Category Poem

Look, stranger, on this island now The leaping light for your delight discovers, Stand stable here And silent be, That through the channels of the ear May wander like a river The swaying sound of the sea. Here at a…

Not as that dream Napoleon, rumour’s dread and centre, Before who’s riding all the crowds divide, Who dedicates a column and withdraws, Nor as that general favourite and breezy visitor To whom the weather and the ruins mean so much,…

We made all possible preparations, Drew up a list of firms, Constantly revised our calculations And allotted the farms, Issued all the orders expedient In this kind of case: Most, as was expected, were obedient, Though there were murmurs, of…

Let a florid music praise, The flute and the trumpet, Beauty’s conquest of your face: In that land of flesh and bone, Where from citadels on high Her imperial standards fly, Let the hot sun Shine on, shine on. O…

Law, say the gardeners, is the sun, Law is the one All gardeners obey To-morrow, yesterday, to-day. Law is the wisdom of the old, The impotent grandfathers feebly scold; The grandchildren put out a treble tongue, Law is the senses…

Lady, weeping at the crossroads, Would you meet your love In the twilight with his greyhounds, And the hawk on his glove? Bribe the birds then on the branches, Bribe them to be dumb, Stare the hot sun out of…

I Around them boomed the rhetoric of time, The smells and furniture of the known world Where conscience worshipped an aesthetic order And what was unsuccessful was condemned; And, at the centre of its vast self-love, The emperor and his…

O the valley in the summer where I and my John Beside the deep river would walk on and on While the flowers at our feet and the birds up above Argued so sweetly on reciprocal love, And I leaned…

It’s no use raising a shout. No, Honey, you can cut that right out. I don’t want any more hugs; Make me some fresh tea, fetch me some rugs. Here am I, here are you:But what does it mean? What…

And the age ended, and the last deliverer died. In bed, grown idle and unhappy; they were safe: The sudden shadow of the giant’s enormous calf Would fall no more at dusk across the lawn outside. They slept in peace:…