PolyArchive

After a While Veronica A. Shoffstall (1952-2024) After a while, you learn the subtle difference Between holding a hand and chaining a soul, And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning And company doesn’t mean security, And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts And presents aren’t promises, And you begin to accept your […]

To Live in the Mercy of God Denise Levertov To lie back under the tallest oldest trees. How far the stems rise, rise                before ribs of shelter                                            open! To live in the mercy of God. The complete sentence too adequate, has no give. Awe, not comfort. Stone, elbows of stony wood beneath lenient moss […]

449 (I died for Beauty—but was scarce) Emily Dickinson I died for Beauty—but was scarce Adjusted in the Tomb When One who died for Truth, was lain In an adjoining Room— He questioned softly “Why I failed?” “For Beauty,” I replied— “And I—for Truth—Themself are One— We Brethren, are,” He said— And so, as Kinsmen, […]

A Moment Mary Elizabeth Coleridge The clouds had made a crimson crown     Above the mountains high. The stormy sun was going down     In a stormy sky. Why did you let your eyes so rest on me,     And hold your breath between? In all the ages this can never be     As if […]

Defeated Sophie Jewett When the last fight is lost, the last sword broken; The last call sounded, the last order spoken; When from the field where braver hearts lie sleeping, Faint, and athirst, and blinded, I come creeping, With not one waving shred of palm to bring you, With not one splendid battle-song to sing […]

Anne Hathaway Carol Ann Duffy ‘Item I gyve unto my wief my second best bed…’ (from Shakespeare’s will) The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, cliff-tops, seas where he would dive for pearls. My lover’s words were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses on these lips; my […]

Green-Striped Melons Jane Hirshfield They lie under stars in a field. They lie under rain in a field. Under sun. Some people are like this as well— like a painting hidden beneath another painting. An unexpected weight the sign of their ripeness.

Ode to the West Wind Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) I O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The […]

Fire and Ice Robert Frost Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would […]

Vernal Sentiment Theodore Roethke Though the crocuses poke up their heads in the usual places, The frog scum appear on the pond with the same froth of green, And boys moon at girls with last year’s fatuous faces, I never am bored, however familiar the scene. When from under the barn the cat brings a […]

The Road Not Taken Robert Frost Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the […]

Desiderata Max Ehrmann Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. […]

Ode on a Grecian Urn John Keats Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,        Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express        A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape        Of deities or mortals, or of both,                In Tempe or the […]

South Dakota’s may plausibly be considered the most genuinely innovative, most inspirationally forward-looking professional orchestra in the United States. It is also the happiest professional orchestra I know, and the most engaged. Fulfilling Theodore Thomas’s credo, it “shows the culture of the community.” Link: The American Scholar | Shostakovich in South Dakota A manifesto for […]

Wild Geese Mary Oliver You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile […]