Chungnan by Wang Wei
Middle-aged now, following the Way. Settled at evening near the Chungnan slopes. Delight, and I wander off by myself Searching for what I need to see alone. I climb up to the roots of the streams, Sit and watch the White Clouds pass, Meet the old man of the woods, Talk and laugh, forget to […]
Birds Calling in the Ravine by Wang Wei
I’m idle, as osmanthus flowers fall, This quiet night in spring, the hill is empty. The moon comes out and startles the birds on the hill, They don’t stop calling in the spring ravine. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — […]
An Evening in the Mountains by Wang Wei
After rain the empty mountain Stands autumnal in the evening, Moonlight in its groves of pine, Stones of crystal in its brooks. Bamboos whisper of washer-girls bound home, Lotus-leaves yield before a fisher-boat — And what does it matter that springtime has gone, While you are here, O Prince of Friends? ————— The End And […]
An Early Audience at the Palace of Light. (Harmonizing a poem for Secretary Jia Zhi.) by Wang Wei
The red-capped Cock-Man has just announced morning; The Keeper of the Robes brings Jade-Cloud Furs; Heaven’s nine doors reveal the palace and its courtyards; And the coats of many countries bow to the Pearl Crown. Sunshine has entered the giants’ carven palms; Incense wreathes the Dragon Robe: The audience adjourns-and the five-coloured edict Sets girdle-beads […]
A View of the Han River by Wang Wei
With its three southern branches reaching the Chu border, And its nine streams touching the gateway of Jing, This river runs beyond heaven and earth, Where the colour of mountains both is and is not. The dwellings of men seem floating along On ripples of the distant sky — These beautiful days here in Xiangyang […]
A Study by Wang Wei
Light cloud pavilion light rain Dark yard day weary open Sit look green moss colour About to on person clothes come There’s light cloud, and drizzle round the pavilion, In the dark yard, I wearily open a gate. I sit and look at the colour of green moss, Ready for people’s clothing to pick up. […]
A Song of Peach-Blossom River by Wang Wei
A fisherman is drifting, enjoying the spring mountains, And the peach-trees on both banks lead him to an ancient source. Watching the fresh-coloured trees, he never thinks of distance Till he comes to the end of the blue stream and suddenly- strange men! It’s a cave-with a mouth so narrow that he has to crawl […]
A Song of an Autumn Night. by Wang Wei
Under the crescent moon a light autumn dew Has chilled the robe she will not change — And she touches a silver lute all night, Afraid to go back to her empty room. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the […]
A Song of a Girl from Loyang by Wang Wei
There’s a girl from Loyang in the door across the street, She looks fifteen, she may be a little older. …While her master rides his rapid horse with jade bit an bridle, Her handmaid brings her cod-fish in a golden plate. On her painted pavilions, facing red towers, Cornices are pink and green with peach-bloom […]
A Song at Weicheng. by Wang Wei
A morning-rain has settled the dust in Weicheng; Willows are green again in the tavern dooryard…. Wait till we empty one more cup — West of Yang Gate there’ll be no old friends. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the […]
A Message to Commissioner Li At Zizhou by Wang Wei
From ten thousand valleys the trees touch heaven; On a thousand peaks cuckoos are calling; And, after a night of mountain rain, From each summit come hundreds of silken cascades. …If girls are asked in tribute the fibre they weave, Or farmers quarrel over taro fields, Preside as wisely as Wenweng did…. Is fame to […]
A Message from my Lodge at Wangchuan to Pei Di by Wang Wei
The mountains are cold and blue now And the autumn waters have run all day. By my thatch door, leaning on my staff, I listen to cicadas in the evening wind. Sunset lingers at the ferry, Supper-smoke floats up from the houses. …Oh, when shall I pledge the great Hermit again And sing a wild […]
A Green Stream. by Wang Wei
I have sailed the River of Yellow Flowers, Borne by the channel of a green stream, Rounding ten thousand turns through the mountains On a journey of less than thirty miles…. Rapids hum over heaped rocks; But where light grows dim in the thick pines, The surface of an inlet sways with nut-horns And weeds […]
A Farmhouse on the Wei River by Wang Wei
In the slant of the sun on the country-side, Cattle and sheep trail home along the lane; And a rugged old man in a thatch door Leans on a staff and thinks of his son, the herdboy. There are whirring pheasants, full wheat-ears, Silk-worms asleep, pared mulberry-leaves. And the farmers, returning with hoes on their […]
A Reply by Wang Wei
I have a place on the Chungnan slopes. Sitting there you can see the Mountains. No one there, no guests, the gate is closed. No plans all day, just time and silence. Nothing stops you gazing and dreaming. Why not come and try to find me there? ————— The End And that’s the End of […]
The Paint-Kings by Washington Allston
Fair Ellen was long the delight of the young, No damsel could with her compare; Her charms were the theme of the heart and the tongue. And bards without number in extacies sung, The beauties of Ellen the fair. Yet cold was the maid; and tho’ legions advanced, All drill’d by Ovidean art, And languish’d, […]
Rosalie by Washington Allston
‘O POUR upon my soul again That sad, unearthly strain, That seems from other worlds to plain; Thus falling, falling from afar, As if some melancholy star Had mingled with her light her sighs, And dropped them from the skies! ‘No,—never came from aught below This melody of woe, That makes my heart to overflow, […]
On The Luxembourg Gallery by Washington Allston
There is a Charm no vulgar mind can reach. No critick thwart, no mighty master teach; A Charm how mingled of the good and ill! Yet still so mingled that the mystick whole Shall captive hold the struggling Gazer’s will, ‘Till vanquish’d reason own its full control. And such, oh Rubens, thy mysterious art, The […]
Eccentricity by Washington Allston
Alas, my friend! what hope have I of fame, Who am, as Nature made me, still the same? And thou, poor suitor to a bankrupt muse, How mad thy toil, how arrogant thy views! What though endued with Genius’ power to move The magick chords of sympathy and love, The painter’s eye, the poet’s fervid […]
Art by Washington Allston
O Art, high gift of Heaven! how oft defamed When seeming praised! To most a craft that fits, By dead, prescriptive Rule, the scattered bits Of gathered knowledge; even so misnamed By some who would invoke thee; but not so By him,-the noble Tuscan,-who gave birth To forms unseen of man, unknown to Earth, Now […]
America To Great Britain by Washington Allston
ALL hail! thou noble land, Our Fathers’ native soil! Oh, stretch thy mighty hand, Gigantic grown by toil, O’er the vast Atlantic wave to our shore! For thou with magic might Canst reach to where the light Of Phœbus travels bright The world o’er! The Genius of our clime, From his pine-embattled steep, Shall hail […]
Woods by Wendell Berry
Woods by Wendell Berry I part the out thrusting branches and come in beneath the blessed and the blessing trees. Though I am silent there is singing around me. Though I am dark there is vision around me. Though I am heavy there is flight around me. ————— The End And that’s the End of […]
What We Need Is Here by Wendell Berry
What We Need Is Here by Wendell Berry Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and […]
Water by Wendell Berry
Water by Wendell Berry I was born in a drouth year. That summer my mother waited in the house, enclosed in the sun and the dry ceaseless wind, for the men to come back in the evenings, bringing water from a distant spring. veins of leaves ran dry, roots shrank. And all my life I […]
The Wish to be Generous by Wendell Berry
The Wish to be Generous by Wendell Berry ALL that I serve will die, all my delights, the flesh kindled from my flesh, Garden and field, the silent lilies standing in the woods, the woods, the hill, the whole earth, all will burn in man’s evil, or dwindle in its own age. Let the world […]
The Silence by Wendell Berry
The Silence by Wendell Berry Though the air is full of singing my head is loud with the labor of words. Though the season is rich with fruit, my tongue hungers for the sweet of speech. Though the beech is golden I cannot stand beside it mute, but must say “It is golden,” while the […]
The Real Work by Wendell Berry
The Real Work by Wendell Berry It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is […]
The peace of wild things by Wendell Berry
The peace of wild things by Wendell Berry When despair grows in me and I wake in the middle of the Night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and […]
The Man Born to Farming by Wendell Berry
The Man Born to Farming by Wendell Berry The Grower of Trees, the gardener, the man born to farming, whose hands reach into the ground and sprout to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down in the dung heap, […]
The Lilies by Wendell Berry
The Lilies by Wendell Berry Amid the gray trunks of ancient trees we found the gay woodland lilies nodding on their stems, frail and fair, so delicately balanced the air held or moved them as it stood or moved. The ground that slept beneath us woke in them and made a music of the light, […]
The Country Of Marriage by Wendell Berry
The Country Of Marriage by Wendell Berry I. I Dream of you walking at Night along the streams of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs of birds opening around you as you walk. You are holding in your Body the dark seed of my sleep. II. This comes after silence. Was […]
Testament by Wendell Berry
Testament by Wendell Berry 1. Dear relatives and friends, when my last breath Grows large and free in air, don’t call it death — A word to enrich the undertaker and inspire His surly art of imitating life; conspire Against him. Say that my Body cannot now Be improved upon; it has no fault to […]
Sabbaths 2001 by Wendell Berry
Sabbaths 2001 by Wendell Berry I He wakes in darkness. All around are sounds of stones shifting, locks unlocking. As if some one had lifted away a great weight, light falls on him. He has been asleep or simply gone. He has known a long suffering of himself, himself sharpen by the pain of his […]
Ripening by Wendell Berry
Ripening by Wendell Berry The longer we are together the larger death grows around us. How many we know by now who are dead! We, who were young, now count the cost of having been. And yet as we know the dead we grow familiar with the world. We, who were young and loved each […]
A Warning To My Readers by Wendell Berry
A Warning To My Readers by Wendell Berry Do not think me gentle because I speak in praise of gentleness, or elegant because I honor the grace that keeps this world. I am a man crude as any, gross of speech, intolerant, stubborn, angry, full of fits and furies. That I may have spoken well […]
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. Want more of everything ready-made. Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die. And you will have a window in your head. Not even your future will be a mystery any more. Your mind will […]
Like The Water by Wendell Berry
Like The Water by Wendell Berry Like the water of a deep stream, love is always too much. We did not make it. Though we drink till we burst, we cannot have it all, or want it all. In its abundance it survives our thirst. In the evening we come down to the shore to […]
In this World by Wendell Berry
In this World by Wendell Berry The hill pasture, an open place among the trees, tilts into the valley. The clovers and tall grasses are in bloom. Along the foot of the hill dark floodwater moves down the river. The sun sets. Ahead of nightfall the birds sing. I have climbed up to water the […]
In A Motel Parking Lot, Thinking Of Dr. Williams by Wendell Berry
In A Motel Parking Lot, Thinking Of Dr. Williams by Wendell Berry I. The poem is important, but not more than the people whose survival it serves, one of the necessities, so they may speak what is true, and have the patience for beauty: the weighted grainfield, the shady street, the well-laid stone and the […]
For The Future by Wendell Berry
For The Future by Wendell Berry Planting trees early in spring, we make a place for birds to sing in time to come. How do we know? They are singing here now. There is no other guarantee that singing will ever be. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. […]