PolyArchive

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 […]

Seeing for a Moment Denise Levertov I thought I was growing wings— it was a cocoon. I thought, now is the time to step into the fire— it was deep water. Eschatology is a word I learned as a child: the study of Last Things; facing my mirror—no longer young,        the news—always of death, […]

Twigs Taha Muhammad Ali Translated by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi, and Gabriel Levin Neither music, fame, nor wealth, not even poetry itself, could provide consolation for life’s brevity, or the fact that King Lear is a mere eighty pages long and comes to an end, and for the thought that one might suffer greatly on […]

Song of the Brook Alfred, Lord Tennyson From “The Brook: an Idyl” I COME from haunts of coot and hern: I make a sudden sally And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley. By thirty hills I hurry down, 5 Or slip between the ridges, By twenty thorps, a little town, And […]