Your Favorite Poems

[violaine]

Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev

Glum is the sky, by night imprisoned, [9]
As over it the dark clouds creep, [8]
Not menacing or wistful is it, [9]
But plunged in dreary, torpid sleep.
Alone the streaks of lightning, bursting
Through cloud and shadow, seem to be,
As they flare up and blaze, conversing
Like deaf-mute demons soundlessly.

As at a signal, for an instant
A strip of sky is lit, and Lo! -
From out the murk the forests distant
Emerge, set suddenly aglow.
But the light dies, the darkness fleeing
That cloaks the startled, wakeful sky,
And all is still... Is a plot being
Hatched in the silent wastes on high?..

[Soon]

I Long to Hold Some Lady

I long to hold some lady
For my love is far away,
And will not come tomorrow
And was not here today.

There is no flesh so perfect
As on my lady's bone,
And yet it seems so distant
When I am all alone:

As though she were a masterpiece
In some castled town,
That pilgrims come to visit
And priests to copy down.

Alas, I cannot travel
To a love I have so deep
Or sleep too close beside
A love I want to keep.

But I long to hold some lady,
For flesh is warm and sweet.
Cold skeletons go marching
Each night beside my feet.

[Glenn]

Love rules the court
the camp, the grove,
and men below,
and the saints above,
for love is heaven
and heaven is love.

[Random]

To the Years

TO-NIGHT I close my eyes and see
A strange procession passing me--
The years before I saw your face
Go by me with a wistful grace;
They pass, the sensitive shy years,
As one who strives to dance, half blind with tears.

The years went by and never knew
That each one brought me nearer you;
Their path was narrow and apart
And yet it led me to your heart--
Oh sensitive shy years, oh lonely years,
That strove to sing with voices drowned in tears.

Sara Teasdale

[Random]

Peace

PEACE flows into me
AS the tide to the pool by the shore;
It is mine forevermore,
It ebbs not back like the sea.

I am the pool of blue
That worships the vivid sky;
My hopes were heaven-high,
They are all fulfilled in you.

I am the pool of gold
When sunset burns and dies,--
You are my deepening skies,
Give me your stars to hold.

Sara Teasdale