Poem Analyses. Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun by William Shakespeare

CHOOSE ONE POEM

the instructions will be uploaded.

and i will need the rough draft in 2 days or asap

Below are the poems. you can choose one from the below poems:

i will likely choose this poem "My son my Executioner" but let me know which one of the poem u choose.





Poetry



Persona and Tone



My Papa’s Waltz

Sins of the Father

The Unknown Citizen

The Ruined Maid

Go, Lovely Rose

One Perfect Rose



Poetic Language and Metaphor



August

A Noiseless Patient Spider

Sonnet 18 (Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day)

Turtle

In the Long Hall

My Son My Executioner



Poetic Form



The Silken Tent

Sonnet

Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night

We Real Cool

anyone lived in a pretty how town

40------------------Love

If Children Were Puppies

F-5 Tornado



Sound and Sight



Jabberwocky

The Bells

Annabel Lee

The Bridge of Sighs

Ozymandias

The Kraken

American Literature

Nighthawks

Inventing My Parents

Not My Best Side

The Starry Night





Miscellaneous Poems



Sonnet 130 (My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun)

Death, Be Not Proud

To His Coy Mistress

The Lamb

The Tyger

She Walks in Beauty

Ode on a Grecian Urn

Because I Could Not Stop for Death (479)

Dover Beach

Pied Beauty

Gunga Din

Oh, Who Is That Young Sinner

To an Athlete Dying Young

We Wear the Mask

Chicago

The Road Not Taken

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

America

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

Harlem (A Dream Deferred)

Theme for English B

Oh, Oh, You Will Be Sorry for That Word!

Incident

Sailing to Byzantium

Funeral Blues

Sadie and Maude

Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers

Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man

Not Waving but Drowning

I Knew a Woman

Ballad of Birmingham

To the Mercy Killers

The Leap

You All Know the Story of the Other Woman

Barbie Doll

Hanging Fire

There Are Black

The Death of Marilyn Monroe

Sex Without Love

Indian Boarding School: The Runaways

Latin Women Pray

Execution

Bully

The Supremes

People Who Take Care







Poetry



Persona and Tone



My Papa’s Waltz

By: Theodore Roethke



The whiskey on your breath

Could make a small boy dizzy;

But I hung on like death:

Such waltzing was not easy.



We romped until the pans

Slid from the kitchen shelf;

My mother’s countenance

Could not unfrown itself.



The hand that held my wrist

Was battered on one knuckle;

At every step you missed

My right ear scraped a buckle.



You beat time on my head

With a palm caked hard by dirt,

Then waltzed me off to bed

Still clinging to your shirt.

(1948)





 

Sins of the Father

By: W. D. Ehrhart



Today my child came home from school in tears.

A classmate taunted her about her clothes,

and the other kids joined in, enough of them

to make her feel as if the fault was hers,

as if she can't fit in no matter what.

A decent child, lovely, bright, considerate.

It breaks my heart. It makes me want someone

to pay. It makes me think—O Christ, it makes

me think of things I haven't thought about

in years. How we nicknamed Barbara Hoffman

"Barn," walked behind her through the halls and mooed

like cows. We kept this up for years, and not

for any reason I could tell you now

or even then except that it was fun.

Or seemed like fun. The nights that Barbara

must have cried herself to sleep, the days

she must have dreaded getting up for school.

Or Suzanne Heider. We called her "Spider."

And we were certain Gareth Schultz was queer

and let him know it. Now there's nothing I

can do but stand outside my daughter's door

listening to her cry herself to sleep.

(2010)

 

The Unknown Citizen

By: W. H. Auden



(To JS/07 M 378

This Marble Monument

Is Erected by the State)



He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be

One against whom there was no official complaint,

And all the reports on his conduct agree

That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,

For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.

Except for the War till the day he retired

He worked in a factory and never got fired,

But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.

Yet he wasn’t a scab or odd in his views,

For his Union reports that he paid his dues,

(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)

And our Social Psychology workers found

That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.

The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day

And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.

Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,

And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.

Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare

He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan

And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,

A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.

Our researchers into Public Opinion are content

That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;

When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.

He was married and added five children to the population,

Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.

And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.

Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:

Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

(1940)



 

The Ruined Maid

By: Thomas Hardy



"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!

Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?

And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?" —

"O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.



— "You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,

Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;

And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!" —

"Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.



— "At home in the barton you said thee' and thou,'

And thik oon,' and theäs oon,' and t'other'; but now

Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!" —

"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.



— "Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak

But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,

And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!" —

"We never do work when we're ruined," said she.



— "You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,

And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem

To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!" —

"True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she.



— "I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,

And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!" —

"My dear — a raw country girl, such as you be,

Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.

(1866)



 

Go, Lovely Rose

By: Edmund Waller



Go, lovely Rose—

Tell her that wastes her time and me,

that now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.



Tell her that’s young,

And shuns to have her graces spied,

that had’st thou sprung

In deserts where no men abide,

Thou must have uncommended died.



Small is the worth

Of beauty from the light retir’d:

Bid her come forth,

Suffer herself to be desir’d,

And not blush so to be admir’d.



Then die—that she

The common fate of all things rare

May read in thee;

How small a part of time they share,

That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

(1645)



 

One Perfect Rose

By: Dorothy Parker



A single flow'r he sent me, since we met.

All tenderly his messenger he chose;

Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet -

One perfect rose.



I knew the language of the floweret;

'My fragile leaves,' it said, 'his heart enclose.'

Love long has taken for his amulet

One perfect rose.



Why is it no one ever sent me yet

One perfect limousine, do you suppose?

Ah no, it's always just my luck to get

One perfect rose.

(1926)





 

Poetic Language and Metaphor



August

By: Mary Oliver



When the blackberries hang

swollen in the woods, in the brambles

nobody owns, I spend



all day among the high

branches, reaching

my ripped arms, thinking



of nothing, cramming

the black honey of summer

into my mouth; all day my body



accepts what it is. In the dark

creeks that run by there is

this thick paw of my life darting among



the black bells, the leaves; there is

this happy tongue.

(1983)



 

A Noiseless Patient Spider

By: Walt Whitman



A noiseless patient spider,

I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,

Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,

Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.



And you O my soul where you stand,

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking

the spheres to connect them,

Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere,

O my soul.

(1881)



 

Sonnet 18 (Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day)

By: William Shakespeare



Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

(1609)



 

Turtle

By: Kay Ryan



Who would be a turtle who could help it?

A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet,

she can ill afford the chances she must take

in rowing toward the grasses that she eats.

Her track is graceless, like dragging

a packing-case places, and almost any slope

defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical,

she's often stuck up to the axle on her way

to something edible. With everything optimal,

she skirts the ditch which would convert

her shell into a serving dish. She lives

below luck-level, never imagining some lottery

will change her load of pottery to wings.

Her only levity is patience,

the sport of truly chastened things.

(1994)



 

In the Long Hall

By: Hayden Carruth



On his knees he was weaving a tapestry

which was unraveling behind him. At first

he didn’t mind it; the work was flawed,

loose ends, broken threads, a pattern

he could not control; but as his skill

improved he began to resent the way

his tapestry was undoing itself.

He resolved not to look back

but to keep going ahead, as he did

successfully for a long time. Still

later, however, he began to notice

that the part of the tapestry in front

of him was unraveling too; threads

he had just knotted became loose.

He tied them again. But before long

he could not keep up, his hands

were too slow, his fingers too weak.

The unraveling in front pushed

him toward the unraveling in back

until he found himself isolated

on a small part of the tapestry whose

pattern he could not see because

it was beneath his own body. He spun

this way and that. He worked as fast as

he could with trembling fingers

in futility, in frenzy, in despair.

(1978)



 

My Son My Executioner

By: Donald Hall



My son, my executioner,

I take you in my arms,

Quiet and small and just astir,

And whom my body warms.



Sweet death, small son, our instrument

Of immortality,

Your cries and hunger document

Our bodily decay.



We twenty-five and twenty-two,

Who seemed to live forever,

Observe enduring life in you

And start to die together.

(1955)





 

Poetic Form



The Silken Tent

By: Robert Frost



She is as in a field a silken tent

At midday when the sunny summer breeze

Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,

So that in guys it gently sways at ease,

And its supporting central cedar pole,

That is its pinnacle to heavenward

And signifies the sureness of the soul,

Seems to owe naught to any single cord,

But strictly held by none, is loosely bound

By countless silken ties of love and thought

To everything on earth the compass round,

And only by one's going slightly taut

In the capriciousness of summer air

Is of the slightest bondage made aware.

(1943)





 

Sonnet

By: Billy Collins



All we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen now,

and after this one just a dozen

to launch a little ship on love's storm-tossed seas,

then only ten more left like rows of beans.

How easily it goes unless you get Elizabethan

and insist the iambic bongos must be played

and rhymes positioned at the ends of lines,

one for every station of the cross.

But hang on here while we make the turn

into the final six where all will be resolved,

where longing and heartache will find an end,

where Laura will tell Petrarch to put down his pen,

take off those crazy medieval tights,

blow out the lights, and come at last to bed.

(1999)



 

Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night

By: Dylan Thomas



Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.



Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.



Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

(1952)



 

We Real Cool

By: Gwendolyn Brooks



The Pool Players

Seven at the Golden Shovel



We real cool. We

Left school. We



Lurk late. We

Strike straight. We



Sing sin. We

Thin gin. We



Jazz June. We

Die soon.

(1960)



 

anyone lived in a pretty how town

By: E. E. Cummings



anyone lived in a pretty how town

(with up so floating many bells down)

spring summer autumn winter

he sang his didn’t he danced his did.



Women and men (both little and small)

cared for anyone not at all

they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same

sun moon stars rain



children guessed (but only a few

and down they forgot as up they grew

autumn winter spring summer)

that noone loved him more by more



when by now and tree by leaf

she laughed his joy she cried his grief

bird by snow and stir by still

anyone’s any was all to her



someones married their everyones

laughed their cryings and did their dance

(sleep wake hope and then) they

said their nevers they slept their dream



stars rain sun moon

(and only the snow can begin to explain

how children are apt to forget to remember

with up so floating many bells down)



one day anyone died i guess

(and noone stooped to kiss his face)

busy folk buried them side by side

little by little and was by was



all by all and deep by deep

and more by more they dream their sleep

noone and anyone earth by april

wish by spirit and if by yes.



Women and men (both dong and ding)

summer autumn winter spring

reaped their sowing and went their came

sun moon stars rain

(1940)



 

40------------------Love

By: Roger McGough



middle aged

couple playing

ten nis

when the

game ends

and they

go home

the net

will still

be be-

tween them

(1971)



 

If Children Were Puppies

By: Brenda Meier-Hans



IF MY

CHILDREN

WERE PUPPIES

THEY’D BE

NICER

TO

ME.

THEY WOULD NOT BE FUSSY

AND TALK BACK YOU SEE.

SIT BRAVE AND LOYAL NOT

TRY TO RUN AND HIDE. AND

FAITHFULLY FOLLOW

NEVER LEAVING

MY SIDE. BUT

IF CHILDREN

WERE PUPS

THEN THEY

MIGHT EAT

LIKE HOGS

CHEW YOUR

GOOD SHOE

MAYBE HIDE YOUR CLOGS

AND IF CHILDREN WERE PUPPIES, THEN WE’D ALL BE DOGS!





 

F-5 Tornado

By: Raul Moreno



The warm temperature drops outdoors,

And first drops of fresh rain sprinkle.

The thunder claps right above me,

As lightening is striking afar.

Dust is blowing in the wind,

Trees are bending fiercely,

A train horn blares,

As the core nears me.

Then sudden silence,

A calm reappears.

Electrical fires start,

For a moment one

Thinks it’s over,

Then it starts

Again quickly.

Passing by my

Home taking

My neighbors,

Tin flying by,

The tornado

Fades, look

At all the

Damage.

And I

Am

Uns

c

a

t

h

e

d.



 

Sound and Sight



Jabberwocky

By: Lewis Carroll



‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.



“Beware the Jabberwock, my son

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”



He took his vorpal sword in hand;

Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.



And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!



One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.



“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

He chortled in his joy.



‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

(1871)



 

The Bells

By: Edgar Allen Poe



I.

Hear the sledges with the bells--

Silver bells!

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of night!

While the stars that oversprinkle

All the heavens, seem to twinkle

With a crystalline delight;

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells

From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells--

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.



II.

Hear the mellow wedding bells

Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!

Through the balmy air of night

How they ring out their delight!

From the molten-golden notes,

And all in tune,

What a liquid ditty floats

To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats

On the moon!

Oh, from out the sounding cells,

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!

How it swells!

How it dwells

On the Future! how it tells

Of the rapture that impels

To the swinging and the ringing

Of the bells, bells, bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells--

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!



III.

Hear the loud alarum bells--

Brazen bells!

What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!

In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!

Too much horrified to speak,

They can only shriek, shriek,

Out of tune,

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,

In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,

Leaping higher, higher, higher,

With a desperate desire,

And a resolute endeavor

Now--now to sit or never,

By the side of the pale-faced moon.

Oh, the bells, bells, bells!

What a tale their terror tells

Of Despair!

How they clang, and clash, and roar!

What a horror they outpour

On the bosom of the palpitating air!

Yet the ear, it fully knows,

By the twanging,

And the clanging,

How the danger ebbs and flows ;

Yet, the ear distinctly tells,

In the jangling,

And the wrangling,

How the danger sinks and swells,

By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells--

Of the bells--

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells--

In the clamour and the clangour of the bells!



IV.

Hear the tolling of the bells--

Iron bells!

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!

In the silence of the night,

How we shiver with affright

At the melancholy menace of their tone!

For every sound that floats

From the rust within their throats

Is a groan.

And the people--ah, the people--

They that dwell up in the steeple,

All alone,

And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,

In that muffled monotone,

Feel a glory in so rolling

On the human heart a stone--

They are neither man nor woman--

They are neither brute nor human--

They are Ghouls:--

And their king it is who tolls ;

And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls,

Rolls

A pæan from the bells!

And his merry bosom swells

With the pæan of the bells!

And he dances, and he yells ;

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the pæan of the bells--

Of the bells :

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the throbbing of the bells--

Of the bells, bells, bells--

To the sobbing of the bells ;

Keeping time, time, time,

As he knells, knells, knells,

In a happy Runic rhyme,

To the rolling of the bells--

Of the bells, bells, bells--

To the tolling of the bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells--

Bells, bells, bells--

To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

(1848)



 

Annabel Lee

By: Edgar Allen Poe



It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.



I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea:

But we loved with a love that was more than love--

I and my Annabel Lee;

With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven

Coveted her and me.



And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsman came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.



The angels, not half so happy in heaven,

Went envying her and me--

Yes!--that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.



But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we--

Of many far wiser than we--

And neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:



For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride,

In her sepulchre there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

(1849)

 

The Bridge of Sighs

By: Thomas Hood



One more Unfortunate,

Weary of breath,

Rashly importunate,

Gone to her death!



Take her up tenderly,

Lift her with care;

Fashion'd so slenderly

Young, and so fair!



Look at her garments

Clinging like cerements;

Whilst the wave constantly

Drips from her clothing;

Take her up instantly,

Loving, not loathing.



Touch her not scornfully;

Think of her mournfully,

Gently and humanly;

Not of the stains of her,

All that remains of her

Now is pure womanly.



Make no deep scrutiny

Into her mutiny

Rash and undutiful:

Past all dishonour,

Death has left on her

Only the beautiful.



Still, for all slips of hers,

One of Eve's family—

Wipe those poor lips of hers

Oozing so clammily.



Loop up her tresses

Escaped from the comb,

Her fair auburn tresses;

Whilst wonderment guesses

Where was her home?



Who was her father?

Who was her mother?

Had she a sister?

Had she a brother?

Or was there a dearer one

Still, and a nearer one

Yet, than all other?



Alas! for the rarity

Of Christian charity

Under the sun!

O, it was pitiful!

Near a whole city full,

Home she had none.



Sisterly, brotherly,

Fatherly, motherly

Feelings had changed:

Love, by harsh evidence,

Thrown from its eminence;

Even God's providence

Seeming estranged.



Where the lamps quiver

So far in the river,

With many a light

From window and casement,

From garret to basement,

She stood, with amazement,

Houseless by night.



The bleak wind of March

Made her tremble and shiver;

But not the dark arch,

Or the black flowing river:

Mad from life's history,

Glad to death's mystery,

Swift to be hurl'd—

Anywhere, anywhere

Out of the world!



In she plunged boldly—

No matter how coldly

The rough river ran—

Over the brink of it,

Picture it—think of it,

Dissolute Man!

Lave in it, drink of it,

Then, if you can!



Take her up tenderly,

Lift her with care;

Fashion'd so slenderly,

Young, and so fair!



Ere her limbs frigidly

Stiffen too rigidly,

Decently, kindly,

Smooth and compose them;

And her eyes, close them,

Staring so blindly!



Dreadfully staring

Thro' muddy impurity,

As when with the daring

Last look of despairing

Fix'd on futurity.



Perishing gloomily,

Spurr'd by contumely,

Cold inhumanity,

Burning insanity,

Into her rest.—

Cross her hands humbly

As if praying dumbly,

Over her breast!



Owning her weakness,

Her evil behaviour,

And leaving, with meekness,

Her sins to her Saviour!

(1844)

 

Ozymandias

By: Percy Shelley



I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

(1818)





 

The Kraken

By: Alfred Lord Tennyson



Below the thunders of the upper deep,

Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,

His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep

The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee

About his shadowy sides; above him swell

Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;

And far away into the sickly light,

From many a wondrous grot and secret cell

Unnumbered and enormous polypi

Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.

There hath he lain for ages, and will lie

Battening upon huge sea worms in his sleep,

Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;

Then once by man and angels to be seen,

In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

(1830)



 

(Look up the painting Nighthawks by Edward Hopper for the next three poems.)



American Literature

By: Lisel Mueller



Poets and storytellers

move into the vacancies

Edward Hopper left them.

They settle down in blank spaces,

where the light has been scoured and bleached

skull-white, and nothing grows

except absence. Where something is missing,

the man a woman waits for,

or furniture in a room

stripped like a hospital bed

after the patient has died.

Such bereft interiors

are just what they've been looking for,

the writers, who come with their baggage

of dowsing rods and dog-eared books,

their uneasy family photographs,

their lumpy beds, their predilection

for starting fires in empty rooms.

(1996)





 

Nighthawks

By: Samuel Yellen



The place is the corner of Empty and Bleak, 


The time is night's most desolate hour, 


The scene is Al's Coffee Cup or the Hamburger Tower, 


The persons in this drama do not speak.



We who peer through that curve of plate glass 


Count three nighthawks seated there—patrons of life: 


The counterman will be with you in a jiff, 


The thick white mugs were never meant for demitasse.



The single man whose hunched back we see 


Once put a gun to his head in Russian roulette, 


Whirled the chamber, pulled the trigger, won the bet, 


And now lives out his x years' guarantee.



And facing us, the two central characters 


Have finished their coffee, and have lit 


A contemplative cigarette; 


His hand lies close, but not touching hers.



Not long ago together in a darkened room, 


Mouth burned mouth, flesh beat and ground 


On ravaged flesh, and yet they found 


No local habitation and no name.



Oh, are we not lucky to be none of these! 


We can look on with complacent eye: 


Our satisfactions satisfy,

Our pleasures, our pleasures please.

(1951)



 

Inventing My Parents

By: Susan Ludvigson



After Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks (1942)



They sit in the bright cafe

discussing Hemmingway, and how

this war will change them.

Sinclair Lewis’ name comes up,

and Kay Boyle’s, and then Fitzgerald’s.

They disagree about the American Dream.

My mother, her bare arms

silver under fluorescent lights,

says she imagines it a hawk

flying over, its shadow sweeping

every town. Their coffee’s getting cold

but they hardly notice. My mother’s face

is lit by ideas. My father’s gestures

are a Frenchman’s. When he concedes

a point, he shrugs, an elaborate lift

of the shoulders, his hands and smile

declaring an open mind.



I am five months old, at home with a sitter

this August night, when the air outside

is warm as a bath. They decide,

though the car is parked nearby,

to walk the few blocks home, savoring

the fragrant night, their being alone together.

As they go out the door, he’s reciting

Donne’s “Canonization”: “For God’s sake

hold your tongue, and let me love,”

and she’s laughing, light

as summer rain when it begins.

(1992)



 

(Look up the painting St. George and the Dragon by Paolo Uccello for this poem.)



Not My Best Side

By: U. A. Fanthorpe



I



Not my best side, I'm afraid.

The artist didn't give me a chance to

Pose properly, and as you can see,

Poor chap, he had this obsession with

Triangles, so he left off two of my

Feet. I didn't comment at the time

(What, after all, are two feet

To a monster?) but afterwards

I was sorry for the bad publicity.

Why, I said to myself, should my conqueror

Be so ostentatiously beardless, and ride

A horse with a deformed neck and square hoofs?

Why should my victim be so

Unattractive as to be inedible,

And why should she have me literally

On a string? I don't mind dying

Ritually, since I always rise again,

But I should have liked a little more blood

To show they were taking me seriously.



II



It's hard for a girl to be sure if

She wants to be rescued. I mean, I quite

Took to the dragon. It's nice to be

Liked, if you know what I mean. He was

So nicely physical, with his claws

And lovely green skin, and that sexy tail,

And the way he looked at me,

He made me feel he was all ready to

Eat me. And any girl enjoys that.

So when this boy turned up, wearing machinery,

On a really dangerous horse, to be honest

I didn't much fancy him. I mean,

What was he like underneath the hardware?

He might have acne, blackheads or even

Bad breath for all I could tell, but the dragon--

Well, you could see all his equipment

At a glance. Still, what could I do?

The dragon got himself beaten by the boy,

And a girl's got to think of her future.



III



I have diplomas in Dragon

Management and Virgin Reclamation.

My horse is the latest model, with

Automatic transmission and built-in

Obsolescence. My spear is custom-built,

And my prototype armour

Still on the secret list. You can't

Do better than me at the moment.

I'm qualified and equipped to the

Eyebrow. So why be difficult?

Don't you want to be killed and/or rescued

In the most contemporary way? Don't

You want to carry out the roles

That sociology and myth have designed for you?

Don't you realize that, by being choosy,

You are endangering job prospects

In the spear- and horse-building industries?

What, in any case, does it matter what

You want? You're in my way.

(1989)



 

(Look up the painting The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh for this poem.)



The Starry Night

By: Anne Sexton



That does not keep me from having a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars.

- Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother



The town does not exist

except where one black-haired tree slips

up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.

The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.

Oh starry night! This is how

I want to die.



It moves. They are all alive.

Even the moon bulges in its orange irons

to push children, like a god, from its eye.

The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.

Oh starry starry night! This is how

I want to die:



into that rushing beast of the night,

sucked up by that great dragon, to split

from my life with no flag,

no belly,

no cry.

 

Miscellaneous Poems



Sonnet 130 (My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun)

By: William Shakespeare



My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

(1609)







 

Death, Be Not Proud

By: John Dunn



Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;

For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.

Thou’art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy’or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

(1633)



 

To His Coy Mistress

By: Andrew Marvell



Had we but world enough, and time,

This coyness, Lady, were no crime.

We would sit down and think which way

To walk and pass our long love’s day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side

Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the Flood,

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires, and more slow;

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast;

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart;

For, Lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found,

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song: then worms shall try

That long preserved virginity,

And your quaint honour turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust:

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapt power.

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Thorough the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

(1681)





 

The Lamb

By: William Blake



Little lamb, who made thee?

Dost thou know who made thee,

Gave thee life, and bid thee feed

By the stream and o’er the mead;

Gave thee clothing of delight,

Softest clothing, woolly, bright;

Gave thee such a tender voice,

Making all the vales rejoice?

Little lamb, who made thee?

Dost thou know who made thee?



Little lamb, I’ll tell thee;

Little lamb, I’ll tell thee:

He is called by thy name,

For He calls Himself a Lamb.

He is meek, and He is mild,

He became a little child.

I a child, and thou a lamb,

We are called by His name.

Little lamb, God bless thee!

Little lamb, God bless thee!

(1789)



 

The Tyger

By: William Blake



Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?



In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?



And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?



What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?



When the stars threw down their spears,

And water’d heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?



Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

(1794)



 

She Walks in Beauty

By: George Gordon, Lord Byron



I.



She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.



II.



One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express

How pure, how dear their dwelling place.



III.



And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

(1814)



 

Ode on a Grecian Urn

By: John Keats



Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape

Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?



Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!



Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied,

For ever piping songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love!

For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,

For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,

A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.



Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea shore,

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

(1819)



 

Because I Could Not Stop for Death (479)

By: Emily Dickinson



Because I could not stop for Death –

He kindly stopped for me –

The Carriage held but just Ourselves –

And Immortality.



We slowly drove – He knew no haste

And I had put away

My labor and my leisure too,

For His Civility –



We passed the School, where Children strove

At Recess – in the Ring –

We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –

We passed the Setting Sun –



Or rather – He passed us –

The Dews drew quivering and chill –

For only Gossamer, my Gown –

My Tippet – only Tulle –



We paused before a House that seemed

A Swelling of the Ground –

The Roof was scarcely visible –

The Cornice – in the Ground –



Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yet

Feels shorter than the Day

I first surmised the Horses’ Heads

Were toward Eternity –

(ca. 1863)



 

Dover Beach

By: Matthew Arnold



The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; on the French coast, the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,



Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.



Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.



The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.



Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

(1867)

 

Pied Beauty

By: Gerard Manley Hopkins



Glory be to God for dappled things—

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.



All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise Him.

(1877)



 

Gunga Din

By: Rudyard Kipling





You may talk o’ gin and beer

When you’re quartered safe out ’ere,

An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot it;

But when it comes to slaughter

You will do your work on water,

An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ’im that’s got it.

Now in Injia’s sunny clime,

Where I used to spend my time

A-servin’ of ’Er Majesty the Queen,

Of all them blackfaced crew

The finest man I knew

Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din,

He was ‘Din! Din! Din!

‘You limpin’ lump o’ brick-dust, Gunga Din!

‘Hi! Slippy hitherao

‘Water, get it! Panee lao,

‘You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din.’





The uniform ’e wore

Was nothin’ much before,

An’ rather less than ’arf o’ that be’ind,

For a piece o’ twisty rag

An’ a goatskin water-bag

Was all the field-equipment ’e could find.

When the sweatin’ troop-train lay

In a sidin’ through the day,

Where the ’eat would make your bloomin’ eyebrows crawl,

We shouted ‘Harry By!’

Till our throats were bricky-dry,

Then we wopped ’im ’cause ’e couldn’t serve us all.

It was ‘Din! Din! Din!

‘You ’eathen, where the mischief ’ave you been?

‘You put some juldee in it

‘Or I’ll marrow you this minute

‘If you don’t fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!’





’E would dot an’ carry one

Till the longest day was done;

An’ ’e didn’t seem to know the use o’ fear.

If we charged or broke or cut,

You could bet your bloomin’ nut,

’E’d be waitin’ fifty paces right flank rear.

With ’is mussick on ’is back,

’E would skip with our attack,

An’ watch us till the bugles made 'Retire,’

An’ for all ’is dirty ’ide

’E was white, clear white, inside

When ’e went to tend the wounded under fire!

It was ‘Din! Din! Din!’

With the bullets kickin’ dust-spots on the green.

When the cartridges ran out,

You could hear the front-ranks shout,

‘Hi! ammunition-mules an' Gunga Din!’





I shan’t forgit the night

When I dropped be’ind the fight

With a bullet where my belt-plate should ’a’ been.

I was chokin’ mad with thirst,

An’ the man that spied me first

Was our good old grinnin’, gruntin’ Gunga Din.

’E lifted up my ’ead,

An’ he plugged me where I bled,

An’ ’e guv me ’arf-a-pint o’ water green.

It was crawlin’ and it stunk,

But of all the drinks I’ve drunk,

I’m gratefullest to one from Gunga Din.

It was 'Din! Din! Din!

‘’Ere’s a beggar with a bullet through ’is spleen;

‘’E's chawin’ up the ground,

‘An’ ’e’s kickin’ all around:

‘For Gawd’s sake git the water, Gunga Din!’





’E carried me away

To where a dooli lay,

An’ a bullet come an’ drilled the beggar clean.

’E put me safe inside,

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