Category: Poetry

The Coming of Night

2nd April 2024
Poetry
0 Comment
  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
  25. The Crying of Water
  26. A Rose Has Thorns As Well As Honey
  27. Winter
  28. The Dark Cavalier
  29. There is no Life or Death
  30. Sheep in Winter
  31. To a Snowflake
  32. Sextain
  33. A Crocodile
  34. Sea Fever
  35. The Giant Cactus of Arizona
  36. The Coming of Night
  37. Going to the Picnic
  38. Moon Tonight
  39. A Southern Night
  40. Greenness
  41. Twilight
  42. On the Wing
  43. In Summer
  44. Before Parting
  45. Sonnet
  46. The Red Wheelbarrow
  47. Acceptance
  48. At The Pool
  49. Incurable
  50. Bluebird and Cardinal
  51. [Say What You Will, And Scratch My Heart To Find]
  52. The River
  53. Vas Doloris
  54. Squirrel
  55. Ghosts
  56. The Spirit of Poetry
  57. Nightfall in the Tropics Scheduled for 10th December 2024
  58. Journey of the Magi Scheduled for 23rd December 2024
  59. The City Lights Scheduled for 7th January 2025
New York City at sunset

Photo by Muzammil Soorma on Unsplash

The sun is near set  
And the tall buildings  
Become teeth  
Tearing bloodily at the sky’s throat; 
The blank wall by my window 
Becomes night sky over the marches  
When there is no moon, and no wind,  
And little fishes splash in the pools. 

I had lit my candle to make a song for you,  
But I have forgotten it for I am very tired; 
And the candle … a yellow moth … 
Flutters, flutters,  
Deep in my brain.  
My song was about, ‘a foreign lady 
Who was beautiful and sad,  
Who was forsaken, and who died  
A thousand years ago.’ 
But the cracked cup at my elbow, 
With dregs of tea in it,  
Fixes my tired thought more surely  
Than the song I made for you and forgot … 
That I might give you this.  

I am tired.  

I am so tired 
That my soul is a great plain  
Made desolate, 
And the beating of a million hearts  
Is but the whisper of night winds 
Blowing across it. 

Skipwith Cannell (1887–1957)  was an American poet.

To read more poems, click here.

The Giant Cactus of Arizona

26th March 2024
Poetry
0 Comment
  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
  25. The Crying of Water
  26. A Rose Has Thorns As Well As Honey
  27. Winter
  28. The Dark Cavalier
  29. There is no Life or Death
  30. Sheep in Winter
  31. To a Snowflake
  32. Sextain
  33. A Crocodile
  34. Sea Fever
  35. The Giant Cactus of Arizona
  36. The Coming of Night
  37. Going to the Picnic
  38. Moon Tonight
  39. A Southern Night
  40. Greenness
  41. Twilight
  42. On the Wing
  43. In Summer
  44. Before Parting
  45. Sonnet
  46. The Red Wheelbarrow
  47. Acceptance
  48. At The Pool
  49. Incurable
  50. Bluebird and Cardinal
  51. [Say What You Will, And Scratch My Heart To Find]
  52. The River
  53. Vas Doloris
  54. Squirrel
  55. Ghosts
  56. The Spirit of Poetry
  57. Nightfall in the Tropics Scheduled for 10th December 2024
  58. Journey of the Magi Scheduled for 23rd December 2024
  59. The City Lights Scheduled for 7th January 2025
Arizona landscape with cactus in the foreground

Photo by Jeremy Alford on Unsplash

The cactus in the desert stands  
    Like time’s inviolate sentinel,  
Watching the sun-washed waste of sands 
     Lest they their ancient secrets tell.  
And the lost lore of mournful lands 
     It knows alone and guards too well.
  
Wiser than Sphynx or pyramid,  
     It points a stark hand at the sky,  
And all the stars alight or hid  
     It counts as they go rolling by; 
And mysteries the gods forbid 
     Darken its heavy memory.  

I asked how old the world was—yea, 
     And why yon ruddy mountain grew 
Out of hell’s fire. By night nor day  
     It answered not, though all it knew,  
But lifted, as it stopped my way,  
     Its wrinkled fingers toward the blue
  
Inscrutable and stern and still  
     It waits the everlasting doom.  
Races and years may do their will—
     Lo, it will rise above their tomb,  
Till the drugged earth has drunk her fill 
     Of light, and falls asleep in gloom. 

Harriet Monroe (1860–1936) was an American poet, critic, and editor. She is best known as the founding publisher and editor of Poetry magazine.

To read more poems, click here.

Sea Fever

12th March 2024
Poetry
0 Comment
  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
  25. The Crying of Water
  26. A Rose Has Thorns As Well As Honey
  27. Winter
  28. The Dark Cavalier
  29. There is no Life or Death
  30. Sheep in Winter
  31. To a Snowflake
  32. Sextain
  33. A Crocodile
  34. Sea Fever
  35. The Giant Cactus of Arizona
  36. The Coming of Night
  37. Going to the Picnic
  38. Moon Tonight
  39. A Southern Night
  40. Greenness
  41. Twilight
  42. On the Wing
  43. In Summer
  44. Before Parting
  45. Sonnet
  46. The Red Wheelbarrow
  47. Acceptance
  48. At The Pool
  49. Incurable
  50. Bluebird and Cardinal
  51. [Say What You Will, And Scratch My Heart To Find]
  52. The River
  53. Vas Doloris
  54. Squirrel
  55. Ghosts
  56. The Spirit of Poetry
  57. Nightfall in the Tropics Scheduled for 10th December 2024
  58. Journey of the Magi Scheduled for 23rd December 2024
  59. The City Lights Scheduled for 7th January 2025
Close-up of sea

I must go down to the seas again, to the
      lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer
      her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and
      the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey
      dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call
      of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be
      denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white
      clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and
      the sea-gulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again, to the
      vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way, where
      the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing
      fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the
      long trick’s over.

John Masefield (1878–1967) was an English poet and children’s fiction writer.

To read more poems, click here.

A Crocodile

5th March 2024
Poetry
0 Comment
  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
  25. The Crying of Water
  26. A Rose Has Thorns As Well As Honey
  27. Winter
  28. The Dark Cavalier
  29. There is no Life or Death
  30. Sheep in Winter
  31. To a Snowflake
  32. Sextain
  33. A Crocodile
  34. Sea Fever
  35. The Giant Cactus of Arizona
  36. The Coming of Night
  37. Going to the Picnic
  38. Moon Tonight
  39. A Southern Night
  40. Greenness
  41. Twilight
  42. On the Wing
  43. In Summer
  44. Before Parting
  45. Sonnet
  46. The Red Wheelbarrow
  47. Acceptance
  48. At The Pool
  49. Incurable
  50. Bluebird and Cardinal
  51. [Say What You Will, And Scratch My Heart To Find]
  52. The River
  53. Vas Doloris
  54. Squirrel
  55. Ghosts
  56. The Spirit of Poetry
  57. Nightfall in the Tropics Scheduled for 10th December 2024
  58. Journey of the Magi Scheduled for 23rd December 2024
  59. The City Lights Scheduled for 7th January 2025
Crocodile

Photo by Kyle Nieber on Unsplash.

Hard by the lilied Nile I saw
A duskish river-dragon stretched along,
The brown habergeon of his limbs enamelled
With sanguine almandines and rainy pearl:
And on his back there lay a young one sleeping,
No bigger than a mouse; with eyes like beads,
And a small fragment of its speckled egg
Remaining on its harmless, pulpy snout;
A thing to laugh at, as it gaped to catch
The baulking merry flies. In the iron jaws
Of the great devil-beast, like a pale soul
Fluttering in rocky hell, lightsomely flew
A snowy trochilus, with roseate beak
Tearing the hairy leeches from his throat.

Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803 – 1849) was an English poet, playwright and doctor.

Mark McGuinness reads and discusses the poem in his podcast A Mouthful of Air, a podcast of classic and contemporary poetry. Podcast transcription is available.

To read more poems, click here.

Sextain

27th February 2024
Poetry
0 Comment
  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
  25. The Crying of Water
  26. A Rose Has Thorns As Well As Honey
  27. Winter
  28. The Dark Cavalier
  29. There is no Life or Death
  30. Sheep in Winter
  31. To a Snowflake
  32. Sextain
  33. A Crocodile
  34. Sea Fever
  35. The Giant Cactus of Arizona
  36. The Coming of Night
  37. Going to the Picnic
  38. Moon Tonight
  39. A Southern Night
  40. Greenness
  41. Twilight
  42. On the Wing
  43. In Summer
  44. Before Parting
  45. Sonnet
  46. The Red Wheelbarrow
  47. Acceptance
  48. At The Pool
  49. Incurable
  50. Bluebird and Cardinal
  51. [Say What You Will, And Scratch My Heart To Find]
  52. The River
  53. Vas Doloris
  54. Squirrel
  55. Ghosts
  56. The Spirit of Poetry
  57. Nightfall in the Tropics Scheduled for 10th December 2024
  58. Journey of the Magi Scheduled for 23rd December 2024
  59. The City Lights Scheduled for 7th January 2025
Snowdon From Pernsarn, a painting by Charles Thomas Burt

Snowdon From Pernsarn by Charles Thomas Burt. Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash.

The Heaven doth not contain so many stars,
So many leaves not prostrate lie in woods
When autumn’s old and Boreas sounds his wars,
So many waves have not the ocean floods,
As my rent mind hath torments all the night,
And heart spends sighs when Phœbus brings the light.

Why should I have been partner of the light,
Who, crost in birth by bad aspéct of stars,
Have never since had happy day or night?
Why was not I a liver in the woods,
Or citizen of Thetis’s crystal floods,
Than made a man, for love and fortune’s wars?

I look each day when death should end the wars,
Uncivil wars, ’twixt sense and reason’s light;
My pains I count to mountains, meads, and floods,
And of my sorrow partners make the stars;
All desolate I haunt the fearful woods,
When I should give myself to rest at night.

With watchful eyes I ne’er behold the night,
Mother of peace, but ah! to me of wars,
And Cynthia, queen-like, shining through the woods,
When straight those lamps come in my thought, whose light
My judgment dazzled, passing brightest stars,
And then mine eyes en-isle themselves with floods.

Turn to their springs again first shall the floods,
Clear shall the sun the sad and gloomy night,
To dance about the pole cease shall the stars,
The elements renew their ancient wars
Shall first, and be deprived of place and light,
E’er I find rest in city, fields, or woods.

End these my days, indwellers of the woods,
Take this my life, ye deep and raging floods;
Sun, never rise to clear me with thy light,
Horror and darkness, keep a lasting night;
Consume me, care, with thy intestine wars,
And stay your influence o’er me, bright stars!

In vain the stars, indwellers of the woods,
Care, horror, wars, I call, and raging floods,
For all have sworn no night shall dim my sight.

William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585 –1649) was a Scottish poet.

Mark McGuinness reads and discusses the poem in his podcast A Mouthful of Air, a podcast of classic and contemporary poetry. Podcast transcription is available.

To read more poems, click here.

To a Snowflake

13th February 2024
Poetry
0 Comment
  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
  25. The Crying of Water
  26. A Rose Has Thorns As Well As Honey
  27. Winter
  28. The Dark Cavalier
  29. There is no Life or Death
  30. Sheep in Winter
  31. To a Snowflake
  32. Sextain
  33. A Crocodile
  34. Sea Fever
  35. The Giant Cactus of Arizona
  36. The Coming of Night
  37. Going to the Picnic
  38. Moon Tonight
  39. A Southern Night
  40. Greenness
  41. Twilight
  42. On the Wing
  43. In Summer
  44. Before Parting
  45. Sonnet
  46. The Red Wheelbarrow
  47. Acceptance
  48. At The Pool
  49. Incurable
  50. Bluebird and Cardinal
  51. [Say What You Will, And Scratch My Heart To Find]
  52. The River
  53. Vas Doloris
  54. Squirrel
  55. Ghosts
  56. The Spirit of Poetry
  57. Nightfall in the Tropics Scheduled for 10th December 2024
  58. Journey of the Magi Scheduled for 23rd December 2024
  59. The City Lights Scheduled for 7th January 2025
Snow landscape with a bench by the sea and heavy falling snowflakes.

What heart could have thought you?— 
Past our devisal 
(O filigree petal!) 
Fashioned so purely, 
Fragilely, surely, 
From what Paradisal 
Imagineless metal, 
Too costly for cost? 
Who hammered you, wrought you, 
From argentine vapour?— 
“God was my shaper. 
Passing surmisal, 
He hammered, He wrought me, 
From curled silver vapour, 
To lust of His mind;— 
Thou could’st not have thought me! 
So purely, so palely, 
Tinily, surely, 
Mightily, frailly, 
Insculped and embossed, 
With His hammer of wind, 
And His graver of frost.

Francis Thompson (1859 –1907) was an English poet; he is best known for his poem “The Hound of Heaven.”

 

To read more poems, click here.

Sheep in Winter

6th February 2024
Poetry
0 Comment
  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
  25. The Crying of Water
  26. A Rose Has Thorns As Well As Honey
  27. Winter
  28. The Dark Cavalier
  29. There is no Life or Death
  30. Sheep in Winter
  31. To a Snowflake
  32. Sextain
  33. A Crocodile
  34. Sea Fever
  35. The Giant Cactus of Arizona
  36. The Coming of Night
  37. Going to the Picnic
  38. Moon Tonight
  39. A Southern Night
  40. Greenness
  41. Twilight
  42. On the Wing
  43. In Summer
  44. Before Parting
  45. Sonnet
  46. The Red Wheelbarrow
  47. Acceptance
  48. At The Pool
  49. Incurable
  50. Bluebird and Cardinal
  51. [Say What You Will, And Scratch My Heart To Find]
  52. The River
  53. Vas Doloris
  54. Squirrel
  55. Ghosts
  56. The Spirit of Poetry
  57. Nightfall in the Tropics Scheduled for 10th December 2024
  58. Journey of the Magi Scheduled for 23rd December 2024
  59. The City Lights Scheduled for 7th January 2025
Two sheep in the snow

The sheep get up and make their many tracks 
And bear a load of snow upon their backs, 
And gnaw the frozen turnip to the ground 
With sharp quick bite, and then go noising round 
The boy that pecks the turnips all the day 
And knocks his hands to keep the cold away 
And laps his legs in straw to keep them warm 
And hides behind the hedges from the storm. 
The sheep, as tame as dogs, go where he goes 
And try to shake their fleeces from the snows, 
Then leave their frozen meal and wander round 
The stubble stack that stands beside the ground, 
And lie all night and face the drizzling storm 
And shun the hovel where they might be warm.

John Clare (1793 – 1864) was an English peasant poet of the Romantic school, and one of the English literature’s finest nature poets.

To read more poems, click here.

There is no Life or Death

23rd January 2024
Poetry
0 Comment
  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
  25. The Crying of Water
  26. A Rose Has Thorns As Well As Honey
  27. Winter
  28. The Dark Cavalier
  29. There is no Life or Death
  30. Sheep in Winter
  31. To a Snowflake
  32. Sextain
  33. A Crocodile
  34. Sea Fever
  35. The Giant Cactus of Arizona
  36. The Coming of Night
  37. Going to the Picnic
  38. Moon Tonight
  39. A Southern Night
  40. Greenness
  41. Twilight
  42. On the Wing
  43. In Summer
  44. Before Parting
  45. Sonnet
  46. The Red Wheelbarrow
  47. Acceptance
  48. At The Pool
  49. Incurable
  50. Bluebird and Cardinal
  51. [Say What You Will, And Scratch My Heart To Find]
  52. The River
  53. Vas Doloris
  54. Squirrel
  55. Ghosts
  56. The Spirit of Poetry
  57. Nightfall in the Tropics Scheduled for 10th December 2024
  58. Journey of the Magi Scheduled for 23rd December 2024
  59. The City Lights Scheduled for 7th January 2025
Abstract painting in blue hues

There is no Life or Death, 
Only activity 
And in the absolute 
Is no declivity. 
There is no Love or Lust 
Only propensity 
Who would possess 
Is a nonentity. 
There is no First or Last 
Only equality 
And who would rule 
Joins the majority. 
There is no Space or Time 
Only intensity, 
And tame things 
Have no immensity.

Mina Loy (1882 – 1966) was a British-born artist, writer, poet, and painter labeled as a Futurist, Dadaist, Surrealist, feminist, conceptualist, modernist, and post-modernist artist.

To read more poems, click here.

The Dark Cavalier

9th January 2024
Poetry
0 Comment
  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
  25. The Crying of Water
  26. A Rose Has Thorns As Well As Honey
  27. Winter
  28. The Dark Cavalier
  29. There is no Life or Death
  30. Sheep in Winter
  31. To a Snowflake
  32. Sextain
  33. A Crocodile
  34. Sea Fever
  35. The Giant Cactus of Arizona
  36. The Coming of Night
  37. Going to the Picnic
  38. Moon Tonight
  39. A Southern Night
  40. Greenness
  41. Twilight
  42. On the Wing
  43. In Summer
  44. Before Parting
  45. Sonnet
  46. The Red Wheelbarrow
  47. Acceptance
  48. At The Pool
  49. Incurable
  50. Bluebird and Cardinal
  51. [Say What You Will, And Scratch My Heart To Find]
  52. The River
  53. Vas Doloris
  54. Squirrel
  55. Ghosts
  56. The Spirit of Poetry
  57. Nightfall in the Tropics Scheduled for 10th December 2024
  58. Journey of the Magi Scheduled for 23rd December 2024
  59. The City Lights Scheduled for 7th January 2025
Shadow of tree branches on a wall

I am the Dark Cavalier; I am the Last Lover: 
My arms shall welcome you when other arms are tired; 
I stand to wait for you, patient in the darkness, 
Offering forgetfulness of all that you desired. 

I ask no merriment, no pretense of gladness, 
I can love heavy lids and lips without their rose; 
Though you are sorrowful you will not weary me; 
I will not go from you when all the tired world goes. 

I am the Dark Cavalier; I am the Last Lover; 
I promise faithfulness no other lips may keep; 
Safe in my bridal place, comforted by darkness, 
You shall lie happily, smiling in your sleep.

Margaret Widdemer (1884 – 1978) was an American poet, novelist, and children’s writer.

To read more poems, click here.

Winter

2nd January 2024
Poetry
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  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
  25. The Crying of Water
  26. A Rose Has Thorns As Well As Honey
  27. Winter
  28. The Dark Cavalier
  29. There is no Life or Death
  30. Sheep in Winter
  31. To a Snowflake
  32. Sextain
  33. A Crocodile
  34. Sea Fever
  35. The Giant Cactus of Arizona
  36. The Coming of Night
  37. Going to the Picnic
  38. Moon Tonight
  39. A Southern Night
  40. Greenness
  41. Twilight
  42. On the Wing
  43. In Summer
  44. Before Parting
  45. Sonnet
  46. The Red Wheelbarrow
  47. Acceptance
  48. At The Pool
  49. Incurable
  50. Bluebird and Cardinal
  51. [Say What You Will, And Scratch My Heart To Find]
  52. The River
  53. Vas Doloris
  54. Squirrel
  55. Ghosts
  56. The Spirit of Poetry
  57. Nightfall in the Tropics Scheduled for 10th December 2024
  58. Journey of the Magi Scheduled for 23rd December 2024
  59. The City Lights Scheduled for 7th January 2025
Snow

Cold, moist, young phlegmy winter now doth lie
In swaddling clouts, like new-born infancy; 
Bound up with frosts, and fur’d with hail & snows,
And, like an infant, still it taller grows. 
December is my first, and now the sun 
To the southward Tropick his swift race doth run. 
This month he’s hous’d in horned Capricorn, 
From thence he ’gins to length the shortened morn, 
Through Christendom with great festivity, 
Now’s held (but guessed) for blest Nativity. 
Cold, frozen January next comes in,
Chilling the blood, and shrinking up the skin.
In Aquarius now keeps the long-wish’d sun,
And northward his unwearied course doth run.
The day much longer than it was before, 
The cold not lessened, but augmented more.
Now toes and ears, and fingers often freeze,
And travelers their noses sometimes leese.
Moist snowy February is my last,
I care not how the winter-time doth haste.
In Pisces now the golden sun doth shine, 
And northward still approaches to the line.
The rivers ’gin to ope, the snows to melt, 
And some warm glances from his face are felt;
Which is increased by the lengthen’d day, 
Until by’s heat, he drive all cold away. 
And thus the year in circle runneth round; 
Where first it did begin, in th’ end its found.

Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672) was an England-born American poet, and the first woman to be recognized as an accomplished New World Poet.

To read more poems, click here.