Dictionary Poems

Three Virgins at the break of day:`Whither, young man, whither awayAlas for woe! alas for woe!’They cry, and tears for ever flow.The one was cloth’d in flames of fire,The other cloth’d in iron wire,The other cloth’d in tears and sighsDazzling bright before my eyes.They bore a Net of golden twineTo hang upon the branches fine.Pitying … Continued

As nothingness draws near How I can seeInexorably clear My vanity.My sum of worthiness Always so small,Dwindles from less to less To none at all. As grisly destiny Claims me at last,How grievous seem to me Sins of my past!How keen a conscience edge Can come to be!How pitiless the dredge Of memory! Ye proud … Continued

He touched me, so I live to knowThat such a day, permitted so, I groped upon his breast.It was a boundless place to me,And silenced, as the awful sea Puts minor streams to rest. And now, I’m different from before,As if I breathed superior air, Or brushed a royal gown;My feet, too, that had wandered … Continued

One’s-self I sing, a simple separate person,Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. Of physiology from top to toe I sing,Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far,The Female equally with the Male I sing. Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,Cheerful, … Continued

The bustle in a houseThe morning after deathIs solemnest of industriesEnacted upon earth, — The sweeping up the heart,And putting love awayWe shall not want to use againUntil eternity. – The bustle in a house by Emily Dickinson

LET a joy keep you.Reach out your handsAnd take it when it runs by,As the Apache dancerClutches his woman.I have seen themLive long and laugh loud,Sent on singing, singing,Smashed to the heartUnder the ribsWith a terrible love.Joy always,Joy everywhere–Let joy kill you!Keep away from the little deaths. – JOY by Carl Sandburg

Sleep is supposed to be,By souls of sanity,The shutting of the eye. Sleep is the station grandDown which on either handThe hosts of witness stand! Morn is supposed to be,By people of degree,The breaking of the day. Morning has not occurred!That shall aurora beEast of eternity; One with the banner gay,One in the red array, … Continued

PASSING through huddled and ugly wallsBy doorways where womenLooked from their hunger-deep eyes,Haunted with shadows of hunger-hands,Out from the huddled and ugly walls,I came sudden, at the city’s edge,On a blue burst of lake,Long lake waves breaking under the sunOn a spray-flung curve of shore;And a fluttering storm of gulls,Masses of great gray wingsAnd flying … Continued

I’m nobody! Who are you?Are you nobody, too?Then there ‘s a pair of us — don’t tell!They ‘d banish us, you know. How dreary to be somebody!How public, like a frogTo tell your name the livelong dayTo an admiring bog! – I’m nobody! Who are you? by Emily Dickinson

Delayed till she had ceased to know,Delayed till in its vest of snow Her loving bosom lay.An hour behind the fleeting breath,Later by just an hour than death, — Oh, lagging yesterday! Could she have guessed that it would be;Could but a crier of the glee Have climbed the distant hill;Had not the bliss so … Continued