Category: Regular poem

The jungle of houses
Opens
In a semicircle;
Some next to others,
Some behind others,
Some on top of others,
Some in front of others,
All of them far from each other.

With the same toy shop windows,
The same russet coloured roof terraces,
The same dun-coloured domes,
The same faded facades,
The same dismal window grilles,
The same red mailboxes,
The same yellow lights.

Beneath the roofs,
Another jungle,
A human jungle,
Must be moving,
But not in a straight line.

Alfonsina Storni

 

Selvas de ciudad

En semicírculo
se abre
la selva de casas:
unas al lado de otras,
unas detrás de otras,
unas encima de otras,
unas delante de otras,
todas lejos de todas.

Con las mismas ventanas
de juguetería.
Las mismas azoteas rojizas
Las mismas cúpulas pardas.
Los mismos frentes desteñidos.
Las mismas rejas sombrías.
Los mismos buzones rojos.
Las mismas columnas negras.
Los mismos focos amarillos.
Debajo de los techos,
otra selva,
una selva humana,
debe moverse :.
Pero no en línea recta.

Alfonsina Storni

 

The life that I have is all that I have
  And the life that I have is yours.
  The love that I have of the life that I have
  Is yours and yours and yours.

  A sleep I shall have
  A rest I shall have,
  Yet death will be but a pause,
  For the peace of my years in the long green grass
  Will be yours and yours and yours.

— Leo Marks

 

ONCE more into my arid days like dew,
Like wind from an oasis, or the sound
Of cold sweet water bubbling underground,
A treacherous messenger–the thought of you
Comes to destroy me; once more I renew
Firm faith in your abundance, whom I found
Long since to be but just one other mound
Of sand, whereon no green thing ever grew.
And once again, and wiser is no wise,
I chase your coloured phantom on the air,
And sob and curse and fall and weep and rise
And stumble pitifully on to where,
Miserable and lost, with stinging eyes,
Once more I clasp–and there is nothing there.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

 

O the valley in the summer where I and my John
Beside the deep reiver would walk on and on
While the flowers at our feet and the birds up above
Argued so sweetly on reciprocal love,
And I leaned on his shoulder; "O Johnny, let’s play":
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

O that Friday near Christmas as I well recall
When we went to the Charity Matinee Ball,
The floor was so smooth and th band was so loud
And Johnny so handsome I felt so proud;
"Squeeze me tighter, dear Johnny, let’s dance till it’s day":
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

Shall I ever forget at the Grand Opera
When music poured out of each wonderful star.
Diamonds and pearls they hung dazzling down
Over each silver or golden silk gown;
"O John I’m in heaven," I whispered to say:
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

O but he was as fair as a garden in flower,
As slender and tall as the great Eiffel Tower,
When the waltz throbbed out on the long promenade
O his eyes and his smile they went straight to my heart;
"O marry me, Johnny, I’ll love and obey":
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

O last night I dreamed of you, Johnny, my lover,
You’d the sun on one arm and the moon on the other,
The sea it was blue and the grass it was green,
Every star rattled a round tambourine;
Ten thousand miles deep in a pit there I lay:
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

W H Auden

It was not in the Winter
Our loving lot was cast;
It was the time of roses—
We pluck’d them as we pass’d!

That churlish season never frown’d
On early lovers yet:
O no—the world was newly crown’d
With flowers when first we met!

’Twas twilight, and I bade you go,
But still you held me fast;
It was the time of roses—
We pluck’d them as we pass’d!

Thomas Hood

 

The Garden of Love

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And “Thou shalt not” writ over the door;
So I turn’d to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore;

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be;
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys & desires.

William Blake

 

How to get on in society

Phone for the fish knives, Norman
As cook is a little unnerved;
You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes
And I must have things daintily served.

Are the requisites all in the toilet?
The frills round the cutlets can wait
Till the girl has replenished the cruets
And switched on the logs in the grate.

It’s ever so close in the lounge dear,
But the vestibule’s comfy for tea
And Howard is riding on horseback
So do come and take some with me

Now here is a fork for your pastries
And do use the couch for your feet;
I know that I wanted to ask you-
Is trifle sufficient for sweet?

Milk and then just as it comes dear?
I’m afraid the preserve’s full of stones;
Beg pardon, I’m soiling the doileys
With afternoon tea-cakes and scones

John Betjeman

 

Now is the time for the burning of the leaves,
They go to the fire; the nostrils prick with smoke
Wandering slowly into the weeping mist.
Brittle and blotched, ragged and rotten sheaves!
A flame seizes the smouldering ruin, and bites
On stubborn stalks that crackle as they resist.
The last hollyhock’s fallen tower is dust:
All the spices of June are a bitter reek,
All the extravagant riches spent and mean.
All burns! the reddest rose is a ghost.
Spark whirl up, to expire in the mist: the wild
Fingers of fire are making corruption clean.
Now is the time for stripping the spirit bare,
Time for the burning of days ended and done,
Idle solace of things that have gone before,
Rootless hope and fruitless desire are there:
Let them go to the fire with never a look behind.
That world that was ours is a world that is ours no more.
They will come again, the leaf and the flower, to arise
From squalor of rottenness into the old splendour,
And magical scents to a wondering memory bring;
The same glory, to shine upon different eyes.
Earth cares for her own ruins, naught for ours.
Nothing is certain, only the certain Spring.

Laurence Binyon.

Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and a silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.

Walter de la Mare