PolyArchive

you shall above all things be glad and young e.e. cummings you shall above all things be glad and young For if you’re young, whatever life you wear it will become you;and if you are glad whatever’s living will yourself become. Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need: i can entirely her only love whose […]

In A Dark Time Theodore Roethke In a dark time, the eye begins to see, I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; I hear my echo in the echoing wood– A lord of nature weeping to a tree, I live between the heron and the wren, Beasts of the hill and serpents of the […]

The Reader Wallace Stevens All night I sat reading a book, Sat reading as if in a book Of sombre pages. It was autumn and falling stars Covered the shrivelled forms Crouched in moonlight. No lamp was burning as I read, A voice was mumbling, “Everything Falls back to coldness, Even the musky muscadines, The […]

The Great Fires Jack Gilbert Love is apart from all things. Desire and excitement are nothing beside it. It is not the body that finds love. What leads us there is the body. What is not love provokes it. What is not love quenches it. Love lays hold of everything we know. The passions which […]

If I Could Tell You W.H. Auden Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay; If I could tell you I would let you know. If we should weep when clowns put on their show, If we should stumble when musicians play, Time will say […]

God’s World Edna St. Vincent Millay O WORLD, I cannot hold thee close enough! Thy winds, thy wide grey skies! Thy mists, that roll and rise! Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag And all but cry with colour!  That gaunt crag To crush!  To lift the lean of that black bluff! World, […]

Lies about Love D.H. Lawrence We are all liars, because the truth of yesterday becomes a lie tomorrow, whereas letters are fixed, and we live by the letter of truth. The love I feel for my friend, this year, is different from the love I felt last year. If it were not so, it would […]

Первый лед Андрей Вознесенский Мерзнет девочка в автомате, Прячет в зябкое пальтецо Все в слезах и губной помаде Перемазанное лицо. Дышит  в худенькие ладошки. Пальцы—льдышки.   В ушах—сережки. Ей обратно одной, одной Вдоль по улочке ледяной, Первый лед. Это в первый раз. Первый лед телефонных фраз. Мерзлый след на щеках блестит — Первый лед от людских […]

The Waking Theodore Roethke I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. We think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take […]

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening Robert Frost Whose woods these are I think I know His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods […]

Now at Liberty Dorothy Parker Little white love, your way you’ve taken; Now I am left alone, alone. Little white love, my heart’s forsaken. (Whom shall I get by telephone?) Well do I know there’s no returning; Once you go out, it’s done, it’s done. All of my days are gray with yearning. (Nevertheless, a […]

Spotkanie Czesław Miłosz Jechaliśmy przed świtem po zamarzłych polach, Czerwone skrzydło wstawało, jeszcze noc. I zając przebiegł nagle tuż przed nami, A jeden z nas pokazał go ręką. To było dawno. Dzisiaj już nie żyją Ni zając, ani ten co go wskazywał. Miłości moja, gdzież są, dokąd idą Błysk ręki, linia biegu, szelest grud — […]

The Hollow Men T. S. Eliot Mistah Kurtz–he dead A penny for the Old Guy I We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats’ feet over broken glass […]

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] e. e. cummings i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling) i fear no fate(for you are my fate, my sweet)i […]

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