My Favorite Poems

• "To My Daughter Betty" by Thomas Kettle Visit Thomas Kettle's Page Read Poem

  In wiser days, my darling rosebud, blown
  To beauty proud as was your Mother’s prime.
  
  In that desired, delayed, incredible time,
  You’ll ask why I abandoned you, my own,
  And the dear heart that was your baby throne,
  To die with death.
  
  And oh! they’ll give you rhyme
  And reason: some will call the thing sublime,
  And some decry it in a knowing tone.
  
  So here, while the mad guns curse overhead,
  And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor,
  Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,
  Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor,
  But for a dream, born in a herdsmen shed,
  And for the secret Scripture of the poor.
  
  Written 4 days before his death in action - 1916

• "As We Like It" by W H Auden Visit W H Auden's Page Read Poem

  Certainly our city with its byres of poverty down to
  The river's edge, its cathedral, its engines, its dogs;
  Here is the cosmopolitan cooking
  And the light alloys and the glass.
  
  Built by the conscience-stricken, the weapon-making,
  By us.
  
  Wild rumours woo and terrify the crowd,
  Woo us.
  
  Betrayers thunder at, blackmail
  Us.
  
  But where now are They.
  
  Who without reproaches showed us what our vanity
  has chosen,
  Who pursued understanding with patience like a sex,
  had unlearnt
  Our hatred and towards the really better
  World had turned their face?
  
  Who knows?
  
  The peaked and violent faces are exalted,
  The feverish prejudiced lives do not care, and lost
  Their voice in the flutter of bunting, the glittering
  Brass of our great retreat,
  And the malice of death.
  
  For the wicked card is dealt and
  The sinister tall-hatted botanist stoops at the spring
  With his insignificant phial and looses
  The plague on the ignorant town.
  
  Under their shadows the pitiful subalterns are sleeping;
  The moon is usual; the necessary lovers touch;
  The river is alone and the trampled flower;
  And through years of absolute cold
  The planets rush towards Lyra in a lion's charge.
  
  Can
  Hate so securely bind?
  
  Are they dead here?
  
  Yes.
  
  And the wish to wound has the power.
  
  And tomorrow
  Comes.
  
  It's a world.
  
  It's a way.

• "Autumn Song" by W H Auden Visit W H Auden's Page Read Poem

  Now the leaves are falling fast,
  Nurse's flowers will not last;
  Nurses to the graves are gone,
  And the prams go rolling on.
  
  Whispering neighbours, left and right,
  Pluck us from the real delight;
  And the active hands must freeze
  Lonely on the separate knees.
  
  Dead in hundreds at the back
  Follow wooden in our track,
  Arms raised stiffly to reprove
  In false attitudes of love.
  
  Starving through the leafless wood
  Trolls run scolding for their food;
  And the nightingale is dumb,
  And the angel will not come.
  
  Cold, impossible, ahead
  Lifts the mountain's lovely head
  Whose white waterfall could bless
  Travellers in their last distress.

• "Funeral Blues" by W H Auden Visit W H Auden's Page Read Poem

  Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
  Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
  Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
  Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
  
  Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
  Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.
  
  Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
  Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
  
  He was my North, my South, my East and West,
  My working week and my Sunday rest,
  My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
  I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
  
  The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
  Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
  Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
  For nothing now can ever come to any good.

• "A Thing Of Beauty (Endymion)" by John Keats Visit John Keats's Page Read Poem

  A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
  Its loveliness increases; it will never
  Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
  A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
  Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
  
  Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
  A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
  Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
  Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
  Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
  Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
  Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
  From our dark spirits.
  
  Such the sun, the moon,
  Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
  For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
  With the green world they live in; and clear rills
  That for themselves a cooling covert make
  'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
  Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
  And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
  We have imagined for the mighty dead;
  All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
  An endless fountain of immortal drink,
  Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
  
  Nor do we merely feel these essences
  For one short hour; no, even as the trees
  That whisper round a temple become soon
  Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
  The passion poesy, glories infinite,
  Haunt us till they become a cheering light
  Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast
  That, whether there be shine or gloom o'ercast,
  They always must be with us, or we die.
  
  Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
  Will trace the story of Endymion.
  
  The very music of the name has gone
  Into my being, and each pleasant scene
  Is growing fresh before me as the green
  Of our own valleys: so I will begin
  Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
  Now while the early budders are just new,
  And run in mazes of the youngest hue
  About old forests; while the willow trails
  Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
  Bring home increase of milk.
  
  And, as the year
  Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
  My little boat, for many quiet hours,
  With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
  
  Many and many a verse I hope to write,
  Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white,
  Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
  Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
  I must be near the middle of my story.
  
  O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
  See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
  With universal tinge of sober gold,
  Be all about me when I make an end!
  And now at once, adventuresome, I send
  My herald thought into a wilderness:
  There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
  My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
  Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

• "Erysichthon" by Ted Hughes Visit Ted Hughes's Page Read Poem

  Some are transformed just once
  And live their whole lives after in that shape.
  
  Others have a facility
  For changing themselves as they please.
  
  ProteusProteusA shape-shifting sea deity most famous for his role in Book 4 of Homer’sOdyssey.
  
  , who haunts the shadowy seas
  That scarf this earthThat scarf this earthDoes “scarf” here mean that the sea enwraps the earth or gulps it down?
  
  The Latin is clearer:complexi“embracing.
  
  ” But later in this poem, the voracious sea is described as draining the continents.
  
  , is glimpsed as a young man
  Who becomes of a sudden a lion
  That becomes a wild boar ripping the ground,
  
  Yet flows forward, hidden, through grass, without sound
  As a serpent, that emerges
  As a towering bull under down-bent horns,
  Or hides, among stones, a simple stone.
  
  Or stands as a tree alone.
  
  Or liquefies, and collapses, shapeless,
  Into water, a pouring river.
  
  Sometimes
  He is the river’s opposite––firefireHughes and Ovid both end their introductions to the tale with this word (ignisin Ovid’s Latin), which hints at an alternative name for Erysichthon in Greek myth: Aethon (“Burning, Blazing”).
  
  Another with a similar power
  Was Erysichthon’sdaughterdaughterNeither Ovid nor Hughes names her, though elsewhere she goes by Mestra.
  
  ,
  The wife ofAutolycusAutolycusA notorious thief and trickster of Greek myth and the maternal grandfather of Odysseus who was a strategist and survivor of the Trojan War celebrated in theOdyssey, as a master of deception.
  
  .
  
  Her father
  Gave to the gods nothing but mockery.
  
  Without a qualm he cut down every tree
  In the sacred grove ofCeresCeresThe goddess of agriculture, who when pleased provides food in abundance.
  
  ––
  An ancient wood that had never, before that day,
  Jumped to the axe’s stroke.
  
  Among those trees
  One prodigious oak was all to itself
  A tangled forest.
  
  Its boughs were bedecked with wreaths
  And votive tributes––each for a prayer
  
  Ceres had sometime granted.
  
  DryadsDryadsMinor female tree deities, who some believed lived and died with their respective trees.
  
  there
  Danced a holy circle around its bole
  Or joined hands to embrace it––
  A circumference of twenty paces.
  
  Erysichthon ignores all this as
  He assesses the volume of its timber,
  Then orders his men to fell it.
  
  Seeing their reluctance, he roars:
  
  “If this tree were your deity, that every clown adores,
  And not merely a tree you think she favours,
  Nevertheless, those twigs away there at the top
  Would have to come down now, as the rest falls.
  
  ”
  
  He snatches an axe––and hauls
  The weight of the broad head up and back.
  
  But in that moment, as the blade hangs
  Poised for the first downstroke, shudderings
  
  Swarm through the whole tree, to its outermost twigs
  And a groan bursts from the deep grain.
  
  At the same time
  Every bough goes grey––every leaf
  
  Whitens, and every acorn whitens.
  
  Then the bladebitesbitesThe biting imagery is Hughes’s addition, looking ahead to the tale’s theme of hunger.
  
  The Latin (literally translated): “his impious hand made a wound in the trunk.
  
  ”and the blood leaps
  As from the neck of a great bull when it drops
  Under the axe at the altar.
  
  Everybody stares paralysed.
  
  Only one man protests.
  
  TheThessalianThessalianErysichthon is king of Thessaly, an especially fertile region of the ancient Greek mainland.
  
  Erysichthon turns with eyes stretched
  Incredulous.
  
  “Your pious cares,” he bellows,
  
  “Are misplaced.
  
  ” And he follows
  That first swing at the oak with another
  At the protester’s neck, whose head
  Spins through the air and bounces.
  
  Then the oak, as he turns back to it, pronounces,
  In a clear voice, these words:
  “I live in this tree.
  
  I am anymphnymphAny of a variety of minor Greek deities closely tied to natural features such as trees (like the dryad speaking here), mountains, or bodies of water.
  
  ,
  Beloved by Ceres, the goddess.
  
  “With my last breath, I curse you.
  
  As this oak
  Falls on the earth, your punishment
  Will come down on you with all its weight.
  
  That is my consolation.
  
  And your fate.
  
  ”
  
  Erysichthon ignored her.
  
  He just kept going,
  Undercutting the huge trunk, till ropes
  Brought the whole mass down, jolting the earth,
  Devastating the underbrush around it.
  
  All the nymphs of the sacred grove mourned it.
  
  Dressed in black, they came to Ceres,
  Crying for the criminal to be punished,
  Bewailing the desecration.
  
  The goddess listened.
  
  Then the summer farms, the orchards, the vineyards,
  The whole flushed, ripening harvest, shivered
  As she pondered how to make his death
  A parable of her anger.
  
  If his cruelty, greed, arrogance
  Had left him a single drop of human feeling
  What the goddess did now
  Would have drained mankind of its pity.
  
  She condemned him
  To Hunger––
  But infinite, insatiable Hunger,
  The agony of Hunger as a frenzy.
  
  Destiny has separated Hunger
  So far from the goddess of abundance
  They can never meet; therefore Ceres
  Commissioned a mountain spirit, anoreadoreadCeres ventures outside her divine agricultural sphere in calling on a mountain nymph because the destination of this mission will prove to be a mountain.
  
  :
  
  “Hear what I say and do not be afraid.
  
  Far away to the north ofScythiaScythiaA region extending across the north of the Black Sea, exaggerated in Greek myth as a frozen wasteland at the edge of the earth.
  
  This description of Scythia bears striking resemblance to Ovid’s depictions elsewhere of Tomis, the town on the Black Sea to which the Roman emperor Augustus exiled him.
  
  Lies a barren country, leafless, dreadful:
  Ice permanent as iron, air that aches.
  
  “A howling land of rocks, gales and snow.
  
  There mad Hunger staggers.
  
  Go.
  
  Bid Hunger
  Take possession of Erysichthon’s belly.
  
  Tell her she has power over all my powers
  
  “To nourish Erysichthon.
  
  Let all I pour
  Or push down this fool’s gullet only deepen
  His emptiness.
  
  Go.
  
  My dragon-drawn chariot
  Will make the terrific journey seem slight.
  
  ”
  
  The nymph climbed away and her first halt
  Was the top ofCaucasusCaucasusA prominent mountain on the northeast shore of the Black Sea, in the extreme east of Scythia.
  
  .
  
  She soon found Hunger raking with her nails
  To bare the root of a tiny rock-wort
  
  Till her teeth could catch and tear it.
  
  In shape and colour her face was a skull, blueish.
  
  Her lips a stretched hole of frayed leather
  Over bleeding teeth.
  
  Her skin
  
  So glossy and so thin
  You could see the internal organs through it.
  
  Her pelvic bone was like a bare bone.
  
  The stump wings of her hip bones splayed open.
  
  As she bowed, her rib-cage swung from her backbone
  In a varnish of tissue.
  
  Her ankle joints
  And her knee joints were huge bulbs, ponderous, grotesque,
  On her spindly shanks.
  
  The oread
  
  Knew danger when she saw it.
  
  She proclaimed
  The command of the goddess from a safe distance.
  
  The whole speech only took a minute or so––
  Yet a swoon of hunger left her trembling.
  
  She got away fast.
  
  All the way back to Thessaly
  She gave the dragons their headShe gave the dragons their headA rider pulls a horse’s reins to slow or stop the animal, so the opposite, “giving horses their head,” means relaxing the reins to achieve a full gallop.
  
  .
  
  Now hear me.
  
  Though Hunger lives only in opposition
  To Ceres, yet she obeys her.
  
  She soars through darkness
  Across the earth, to the house of Erysichthon
  And bends above the pillow where his face
  
  Snores with open mouth.
  
  Her skeletal embrace goes around him.
  
  Her shrunk mouth clamps over his mouth
  And she breathes
  
  Into every channel of his body
  A hurricane of starvation.
  
  The job done, she vanishes,
  She hurtles away, out of the lands of plenty,
  
  As if sucked back
  Into the vacuum––
  Deprivation’s hollow territories
  That belong to her, and that she belongs to.
  
  Erysichthon snores on––
  But in spite of the god of sleep’s efforts
  To comfort him, he dreams he sits at a banquet
  Where the food tastes of nothing.
  
  A nightmare.
  
  He grinds his molars on air, with a dry creaking,
  Dreaming that he grinds between his molars
  A feast of nothing, food that is like air.
  
  At last he writhes awake in convulsive
  
  Cramps of hunger.
  
  His jaws
  Seem to have their own life, snapping at air
  With uncontrollable eagerness to be biting
  Into food and swallowing––like a cat
  
  Staring at a bird out of reach.
  
  His stomach feels like a fist
  Gripping and wringing out
  The mere idea of food.
  
  He calls for food.
  
  Everything edible
  Out of the sea and earth.
  
  When it comes
  Dearth is all he sees where tables bend
  Under the spilling plenty.
  
  Emptying
  
  Bowls of heaped food, all he craves for
  Is bigger bowls heaped higher.
  
  Food
  For a whole city cannot sate him.
  
  Food
  For a whole nation leaves him faint with hunger.
  
  As every river on earth
  Pours its wealth towards ocean
  That is always sweeping for more,
  Draining the continents,
  
  And as fire grows hungrier
  The more fuel it finds,
  So, famished by food,
  The gullet of Erysichthon, gulping down
  
  Whatever its diameter can manage
  Through every waking moment,
  Spares a mouthful
  Only to shout for more.
  
  This voracity, this bottomless belly,
  As if his throat opened
  Into the void of stars,
  Engulfed his entire wealth.
  
  His every possession was converted
  To what he could devour
  Till nothing remained except a daughter.
  
  This only child deserved a better father.
  
  His last chattelHis last chattelWhy do you suppose Hughes calls Erysichthon’s daughter “chattel” (personal property), a term that has no parallel in Ovid’s version?
  
  , he cashed her in for food.
  
  He sold her, at the market.
  
  But she was far too spirited
  To stay as a bought slave.
  
  Stretching her arms towards the sea, she cried:
  “You whoravished my maidenheadravished my maidenheadThis alludes to the daughter’s previous rape by Neptune, the god of the sea.
  
  Greek myth offers many examples of mortal rape by a god or goddess, who would often, as here, also grant a special favor to their victim.
  
  , save me.
  
  ”
  Neptune knew the voice of his pretty victim
  And granted the prayer.
  
  Her new owner,
  
  Who minutes ago was admiring the girl he had bought,
  Now saw only Neptune’s art––featured
  And clothed like a fisherman.
  
  Perplexed,
  He spoke to this stranger directly.
  
  “You with your fishing tackle, hiding your barbs
  In tiny gobbets of bait––may you have good weather
  And plenty of silly fish that never notice
  The hook till it's caught them!––can you tell me
  
  “Where is the girl who was here a moment ago?
  
  Her hair loose, and dressed in the cheapest things,
  She was standing right here where her footprints––
  Look––stop, and go no further.
  
  Where is she?
  
  ”
  
  The girl guessed what the god had done for her.
  
  She smiled to hear herself asked where she might be.
  
  Then to the man parted from his money:
  “I’m sorry, my attention has been fixed
  
  “On the fish in this hole.
  
  But I promise you,
  By all the help I pray for from Neptune,
  Nobody has come along this beach
  For quite a while––and certainly no woman.
  
  ”
  
  The buyer had to believe her.
  
  He went off, baffled.
  
  The girl took one step and was back
  In her own shape.
  
  Next thing,
  She was telling her father.
  
  And he,
  
  Elated, saw business.
  
  After that
  On every market he sold her in some new shape.
  
  A trader bought a horse,
  Paid for it and found the halter empty
  
  Where a girl sat selling mushrooms.
  
  A costly parrot escaped its purchaser
  Into an orchard––where a girl picked figs.
  
  One bought an ox that vanished from its pasture
  
  Where a girl gathered cowslips.
  
  So Erysichthon’s daughter plied her talent
  For taking any shape to cheat a buyer––
  Straight and crooked alike.
  
  All to feed the famine in her father.
  
  But none of it was enough.
  
  Whatever he ate
  Maddened and tormented that hunger
  To angrier, uglier life.
  
  The life
  
  Of a monster no longer a man.
  
  And so,
  At last, the inevitable.
  
  He began to savage his own limbs.
  
  And there, at a final feast, devoured himself.

• "[Traveler, your footprints]" by Antonio Machado Visit Antonio Machado's Page Read Poem

  Traveler, your footprints
  are the only road, nothing else.
  
  Traveler, there is no road;
  you make your own path as you walk.
  
  As you walk, you make your own road,
  and when you look back
  you see the path
  you will never travel again.
  
  Traveler, there is no road;
  only a ship's wake on the sea.

• "The Song Of Wandering Aengus" by William Butler Yeats Visit William Butler Yeats's Page Read Poem

  I WENT out to the hazel wood,
  Because a fire was in my head,
  And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
  And hooked a berry to a thread;
  And when white moths were on the wing,
  And moth-like stars were flickering out,
  I dropped the berry in a stream
  And caught a little silver trout.
  
  When I had laid it on the floor
  I went to blow the fire aflame,
  But something rustled on the floor,
  And some one called me by my name:
  It had become a glimmering girl
  With apple blossom in her hair
  Who called me by my name and ran
  And faded through the brightening air.
  
  Though I am old with wandering
  Through hollow lands and hilly lands.
  
  I will find out where she has gone,
  And kiss her lips and take her hands;
  And walk among long dappled grass,
  And pluck till time and times are done
  The silver apples of the moon,
  The golden apples of the sun.

• "Thoughts On Jesus Christ's Decent Into Hell" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Visit Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Page Read Poem

  WHAT wondrous noise is heard around!
  Through heaven exulting voices sound,
  A mighty army marches on
  By thousand millions follow'd, lo,
  To yon dark place makes haste to go
  God's Son, descending from His throne!
  He goes—the tempests round Him break,
  As Judge and Hero cometh He;
  He goes—the constellations quake,
  The sun, the world quake fearfully.
  
  I see Him in His victor-car,
  On fiery axles borne afar,
  Who on the cross for us expired.
  
  The triumph to yon realms He shows,—
  Remote from earth, where star ne'er glows,
  The triumph He for us acquired.
  
  He cometh, Hell to extirpate,
  Whom He, by dying, wellnigh kill'd;
  He shall pronounce her fearful fate
  Hark! now the curse is straight fulfill'd.
  
  Hell sees the victor come at last,
  She feels that now her reign is past,
  She quakes and fears to meet His sight;
  She knows His thunders' terrors dread,
  In vain she seeks to hide her head,
  Attempts to fly, but vain is flight;
  Vainly she hastes to 'scape pursuit
  And to avoid her Judge's eye;
  The Lord's fierce wrath restrains her foot
  Like brazen chains,—she cannot fly.
  
  Here lies the Dragon, trampled down,
  He lies, and feels God's angry frown,
  He feels, and grinneth hideously;
  He feels Hell's speechless agonies,
  A thousand times he howls and sighs:
  "Oh, burning flames! quick, swallow me!"
  There lies he in the fiery waves,
  By torments rack'd and pangs infernal,
  Instant annihilation craves,
  And hears, those pangs will be eternal.
  
  Those mighty squadrons, too, are here,
  The partners of his cursed career,
  Yet far less bad than he were they.
  
  Here lies the countless throng combined,
  In black and fearful crowds entwined,
  While round him fiery tempests play;
  He sees how they the Judge avoid,
  He sees the storm upon them feed,
  Yet is not at the sight o'erjoy'd,
  Because his pangs e'en theirs exceed.
  
  The Son of Man in triumph passes
  Down to Hell's wild and black morasses,
  And there unfolds His majesty.
  
  Hell cannot bear the bright array,
  For, since her first created day.
  
  Darkness alone e'er govern'd she.
  
  She lay remote from ev'ry light
  With torments fill'd in Chaos here;
  God turn'd for ever from her sight
  His radiant features' glory clear.
  
  Within the realms she calls her own,
  She sees the splendour of the Son,
  His dreaded glories shining forth;
  She sees Him clad in rolling thunder,
  She sees the rocks all quake with wonder,
  When God before her stands in wrath.
  
  She sees He comes her Judge to be,
  She feels the awful pangs inside her,
  Herself to slay endeavours she,
  But e'en this comfort is denied her.
  
  Now looks she back, with pains untold,
  Upon those happy times of old,
  When those glories gave her joy;
  When yet her heart revered the truth,
  When her glad soul, in endless youth
  And rapture dwelt, without alloy.
  
  She calls to mind with madden'd thought
  How over man her wiles prevail'd;
  To take revenge on God she sought,
  And feels the vengeance it entail'd.
  
  God was made man, and came to earth.
  
  Then Satan cried with fearful mirth:
  "E'en He my victim now shall be!"
  He sought to slay the Lord Most High,
  The world's Creator now must die;
  But, Satan, endless woe to thee!
  Thou thought'st to overcome Him then,
  Rejoicing in His suffering;
  But he in triumph comes again
  To bind thee: Death! where is thy sting?
  
  Speak, Hell! where is thy victory?
  
  Thy power destroy'd and scatter'd see!
  Know'st thou not now the Highest's might?
  
  See, Satan, see thy rule o'erthrown!
  By thousand-varying pangs weigh'd down,
  Thou dwell'st in dark and endless night.
  
  As though by lightning struck thou liest,
  No gleam of rapture far or wide;
  In vain! no hope thou there decriest,—
  For me alone Messiah died!
  A howling rises through the air,
  A trembling fills each dark vault there,
  When Christ to Hell is seen to come.
  
  She snarls with rage, but needs must cower
  Before our mighty hero's power;
  He signs—and Hell is straightway dumb.
  
  Before his voice the thunders break,
  On high His victor-banner blows;
  E'en angels at His fury quake,
  When Christ to the dread judgment goes.
  
  Now speaks He, and His voice is thunder,
  He speaks, the rocks are rent in sunder,
  His breath is like devouring flames.
  
  Thus speaks He: "Tremble, ye accurs'd!
  He who from Eden hurl'd you erst,
  Your kingdom's overthrow proclaims.
  
  Look up! My children once were ye,
  Your arms against Me then ye turn'd,
  Ye fell, that ye might sinners be,
  Ye've now the wages that ye earn'd.
  
  "My greatest foeman from that day,
  Ye led my dearest friends astray,—
  As ye had fallen, man must fall.
  
  To kill him evermore ye sought,
  'They all shall die the death,' ye thought;
  But howl! for Me I won them all.
  
  For them alone did I descend,
  For them pray'd, suffer'd, perish'd I.
  
  Ye ne'er shall gain your wicked end;
  Who trusts in Me shall never die.
  
  "In endless chains here lie ye now,
  Nothing can save you from the slough.
  
  Not boldness, not regret for crime.
  
  Lie, then, and writhe in brimstone fire!
  'Twas ye yourselves drew down Mine ire,
  Lie and lament throughout all time!
  And also ye, whom I selected,
  E'en ye forever I disown,
  For ye My saving grace rejected
  Ye murmur?
  
  blame yourselves alone!
  "Ye might have lived with Me in bliss,
  For I of yore had promis'd this;
  Ye sinn'd, and all My precepts slighted
  Wrapp'd in the sleep of sin ye dwelt,
  Now is My fearful judgment felt,
  By a just doom your guilt requited.
  
  "—
  Thus spake He, and a fearful storm
  From Him proceeds, the lightnings glow,
  The thunders seize each wicked form,
  And hurl them in the gulf below.
  
  The God-man closeth Hell's sad doors,
  In all His majesty He soars
  From those dark regions back to light.
  
  He sitteth at the Father's side;
  Oh, friends, what joy doth this betide!
  For us, for us He still will fight!
  The angels sacred quire around
  Rejoice before the mighty Lord,
  So that all creatures hear the sound:
  "Zebaoth's God be aye ador'd!"
  Translator's Note: THE remarkable Poem of which this is a literal but faint
  representation, was written when Goethe was only sixteen years
  old.
  
  It derives additional interest from the fact of its being
  the very earliest piece of his that is preserved.

• "The Wanderer" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Visit Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Page Read Poem

  WANDERER.
  
  YOUNG woman, may God bless thee,
  Thee, and the sucking infant
  Upon thy breast!
  Let me, 'gainst this rocky wall,
  Neath the elm-tree's shadow,
  Lay aside my burden,
  Near thee take my rest.
  
  WOMAN.
  
  What vocation leads thee,
  While the day is burning,
  Up this dusty path?
  
  Bring'st thou goods from out the town
  Round the country?
  
  Smil'st thou, stranger,
  At my question?
  
  WANDERER.
  
  From the town no goods I bring.
  
  Cool is now the evening;
  Show to me the fountain
  'Whence thou drinkest,
  Woman young and kind!
  WOMAN.
  
  Up the rocky pathway mount;
  Go thou first! Across the thicket
  Leads the pathway tow'rd the cottage
  That I live in,
  To the fountain
  Whence I drink.
  
  WANDERER.
  
  Signs of man's arranging hand
  See I 'mid the trees!
  Not by thee these stones were join'd,
  Nature, who so freely scatterest!
  WOMAN.
  
  Up, still up!
  WANDERER.
  
  Lo, a mossy architrave is here!
  I discern thee, fashioning spirit!
  On the stone thou hast impress'd thy seal.
  
  WOMAN.
  
  Onward, stranger!
  WANDERER.
  
  Over an inscription am I treading!
  'Tis effaced!
  Ye are seen no longer,
  Words so deeply graven,
  Who your master's true devotion
  Should have shown to thousand grandsons!
  WOMAN.
  
  At these stones, why
  Start'st thou, stranger?
  
  Many stones are lying yonder
  Round my cottage.
  
  WANDERER.
  
  Yonder?
  
  WOMAN.
  
  Through the thicket,
  Turning to the left,
  Here!
  WANDERER.
  
  Ye Muses and ye Graces!
  WOMAN.
  
  This, then, is my cottage.
  
  WANDERER.
  
  'Tis a ruin'd temple!
  WOMAN.
  
  Just below it, see,
  Springs the fountain
  Whence I drink.
  
  WANDERER.
  
  Thou dost hover
  O'er thy grave, all glowing,
  Genius! while upon thee
  Hath thy master-piece
  Fallen crumbling,
  Thou Immortal One!
  WOMAN.
  
  Stay, a cup I'll fetch thee
  Whence to drink.
  
  WANDERER.
  
  Ivy circles thy slender
  Form so graceful and godlike.
  
  How ye rise on high
  From the ruins,
  Column-pair
  And thou, their lonely sister yonder,—
  How thou,
  Dusky moss upon thy sacred head,—
  Lookest down in mournful majesty
  On thy brethren's figures
  Lying scatter'd
  At thy feet!
  In the shadow of the bramble
  Earth and rubbish veil them,
  Lofty grass is waving o'er them
  Is it thus thou, Nature, prizest
  Thy great masterpiece's masterpiece?
  
  Carelessly destroyest thou
  Thine own sanctuary,
  Sowing thistles there?
  
  WOMAN.
  
  How the infant sleeps!
  Wilt thou rest thee in the cottage,
  Stranger?
  
  Wouldst thou rather
  In the open air still linger?
  
  Now 'tis cool! take thou the child
  While I go and draw some water.
  
  Sleep on, darling! sleep!
  WANDERER.
  
  Sweet is thy repose!
  How, with heaven-born health imbued,
  Peacefully he slumbers!
  Oh thou, born among the ruins
  Spread by great antiquity,
  On thee rest her spirit!
  He whom it encircles
  Will, in godlike consciousness,
  Ev'ry day enjoy.
  
  Full, of germ, unfold,
  As the smiling springtime's
  Fairest charm,
  Outshining all thy fellows!
  And when the blossom's husk is faded,
  May the full fruit shoot forth
  From out thy breast,
  And ripen in the sunshine!
  WOMAN.
  
  God bless him!—Is he sleeping still?
  
  To the fresh draught I nought can add,
  Saving a crust of bread for thee to eat.
  
  WANDERER.
  
  I thank thee well.
  
  How fair the verdure all around!
  How green!
  WOMAN.
  
  My husband soon
  Will home return
  From labour.
  
  Tarry, tarry, man,
  And with us eat our evening meal.
  
  WANDERER.
  
  Is't here ye dwell?
  
  WOMAN.
  
  Yonder, within those walls we live.
  
  My father 'twas who built the cottage
  Of tiles and stones from out the ruins.
  
  'Tis here we dwell.
  
  He gave me to a husbandman,
  And in our arms expired.
  
  —
  Hast thou been sleeping, dearest heart
  How lively, and how full of play!
  Sweet rogue!
  WANDERER.
  
  Nature, thou ever budding one,
  Thou formest each for life's enjoyments,
  And, like a mother, all thy children dear,
  Blessest with that sweet heritage,—a home
  The swallow builds the cornice round,
  Unconscious of the beauties
  She plasters up.
  
  The caterpillar spins around the bough,
  To make her brood a winter house;
  And thou dost patch, between antiquity's
  Most glorious relics,
  For thy mean use,
  Oh man, a humble cot,—
  Enjoyest e'en mid tombs!—
  Farewell, thou happy woman!
  WOMAN.
  
  Thou wilt not stay, then?
  
  WANDERER.
  
  May God preserve thee,
  And bless thy boy!
  WOMAN.
  
  A happy journey!
  WANDERER.
  
  Whither conducts the path
  Across yon hill?
  
  WOMAN.
  
  To Cuma.
  
  WANDERER.
  
  How far from hence?
  
  WOMAN.
  
  'Tis full three miles.
  
  WANDERER.
  
  Farewell!
  Oh Nature, guide me on my way!
  The wandering stranger guide,
  Who o'er the tombs
  Of holy bygone times
  Is passing,
  To a kind sheltering place,
  From North winds safe,
  And where a poplar grove
  Shuts out the noontide ray!
  And when I come
  Home to my cot
  At evening,
  Illumined by the setting sun,
  Let me embrace a wife like this,
  Her infant in her arms!
  Published in the Gottingen Musen Almanach, having been written
  \

• "To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time" by William Butler Yeats Visit William Butler Yeats's Page Read Poem

  Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
  Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:
  Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;
  The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed,
  Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;
  And thine own sadness, where of stars, grown old
  In dancing silver-sandalled on the sea,
  Sing in their high and lonely melody.
  
  Come near, that no more blinded by man's fate,
  I find under the boughs of love and hate,
  In all poor foolish things that live a day,
  Eternal beauty wandering on her way.
  
  Come near, come near, come near — Ah, leave me still
  A little space for the rose-breath to fill!
  Lest I no more bear common things that crave;
  The weak worm hiding down in its small cave,
  The field-mouse running by me in the grass,
  And heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass;
  But seek alone to hear the strange things said
  By God to the bright hearts of those long dead,
  And learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know.
  
  Come near; I would, before my time to go,
  Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:
  Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.

• "Canto I: And Then Went Down to the Ship" by Ezra Pound Visit Ezra Pound's Page Read Poem

  And then went down to the ship,
  Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and
  We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
  Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
  Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward
  Bore us onward with bellying canvas,
  Circe's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
  
  Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
  Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day's end.
  
  Sun to his slumber, shadows o'er all the ocean,
  Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
  To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities
  Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever
  With glitter of sun-rays
  Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven
  Swartest night stretched over wretched men there.
  
  The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place
  Aforesaid by Circe.
  
  Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus,
  And drawing sword from my hip
  I dug the ell-square pitkin;
  Poured we libations unto each the dead,
  First mead and then sweet wine, water mixed with white flour
  Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death's-heads;
  As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best
  For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods,
  A sheep to Tiresias only, black and a bell-sheep.
  
  Dark blood flowed in the fosse,
  Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead, of brides
  Of youths and of the old who had borne much;
  Souls stained with recent tears, girls tender,
  Men many, mauled with bronze lance heads,
  Battle spoil, bearing yet dreory arms,
  These many crowded about me; with shouting,
  Pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts;
  Slaughtered the herds, sheep slain of bronze;
  Poured ointment, cried to the gods,
  To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine;
  Unsheathed the narrow sword,
  I sat to keep off the impetuous impotent dead,
  Till I should hear Tiresias.
  
  But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor,
  Unburied, cast on the wide earth,
  Limbs that we left in the house of Circe,
  Unwept, unwrapped in the sepulchre, since toils urged other.
  
  Pitiful spirit.
  
  And I cried in hurried speech:
  "Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast?
  
  "Cam'st thou afoot, outstripping seamen?
  
  "
  And he in heavy speech:
  "Ill fate and abundant wine.
  
  I slept in Crice's ingle.
  
  "Going down the long ladder unguarded,
  "I fell against the buttress,
  "Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus.
  
  "But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied,
  "Heap up mine arms, be tomb by sea-bord, and inscribed:
  "A man of no fortune, and with a name to come.
  
  "And set my oar up, that I swung mid fellows.
  
  "
  And Anticlea came, whom I beat off, and then Tiresias Theban,
  Holding his golden wand, knew me, and spoke first:
  "A second time?
  
  why?
  
  man of ill star,
  "Facing the sunless dead and this joyless region?
  
  "Stand from the fosse, leave me my bloody bever
  "For soothsay.
  
  "
  And I stepped back,
  And he strong with the blood, said then: "Odysseus
  "Shalt return through spiteful Neptune, over dark seas,
  "Lose all companions.
  
  " Then Anticlea came.
  
  Lie quiet Divus.
  
  I mean, that is Andreas Divus,
  In officina Wecheli, 1538, out of Homer.
  
  And he sailed, by Sirens and thence outward and away
  And unto Circe.
  
  Venerandam,
  In the Cretan's phrase, with the golden crown, Aphrodite,
  Cypri munimenta sortita est, mirthful, oricalchi, with golden
  Girdle and breast bands, thou with dark eyelids
  Bearing the golden bough of Argicida.
  
  So that:

• "Christ's Bounty" by Anonymous Irish Visit Anonymous Irish's Page Read Poem

  I pray you, Christ, to change my heart,
  To make it whole;
  Once you took on flesh like mine,
  Now take my soul.
  
  Ignominy and pain you knew,
  The lash, the scourge,
  You, the perfect molten metal
  Of my darkened forge.
  
  You make the bright sun bless my head,
  Put ice beneath my feet,
  Send salmon swarming in the tides,
  Give crops of wheat.
  
  When Eve's wild children come to you
  With prayerful words,
  You crowd the rivers with fine fish,
  The sky with birds.
  
  You make the small flowers thrive
  In the wholesome air,
  Your spread sweetness through the world.
  
  What miracle can compare?

• "PSALM 23 - The Lord, Shepherd and Host" by Psalms Visit Psalms's Page Read Poem

  Psalm 23 A Psalm of David.
  
  The LORD [is] my shepherd; I shall not want.
  
  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
  
  He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
  
  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou [art] with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
  
  Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
  
  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

• "A Dialogue Of Self And Soul" by William Butler Yeats Visit William Butler Yeats's Page Read 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 consecretes 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 wodden 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 is 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
  I,
  Is
  from the I,
  Ought,
  or I
  knower
  from the I
  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.

• "I Remember You As You Were" by Pablo Neruda Visit Pablo Neruda's Page Read Poem

  I remember you as you were in the last autumn.
  
  You were the grey beret and the still heart.
  
  In your eyes the flames of the twilight fought on.
  
  And the leaves fell in the water of your soul.
  
  Clasping my arms like a climbing plant
  the leaves garnered your voice, that was slow and at peace.
  
  Bonfire of awe in which my thirst was burning.
  
  Sweet blue hyacinth twisted over my soul.
  
  I feel your eyes traveling, and the autumn is far off:
  Grey beret, voice of a bird, heart like a house
  Towards which my deep longings migrated
  And my kisses fell, happy as embers.
  
  Sky from a ship.
  
  Field from the hills:
  Your memory is made of light, of smoke, of a still pond!
  Beyond your eyes, farther on, the evenings were blazing.
  
  Dry autumn leaves revolved in your soul.

• "Remembering Mountain Men" by William Stafford Visit William Stafford's Page Read Poem

  I put my foot in cold water
  and hold it there: early mornings
  they had to wade through broken ice
  to find the traps in the deep channel
  with their hands, drag up the chains and
  the drowned beaver.
  
  The slow current
  of the life below tugs at me all day.
  
  When I dream at night, they save a place for me,
  no matter how small, somewhere by the fire.

• "Ask Me" by William Stafford Visit William Stafford's Page Read Poem

  Some time when the river is ice ask me
  mistakes I have made.
  
  Ask me whether
  what I have done is my life.
  
  Others
  have come in their slow way into
  my thought, and some have tried to help
  or to hurt: ask me what difference
  their strongest love or hate has made.
  
  I will listen to what you say.
  
  You and I can turn and look
  at the silent river and wait.
  
  We know
  the current is there, hidden; and there
  are comings and goings from miles away
  that hold the stillness exactly before us.
  
  What the river says, that is what I say.

• "Waking at 3 a.m." by William Stafford Visit William Stafford's Page Read Poem

  Even in the cave of the night when you
  wake and are free and lonely,
  neglected by others, discarded, loved only
  by what doesn't matter—even in that
  big room no one can see,
  you push with your eyes till forever
  comes in its twisted figure eight
  and lies down in your head.
  
  You think water in the river;
  you think slower than the tide in
  the grain of the wood; you become
  a secret storehouse that saves the country,
  so open and foolish and empty.
  
  You look over all that the darkness
  ripples across.
  
  More than has ever
  been found comforts you.
  
  You open your
  eyes in a vault that unlocks as fast
  and as far as your thought can run.
  
  A great snug wall goes around everything,
  has always been there, will always
  remain.
  
  It is a good world to be
  lost in.
  
  It comforts you.
  
  It is
  all right.
  
  And you sleep.

• "Weary Rings" by Cesar Vallejo Visit Cesar Vallejo's Page Read Poem

  There are desires to return, to love, to not disappear,
  and there are desires to die, fought by two
  opposing waters that have never isthmused.
  
  There are desires for a great kiss that would shroud Life,
  one that ends in the Africa of a fiery agony,
  a suicide!
  There are desires to.
  
  .
  
  .
  
  have no desires, Lord;
  I point my deicidal finger at you:
  there are desires to not have had a heart.
  
  Spring returns, returns and will depart.
  
  And God,
  bent in time, repeats himself, and passes, passes
  with the spinal column of the Universe on his back.
  
  When my temples beat their lugubrious drum,
  when the dream engraved on a dagger aches me,
  there are desires to be left standing in this verse!

• "Christ's Bounty" by Anonymous Irish Visit Anonymous Irish's Page Read Poem

  I pray you, Christ, to change my heart,
  To make it whole;
  Once you took on flesh like mine,
  Now take my soul.
  
  Ignominy and pain you knew,
  The lash, the scourge,
  You, the perfect molten metal
  Of my darkened forge.
  
  You make the bright sun bless my head,
  Put ice beneath my feet,
  Send salmon swarming in the tides,
  Give crops of wheat.
  
  When Eve's wild children come to you
  With prayerful words,
  You crowd the rivers with fine fish,
  The sky with birds.
  
  You make the small flowers thrive
  In the wholesome air,
  Your spread sweetness through the world.
  
  What miracle can compare?

• "[Traveler, your footprints]" by Antonio Machado Visit Antonio Machado's Page Read Poem

  Traveler, your footprints
  are the only road, nothing else.
  
  Traveler, there is no road;
  you make your own path as you walk.
  
  As you walk, you make your own road,
  and when you look back
  you see the path
  you will never travel again.
  
  Traveler, there is no road;
  only a ship's wake on the sea.

• "Weary Rings" by Cesar Vallejo Visit Cesar Vallejo's Page Read Poem

  There are desires to return, to love, to not disappear,
  and there are desires to die, fought by two
  opposing waters that have never isthmused.
  
  There are desires for a great kiss that would shroud Life,
  one that ends in the Africa of a fiery agony,
  a suicide!
  There are desires to.
  
  .
  
  .
  
  have no desires, Lord;
  I point my deicidal finger at you:
  there are desires to not have had a heart.
  
  Spring returns, returns and will depart.
  
  And God,
  bent in time, repeats himself, and passes, passes
  with the spinal column of the Universe on his back.
  
  When my temples beat their lugubrious drum,
  when the dream engraved on a dagger aches me,
  there are desires to be left standing in this verse!

• "Canto I: And Then Went Down to the Ship" by Ezra Pound Visit Ezra Pound's Page Read Poem

  And then went down to the ship,
  Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and
  We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
  Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
  Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward
  Bore us onward with bellying canvas,
  Circe's this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
  
  Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
  Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day's end.
  
  Sun to his slumber, shadows o'er all the ocean,
  Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
  To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities
  Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever
  With glitter of sun-rays
  Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven
  Swartest night stretched over wretched men there.
  
  The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place
  Aforesaid by Circe.
  
  Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus,
  And drawing sword from my hip
  I dug the ell-square pitkin;
  Poured we libations unto each the dead,
  First mead and then sweet wine, water mixed with white flour
  Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death's-heads;
  As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best
  For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods,
  A sheep to Tiresias only, black and a bell-sheep.
  
  Dark blood flowed in the fosse,
  Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead, of brides
  Of youths and of the old who had borne much;
  Souls stained with recent tears, girls tender,
  Men many, mauled with bronze lance heads,
  Battle spoil, bearing yet dreory arms,
  These many crowded about me; with shouting,
  Pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts;
  Slaughtered the herds, sheep slain of bronze;
  Poured ointment, cried to the gods,
  To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine;
  Unsheathed the narrow sword,
  I sat to keep off the impetuous impotent dead,
  Till I should hear Tiresias.
  
  But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor,
  Unburied, cast on the wide earth,
  Limbs that we left in the house of Circe,
  Unwept, unwrapped in the sepulchre, since toils urged other.
  
  Pitiful spirit.
  
  And I cried in hurried speech:
  "Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast?
  
  "Cam'st thou afoot, outstripping seamen?
  
  "
  And he in heavy speech:
  "Ill fate and abundant wine.
  
  I slept in Crice's ingle.
  
  "Going down the long ladder unguarded,
  "I fell against the buttress,
  "Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus.
  
  "But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied,
  "Heap up mine arms, be tomb by sea-bord, and inscribed:
  "A man of no fortune, and with a name to come.
  
  "And set my oar up, that I swung mid fellows.
  
  "
  And Anticlea came, whom I beat off, and then Tiresias Theban,
  Holding his golden wand, knew me, and spoke first:
  "A second time?
  
  why?
  
  man of ill star,
  "Facing the sunless dead and this joyless region?
  
  "Stand from the fosse, leave me my bloody bever
  "For soothsay.
  
  "
  And I stepped back,
  And he strong with the blood, said then: "Odysseus
  "Shalt return through spiteful Neptune, over dark seas,
  "Lose all companions.
  
  " Then Anticlea came.
  
  Lie quiet Divus.
  
  I mean, that is Andreas Divus,
  In officina Wecheli, 1538, out of Homer.
  
  And he sailed, by Sirens and thence outward and away
  And unto Circe.
  
  Venerandam,
  In the Cretan's phrase, with the golden crown, Aphrodite,
  Cypri munimenta sortita est, mirthful, oricalchi, with golden
  Girdle and breast bands, thou with dark eyelids
  Bearing the golden bough of Argicida.
  
  So that:

• "Thoughts On Jesus Christ's Decent Into Hell" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Visit Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Page Read Poem

  WHAT wondrous noise is heard around!
  Through heaven exulting voices sound,
  A mighty army marches on
  By thousand millions follow'd, lo,
  To yon dark place makes haste to go
  God's Son, descending from His throne!
  He goes—the tempests round Him break,
  As Judge and Hero cometh He;
  He goes—the constellations quake,
  The sun, the world quake fearfully.
  
  I see Him in His victor-car,
  On fiery axles borne afar,
  Who on the cross for us expired.
  
  The triumph to yon realms He shows,—
  Remote from earth, where star ne'er glows,
  The triumph He for us acquired.
  
  He cometh, Hell to extirpate,
  Whom He, by dying, wellnigh kill'd;
  He shall pronounce her fearful fate
  Hark! now the curse is straight fulfill'd.
  
  Hell sees the victor come at last,
  She feels that now her reign is past,
  She quakes and fears to meet His sight;
  She knows His thunders' terrors dread,
  In vain she seeks to hide her head,
  Attempts to fly, but vain is flight;
  Vainly she hastes to 'scape pursuit
  And to avoid her Judge's eye;
  The Lord's fierce wrath restrains her foot
  Like brazen chains,—she cannot fly.
  
  Here lies the Dragon, trampled down,
  He lies, and feels God's angry frown,
  He feels, and grinneth hideously;
  He feels Hell's speechless agonies,
  A thousand times he howls and sighs:
  "Oh, burning flames! quick, swallow me!"
  There lies he in the fiery waves,
  By torments rack'd and pangs infernal,
  Instant annihilation craves,
  And hears, those pangs will be eternal.
  
  Those mighty squadrons, too, are here,
  The partners of his cursed career,
  Yet far less bad than he were they.
  
  Here lies the countless throng combined,
  In black and fearful crowds entwined,
  While round him fiery tempests play;
  He sees how they the Judge avoid,
  He sees the storm upon them feed,
  Yet is not at the sight o'erjoy'd,
  Because his pangs e'en theirs exceed.
  
  The Son of Man in triumph passes
  Down to Hell's wild and black morasses,
  And there unfolds His majesty.
  
  Hell cannot bear the bright array,
  For, since her first created day.
  
  Darkness alone e'er govern'd she.
  
  She lay remote from ev'ry light
  With torments fill'd in Chaos here;
  God turn'd for ever from her sight
  His radiant features' glory clear.
  
  Within the realms she calls her own,
  She sees the splendour of the Son,
  His dreaded glories shining forth;
  She sees Him clad in rolling thunder,
  She sees the rocks all quake with wonder,
  When God before her stands in wrath.
  
  She sees He comes her Judge to be,
  She feels the awful pangs inside her,
  Herself to slay endeavours she,
  But e'en this comfort is denied her.
  
  Now looks she back, with pains untold,
  Upon those happy times of old,
  When those glories gave her joy;
  When yet her heart revered the truth,
  When her glad soul, in endless youth
  And rapture dwelt, without alloy.
  
  She calls to mind with madden'd thought
  How over man her wiles prevail'd;
  To take revenge on God she sought,
  And feels the vengeance it entail'd.
  
  God was made man, and came to earth.
  
  Then Satan cried with fearful mirth:
  "E'en He my victim now shall be!"
  He sought to slay the Lord Most High,
  The world's Creator now must die;
  But, Satan, endless woe to thee!
  Thou thought'st to overcome Him then,
  Rejoicing in His suffering;
  But he in triumph comes again
  To bind thee: Death! where is thy sting?
  
  Speak, Hell! where is thy victory?
  
  Thy power destroy'd and scatter'd see!
  Know'st thou not now the Highest's might?
  
  See, Satan, see thy rule o'erthrown!
  By thousand-varying pangs weigh'd down,
  Thou dwell'st in dark and endless night.
  
  As though by lightning struck thou liest,
  No gleam of rapture far or wide;
  In vain! no hope thou there decriest,—
  For me alone Messiah died!
  A howling rises through the air,
  A trembling fills each dark vault there,
  When Christ to Hell is seen to come.
  
  She snarls with rage, but needs must cower
  Before our mighty hero's power;
  He signs—and Hell is straightway dumb.
  
  Before his voice the thunders break,
  On high His victor-banner blows;
  E'en angels at His fury quake,
  When Christ to the dread judgment goes.
  
  Now speaks He, and His voice is thunder,
  He speaks, the rocks are rent in sunder,
  His breath is like devouring flames.
  
  Thus speaks He: "Tremble, ye accurs'd!
  He who from Eden hurl'd you erst,
  Your kingdom's overthrow proclaims.
  
  Look up! My children once were ye,
  Your arms against Me then ye turn'd,
  Ye fell, that ye might sinners be,
  Ye've now the wages that ye earn'd.
  
  "My greatest foeman from that day,
  Ye led my dearest friends astray,—
  As ye had fallen, man must fall.
  
  To kill him evermore ye sought,
  'They all shall die the death,' ye thought;
  But howl! for Me I won them all.
  
  For them alone did I descend,
  For them pray'd, suffer'd, perish'd I.
  
  Ye ne'er shall gain your wicked end;
  Who trusts in Me shall never die.
  
  "In endless chains here lie ye now,
  Nothing can save you from the slough.
  
  Not boldness, not regret for crime.
  
  Lie, then, and writhe in brimstone fire!
  'Twas ye yourselves drew down Mine ire,
  Lie and lament throughout all time!
  And also ye, whom I selected,
  E'en ye forever I disown,
  For ye My saving grace rejected
  Ye murmur?
  
  blame yourselves alone!
  "Ye might have lived with Me in bliss,
  For I of yore had promis'd this;
  Ye sinn'd, and all My precepts slighted
  Wrapp'd in the sleep of sin ye dwelt,
  Now is My fearful judgment felt,
  By a just doom your guilt requited.
  
  "—
  Thus spake He, and a fearful storm
  From Him proceeds, the lightnings glow,
  The thunders seize each wicked form,
  And hurl them in the gulf below.
  
  The God-man closeth Hell's sad doors,
  In all His majesty He soars
  From those dark regions back to light.
  
  He sitteth at the Father's side;
  Oh, friends, what joy doth this betide!
  For us, for us He still will fight!
  The angels sacred quire around
  Rejoice before the mighty Lord,
  So that all creatures hear the sound:
  "Zebaoth's God be aye ador'd!"
  Translator's Note: THE remarkable Poem of which this is a literal but faint
  representation, was written when Goethe was only sixteen years
  old.
  
  It derives additional interest from the fact of its being
  the very earliest piece of his that is preserved.

• "The Wanderer" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Visit Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Page Read Poem

  WANDERER.
  
  YOUNG woman, may God bless thee,
  Thee, and the sucking infant
  Upon thy breast!
  Let me, 'gainst this rocky wall,
  Neath the elm-tree's shadow,
  Lay aside my burden,
  Near thee take my rest.
  
  WOMAN.
  
  What vocation leads thee,
  While the day is burning,
  Up this dusty path?
  
  Bring'st thou goods from out the town
  Round the country?
  
  Smil'st thou, stranger,
  At my question?
  
  WANDERER.
  
  From the town no goods I bring.
  
  Cool is now the evening;
  Show to me the fountain
  'Whence thou drinkest,
  Woman young and kind!
  WOMAN.
  
  Up the rocky pathway mount;
  Go thou first! Across the thicket
  Leads the pathway tow'rd the cottage
  That I live in,
  To the fountain
  Whence I drink.
  
  WANDERER.
  
  Signs of man's arranging hand
  See I 'mid the trees!
  Not by thee these stones were join'd,
  Nature, who so freely scatterest!
  WOMAN.
  
  Up, still up!
  WANDERER.
  
  Lo, a mossy architrave is here!
  I discern thee, fashioning spirit!
  On the stone thou hast impress'd thy seal.
  
  WOMAN.
  
  Onward, stranger!
  WANDERER.
  
  Over an inscription am I treading!
  'Tis effaced!
  Ye are seen no longer,
  Words so deeply graven,
  Who your master's true devotion
  Should have shown to thousand grandsons!
  WOMAN.
  
  At these stones, why
  Start'st thou, stranger?
  
  Many stones are lying yonder
  Round my cottage.
  
  WANDERER.
  
  Yonder?
  
  WOMAN.
  
  Through the thicket,
  Turning to the left,
  Here!
  WANDERER.
  
  Ye Muses and ye Graces!
  WOMAN.
  
  This, then, is my cottage.
  
  WANDERER.
  
  'Tis a ruin'd temple!
  WOMAN.
  
  Just below it, see,
  Springs the fountain
  Whence I drink.
  
  WANDERER.
  
  Thou dost hover
  O'er thy grave, all glowing,
  Genius! while upon thee
  Hath thy master-piece
  Fallen crumbling,
  Thou Immortal One!
  WOMAN.
  
  Stay, a cup I'll fetch thee
  Whence to drink.
  
  WANDERER.
  
  Ivy circles thy slender
  Form so graceful and godlike.
  
  How ye rise on high
  From the ruins,
  Column-pair
  And thou, their lonely sister yonder,—
  How thou,
  Dusky moss upon thy sacred head,—
  Lookest down in mournful majesty
  On thy brethren's figures
  Lying scatter'd
  At thy feet!
  In the shadow of the bramble
  Earth and rubbish veil them,
  Lofty grass is waving o'er them
  Is it thus thou, Nature, prizest
  Thy great masterpiece's masterpiece?
  
  Carelessly destroyest thou
  Thine own sanctuary,
  Sowing thistles there?
  
  WOMAN.
  
  How the infant sleeps!
  Wilt thou rest thee in the cottage,
  Stranger?
  
  Wouldst thou rather
  In the open air still linger?
  
  Now 'tis cool! take thou the child
  While I go and draw some water.
  
  Sleep on, darling! sleep!
  WANDERER.
  
  Sweet is thy repose!
  How, with heaven-born health imbued,
  Peacefully he slumbers!
  Oh thou, born among the ruins
  Spread by great antiquity,
  On thee rest her spirit!
  He whom it encircles
  Will, in godlike consciousness,
  Ev'ry day enjoy.
  
  Full, of germ, unfold,
  As the smiling springtime's
  Fairest charm,
  Outshining all thy fellows!
  And when the blossom's husk is faded,
  May the full fruit shoot forth
  From out thy breast,
  And ripen in the sunshine!
  WOMAN.
  
  God bless him!—Is he sleeping still?
  
  To the fresh draught I nought can add,
  Saving a crust of bread for thee to eat.
  
  WANDERER.
  
  I thank thee well.
  
  How fair the verdure all around!
  How green!
  WOMAN.
  
  My husband soon
  Will home return
  From labour.
  
  Tarry, tarry, man,
  And with us eat our evening meal.
  
  WANDERER.
  
  Is't here ye dwell?
  
  WOMAN.
  
  Yonder, within those walls we live.
  
  My father 'twas who built the cottage
  Of tiles and stones from out the ruins.
  
  'Tis here we dwell.
  
  He gave me to a husbandman,
  And in our arms expired.
  
  —
  Hast thou been sleeping, dearest heart
  How lively, and how full of play!
  Sweet rogue!
  WANDERER.
  
  Nature, thou ever budding one,
  Thou formest each for life's enjoyments,
  And, like a mother, all thy children dear,
  Blessest with that sweet heritage,—a home
  The swallow builds the cornice round,
  Unconscious of the beauties
  She plasters up.
  
  The caterpillar spins around the bough,
  To make her brood a winter house;
  And thou dost patch, between antiquity's
  Most glorious relics,
  For thy mean use,
  Oh man, a humble cot,—
  Enjoyest e'en mid tombs!—
  Farewell, thou happy woman!
  WOMAN.
  
  Thou wilt not stay, then?
  
  WANDERER.
  
  May God preserve thee,
  And bless thy boy!
  WOMAN.
  
  A happy journey!
  WANDERER.
  
  Whither conducts the path
  Across yon hill?
  
  WOMAN.
  
  To Cuma.
  
  WANDERER.
  
  How far from hence?
  
  WOMAN.
  
  'Tis full three miles.
  
  WANDERER.
  
  Farewell!
  Oh Nature, guide me on my way!
  The wandering stranger guide,
  Who o'er the tombs
  Of holy bygone times
  Is passing,
  To a kind sheltering place,
  From North winds safe,
  And where a poplar grove
  Shuts out the noontide ray!
  And when I come
  Home to my cot
  At evening,
  Illumined by the setting sun,
  Let me embrace a wife like this,
  Her infant in her arms!
  Published in the Gottingen Musen Almanach, having been written
  \

• "A Thing Of Beauty (Endymion)" by John Keats Visit John Keats's Page Read Poem

  A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
  Its loveliness increases; it will never
  Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
  A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
  Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
  
  Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
  A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
  Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
  Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
  Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
  Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
  Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
  From our dark spirits.
  
  Such the sun, the moon,
  Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
  For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
  With the green world they live in; and clear rills
  That for themselves a cooling covert make
  'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
  Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
  And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
  We have imagined for the mighty dead;
  All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
  An endless fountain of immortal drink,
  Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
  
  Nor do we merely feel these essences
  For one short hour; no, even as the trees
  That whisper round a temple become soon
  Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
  The passion poesy, glories infinite,
  Haunt us till they become a cheering light
  Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast
  That, whether there be shine or gloom o'ercast,
  They always must be with us, or we die.
  
  Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
  Will trace the story of Endymion.
  
  The very music of the name has gone
  Into my being, and each pleasant scene
  Is growing fresh before me as the green
  Of our own valleys: so I will begin
  Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
  Now while the early budders are just new,
  And run in mazes of the youngest hue
  About old forests; while the willow trails
  Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
  Bring home increase of milk.
  
  And, as the year
  Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
  My little boat, for many quiet hours,
  With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
  
  Many and many a verse I hope to write,
  Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white,
  Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
  Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
  I must be near the middle of my story.
  
  O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
  See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
  With universal tinge of sober gold,
  Be all about me when I make an end!
  And now at once, adventuresome, I send
  My herald thought into a wilderness:
  There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
  My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
  Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

• "I Remember You As You Were" by Pablo Neruda Visit Pablo Neruda's Page Read Poem

  I remember you as you were in the last autumn.
  
  You were the grey beret and the still heart.
  
  In your eyes the flames of the twilight fought on.
  
  And the leaves fell in the water of your soul.
  
  Clasping my arms like a climbing plant
  the leaves garnered your voice, that was slow and at peace.
  
  Bonfire of awe in which my thirst was burning.
  
  Sweet blue hyacinth twisted over my soul.
  
  I feel your eyes traveling, and the autumn is far off:
  Grey beret, voice of a bird, heart like a house
  Towards which my deep longings migrated
  And my kisses fell, happy as embers.
  
  Sky from a ship.
  
  Field from the hills:
  Your memory is made of light, of smoke, of a still pond!
  Beyond your eyes, farther on, the evenings were blazing.
  
  Dry autumn leaves revolved in your soul.

• "PSALM 23 - The Lord, Shepherd and Host" by Psalms Visit Psalms's Page Read Poem

  Psalm 23 A Psalm of David.
  
  The LORD [is] my shepherd; I shall not want.
  
  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
  
  He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
  
  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou [art] with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
  
  Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
  
  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

• "Erysichthon" by Ted Hughes Visit Ted Hughes's Page Read Poem

  Some are transformed just once
  And live their whole lives after in that shape.
  
  Others have a facility
  For changing themselves as they please.
  
  ProteusProteusA shape-shifting sea deity most famous for his role in Book 4 of Homer’sOdyssey.
  
  , who haunts the shadowy seas
  That scarf this earthThat scarf this earthDoes “scarf” here mean that the sea enwraps the earth or gulps it down?
  
  The Latin is clearer:complexi“embracing.
  
  ” But later in this poem, the voracious sea is described as draining the continents.
  
  , is glimpsed as a young man
  Who becomes of a sudden a lion
  That becomes a wild boar ripping the ground,
  
  Yet flows forward, hidden, through grass, without sound
  As a serpent, that emerges
  As a towering bull under down-bent horns,
  Or hides, among stones, a simple stone.
  
  Or stands as a tree alone.
  
  Or liquefies, and collapses, shapeless,
  Into water, a pouring river.
  
  Sometimes
  He is the river’s opposite––firefireHughes and Ovid both end their introductions to the tale with this word (ignisin Ovid’s Latin), which hints at an alternative name for Erysichthon in Greek myth: Aethon (“Burning, Blazing”).
  
  Another with a similar power
  Was Erysichthon’sdaughterdaughterNeither Ovid nor Hughes names her, though elsewhere she goes by Mestra.
  
  ,
  The wife ofAutolycusAutolycusA notorious thief and trickster of Greek myth and the maternal grandfather of Odysseus who was a strategist and survivor of the Trojan War celebrated in theOdyssey, as a master of deception.
  
  .
  
  Her father
  Gave to the gods nothing but mockery.
  
  Without a qualm he cut down every tree
  In the sacred grove ofCeresCeresThe goddess of agriculture, who when pleased provides food in abundance.
  
  ––
  An ancient wood that had never, before that day,
  Jumped to the axe’s stroke.
  
  Among those trees
  One prodigious oak was all to itself
  A tangled forest.
  
  Its boughs were bedecked with wreaths
  And votive tributes––each for a prayer
  
  Ceres had sometime granted.
  
  DryadsDryadsMinor female tree deities, who some believed lived and died with their respective trees.
  
  there
  Danced a holy circle around its bole
  Or joined hands to embrace it––
  A circumference of twenty paces.
  
  Erysichthon ignores all this as
  He assesses the volume of its timber,
  Then orders his men to fell it.
  
  Seeing their reluctance, he roars:
  
  “If this tree were your deity, that every clown adores,
  And not merely a tree you think she favours,
  Nevertheless, those twigs away there at the top
  Would have to come down now, as the rest falls.
  
  ”
  
  He snatches an axe––and hauls
  The weight of the broad head up and back.
  
  But in that moment, as the blade hangs
  Poised for the first downstroke, shudderings
  
  Swarm through the whole tree, to its outermost twigs
  And a groan bursts from the deep grain.
  
  At the same time
  Every bough goes grey––every leaf
  
  Whitens, and every acorn whitens.
  
  Then the bladebitesbitesThe biting imagery is Hughes’s addition, looking ahead to the tale’s theme of hunger.
  
  The Latin (literally translated): “his impious hand made a wound in the trunk.
  
  ”and the blood leaps
  As from the neck of a great bull when it drops
  Under the axe at the altar.
  
  Everybody stares paralysed.
  
  Only one man protests.
  
  TheThessalianThessalianErysichthon is king of Thessaly, an especially fertile region of the ancient Greek mainland.
  
  Erysichthon turns with eyes stretched
  Incredulous.
  
  “Your pious cares,” he bellows,
  
  “Are misplaced.
  
  ” And he follows
  That first swing at the oak with another
  At the protester’s neck, whose head
  Spins through the air and bounces.
  
  Then the oak, as he turns back to it, pronounces,
  In a clear voice, these words:
  “I live in this tree.
  
  I am anymphnymphAny of a variety of minor Greek deities closely tied to natural features such as trees (like the dryad speaking here), mountains, or bodies of water.
  
  ,
  Beloved by Ceres, the goddess.
  
  “With my last breath, I curse you.
  
  As this oak
  Falls on the earth, your punishment
  Will come down on you with all its weight.
  
  That is my consolation.
  
  And your fate.
  
  ”
  
  Erysichthon ignored her.
  
  He just kept going,
  Undercutting the huge trunk, till ropes
  Brought the whole mass down, jolting the earth,
  Devastating the underbrush around it.
  
  All the nymphs of the sacred grove mourned it.
  
  Dressed in black, they came to Ceres,
  Crying for the criminal to be punished,
  Bewailing the desecration.
  
  The goddess listened.
  
  Then the summer farms, the orchards, the vineyards,
  The whole flushed, ripening harvest, shivered
  As she pondered how to make his death
  A parable of her anger.
  
  If his cruelty, greed, arrogance
  Had left him a single drop of human feeling
  What the goddess did now
  Would have drained mankind of its pity.
  
  She condemned him
  To Hunger––
  But infinite, insatiable Hunger,
  The agony of Hunger as a frenzy.
  
  Destiny has separated Hunger
  So far from the goddess of abundance
  They can never meet; therefore Ceres
  Commissioned a mountain spirit, anoreadoreadCeres ventures outside her divine agricultural sphere in calling on a mountain nymph because the destination of this mission will prove to be a mountain.
  
  :
  
  “Hear what I say and do not be afraid.
  
  Far away to the north ofScythiaScythiaA region extending across the north of the Black Sea, exaggerated in Greek myth as a frozen wasteland at the edge of the earth.
  
  This description of Scythia bears striking resemblance to Ovid’s depictions elsewhere of Tomis, the town on the Black Sea to which the Roman emperor Augustus exiled him.
  
  Lies a barren country, leafless, dreadful:
  Ice permanent as iron, air that aches.
  
  “A howling land of rocks, gales and snow.
  
  There mad Hunger staggers.
  
  Go.
  
  Bid Hunger
  Take possession of Erysichthon’s belly.
  
  Tell her she has power over all my powers
  
  “To nourish Erysichthon.
  
  Let all I pour
  Or push down this fool’s gullet only deepen
  His emptiness.
  
  Go.
  
  My dragon-drawn chariot
  Will make the terrific journey seem slight.
  
  ”
  
  The nymph climbed away and her first halt
  Was the top ofCaucasusCaucasusA prominent mountain on the northeast shore of the Black Sea, in the extreme east of Scythia.
  
  .
  
  She soon found Hunger raking with her nails
  To bare the root of a tiny rock-wort
  
  Till her teeth could catch and tear it.
  
  In shape and colour her face was a skull, blueish.
  
  Her lips a stretched hole of frayed leather
  Over bleeding teeth.
  
  Her skin
  
  So glossy and so thin
  You could see the internal organs through it.
  
  Her pelvic bone was like a bare bone.
  
  The stump wings of her hip bones splayed open.
  
  As she bowed, her rib-cage swung from her backbone
  In a varnish of tissue.
  
  Her ankle joints
  And her knee joints were huge bulbs, ponderous, grotesque,
  On her spindly shanks.
  
  The oread
  
  Knew danger when she saw it.
  
  She proclaimed
  The command of the goddess from a safe distance.
  
  The whole speech only took a minute or so––
  Yet a swoon of hunger left her trembling.
  
  She got away fast.
  
  All the way back to Thessaly
  She gave the dragons their headShe gave the dragons their headA rider pulls a horse’s reins to slow or stop the animal, so the opposite, “giving horses their head,” means relaxing the reins to achieve a full gallop.
  
  .
  
  Now hear me.
  
  Though Hunger lives only in opposition
  To Ceres, yet she obeys her.
  
  She soars through darkness
  Across the earth, to the house of Erysichthon
  And bends above the pillow where his face
  
  Snores with open mouth.
  
  Her skeletal embrace goes around him.
  
  Her shrunk mouth clamps over his mouth
  And she breathes
  
  Into every channel of his body
  A hurricane of starvation.
  
  The job done, she vanishes,
  She hurtles away, out of the lands of plenty,
  
  As if sucked back
  Into the vacuum––
  Deprivation’s hollow territories
  That belong to her, and that she belongs to.
  
  Erysichthon snores on––
  But in spite of the god of sleep’s efforts
  To comfort him, he dreams he sits at a banquet
  Where the food tastes of nothing.
  
  A nightmare.
  
  He grinds his molars on air, with a dry creaking,
  Dreaming that he grinds between his molars
  A feast of nothing, food that is like air.
  
  At last he writhes awake in convulsive
  
  Cramps of hunger.
  
  His jaws
  Seem to have their own life, snapping at air
  With uncontrollable eagerness to be biting
  Into food and swallowing––like a cat
  
  Staring at a bird out of reach.
  
  His stomach feels like a fist
  Gripping and wringing out
  The mere idea of food.
  
  He calls for food.
  
  Everything edible
  Out of the sea and earth.
  
  When it comes
  Dearth is all he sees where tables bend
  Under the spilling plenty.
  
  Emptying
  
  Bowls of heaped food, all he craves for
  Is bigger bowls heaped higher.
  
  Food
  For a whole city cannot sate him.
  
  Food
  For a whole nation leaves him faint with hunger.
  
  As every river on earth
  Pours its wealth towards ocean
  That is always sweeping for more,
  Draining the continents,
  
  And as fire grows hungrier
  The more fuel it finds,
  So, famished by food,
  The gullet of Erysichthon, gulping down
  
  Whatever its diameter can manage
  Through every waking moment,
  Spares a mouthful
  Only to shout for more.
  
  This voracity, this bottomless belly,
  As if his throat opened
  Into the void of stars,
  Engulfed his entire wealth.
  
  His every possession was converted
  To what he could devour
  Till nothing remained except a daughter.
  
  This only child deserved a better father.
  
  His last chattelHis last chattelWhy do you suppose Hughes calls Erysichthon’s daughter “chattel” (personal property), a term that has no parallel in Ovid’s version?
  
  , he cashed her in for food.
  
  He sold her, at the market.
  
  But she was far too spirited
  To stay as a bought slave.
  
  Stretching her arms towards the sea, she cried:
  “You whoravished my maidenheadravished my maidenheadThis alludes to the daughter’s previous rape by Neptune, the god of the sea.
  
  Greek myth offers many examples of mortal rape by a god or goddess, who would often, as here, also grant a special favor to their victim.
  
  , save me.
  
  ”
  Neptune knew the voice of his pretty victim
  And granted the prayer.
  
  Her new owner,
  
  Who minutes ago was admiring the girl he had bought,
  Now saw only Neptune’s art––featured
  And clothed like a fisherman.
  
  Perplexed,
  He spoke to this stranger directly.
  
  “You with your fishing tackle, hiding your barbs
  In tiny gobbets of bait––may you have good weather
  And plenty of silly fish that never notice
  The hook till it's caught them!––can you tell me
  
  “Where is the girl who was here a moment ago?
  
  Her hair loose, and dressed in the cheapest things,
  She was standing right here where her footprints––
  Look––stop, and go no further.
  
  Where is she?
  
  ”
  
  The girl guessed what the god had done for her.
  
  She smiled to hear herself asked where she might be.
  
  Then to the man parted from his money:
  “I’m sorry, my attention has been fixed
  
  “On the fish in this hole.
  
  But I promise you,
  By all the help I pray for from Neptune,
  Nobody has come along this beach
  For quite a while––and certainly no woman.
  
  ”
  
  The buyer had to believe her.
  
  He went off, baffled.
  
  The girl took one step and was back
  In her own shape.
  
  Next thing,
  She was telling her father.
  
  And he,
  
  Elated, saw business.
  
  After that
  On every market he sold her in some new shape.
  
  A trader bought a horse,
  Paid for it and found the halter empty
  
  Where a girl sat selling mushrooms.
  
  A costly parrot escaped its purchaser
  Into an orchard––where a girl picked figs.
  
  One bought an ox that vanished from its pasture
  
  Where a girl gathered cowslips.
  
  So Erysichthon’s daughter plied her talent
  For taking any shape to cheat a buyer––
  Straight and crooked alike.
  
  All to feed the famine in her father.
  
  But none of it was enough.
  
  Whatever he ate
  Maddened and tormented that hunger
  To angrier, uglier life.
  
  The life
  
  Of a monster no longer a man.
  
  And so,
  At last, the inevitable.
  
  He began to savage his own limbs.
  
  And there, at a final feast, devoured himself.

• "To My Daughter Betty" by Thomas Kettle Visit Thomas Kettle's Page Read Poem

  In wiser days, my darling rosebud, blown
  To beauty proud as was your Mother’s prime.
  
  In that desired, delayed, incredible time,
  You’ll ask why I abandoned you, my own,
  And the dear heart that was your baby throne,
  To die with death.
  
  And oh! they’ll give you rhyme
  And reason: some will call the thing sublime,
  And some decry it in a knowing tone.
  
  So here, while the mad guns curse overhead,
  And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor,
  Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,
  Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor,
  But for a dream, born in a herdsmen shed,
  And for the secret Scripture of the poor.
  
  Written 4 days before his death in action - 1916

• "As We Like It" by W H Auden Visit W H Auden's Page Read Poem

  Certainly our city with its byres of poverty down to
  The river's edge, its cathedral, its engines, its dogs;
  Here is the cosmopolitan cooking
  And the light alloys and the glass.
  
  Built by the conscience-stricken, the weapon-making,
  By us.
  
  Wild rumours woo and terrify the crowd,
  Woo us.
  
  Betrayers thunder at, blackmail
  Us.
  
  But where now are They.
  
  Who without reproaches showed us what our vanity
  has chosen,
  Who pursued understanding with patience like a sex,
  had unlearnt
  Our hatred and towards the really better
  World had turned their face?
  
  Who knows?
  
  The peaked and violent faces are exalted,
  The feverish prejudiced lives do not care, and lost
  Their voice in the flutter of bunting, the glittering
  Brass of our great retreat,
  And the malice of death.
  
  For the wicked card is dealt and
  The sinister tall-hatted botanist stoops at the spring
  With his insignificant phial and looses
  The plague on the ignorant town.
  
  Under their shadows the pitiful subalterns are sleeping;
  The moon is usual; the necessary lovers touch;
  The river is alone and the trampled flower;
  And through years of absolute cold
  The planets rush towards Lyra in a lion's charge.
  
  Can
  Hate so securely bind?
  
  Are they dead here?
  
  Yes.
  
  And the wish to wound has the power.
  
  And tomorrow
  Comes.
  
  It's a world.
  
  It's a way.

• "Autumn Song" by W H Auden Visit W H Auden's Page Read Poem

  Now the leaves are falling fast,
  Nurse's flowers will not last;
  Nurses to the graves are gone,
  And the prams go rolling on.
  
  Whispering neighbours, left and right,
  Pluck us from the real delight;
  And the active hands must freeze
  Lonely on the separate knees.
  
  Dead in hundreds at the back
  Follow wooden in our track,
  Arms raised stiffly to reprove
  In false attitudes of love.
  
  Starving through the leafless wood
  Trolls run scolding for their food;
  And the nightingale is dumb,
  And the angel will not come.
  
  Cold, impossible, ahead
  Lifts the mountain's lovely head
  Whose white waterfall could bless
  Travellers in their last distress.

• "Funeral Blues" by W H Auden Visit W H Auden's Page Read Poem

  Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
  Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
  Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
  Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
  
  Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
  Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.
  
  Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
  Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
  
  He was my North, my South, my East and West,
  My working week and my Sunday rest,
  My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
  I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
  
  The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
  Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
  Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
  For nothing now can ever come to any good.

• "The Song Of Wandering Aengus" by William Butler Yeats Visit William Butler Yeats's Page Read Poem

  I WENT out to the hazel wood,
  Because a fire was in my head,
  And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
  And hooked a berry to a thread;
  And when white moths were on the wing,
  And moth-like stars were flickering out,
  I dropped the berry in a stream
  And caught a little silver trout.
  
  When I had laid it on the floor
  I went to blow the fire aflame,
  But something rustled on the floor,
  And some one called me by my name:
  It had become a glimmering girl
  With apple blossom in her hair
  Who called me by my name and ran
  And faded through the brightening air.
  
  Though I am old with wandering
  Through hollow lands and hilly lands.
  
  I will find out where she has gone,
  And kiss her lips and take her hands;
  And walk among long dappled grass,
  And pluck till time and times are done
  The silver apples of the moon,
  The golden apples of the sun.

• "To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time" by William Butler Yeats Visit William Butler Yeats's Page Read Poem

  Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
  Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:
  Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;
  The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed,
  Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;
  And thine own sadness, where of stars, grown old
  In dancing silver-sandalled on the sea,
  Sing in their high and lonely melody.
  
  Come near, that no more blinded by man's fate,
  I find under the boughs of love and hate,
  In all poor foolish things that live a day,
  Eternal beauty wandering on her way.
  
  Come near, come near, come near — Ah, leave me still
  A little space for the rose-breath to fill!
  Lest I no more bear common things that crave;
  The weak worm hiding down in its small cave,
  The field-mouse running by me in the grass,
  And heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass;
  But seek alone to hear the strange things said
  By God to the bright hearts of those long dead,
  And learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know.
  
  Come near; I would, before my time to go,
  Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:
  Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.

• "A Dialogue Of Self And Soul" by William Butler Yeats Visit William Butler Yeats's Page Read 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 consecretes 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 wodden 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 is 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
  I,
  Is
  from the I,
  Ought,
  or I
  knower
  from the I
  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.

• "Remembering Mountain Men" by William Stafford Visit William Stafford's Page Read Poem

  I put my foot in cold water
  and hold it there: early mornings
  they had to wade through broken ice
  to find the traps in the deep channel
  with their hands, drag up the chains and
  the drowned beaver.
  
  The slow current
  of the life below tugs at me all day.
  
  When I dream at night, they save a place for me,
  no matter how small, somewhere by the fire.

• "Ask Me" by William Stafford Visit William Stafford's Page Read Poem

  Some time when the river is ice ask me
  mistakes I have made.
  
  Ask me whether
  what I have done is my life.
  
  Others
  have come in their slow way into
  my thought, and some have tried to help
  or to hurt: ask me what difference
  their strongest love or hate has made.
  
  I will listen to what you say.
  
  You and I can turn and look
  at the silent river and wait.
  
  We know
  the current is there, hidden; and there
  are comings and goings from miles away
  that hold the stillness exactly before us.
  
  What the river says, that is what I say.

• "Waking at 3 a.m." by William Stafford Visit William Stafford's Page Read Poem

  Even in the cave of the night when you
  wake and are free and lonely,
  neglected by others, discarded, loved only
  by what doesn't matter—even in that
  big room no one can see,
  you push with your eyes till forever
  comes in its twisted figure eight
  and lies down in your head.
  
  You think water in the river;
  you think slower than the tide in
  the grain of the wood; you become
  a secret storehouse that saves the country,
  so open and foolish and empty.
  
  You look over all that the darkness
  ripples across.
  
  More than has ever
  been found comforts you.
  
  You open your
  eyes in a vault that unlocks as fast
  and as far as your thought can run.
  
  A great snug wall goes around everything,
  has always been there, will always
  remain.
  
  It is a good world to be
  lost in.
  
  It comforts you.
  
  It is
  all right.
  
  And you sleep.

My Poems

• An example for this new site

  don't expect too much from the first poem!

• Tree

  trees have branches

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