10000 poets

Because poet’s voices should be celebrated, not forgotten

[10000poets]

A Remembrance by

Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta (1815-1891)

Night closes round me, and wild threatening forms Clasp me with icy arms and chain me down, And bind upon my brow a cypress crown, Dewy with tears, and heaven frowns dark with storms; But the one glorious memory of thee Rises upon my path to guide and bless, The bright SHEKINAH of the wilderness, The Polar Star upon a trackless sea, The beaming Pharos of the unreached shore. It spans the clouds that gather o'er my way, The rainbow of my life's tempestuous day. Oh, blessed thought! stay with me evermore, And shed thy lustrous beams where midnight glooms, As fragrant lamps burned in the ancient tombs.

[10000poets]

L’envoi

[10000poets]

At night

by Alice Meynell (1847 - 1922)

Home, home from the horizon far and clear,

Hither the soft wings sweep;

Flocks of the memories of the day draw near

The dovecote doors of sleep.

Oh which are they that come through sweetest light

Of all these homing birds?

Which with the straightest and the swiftest flight?

Your words to me, your words!

[10000poets]

Now that You Too Must Shortly Go

BY ELEANOR FARJEON (1881-1965)

Now that you too must shortly go the way Which in these bloodshot years uncounted men Have gone in vanishing armies day by day, And in their numbers will not come again: I must not strain the moments of our meeting Striving for each look, each accent, not to miss, Or question of our parting and our greeting, Is this the last of all? is this—or this?  Last sight of all it may be with these eyes, Last touch, last hearing, since eyes, hands, and ears, Even serving love, are our mortalities, And cling to what they own in mortal fears:—But oh, let end what will, I hold you fast By immortal love, which has no first or last.

[10000poets]

ABSENCE OF LOVE.

by Margaret Fuller ( 1810 - 1850 )

Though many at my feet have bowed, And asked my love through pain and pleasure, Fate never yet the youth has showed Meet to receive so great a treasure. Although sometimes my heart, deceived, Would love because it sighed to feel, Yet soon I changed, and sometimes grieved Because my fancied wound would heal.

[10000poets]

The New Colossus

by Emma Lazarus  ( 1849 - 1887 )

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

[10000poets]

Our Idea of Nothing at All

by Alice Duer Miller (1874 - 1942)

("I am opposed to woman suffrage, but I am not opposed to woman."—Anti-suffrage speech of Mr. Webb of North Carolina.)

O women, have you heard the news Of charity and grace? Look, look, how joy and gratitude Are beaming in my face! For Mr. Webb is not opposed To woman in her place!

O Mr. Webb, how kind you are To let us live at all, To let us light the kitchen range And tidy up the hall; To tolerate the female sex In spite of Adam's fall.

O girls, suppose that Mr. Webb Should alter his decree! Suppose he were opposed to us— Opposed to you and me. What would be left for us to do— Except to cease to be?

[ From the book: Are Women People? ]

[10000poets]

“With Mathematical Precision”

by Josephine Johnson (1910 - 1990)

With mathematical precision

The stars transverse the midnight dim,

Until in punctual division

The sun bisects the eastern rim.

Systole and diastole

Mark all the rhythms of the sea.

Impartiality each accurate arc

The unhurried pendulum will retrace.

The planet lost in outer dark

Knows a sure path through cosmic space.

Seed time and harvest ever must

Mark the mechanics of the dust.

Even my veins an orbit show

My pulse beats with the pulsing sea;

With all things else in ebb and flow

Shall not my own come back to me?

O desolate Jane, where no fires burn

Your sun shall rise, your gods return!

[10000poets]

They Are Coming

by Josephine Delphine Henderson Heard (1861 – c. 1921)

They are coming, coming slowly — They are coming, surely, surely — In each avenue you hear the steady tread. From the depths of foul oppression, Comes a swarthy-hued procession, And victory perches on their banners' head.

They are coming, coming slowly — They are coming; yes, the lowly, No longer writhing in their servile bands. From the rice fields and plantation Comes a factor of the nation, And threatening, like Banquo's ghost, it stands.

They are coming, coming proudly They are crying, crying loudly: O, for justice from the rulers of the land! And that justice will be given, For the mighty God of heaven Holds the balances of power in his hand.

Prayers have risen, risen, risen, From the cotton fields and prison; Though the overseer stood with lash in hand, Groaned the overburdened heart; Not a tear-drop dared to start — But the Slaves' petition reach'd the glory-land.

They are coming, they are coming, From away in tangled swamp, Where the slimy reptile hid its poisonous head; Through the long night and the day, They have heard the bloodhounds' bay, While the morass furnished them an humble bed.

They are coming, rising, rising, And their progress is surprising, By their brawny muscles earning daily bread; Though their wages be a pittance, Still each week a small remittance, Builds a shelter for the weary toiling head.

They are coming, they are coming — Listen! You will hear the humming Of the thousands that are falling into line: There are Doctors, Lawyers, Preachers; There are Sculptors, Poets, Teachers — Men and women, who with honor yet shall shine.

They are coming, coming boldly, Though the Nation greets them coldly; They are coming from the hillside and the plain. With their scars they tell the story Of the canebrakes wet and gory, Where their brothers' bones lie bleaching with the slain.

They are coming, coming singing, Their Thanksgiving hymn is ringing. For the clouds are slowly breaking now away, And there comes a brighter dawning — It is liberty's fair morning, They are coming surely, coming, clear the way.

Yes, they come, their stopping's steady, And their power is felt already — God has heard the lowly cry of the oppressed: And beneath his mighty frown, Every wrong shall crumble down, When the right shall triumph and the world be blest!

[10000poets]

Women Demobilised

by May Wedderburn Cannan (July 1919)

Now we must go back again to the world Full of grey ghosts and voices of men dying, And in the rain the sounding of Last Posts, And Lovers’ crying – Back to the old, back to the empty world.

Now are put by the bugles and the drums, And the worn spurs, and the great swords they carried, Now are we made most lonely, proudly, theirs, The men we married: Under the dome the long roll of the drums.

Now are the Fallen happy and sleep sound, Now, in the end, to us is come the paying, These who return will find the love they spend, But we are praying Love of our Lovers fallen who sleep sound.

Now in our hearts abides always our war, Time brings, to us, no day for our forgetting, Never for us is folded War away, Dawn or sun setting, Now in our hearts abides always our war.

[10000poets]

Color

by Alice Calista Cole

Beauty bears her heart to me In every crimson leaf. Once I thought it gaiety, I know it now for grief.

Grief hidden by color Can deceive the casual eye But to one who has known heartbreak She can never lie.

[10000poets]

Saturday Market

by Charlotte Mew

Bury your heart in some deep green hollow

Or hide it up in a kind old tree;

Better still, give it the swallow

When she goes over the sea.

In Saturday’s Market there’s eggs a ’plenty

And dead-alive ducks with their legs tied down,

Grey old gaffers and boys of twenty—

Girls and the women of the town—

Pitchers and sugar-sticks, ribbons and laces,

Poises and whips and dicky-birds’ seed,

Silver pieces and smiling faces,

In Saturday Market they’ve all they need.

What were you showing in Saturday Market

That set it grinning from end to end

Girls and gaffers and boys of twenty—?

Cover it close with your shawl, my friend—

Hasten you home with the laugh behind you,

Over the down—, out of sight,

Fasten your door, though no one will find you,

No one will look on a Market night.

See, you, the shawl is wet, take out from under

The red dead thing—. In the white of the moon

On the flags does it stir again? Well, and no wonder!

Best make an end of it; bury it soon.

If there is blood on the hearth who’ll know it?

Or blood on the stairs,

When a murder is over and done why show it?

In Saturday Market nobody cares.

Then lie you straight on your bed for a short, short weeping

And still, for a long, long rest,

There’s never a one in the town so sure of sleeping

As you, in the house on the down with a hole in your breast.

Think no more of the swallow,

Forget, you, the sea,

Never again remember the deep green hollow

Or the top of the kind old tree!

[10000poets]

Her Quest

by Helna Issel Bryson

I want to find where laughter

Is running through the trees -

Her white and dancing body

And her flashing slender knees

More elusive than the sunlight

And more tender than the dawn -

I want to find where laughter 

Has taken flight and gone.

I want to take the far road

Beyond the crooks and bends

And find where laughter dances

And where the shadow ends!

[10000poets]

One Art

by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

[10000poets]

Overdue

by Helen Burness Cruickshank

Oh ragin’ wind

An’ cruel sea

Ye put the fear

Of daith on me

I canna sleep

I canna pray

But prowl aboot

The docks a’ day

An’ pu’ my plaid

About me ticht

“ Nae news mistress!! ” --

Ae mir nicht!

[10000poets]

In Love

by Kamala Surayya / Kamala Das

O what does the burning mouth

Of sun, burning in today's,

Sky, remind me….oh, yes, his

Mouth, and….his limbs like pale and

Carnivorous plants reaching

Out for me, and the sad lie

Of my unending lust.

Where is room, excuse or even

Need for love, for, isn't each

Embrace a complete thing a finished

Jigsaw, when mouth on mouth, I lie,

Ignoring my poor moody mind

While pleasure, with deliberate gaeity

Trumpets harshly into the silence of

The room… At noon

I watch the sleek crows flying

Like poison on wings-and at

Night, from behind the Burdwan

Road, the corpse-bearers cry ‘Bol,

Hari Bol' , a strange lacing

For moonless nights, while I walk

The verandah sleepless, a

Million questions awake in

Me, and all about him, and

This skin-communicated

Thing that I dare not yet in

His presence call our love.

[10000poets]

The Schizophrenic Cat

by Phyllis Sparta

You rise up from a soft contented curl,

And stretch - all idleness personified;

Until as to some wild and secret call;

You tense - and like a jungle beast defied;

You charge, and chase your prey - in paper bags

Whose caverns deep and dark you prowl and roam.

Emerging from that jungle maze, you blink

To find yourself still shackled by a home

And leap - as though possessed - atop the screen,

But soon descend - and curl once more to dream,

And conquer that wild kingdom you survey.

Awakening, you flatten ears and pounce -

My unsuspecting toe becomes a mouse -

And thus you loose yourself - I understand;

One needs that other world within a house -

That world of magic space inside the halls,

Which nevermore can be confined - by walls.

(From her book Tag-Ends)