Poesia: A Face in a Book - Richard le Gallienne

A Face in a Book - Richard le Gallienne

In an old book I found her face
Writ by a dead man long ago-
I found, and then I lost the place;
So nothing but her face I know,
And her soft name writ fair below.

Even if she lived I cannot learn,
Or but a dead man's dream she were;
Page after yellow page I turn,
But cannot come again to her,
Although I know she must be there.

On other books of other men,
Far in the night, year-long, I pore,
Hoping to find her face again,
Too fair a face to see no more-
And 'twas so soft a name she bore.

Sometimes I think the book was Youth,
And the dead man that wrote it I,
The face was Beauty, the name Truth-
And thus, with an unseeing eye,
I pass the long-sought image by.

A Fragment (Accept My Full Heart's Thanks) Ella Wheeler Wilcox
How Doth the Little Crocodile Lewis Carroll
In Romney Marsh John Davidson
Jubilato Agno (excerpt) Christopher Smart
Lucy Ashton's Song Sir Walter Scott
The Mad Gardener's Song Lewis Carroll
My Heart and I Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal Alfred, Lord Tennyson
On a Drop of Dew Andrew Marvell
Prison Meditations John Bunyan
A Psalm of Praise Richard Baxter
Song of Myself - Section 37 Walt Whitman
Song of Myself - Section 38 Walt Whitman
Sorrows of Werther William Makepeace Thackeray
Tommy Rudyard Kipling

Cargoes - John Masefield

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amythysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

Dulce Et Decorum Est Wilfred Owen

Before I Got My Eye Put Out - Emily Dickinson

Before I got my eye put out –
I liked as well to see
As other creatures, that have eyes –
And know no other way –

But were it told to me, Today,
That I might have the Sky
For mine, I tell you that my Heart
Would split, for size of me –

The Meadows – mine –
The Mountains – mine –
All Forests – Stintless stars –
As much of noon, as I could take –
Between my finite eyes –

The Motions of the Dipping Birds –
The Morning’s Amber Road –
For mine – to look at when I liked,
The news would strike me dead –

So safer – guess – with just my soul
Opon the window pane
Where other creatures put their eyes –
Incautious – of the Sun –

Around the Corner - Charles Hanson Towne

Around the corner I have a friend,
In this great city that has no end,
Yet the days go by and weeks rush on,
And before I know it, a year is gone.

And I never see my old friends face,
For life is a swift and terrible race,
He knows I like him just as well,
As in the days when I rang his bell.

And he rang mine but we were younger then,
And now we are busy, tired men.
Tired of playing a foolish game,
Tired of trying to make a name.

"Tomorrow" I say! "I will call on Jim
Just to show that I'm thinking of him",
But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes,
And distance between us grows and grows.

Around the corner, yet miles away,
"Here's a telegram sir," "Jim died today."
And that's what we get and deserve in the end.
Around the corner, a vanished friend.

Short Poetry Collection 065