Dictionary Poems

I worked for a woman,She wasn’t mean–But she had a twelve-roomHouse to clean. Had to get breakfast,Dinner, and supper, too–Then take care of her childrenWhen I got through. Wash, iron, and scrub,Walk the dog around–It was too much,Nearly broke me down. I said, Madam,Can it beYou trying to make aPack-horse out of me? She opened … Continued

LIGHT human nature is too lightly tostAnd ruffled without cause, complaining on–Restless with rest, until, being overthrown,It learneth to lie quiet. Let a frostOr a small wasp have crept to the inner-mostOf our ripe peach, or let the wilful sunShine westward of our window,–straight we runA furlong’s sigh as if the world were lost.But what … Continued

Hold it up sternly–see this it sends back, (who is it? is it you?)Outside fair costume, within ashes and filth,No more a flashing eye, no more a sonorous voice or springy step,Now some slave’s eye, voice, hands, step,A drunkard’s breath, unwholesome eater’s face, venerealee’s flesh,Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous,Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged … Continued

OF my city the worst that men will ever say is this:You took little children away from the sun and the dew,And the glimmers that played in the grass under the great sky,And the reckless rain; you put them between wallsTo work, broken and smothered, for bread and wages,To eat dust in their throats and … Continued

Under the pent-house branches the eight swans have come,Into the black-green water round the roots of the yew;Like a beam descending the lake, the stairway to their room. The young swans in their tender smoke-grey feathers, blownBy wind or light to a faint copper smouldering,Come docile with their parents still, three-quarters grown. The old swans, … Continued

THOUGH you are in your shining days,Voices among the crowdAnd new friends busy with your praise,Be not unkind or proud,But think about old friends the most:Time’s bitter flood will rise,Your beauty perish and be lostFor all eyes but these eyes. – The Lover Pleads With His Friend For Old Friends by William Butler Yeats

From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you,You are to die–let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate,I am exact and merciless, but I love you–there is no escape for you. Softly I lay my right hand upon you, you ‘ust feel it,I do not argue, I bend … Continued

It can’t be summer, — that got through;It ‘s early yet for spring;There ‘s that long town of white to crossBefore the blackbirds sing. It can’t be dying, — it’s too rouge, —The dead shall go in white.So sunset shuts my question downWith clasps of chrysolite. – It can’t be summer by Emily Dickinson

After a hundred yearsNobody knows the place, —Agony, that enacted there,Motionless as peace. Weeds triumphant ranged,Strangers strolled and spelledAt the lone orthographyOf the elder dead. Winds of summer fieldsRecollect the way, —Instinct picking up the keyDropped by memory. – THE FORGOTTEN GRAVE by Emily Dickinson

GUNS,Long, steel guns,Pointed from the war shipsIn the name of the war god.Straight, shining, polished guns,Clambered over with jackies in white blouses,Glory of tan faces, tousled hair, white teeth,Laughing lithe jackies in white blouses,Sitting on the guns singing war songs, war chanties. Shovels,Broad, iron shovels,Scooping out oblong vaults,Loosening turf and leveling sod. I ask you … Continued