poems for different circumstances
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'The language of the inner life can be translated into any other language, though certainly not into the surface relation of logic and reductionism, or the specialised knowledge of science. The language of the inner life is poetry, symbol image, dance, music and silence. It uses the musical language of analogy. It is the language of evocation. It is the knowledge and host of atmosphere, of climate as nuance. It is the language of the response to the wonder, the miracle, the mystery of life.....Far beyond the world of answers and explanations, far beyond the world of reason and logic, far beyond all expediency and utility, who can fathom the depths and the mystery of the human heart, with its great longing.'
Cecil Collins
| birth | bereavement | marriage | anniversary | falling in love | gratitude | joy | | fellow feeling | anthologies |
on a birth
MORNING SONG Sylvia Plath
THE SPIRIT IS TOO BLUNT AN INSTRUMENT Ann Stevenson
MUNDUS ET INFANS W.H.Auden
BIRTH Craig Raine
BIRTH Langston Hughes
THE ANGEL THAT PRESIDED OVER MY BIRTH William Blake
TO MAYSTRES ISABEL PENNELL John Skelton
INFANT JOY William Blake
bereavement and death
CYMBELINE. FIDELE'S DIRGE. FEAR NO MORE THE HEAT O'THE SUN William Shakespeare
DEATH PSALM : O LORD OF MYSTERIES Denise Levertov
AN ELEGY FOR THE POET MORGAN BLUM James Wright
R.T.S.L. (1917-1977) Derek Walcott
I MEASURE EVERY GRIEF I MEET Emily Dickinson
THE WINTER AFTER YOUR DEATH Sharon Olds
AT MY FATHER'S GRAVE Hugh MacDiarmid
SILEX SCINTILLANS.THEY ARE ALL GONE INTO THE WORLD OF LIGHT Henry Vaughan
SONNET. WHEN I HAVE FEARS THAT I MAY CEASE TO BE John Keats
LEGEND WITH SEA BREEZE Tess Gallagher
FUNERAL BLUES W.H.Auden
SONG FOR THE LAST ACT Louise Bogan
ON THE DEATH OF A CHILD D.J.Enright
THERE'S A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT Emily Dickinson
REQUISCAT Matthew Arnold
A YEAR GONE Elaine Feinstein
A FUNERALL SONG LAMENTING SIR PHILIP SYDNEY Anon
OF HUMAN LIFE Henry King
STILLBORN Jane Duran
PARTING Emily Dickinson
POSTSCRIPT Andrew Motion
ON MY FIRST SON Ben Johnson
EARLY POMPEIAN. AS FOR YOU, LITTLE STAR Derek Walcott
ODE TO THE CONFEDERATE DEAD Allen Tate
ELEGY FOR JANE (MY STUDENT) Theodore Roethke
MY SOUL, THERE IS A COUNTRIE Henry Vaughan
PRACTISING BEING DEAD Carol Ann Duffy
TRACT William Carlos Williams
DIRGE WITHOUT MUSIC Edna St Vincent Millay
COME LOVELY AND SOOTHING DEATH Walt Whitman
NIGHT OVER BIRKENAU Tadeucz Borowski
THE LOST BABY POEM Lucille Clifton
THE GATES OF PARADISE. I RENT THE VEIL WHERE THE DEAD DWELL: William Blake
THE BOUNTY Derek Walcott (several poems)
THE THIRD BOOK OF LUCRETIUS. AGAINST THE FEAR OF DEATH. John Dryden
IN MEMORIAM Alfred Lord Tennyson
GRASS Carl Sandburg
MEMORIAL Norman MacCaig
THE AFTERLIFE Billy Collins
TO HIS DYING BROTHER Robert Herrick
THE DEAD Billy Collins
A REFUSAL TO MOURN THE DEATH, BY FIRE, OF A CHILD IN LONDON Dylan Thomas
ORDER FOR THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD Psalm 90
OEDIPUS AT COLONUS . ENDURE WHAT LIFE GOD GIVES trans.W.B.Yeats
AT THE CEMETERY,WALNUT GROVE PLANTATION, SOUTH CAROLINA Lucille Clifton
(BUFFALO BILL'S) E.E.Cummings
GREATER LOVE Wilfred Owen
THE FAREWELL. HE TURN'D HIM RIGHT AND ROUND ABOUT Robert Burns
SONNET. AT THE ROUND EARTH'S IMAGINED CORNERS John Donne
MY PRIME OF YOUTH IS BUT A FROST OF CARES Chidiock Tichborne
AS I WALKED OUT ONE EVENING W.H.Auden
REMEMBRANCE Emily Bronte
RETRIEVER Donald Hall
THE SILVER SWAN Orlando Gibbons
AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION Dylan Thomas
LYCIDAS John Milton
SONNET ON CATHERINE WORDSWORTH William Wordsworth
SONNET LXV. SINCE BRASS,NOR STONE,NOR EARTH, NOR BOUNDLESS SEA William Shakespeare
for a marriage
WENDELL BERRY
CARRY HER OVER THE WATER W.H.Auden
LET ME NOT TO THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS William Shakespeare
THE ACHE OF MARRIAGE Denise Levertov
for an anniversary or special occasion
POEM IN OCTOBER Dylan Thomas
WHAT FIFTY SAID Robert Frost
LINES WRITTEN IN DEJECTION W.B.Yeats
MANY HAPPY RETURNS W.H.Auden
REMARKS OF SOUL TO BODY Robert Penn Warren
A BIRTHDAY Christina Rossetti
having fallen in love
A SUBALTERN'S LOVE SONG John Betjeman
MY LOVE IS AS A FEVER, LONGING STILL William Shakespeare
DONAL OG. ANON (Irish. trans Lady Gregory)
DAYBREAK John Donne
LOVE Langston Hughes
TO HIS COY MISTRESS Andrew Marvell
MAY I FEEL E.E.Cummings
FIRST LOVE Percy Bysshe Shelley
UPON JULIA'S CLOTHES Robert Herrick
SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT William Wordsworth
LA FIGLIA CHE PIANGE T.S.Eliot
TO MARY Percy Bysshe Shelley
TO HIS MISTRESS GOING TO BED John Donne
THE MOWER TO THE GLO-WORMS Andrew Marvell
SONG. HOW SWEET I ROAM'D FROM FIELD TO FIELD William Blake
SONG XI. LAY YOUR SLEEPING HEAD MY LOVE. W.H.Auden
BRIGHT STAR! WOULD I WERE STEADFAST AS THOU ART - John Keats
THE GARDEN OF LOVE William Blake
to give thanks
to express joy
upon leaving
A RED,RED ROSE Robert Burns
DAYBREAK John Donne
fellow feeling
PEOPLE POWER AT THE DIE-IN Denise Levertov
anthologies
BARTLETT'S POEMS FOR OCCASIONS (Little, Brown and Co) Geoffrey O'Brien.
THE LONG PALE CORRIDOR. CONTEMPORARY POEMS OF BEREAVEMENT (Bloodaxe)ed. Benson and Falk
THE SORROW PSALMS. A BOOK OF 20TH CENTURY ELEGY (Iowa) ed Strongin
POEMS OF DEATH (Muller) ed Pool
THE NAKED ASTRONAUT. POEMS ON BIRTH AND BIRTHDAYS (Faber) ed Rene Graziani
ENGLISH LOVE POEMS (Faber) ed Betjeman and Taylor
THE NATION'S FAVOURITEPOEMS OF DESIRE (BBC) ed Frostrup