Poets by Joyce Kilmer Vain is the chiming of forgotten bells That the wind sways above a ruined shrine. Vainer his voice in whom no longer dwells Hunger that craves immortal Bread and Wine. Light songs we breathe that perish with our breath Out of our lips that have not kissed the rod. They shall […]
Classic Poets
One Day by Rupert Brooke
One Day by Rupert Brooke Today I have been happy. All the day I held the memory of you, and wove Its laughter with the dancing light o’ the spray, And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love, And sent you following the white waves of sea, And crowned your head with fancies, nothing […]
Preludes by T. S. Eliot
Preludes by T. S. Eliot I The winter evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways. Six o’clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps The grimy scraps Of withered leaves about your feet And newspapers from vacant lots; The showers beat On broken blinds and chimney-pots, And at […]
A Drinking Song by W.B. Yests
A Drinking Song by W.B. Yests Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That’s all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die. I lift the glass to my mouth, I look at you, and I sigh.
Dream Land by Christina Rossetti
Dream Land by Christina Rossetti Where sunless rivers weep Their waves into the deep, She sleeps a charm’d sleep: Awake her not. Led by a single star, She came from very far To seek where shadows are Her pleasant lot. She left the rosy morn, She left the fields of corn, 10 For twilight cold […]
Beauty and Beauty by Rupert Brooke
Beauty and Beauty by Rupert Brooke When Beauty and Beauty meet All naked, fair to fair, The earth is crying-sweet, And scattering-bright the air, Eddying, dizzying, closing round, With soft and drunken laughter; Veiling all that may befall After after Where Beauty and Beauty met, Earth’s still a-tremble there, And winds are scented yet, […]
A Valentine by Lewis Carroll
A Valentine by Lewis Carroll And cannot pleasures, while they last, Be actual unless, when past, They leave us shuddering and aghast, With anguish smarting And cannot friends be firm and fast, And yet bear parting And must I then, at Friendship’s call, Calmly resign the little all (Trifling, I grant, it is and small) […]
Friends by W. B. Yeats
Friends by W. B. Yeats Now must I these three praise Three women that have wrought What joy is in my days; One that no passing thought, Nor those unpassing cares, No, not in these fifteen Many times troubled years, Could ever come between Heart and delighted heart; And one because her hand Had […]
Love’s Lantern by Joyce Kilmer
Love’s Lantern by Joyce Kilmer (For Aline) Because the road was steep and long And through a dark and lonely land, God set upon my lips a song And put a lantern in my hand. Through miles on weary miles of night That stretch relentless in my way My lantern burns serene and white, An […]
The Moods by W. B. Yeats
The Moods by W. B. Yeats Time drops in decay, Like a candle burnt out, And the mountains and woods Have their day, have their day; What one in the rout Of the fire-born moods, Has fallen away?
Anticipation by Amy Lowell
Anticipation by Amy Lowell I have been temperate always, But I am like to be very drunk With your coming. There have been times I feared to walk down the street Lest I should reel with the wine of you, And jerk against my neighbours As they go by. I am parched now, and my […]
Spoils of the Dead by Robert Frost
Spoils of the Dead by Robert Frost Two fairies it was On a still summer day Came forth in the woods With the flowers to play. The flowers they plucked They cast on the ground For others, and those For still others they found. Flower-guided it was That they came as they ran On something […]
The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe
The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon. An opiate vapor, dewy, dim, Exhales from out her golden rim, And softly dripping, drop by drop, Upon the quiet mountain top, Steals drowsily and musically Into the universal valley. The rosemary nods upon the grave; […]
William Shakespeare Sonnet VIII
Sonnet VIII by William Shakespeare Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly? Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy: Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly, Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy? If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, By unions married, do offend thine ear, They do […]
The Letter by Amy Lowell
The Letter by Amy Lowell Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper Like draggled fly’s legs, What can you tell of the flaring moon Through the oak leaves? Or of my uncurtained window and the bare floor Spattered with moonlight? Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them Of blossoming hawthorns, And this […]