Poem Hunter: Poems - Poets - Poetry

We speak with the lip, and we dream in the soul,
Of some better and fairer day;
And our days, the meanwhile, to that golden goal
Are gliding and sliding away.
Now the world becomes old, now again it is young,
But 'The better' 's forever the word on the tongue.

At the threshold of life hope leads us in-
Hope plays round the mirthful boy;
Though the best of its charms may with youth begin,
Yet for age it reserves its toy.
...

All actors look for them-the defining moments
When what a character does is what he is.
The script may say, He goes to the door
And exits or She goes out the door stage left.

But you see your fingers touching the doorknob,
Closing around it, turning it
As if by themselves. The latch slides
Out of the strike-plate, the door swings on its hinges,
And you're about to take that step

...

The eyes that occasionally look at me
on my screen, so still, so close.
What thoughts lurk behind them,
what feeling softly whispers their presence?

I keep wondering,
is it a dream, a fleeting moment,
or does this also resonate in reality,
a spark that my heart gently knows?


...

Ah, my dear angry Lord,
Since thou dost love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford;
Sure I will do the like.

I will complain, yet praise;
I will bewail, approve;
And all my sour-sweet days
I will lament and love.
...

Through the noise, through the silence,
Through melodies soft and strong,
Life hums like an endless instrumental,
And I keep moving along.

Some notes bring sadness to the surface,
Some wrap me in gentle love,
Some fill my heart with courage,
Like strength sent from above.


...

ALONG the grass sweet airs are blown
Our way this day in Spring.
Of all the songs that we have known
Now which one shall we sing?
Not that, my love, ah no!—
Not this, my love? why, so!—
Yet both were ours, but hours will come and go.
The grove is all a pale frail mist,
The new year sucks the sun.
Of all the kisses that we kissed
Now which shall be the one?
Not that my love, ah no!—
Not this, my love?—heigh-ho
For all the sweets that all the winds can blow!
The branches cross above our eyes,
The skies are in a net:
And what's the thing beneath the skies
We two would most forget?
Not birth, my love, no, no,—
Not death, my love, no, no,—
The love once ours, but ours long hours ago.
...

Up from the bronze, I saw
Water without a flaw
Rush to its rest in air,
Reach to its rest, and fall.

Bronze of the blackest shade,
An element man-made,
Shaping upright the bare
Clear gouts of water in air.


...

I'm no saint—only human, weaknesses showing,
I sin without noticing, imperfect, still growing.
I won't wear a mask so you see me clean;
I'd rather be real than act like a screen.

I've known what it is to be very, very bad,
to plot in the quiet, not shout when I'm mad.
Now I watch our kind—preaching Christ through closed teeth,
dying secret deaths, chained addictions beneath.


...