The Retreat By Henry Vaughan Happy those early days! when I Shined in my angel infancy. Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race, Or taught my soul to fancy aught But a white, celestial thought; When yet…
Tag: poem analysis
The Patriot
The Patriot By Robert Browning AN OLD STORY. I. It was roses, roses, all the way, With myrtle mixed in my path like mad: The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway, The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, A year…
A Blackbird Singing
A Blackbird Singing By R. S. Thomas It seems wrong that out of this bird, Black, bold, a suggestion of dark Places about it, there yet should come Such rich music, as though the notes’ Ore were changed to a…
The Next War
The Next War By Wilfred Owen War’s a joke for me and you, Wile we know such dreams are true. – Siegfried Sassoon Out there, we’ve walked quite friendly up to Death,- Sat down and eaten with him, cool and…
The Mesh
The Mesh By Kwesi Brew aka Osborne Henry We have come to the cross-roads And I must either leave or come with you. I lingered over the choice But in the darkness of my doubts You lifted the lamp of…
The Place’s Fault
The Place’s Fault By Phillip Hobsbawm Another afternoon, after a rotten day at school Hating this place, hating them, and feeling like a fool Sweat on my fingers, pages dirty with smears I stumbled up the street, still swallowing my…
The Rainy Day
The Rainy Day By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The day is cold, and dark, and dreary; It rains, and the wind is never weary; The vine still clings to the mouldering wall, But at every gust the dead leaves fall, And…
The Lost Mistress
The Lost Mistress By Robert Browning All’s over, then: does truth sound bitter As one at first believes? Hark, ’tis the sparrows’ good-night twitter About your cottage eaves! And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, I noticed that, today;…
The Listeners
The Listeners By Walter de La Mare ‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grasses Of the forest’s ferny floor: And a bird flew up out of…
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? By William Shakespeare Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all…
Reluctance
Reluctance By Robert Frost Out through the fields and the woods And over the walls I have wended; I have climbed the hills of view And looked at the world, and descended; I have come by the highway home, And…
Symphony in Yellow
Symphony in Yellow By Oscar Wilde An omnibus across the bridge Crawls like a yellow butterfly And, here and there, a passer-by Shows like a little restless midge. Big barges full of yellow hay Are moored against the shadowy wharf,…
Justice
Justice By Rita Joe Justice Seems to have many faces, It does not want to play if my skin is not the right hue, or correct the wrong we long for, Action hanging off-balance Justice is like an open field…
Drought
Drought By Denys Lefebvre The time has been dry, and no rain, The whole earth has care, want and pain. The air is hot and cruel dictator Where should I go and seek peaceful shelter? The fertile seed-beds of Shrawan…
Love After Love
Love After Love By Derek Walcott The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You…
Everyone Sang
Everyone Sang By Siegfried Sassoon Everyone suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delight As prisoned birds must find in freedom, Winging wildly across the white Orchards and dark-green fields; on – on – and out of…
Love without Love
Love without Love By Luis Lloréns Torres I love you, because in my thousand and one nights of dreams, I never once dreamed of you. I looked down paths that traveled from afar, but it was never you I expected.…
Last of His Tribe
Last of His Tribe By Oodgeroo Noonuccal Change is the law. The new must oust the old. I look at you and am back in the long ago, Old pinaroo lonely and lost here Last of your clan. Left only…
Musee des Beaux Arts
Musee des Beaux Arts By W. H. Auden About suffering they were never wrong, The old Masters: how well they understood Its human position: how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking…
Love Like Salt
Love Like Salt by Lisel Mueller 1996 It lies in our hands in crystals too intricate to decipher It goes into the skillet without being given a second thought It spills on the floor so fine we step all over…