Poetry

Now I am out of element And far from anything my own, My sources drained of all content, The pieces of my spirit strewn.

— Theodore Roethke · Against Disaster

I might as well begin by saying how much I like the title. It gets me right away because I’m in a workshop now so immediately the poem has my attention, like the Ancient Mariner grabbing me by the sleeve.

— Billy Collins · Workshop

Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling,

— Carl Sandburg · Chicago

Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance, Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot And not to be trapped by withering laurels. And in you I have found aloneness And the joy of being shunned and scorned.

— Kahlil Gibran · Defeat

All I could see from where I stood Was three long mountains and a wood; I turned and looked another way, And saw three islands in a bay.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay · Renascence

I shall forget you presently, my dear, So make the most of this, your little day, Your little month, your little half a year Ere I forget, or die, or move away,

— Edna St. Vincent Millay · I shall forget you presently

The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror

— Derek Walcott · Love After Love

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body

— Mary Oliver · Wild Geese

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense. Lay your shadow upon the sundials, and on the meadows let the winds go free. Command the last fruits to be full;

— Rainer Maria Rilke · Autumn Day

(I Ask For Silence) Translated by Heidi Fischbach Now if you’d leave me in peace. Now if you’d get on without me. I am going to close my eyes And I only want five things, five favorite roots. The first is love without end. The second is to see autumn. I cannot be without leaves f…

— Pablo Neruda · Pido Silencio (I Ask For Silence)

But there are times the pupils of his eyes Dilate, the strong limbs stand alert, apart, Tense with the flood of visions that arise Only to sink and die within his heart.

— Rainer Maria Rilke · The Panther

This door you might not open, and you did; So enter now, and see for what slight thing You are betrayed…. Here is no treasure hid No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring

— Edna St. Vincent Millay · Bluebeard

(translated by Robert Bly) I can tell by the way the trees beat, after so many dull days, on my worried window panes that a storm is coming,

— Rainer Maria Rilke · The Man Watching

my love, don't let your skin become so thick that

— John Roedel · My Love

Nice chance completely cut loose from purpose he was a young man riding a bus through North Carolina on the way to somewhere

— Charles Bukowski · Nirvana

(Keeping Quiet) Translated by Stephen Mitchell Now we will all count to twelve and we will all keep still. This one time upon the earth, let’s not speak any language, let’s stop for one second, and not move our arms so much. It would be a delicious moment, without hurry, without…

— Pablo Neruda · A Callarse (Keeping Quiet)

The wind, one brilliant day, called to my soul with an odor of jasmine. "In return for the odor of my jasmine, I'd like all the odor of your roses."

— Antonio Machado · The Wind, One Brilliant Day

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay · Dirge Without Music

Do not love half lovers Do not entertain half friends Do not indulge in works of the half talented Do not live half a life and do not die a half death

— Kahlil Gibran · Do Not Love Half Lovers