Citatepedia^®.com

The Sphinx

In a dim corner of my room for longer than
my fancy thinks
A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me
through the shifting gloom.

Inviolate and immobile she does not rise she
does not stir
For silver moons are naught to her and naught
to her the suns that reel.

Red follows grey across the air, the waves of
moonlight ebb and flow
But with the Dawn she does not go and in the
night-time she is there.

Dawn follows Dawn and Nights grow old and
all the while this curious cat
Lies couching on the Chinese mat with eyes of
satin rimmed with gold.

[...] Read more

poem by Oscar Wilde
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Pharsalia - Book IX: Cato

Yet in those ashes on the Pharian shore,
In that small heap of dust, was not confined
So great a shade; but from the limbs half burnt
And narrow cell sprang forth and sought the sky
Where dwells the Thunderer. Black the space of air
Upreaching to the poles that bear on high
The constellations in their nightly round;
There 'twixt the orbit of the moon and earth
Abide those lofty spirits, half divine,
Who by their blameless lives and fire of soul
Are fit to tolerate the pure expanse
That bounds the lower ether: there shall dwell,
Where nor the monument encased in gold,
Nor richest incense, shall suffice to bring
The buried dead, in union with the spheres,
Pompeius' spirit. When with heavenly light
His soul was filled, first on the wandering stars
And fixed orbs he bent his wondering gaze;
Then saw what darkness veils our earthly day
And scorned the insults heaped upon his corse.

[...] Read more

poem by Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Intense Warrior

A companion of the stars and the moon
The great-horned owl flies within the forest
All his feathers are speechless in the night
Persisting as the warrior he is

When he stares at you with his yellow eyes
There's a phantom strangeness surrounding him
And when you look back into that owl's face
You know he is looking into your soul

No one can predict the owl's train of thought
Through the years of hunting in the shadows
This intense warrior restrains his voice
He knows not to speak often in the night

Living amongst the trees, the great-horned owl
Braves the night and befriends the satrs and moon
A fierce hunter flying in a fierce world
How thunderous the silence of his wings

poem by Nate Flying Owl
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

A Summer’s Dream

To the sagging wharf
few ships could come.
The population numbered
two giants, an idiot, a dwarf,

a gentle storekeeper
asleep behind his counter,
and our kind landlady—
the dwarf was her dressmaker.

The idiot could be beguiled
by picking blackberries,
but then threw them away.
The shrunken seamstress smiled.

By the sea, lying
blue as a mackerel,
our boarding house was streaked
as though it had been crying.

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Bishop
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Could Should Do?

so much we could
do should do
but do not do

as individuals
as peoples
as nations

we could harness
free solar energy
energy of solar radiation

sunlight burns
to light our night
in shades of day

we could harness
energy of wind in
great profusion

[...] Read more

poem by Terence George Craddock
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Padlock

I triumphed, love's victorious power
Prevailed, and near approached the hour
Which should have crowned our mutual flame,
Just then your tyrant husband came.
That hoary Jailer was too hard,
To love he all access has barred,
And all our wishes to defeat,
Secures the key of pleasure's seat;
For such strange matters to account,
Our tale to ancient days should mount;
Ceres must to you sure be known,
Ceres one daughter had alone,
Who much resembled you in face,
Beauteous, adorned with every grace,
To the soft passion much inclined,
And guided by a Cupid blind.
Hymen, a god as blind as he,
Treated him as he treated thee;
Pluto, the rich and old, in hell
Made her his wife, and forced to dwell;

[...] Read more

poem by Voltaire
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Ballad Of Downal Baun

The moon-cradle's rocking and rocking,
Where a cloud and a cloud goes by:
Silently rocking and rocking,
The moon-cradle out in the sky.

The hound's in his loop by the fire,
The bond-woman spins at the door;
One rides on a horse through the court-yard:
The sword-sheath drops on the floor.

I
MY grandfather, Downal Baun,
Had the dream that comes three times:
He dreamt it first when, a servant-boy,
He lay by the nets and the lines,

In the house of Fargal More,
And by Fargal's ash-strewn fire,
When Downal had herded the kine in the waste,
And had foddered them all in the byre;

[...] Read more

poem by Padraic Colum
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Shadow of God

To Mohács
in the marshlands, still in the pouring rain,
August 29th, 1526, where those summoned
and hastily gathered died in thousands
in the space of a moment the chronicler
scribbles, in the safety of distance,
cruel panthers in a moment to hell's pit.
That day the guns chained wheel to wheel,
smoke and the cries of men and horses,
the knights shot from their saddles, armour
dragging them into the mire, the hooves
stamping them in, the infantry butchered,
in the space of a moment the swift
routine of retreat, slaughter and rout,
the space of a moment. No prisoners,
the wails of the wounded, the dying, becks
brimmed with blood, and the young king
thrown from his horse, drowned in his breastplate.
Thereafter Suleyman recalls he sat on the field
in the pouring rain on his glittering throne

[...] Read more

poem by Ken Smith
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Heracles the Lion Slayer

To whom thus spake the herdsman of the herd,
Pausing a moment from his handiwork:
'Friend, I will solve thy questions, for I fear
The angry looks of Hermes of the roads.
No dweller in the skies is wroth as he,
With him who saith the asking traveller nay.

'The flocks Augeas owns, our gracious lord,
One pasture pastures not, nor one fence bounds.
They wander, look you, some by Elissus' banks
Or god-beloved Alpheus' sacred stream,
Some by Buprasion, where the grape abounds,
Some here: their folds stand separate. But before
His herds, though they be myriad, yonder glades
That belt the broad lake round lie fresh and fair
For ever: for the low-lying meadows take
The dew, and teem with herbage honeysweet,
To lend new vigour to the horned kine.
Here on thy right their stalls thou canst descry
By the flowing river, for all eyes to see:

[...] Read more

poem by Theocritus
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Magic Cup

THE worst of ills, with jealousy compared,
Are trifling torments ev'ry where declared.

IMAGINE, to yourself a silly fool,
To dark suspicion grown an easy tool;
No soft repose he finds, by night or day;
But rings his ear, he's wretched ev'ry way!
Continually he dreams his forehead sprouts;
The truth of reveries he never doubts.
But this I would not fully guaranty,
For he who dreams, 'tis said, asleep should be;
And those who've caught, from time to time, a peep,
Pretend to say--the jealous never sleep.

A MAN who has suspicions soon will rouse;
But buz a fly around his precious spouse,
At once he fancies cuckoldom is brought,
And nothing can eradicate the thought;
In spite of reason he must have a place,
And numbered be, among the horned race;

[...] Read more

poem by La Fontaine
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!