Ode on a Grecian Urn

Poems about specific objects:

Ode on a Grecian Urn

By John Keats (1795-1821)
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,

       Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

       A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape

       Of deities or mortals, or of both,

               In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

       What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

               What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

       Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,

       Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

       Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;

               Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;

       She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,

               For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

         Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied,

         For ever piping songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love!

         For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,

                For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

         That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,

                A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

         To what green altar, O mysterious priest,

Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

         And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

What little town by river or sea shore,

         Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,

                Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

And, little town, thy streets for evermore

         Will silent be; and not a soul to tell

                Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

         Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

With forest branches and the trodden weed;

         Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

         When old age shall this generation waste,

                Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

         "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Birches

By Robert Frost (1874-1963)
When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay

As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning

After a rain. They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed

So low for long, they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm

I should prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out and in to fetch the cows—

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself,

Summer or winter, and could play alone.

One by one he subdued his father's trees

By riding them down over and over again

Until he took the stiffness out of them,

And not one but hung limp, not one was left

For him to conquer. He learned all there was

To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It's when I'm weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig's having lashed across it open.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over.

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:

I don't know where it's likely to go better.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Some Lines Against the Light
by Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000)
translated from the Hebrew by Leon Wieseltier

How awful the light is for the eyes.
How awful it is to be flooded with light,
how unpleasant to be David's Citadel or the Wailing Wall
or an actor
or something like that.
How awful is the light left on in the henhouse
by wily farmers
so that the hens will lay and lay
thinking it is forever day.
How awful of the light in this way to sow feelings,
to be leaping, always to begin loving anew,
to spew love.
Sometimes I stumble into history
the way a small animal, a rabbit or a fox,
stumbles into a passing car's beam of light.
Sometimes I am the driver.

Parsley

By Rita Dove (1952-)
1. The Cane Fields

There is a parrot imitating spring

in the palace, its feathers parsley green.   

Out of the swamp the cane appears

to haunt us, and we cut it down. El General   

searches for a word; he is all the world   

there is. Like a parrot imitating spring,
we lie down screaming as rain punches through   

and we come up green. We cannot speak an R—

out of the swamp, the cane appears
and then the mountain we call in whispers Katalina.

The children gnaw their teeth to arrowheads.   

There is a parrot imitating spring.
El General has found his word: perejil.

Who says it, lives. He laughs, teeth shining   

out of the swamp. The cane appears
in our dreams, lashed by wind and streaming.   

And we lie down. For every drop of blood   

there is a parrot imitating spring.

Out of the swamp the cane appears.

2. The Palace

The word the general’s chosen is parsley.   

It is fall, when thoughts turn

to love and death; the general thinks

of his mother, how she died in the fall

and he planted her walking cane at the grave   

and it flowered, each spring stolidly forming   

four-star blossoms. The general

pulls on his boots, he stomps to

her room in the palace, the one without   

curtains, the one with a parrot

in a brass ring. As he paces he wonders   

Who can I kill today. And for a moment   

the little knot of screams

is still. The parrot, who has traveled
all the way from Australia in an ivory   

cage, is, coy as a widow, practising   

spring. Ever since the morning   

his mother collapsed in the kitchen   

while baking skull-shaped candies   

for the Day of the Dead, the general   

has hated sweets. He orders pastries   

brought up for the bird; they arrive

dusted with sugar on a bed of lace.   

The knot in his throat starts to twitch;   

he sees his boots the first day in battle   

splashed with mud and urine

as a soldier falls at his feet amazed—

how stupid he looked!— at the sound

of artillery. I never thought it would sing   

the soldier said, and died. Now

the general sees the fields of sugar   

cane, lashed by rain and streaming.   

He sees his mother’s smile, the teeth   

gnawed to arrowheads. He hears   

the Haitians sing without R’s

as they swing the great machetes:   

Katalina, they sing, Katalina,
mi madle, mi amol en muelte. God knows   

his mother was no stupid woman; she   

could roll an R like a queen. Even   

a parrot can roll an R! In the bare room   

the bright feathers arch in a parody   

of greenery, as the last pale crumbs

disappear under the blackened tongue. Someone
calls out his name in a voice

so like his mother’s, a startled tear

splashes the tip of his right boot.

My mother, my love in death.

The general remembers the tiny green sprigs   

men of his village wore in their capes   

to honor the birth of a son. He will

order many, this time, to be killed
for a single, beautiful word.

NOTES: On October 2, 1937, Rafael Trujillo (1891-1961), dictator of the Dominican Republic, ordered 20,000 blacks killed because they could not pronounce the letter “r” in perejil, the Spanish word for parsley.

Balloons

by Sylvia Plath(1932-1963)

Since Christmas they have lived with us,

Guileless and clear,

Oval soul-animals,

Taking up half the space,

Moving and rubbing on the silk
Invisible air drifts,

Giving a shriek and pop

When attacked, then scooting to rest, barely trembling.

Yellow cathead, blue fish ----

Such queer moons we live with
Instead of dead furniture!

Straw mats, white walls

And these traveling

Globes of thin air, red, green,

Delighting
The heart like wishes or free

Peacocks blessing

Old ground with a feather

Beaten in starry metals.

Your small
Brother is making

His balloon squeak like a cat.

Seeming to see

A funny pink world he might eat on the other side of it,

He bites,
Then sits

Back, fat jug

Contemplating a world clear as water.

A red

Shred in his little fist.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

By Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,   

The only moving thing   

Was the eye of the blackbird.   

II

I was of three minds,   

Like a tree   

In which there are three blackbirds.   

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.   

It was a small part of the pantomime.   
IV

A man and a woman   

Are one.   

A man and a woman and a blackbird   

Are one.   
V

I do not know which to prefer,   

The beauty of inflections   

Or the beauty of innuendoes,   

The blackbird whistling   

Or just after.   

VI

Icicles filled the long window   

With barbaric glass.   

The shadow of the blackbird   

Crossed it, to and fro.   

The mood   

Traced in the shadow   

An indecipherable cause.   

VII

O thin men of Haddam,   

Why do you imagine golden birds?   

Do you not see how the blackbird   

Walks around the feet   

Of the women about you?   

VIII

I know noble accents   

And lucid, inescapable rhythms;   

But I know, too,   

That the blackbird is involved   

In what I know.   

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,   

It marked the edge   

Of one of many circles.   

X

At the sight of blackbirds   

Flying in a green light,   

Even the bawds of euphony   

Would cry out sharply.   
XI

He rode over Connecticut   

In a glass coach.   

Once, a fear pierced him,   

In that he mistook   

The shadow of his equipage   

For blackbirds.   
XII

The river is moving.   

The blackbird must be flying.   
XIII

It was evening all afternoon.   

It was snowing   

And it was going to snow.   

The blackbird sat   

In the cedar-limbs.

The Mower

By Philip Larkin (1922-1985)
The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found   

A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,   

Killed. It had been in the long grass.
I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.   

Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world   

Unmendably. Burial was no help:
Next morning I got up and it did not.

The first day after a death, the new absence   

Is always the same; we should be careful
Of each other, we should be kind   

While there is still time.

On a Drop of Dew

By Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
See how the orient dew,

Shed from the bosom of the morn   

   Into the blowing roses,

Yet careless of its mansion new,

For the clear region where ’twas born   

   Round in itself incloses:

   And in its little globe’s extent,

Frames as it can its native element.

   How it the purple flow’r does slight,   

      Scarce touching where it lies,

   But gazing back upon the skies,   

      Shines with a mournful light,

         Like its own tear,

Because so long divided from the sphere.

   Restless it rolls and unsecure,

      Trembling lest it grow impure,

   Till the warm sun pity its pain,   

And to the skies exhale it back again.

      So the soul, that drop, that ray   

Of the clear fountain of eternal day,   

Could it within the human flow’r be seen,

      Remembering still its former height,

      Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green,

      And recollecting its own light,

Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express

The greater heaven in an heaven less.   

      In how coy a figure wound,   

      Every way it turns away:   

      So the world excluding round,   

      Yet receiving in the day,

      Dark beneath, but bright above,

      Here disdaining, there in love.

   How loose and easy hence to go,

   How girt and ready to ascend,

   Moving but on a point below,

   It all about does upwards bend.

Such did the manna’s sacred dew distill,   

White and entire, though congealed and chill,   

Congealed on earth : but does, dissolving, run   

Into the glories of th’ almighty sun.

Brass Spittoons

By Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
Clean the spittoons, boy.

      Detroit,   

      Chicago,   

      Atlantic City,

      Palm Beach.

Clean the spittoons.

The steam in hotel kitchens,

And the smoke in hotel lobbies,

And the slime in hotel spittoons:

Part of my life.   

      Hey, boy!   

      A nickel,   

      A dime,   

      A dollar,

Two dollars a day.

      Hey, boy!   

      A nickel,   

      A dime,   

      A dollar,   

      Two dollars

Buy shoes for the baby.

House rent to pay.

Gin on Saturday,

Church on Sunday.

      My God!

Babies and gin and church

And women and Sunday

All mixed with dimes and

Dollars and clean spittoons

And house rent to pay.

      Hey, boy!

A bright bowl of brass is beautiful to the Lord.   

Bright polished brass like the cymbals

Of King David’s dancers,

Like the wine cups of Solomon.

      Hey, boy!

A clean spittoon on the altar of the Lord.

A clean bright spittoon all newly polished—

At least I can offer that.

      Com’mere, boy!

The Altar

By George Herbert (1593-1633)
A broken ALTAR, Lord, thy servant rears,

Made of a heart and cemented with tears;

         Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;

         No workman's tool hath touch'd the same.

                  A HEART alone

                  Is such a stone,

                  As nothing but

                  Thy pow'r doth cut.

                  Wherefore each part

                  Of my hard heart

                  Meets in this frame

                  To praise thy name.

         That if I chance to hold my peace,

         These stones to praise thee may not cease.

Oh, let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,

And sanctify this ALTAR to be thine.

The Windhover

By Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-

    dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

    Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

    As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

    Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here

    Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

     

   No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,

    Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.