Random poetry chan Monday to Friday. Poetry and verse presented in English. Enjoying @JohnnysWorldOfPoetry? π https://t.me/JohnnysWorldOfPoetry?boost https://t.me/JohnnysWorldOfArt
'How Heavy The Days'
By Hermann Hesse
How heavy the days are.
There's not a fire that can warm me,
Not a sun to laugh with me,
Everything bare,
Everything cold and merciless,
And even the beloved, clear
Stars look desolately down,
Since I learned in my heart that
Love can die.
'The Travail Of Passion'
By William Butler Yeats
WHEN the flaming lute-thronged angelic door is wide;
When an immortal passion breathes in mortal clay;
Our hearts endure the scourge, the plaited thorns, the way
Crowded with bitter faces, the wounds in palm and side,
The vinegar-heavy sponge, the flowers by Kedron stream;
We will bend down and loosen our hair over you,
That it may drop faint perfume, and be heavy with dew,
Lilies of death-pale hope, roses of passionate dream.
'Erat Hora'
By Ezra Pound
Thank you, whatever comes.' And then she turned
And, as the ray of sun on hanging flowers
Fades when the wind hath lifted them aside,
Went swiftly from me. Nay, whatever comes
One hour was sunlit and the most high gods
May not make boast of any better thing
Than to have watched that hour as it passed.
'Evocation'
By Kim Sowol
A name that has shattered to pieces!
A name that has fallen apart in a void!
A name I call but no one answers to!
A name that I will die crying out!
The word I had cherished in my heart was left unuttered until the very end.
O the precious one I loved!
O the precious one I loved!
The red sun hangs over the westerly hill as a pack of deer wail sadly too.
From the hilltop I'd tumbled down toΒΉ here I am calling out your dear name.
I call it overwhelmed by sadness.
I call it overwhelmed by sadness.
The sound of all my cries ricochets heaven and earth spread too far apart.
Even if I turn into a rock standing here it is the very name I will die crying out!
O the precious one I loved!
O the precious one I loved!
'Fifth Philosopher's Song'
By Aldous Leonard Huxley
A MILLION million spermatozoa,
All of them alive:
Out of their cataclysm but one poor Noah
Dare hope to survive.
And among that billion minus one
Might have chanced to be
Shakespeare, another Newton, a new Donneβ
But the One was Me.
Shame to have ousted your betters thus,
Taking ark while the others remained outside!
Better for all of us, froward Homunculus,
If you'd quietly died!
'Swan'
By Frank Stuart Flint
O Swan,
My eyes watch you through the sallows,
Wounded by your cruel beauty β¦
O white splendour,
You have hurt me.
You do not heed us;
Our music crashes through the stillness;
Our shouts crack in the evening;
We gather round your pool:
The cygnets twist their swart heads
And their crimson beaks, and listen;
But you do not heed them;
You do not heed us.
Your yellow feet move
Through the clear, cold water;
Your belly rests upon your belly,
Soft, cool, caressing;
Your beak meets your beak;
Your necks repeat the figures
Two, three, eight and zero.
O twi-shape, O triple nature,
Bird, fish and serpent,
Do you plunge your head
To lose your torment?
Does your beauty tire you?
The wind moves the leaves to a sweet sound;
It bends the sedge and the sallows;
The tulips sway and the iris;
But it brings to you the peace of curdled waters,
Where you are no longer.
'The World Is With Me'
By Thomas Hood
The world is with me, and its many cares,
Its woes--its wants--the anxious hopes and fears
That wait on all terrestrial affairs--
The shades of former and of future years--
Forboding fancies and prophetic tears,
Quelling a spirit that was once elate.
Heavens! what a wilderness the world appears,
Where youth, and mirth, and health are out of date;
But no--a laugh of innocence and joy
Resounds, like music of the fairy race,
And, gladly turning from the world's annoy,
I gaze upon a little radiant face,
And bless, internally, the merry boy
Who "makes a son-shine in a shady place."
'The Gates Of Nineveh'
By Robert Ervin Howard
These are the gates of Nineveh: here
Sargon came when his wars were won
Gazed at the turrets looming clear
Boldly etched in the morning sun
Down from his chariot Sargon came
Tossed his helmet upon the sand
Dropped his sword with its blade like flame
Stroked his beard with his empty hand
"Towers are flaunting their banners red
The people greet me with song and mirth
But a weird is on me," Sargon said
"And I see the end of the tribes of earth"
"Cities crumble, and chariots rust
I see through a fog that is strange and gray
All kingly things fade back to the dust
Even the gates of Nineveh"
'Sent To Ziβan While Gazing Unhappily Into The Distance At Jiangling'
By Yu Xuanji
Maple leaves: a thousandβno, ten thousandβbranches;
a bridge hides slow sails reflected in the dusk.
Longing for you, my heart is like this western riverβs water,
flowing eastward day and night, without ever resting.
'Beware The Man Who's Crossed In Love'
By Rudyard Kipling
Beware the man who's crossed in love;
For pent-up steam must find its vent.
Stand back when he is on the move,
And lend him all the Continent.
'To Edward Lear: On His Travels In Greece'
By Alfred Tennyson
Illyrian woodlands, echoing falls
Of water, sheets of summer glass,
The long divine Peneian pass,
The vast Akrokeraunian walls,
Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair,
With such a pencil, such a pen,
You shadow forth to distant men,
I read and felt that I was there:
And trust me while I turn'd the page,
And track'd you still on classic ground,
I grew in gladness till I found
My spirits in the golden age.
For me the torrent ever pour'd
And glisten'd -- here and there alone
The broad-limb'd gods at random thrown
By fountain urns; -- and Naiads oar'd
A glimmering shoulder under gloom
Of cavern pillars; on the swell
The silver lily heaved and fell;
And many a slope was rich in bloom
From him that on the mountain lea
By dancing rivulets fed his flocks,
To him who sat upon the rocks,
And fluted to the morning sea.
'Nature'
By George Herbert
Full of rebellion, I would die,
Or fight, or travel, or deny
That thou has aught to do with me.
O tame my heart;
It is thy highest art
To captivate strong holds to thee.
If thou shalt let this venom lurk,
And in suggestions fume and work,
My soul will turn to bubbles straight,
And thence by kind
Vanish into a wind,
Making thy workmanship deceit.
O smooth my rugged heart, and there
Engrave thy rev'rend law and fear;
Or make a new one, since the old
Is sapless grown,
And a much fitter stone
To hide my dust, than thee to hold.
'Crucifix In A Deathhand'
By Charles Bukowski
yes, they begin out in a willow, I think
the starch mountains begin out in the willow
and keep right on going without regard for
pumas and nectarines
somehow these mountains are like
an old woman with a bad memory and
a shopping basket.
we are in a basin. that is the
idea. down in the sand and the alleys,
this land punched-in, cuffed-out, divided,
held like a crucifix in a deathhand,
this land bought, resold, bought again and
sold again, the wars long over,
the Spaniards all the way back in Spain
down in the thimble again, and now
real estaters, subdividers, landlords, freeway
engineers arguing. this is their land and
I walk on it, live on it a little while
near Hollywood here I see young men in rooms
listening to glazed recordings
and I think too of old men sick of music
sick of everything, and death like suicide
I think is sometimes voluntary, and to get your
hold on the land here it is best to return to the
Grand Central Market, see the old Mexican women,
the poor . . . I am sure you have seen these same women
many years before
arguing
with the same young Japanese clerks
witty, knowledgeable and golden
among their soaring store of oranges, apples
avocados, tomatoes, cucumbers β
and you know how
these
look, they do look good
as if you could eat them all
light a cigar and smoke away the bad world.
then itβs best to go back to the bars, the same bars
wooden, stale, merciless, green
with the young policeman walking through
scared and looking for trouble,
and the beer is still bad
it has an edge that already mixes with vomit and
decay, and youβve got to be strong in the shadows
to ignore it, to ignore the poor and to ignore yourself
and the shopping bag between your legs
down there feeling good with its avocados and
oranges and fresh fish and wine bottles, who needs
a Fort Lauderdale winter?
25 years ago there used to be a whore there
with a film over one eye, who was too fat
and made little silver bells out of cigarette
tinfoil. the sun seemed warmer then
although this was probably not
true, and you take your shopping bag
outside and walk along the street
and the green beer hangs there
just above your stomach like
a short and shameful shawl, and
you look around and no longer
see any
old men.
'Time To Rise'
By Robert Louis Stevenson
A birdie with a yellow bill
Hopped upon my window sill,
Cocked his shining eye and said:
"Ain't you 'shamed, you sleepy-head!"
'When Senses, Which Thy Soldiers Are'
By John Donne
When senses, which thy soldiers are,
We arm against thee, and they fight for sin,
When want, sent but to tame, doth war
And work despair a breach to enter in,
When plenty, God's image, and seal
Makes us idolatrous,
And love it, not him, whom it should reveal,
When we are moved to seem religious
Only to vent wit, Lord deliver us.
'Albatre'
By Ezra Pound
This lady in the white bath-robe which she calls a
peignoir,
Is, for the time being, the mistress of my friend,
And the delicate white feet of her little white dog
Are not more delicate than she is,
Nor would Gautier himself have despised their contrasts
in whiteness
As she sits in the great chair
Between the two indolent candles.
'Cautionary Tales For Children: Introduction'
By Hilaire Belloc
And is it True? It is not True.
And if it were it wouldnβt do,
For people such as me and you
Who pretty nearly all day long
Are doing something rather wrong.
Because if things were really so,
You would have perished long ago,
And I would not have lived to write
The noble lines that meet your sight,
Nor B.T.B survived to draw
The nicest things you ever saw.
'A Crazed Girl'
By William Butler Yeats
THAT crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,
Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling She knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.
No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound,
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, 'O sea-starved, hungry sea.'
From 'Richard III'
By William Shakespeare
Act 1, Scene 4
Clarence
Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower,
And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;
And, in my company, my brother Gloucester;
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches: thence we looked toward England,
And cited up a thousand fearful times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster
That had befall'n us. As we paced along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought that Gloucester stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.
Lord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!
What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
Ten thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea:
Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
Which woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.
'Sent To Ziβan'
By Yu Xuanji
A thousand farewell cups wonβt wash away my sorrow;
my heartβs tied in a hundred knots that cannot be undone.
Orchids pass on to their rest; they wonβt return till spring.
Willows to the east and west hinder visiting boats.
Meeting, partingβalas for this fickleness of clouds!
True affection ought to be an endless flowing river.
I know that in this flower season itβs hard for us to meet,
but I wonβt keep swaying drunk on this jade terrace.
'Mirth, With Thee I Mean To Live'
By John Milton
Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful Jollity,
Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles,
Nods and Becks and Wreathèd Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe,
And in thy right hand lead with thee,
The Mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty;
And if I give thee honor due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreprovèd pleasures free;
To hear the Lark begin his flight,
And, singing, startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the Sweet-Briar or the Vine,
Or the twisted Eglantine.
While the Cock, with lively din,
Scatters the rear of darkness thin;
And to the stack, or the Barn-door,
Stoutly struts his Dames before,
Oft listening how the Hounds and Horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some Hoar Hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill.
Some time walking not unseen
By Hedge-row Elms, on Hillocks green,
Right against the Eastern gate,
Where the great Sun begins his state,
Robed in flames and Amber light,
The clouds in thousand Liveries dight.
While the Plowman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the Furrowed Land,
And the Milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the Mower whets his scythe,
And every Shepherd tells his tale
Under the Hawthorn in the dale.
. . . These delights, if thou canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.
'Resignation'
By Paul Verlaine
As a child, I dreamt of the Koh-i-Noor,
Persian and Papal richness, sumptuous,
Heliogabalus, Sardanapalus!
My desire conjured, where the gold roofs soar,
To musicβs strains, where fragrances entice,
Endless harems, bodily paradise!
Calmer these days and yet no less ardent,
Knowing life, how oneβs obliged to be,
Iβm forced to curb such lovely folly,
And yet not yield to too great an extent.
So be it, if greatness eludes intent,
Yet down with the nice, and the ordinary!
I always hated a woman merely pretty,
Rhyme thatβs assonant, the friend whoβs prudent!
'Album Leaf'
By StΓ©phane MallarmΓ©
All at once, as if in play,
Mademoiselle, she who moots
A wish to hear how it sounds today
The wood of my several flutes
It seems to me that this foray
Tried out here in a country place
Was better when I put them away
To look more closely at your face
Yes this vain whistling I suppress
In so far as I can create
Given my fingers pure distress
It lacks the means to imitate
Your very natural and clear
Childlike laughter that charms the air.
'Ultimate'
By Gilbert Keith Chesterton
The vision of a haloed host
That weep around an empty throne;
And, aureoles dark and angels dead,
Man with his own life stands alone.
"I am," he says his bankrupt creed;
"I am," and is again a clod:
The sparrow starts, the grasses stir,
For he has said the name of God.
'Zi-jin: The Student's Blue Collar Or Lapel'
By Ezra Pound
Blue, blue collar, my heart's delight,
I can't come out,
Why shouldn't you write?
Blue, blue sash, heart's misery
I cannot come out, but you might come to me.
You swish about
between gates of the towered wall,
So far, no wrong
One day without you
is three months long.
'Choosing Their Names'
By Thomas Hood
Our old cat has kittens three β
What do you think their names should be?
One is tabby with emerald eyes,
And a tail that's long and slender,
And into a temper she quickly flies
If you ever by chance offend her.
I think we shall call her this β
I think we shall call her that β
Now, don't you think that Pepperpot
Is a nice name for a cat?
One is black with a frill of white,
And her feet are all white fur,
If you stroke her she carries her tail upright
And quickly begins to purr.
I think we shall call him this β
I think we shall call him that β
Now, don't you think that Sootikin
Is a nice name for a cat?
One is a tortoiseshell, yellow and black,
With plenty of white about him;
If you tease him, at once he sets up his back,
He's a quarrelsome one, ne'er doubt him.
I think we shall call her this β
I think we shall call her that β
Now, don't you think that Scratchaway
Is a nice name for a cat?
Our old cat has kittens three
And I fancy these their names will be:
Pepperpot, Sootikin, Scratchaway β there!
Were ever kittens with these to compare?
And we call the old mother β
Now what do you think? β
Tabitha Longclaws Tiddley Wink.
'Love And War'
By Publius Ovidius Naso
Lovers all are soldiers, and Cupid has his campaigns:
I tell you, Atticus, lovers all are soldiers.
Youth is fit for war, and also fit for Venus.
Imagine an aged soldier, an elderly lover!
A general looks for spirit in his brave soldiery;
a pretty girl wants spirit in her companions.
Both stay up all night long, and each sleeps on the ground;
one guards his mistress's doorway, one his general's.
The soldier's lot requires far journeys; send his girl,
the zealous lover will follow her anywhere.
He'll cross the glowering mountains, the rivers swollen with storm;
he'll tread a pathway through the heaped-up snows;
and never whine of raging Eurus when he sets sail
or wait for stars propitious for his voyage.
Who but lovers and soldiers endure the chill of night,
and blizzards interspersed with driving rain?
The soldier reconnoiters among the dangerous foe;
the lover spies to learn his rival's plans.
Soldiers besiege strong cities; lovers, a harsh girl's home;
one storms town gates, the other storms house doors.
It's clever strategy to raid a sleeping foe
and slay an unarmed host by force of arms.
(That's how the troops of Thracian Rhesus met their doom,
and you, O captive steeds, forsook your master.)
Well, lovers take advantage of husbands when they sleep,
launching surprise attacks while the enemy snores.
To slip through bands of guards and watchful sentinels
is always the soldier's mission - and the lover's.
Mars wavers; Venus flutters: the conquered rise again,
and those you'd think could never fall, lie low.
So those who like to say that love is indolent
should stop: Love is the soul of enterprise.
Sad Achilles burns for Briseis, his lost darling:
Trojans, smash the Greeks' power while you may!
From Andromache's embrace Hector went to war;
his own wife set the helmet on his head;
and High King Agamemnon, looking on Priam's child,
was stunned (they say) by the Maenad's flowing hair.
And Mars himself was trapped in The Artificer's bonds:
no tale was more notorious in heaven.
I too was once an idler, born for careless ease;
my shady couch had made my spirit soft.
But care for a lovely girl aroused me from my sloth
and bid me to enlist in her campaign.
So now you see me forceful, in combat all night long.
If you want a life of action, fall in love.
'Where My Books Go'
By William Butler Yeats
All the words that I utter,
And all the words that I write,
Must spread out their wings untiring,
And never rest in their flight,
Till they come where your sad, sad heart is,
And sing to you in the night,
Beyond where the waters are moving,
Storm-darkenβd or starry bright.
From 'Richard II'
By William Shakespeare
Act 2, Scene 1
John of Gaunt
Methinks I am a prophet new inspired
And thus expiring do foretell of him:
His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
For violent fires soon burn out themselves;
Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;
He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;
With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
For Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,
Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son,
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!
'Claire De Lune'
By Paul Verlaine
Your soul is the choicest of countries
Where charming maskers, masked shepherdesses,
Go playing their lutes and dancing, yet gently
Sad beneath fantastic disguises.
While they sing in a minor key
Of all-conquering love and careless fortune,
They seem to mistrust their own fantasy
And their song melts away in the light of the moon,
In the quiet moonlight, lovely and sad,
That makes the birds dream in the trees, all
The tall water-jets sob with ecstasies,
The slender water-jets rising from marble.