PolyArchive

Under the Harvest Moon Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) Under the harvest moon, When the soft silver Drips shimmering Over the garden nights, Death, the gray mocker, Comes and whispers to you As a beautiful friend Who remembers. Under the summer roses When the flagrant crimson Lurks in the dusk Of the wild red leaves, Love, with […]

Nothing Gold Can Stay Robert Frost (1874–1963) Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.    

My November Guest Robert Frost (1874–1963) My sorrow, when she’s here with me, Thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, the withered tree; She walks the sodden pasture lane. Her pleasure will not let me stay. She talks and I am fain to list: She’s […]

A November Night Sara Teasdale There! See the line of lights, A chain of stars down either side the street — Why can’t you lift the chain and give it to me, A necklace for my throat? I’d twist it round And you could play with it. You smile at me As though I were […]

748 Emily Dickinson Autumn—overlooked my Knitting— Dyes—said He—have I— Could disparage a Flamingo— Show Me them—said I— Cochineal—I chose—for deeming It resemble Thee— And the little Border—Dusker— For resembling Me—

Love Unknown: The Life and Worlds of Elizabeth Bishop Thomas Travisano From the Publisher: Description An illuminating new biography of one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century, Elizabeth Bishop “Love Unknown points movingly to the many relationships that moored Bishop, keeping her together even as life—and her own self-destructive tendencies—threatened to split her […]

October Helen Hunt Jackson Bending above the spicy woods which blaze, Arch skies so blue they flash, and hold the sun Immeasurably far; the waters run Too slow, so freighted are the river-ways With gold of elms and birches from the maze Of forests. Chestnuts, clicking one by one, Escape from satin burs; her fringes […]

The Summer Day Mary Oliver Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean— the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of […]

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, […]

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.

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]