RETRIEVE POEMS

I Am Defeated

By the hollowness around me
By the emotional rivalries that surround me
By the dreams that are yet to achieve
By the collapsing hopes that are hard to retrieve
.....

Priya Rathi

Last Fire

Love, through your spirit and mine what summer eve
Now glows with glory of all things possess'd,
Since this day's sun of rapture filled the west
And the light sweetened as the fire took leave?
.....

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Xvi: How Clear, How Lovely Bright

How clear, how lovely bright,
How beautiful to sight
Those beams of morning play;
How heaven laughs out with glee
.....

Alfred Edward Housman

Twins, The

``Give'' and ``It-shall-be-given-unto-you.''

I.

.....

Robert Browning

The Corridor

It may have been the pride in me for aught
I know, or just a patronizing whim;
But call it freak or fancy, or what not,
I cannot hide that hungry face of him.
.....

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Tz'u No. 1

To the tune "Courtyard Filled with Fragrance"

Fragrant grass beside the pond
green shade over the hall
.....

Li Ching Chao

Cul-de-sac

COULD I hope that when the brain,
Tired of questions answerless,
Shall slip off the bonds of pain
That enslave it and possess,
.....

Edith Nesbit

The Wedding Ring

I pawned my sick wife's wedding ring,
To drink and make myself a beast.
I got the most that it would bring,
Of golden coins the very least.
.....

Robert William Service

Mesmerism

I.

All I believed is true!
I am able yet
.....

Robert Browning

An Essay On The Different Stiles Of Poetry

To Henry, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke.


I hate the Vulgar with untuneful Mind,
.....

Thomas Parnell

Tis Sunrise'little Maid'hast Thou

908

'Tis Sunrise-Little Maid-Hast Thou
No Station in the Day?
.....

Emily Dickinson

The Wedding Ring

I pawned my sick wife's wedding ring,
To drink and make myself a beast.
I got the most that it would bring,
Of golden coins the very least.
.....

Robert Service

Bacchus

Bring me wine, but wine which never grew
In the belly of the grape,
Or grew on vine whose taproots reaching through
Under the Andes to the Cape,
.....

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Behind The Arras

I like the old house tolerably well,
Where I must dwell
Like a familiar gnome;
And yet I never shall feel quite at home:
.....

Bliss Carman

When Aurelia First I Courted

When Aurelia first I courted,
She had youth and beauty too,
Killing pleasures when she sported,
And her charms were ever new;
.....

Anonymous Americas

Minstrel's Book - Talismans

GOD is of the east possess'd,
God is ruler of the west;
North and south alike, each land
Rests within His gentle hand.
.....

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

To Memory

O deeper than the noontide seems when blue,
Conceived as of yet finer woof than air,
Where, as clouds form, folk cherished, moments rare,
Fitfully gleam and pass . . . romance all true,
.....

Thomas Sturge Moore

The Unforgiven

When he, who is the unforgiven,
Beheld her first, he found her fair:
No promise ever dreamt in heaven
Could then have lured him anywhere
.....

Edwin Arlington Robinson

The Heroes Of Waterloo

Address, written for a Benefit, at a Provincial Theatre, for the
Wounded Survivors, Families, and Relatives, of the Heroes of Waterloo.


.....

Thomas Gent

Oft Have I Read That Innocence Retreats

Oft have I read that Innocence retreats
Where cooling streams salute ye summer Seats
Singing at ease she roves ye field of flowrs
Or safe with shepheards lys among the bowrs
.....

Thomas Parnell

'tis Sunrise—little Maid—hast Thou

908

'Tis Sunrise—Little Maid—Hast Thou
No Station in the Day?
.....

Emily Dickinson

Sheridan At Cedar Creek

October, 1864


Shoe the steed with silver
.....

Herman Melville

A Neglected “woman's Right”

I have listened to this cry of “Woman's Rights,” this clamoring
for the ballot, for redress for woman's wrongs, and I could but
think, amid it all, that there is one “woman's right”-the right
that could make the widest redress for woman's wrongs-which she
.....

Madge Morris Wagner

Song-the Captive Ribband

DEAR Myra, the captive ribband's mine,
'Twas all my faithful love could gain;
And would you ask me to resign
The sole reward that crowns my pain?
.....

Robert Burns

Sonnet Xxx: Last Fire

Love,through your spirit and mine what summer eve
Now glows with glory of all things possess'd,
Since this day's sun of rapture filled the west
And the light sweetened as the fire took leave?
.....

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

By A Defeated Litigant

Liars for witnesses; for lawyers brutes
Who lose their tempers to retrieve their suits;
Cowards for jurors; and for judge a clown
Who ne'er took up the law, yet lays it down;
.....

Ambrose Bierce

Reading In Wartime

Boswell by my bed,
Tolstoy on my table;
Thought the world has bled
For four and a half years,
.....

Edwin Muir

Soliloquy Of The Spanish Cloister

I.

Gr-r-r---there go, my heart's abhorrence!
Water your damned flower-pots, do!
.....

Robert Browning

Solomon On The Vanity Of The World, A Poem. In Three Books. - Power. Book Iii.

The Argument
Solomon considers man through the several stages and conditions of life, and concludes, in general, that we are all miserable. He reflects more particularly upon the trouble and uncertainty of greatness and power; gives some instances thereof from Adam down to himself; and still concludes that All Is Vanity. He reasons again upon life, death, and a future being; finds human wisdom too imperfect to resolve his doubts; has recourse to religion; is informed by an angel what shall happen to himself, his family, and his kingdom, till the redemption of Israel; and, upon the whole, resolves to submit his inquiries and anxieties to the will of his Creator.

Come then, my soul: I call thee by that name,
.....

Matthew Prior

Solomon On The Vanity Of The World, A Poem. In Three Books. - Pleasure. Book Ii.

The Argument
Solomon, again seeking happiness, inquires if wealth and greatness can produce it: begins with the magnificence of gardens and buildings; the luxury of music and feasting; and proceeds to the hopes and desires of love. In two episodes are shown the follies and troubles of that passion. Solomon, still disappointed, falls under the temptations of libertinism and idolatry; recovers his thought; reasons aright; and concludes that, as to the pursuit of pleasure and sensual delight, All Is Vanity and Vexation of Spirit.

Try then, O man, the moments to deceive
.....

Matthew Prior

The Turtle And Sparrow. An Elegiac Tale

Behind an unfrequented glade,
Where yew and myrtle mix their shade,
A widow Turtle pensive sat,
And wept her murder'd lover's fate.
.....

Matthew Prior

A Letter To Monsieur Boileau Despreaux, Occasioned By The Victory At Blenheim

Since hired for life, thy servile Muse must sing
Successive conquests and a glorious King;
Must of a man immortal vainly boast,
And bring him laurels whatsoe'er they cost,
.....

Matthew Prior

Philip Of Pokanoket - An Indian Memoir - Prose

As monumental bronze unchanged his look:
A soul that pity touch'd, but never shook;
Train'd from his tree-rock'd cradle to his bier,
The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook
.....

Washington Irving

In A Balcony

First part

Constance and Norbert

.....

Robert Browning

A Forgiveness

I am indeed the personage you know.
As for my wife, what happened long ago
You have a right to question me, as I
Am bound to answer.
.....

Robert Browning

Paracelsus: Part Ii: Paracelsus Attains

Scene. Constantinople; the house of a Greek Conjurer. 1521.
Paracelsus.


.....

Robert Browning

Sordello: Book The Fourth

Meantime Ferrara lay in rueful case;
The lady-city, for whose sole embrace
Her pair of suitors struggled, felt their arms
A brawny mischief to the fragile charms
.....

Robert Browning

Sordello: Book The Second

The woods were long austere with snow: at last
Pink leaflets budded on the beech, and fast
Larches, scattered through pine-tree solitudes,
Brightened, "as in the slumbrous heart o' the woods
.....

Robert Browning

John Jones's Wife

I

At The Piano

.....

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Behind The Arras

I like the old house tolerably well,
Where I must dwell
Like a familiar gnome;
And yet I never shall feel quite at home:
.....

Bliss Carman (william)

Confessional, The

[SPAIN.]

I.

.....

Robert Browning

Hymn Iii: All That Pass By, To Jesus Draw Near

All that pass by, To Jesus draw near,
He utters a cry, Ye sinners, give ear!
From hell to retrieve you He spreads out his hands;
Now, now to receive you, He graciously stands.
.....

John Wesley

Hymn Vi: Sinners, Turn, Why Will Ye Die?

Sinners, turn, why will ye die?
God, your Maker, asks you why?
God, who did your being give,
Made you with himself to live -
.....

John Wesley

The Frog And The Golden Ball

She let her golden ball fall down the well
And begged a cold frog to retrieve it;
For which she kissed his ugly, gaping mouth -
Indeed, he could scarce believe it.
.....

Robert Graves

Soliloquy

When I was young I had a care
Lest I should cheat me of my share
Of that which makes it sweet to strive
For life, and dying still survive,
.....

Francis Ledwidge

The Huntsman's Horse

The galloping seasons have slackened his pace,
And stone wall and timber have battered his knees
It is many a year since he gave up his place
To live out his life in comparative ease.
.....

William Henry Ogilvie

Sinners, Turn, Why Will Ye Die?

Sinners, turn, why will ye die?
God, your Maker, asks you why?
God, who did your being give,
Made you with himself to live -
.....

Charles Wesley

The Confessional

I.

It is a lie---their Priests, their Pope,
Their Saints, their ... all they fear or hope
.....

Robert Browning

Tirocinium; Or, A Review Of Schools

It is not from his form, in which we trace
Strength join'd with beauty, dignity with grace,
That man, the master of this globe, derives
His right of empire over all that lives.
.....

William Cowper

Moloch In State Street

THE moon has set: while yet the dawn
Breaks cold and gray,
Between the midnight and the morn
Bear off your prey!
.....

John Greenleaf Whittier