Venus Transiens
by Amy Lowell (1874-1925)

Tell me,
Was Venus more beautiful
Than you are,
When she topped
The crinkled waves,
Drifting shoreward
On her plaited shell?
Was Botticelli’s vision
Fairer than mine;
And were the painted rosebuds
He tossed his lady,
Of better worth
Than the words I blow about you
To cover your too great loveliness
As with a gauze
Of misted silver?

For me,
You stand poised
In the blue and buoyant air,
Cinctured by bright winds,
Treading the sunlight.
And the waves which precede you
Ripple and stir
The sands at my feet.

Views: 30

Trust Thou Thy Love
by John Ruskin (1819-1900)

Trust thou thy Love; if she be proud, is the not sweet?
Trust thou thy Love; if she be mute, is she not pure?
Lay thou thy soul full in her hands, low at her feet;
Fail, Sun and Breath!—yet, for thy peace, She shall endure.

Views: 80

Scorn Not the Sonnet
by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch’s wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camöens soothed an exile’s grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains–alas, too few!

Views: 32

Alla Sera
by Ugi Foscolo (1778-1827)

Forse perchè della fatal quïete
   Tu sei l’immago a me sì cara, vieni,
   O Sera! E quando ti corteggian liete
   Le nubi estive e i zeffiri sereni,

E quando dal nevoso aere inquiete
   Tenebre, e lunghe, all’universo meni,
   Sempre scendi invocata, e le secrete
   Vie del mio cor soavemente tieni.

Vagar mi fai co’ miei pensier su l’orme
   Che vanno al nulla eterno; e intanto fugge
   Questo reo tempo, e van con lui le torme

Delle cure, onde meco egli si strugge;
   E mentre io guardo la tua pace, dorme
   Quello spirto guerrier ch’entro mi rugge.

Views: 32

A Graveyard
by Marianne Moore (1887-1972)

Man, looking into the sea—
taking the view from those who have as much right to it as you have it to yourself—
it is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing
but you cannot stand in the middle of this:
the sea has nothing to give but a well excavated grave.
The firs stand in a procession—each with an emerald turkey-foot at the top—
reserved as their contours, saying nothing;
repression, however, is not the most obvious characteristic of the sea;
the sea is a collector, quick to return a rapacious look.
There are others besides you who have worn that look—
whose expression is no longer a protest; the fish no longer investigate them
for their bones have not lasted;
men lower nets, unconscious of the fact that they are desecrating a grave,
and row quickly away—the blades of the oars   
moving together like the feet of water-spiders as if there were no such thing as death.
The wrinkles progress upon themselves in a phalanx—beautiful under networks of foam,
and fade breathlessly while the sea rustles in and out of the seaweed;
the birds swim through the air at top speed, emitting cat-calls as heretofore—
the tortoise-shell scourges about the feet of the cliffs, in motion beneath them
and the ocean, under the pulsation of light-houses and noise of bell-buoys,
advances as usual, looking as if it were not that ocean in which dropped things are bound to sink—
in which if they turn and twist, it is neither with volition nor consciousness.

Views: 29

The Ground Swell
by E.J. Pratt (1882-1964)

Three times we heard it calling with a low,
   Insistent note; at ebb-tide on the noon;
   And at the hour of dusk, when the red moon
Was rising and the tide was on the flow;
Then, at the hour of midnight once again,
   Though we had entered in and shut the door
   And drawn the blinds, it crept up from the shore
And smote upon a bedroom window-pane;
Then passed away as some dull pang that grew
   Out of the void before Eternity
    Had fashioned out an edge for human grief;
Before the winds of God had learned to strew
His harvest-sweepings on a winter sea
   To feed the primal hungers of a reef.

Views: 25