Introduction to Poetry

Poetic forms 1

'The New Colossus' by Emma Lazarus.

 

'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!' 


“Sonnet 73

That time of year thou may’st in me behold 

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, 

Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.”

 “In me thou see’st the twilight of such day, 

As after sunset fadeth in the west, 

Which by and by black night doth take away, 

Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest. 

In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire 

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, 

As the death-bed whereon it must expire 

Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by. 

This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, 

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.” 


"Time does not bring relief..."

Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied 

Who told me time would ease me of my pain! 

I miss him in the weeping of the rain; 

I want him at the shrinking of the tide; 

The old snows melt from every mountain-side, 

And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane; 

But last year's bitter loving must remain 

Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide! 

There are a hundred places where I fear 

To go,--so with his memory they brim! 

And entering with relief some quiet place 

Where never fell his foot or shone his face 

I say, "There is no memory of him here!" 

And so stand stricken, so remembering him!