Poesia: Death is Before Me

Death is Before Me - Anonymous

Death is before me today:
like the recovery of a sick man,
like going forth into a garden after sickness.
Death is before me today:
like the odor of myrrh,
like sitting under a sail in a good wind.
Death is before me today:
like the course of a stream;
like the return of a man from the war-galley to his house.
Death is before me today:
like the home that a man longs to see,
after years spent as a captive.

Experience Edith Wharton
Fire and Ice Robert Frost
In the Firelight Eugene Field
Jim Bludso of the Prairie Belle John Hay
Little Boy Blue Eugene Field
A Little Mouse That Built Itself a House in a Christmas Cake Anonymous
Memory Abraham Lincoln
On His Heid-ake William Dunbar
On the Banks o' Deer Crick James Whitcomb Riley
Prospice Robert Browning
Rain Music Joseph S. Cotter, Jr.
Richard Corey Edwin Arlington Robinson
So we'll go no more a rovin' George Gordon, Lord Byron
The Spires Of Oxford Winifred M. Letts
Tam O'Shanter Robert Burns
The Garden Ezra Pound
The Nutcrackers and the Sugar-Tongs Edward Lear
'Twas the Night Before Christmas Clement Clarke Moore
When ‘Omer Smote ‘Is Bloomin’ Lyre Rudyard Kipling
When the Frost is on the Punkin James Whitcomb Riley
Young and Old Charles Kingsley

Cliff Klingenhagen - Edwin Arlington Robinson

Cliff Klingenhagen had me in to dine
With him one day; and after soup and meat,
And all the other things there were to eat,
Cliff took two glasses and filled one with wine
And one with wormwood. Then, without a sign
For me to choose at all, he took the draught
Of bitterness himself, and lightly quaffed
It off, and said the other one was mine.

And when I asked him what the deuce he meant
By doing that, he only looked at me
And smiled, and said it was a way of his.
And though I know the fellow, I have spent
Long time a-wondering when I shall be
As happy as Cliff Klingenhagen is.

Chicago Poet - Carl Sandburg

I saluted a nobody.
I saw him in a looking-glass.
He smiled--so did I.
He crumpled the skin on his forehead, frowning--so did I.
Everything I did he did.
I said, "Hello, I know you."
And I was a liar to say so.

Ah, this. looking-glass man!
Liar, fool, dreamer, play-actor,
Soldier, dusty drinker of dust--
Ah! he will go with me
Down the dark stairway
When nobody else is looking,
When everybody else is gone.

He locks his elbow in mine,
I lose all--but not him.

A Butterfly in Church - George Marion McClellan

WHAT dost thou here, thou shining, sinless thing,
With many colored hues and shapely wing?
Why quit the open field and summer air
To flutter here? Thou hast no need of prayer.

’Tis meet that we, who this great structure built, 5
Should come to be redeemed and washed from guilt,
For we this gilded edifice within
Are come, with erring hearts and stains of sin.

But thou art free from guilt as God on high;
Go, seek the blooming waste and open sky, 10
And leave us here our secret woes to bear,
Confessionals and agonies of prayer.

At Night - Sara Teasdale

We are apart; the city grows quiet between us,
She hushes herself, for midnight makes heavy her eyes,
The tangle of traffic is ended, the cars are empty,
Five streets divide us, and on them the moonlight lies.

Oh are you asleep, or lying awake, my lover?
Open your dreams to my love and your heart to my words.
I send you my thoughts--the air between us is laden,
My thoughts fly in at your window, a flock of wild birds.

A Word to the Elect Anne Brontë
Ballade by the Fire Edwin Arlington Robinson

An Old Story - Edwin Arlington Robinson

Strange that I did not know him then.
That friend of mine!
I did not even show him then
One friendly sign;

But cursed him for the ways he had
To make me see
My envy of the praise he had
For praising me.

I would have rid the earth of him
Once, in my pride...
I never knew the worth of him
Until he died.

Short Poetry Collection 074