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Poems I enjoy

Trees - Philip Larkin

Poetry Archive

O Were My Love Yon Lilac Fair – Robert Burns

O were my love yon lilac fair,
Wi’ purple blossoms to the spring,
And I a bird to shelter there,
When wearied on my little wing!
How I wad mourn when it was torn
By autumn wild and winter rude!
But I wad sing on wanton wing
When youthfu’ May its bloom renew’d.

O gin my love were yon red rose,
That grows upon the castle wa’;
And I myself a drap o’ dew,
Into her bonnie breast to fa’!
O there, beyond expression blest,
I’d feast on beauty a’ the night;
Seal’d on her silk-saft faulds to rest,
Till fley’d awa by Phoebus’ light.

Tears, Idle Tears – Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign’d
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

BE Melting Snow – Rumi

Totally conscious, and apropos of nothing, you come to see me.
Is someone here? I ask.
The moon. The full moon is inside your house.
My friends and I go running out into the street.
“I'm in here,” comes a voice from the house—but we aren’t listening.
We’re looking up at the sky.
My pet nightingale sobs like a drunk in the garden.
Ring‑doves scatter with small cries, “Where? Where?”
It’s midnight. The whole neighborhood is out in the street thinking, “The cat‑burglar has come back.”
The actual thief is there too, saying out loud, “Yes, the cat‑burglar is somewhere in this crowd.”
No one pays attention.
Lo, “I am with you always” means when you look for God,
God is in the look of your eyes,
in the thought of looking, nearer to yourself than yourself or your experiences.
There’s no need to go outside.
Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.
A white flower grows in the quietness.
Let your tongue become that flower.