DayPoems: A Seven-Century Poetry Slam
93,142 lines of verse * www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor
Selections of November 7, 2009
THAT which her slender waist confined
Shall now my joyful temples bind;
No monarch but would give his crown
His arms might do what this has done.
It was my Heaven's extremest sphere,
The pale which held that lovely deer:
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,
Did all within this circle move.
A narrow compass! and yet there
Dwelt all that 's good, and all that 's fair!
Give me but what this ribband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round!
Friendship; the healer of hearts,
Lead me to thy roads end?
Filler of joy and hope,
What is thy biding?
The gift that forever gives,
I give thee my love,
Not for who you are,
But for who I am when I am with you,
For the token of a true friend
Is the becoming of a better person
Tears bear not by a friend's hand,
For only a friend can be gone a cry to a halt.
And as the winter brings snow to fall,
It doesn't always snow as much as we want.
A hand in friendship is the touching of the heart,
But no heart misses more than the one in hand,
For there is no further a reach,
By the heart,
Than for the hand that besides you.
Sad denotes a frown.
A smile is the lifting of love.
To the world you are one person,
To this one person,
You are the world I dream of.
Blossoming flowers and beautiful blue skies,
Spring colored orchards and butterflies.
Clear and calm rivers and streams,
Peace, joy, and happiness,
You are all of these beautiful things.
I'D a dream to-night
As I fell asleep,
O! the touching sight
Makes me still to weep:
Of my little lad,
Gone to leave me sad,
Ay, the child I had,
But was not to keep.
As in heaven high,
I my child did seek,
There in train came by
Children fair and meek,
Each in lily white,
With a lamp alight;
Each was clear to sight,
But they did not speak.
Then, a little sad,
Came my child in turn,
But the lamp he had,
O it did not burn!
He, to clear my doubt,
Said, half turn'd about,
'Your tears put it out;
Mother, never mourn.'
Da spreeng ees com'! but oh, da joy
Eet ees too late!
He was so cold, my leetla boy,
He no could wait.
I no can count how manny week,
How manny day, dat he ees seeck;
How manny night I seet an' hold
Da leetla hand dat was so cold.
He was so patience, oh, so sweet!
Eet hurts my throat for theenk of eet;
An' all he evra ask ees w'en
Ees gona com' da spreeng agen.
Wan day, wan brighta sunny day,
He see, across da alleyway,
Da leetla girl dat's livin' dere
Ees raise her window for da air,
An' put outside a leetla pot
Of -- w'at-you-call? -- forgat-me-not.
So smalla flower, so leetla theeng!
But steell eet mak' hees hearta seeng:
"Oh, now, at las', ees com' da spreeng!
Da leetla plant ees glad for know
Da sun ees com' for mak' eet grow.
So, too, I am grow warm and strong."
So lika dat he seeng hees song.
But, Ah! da night com' down an' den
Da weenter ees sneak back agen,
An' een da alley all da night
Ees fall da snow, so cold, so white,
An' cover up da leetla pot
Of -- w'at-you-call? -- forgat-me-not.
All night da leetla hand I hold
Ees grow so cold, so cold, so cold!
Da spreeng ees com'; but oh, da joy
Eet ees too late!
He was so cold, my leetla boy,
He no could wait.
O bitter herb, Forgetfulness,
I search for you in vain;
You are the only growing thing
Can take away my pain.
When I was young, this bitter herb
Grew wild on every hill;
I should have plucked a store of it,
And kept it by me still.
I hunt through all the meadows
Where once I wandered free,
But the rare herb, Forgetfulness,
It hides away from me.
O bitter herb, Forgetfulness,
Where is your drowsy breath?
Oh, can it be your seed has blown
Far as the Vales of Death?
GIVE place, you ladies, and begone!
Boast not yourselves at all!
For here at hand approacheth one
Whose face will stain you all.
The virtue of her lively looks
Excels the precious stone;
I wish to have none other books
To read or look upon.
In each of her two crystal eyes
Smileth a naked boy;
It would you all in heart suffice
To see that lamp of joy.
I think Nature hath lost the mould
Where she her shape did take;
Or else I doubt if Nature could
So fair a creature make.
She may be well compared
Unto the Phoenix kind,
Whose like was never seen or heard,
That any man can find.
In life she is Diana chaste,
In troth Penelopey;
In word and eke in deed steadfast.
--What will you more we say?
If all the world were sought so far,
Who could find such a wight?
Her beauty twinkleth like a star
Within the frosty night.
Her rosial colour comes and goes
With such a comely grace,
More ruddier, too, than doth the rose,
Within her lively face.
At Bacchus' feast none shall her meet,
Ne at no wanton play,
Nor gazing in an open street,
Nor gadding as a stray.
The modest mirth that she doth use
Is mix'd with shamefastness;
All vice she doth wholly refuse,
And hateth idleness.
O Lord! it is a world to see
How virtue can repair,
And deck in her such honesty,
Whom Nature made so fair.
Truly she doth so far exceed
Our women nowadays,
As doth the jeliflower a weed;
And more a thousand ways.
How might I do to get a graff
Of this unspotted tree?
--For all the rest are plain but chaff,
Which seem good corn to be.
This gift alone I shall her give;
When death doth what he can,
Her honest fame shall ever live
Within the mouth of man.
She goes all so softly
Like a shadow on the hill,
A faint wind at twilight
That stirs, and is still.
She weaves her thoughts whitely,
Like doves in the air,
Though a gray mound in Flanders
Clouds all that was fair.
WHEN Letty had scarce pass'd her third glad year,
And her young artless words began to flow,
One day we gave the child a colour'd sphere
Of the wide earth, that she might mark and know,
By tint and outline, all its sea and land.
She patted all the world; old empires peep'd
Between her baby fingers; her soft hand
Was welcome at all frontiers. How she leap'd,
And laugh'd and prattled in her world-wide bliss;
But when we turn'd her sweet unlearned eye
On our own isle, she raised a joyous cry--
'Oh! yes, I see it, Letty's home is there!'
And while she hid all England with a kiss,
Bright over Europe fell her golden hair.
The swan existing
Is like a song with an accompaniment
Imaginary.
Across the grassy lake,
Across the lake to the shadow of the willows,
It is accompanied by an image,
-- as by Debussy's
"Reflets dans l'eau".
The swan that is
Reflects
Upon the solitary water -- breast to breast
With the duplicity:
"The other one!"
And breast to breast it is confused.
O visionary wedding! O stateliness of the procession!
It is accompanied by the image of itself
Alone.
At night
The lake is a wide silence,
Without imagination.
O FLY, my Soul! What hangs upon
Thy drooping wings,
And weighs them down
With love of gaudy mortal things?
The Sun is now i' the east: each shade
As he doth rise
Is shorter made,
That earth may lessen to our eyes.
O be not careless then and play
Until the Star of Peace
Hide all his beams in dark recess!
Poor pilgrims needs must lose their way,
When all the shadows do increase.
I am not old, but old enough
To know that you are very young.
It might be said I am the leaf,
And you the blossom newly sprung.
So I shall grow a while with you,
And hear the bee and watch the cloud,
Before the dragon on the branch,
The caterpillar, weaves a shroud.
Passion left shame,
embarrassment,
unforgivably human,
he overlooked,
saw pride instead.
The other lay,
simmering for the time
that I would leave
and he would be away.