In spring and summer winds may blow by Walter Savage Landor
In spring and summer winds may blow by Walter Savage Landor In spring and summer winds may blow, And rains fall after, hard and fast; The tender leaves, if beaten low, Shine but the more for shower and blast But when their fated hour arrives, When reapers long have left the field, When maidens rifle […]
Death Stands Above Me, Whispering Low by Walter Savage Landor
Death Stands Above Me, Whispering Low by Walter Savage Landor Death stands above me, whispering low I know not what into my ear: Of his strange language all I know Is, there is not a word of fear. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and […]
Proud Word You Never Spoke by Walter Savage Landor
Proud Word You Never Spoke by Walter Savage Landor Proud word you never spoke, but you will speak Four not exempt from pride some future day. Resting on one white hand a warm wet cheek, Over my open volume you will say, ‘This man loved me’—then rise and trip away. ————— The End And that’s […]
God Scatters Beauty by Walter Savage Landor
God Scatters Beauty by Walter Savage Landor God scatters beauty as he scatters flowers O’er the wide earth, and tells us all are ours. A hundred lights in every temple burn, And at each shrine I bend my knee in turn. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems […]
Remain! by Walter Savage Landor
Remain! by Walter Savage Landor REMAIN, ah not in youth alone! –Tho’ youth, where you are, long will stay– But when my summer days are gone, And my autumnal haste away. ‘Can I be always by your side?’ No; but the hours you can, you must, Nor rise at Death’s approaching stride, Nor go when […]
I Strove with None by Walter Savage Landor
I Strove with None by Walter Savage Landor I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art: I warm’d both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, […]
Absence by Walter Savage Landor
Absence by Walter Savage Landor HERE, ever since you went abroad, If there be change no change I see: I only walk our wonted road, The road is only walk’d by me. Yes; I forgot; a change there is– Was it of that you bade me tell? I catch at times, at times I miss […]
Dirce by Walter Savage Landor
Dirce by Walter Savage Landor Stand close around, ye Stygian set, With Dirce in one boat conveyed, Or Charon, seeing, may forget That he is old and she a shade. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic and subject. Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of […]
Autumn by Walter Savage Landor
Autumn by Walter Savage Landor MILD is the parting year, and sweet The odour of the falling spray; Life passes on more rudely fleet, And balmless is its closing day. I wait its close, I court its gloom, But mourn that never must there fall Or on my breast or on my tomb The tear […]
On His Seventy-fifth Birthday by Walter Savage Landor
On His Seventy-fifth Birthday by Walter Savage Landor I strove with none, for none was worth my strife; Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art; I warmed both hands before the fire of Life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, […]
On His Eightieth Birthday by Walter Savage Landor
On His Eightieth Birthday by Walter Savage Landor To my ninth decade I have tottered on, And no soft arm bends now my steps to steady; She, who once led me where she would, is gone, So when he calls me, Death shall find me ready. ————— The End And that’s the End of the […]
Lately our poets by Walter Savage Landor
Lately our poets by Walter Savage Landor Lately our poets loiter’d in green lanes, Content to catch the ballads of the plains; I fancied I had strength enough to climb A loftier station at no distant time, And might securely from intrusion doze Upon the flowers thro’ which Ilissus flows. In those pale olive grounds […]
Ianthe’s Question by Walter Savage Landor
Ianthe’s Question by Walter Savage Landor ‘Do you remember me? or are you proud?’ Lightly advancing thro’ her star-trimm’d crowd, Ianthe said, and look’d into my eyes. ‘A yes, a yes to both: for Memory Where you but once have been must ever be, And at your voice Pride from his throne must rise.’ ————— […]
F?sulan Idyl by Walter Savage Landor
F?sulan Idyl by Walter Savage Landor Here, where precipitate Spring with one light bound Into hot Summer’s lusty arms expires; And where go forth at morn, at eve, at night, Soft airs, that want the lute to play with them, And softer sighs, that know not what they want; Under a wall, beneath an orange-tree […]
Finis by Walter Savage Landor
Finis by Walter Savage Landor I STROVE with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art: I warm’d both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by […]
Dying Speech of an Old Philosopher by Walter Savage Landor
Dying Speech of an Old Philosopher by Walter Savage Landor I strove with none, for none was worth my strife: Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art: I warm’d both hands before the fire of Life; It sinks; and I am ready to depart. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem […]
Alciphron and Leucippe by Walter Savage Landor
Alciphron and Leucippe by Walter Savage Landor An ancient chestnut’s blossoms threw Their heavy odour over two: Leucippe, it is said, was one; The other, then, was Alciphron. ‘Come, come! why should we stand beneath?’ This hollow tree’s unwholesome breath?’ Said Alciphron, ‘here’s not a blade Of grass or moss, and scanty shade. Come; it […]
Acon and Rhodope by Walter Savage Landor
Acon and Rhodope by Walter Savage Landor The Year’s twelve daughters had in turn gone by, Of measured pace tho’ varying mien all twelve, Some froward, some sedater, some adorn’d For festival, some reckless of attire. The snow had left the mountain-top; fresh flowers Had withered in the meadow; fig and prune Hung wrinkling; the […]
A Terre (being the philosophy of many soldiers) by Wilfred Owen
Sit on the bed. I’m blind, and three parts shell. Be careful; can’t shake hands now; never shall. Both arms have mutinied against me,-brutes. My fingers fidget like ten idle brats. I tried to peg out soldierly,-no use! One dies of war like any old disease. This bandage feels like pennies on my eyes. I […]
Disabled by Wilfred Owen
He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark, And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey, Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn, Voices of play and pleasure after day, Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him. About this time Town used to swing […]
Anthem For Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, — The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for […]
Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to […]
Conscious by Wilfred Owen
His fingers wake, and flutter up the bed. His eyes come open with a pull of will, Helped by the yellow may-flowers by his head. A blind-cord drawls across the window-sill . . . How smooth the floor of the ward is! what a rug! And who’s that talking, somewhere out of sight? Why are […]
Insensibility by Wilfred Owen
I Happy are men who yet before they are killed Can let their veins run cold. Whom no compassion fleers Or makes their feet Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers. The front line withers, But they are troops who fade, not flowers For poets’ tearful fooling: Men, gaps for filling Losses who might […]
A Terre by Wilfred Owen
(Being the philosophy of many Soldiers.) Sit on the bed; I’m blind, and three parts shell, Be careful; can’t shake hands now; never shall. Both arms have mutinied against me — brutes. My fingers fidget like ten idle brats. I tried to peg out soldierly — no use! One dies of war like any old […]
Arms And The Boy by Wilfred Owen
Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood; Blue with all malice, like a madman’s flash; And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh. Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-heads Which long to muzzle in the hearts of lads. Or give him cartridges of fine […]
Asleep by Wilfred Owen
Under his helmet, up against his pack, After the many days of work and waking, Sleep took him by the brow and laid him back. And in the happy no-time of his sleeping, Death took him by the heart. There was a quaking Of the aborted life within him leaping … Then chest and sleepy […]
Exposure by Wilfred Owen
I Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us . . . Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . . Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . . Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous, But nothing happens. Watching, we hear the mad […]
Futility by Wilfred Owen
Move him into the sun — Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields unsown. Always it woke him, even in France, Until this morning and this snow. If anything might rouse him now The kind old sun will know. Think how it wakes the seeds — Woke, once, the clays of […]
Le Christianisme by Wilfred Owen
So the church Christ was hit and buried Under its rubbish and its rubble. In cellars, packed-up saints long serried, Well out of hearing of our trouble. One Virgin still immaculate Smiles on for war to flatter her. She’s halo’d with an old tin hat, But a piece of hell will batter her. ————— The […]
An Imperial Elegy by Wilfred Owen
Not one corner of a foreign field But a span as wide as Europe; An appearance of a titan’s grave, And the length thereof a thousand miles, It crossed all Europe like a mystic road, Or as the Spirits’ Pathway lieth on the night. And I heard a voice crying This is the Path of […]
But I Was Looking At The Permanent Stars by Wilfred Owen
Bugles sang, saddening the evening air, And bugles answered, sorrowful to hear. Voices of boys were by the river-side. Sleep mothered them; and left the twilight sad. The shadow of the morrow weighed on men. Voices of old despondency resigned, Bowed by the shadow of the morrow, slept. ( ) dying tone Of receding voices […]
I Saw His Round Mouth’s Crimson by Wilfred Owen
[I saw his round mouth’s crimson deepen as it fell], Like a Sun, in his last deep hour; Watched the magnificent recession of farewell, Clouding, half gleam, half glower, And a last splendour burn the heavens of his cheek. And in his eyes The cold stars lighting, very old and bleak, In different skies. ————— […]
I know The Music (unfinished) by Wilfred Owen
All sounds have been as music to my listening: Pacific lamentations of slow bells, The crunch of boots on blue snow rosy-glistening, Shuffle of autumn leaves; and all farewells: Bugles that sadden all the evening air, And country bells clamouring their last appeals Before [the] music of the evening prayer; Bridges, sonorous under carriage wheels. […]
Hospital Barge At Cerisy by Wilfred Owen
Budging the sluggard ripples of the Somme, A barge round old Cérisy slowly slewed. Softly her engines down the current screwed, And chuckled softly with contented hum, Till fairy tinklings struck their croonings dumb. The waters rumpling at the stern subdued; The lock-gate took her bulging amplitude; Gently from out the gurgling lock she swum. […]
Has Your Soul Sipped? by Wilfred Owen
Has your soul sipped Of the sweetness of all sweets? Has it well supped But yet hungers and sweats? I have been witness Of a strange sweetness, All fancy surpassing Past all supposing. Passing the rays Of the rubies of morning, Or the soft rise Of the moon; or the meaning Known to the rose […]
Happiness by Wilfred Owen
Ever again to breathe pure happiness, So happy that we gave away our toy? We smiled at nothings, needing no caress? Have we not laughed too often since with Joy? Have we not stolen too strange and sorrowful wrongs For her hands’ pardoning? The sun may cleanse, And time, and starlight. Life will sing great […]
Greater Love by Wilfred Owen
Red lips are not so red As the stained stones kissed by the English dead. Kindness of wooed and wooer Seems shame to their love pure. O Love, your eyes lose lure When I behold eyes blinded in my stead! Your slender attitude Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed, Rolling and rolling there Where God […]
From My Diary, July 1914 by Wilfred Owen
Leaves Murmuring by miriads in the shimmering trees. Lives Wakening with wonder in the Pyrenees. Birds Cheerily chirping in the early day. Bards Singing of summer, scything thro’ the hay. Bees Shaking the heavy dews from bloom and frond. Boys Bursting the surface of the ebony pond. Flashes Of swimmers carving thro’ the sparkling cold. […]
At A Calvary Near The Ancre by Wilfred Owen
One ever hangs where shelled roads part. In this war He too lost a limb, But His disciples hide apart; And now the Soldiers bear with Him. Near Golgotha strolls many a priest, And in their faces there is pride That they were flesh-marked by the Beast By whom the gentle Christ’s denied The scribes […]