in him which he serves.","But to guide Nations in the way of truth","By saving Doctrine, and from errour lead","To know, and knowing worship God aright,","Is yet more Kingly, this attracts the Soul,","Governs the inner man, the nobler part,","That other o're the body only reigns,","And oft by force, which to a generous mind","So reigning can be no sincere delight.","Besides to give a Kingdom hath been thought","Greater and nobler done, and to lay down","Far more magnanimous, then to assume.","Riches are needless then, both for themselves,","And for thy reason why they should be sought,","To gain a Scepter, oftest better miss't."]},"1bc8cfdd1e0bbf6e249d8087180e3c2c":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57408/aspens-56d23ae7a41b0","title":"Aspens","author":"Edward Thomas","poem":["All day and night, save winter, every weather,","Above the inn, the smithy, and the shop,","The aspens at the cross-roads talk together","Of rain, until their last leaves fall from the top.","Out of the blacksmith's cavern comes the ringing","Of hammer, shoe, and anvil; out of the inn","The clink, the hum, the roar, the random singing-","The sounds that for these fifty years have been.","The whisper of the aspens is not drowned,","And over lightless pane and footless road,","Empty as sky, with every other sound","Not ceasing, calls their ghosts from their abode,","A silent smithy, a silent inn, nor fails","In the bare moonlight or the thick-furred gloom,","In tempest or the night of nightingales,","To turn the cross-roads to a ghostly room.","And it would be the same were no house near.","Over all sorts of weather, men, and times,","Aspens must shake their leaves and men may hear","But need not listen, more than to my rhymes.","Whatever wind blows, while they and I have leaves","We cannot other than an aspen be","That ceaselessly, unreasonably grieves,","Or so men think who like a different tree."]},"006b5a695f3a2a64c545c1d089070818":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43683/silent-silent-night","title":"Silent, Silent Night","author":"William Blake","poem":["Silent Silent Night","Quench the holy light","Of thy torches bright","For possessd of Day","Thousand spirits stray","That sweet joys betray","Why should joys be sweet","Used with deceit","Nor with sorrows meet","But an honest joy","Does itself destroy","For a harlot coy"]},"ec0ba71200570d5765a60b2c29cb23bb":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45286/faustine","title":"Faustine","author":"Algernon Charles Swinburne","poem":["Ave Faustina Imperatrix, morituri te salutant.","Lean back, and get some minutes' peace;","Let your head lean","Back to the shoulder with its fleece","Of locks, Faustine.","The shapely silver shoulder stoops,","Weighed over clean","With state of splendid hair that droops","Each side, Faustine.","Let me go over your good gifts","That crown you queen;","A queen whose kingdom ebbs and shifts","Each week, Faustine.","Bright heavy brows well gathered up:","White gloss and sheen;","Carved lips that make my lips a cup","To drink, Faustine,","Wine and rank poison, milk and blood,","Being mixed therein","Since first the devil threw dice with God","For you, Faustine.","Your naked new-born soul, their stake,","Stood blind between;","God said \"let him that wins her take","And keep Faustine.\"","But this time Satan throve, no doubt;","Long since, I ween,","God's part in you was battered out;","Long since, Faustine.","The die rang sideways as it fell,","Rang cracked and thin,","Like a man's laughter heard in hell","Far down, Faustine,","A shadow of laughter like a sigh,","Dead sorrow's kin;","So rang, thrown down, the devil's die","That won Faustine.","A suckling of his breed you were,","One hard to wean;","But God, who lost you, left you fair,","We see, Faustine.","You have the face that suits a woman","For her soul's screen -","The sort of beauty that's called human","In hell, Faustine.","You could do all things but be good","Or chaste of mien;","And that you would not if you could,","We know, Faustine.","Even he who cast seven devils out","Of Magdalene","Could hardly do as much, I doubt,","For you, Faustine.","Did Satan make you to spite God?","Or did God mean","To scourge with scorpions for a rod","Our sins, Faustine?","I know what queen at first you were,","As though I had seen","Red gold and black imperious hair","Twice crown Faustine.","As if your fed sarcophagus","Spared flesh and skin,","You come back face to face with us,","The same Faustine.","She loved the games men played with death,","Where death must win;","As though the slain man's blood and breath","Revived Faustine.","Nets caught the pike, pikes tore the net;","Lithe limbs and lean","From drained-out pores dripped thick red sweat","To soothe Faustine.","She drank the steaming drift and dust","Blown off the scene;","Blood could not ease the bitter lust","That galled Faustine.","All round the foul fat furrows reeked,","Where blood sank in;","The circus splashed and seethed and shrieked","All round Faustine.","But these are gone now: years entomb","The dust and din;","Yea, even the bath's fierce reek and fume","That slew Faustine.","Was life worth living then? and now","Is life worth sin?","Where are the imperial years? and how","Are you Faustine?","Your soul forgot her joys, forgot","Her times of teen;","Yea, this life likewise will you not","Forget, Faustine?","For in the time we know not of","Did fate begin","Weaving the web of days that wove","Your doom, Faustine.","The threads were wet with wine, and all","Were smooth to spin;","They wove you like a Bacchanal,","The first Faustine.","And Bacchus cast your mates and you","Wild grapes to glean;","Your flower-like lips were dashed with dew","From his, Faustine.","Your drenched loose hands were stretched to hold","The vine's wet green,","Long ere they coined in Roman gold","Your face, Faustine.","Then after change of soaring feather","And winnowing fin,","You woke in weeks of feverish weather,","A new Faustine.","A star upon your birthday burned,","Whose fierce serene","Red pulseless planet never yearned","In heaven, Faustine.","Stray breaths of Sapphic song that blew","Through Mitylene","Shook the fierce quivering blood in you","By night, Faustine.","The shameless nameless love that makes","Hell's iron gin","Shut on you like a trap that breaks","The soul, Faustine.","And when your veins were void and dead,","What ghosts unclean","Swarmed round the straitened barren bed","That hid Faustine?","What sterile growths of sexless root","Or epicene?","What flower of kisses without fruit","Of love, Faustine?","What adders came to shed their coats?","What coiled obscene","Small serpents with soft stretching throats","Caressed Faustine?","But the time came of famished hours,","Maimed loves and mean,","This ghastly thin-faced time of ours,","To spoil Faustine.","You seem a thing that hinges hold,","A love-machine","With clockwork joints of supple gold -","No more, Faustine.","Not godless, for you serve one God,","The Lampsacene,","Who metes the gardens with his rod;","Your lord, Faustine.","If one should love you with real love","(Such things have been,","Things your fair face knows nothing of,","It seems, Faustine);","That clear hair heavily bound back,","The lights wherein","Shift from dead blue to burnt-up black;","Your throat, Faustine,","Strong, heavy, throwing out the face","And hard bright chin","And shameful scornful lips that grace","Their shame, Faustine,","Curled lips, long since half kissed away,","Still sweet and keen;","You'd give him - poison shall we say?","Or what, Faustine?"]},"673f9ff47371a73c0e6f1cf4adec480b":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44725/the-penitent-56d223ef2af9d","title":"The Penitent","author":"Edna St. Vincent Millay","poem":["I had a little Sorrow,","Born of a little Sin,","I found a room all damp with gloom","And shut us all within;","And, \"Little Sorrow, weep,\" said I,","\"And, Little Sin, pray God to die,","And I upon the floor will lie","And think how bad I've been!\"","Alas for pious planning -","It mattered not a whit!","As far as gloom went in that room,","The lamp might have been lit!","My Little Sorrow would not weep,","My Little Sin would go to sleep -","To save my soul I could not keep","My graceless mind on it!","So up I got in anger,","And took a book I had,","And put a ribbon on my hair","To please a passing lad.","And, \"One thing there's no getting by -","I've been a wicked girl,\" said I;","\"But if I can't be sorry, why,","I might as well be glad!\""]},"47a699846fca87d8680e9cda48cf1758":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50418/astrophil-and-stella-102-where-be-the-roses-gone-which-sweetened-so-our-eyes","title":"Astrophil and Stella 102: Where be the roses gone, which sweetened so our eyes?","author":"Sir Philip Sidney","poem":["Where be the roses gone, which sweetened so our eyes?","Where those red cheeks, which oft with fair increase did frame","The height of honor in the kindly badge of shame?","Who hath the crimson weeds stolen from my morning skies?","How doth the color vade of those vermilion dyes,","Which Nature's self did make, and self engrained the same!","I would know by what right this paleness overcame","That hue, whose force my heart still unto thraldom ties?","Galen's adoptive sons, who by a beaten way","Their judgements hackney on, the fault on sickness lay;","But feeling proof makes me say they mistake it far:","It is but love, which makes his paper perfect white","To write therein more fresh the story of delight,","Whiles beauty's reddest ink Venus for him doth stir."]},"d38ce76cf1e28b9414a8f38b965cddbc":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44679/the-definition-of-love","title":"The Definition of Love","author":"Andrew Marvell","poem":["My love is of a birth as rare","As 'tis for object strange and high;","It was begotten by Despair","Upon Impossibility.","Magnanimous Despair alone","Could show me so divine a thing","Where feeble Hope could ne'er have flown,","But vainly flapp'd its tinsel wing.","And yet I quickly might arrive","Where my extended soul is fixt,","But Fate does iron wedges drive,","And always crowds itself betwixt.","For Fate with jealous eye does see","Two perfect loves, nor lets them close;","Their union would her ruin be,","And her tyrannic pow'r depose.","And therefore her decrees of steel","Us as the distant poles have plac'd,","(Though love's whole world on us doth wheel)","Not by themselves to be embrac'd;","Unless the giddy heaven fall,","And earth some new convulsion tear;","And, us to join, the world should all","Be cramp'd into a planisphere.","As lines, so loves oblique may well","Themselves in every angle greet;","But ours so truly parallel,","Though infinite, can never meet.","Therefore the love which us doth bind,","But Fate so enviously debars,","Is the conjunction of the mind,","And opposition of the stars."]},"13534588248df784375d117f699e207b":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58118/minerva-jones","title":"Minerva Jones","author":"Edgar Lee Masters","poem":["I am Minerva, the village poetess,","Hooted at, jeered at by the Yahoos of the street","For my heavy body, cock-eye, and rolling walk,","And all the more when \"Butch\" Weldy","Captured me after a brutal hunt.","He left me to my fate with Doctor Meyers;","And I sank into death, growing numb from the feet up,","Like one stepping deeper and deeper into a stream of ice.","Will some one go to the village newspaper,","And gather into a book the verses I wrote?-","I thirsted so for love","I hungered so for life!"]},"bfe304d9d6bc615dacf07d9216fb8723":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43584/bacchanalia","title":"Bacchanalia","author":"Matthew Arnold","poem":["I","The evening comes, the fields are still.","The tinkle of the thirsty rill,","Unheard all day, ascends again;","Deserted is the half-mown plain,","Silent the swaths! the ringing wain,","The mower's cry, the dog's alarms,","All housed within the sleeping farms!","The business of the day is done,","The last-left haymaker is gone.","And from the thyme upon the height,","And from the elder-blossom white","And pale dog-roses in the hedge,","And from the mint-plant in the sedge,","In puffs of balm the night-air blows","The perfume which the day forgoes.","And on the pure horizon far,","See, pulsing with the first-born star,","The liquid sky above the hill!","The evening comes, the fields are still.","Loitering and leaping,","With saunter, with bounds-","Flickering and circling","In files and in rounds-","Gaily their pine-staff green","Tossing in air,","Loose o'er their shoulders white","Showering their hair-","See! the wild Maenads","Break from the wood,","Youth and Iacchus","Maddening their blood.","See! through the quiet land","Rioting they pass-","Fling the fresh heaps about,","Trample the grass.","Tear from the rifled hedge","Garlands, their prize;","Fill with their sports the field,","Fill with their cries.","Shepherd, what ails thee, then?","Shepherd, why mute?","Forth with thy joyous song!","Forth with thy flute!","Tempts not the revel blithe?","Lure not their cries?","Glow not their shoulders smooth?","Melt not their eyes?","Is not, on cheeks like those,","Lovely the flush?","-Ah, so the quiet was!","So was the hush!","II","The epoch ends, the world is still.","The age has talk'd and work'd its fill-","The famous orators have shone,","The famous poets sung and gone,","The famous men of war have fought,","The famous speculators thought,","The famous players, sculptors, wrought,","The famous painters fill'd their wall,","The famous critics judged it all.","The combatants are parted now-","Uphung the spear, unbent the bow,","The puissant crown'd, the weak laid low.","And in the after-silence sweet,","Now strifes are hush'd, our ears doth meet,","Ascending pure, the bell-like fame","Of this or that down-trodden name,","Delicate spirits, push'd away","In the hot press of the noon-day.","And o'er the plain, where the dead age","Did its now silent warfare wage-","O'er that wide plain, now wrapt in gloom,","Where many a splendour finds its tomb,","Many spent fames and fallen mights-","The one or two immortal lights","Rise slowly up into the sky","To shine there everlastingly,","Like stars over the bounding hill.","The epoch ends, the world is still.","Thundering and bursting","In torrents, in waves-","Carolling and shouting","Over tombs, amid graves-","See! on the cumber'd plain","Clearing a stage,","Scattering the past about,","Comes the new age.","Bards make new poems,","Thinkers new schools,","Statesmen new systems,","Critics new rules.","All things begin again;","Life is their prize;","Earth with their deeds they fill,","Fill with their cries.","Poet, what ails thee, then?","Say, why so mute?","Forth with thy praising voice!","Forth with thy flute!","Loiterer! why sittest thou","Sunk in thy dream?","Tempts not the bright new age?","Shines not its stream?","Look, ah, what genius,","Art, science, wit!","Soldiers like Caesar,","Statesmen like Pitt!","Sculptors like Phidias,","Raphaels in shoals,","Poets like Shakespeare-","Beautiful souls!","See, on their glowing cheeks","Heavenly the flush!","-Ah, so the silence was!","So was the hush!","The world but feels the present's spell,","The poet feels the past as well;","Whatever men have done, might do,","Whatever thought, might think it too."]},"10bfa469a02cde9ad07dfa07e47f6d33":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46966/little-bo-peep","title":"Little Bo-Peep","author":"Mother Goose","poem":["Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep,","And can't tell where to find them;","Leave them alone, and they'll come home,","Bringing their tails behind them.","Little Bo-Peep fell fast asleep,","And dreamt she heard them bleating;","But when she awoke, she found it a joke,","For they were still all fleeting.","Then up she took her little crook,","Determined for to find them;","She found them indeed, but it made her heart bleed,","For they'd left their tails behind them.","It happened one day, as Bo-Peep did stray","Into a meadow hard by,","There she espied their tails, side by side,","All hung on a tree to dry.","She heaved a sigh and wiped her eye,","And over the hillocks she raced;","And tried what she could, as a shepherdess should,","That each tail be properly placed."]},"f6f3214643b376789f0e69def4b45a38":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48185/i-never-hear-the-word-escape-144","title":"I never hear the word \"Escape\" (144)","author":"Emily Dickinson","poem":["I never hear the word \"Escape\"","Without a quicker blood,","A sudden expectation -","A flying attitude!","I never hear of prisons broad","By soldiers battered down,","But I tug childish at my bars","Only to fail again!"]},"200764d8c84bdecbab3cf1c1c9a7a77e":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44908/the-rape-of-the-lock-canto-3","title":"The Rape of the Lock: Canto 3","author":"Alexander Pope","poem":["Close by those meads, for ever crown'd with flow'rs,","Where Thames with pride surveys his rising tow'rs,","There stands a structure of majestic frame,","Which from the neighb'ring Hampton takes its name.","Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall foredoom","Of foreign tyrants and of nymphs at home;","Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,","Dost sometimes counsel take-and sometimes tea.","Hither the heroes and the nymphs resort,","To taste awhile the pleasures of a court;","In various talk th' instructive hours they pass'd,","Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last;","One speaks the glory of the British queen,","And one describes a charming Indian screen;","A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes;","At ev'ry word a reputation dies.","Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat,","With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that.","Meanwhile, declining from the noon of day,","The sun obliquely shoots his burning ray;","The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,","And wretches hang that jury-men may dine;","The merchant from th' Exchange returns in peace,","And the long labours of the toilet cease.","Belinda now, whom thirst of fame invites,","Burns to encounter two adventrous knights,","At ombre singly to decide their doom;","And swells her breast with conquests yet to come.","Straight the three bands prepare in arms to join,","Each band the number of the sacred nine.","Soon as she spreads her hand, th' aerial guard","Descend, and sit on each important card:","First Ariel perch'd upon a Matadore,","Then each, according to the rank they bore;","For Sylphs, yet mindful of their ancient race,","Are, as when women, wondrous fond of place.","Behold, four Kings in majesty rever'd,","With hoary whiskers and a forky beard;","And four fair Queens whose hands sustain a flow'r,","Th' expressive emblem of their softer pow'r;","Four Knaves in garbs succinct, a trusty band,","Caps on their heads, and halberds in their hand;","And parti-colour'd troops, a shining train,","Draw forth to combat on the velvet plain.","The skilful nymph reviews her force with care:","\"Let Spades be trumps!\" she said, and trumps they were.","Now move to war her sable Matadores,","In show like leaders of the swarthy Moors.","Spadillio first, unconquerable lord!","Led off two captive trumps, and swept the board.","As many more Manillio forc'd to yield,","And march'd a victor from the verdant field.","Him Basto follow'd, but his fate more hard","Gain'd but one trump and one plebeian card.","With his broad sabre next, a chief in years,","The hoary Majesty of Spades appears;","Puts forth one manly leg, to sight reveal'd;","The rest, his many-colour'd robe conceal'd.","The rebel Knave, who dares his prince engage,","Proves the just victim of his royal rage.","Ev'n mighty Pam, that kings and queens o'erthrew","And mow'd down armies in the fights of loo,","Sad chance of war! now destitute of aid,","Falls undistinguish'd by the victor Spade!","Thus far both armies to Belinda yield;","Now to the baron fate inclines the field.","His warlike Amazon her host invades,","Th' imperial consort of the crown of Spades.","The Club's black tyrant first her victim died,","Spite of his haughty mien, and barb'rous pride:","What boots the regal circle on his head,","His giant limbs, in state unwieldy spread;","That long behind he trails his pompous robe,","And of all monarchs, only grasps the globe?","The baron now his diamonds pours apace;","Th' embroider'd King who shows but half his face,","And his refulgent Queen, with pow'rs combin'd","Of broken troops an easy conquest find.","Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, in wild disorder seen,","With throngs promiscuous strow the level green.","Thus when dispers'd a routed army runs,","Of Asia's troops, and Afric's sable sons,","With like confusion diff'rent nations fly,","Of various habit, and of various dye,","The pierc'd battalions disunited fall.","In heaps on heaps; one fate o'erwhelms them all.","The Knave of Diamonds tries his wily arts,","And wins (oh shameful chance!) the Queen of Hearts.","At this, the blood the virgin's cheek forsook,","A livid paleness spreads o'er all her look;","She sees, and trembles at th' approaching ill,","Just in the jaws of ruin, and codille.","And now (as oft in some distemper'd state)","On one nice trick depends the gen'ral fate.","An Ace of Hearts steps forth: The King unseen","Lurk'd in her hand, and mourn'd his captive Queen:","He springs to vengeance with an eager pace,","And falls like thunder on the prostrate Ace.","The nymph exulting fills with shouts the sky;","The walls, the woods, and long canals reply.","Oh thoughtless mortals! ever blind to fate,","Too soon dejected, and too soon elate!","Sudden, these honours shall be snatch'd away,","And curs'd for ever this victorious day.","For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crown'd,","The berries crackle, and the mill turns round.","On shining altars of Japan they raise","The silver lamp; the fiery spirits blaze.","From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide,","While China's earth receives the smoking tide.","At once they gratify their scent and taste,","And frequent cups prolong the rich repast.","Straight hover round the fair her airy band;","Some, as she sipp'd, the fuming liquor fann'd,","Some o'er her lap their careful plumes display'd,","Trembling, and conscious of the rich brocade.","Coffee, (which makes the politician wise,","And see through all things with his half-shut eyes)","Sent up in vapours to the baron's brain","New stratagems, the radiant lock to gain.","Ah cease, rash youth! desist ere 'tis too late,","Fear the just gods, and think of Scylla's fate!","Chang'd to a bird, and sent to flit in air,","She dearly pays for Nisus' injur'd hair!","But when to mischief mortals bend their will,","How soon they find fit instruments of ill!","Just then, Clarissa drew with tempting grace","A two-edg'd weapon from her shining case;","So ladies in romance assist their knight","Present the spear, and arm him for the fight.","He takes the gift with rev'rence, and extends","The little engine on his fingers' ends;","This just behind Belinda's neck he spread,","As o'er the fragrant steams she bends her head.","Swift to the lock a thousand sprites repair,","A thousand wings, by turns, blow back the hair,","And thrice they twitch'd the diamond in her ear,","Thrice she look'd back, and thrice the foe drew near.","Just in that instant, anxious Ariel sought","The close recesses of the virgin's thought;","As on the nosegay in her breast reclin'd,","He watch'd th' ideas rising in her mind,","Sudden he view'd, in spite of all her art,","An earthly lover lurking at her heart.","Amaz'd, confus'd, he found his pow'r expir'd,","Resign'd to fate, and with a sigh retir'd.","The peer now spreads the glitt'ring forfex wide,","T' inclose the lock; now joins it, to divide.","Ev'n then, before the fatal engine clos'd,","A wretched Sylph too fondly interpos'd;","Fate urg'd the shears, and cut the Sylph in twain,","(But airy substance soon unites again).","The meeting points the sacred hair dissever","From the fair head, for ever, and for ever!","Then flash'd the living lightning from her eyes,","And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies.","Not louder shrieks to pitying Heav'n are cast,","When husbands or when lap-dogs breathe their last,","Or when rich China vessels, fall'n from high,","In glitt'ring dust and painted fragments lie!","\"Let wreaths of triumph now my temples twine,\"","The victor cried, \"the glorious prize is mine!","While fish in streams, or birds delight in air,","Or in a coach and six the British fair,","As long at","Atalantis","shall be read,","Or the small pillow grace a lady's bed,","While visits shall be paid on solemn days,","When num'rous wax-lights in bright order blaze,","While nymphs take treats, or assignations give,","So long my honour, name, and praise shall live!","What time would spare, from steel receives its date,","And monuments, like men, submit to fate!","Steel could the labour of the gods destroy,","And strike to dust th' imperial tow'rs of Troy;","Steel could the works of mortal pride confound,","And hew triumphal arches to the ground.","What wonder then, fair nymph! thy hairs should feel","The conqu'ring force of unresisted steel?\""]},"1c7546043fb1654f07e674bbaabf5b06":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57671/of-mere-being","title":"Of Mere Being","author":"Wallace Stevens","poem":["The palm at the end of the mind,","Beyond the last thought, rises","In the bronze decor,","A gold-feathered bird","Sings in the palm, without human meaning,","Without human feeling, a foreign song.","You know then that it is not the reason","That makes us happy or unhappy.","The bird sings. Its feathers shine.","The palm stands on the edge of space.","The wind moves slowly in the branches.","The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down."]},"835425e259c6aac08bce66a04cdcf34e":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50144/planning-the-disappearance-of-those-who-have-gone","title":"Planning the Disappearance of Those Who Have Gone","author":"Frank Stanford","poem":["Soon I will make my appearance","But first I must take off my rings","And swords and lay them out all","Along the lupine banks of the forbidden river","In reckoning the days I have","Left on this earth I will use","No fingers"]},"3d5fc8dc3ea2f59a382daeedd6c338da":{"url":"www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50335/a-mans-requirements","title":"A Man's Requirements","author":"Elizabeth Barrett Browning","poem":["I","Love me Sweet, with all thou art,","Feeling, thinking, seeing;","Love me in the lightest part,","Love me in full being.","II","Love me with thine open youth","In its frank surrender;","With the vowing of thy mouth,","With its silence tender.","III","Love me with thine azure eyes,","Made for earnest granting;","Taking colour from the skies,","Can Heaven's truth be wanting?","IV","Love me with their lids, that fall","Snow-like at first meeting;","Love me with thine heart, that all","Neighbours then see beating.","V","Love me with thine hand stretched out","Freely-open-minded:","Love me with thy loitering foot,-","Hearing one behind it.","VI","Love me with thy voice, that turns","Sudden faint above me;","Love me with thy blush that burns","When I murmur","Love me!","VII","Love me with thy thinking soul,","Break it to love-sighing;","Love me with thy thoughts that roll","On through living-dying.","VIII","Love me when in thy gorgeous airs,","When the world has crowned thee;","Love me, kneeling at thy prayers,","With the angels round thee.","IX","Love me pure, as musers do,","Up the woodlands shady:","Love me gaily, fast and true","As a winsome lady.","X","Through all hopes that keep us brave,","Farther off or nigher,","Love me for the house and grave,","And for something higher.","XI","Thus, if thou wilt prove me, Dear,","Woman's love no fable.","I will love","thee","-half a year-","As a man is able."]},"71a9699380835a940a537a6c390e91c2":{"url":"donated/71a9699380835a940a537a6c390e91c2.txt","title":"the road less travelled","author":"Robert Frost","poem":["Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,","And sorry I could not travel both","And be one traveler, long I stood","And looked down one as far as I could","To where it bent in the undergrowth;","Then took the other, as just as fair,","And having perhaps the better claim,","Because it was grassy and wanted wear;","Though as for that the passing there","Had worn them really about the same,","And both that morning equally lay","In leaves no step had trodden black.","Oh, I kept the first for another day!","Yet knowing how way leads on to way,","I doubted if I should ever come back.","I shall be telling this with a sigh","Somewhere ages and ages hence:","Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-","I took the one less traveled by,","And that has made all the difference."]},"2cc8684719fad78be864d237a94f5e77":{"url":"donated/2cc8684719fad78be864d237a94f5e77.txt","title":"The Empress Herself Served Tea to Su Tung-Po","author":"Lew Welch","poem":["The Empress herself served tea to Su Tung-po,","and ordered him escorted home by","Ladies of the Palace, with torches.","I forgot my flashlight.","Drunk, I'll never get across this","rickety bridge.","Even the Lady in the Sky abandons me."]},"44fb8d2c19526a449c14cbb425017031":{"url":"donated/44fb8d2c19526a449c14cbb425017031.txt","title":"i carry your heart with me(i carry it in)","author":"e e cummings","poem":["i carry your heart with me(i carry it in","my heart)i am never without it(anywhere","i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done","by only me is your doing,my darling)","i fear","no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want","no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)","and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant","and whatever a sun will always sing is you","here is the deepest secret nobody knows","(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud","and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows","higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)","and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart","i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)"]},"d229cf7a0d5af303a5e2e4c0db42dfa8":{"url":"donated/d229cf7a0d5af303a5e2e4c0db42dfa8.txt","title":"Ithaca ","author":"Kavafis Konstantinos","poem":["As you set out for Ithaka","hope the voyage is a long one,","full of adventure, full of discovery.","Laistrygonians and Cyclops,","angry Poseidon-don't be afraid of them:","you'll never find things like that on your way","as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,","as long as a rare excitement","stirs your spirit and your body.","Laistrygonians and Cyclops,","wild Poseidon-you won't encounter them","unless you bring them along inside your soul,","unless your soul sets them up in front of you.","Hope the voyage is a long one.","May there be many a summer morning when,","with what pleasure, what joy,","you come into harbors seen for the first time;","may you stop at Phoenician trading stations","to buy fine things,","mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,","sensual perfume of every kind-","as many sensual perfumes as you can;","and may you visit many Egyptian cities","to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.","Keep Ithaka always in your mind.","Arriving there is what you are destined for.","But do not hurry the journey at all.","Better if it lasts for years,","so you are old by the time you reach the island,","wealthy with all you have gained on the way,","not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.","Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.","Without her you would not have set out.","She has nothing left to give you now.","And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.","Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,","you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean."]},"ee044ee235161cdcea95fc2534251258":{"url":"donated/ee044ee235161cdcea95fc2534251258.txt","title":"The O-Filler","author":"Alastair Reid","poem":["One noon in the library, I watched a man--","imagine!-filling in O's, a little, rumpled","nobody of a man, who licked his stub of pencil","and leaned over every O with a loving care,","shading it neatly, exactly to its edges,","until the open pages","were pocked and dotted with solid O's, like villages","and capitals on a map.  And yet, so peppered,","somehow the book looked lived in and complete.","That whole afternoon, as the light outside softened,","and the library groaned woodly,","he worked and worked, his o-so-patient shading","descending like an eyelid over each open O","for page after page.  Not once did he miss one,","or hover even a moment over an a,","or an e or a p or a g.  Only the O's--","oodles of O's, O's multitudinous, O's manifold,","O's italic and roman.","and what light on his crumpled face when he discovered--","as I supposed--odd woords, like zoo and ooze,","polo, oolong and odontology!","Think now, in that limitless library,","all round the steep-shelved walls, bulging in their bindings,","books stood, waiting.  Heaven knows how many","he had so far filled, but no matter, there still were","uncountable volumes of O-laden prose, and odes","with inflated capital O's (in the manner of Shelley),","O-bearing Bibles and biographies,","even whole sections devoted to O alone,","all his for the filling.  Glory, glory, glory!","How lovely and open and endless the world must have seemed to him,","how utterly clear-cut!  Think of it.  A pencil","was all he needed.  Life was one wide O.","Anyway, why in the end should O's not be closed","as eyes are?  I envied him.  After all,","sitting across from him, had I accomplished","anything as firm as he had, or as fruitful?","What could I show?  a handful of scrawled lines,","and afternoon yawned and wondered away,","and a growing realization that in time","even my scribbled words would come","under his grubby thumb, and the blinds be drawn","on all my O's.  And only his throught for comfort--","that when he comes to this poem, a proper joy","may amaze his wizened face, and, O, a pure pleasure","make his meticulous pencil quiver."]},"1570888ad615c736b1be46b316eeca84":{"url":"donated/1570888ad615c736b1be46b316eeca84.txt","title":"Not Waving but Drowning","author":"Stevie Smith","poem":["Nobody heard him, the dead man,","But still he lay moaning:","I was much further out than you thought","And not waving but drowning.","Poor chap, he always loved larking","And now he's dead","It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,","They said.","Oh, no no no, it was too cold always","(Still the dead one lay moaning)","I was much too far out all my life","And not waving but drowning."]},"c83a1378ce0cd4359bffef55fc08edff":{"url":"donated/c83a1378ce0cd4359bffef55fc08edff.txt","title":"What He Thought","author":"Heather McHugh","poem":["We were supposed to do a job in Italy","and, full of our feeling for","ourselves (our sense of being","Poets from America) we went","from Rome to Fano, met","the mayor, mulled","a couple matters over (what's","a cheap date, they asked us; what's","flat drink). Among Italian literati","we could recognize our counterparts:","the academic, the apologist,","the arrogant, the amorous,","the brazen and the glib-and there was one","administrator (the conservative), in suit","of regulation gray, who like a good tour guide","with measured pace and uninflected tone narrated","sights and histories the hired van hauled us past.","Of all, he was the most politic and least poetic,","so it seemed. Our last few days in Rome","(when all but three of the New World Bards had flown)","I found a book of poems this","unprepossessing one had written: it was there","in the pensione room (a room he'd recommended)","where it must have been abandoned by","the German visitor (was there a bus of them?)","to whom he had inscribed and dated it a month before.","I couldn't read Italian, either, so I put the book","back into the wardrobe's dark. We last Americans","were due to leave tomorrow. For our parting evening then","our host chose something in a family restaurant, and there","we sat and chatted, sat and chewed,","till, sensible it was our last","big chance to be poetic, make","our mark, one of us asked","\"What's poetry?\"","Is it the fruits and vegetables and","marketplace of Campo dei Fiori, or","the statue there?\" Because I was","the glib one, I identified the answer","instantly, I didn't have to think-\"The truth","is both, it's both,\" I blurted out. But that","was easy. That was easiest to say. What followed","taught me something about difficulty,","for our underestimated host spoke out,","all of a sudden, with a rising passion, and he said:","The statue represents Giordano Bruno,","brought to be burned in the public square","because of his offense against","authority, which is to say","the Church. His crime was his belief","the universe does not revolve around","the human being: God is no","fixed point or central government, but rather is","poured in waves through all things. All things","move. \"If God is not the soul itself, He is","the soul of the soul of the world.\" Such was","his heresy. The day they brought him","forth to die, they feared he might","incite the crowd (the man was famous","for his eloquence). And so his captors","placed upon his face","an iron mask, in which","he could not speak. That's","how they burned him. That is how","he died: without a word, in front","of everyone.","And poetry-","(we'd all","put down our forks by now, to listen to","the man in gray; he went on","softly)-","poetry is what","he thought, but did not say."]},"280dda23190898b038644c9ca4d5fe2d":{"url":"donated/280dda23190898b038644c9ca4d5fe2d.txt","title":"Todesfuge","author":"Paul Celan","poem":["Black milk of morning we drink you at dusktime","we drink you at noontime and dawntime we drink you at night","we drink and drink","we scoop out a grave in the sky where it's roomy to lie","There's a man in this house who cultivates snakes and who writes","who writes when it's nightfall nach Deutschland your golden hair Margareta","he writes it and walks from the house and the stars all start flashing he whistles his","dogs to draw near","whistles his Jews to appear starts us scooping a grave out of sand","he commands us to play for the dance","Black milk of morning we drink you at night","we drink you at dawntime and noontime we drink you at dusktime","we drink and drink","There's a man in this house who cultivates snakes and who writes","who writes when it's nightfall nach Deutschland your golden hair Margareta","your ashen hair Shulamite we scoop out a grave in the sky where it's roomy to lie","He calls jab it deep in the soil you lot there you other men sing and play","he tugs at the sword in his belt he swings it his eyes are blue","jab your spades deeper you men you other men you others play up again for the dance","Black milk of morning we drink you at night","we drink you at noontime and dawntime we drink you at dusktime","we drink and drink","there's a man in this house your golden hair Margareta","your ashen hair Shulamite he cultivates snakes","He calls play that death thing more sweetly Death is a gang-boss aus Deutschland","he calls scrape that fiddle more darkly then hover like smoke in the air","then scoop out a grave in the clouds where it's roomy to lie","Black milk of morning we drink you at night","we drink you at noontime Death is a gang-boss aus Deutschland","we drink you at dusktime and dawntime we drink and drink","Death is a gang-boss aus Deutschland his eye is blue","he shoots you with leaden bullets his aim is true","there's a man in this house your golden hair Margareta","he sets his dogs on our trail he gives us a grave in the sky","he cultivates snakes and he dreams Death is a gang-boss aus Deutschland","your golden hair Margareta","your ashen hair Shulamite"]},"04d138fbb0b32b9c1e97bd1b78b410f6":{"url":"donated/04d138fbb0b32b9c1e97bd1b78b410f6.txt","title":"Autobiographia Literaria","author":"Frank O'Hara","poem":["When I was a child","I played by myself in a","corner of the schoolyard","all alone.","I hated dolls and I","hated games, animals were","not friendly and birds","flew away.","If anyone was looking","for me I hid behind a","tree and cried out \"I am","an orphan.\"","And here I am, the","center of all beauty!","writing these poems!","Imagine!"]}}