The First Part: Sonnet 10 – Fair Moon, who with thy cold and silver shine by William Drummond
Fair Moon, who with thy cold and silver shine Makes sweet the horror of the dreadful night, Delighting the weak eye with smiles divine, Which Phoebus dazzles with his too much light; Bright Queen of the first Heaven, if in thy shrine, By turning oft, and Heaven’s eternal might, Thou hast not yet that once […]
The First Part: Sonnet 1 – In my first years, and prime yet not at height by William Drummond
In my first years, and prime yet not at height, When sweet conceits my wits did entertain, Ere beauty’s force I knew, or false delight, Or to what oar she did her captives chain, Led by a sacred troop of Phoebus’ train, I first began to read, then lov’d to write, And so to praise […]
The Editor by William Ellery Leonard
I met you first, when once for livelihood I roamed Broadway, a vagrant from the boat, A song of life for sale within my coat, My soul on fire for all things large and good; And there before your desk of walnut wood With wide-spread shanks you smoked your pipe and wrote One of those […]
The Book Of The World by William Drummond
Of this fair volume which we World do name, If we the sheets and leaves could turn with care, Of him who it corrects, and did it frame, We clear might read the art and wisdom rare; Find out his power which wildest powers doth tame, His providence extending everywhere, His justice which proud rebels […]
The Beggar by William Ellery Leonard
When the ships blow up and the towers fall down, There dogs mankind, through lane and town, A querulous Beggar in a Syrian dress, Telling the story of his wan distress: He dogs the market-place, he dogs church-door, The wagons and the wharves from shore to shore; ” A penny, a penny , ” he […]
Reading by William Marr
Reading by William Marr Upon opening the book words lead the way sentences follow All disappear in a flash Only the best-selling title and the hot name of the author remain What a great book
Premature Blindness by Winston Riley
We learn to turn and look the other way. Premature blindness syndrome. Selective forgiveness for unquestionable malfeasance and crimes against humanity. So addicted we’ve become to the buffer between the skin of our bodies and the grotesque torment of “other.” Ray Anderson and Paul Hawken sing the praises of Walmart. Two champions of the great […]
May-Night by William Ellery Leonard
Blue are the twilight heavens above the hill, A yellow half-moon’s high within the blue, And rosy May-night clouds are soft and still, And all the world beside is shut from view. The plum-trees, whitening buds and greening shoots, Close in the dusky cottage; and beyond The wood-thrush in the hazel-thicket flutes, And frogs are […]
Man’s Knowledge – Ingorance in the Mysteries of God by William Drummond
Beneath a sable veil and shadows deep Of inaccessible and dimming light, In silence ebon clouds more black than night, The world’s great King his secrets hid doth keep: Through those thick mists, where any mortal wight Aspire, with halting pace and eyes that weep, To prove, and in his mysteries to creep, With thunders […]
Indian Summer by William Ellery Leonard
(After completing a book for one now dead) (O Earth-and-Autumn of the Setting Sun, She is not by, to know my task is done.) In the brown grasses slanting with the wind, Lone as a lad whose dog’s no longer near, Lone as a mother whose only child has sinned, Lone on the loved hill […]
In the Small Hours by Wole Soyinka
Blue diaphane, tobacco smoke Serpentine on wet film and wood glaze, Mutes chrome, wreathes velvet drapes, Dims the cave of mirrors. Ghost fingers Comb seaweed hair, stroke acquamarine veins Of marooned mariners, captives Of Circe’s sultry notes. The barman Dispenses igneous potions ? Somnabulist, the band plays on. Cocktail mixer, silvery fish Dances for limpet […]
In Christ there is No East Or West by John Oxenham
In Christ there is no East or West, In Him no South or North, But one great Fellowship of Love Throughout the whole wide earth. In Him shall true hearts everywhere Their high communion find. His service is the golden cord Close-binding all mankind. Join hands then, Brothers of the Faith, Whatever your race may […]
His Mercy Endureth For Ever by John Oxenham
Our feet have wandered, wandered far and wide,– _His mercy endureth for ever_! From that strait path in which the Master died,– _His mercy endureth for ever_! Low have we fallen from our high estate, Long have we lingered, lingered long and late; _But the tenderness of God Is from age to age the same, […]
Harp Song of the Dane Women by Rudyard Kipling
What is a woman that you forsake her, And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, To go with the old grey Widow-maker? She has no house to lay a guest in– But one chill bed for all to rest in, That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in. She has no strong white arms […]
God Is Good by John Oxenham
I faced a future all unknown, No opening could I see, I heard without the night wind moan, The ways were dark to me,– “I cannot face it all alone O be Thou near to me!” I had done sums, and sums, and sums, Inside my aching head. I’d tried in vain to pierce the […]
Gadara, A.D. 31 by John Oxenham
Rabbi, begone! Thy powers Bring loss to us and ours. Our ways are not as Thine. Thou lovest men, we–swine. Oh, get you hence, Omnipotence, And take this fool of Thine! His soul? What care we for his soul? What good to us that Thou hast made him whole, Since we have lost our swine? […]
Freemen by John Oxenham
Let no man stand between my God and me! I claim a Free man’s right Of intercourse direct with Him, Who gave me Freedom with the air and light. God made me free.– Let no man stand between Me and my liberty! We need no priest to tell us God is Love.– Have we not […]
Free Men Of God by John Oxenham
Free men of God, the New Day breaks In golden gleams across the sky; The darkness of the night is past, This is the Day of Victory. For this our fathers strove, In stern and fiery love– That men to come should be Born into liberty– That all should be–as we are–Free! Free men of […]
For the Men at the Front by John Oxenham
LORD GOD OF HOSTS, whose mighty hand Dominion holds on sea and land, In Peace and War Thy Will we see Shaping the larger liberty. Nations may rise and nations fall, Thy Changeless Purpose rules them all. When Death flies swift on wave and field, Be Thou a sure defence and shield! Console and succour […]
Flowers Of The Dust by John Oxenham
The Mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small– So soft and slow the great wheels go they scarcely move at all; But the souls of men fall into them and are powdered into dust, And in that dust grow the Passion-Flowers–Love, Hope, Trust. Most wondrous their upspringing, in the dust of the […]
Flowers of Sion: Sonnet 3 – Look how the flower by William Drummond
Look how the flower which ling’ringly doth fade, The morning’s darling late, the summer’s queen, Spoiled of that juice which kept it fresh and green, As high as it did raise, bows low the head; Right so my life (contentments being dead, Or in their contraries but only seen) With swifter speed declines than erst […]
Flowers of Sion: Sonnet 11 – The last and greatest herald by William Drummond
The last and greatest herald of heaven’s King, Girt with rough skins, hies to the deserts wild, Among that savage brood the woods forth bring, Which he than man more harmless found and mild; His food was blossoms, and what young doth spring, With honey that from virgin hives distilled; Parched body, hollow eyes, some […]
Flowers From Sion: Sonnet 25 – More oft than once death whispered by William Drummond
More oft than once death whispered in mine ear: Grave what thou hears in diamond and gold – I am that monarch whom all monarchs fear, Who hath in dust their far-stretched pride uprolled. All, all is mine beneath moon’s silver sphere, And nought save virtue can my power withhold. This, not believed, experience true […]
Faith by John Oxenham
Lord, give me faith!–to live from day to day, With tranquil heart to do my simple part, And, with my hand in Thine, just go Thy way. Lord, give me faith!–to trust, if not to know; With quiet mind in all things Thee to find, And, child-like, go where Thou wouldst have me go. Lord, […]
Exodus Of The Heart by Wilmer Escovar
Exodus Of The Heart by Wilmer Escovar Our mind reflects our heart But hearts are made of art We have to stop and start To use that one spare part Our life is way too short To let our mind consort Allow some space to sort The thoughts your heart supports Do not begin to […]
Everymaid by John Oxenham
King’s Daughter! Wouldst thou be all fair, Without–within– Peerless and beautiful, A very Queen? Know then:– Not as men build unto the Silent One,– With clang and clamour, Traffic of rude voices, Clink of steel on stone, And din of hammer;– Not so the temple of thy grace is reared. But,–in the inmost shrine Must […]
E.A. Nov. 6, 1900 by John Oxenham
Bright stars of Faith and Hope, her eyes Shall shine for us through all the years. For all her life was Love, and fears Touch not the love that never dies. And Death itself, to her, was but The wider opening of the door That had been opening, more and more, Through all her life, […]
Don’t Worry by John Oxenham
Just do your best, And leave the rest To Him who gave you Life,– And Zeal for Labour,– And the Joy of Strife,– And Zest of Love,– And all that lifts your soul above The lower things. Life’s truest harvest is in what we _would_, And strive our best for, Not most in what we […]
Dedication by Wole Soyinka
for Moremi, 1963 Earth will not share the rafter’s envy; dung floors Break, not the gecko’s slight skin, but its fall Taste this soil for death and plumb her deep for life As this yam, wholly earthed, yet a living tuber To the warmth of waters, earthed as springs As roots of baobab, as the […]
Darkness And Light by John Oxenham
There is darkness still, gross darkness, Lord, On this fair earth of Thine. There are prisoners still in the prison-house, Where never a light doth shine. There are doors still bolted against Thee, There are faces set like a wall; And over them all the Shadow of Death Hangs like a pall. _Do you hear […]
Countrywomen by Katherine Mansfield
Menu+ Home 100 Poetry Monster Poets Directory Best Love Poems Free Poetry Quotes Publish your Poems Home » Topics » Women Countrywomen by Katherine Mansfield These be two Countrywomen. What a size! Grand big arms And round red faces; Big substantial Sit-down-places; Great big bosoms firm as cheese Bursting through their country jackets; Wide big […]
Cold by Witt Wittmann
Cold by Witt Wittmann A cold February wind crawls up my leg and rattles my knees A preacher fumbles over the verses that I know by heart Why doesn’t he know them? Quaking, I sit watching two unknown men folding the flag each turn means something; I forget The coffin is a beautiful wood I […]
Civilian and Soldier by Wole Soyinka
My apparition rose from the fall of lead, Declared, ‘I am a civilian.’ It only served To aggravate your fright. For how could I Have risen, a being of this world, in that hour Of impartial death! And I thought also: nor is Your quarrel of this world. You stood still For both eternities, and […]
Cigarettes And Whiskey And Wild, Wild Women by Anne Sexton
Perhaps I was born kneeling, born coughing on the long winter, born expecting the kiss of mercy, born with a passion for quickness and yet, as things progressed, I learned early about the stockade or taken out, the fume of the enema. By two or three I learned not to kneel, not to expect, to […]
Bring Us The Light by John Oxenham
I hear a clear voice calling, calling, Calling out of the night, O, you who live in the Light of Life, Bring us the Light! We are bound in the chains of darkness, Our eyes received no sight, O, you who have never been bond or blind, Bring us the Light! We live amid turmoil […]
Better And Best by John Oxenham
Better in bitterest agony to lie, Before Thy throne, Than through much increase to be lifted up on high, And stand alone. Better by one sweet soul, constant and true, To be beloved, Than all the kingdoms of delight to trample through, Unloved, unloved. Yet best–the need that broke me at Thy feet, In voiceless […]
Because I’ve Learned by William Ellery Leonard
Because I’ve learned, by ball and chain and goad, Custom is king upon this sorry isle, And builds through town, wood, meadow every road, Takes toll at every stile, And names all feasts and days, my child, I’d spare Your groping feet late shipwrecked on our coast, Dear delicate feet, yet wounded, worn, and bare […]
Alone You Passed by William Ellery Leonard
Alone you passed beyond the Golden Gate, Toward the red Hesperus o’er the western seas To broad-browed idols of the Japanese— But their grim lips were silent where they sate; Alone I sailed earth’s other path of fate, Out toward the morning star where Egypt is, Where the Sphinx guards her bleak eternities— But I […]
All’s Well! by John Oxenham
Is the pathway dark and dreary? God’s in His heaven! Are you broken, heart-sick, weary? God’s in His heaven! Dreariest roads shall have an ending, Broken hearts are for God’s mending. All’s well! All’s well! All’s … well! Are life’s threads all sorely tangled? God’s in His heaven! Are the sweet chords strained and jangled? […]
Aftershock by William Marr
Aftershock by William Marr The bloody mutilated terror dug up from the ruins by an excavator still lies there trembling with intensity exceeding the Richter scale its epicenter right in our heart ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate […]