Section: «Poems»
Verse (ancient Greek ὁ στίχος — row, structure), a term in versification used in several meanings:
artistic speech organized by division into rhythmically commensurate segments; poetry in the narrow sense; in particular, it implies the properties of versification of a particular tradition ("antique verse", "Akhmatova's verse", etc.);
a line of poetic text organized according to a certain rhythmic pattern ("My uncle of the most honest rules").
I Could Die—to Know
570I could die—to know—'Tis a trifling knowledge—News-Boys salute the Door—Carts—joggle by—Morning's bold face—stares in the window—Were but mine—the..
© Emily Dickinson
One Anguish—in A Crowd
565One Anguish—in a Crowd—A Minor thing—it sounds—And yet, unto the single DoeAttempted of the Hounds'Tis Terror as consummateAs Legions of AlarmDid..
© Emily Dickinson
Yesterday Is History
Yesterday is History,'Tis so far away -Yesterday is Poetry -'Tis Philosophy -Yesterday is mystery -Where it is TodayWhile we shrewdly..
© Emily Dickinson
What If I Say I Shall Not Wait!
277What if I say I shall not wait!What if I burst the fleshly Gate—And pass escaped—to thee!What if I file this Mortal—off—See where it hurt..
© Emily Dickinson
No Rack Can Torture Me
384No Rack can torture me—My Soul—at Liberty—Behind this mortal BoneThere knits a bolder One—You cannot prick with saw—Nor pierce with Scimitar—Two..
© Emily Dickinson
Not In This World To See His Face
Not in this world to see his faceSounds long, until I read the placeWhere this is said to beBut just the primer to a lifeUnopened, rare, upon the..
© Emily Dickinson
The Season of Phantasmal Peace
Then all the nations of birds lifted togetherthe huge net of the shadows of this earthin multitudinous dialects, twittering tongues,stitching and..
© Derek Walcott
From 'Omeros'
BOOK SIXChapter XLIVIIn hill-towns, from San Fernando to Mayagüez,the same sunrise stirred the feathered lances of canedown the archipelago's..
© Derek Walcott
A Lesson for This Sunday
The growing idleness of summer grassWith its frail kites of furious butterfliesRequests the lemonade of simple praiseIn scansion gentler than my..
© Derek Walcott
Ruins Of A Great House
though our longest sun sets at right declensions andmakes but winter arches,it cannot be long before we lie down in darkness, andhave our light in..
© Derek Walcott
The Bounty
[for Alix Walcott]iBetween the vision of the Tourist Board and the trueParadise lies the desert where Isaiah's elationsforce a rose from the sand...
© Derek Walcott
The Fist
The fist clenched round my heartloosens a little, and I gaspbrightness; but it tightensagain. When have I ever not lovedthe pain of love? But this..
© Derek Walcott
The Star-Apple Kingdom
There were still shards of an ancient pastoralin those shires of the island where the cattle dranktheir pools of shadow from an older sky,surviving..
© Derek Walcott
In the Village
II came up out of the subway and there werepeople standing on the steps as if they knewsomething I didn't. This was in the Cold War,and nuclear..
© Derek Walcott
Coral
This coral's hape ecohes the handIt hollowed. ItsImmediate absence is heavy. As pumice,As your breast in my cupped palm.Sea-cold, its nipple rasps..
© Derek Walcott
Pentecost
Better a jungle in the headthan rootless concrete.Better to stand bewilderedby the fireflies' crooked street;winter lamps do not showwhere the..
© Derek Walcott
R.T.S.L. (1917-1977)
As for that other thingwhich comes when the eyelid is glazedand the wax gleamfrom the unwrinkled foreheadasks no more questionsof the dry..
© Derek Walcott
Parang
Man, I suck me tooth when I hearHow dem croptime fiddlers lie,And de wailing, kiss-me-arse flutesThat bring water to me eye!Oh, when I t'ink how from..
© Derek Walcott
Koening Of The River
Koening knew now there was no one on the river.Entering its brown mouth choking with liliesand curtained with midges, Koenig poled the shalloppast..
© Derek Walcott
The Saddhu Of Couva
When sunset, a brass gong,vibrate through Couva,is then I see my soul, swiftly unsheathed,like a white cattle bird growing more smallover the ocean..
© Derek Walcott
Sabbaths, W.I.
Those villages stricken with the melancholia of Sunday,in all of whose ocher streets one dog is sleepingthose volcanoes like ashen roses, or the..
© Derek Walcott
In The Virgins
You can't put in the ground swell of the organfrom the Christiansted, St.Croix, Anglican Churchbehind the paratrooper's voice: 'Turned copafter..
© Derek Walcott
Codicil
Schizophrenic, wrenched by two styles,one a hack's hired prose, I earnme exile. I trudge this sickle, moonlit beach for miles,tan, burnto slough..
© Derek Walcott
Dark August
So much rain, so much life like the swollen skyof this black August. My sister, the sun,broods in her yellow room and won't come out.Everything goes..
© Derek Walcott
The Glory Trumpeter
Old Eddie's face, wrinkled with river lights,Looked like a Mississippi man's. The eyes,Derisive and avuncular at once,Swivelling, fixed me. They'd..
© Derek Walcott