Full many a glorious morning have I seen / William Shakespeare

XXXIII 

Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace.
Even so my sun one early morn did shine
With all-triumphant splendour on my brow;
But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;
The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.
     Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
     Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.

~~
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
from Shakespeare's Sonnets (London: John Lane, 1899)

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Shakespeare biography
Shakespeare's Sonnets

Analysis of Sonnet 33

Much in Little / Yvor Winters

Much in Little 

Amid the iris and the rose,
The honeysuckle and the bay,
The wild earth for a moment goes
In dust or weed another way.

Small though its corner be, the weed
Will yet intrude its creeping beard;
The harsh blade and the hairy seed
Recall the brutal earth we feared.

And if no water touch the dust
In some far corner, and one dare
To breathe upon it, one may trust
The spectre on the summer air:

The risen dust alive with fire,
The fire made visible, a blur
Interrate, the pervasive ire
Of foxtail and of hoarhound burr.

~~
Yvor Winters (1900-1968)
from The Giant Weapon, 1943

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Yvor Winters biography

The Vast Hour / Genevieve Taggard

The Vast Hour

All essences of sweetness from the white
Warm day go up in vapor, when the dark
Comes down. Ascends the tune of meadow-lark,
Ascends the noon-time smell of grass, when night
Takes sunlight from the world, and gives it ease.
Mysterious wings have brushed the air; and light
Float all the ghosts of sense and sound and sight;
The silent hive is echoing the bees.
So stir my thoughts at this slow, solemn time.
Now only is there certainty for me
When all the day's distilled and understood.
Now light meets darkness: now my tendrils climb
In this vast hour, up the living tree,
Where gloom foregathers, and the stern winds brood.

~~
Genevieve Taggard (1894-1948)
from For Eager Lovers, 1922

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Genevieve Taggard biography

Back Yard / Carl Sandburg

Back Yard

Shine on, O moon of summer.
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,
All silver under your rain to-night.

An Italian boy is sending songs to you to-night from an accordion.

A Polish boy is out with his best girl; they marry next
     month; to-night they are throwing you kisses.

An old man next door is dreaming over a sheen that sits in a cherry tree in his back yard.

The clocks say I must go – I stay here sitting on the
     back porch drinking white thoughts you rain down.

          Shine on, O moon,
Shake out more and more silver changes.

~~
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
from Chicago Poems, 1916

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Carl Sandburg biography

7/16/69 / George J. Dance

7/16/69

‘Observe the land,’ one said. ‘How small is man.’

 A railway.

‘Observe the sea,’ one said. ‘How small is man.’

 A steamship.

‘Observe the sky,’ one said. ‘How small is man.’

 An airplane.

How small is man? He reaches for his height.

‘Observe the heavens,’ one said. ‘How small is man.’

 Apollo.

~~
George J. Dance, 1974/2014
from Doggerel, and other doggerel, 2015

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

George J. Dance biography

Poppies in July / Sylvia Plath

Poppies in July

Little poppies, little hell flames,
Do you do no harm?

You flicker. I cannot touch you.
I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns.

And it exhausts me to watch you
Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth.

A mouth just bloodied.
Little bloody skirts!

There are fumes that I cannot touch.
Where are your opiates, your nauseous capsules?

If I could bleed, or sleep! -------------
If my mouth could marry a hurt like that!

Or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule,
Dulling and stilling.

But colorless. Colorless.

~~
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963}, 1962
from Ariel, 1965

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Sylvia Plath biography

'Tis moonlight, summer moonlight / Emily Brontë

XVIII

'Tis moonlight, summer moonlight,
     All soft, and still, and fair;
The silent time of midnight
     Shines sweetly everywhere,

But most where trees are sending
     Their breezy boughs on high,
Or stooping low are lending
     A shelter from the sky.

And there in those wild bowers
     A lovely form is laid.
Green grass and dew-steeped flowers
     Wave gently round her head.

~~
Emily Brontë (1818-1848), 1840
from Complete Poems, 1908

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Emily Brontë biography