Favourite Poems LVI: Three Short Poems on Spring
Song on a May Morning Now the bright morning-star, Day’s harbinger, Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her The flowery May, who from her green lap throws The…
Favourite Poems
Favourite Poems LV: If You Forget Me
If You Forget Me I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow…
Favourite Poems LVIV: The Curate Thinks You Have No Soul
Was thinking, by-the-by, about some dogs I have loved, and how I get along with (and like, if truth be known) dogs better than most people. So sentimentalism be damned:…
Favourite Poems LVIII: And You as Well Must Die, Belovèd Dust | Edna St. Vincent Millay
You sometimes forget about authors. They sort of fall out of your head. Expect more Millay in the future. And You as Well Must Die, Belovèd Dust And you as…
Favourite Poems LII
The execution of Sir Walter Raleigh. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Raleigh wrote this poem as he awaited execution, the victim of the wrath of a monarch and of some treacherous diplomatic…
A Poem for Easter
My own, with at least Easterish themes of death and rebirth. Originally published on 7/10/10. VSA You came to us, no vital signs, no breath Found dead, or nearly so,…
Favourite Poems LI
Easter in Pittsburgh Even on Easter Sunday jungle of lilies and ferns fat Uncle Paul who loved his liquor so would pound away with both fists on the when the…
Favourite Poems L
Yes, the fiftieth edition of Favourite Poems. You might wonder why a blog about nurses and nursing (and some other stuff, but mostly nursing) does poetry. The answer is simple:…
Favourite Poems XLIX
Eight haiku by Matsuo Bashō, translated by R. K. Blyth. Wikipedia tells us the Shinto priesthood deified Basho in 1793, a sort of minor god of poetry, and for a…
Favourite Poems XLVIII
In Winter in My Room In Winter in my Room I came upon a Worm – Pink, lank and warm – But as he was a worm And worms presume…
Favourite Poems XLVI
Winter Night It snowed and snowed, the whole world over, Snow swept the world from end to end. A candle burned on the table; A candle burned. As during summer…
Favourite Poems XLV
An Old Man’s Winter Night All out of doors looked darkly in at him Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars, That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.…
Favourite Poems XLIV
To a Locomotive in Winter Thee for my recitative, Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining, Thee in thy panoply, thy measur’d dual throbbing…
Favourite Poems XLIII
Now Winter Nights Enlarge Now winter nights enlarge The number of their hours, And clouds their storms discharge Upon the airy towers. Let now the chimneys blaze, And cups o’erflow…
Favourite Poems XLII
Two poems on the theme of Autumn. Autumn Valentine In May my heart was breaking- Oh, wide the wound, and deep! And bitter it beat at waking, And sore it…
Favourite Poems XLI
She Walks in Beauty She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and…
Favourite Poems XL
For the fortieth poem in the series, something a little different. Okay, not seasonal, but what the hell. (The Simpsons’ classic version can be found here.) Filed under: Favourite Poems,…
Favourite Poems XXXIX
The story of how Coleridge came to write this famous poem is probably too well known to bear repeating (but nonetheless is found here, for example.) I have sometimes wondered…
Favourite Poems XXXVIII
Because everyone, even nurses, deserve poetry. Silent Noon Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,– The finger-points look through like rosy blooms: Your eyes smile peace. The pasture…
A Poem for Victoria Day
By a poet hostile to her reign. “Good, you were good, we say,” he writes. “You had no wit to be evil.” Probably worth remembering on the commemoration of her…