by Homer
For at first, with an amazed and overwhelming indignation 5
At a measureless malfeasance that obscurely willed it thus,
They were lost and unacquainted—till they found themselves in others,
Who had groped as they were groping where dim ways were perilous.
There were lives that were as dark as are the fears and intuitions
Of a child who knows himself and is alone with what he knows; 10
There were pensioners of dreams and there were debtors of illusions,
All to fail before the triumph of a weed that only grows.
There were thirsting heirs of golden sieves that held not wine or water,
And had no names in traffic or more value there than toys:
There were blighted sons of wonder in the Valley of the Shadow, 15
Where they suffered and still wondered why their wonder made no noise.
There were slaves who dragged the shackles of a precedent unbroken,
Demonstrating the fulfilment of unalterable schemes,
Which had been, before the cradle, Time’s inexorable tenants
Of what were now the dusty ruins of their father’s dreams. 20
There were these, and there were many who had stumbled up to manhood,
Where they saw too late the road they should have taken long ago:
There were thwarted clerks and fiddlers in the Valley of the Shadow,
The commemorative wreckage of what others did not know.
And there were daughters older than the mothers who had borne them, 25
Being older in their wisdom, which is older than the earth;
And they were going forward only farther into darkness,
Unrelieved as were the blasting obligations of their birth;
And among them, giving always what was not for their possession,
There were maidens, very quiet, with no quiet in their eyes; 30
There were daughters of the silence in the Valley of the Shadow,
Each an isolated item in the family sacrifice.
There were creepers among catacombs where dull regrets were torches,
Giving light enough to show them what was there upon the shelves—
Where there was more for them to see than pleasure would remember 35
Of something that had been alive and once had been themselves.
There were some who stirred the ruins with a solid imprecation,
While as many fled repentance for the promise of despair:
There were drinkers of wrong waters in the Valley of the Shadow,
And all the sparkling ways were dust that once had led them there. 40
There were some who knew the steps of Age incredibly beside them,
And his fingers upon shoulders that had never felt the wheel;
And their last of empty trophies was a gilded cup of nothing,
Which a contemplating vagabond would not have come to steal.
Long and often had they figured for a larger valuation, 45
But the size of their addition was the balance of a doubt:
There were gentlemen of leisure in the Valley of the Shadow,
Not allured by retrospection, disenchanted, and played out.
And among the dark endurances of unavowed reprisals
There were silent eyes of envy that saw little but saw well; 50
And over beauty’s aftermath of hazardous ambitions
There were tears for what had vanished as they vanished where they fell.
Not assured of what was theirs, and always hungry for the nameless,
There were some whose only passion was for Time who made them cold:
There were numerous fair women in the Valley of the Shadow, 55
Dreaming rather less of heaven than of hell when they were old.
Now and then, as if to scorn the common touch of common sorrow,
There were some who gave a few the distant pity of a smile;
And another cloaked a soul as with an ash of human embers,
Having covered thus a treasure that would last him for a while. 60
There were many by the presence of the many disaffected,
Whose exemption was included in the weight that others bore:
There were seekers after darkness in the Valley of the Shadow,
And they alone were there to find what they were looking for.
So they were, and so they are; and as they came are coming others, 65
And among them are the fearless and the meek and the unborn;
And a question that has held us heretofore without an answer
May abide without an answer until all have ceased to mourn.
For the children of the dark are more to name than are the wretched,
Or the broken, or the weary, or the baffled, or the shamed: 70
There are builders of new mansions in the Valley of the Shadow,
And among them are the dying and the blinded and the maimed.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Clerks
I DID not think that I should find them there
When I came back again; but there they stood,
As in the days they dreamed of when young blood
Was in their cheeks and women called them fair.
Be sure, they met me with an ancient air,—
And, yes, there was a shop-worn brotherhood
About them; but the men were just as good,
And just as human as they ever were.
And you that ache so much to be sublime,
And you that feed yourselves with your descent,
What comes of all your visions and your fears?
Poets and kings are but the clerks of Time,
Tiering the same dull webs of discontent,
Clipping the same sad alnage of the years.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Cliff Klingenhagen
Cliff Klingenhagen had me in to dine
With him one day; and after soup and meat,
And all the other things there were to eat,
Cliff took two glasses and filled one with wine
And one with wormwood. Then, without a sign
For me to choose at all, he took the draught
Of bitterness himself, and lightly quaffed
It off, and said the other one was mine.
And when I asked him what the deuce he meant
By doing that, he only looked at me
And smiled, and said it was a way of his.
And though I know the fellow, I have spent
Long time a-wondering when I shall be
As happy as Cliff Klingenhagen is.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Richard Cory
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich – yes, richer than a king –
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Mr. Flood's Party
Old Eben Flood, climbing alone one night
Over the hill between the tow
n below
And the forsaken upland hermitage
That held as much as he should ever know
On earth again of home, paused warily.
The road was his with not a native near;
And Eben, having leisure, said aloud,
For no man else in Tilbury Town to hear:
"Well, Mr. Flood, we have the harvest moon
Again, and we may not have many more;
The bird is on the wing, the poet says,
And you and I have said it here before.
Drink to the bird." He raised up to the light
The jug that he had gone so far to fill,
And answered huskily: "Well, Mr. Flood,
Since you propose it, I believe I will."
Alone, as if enduring to the end
A valiant armor of scarred hopes outworn,
He stood there in the middle of the road
Like Roland's ghost winding a silent horn.
Below him, in the town among the trees,
Where friends of other days had honored him,
A phantom salutation of the dead
Rang thinly till old Eben's eyes were dim.
Then, as a mother lays her sleeping child
Down tenderly, fearing it may awake,
He set the jug down slowly at his feet
With trembling care, knowing that most things break;
And only when assured that on firm earth
It stood, as the uncertain lives of men
Assuredly did not, he paced away,
And with his hand extended paused again:
"Well, Mr. Flood, we have not met like this
In a long time; and many a change has come
To both of us, I fear, since last it was
We had a drop together. Welcome home!"
Convivially returning with himself,
Again he raised the jug up to the light;
And with an acquiescent quaver said:
"Well, Mr. Flood, if you insist, I might.
"Only a very little, Mr. Flood—
For auld lang syne. No more, sir; that will do."
So, for the time, apparently it did,
And Eben evidently thought so too;
For soon amid the silver loneliness
Of night he lifted up his voice and sang,
Secure, with only two moons listening,
Until the whole harmonious landscape rang-
"For auld lang syne." The weary throat gave out,
The last word wavered; and the song being done,
He raised again the jug regretfully
And shook his head, and was again alone.
There was not much that was ahead of him,
And there was nothing in the town below-
Where strangers would have shut the many doors
That many friends had opened long ago.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Miniver Cheevy
Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.
Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would send him dancing.
Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam's neighbors.
Miniver mourned the ripe renown
That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
And Art, a vagrant.
Miniver loved the Medici,
Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
Could he have been one.
Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing:
He missed the medieval grace
Of iron clothing.
Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.
Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
A-D E-H I-L M-O P-S T-V W-Z
1914
A Bard’s Epitaph
A Bird Came Down
A Book
A Canadian Boat-Song
A Child’s Grace
A Christmas Carol
A Cloud withdrew from the Sky
A Coffin — is a Small Domain
A Complaint by Night of the Lover not beloved
A Dirge
A Ditty
A Ditty
A Dream of the Unknown
A Drinking Song
A Dying Tiger — moaned for Drink
A Farewell to the World
A Forsaken Garden
A Garden
A Gest of Robyn Hode
A Grammarian’s Funeral
A Hunting Song
A Hymn for Christmas Day
A Hymn to God the Father
A Jacobite’s Epitaph
A Lament
A Lesson
A Little Boy Lost
A Little Girl Lost
A Love Song
A Lover and His Lass
A Lover’s Lullaby
A Man’s a Man for A’ That
A Match
A Musical Instrument
A New Heaven
A Nymph’s Passion
A Passing Bell
A Passion of my Lord of Essex
A Psalm of Life
A Red, Red Rose
A Renunciation
A Satire
A Sea Dirge
A Serenade
A Song to David
A Supplication
A Supplication
A Sweet Disorder
A Thunderstorm In Town
A Toccata of Galuppi’s
A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea
A White Rose
A Widow Bird
A Winter Night
A Winter’s Tale
A Wish
Abou Ben Adhem
Absence
Abt Vogler. After He Has Been Extemporizing Upon the Musical Instrument of His Invention
Address To A Haggis
Admonition to a Traveller
Adonais
Ae Fond Kiss
Aeneas in the Underworld: Book VI
After Blenheim
Agincourt
Ah! Sun-Flower
Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave?
Airly Beacon
Alexander’s Feast
Alexis, Here She Stayed; Among These Pines
All Day I Hear the Noise of Waters
All for Love
Amantium Irae
Amiens’ Song
Amours III.11
Amours. I.1
Amours. I.9
An Ecstasy
An Essay on Man. Epistle I — Of the Nature and State of Man, with Respect to the Universe
An Essay on Man. Epistle II — Of the Nature and State of Man with Respect to Himself, as an Individual
An Essay on Man. Epistle III — Of the Nature and State of Man with Respect to Society
An Essay on Man. Epistle IV — Of the Nature and State of Man with Respect to Happiness
An Essay on Man: the Design
An Ode
An Ode to Himself
And Shall Trelawny Die?
And Ye Shall Walk in Silk Attire
Andrea Del Sarto
Annabel Lee
Answer
Anthem For Doomed Youth
Anthony’s ‘Let Slip the Dogs of War’ Speech (Julius Caesar)
Anxiety
Arcite’s ‘Let’s Think this Prison Holy Sanctuary’ Speech (The Two Noble Kinsmen)
Ask Me No More
Aspatia’s Song
Astrophel and Stella I: Loving in Truth
At Castle Boterel
At the Mid Hour of Night
Auguries of Innocence
Auld Lang Syne
Auld Robin Gray
Aurora Leigh. First Book.
Baby
Babylon; or, The Bonnie Banks o Fordie
Barbara
Barbara Frietchie
Barclay of Ury
Barthram’s Dirge
Battle of the Baltic
Battle with Turnus: Book XII
Bavarian Gentians
Be Not Sad
Be Your Words Made, Good Sir, of Indian Ware
Beachy Head.
Beat! Beat! Drums!
Beauty
Beauty Bathing
Beauty, Time, and Love Sonnets
Because I could not stop for Death (712)
Belief
Bewick and Grahame
Beyond the Veil
Bid Adieu to Maidenhood
Black-Eyed Susan
Blow, Bugle, Blow
Boadicea: An Ode
Bonnie George Campbell
Bonny Barbara Allan
Bonny Dundee
Border Ballad
Boston Hymn
Brahma
Break, Break, Break
Butterfly
By the Sea
Ca’ the Yowes to the Knowes
Call for the Robin-Redbreast
Captain Car
Celia
Character of a Happy Life
Character of the Happy Warrior
Charlie Is My Darling
Cheer Up, My Mates
Cherry-ripe
Cherry-Ripe
Chevy Chase
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage: Canto the First
Children
Chloris
Chorus from ‘Atalanta’
Christabel
Christabel. Part the First
Christabel. Part the Second
Cliff Klingenhagen