PolyArchive

The Ball Poem John Berryman What is the boy now, who has lost his ball, What, what is he to do? I saw it go Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then Merrily over–there it is in the water! No use to say ‘O there are other balls’: An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy […]

The Great Lover Rupert Brooke I have been so great a lover: filled my days So proudly with the splendour of Love’s praise, The pain, the calm, and the astonishment, Desire illimitable, and still content, And all dear names men use, to cheat despair, For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear Our hearts at […]

Sonnet XLI: Having This Day My Horse Sir Philip Sidney Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance Guided so well that I obtain’d the prize, Both by the judgment of the English eyes And of some sent from that sweet enemy France; Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance, Town folks my strength; a […]

Nocturne Dorothy Parker Always I knew that it could not last (Gathering clouds, and the snowflakes flying), Now it is part of the golden past (Darkening skies, and the night-wind sighing); It is but cowardice to pretend. Cover with ashes our love’s cold crater- Always I’ve known that it had to end Sooner or later. […]

Love (III) George Herbert Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back                               Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack                              From […]

Sometimes with One I Love Walt Whitman 34. SOMETIMES with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse unreturn’d love; But now I think there is no unreturn’d love—the pay is certain, one way or another; (I loved a certain person ardently, and my love was not return’d; Yet out of […]

XL. Stephen Crane And you love me I love you. You are, then, cold coward. Aye; but, beloved, When I strive to come to you, Man’s opinions, a thousand thickets, My interwoven existence, My life, Caught in the stubble of the world Like a tender veil — This stays me. No strange move can I […]

Dolor Theodore Roethke I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils, Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper-weight, All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage, Desolation in immaculate public places, Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard, The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher, Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, and comma, Endless duplication of lives […]

A Blessing James Wright Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, Twilight bounds softly forth onto the grass. And the eyes of those two Indian ponies Darken with kindness. They have come gladly out of the willows To welcome my friend and me. We step over the barbed wire into the pasture Where they have […]

Девушка пела в церковном хоре А.А. Блок Девушка пела в церковном хоре О всех усталых в чужом краю, О всех кораблях, ушедших в море, О всех забывших радость свою. Так пел её голос, летящий в купол, И луч сиял на белом плече, И каждый из мрака смотрел и слушал, Как белое платье пело в луче. […]

Remember Christina Georgina Rossetti Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day You tell me of our future that you planned: Only […]

Лотова жена Анна Ахматова Жена же Лотова оглянула позади его и стала соляным столпом. Книга Бытия И праведник шел за посланником бога, Огромный и светлый, по черной горе. Но громко жене говорила тревога: Не поздно, ты можешь еще посмотреть На красные башни родного Содома, На площадь, где пела, на двор, где пряла, На окна пустые […]

The Force that through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower Dylan Thomas The force that through the green fuse drives the flower Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees Is my destroyer. And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose My youth is bent by the same wintry fever. The force […]

Langston Hughes Theme For English B The instructor said,       Go home and write       a page tonight.       And let that page come out of you –       Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then […]

the lesson of the moth Don Marquis i was talking to a moth the other evening he was trying to break into an electric light bulb and fry himself on the wires why do you fellows pull this stunt i asked him because it is the conventional thing for moths or why if that had […]