Poem - "The Plowboy" by Carl Sandburg

"The Plowboy" 

by Carl Sandburg

AFTER the last red sunset glimmer,

Black on the line of a low hill rise,

Formed into moving shadows, I saw

A plowboy and two horses lined against the gray,

Plowing in the dusk the last furrow.

The turf had a gleam of brown,

And smell of soil was in the air,

And, cool and moist, a haze of April.

Poem - "The Noon Hour" by Carl Sandburg

"The Noon Hour" 

by Carl Sandburg

SHE sits in the dust at the walls

And makes cigars,

Bending at the bench

With fingers wage-anxious,

Changing her sweat for the day's pay.

Now the noon hour has come,

And she leans with her bare arms

On the window-sill over the river,

Leans and feels at her throat

Cool-moving things out of the free open ways:

Poem - "The Liars" by Carl Sandburg

"The Liars" 

by Carl Sandburg

(March, 1919)A LIAR goes in fine clothes.

A liar goes in rags.

A liar is a liar, clothes or no clothes.

A liar is a liar and lives on the lies he tells and dies in a life of lies.

And the stonecutters earn a living—with lies—on the tombs of liars.

Aliar looks ’em in the eye

And lies to a woman,

Lies to a man, a pal, a child, a fool.

And he is an old liar; we know him many years back.

Poem - "The Year" by Carl Sandburg

"The Year" 

by Carl Sandburg

IA STORM of white petals,

Buds throwing open baby fists

Into hands of broad flowers.

IIRed roses running upward,

Clambering to the clutches of life

Soaked in crimson.

IIIRabbles of tattered leaves

Holding golden flimsy hopes

Against the tramplings

Into the pits and gullies.

Poem - "To Certain Journeymen" by Carl Sandburg

"To Certain Journeymen" 

by Carl Sandburg

UNDERTAKERS, hearse drivers, grave diggers,

I speak to you as one not afraid of your business.

You handle dust going to a long country,

You know the secret behind your job is the same whether

you lower the coffin with modern, automatic machinery,

well-oiled and noiseless, or whether the

body is laid in by naked hands and then covered

by the shovels.

Poem - "Think Of It Not, Sweet One" by John Keats

"Think Of It Not, Sweet One" 

by John Keats

Think not of it, sweet one, so;---

Give it not a tear;

Sigh thou mayst, and bid it go

Any---anywhere.

Do not lool so sad, sweet one,---

Sad and fadingly;

Shed one drop then,---it is gone---

O 'twas born to die!

Poem - "To G.A.W." by John Keats

"To G.A.W." 

by John Keats

Nymph of the downward smile and sidelong glance!

In what diviner moments of the day

Art thou most lovely?—when gone far astray

Into the labyrinths of sweet utterance,

Or when serenely wandering in a trance

Of sober thought? Or when starting away,

With careless robe to meet the morning ray,

Poem - "To Fanny" by John Keats

"To Fanny" 

by John Keats

I cry your mercy—pity—love!—aye, love!

Merciful love that tantalizes not,

One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,

Unmasked, and being seen—without a blot!

O! let me have thee whole,—all—all—be mine!

That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest

Poem - "Endymion: Book III" by John Keats

"Endymion: Book III" 

by John Keats

There are who lord it o'er their fellow-men

With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen

Their baaing vanities, to browse away

The comfortable green and juicy hay

From human pastures; or, O torturing fact!

Who, through an idiot blink, will see unpack'd

Fire-branded foxes to sear up and singe

Our gold and ripe-ear'd hopes. With not one tinge

Poem - "Fill For Me A Brimming Bowl" by John Keats

"Fill For Me A Brimming Bowl" 

by John Keats

Fill for me a brimming bowl

And in it let me drown my soul:

But put therein some drug, designed

To Banish Women from my mind:

For I want not the stream inspiring

That fills the mind with--fond desiring,

But I want as deep a draught

Poem - "Fragment of an Ode to Maia" by John Keats

"Fragment of an Ode to Maia" 

by John Keats

MOTHER of Hermes! and still youthful Maia!

May I sing to thee

As thou wast hymned on the shores of Baiae?

Or may I woo thee

In earlier Sicilian? or thy smiles

Poem - "Vintage" by Amy Lowell

"Vintage" 

by Amy Lowell

I will mix me a drink of stars, --

Large stars with polychrome needles,

Small stars jetting maroon and crimson,

Cool, quiet, green stars.

I will tear them out of the sky,

And squeeze them over an old silver cup,

And I will pour the cold scorn of my Beloved into it,

So that my drink shall be bubbled with ice.

Poem - "Sword Blades and Poppy Seed" by Amy Lowell

"Sword Blades and Poppy Seed" 

by Amy Lowell

A drifting, April, twilight sky,

A wind which blew the puddles dry,

And slapped the river into waves

That ran and hid among the staves

Of an old wharf. A watery light

Touched bleak the granite bridge, and white

Without the slightest tinge of gold,

The city shivered in the cold.

All day my thoughts had lain as dead,

Unborn and bursting in my head.

From time to time I wrote a word

Which lines and circles overscored.

Poem - "The Allies" by Amy Lowell

"The Allies" 

by Amy Lowell

August 14th, 1914

Into the brazen, burnished sky, the cry hurls itself. The

zigzagging cry

of hoarse throats, it floats against the hard winds, and binds the

head

of the serpent to its tail, the long snail-slow serpent of marching

men.

Men weighed down with rifles and knapsacks, and parching with war.

The cry jars and splits against the brazen, burnished sky.

This is the war of wars, and the cause? Has

this writhing worm of men

a cause?

Crackling against the polished sky is an eagle

with a sword. The eagle is red

and its head is flame.

Poem - "The Foreigner" by Amy Lowell

"The Foreigner" 

by Amy Lowell

Have at you, you Devils!

My back's to this tree,

For you're nothing so nice

That the hind-side of me

Would escape your assault.

Come on now, all three!

Here's a dandified gentleman,

Rapier at point,

And a wrist which whirls round

Like a circular joint.

A spatter of blood, man!

That's just to anoint

And make supple your limbs.

Poem - "An Aquarium" by Amy Lowell

"An Aquarium" 

by Amy Lowell

Streaks of green and yellow iridescence,

Silver shiftings,

Rings veering out of rings,

Silver -- gold --

Grey-green opaqueness sliding down,

With sharp white bubbles

Shooting and dancing,

Flinging quickly outward.

Nosing the bubbles,

Swallowing them,

Fish.

Blue shadows against silver-saffron water,

The light rippling over them

In steel-bright tremors.

Poem - "A Roxbury Garden" by Amy Lowell

"A Roxbury Garden" 

by Amy Lowell

I

Hoops

Blue and pink sashes,

Criss-cross shoes,

Minna and Stella run out into the garden

To play at hoop.

Up and down the garden-paths they race,

In the yellow sunshine,

Each with a big round hoop

White as a stripped willow-wand.

Round and round turn the hoops,

Their diamond whiteness cleaving the yellow sunshine.

Poem - "At Night" by Amy Lowell

"At Night" 

by Amy Lowell

The wind is singing through the trees to-night,

A deep-voiced song of rushing cadences

And crashing intervals. No summer breeze

Is this, though hot July is at its height,

Gone is her gentler music; with delight

She listens to this booming like the seas,

These elemental, loud necessities

Which call to her to answer their swift might.

Poem - "A Lady" by Amy Lowell

"A Lady" 

by Amy Lowell

You are beautiful and faded

Like an old opera tune

Played upon a harpsichord;

Or like the sun-flooded silks

Of an eighteenth-century boudoir.

In your eyes

Smoulder the fallen roses of out-lived minutes,

And the perfume of your soul

Is vague and suffusing,

With the pungence of sealed spice-jars.

Poem - "Landowners" by Sylvia Plath

"Landowners" 

by Sylvia Plath

From my rented attic with no earth

To call my own except the air-motes,

I malign the leaden perspective

Of identical gray brick houses,

Orange roof-tiles, orange chimney pots,

And see that first house, as if between

Mirrors, engendering a spectral

Corridor of inane replicas,

Flimsily peopled.