Poems List
Explore poems from our collection
All Day Long
All Day Long
All day long in fog and wind,
The waves have flung their beating crests
Against the palisades of adamant.
My boy, he went to sea, long…
Adelaide Crapsey
Adelaide Crapsey
Among the bumble-bees in red-top hay, a freckled field of brown-eyed Susans dripping
yellow leaves in July,
I read your heart in a book.…
A.E.F.
A.E.F.
There will be a rusty gun on the wall, sweetheart,
The rifle grooves curling with flakes of rust.
A spider will make a silver string nest in the
d…
A Tall Man
A Tall Man
The mouth of this man is a gaunt strong mouth.
The head of this man is a gaunt strong head.
The jaws of this man are bone of the R…
A Million Young Work Men
A Million Young Work Men
A million young workmen straight and strong lay stiff on the grass and roads,
And the million are now under soil and their rottening f…
A Father To His Son
A Father To His Son
A father sees his son nearing manhood.
What shall he tell that son?
'Life is hard; be steel; be a rock.'
And this might stand h…
A Coin
A Coin
Your western heads here cast on money,
You are the two that fade away together,
Partners in the mist.
Lunging buffalo shoulder, …
Your Picture
Your Picture
It's with your laughing picture that I'm living now,
You whose wrists are so slender and crackle at the joints,
You who wring your hands yet…
Without A Title
Without A Title
So aloof, so meek in your ways,
Now you're fire, you're pure combustion.
Only let me lock up your beauty
Deep, deep down in a poem'…
Winter Sky
Winter Sky
Ice-chips plucked whole from the smoke,
the past week’s stars all frozen in flight,
Head over heels the skater’s club goes,
clinking its…
Winter Nears
Winter Nears
Winter nears. Once more
the bear’s secret retreat
will vanish under mud’s floor,
to a child’s fretful grief.
Huts will wak…
White Night
White Night
I keep thinking of times that are long past,
Of a house in the Petersburg Quarter.
You had come from the steppeland Kursk Province,
Of …
Wet Paint
Wet Paint
'Look out! Wet paint.' My soul was blind,
I have to pay the price,
All marked with stains of calves and cheeks
And hands and lips and eye…
Unique Days
Unique Days
How I remember solstice days
Through many winters long completed!
Each unrepeatable, unique,
And each one countless times repeated.
To Anna Akhmatova
To Anna Akhmatova
I think I can call on words
that will last: you are there.
But if I can’t, no matter –
I’ll persist, I won’t care.
To the Memory of Demon
To the Memory of Demon
Used to come in the blue
Of the glacier, at night, from Tamara.
With his wingtips he drew
Where the nightmares should boom, …
There'll be no one in the house...
There'll be no one in the house...
There'll be no one in the house
Save for twilight. All alone,
Winter's day seen in the space that's
Made by curt…
Three Variants
Three Variants
1
When in front of you hangs the day with its
Smallest detail-fine or crude-
The intensely hot cracking squirrel-sounds
D…
The Weeping Garden
The Weeping Garden
It’s terrible! – all drip and listening.
Whether, as ever, it’s loneliness,
splashing a branch, like lace, on the window,
or whe…
The Steppe
The Steppe
How lovely those journeys into quiet!
Boundless the steppe, like a seascape,
ants rustle, and the feather-grass sighs,
mosquitoes go whi…
The shiv'ring piano, foaming at the mouth
The shiv'ring piano, foaming at the mouth
The shiv'ring piano, foaming at the mouth,
Will wrench you by its ravings, discompose you.
'My darling,' you wi…
The Patient's Sweater
The Patient's Sweater
A life of its own and a long one is led
By this penguin, with nothing to do with the breast-
The wingless pullover, the patient's ol…
The Linden Avenue
The Linden Avenue
A house of unimagined beauty
Is set in parkland, cool and dark;
Gates with an arch; then meadows, hillocks,
And oats and woods be…
The garden scatters burnt-up beetles...
The garden scatters burnt-up beetles...
The garden scatters burnt-up beetles
Like brazen ash, from braziers burst.
I witness, by my lighted candle,