PolyArchive

The White Birds William Butler Yeats I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea! We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee; And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky, Has awakened in […]

Here’s a little Web 1.0 curiosity that for some reason always manages to stick around in my text files. It’s macabre, and I haven’t verified the authenticity of any of them, but it’s interesting nonetheless. -N Thomas Jefferson–still survives… ~~ John Adams, US President, d. July 4, 1826 (Actually, Jefferson had died earlier that same […]

Меня, как реку… Анна Ахматова Блажен, кто посетил сей мир В его минуты роковые. –Тютчев Н.А. О-ой Меня, как реку, Суровая эпоха повернула. Мне подменили жизнь. В другое русло, Мимо другого потекла она, И я своих не знаю берегов. О, как я много зрелищ пропустила, И занавес вздымался без меня И так же падал. Сколько […]

The Snow Man Wallace Stevens One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think Of […]

Man Carrying Thing Wallace Stevens The poem must resist the intelligence Almost successfully. Illustration: A brune figure in winter evening resists Identity. The thing he carries resists The most necessitous sense. Accept them, then, As secondary (parts not quite perceived Of the obvious whole, uncertain particles Of the certain solid, the primary free from doubt, […]

Digging Seamus Heaney Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. Under my window, a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: My father, digging. I look down Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds Bends low, comes up twenty years away Stooping in rhythm through […]

A Song W. B. Yeats I THOUGHT no more was needed Youth to prolong Than dumb-bell and foil To keep the body young. Oh, who could have foretold That the heart grows old? Though I have many words, What woman’s satisfied, I am no longer faint Because at her side? Oh, who could have foretold […]

Sonnet XIX: You Cannot Love Michael Drayton (1563-1631) To Humor You cannot love, my pretty heart, and why? There was a time you told me that you would; But now again you will the same deny, If it might please you, would to God you could. What, will you hate? Nay, that you will not, […]

Easter, 1916 W. B. Yeats I have met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth-century houses. I have passed with a nod of the head Or polite meaningless words, Or have lingered awhile and said Polite meaningless words, And thought before I had done Of a […]

Sonnet V Edna St. Vincent Millay IF I should learn, in some quite casual way, That you were gone, not to return again— Read from the back-page of a paper, say, Held by a neighbor in a subway train, How at the corner of this avenue And such a street (so are the papers filled) […]

THE UNKNOWN CITIZEN (To JS/07/M/378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State) W.H. Auden He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be One against whom there was no official complaint, And all the reports of his conduct agree That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned term, he was a saint, For […]

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 […]