Ode on a Grecian Urn

American Poetry

By Louis Simpson (1923-2012)
Whatever it is, it must have

A stomach that can digest

Rubber, coal, uranium, moons, poems.
Like the shark, it contains a shoe.

It must swim for miles through the desert

Uttering cries that are almost human.

To the Reader

By Denise Levertov (1923-1997)

As you read, a white bear leisurely

pees, dyeing the snow
saffron,

and as you read, many gods

lie among lianas: eyes of obsidian
are watching the generations of leaves,

and as you read

the sea is turning its dark pages,
turning
its dark pages. 

Why I Am Not A Painter

By Frank O’Hara (1926-1966)

I am not a painter, I am a poet.

Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg

is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of

a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES. 

To the One Who is Reading Me

By Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)

Translated From The Spanish By Tony Barnstone
You are invulnerable. Didn’t they deliver

(those forces that control your destiny)

the certainty of dust? Couldn’t it be

your irreversible time is that river

in whose bright mirror Heraclitus read

his brevity? A marble slab is saved

for you, one you won’t read, already graved

with city, epitaph, dates of the dead.

And other men are also dreams of time,

not hardened bronze, purified gold. They’re dust

like you; the universe is Proteus.

Shadow, you’ll travel to what waits ahead,

the fatal shadow waiting at the rim.

Know this: in some way you’re already dead.

Delight in Disorder

By Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

A sweet disorder in the dress

Kindles in clothes a wantonness;

A lawn about the shoulders thrown

Into a fine distraction;

An erring lace, which here and there

Enthrals the crimson stomacher;

A cuff neglectful, and thereby

Ribands to flow confusedly;

A winning wave, deserving note,

In the tempestuous petticoat;

A careless shoe-string, in whose tie

I see a wild civility:

Do more bewitch me, than when art

Is too precise in every part.

from Il Canzoniere

By Petrarch (1304-1374)

#90

Sometimes she'd comb her yellow braids out loose

for winds to tease and tangle in bright air,
and all that light caught in her eyes, her hair.
Most things have faded now.  But once I used

to see her gauging me with thoughtful eyes:

with pity true or false, it's all the same.
My soul dry kindling, waiting for her flame,
and could I help it I was set ablaze?

I tell you, she was like a goddess walking,

a pulsing sun to keep a man from cold,
radiant, gold, that spirit danced abroad;

when she spoke, I divined the angels talking.

You say she's just a woman growing old?
Her bow's gone slack, her arrow's in my side.

#148

Not Tiber, Tesin, Po nor Arno, Rhone,

Tigris, Euphrates, Nile, Erme, Indus, Seine,
Alphaeus, Elve; not breaking sea, nor Rhine,
Ebro, Loire, Garonne, Don, Danube--none

can quench me! What's more, no pine,

spruce, ivy, juniper can shelter
me from sun! And yet there is one river
who shares my grief: one sapling bears my pain.

They succor me through every heavy blow

of Love, who still compels me to bear arms
as I go reeling headlong far abroad.

Grow green, dear laurel, by this riverflow;

let me who planted you inscribe true poems
here where sweet water ripples in your shade.
What Length of Verse?

By Sir Philip Sidney (1554- 1586)
What length of verse can serve brave Mopsa’s good to show,

Whose virtues strange, and beauties such, as no man them may know?

Thus shrewdly burden, then, how can my Muse escape?

The gods must help, and precious things must serve to show her shape.

Like great god Saturn, fair, and like fair Venus, chaste;

As smooth as Pan, as Juno mild, like goddess Iris fast.

With Cupid she foresees, and goes god Vulcan’s pace;

And for a taste of all these gifts, she borrows Momus’ grace.

Her forehead jacinth-like, her cheeks of opal hue,

Her twinkling eyes bedecked with pearl, her lips of sapphire blue,

Her hair pure crapall stone, her mouth, O heavenly wide,

Her skin like burnished gold, her hands like silver ore untried.

As for those parts unknown, which hidden sure are best,

Happy be they which believe, and never seek the rest.

Upon The Nipples Of Julia's Breast

By Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
Have ye beheld (with much delight)
A red rose peeping through a white?
Or else a cherry (double graced)
Within a lily? Centre placed?
Or ever marked the pretty beam
A strawberry shows half drowned in cream?
Or seen rich rubies blushing through
A pure smooth pearl, and orient too?
So like to this, nay all the rest,
Is each neat niplet of her breast. 


To His Mistress Going to Bed

By John Donne (1572-1631)
Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy,

Until I labour, I in labour lie.

The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,

Is tir’d with standing though he never fight.

Off with that girdle, like heaven’s Zone glistering,

But a far fairer world encompassing.

Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,

That th’eyes of busy fools may be stopped there.

Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime,

Tells me from you, that now it is bed time.

Off with that happy busk, which I envy,

That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.

Your gown going off, such beauteous state reveals,

As when from flowery meads th’hill’s shadow steals.

Off with that wiry Coronet and shew   

The hairy Diadem which on you doth grow:

Now off with those shoes, and then safely tread

In this love’s hallow’d temple, this soft bed.

In such white robes, heaven’s Angels used to be

Received by men; Thou Angel bringst with thee

A heaven like Mahomet’s Paradise; and though

Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know,

By this these Angels from an evil sprite,

Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.

    Licence my roving hands, and let them go,   

Before, behind, between, above, below.

O my America! my new-found-land,

My kingdom, safeliest when with one man mann’d,

My Mine of precious stones, My Empirie,

How blest am I in this discovering thee!

To enter in these bonds, is to be free;

Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be.

    Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee,

As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth’d must be,

To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use

Are like Atlanta’s balls, cast in men’s views,

That when a fool’s eye lighteth on a Gem,

His earthly soul may covet theirs, not them.

Like pictures, or like books’ gay coverings made

For lay-men, are all women thus array’d;

Themselves are mystic books, which only we   

(Whom their imputed grace will dignify)

Must see reveal’d. Then since that I may know;

As liberally, as to a Midwife, shew

Thy self: cast all, yea, this white linen hence,

There is no penance due to innocence.

    To teach thee, I am naked first; why then

What needst thou have more covering than a man.

There Is A Garden In Her Face

By Thomas Campion (1567-1620)
There is a garden in her face

Where roses and white lilies grow;

A heav'nly paradise is that place

Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow.

      There cherries grow which none may buy,

      Till "Cherry ripe" themselves do cry.

Those cherries fairly do enclose

Of orient pearl a double row,

Which when her lovely laughter shows,

They look like rose-buds fill'd with snow;

      Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy,

      Till "Cherry ripe" themselves do cry.

Her eyes like angels watch them still,

Her brows like bended bows do stand,

Threat'ning with piercing frowns to kill

All that attempt with eye or hand

      Those sacred cherries to come nigh,

      Till "Cherry ripe" themselves do cry.

My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun (Sonnet 130)

  by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.