Not for That City

N
Not for that city of the level sun,
Its golden streets and glittering gates ablaze—
The shadeless, sleepless city of white days,
White nights, or nights and days that are as one—
We weary, when all is said , all thought, all done.
We strain our eyes beyond this dusk to see
What, from the threshold of eternity
We shall step into. No, I think we shun
The splendour of that everlasting glare,
The clamour of that never-ending song.
And if for anything we greatly long,
It is for some remote and quiet stair
Which winds to silence and a space for sleep
Too sound for waking and for dreams too deep.

262
Rating:

Comment form:

*Max text - 1500. Manual moderation.

Similar Poems:

The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Fit the First
The Landing

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.

"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Read Poem
0
469
Rating:

The War-song of Dinas Vawr by Thomas Love Peacock
Thomas Love Peacock

The mountain sheep are sweeter,
But the valley sheep are fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.
We made an expedition;
We met a host, and quelled it;
We forced a strong position,
And killed the men who held it.

On Dyfed's richest valley,
Where herds of kine were browsing,
We made a mighty sally,
To furnish our carousing.
Fierce warriors rushed to meet us;
Read Poem
0
282
Rating:

To an army wife, in Sardis... by Sappho
Sappho
To an army wife, in Sardis:

Some say a cavalry corps,
some infantry, some, again,
will maintain that the swift oars

of our fleet are the finest
sight on dark earth; but I say
that whatever one loves, is.

This is easily proved: did
Read Poem
0
312
Rating:

Gliding O'er All by Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Gliding o'er all, through all,
Through Nature, Time, and Space,
As a ship on the waters advancing,
The voyage of the soul—not life alone,
Death, many deaths I'll sing.
Read Poem
0
321
Rating:

Fame is the one that does not stay — (1507) by Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson
Fame is the one that does not stay —
It's occupant must die
Or out of sight of estimate
Ascend incessantly —
Or be that most insolvent thing
A Lightning in the Germ —
Electrical the embryo
But we demand the Flame
Read Poem
0
265
Rating:

The Slave and the Iron Lace by Margaret Danner
Margaret Danner
The craving of Samuel Rouse for clearance to create
was surely as hot as the iron that buffeted him. His passion
for freedom so strong that it molded the smouldering fashions
he laced, for how also could a slave plot
or counterplot such incomparable shapes,

form or reform, for house after house,
the intricate Patio pattern, the delicate
Rose and Lyre, the Debutante Settee,
Read Poem
0
272
Rating:

Israfel by Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures. —KORAN In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
“Whose heart-strings are a lute”;
Read Poem
0
297
Rating:

The Laboratory by Robert Browning
Robert Browning
Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly,
May gaze thro’ these faint smokes curling whitely,
As thou pliest thy trade in this devil’s-smithy—
Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?

He is with her, and they know that I know
Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow
While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear
Empty church, to pray God in, for them!—I am here.

Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste,
Pound at thy powder,—I am not in haste!
Better sit thus and observe thy strange things,
Than go where men wait me and dance at the King’s.

Read Poem
0
334
Rating:

The Ecstasy by John Donne
John Donne
Where, like a pillow on a bed
A pregnant bank swell'd up to rest
The violet's reclining head,
Sat we two, one another's best.
Our hands were firmly cemented
With a fast balm, which thence did spring;
Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
Our eyes upon one double string;
So to'intergraft our hands, as yet
Was all the means to make us one,
And pictures in our eyes to get
Was all our propagation.
As 'twixt two equal armies fate
Suspends uncertain victory,
Our souls (which to advance their state
Read Poem
0
387
Rating:

Dejection: An Ode by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon,
With the old Moon in her arms;
And I fear, I fear, my Master dear!
We shall have a deadly storm.
(Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence)
I
Well! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made
The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,
This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence
Read Poem
0
335
Rating:

The Universal Prayer by Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Father of all! in every age,
In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

Thou Great First Cause, least understood:
Who all my sense confined
To know but this—that thou art good,
And that myself am blind:

Yet gave me, in this dark estate,
To see the good from ill;
And binding Nature fast in fate,
Left free the human will.

Read Poem
0
338
Rating:

To Lysander by Aphra Behn
Aphra Behn
(On some Verses he writ, and asking more for his Heart than ‘twas worth.) I
Take back that Heart, you with such Caution give,
Take the fond valu’d Trifle back;
I hate Love-Merchants that a Trade wou’d drive
Read Poem
0
305
Rating:

Voyages by Hart Crane
Hart Crane
I

Above the fresh ruffles of the surf
Bright striped urchins flay each other with sand.
They have contrived a conquest for shell shucks,
And their fingers crumble fragments of baked weed
Gaily digging and scattering.

And in answer to their treble interjections
The sun beats lightning on the waves,
Read Poem
0
337
Rating:

Do not compare: what lives is incomparable. by Osip Mandelstam
Osip Mandelstam
Do not compare: what lives is incomparable.
I felt a a kind of tender fear
as I took on the plains' equality
and the wide sky became my malady.

I summoned the air, my serving man,
expected from him services or news,
made ready to set out, sail on the arc
of expeditions that could never start.
Read Poem
0
303
Rating:

Metals Metals by Russell Edson
Russell Edson
Out of the golden West, out of the leaden East, into the iron South, and to the silver North . . . Oh metals metals everywhere, forks and knives, belt buckles and hooks . . . When you are beaten you sing. You do not give anyone a chance . . .

You come out of the earth and fly with men. You lodge in men. You hurt them terribly. You tear them. You do not care for anyone.

Oh metals metals, why are you always hanging about? Is it not enough that you hold men’s wrists? Is it not enough that we let you in our mouths?

Why is it you will not do anything for yourself? Why is it you always wait for men to show you what to be?

And men love you. Perhaps it is because you soften so often.
You did, it is true, pour into anything men asked you to. It has always proved you to be somewhat softer than you really are.

Oh metals metals, why are you always filling my house?
You are like family, you do not care for anyone.
Read Poem
0
1.1K
Rating:

from The Seasons: Winter by James Thomson
James Thomson
See, Winter comes to rule the varied year,
Sullen and sad, with all his rising train—
Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my theme,
These, that exalt the soul to solemn thought
And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms!
Congenial horrors, hail! With frequent foot,
Pleas’d have I, in my cheerful morn of life,
When nurs’d by careless solitude I liv’d
And sung of Nature with unceasing joy,
Pleas’d have I wander’d through your rough domain;
Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure;
Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst;
Or seen the deep-fermenting tempest brew’d
In the grim evening-sky. Thus pass’d the time,
Till through the lucid chambers of the south
Read Poem
0
346
Rating:

I Grant You Ample Leave by George Eliot
George Eliot
Highlight Actions Enable or disable annotations
Read Poem
0
286
Rating:

Faces at the First Farmworkers’ Constitutional Convention by José Montoya
José Montoya
Just the other day
In Fresno
In a giant arena
Architectured
To reject the very poor
Cesar Chavez brought
The very poor
Together
Read Poem
0
431
Rating:

To Rosa by Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
You are young, and I am older;
You are hopeful, I am not—
Enjoy life, ere it grow colder—
Pluck the roses ere they rot.

Teach your beau to heed the lay—
That sunshine soon is lost in shade—
That now’s as good as any day—
Read Poem
1
345
Rating:

Musée des Beaux Arts by W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
December 1938 About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Read Poem
0
346
Rating: