PolyArchive

Prospective Immigrants Please Note Adrienne Rich Either you will go through this door or you will not go through. If you go through there is always the risk of remembering your name. Things look at you doubly and you must look back and let them happen. If you do not go through it is possible […]

The Light of Stars Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The night is come, but not too soon; And sinking silently, All silently, the little moon Drops down behind the sky. There is no light in earth or heaven But the cold light of stars; And the first watch of the night is given To the red planet […]

Acquainted with the Night Robert Frost I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain–and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. I […]

e. e. cummings yours is the music for no instrument yours the preposterous colour unbeheld –mine the unbought contemptuous intent till this our flesh merely shall be excelled by speaking flower (if I have made songs it does not greatly matter to the sun, nor will rain care cautiously who prolongs unserious twilight) shadows have […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

Niagara Vachel Lindsay I Within the town of Buffalo Are prosy men with leaden eyes. Like ants they worry to and fro, (Important men, in Buffalo.) But only twenty miles away A deathless glory is at play: Niagara, Niagara. The women buy their lace and cry: — “O such a delicate design,” And over ostrich […]

But Not To Me Sara Teasdale The April night is still and sweet With flowers on every tree; Peace comes to them on quiet feet, But not to me. My peace is hidden in his breast Where I shall never be; Love comes to-night to all the rest, But not to me.

The Leaf and the Tree Edna St. Vincent Millay When will you learn, myself, to be a dying leaf on a living tree? Budding, swelling, growing strong, Wearing green, but not for long, Drawing sustenance from air, That other leaves, and you not there, May bud, and at the autumn’s call Wearing russet, ready to […]