Sonnets from the Portuguese 28: My letters! all dead paper, ... mute and white !

S
My letters! all dead paper, ... mute and white ! —
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
This said, ... he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand ... a simple thing,
Yet I wept for it! — this, ... the paper's light ...
Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailed
As if God's future thundered on my past.
This said, I am thine — and so its ink has paled
With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
And this ... O Love, thy words have ill availed,
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!
Rating:

Comment form:

*Max text - 1500. Manual moderation.

Similar Poems:

Map of the New World by Derek Walcott
Derek Walcott
I Archipelagoes At the end of this sentence, rain will begin.
At the rain's edge, a sail.

Slowly the sail will lose sight of islands;
into a mist will go the belief in harbours
of an entire race.

The ten-years war is finished.
Helen's hair, a grey cloud.
Read Poem
0
195
Rating:

The Clote (Water-Lily) by William Barnes
William Barnes
O zummer clote! when the brook’s a-glidèn
So slow an’ smooth down his zedgy bed,
Upon thy broad leaves so seäfe a-ridèn
The water’s top wi’ thy yollow head,
By alder sheädes, O,
An’ bulrush beds, O,
Thou then dost float, goolden zummer clote!

The grey-bough’d withy’s a leänèn lowly
Above the water thy leaves do hide;
The bènden bulrush, a-swaÿèn slowly,
Do skirt in zummer thy river’s zide;
An’ perch in shoals, O,
Do vill the holes, O,
Where thou dost float, goolden zummer clote!
Read Poem
0
141
Rating:

‘The Moon came late’ by Mary Mapes Dodge
Mary Mapes Dodge
The moon came late to a lonesome bog,
And there sat Goggleky Gluck, the frog.
‘My stars!’ she cried, and veiled her face,
‘What very grand people they have in this place!’

Read Poem
0
131
Rating:

My Voice Not Being Proud by Louise Bogan
Louise Bogan
My voice, not being proud
Like a strong woman’s, that cries
Imperiously aloud
That death disarm her, lull her—
Screams for no mourning color
Laid menacingly, like fire,
Over my long desire.
It will end, and leave no print.
Read Poem
0
146
Rating:

Streets in Shanghai by Tomas Tranströmer
Tomas Tranströmer
1
The white butterfly in the park is being read by many.
I love that cabbage-moth as if it were a fluttering corner of truth itself!

At dawn the running crowds set our quiet planet in motion.
Then the park fills with people. To each one, eight faces polished like jade, for all
situations, to avoid making mistakes.
To each one, there's also the invisible face reflecting "something you don't talk about."
Something that appears in tired moments and is as rank as a gulp of viper schnapps with its long scaly aftertaste.
Read Poem
0
320
Rating:

from Don Juan: Canto 1, Stanzas 60-63 by Lord Byron (George Gordon)
Lord Byron (George Gordon)
60
Her eye (I'm very fond of handsome eyes)
Was large and dark, suppressing half its fire
Until she spoke, then through its soft disguise
Flash'd an expression more of pride than ire,
And love than either; and there would arise
A something in them which was not desire,
But would have been, perhaps, but for the soul
Which struggled through and chasten'd down the whole.

61
Her glossy hair was cluster'd o'er a brow
Bright with intelligence, and fair, and smooth;
Her eyebrow's shape was like the aerial bow,
Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth,
Read Poem
0
134
Rating:

Willow by Anna Akhmatova
Anna Akhmatova
...and a decrepit handful of trees.
—Aleksandr Pushkin

And I matured in peace born of command,
in the nursery of the infant century,
and the voice of man was never dear to me,
but the breeze’s voice—that I could understand.
The burdock and the nettle I preferred,
but best of all the silver willow tree.
Its weeping limbs fanned my unrest with dreams;
it lived here all my life, obligingly.
I have outlived it now, and with surprise.
There stands the stump; with foreign voices other
willows converse, beneath our, beneath those skies,
and I am hushed, as if I’d lost a brother.
Read Poem
1
171
Rating:

The Tower by William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
I

What shall I do with this absurdity —
O heart, O troubled heart — this caricature,
Decrepit age that has been tied to me
As to a dog's tail?
Never had I more
Excited, passionate, fantastical
Imagination, nor an ear and eye
Read Poem
0
172
Rating:

Love Song No. 3 by Sonia Sanchez
Sonia Sanchez
1.
i'm crazy bout that chile but she gotta go.
she don't pay me no mind no mo. guess her
mama was right to put her out cuz she
couldn't do nothin wid her. but she been
mine so long. she been my heart so long
now she breakin it wid her bad habits.
always runnin like a machine out of control;
Read Poem
0
156
Rating:

Apollo Musagetes by Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold
Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts,
Thick breaks the red flame;
All Etna heaves fiercely
Her forest-clothed frame.

Not here, O Apollo!
Are haunts meet for thee.
But, where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea,

Where the moon-silver'd inlets
Send far their light voice
Up the still vale of Thisbe,
O speed, and rejoice!

Read Poem
1
173
Rating:

Out Here Even Crows Commit Suicide by Colleen J. McElroy
Colleen J. McElroy
In a world where all the heroes
are pilots with voices like God
he brought her a strand of some woman’s

hair to wear on her wing.
She looked sideways at the ground
silent behind the cloudy film covering

her eyes knowing she would be his
forever. They cruised the city nights
Read Poem
0
116
Rating:

Here Now by Samuel Menashe
Samuel Menashe
Now and again
I am here now
And now is when
I’m here again
Read Poem
0
121
Rating:

At a VA Hospital in the Middle of the United States of America: An Act in a Play by Etheridge Knight
Etheridge Knight
Stars from five wars, scars,
Words filled with ice and fear,
Nightflares and fogginess,
and a studied regularity.
Gon’ lay down my sword ’n’ shield—
Down by the river side, down by the river side—
Down by the river side...

Former Sergeant Crothers, among the worst,
Read Poem
0
132
Rating:

The Dreamer by Eva Gore-Booth
Eva Gore-Booth
All night I stumble through the fields of light,
And chase in dreams the starry rays divine
That shine through soft folds of the robe of night,
Hung like a curtain round a sacred shrine.

When daylight dawns I leave the meadows sweet
And come back to the dark house built of clay,
Over the threshold pass with lagging feet,
Open the shutters and let in the day.
Read Poem
0
138
Rating:

The Performance by James L. Dickey
James L. Dickey
The last time I saw Donald Armstrong
He was staggering oddly off into the sun,
Going down, off the Philippine Islands.
I let my shovel fall, and put that hand
Above my eyes, and moved some way to one side
That his body might pass through the sun,

And I saw how well he was not
Standing there on his hands,
Read Poem
0
140
Rating:

Song by Stephen Spender
Stephen Spender
Stranger, you who hide my love
In the curved cheek of a smile
And sleep with her upon a tongue
Of soft lies that beguile,
Your paradisal ecstasy
Is justified is justified
By hunger of the beasts beneath
The overhanging cloud
Read Poem
0
132
Rating:

A Friendly Address by Thomas Hood
Thomas Hood
TO MRS. FRY IN NEWGATE

Sermons in stones.—As You Like It.
Out! out! damned spot.—Macbeth. I like you, Mrs. Fry! I like your name!
Read Poem
0
197
Rating:

The Indifferent Shepherdess to Colin by Ann Yearsley
Ann Yearsley
Colin, why this mistake?
Why plead thy foolish love?
My heart shall sooner break
Than I a minion prove;
Nor care I half a rush,
No snare I spread for thee:
Go home, my friend, and blush
For love and liberty.
Read Poem
0
170
Rating:

Sonnet: “Upon a day, came Sorrow in to me” by Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri
on the 9th of June 1290 Upon a day, came Sorrow in to me,
Saying, ‘I’ve come to stay with thee a while’;
Read Poem
0
128
Rating:

The Bear Hunt by Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
A wild-bear chace, didst never see?
Then hast thou lived in vain.
Thy richest bump of glorious glee,
Lies desert in thy brain.

When first my father settled here,
’Twas then the frontier line:
The panther’s scream, filled night with fear
Read Poem
0
156
Rating: