Poetry

Pakistan Movement by Alamgir Hashmi PART 1 Movement, sure. Millions moving From that side to this side, From this side to that side, and back again sometimes, Across the thoughtful movement Wherein stood those who were undecided, and suspect, Like border-posts signifying the mid-frontier. The sultry summer-if you know what I mean-behind us. The blistering…

Morning Song By Sylvia Plath Love set you going like a fat gold watch. The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry Took its place among the elements. Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue. In a drafty museum, your nakedness Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls. I’m no more…

Digging By Seamus Heaney Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. Under my window, a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: My father, digging. I look down Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds Bends low, comes up twenty years away Stooping in rhythm…

Woman Work By Maya Angelou I’ve got the children to tend The clothes to mend The floor to mop The food to shop Then the chicken to fry The baby to dry I got company to feed The garden to weed I’ve got shirts to press The tots to dress The cane to be cut…

One’s-Self I Sing By Walt Whitman One’s-Self I sing, a simple separate person, Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. Of physiology from top to toe I sing, Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far, The Female equally with the Male I…

Kubla Khan By Samuel Taylor Coleridge Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round; And there…

Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood By William Wordsworth The child is father of the man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety. (Wordsworth, “My Heart Leaps Up”) There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To…

Holy Sonnets Death, be not proud By John Donne Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure;…

Sonnet 60: Like as the waves make towards the pebbl’d shore By William Shakespeare Like as the waves make towards the pebbl’d shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend. Nativity, once in the main of light, Crawls to…

An Old Man’s Winter Night By Robert Frost 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. What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand. What kept him from…

The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps…

Revelation By Robert Frost We make ourselves a place apart Behind light words that tease and flout, But oh, the agitated heart Till someone find us really out. ’Tis pity if the case require (Or so we say) that in the end We speak the literal to inspire The understanding of a friend. But so…

West Running Brook By Robert Frost ‘Fred, where is north?’ ‘North? North is there, my love. The brook runs west.’ ‘West-running Brook then call it.’ (West-Running Brook men call it to this day.) ‘What does it think k’s doing running west When all the other country brooks flow east To reach the ocean? It must…

The Tuft of Flowers By Robert Frost I went to turn the grass once after one Who mowed it in the dew before the sun. The dew was gone that made his blade so keen Before I came to view the levelled scene. I looked for him behind an isle of trees; I listened for…

The Pasture By Robert Frost I’m going out to clean the pasture spring; I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away (And wait to watch the water clear, I may): I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too. I’m going out to fetch the little calf That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young, It totters…

Birches By Robert Frost When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy’s been swinging them. But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a…

Mending Wall By Robert Frost Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not…

Fire and Ice By Robert Frost Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And…

After Apple-Picking By Robert Frost My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree Toward heaven still, And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple-picking now. Essence of winter sleep is on the night,…

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening By Robert Frost Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the…