Famous Long Simple Poems

Famous Long Simple Poems. Long Simple Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Simple long poems

See also: Long Member Poems

 You always read about it:
the plumber with the twelve children
who wins the Irish Sweepstakes.
From toilets to riches.
That story.

Or the nursemaid,
some luscious sweet from Denmark
who captures the oldest son's heart.
from diapers to Dior.
That story.

Or a milkman who serves the wealthy,
eggs, cream, butter, yogurt, milk,
the white truck like an ambulance
who goes into real estate
and makes a pile.
From homogenized to martinis at lunch.

Or the charwoman
who is on the bus when it cracks up
and collects enough from the insurance.
From mops to Bonwit Teller.
That story.

Once
the wife of a rich man was on her deathbed
and she said to her daughter Cinderella:
Be devout. Be good. Then I will smile
down from heaven in the seam of a cloud.
The man took another wife who had
two daughters, pretty enough
but with hearts like blackjacks.
Cinderella was their maid.
She slept on the sooty hearth each night
and walked around looking like Al Jolson.
Her father brought presents home from town,
jewels and gowns for the other women
but the twig of a tree for Cinderella.
She planted that twig on her mother's grave
and it grew to a tree where a white dove sat.
Whenever she wished for anything the dove
would drop it like an egg upon the ground.
The bird is important, my dears, so heed him.

Next came the...
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I MIND me in the days departed, 
How often underneath the sun 
With childish bounds I used to run 
To a garden long deserted. 

The beds and walks were vanish'd quite; 5 
And wheresoe'er had struck the spade, 
The greenest grasses Nature laid, 
To sanctify her right. 

I call'd the place my wilderness, 
For no one enter'd there but I. 10 
The sheep look'd in, the grass to espy, 
And pass'd it ne'ertheless. 

The trees were interwoven wild, 
And spread their boughs enough about 
To keep both sheep and shepherd out, 15 
But not a happy child. 

Adventurous joy it was for me! 
I crept beneath the boughs, and found 
A circle smooth of mossy ground 
Beneath a poplar-tree. 20 

Old garden rose-trees hedged it in, 
Bedropt with roses waxen-white, 
Well satisfied with dew and light, 
And careless to be seen. 

Long years ago, it might befall, 25 
When all the garden flowers were trim, 
The grave old gardener prided him 
On these the most of all. 

Some Lady, stately overmuch, 
Here moving with a silken noise, 30 
Has blush'd beside them at the voice 
That liken'd her to such. 

Or these, to make a diadem, 
She often may have...
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 (sign at a railroad crossing in Kenya)

In a poem, one line may hide another line,
As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.
That is, if you are waiting to cross
The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at
Least after the first train is gone. And so when you read
Wait until you have read the next line—
Then it is safe to go on reading.
In a family one sister may conceal another,
So, when you are courting, it's best to have them all in view
Otherwise in coming to find one you may love another.
One father or one brother may hide the man,
If you are a woman, whom you have been waiting to love.
So always standing in front of something the other
As words stand in front of objects, feelings, and ideas.
One wish may hide another. And one person's reputation may hide
The reputation of another. One dog may conceal another
On a lawn, so if you escape the first one you're not necessarily safe;
One lilac may hide another and then a lot of lilacs and on the Appia
 Antica one tomb
May hide a number of other tombs. In love, one reproach may hide another,
One small complaint may hide a great one.
One injustice may...
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  IV. — TO THE WORLD.                  A Farewell for a Gentlewoman, virtuous and noble.   My part is ended on thy stage.luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/invisiline.gif"> Do not once hope that thou canst tempt    A spirit so resolv'd to tread Upon thy throat, and live exempt    From all the nets that thou canst spread.luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/invisiline.gif"> I know thy forms are studied arts,    Thy subtle ways be narrow straits ;luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/invisiline.gif"> I know too, though thou strut and paint,    Yet art thou both shrunk up, and old, That only fools make thee a saint,    And all thy good is to be sold.luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/invisiline.gif"> I know thou whole are but a shop    Of toys and trifles, traps and snares, To take the weak, or make them stop :    Yet art thou falser than thy wares.  And, knowing this, should I yet stay,    Like such as blow away their lives, And never will redeem a day,    Enamour'd of their golden gyves ?luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/invisiline.gif"> Or having 'scaped shall I return,    And thrust my neck into the noose, From whence so lately, I did burn,    With all my powers, myself to loose ?luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/invisiline.gif"> What bird, or beast...
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 Ah! happy he, upon whose birth each god
Looks down in love, whose earliest sleep the bright
Idalia cradles, whose young lips the rod
Of eloquent Hermes kindles--to whose eyes,
Scarce wakened yet, Apollo steals in light,
While on imperial brows Jove sets the seal of might!
Godlike the lot ordained for him to share,
He wins the garland ere he runs the race;
He learns life's wisdom ere he knows life's care,
And, without labor vanquished, smiles the grace.
Great is the man, I grant, whose strength of mind,
Self-shapes its objects and subdues the fates--
Virtue subdues the fates, but cannot blind
The fickle happiness, whose smile awaits
Those who scarce seek it; nor can courage earn
What the grace showers not from her own free urn!
From aught unworthy, the determined will
Can guard the watchful spirit--there it ends
The all that's glorious from the heaven descends;
As some sweet mistress loves us, freely still
Come the spontaneous gifts of heaven!--Above
Favor rules Jove, as it below rules love!
The immortals have their bias!--Kindly they
See the bright locks of youth enamored play,
And where the glad one goes, shed gladness round the way.
It is not they who boast the best to see,
Whose eyes the holy apparitions bless;
The stately light of their divinity
Hath oft but shone the brightest on the...
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 from an officer's diary during the last war

I 

The sour daylight cracks through my sleep-caked lids. 
"Stephan! Stephan!" The rattling orderly 
Comes on a trot, the cold tray in his hands: 
Toast whitening with oleo, brown tea, 

Yesterday's napkins, and an opened letter. 
"Your asthma's bad, old man." He doesn't answer, 
And turns to the grey windows and the weather. 
"Don't worry, Stephan, the lungs will go to cancer." 

II 

I speak, "the enemy's exhausted, victory 
Is almost ours..." These twenty new recruits, 
Conscripted for the battles lost already, 
Were once the young, exchanging bitter winks, 

And shuffling when I rose to eloquence, 
Determined not to die and not to show 
The fear that held them in their careless stance, 
And yet they died, how many wars ago? 

Or came back cream puffs, 45, and fat. 
I know that I am touched for my eyes brim 
With tears I had forgotten. Death is not 
For these car salesmen whose only dream 

Is of a small percentage of the take. 
Oh my eternal smilers, weep for death 
Whose harvest withers with your aged aches 
And cannot make the grave for lack of breath. 

III 

Did you wet? Oh no, he...
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 In Mike Maloney's Nugget bar the hooch was flowin' free,
An' One-eyed Mike was shakin' dice wi' Montreal Maree,
An roarin' rageful warning when the boys got overwild,
When peekin' through the double door he spied a tiny child.
Then Mike Maloney muttered: "Hell! Now ain't that jest too bad;
It's Dud McClusky's orphen Nell a-lookin' for her dad.
An' him in back, a-lushin' wine wi' Violet de Vere-
Three times I've told the lousy swine to keep away from here."
"Pore leetle sing! He leaves her lone, so he go on ze spree:
I feex her yet, zat Violet," said Montreal Maree. 
Now I'm accommodatin' when it comes to scented sin
But when I saw that innocent step in our drunken din,
I felt that I would like to crawl an' hide my head in shame.
An' judgin' by their features all them sourdoughs felt the same.
For there they stood like chunks o' wood, forgettin' how to swear,
An' every glass o' likker was suspended in the air.
For with her hair of sunny silk, and big, blue pansy eyes
She looked jest like an angel child stepped outa paradise.
So then Big Mike, paternal like, took her upon his knee.
"Ze pauv' petite! She ees so sweet," said Montreal Maree. 

The kid was mighty...
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 In Ionia whence sprang old poets' fame,
From whom that sea did first derive her name,
The blessed bed whereon the Muses lay,
Beauty of Greece, the pride of Asia,
Whence Archelaus, whom times historify,
First unto Athens brought philosophy:
In this fair region on a goodly plain,
Stretching her bounds unto the bord'ring main,
The mountain Latmus overlooks the sea,
Smiling to see the ocean billows play:
Latmus, where young Endymion used to keep
His fairest flock of silver-fleeced sheep,
To whom Silvanus often would resort,
At barley-brake to see the Satyrs sport;
And when rude Pan his tabret list to sound,
To see the fair Nymphs foot it in a round,
Under the trees which on this mountain grew,
As yet the like Arabia never knew;
For all the pleasures Nature could devise
Within this plot she did imparadise;
And great Diana of her special grace
With vestal rites had hallowed all the place.
Upon this mount there stood a stately grove,
Whose reaching arms to clip the welkin strove,
Of tufted cedars, and the branching pine,
Whose bushy tops themselves do so entwine,
As seem'd, when Nature first this work begun,
She then conspir'd against the piercing sun;
Under whose covert (thus divinely made)
Ph{oe}bus' green laurel flourish'd in the shade,
Fair Venus' myrtle, Mars his warlike fir,
Minerva's olive, and the weeping myrrh,
The patient palm, which...
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 An unwrapped icon, too potent to touch,
she freed my breasts from the camp Empire dress.
Now one of them's the shadow of a breast
with a lost object's half-life, with as much
life as an anecdotal photograph:
me, Kim and Iva, all stripped to the waist,
hiking near Russian River on June first
'79: Iva's five-and-a-half.
While she was almost twenty, wearing black
T-shirts in D.C., where we hadn't met.
You lay your palm, my love, on my flat chest.
In lines alive with what is not regret,
she takes her own path past, doesn't turn back.
Persistently, on paper, we exist.

Persistently, on paper, we exist.
You'd touch me if you could, but you're, in fact,
three thousand miles away. And my intact
body is eighteen months paper: the past
a fragile eighteen months regime of trust
in slash-and-burn, in vitamin pills, backed
by no statistics. Each day I enact
survivor's rituals, blessing the crust
I tear from the warm loaf, blessing the hours
in which I didn't or in which I did
consider my own death. I am not yet
statistically a survivor (that
is sixty months). On paper, someone flowers
and flares alive. I knew her. But she's dead.

She flares alive. I knew her. But she's dead.
I flirted with her, might have been her friend,
but transatlantic schedules intervened.
She wrote a book about...
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 The wanton Troopers riding by
Have shot my Faun and it will dye.
Ungentle men! They cannot thrive
To kill thee. Thou neer didst alive
Them any harm: alas nor cou'd
Thy death yet do them any good.
I'me sure I never wisht them ill;
Nor do I for all this; nor will:
But, if my simple Pray'rs may yet
Prevail with Heaven to forget
Thy murder, I will Joyn my Tears
Rather then fail. But, O my fears!
It cannot dye so. Heavens King
Keeps register of every thing:
And nothing may we use in vain.
Ev'n Beasts must be with justice slain;
Else Men are made their Deodands.
Though they should wash their guilty hands
In this warm life blood, which doth part
From thine, and wound me to the Heart,
Yet could they not be clean: their Stain
Is dy'd in such a Purple Grain.
There is not such another in
The World, to offer for their Sin,
Unconstant Sylvio, when yet
I had not found him counterfeit,
One morning (I remember well)
Ty'd in this silver Chain and Bell,
Gave it to me: nay and I know
What he said then; I'm sure I do.
Said He, look how your Huntsman here
Hath taught a Faun to hunt his Dear.
But Sylvio soon had me beguil'd.
This waxed tame; while he grew wild,
And quite regardless of my Smart,
Left...
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 You see that porcelain ranged there in the window—
Platters and soup-plates done with pale pink rosebuds,
And tiny violets, and wreaths of ivy?
See how the pattern clings to the gleaming edges!
They're works of art—minutely seen and felt,
Each petal done devoutly. Is it failure
To spend your blood like this?

Study them . . . you will see there, in the porcelain,
If you stare hard enough, a sort of swimming
Of lights and shadows, ghosts within a crystal—
My brain unfolding! There you'll see me sitting
Day after day, close to a certain window,
Looking down, sometimes, to see the people . . .

Sometimes my wife comes there to speak to me . . .
Sometimes the grey cat waves his tail around me . . .
Goldfish swim in a bowl, glisten in sunlight,
Dilate to a gorgeous size, blow delicate bubbles,
Drowse among dark green weeds. On rainy days,
You'll see a gas-light shedding light behind me—
An eye-shade round my forehead. There I sit,
Twirling the tiny brushes in my paint-cups,
Painting the pale pink rosebuds, minute violets,
Exquisite wreaths of dark green ivy leaves.
On this leaf, goes a dream I dreamed last night
Of two soft-patterned toads—I thought them stones,
Until they hopped! And then a great black spider,—
Tarantula, perhaps, a hideous thing,—
It crossed...
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 GIFT from the cold and silent Past! 
A relic to the present cast, 
Left on the ever-changing strand 
Of shifting and unstable sand, 
Which wastes beneath the steady chime 
And beating of the waves of Time! 
Who from its bed of primal rock 
First wrenched thy dark, unshapely block? 
Whose hand, of curious skill untaught, 
Thy rude and savage outline wrought? 
The waters of my native stream 
Are glancing in the sun's warm beam; 
From sail-urged keel and flashing oar 
The circles widen to its shore; 
And cultured field and peopled town 
Slope to its willowed margin down. 
Yet, while this morning breeze is bringing 
The home-life sound of school-bells ringing, 
And rolling wheel, and rapid jar 
Of the fire-winged and steedless car, 
And voices from the wayside near 
Come quick and blended on my ear,-- 
A spell is in this old gray stone, 
My thoughts are with the Past alone! 

A change! -- The steepled town no more 
Stretches along the sail-thronged shore; 
Like palace-domes in sunset's cloud, 
Fade sun-gilt spire and mansion proud: 
Spectrally rising where they stood, 
I see the old, primeval wood; 
Dark, shadow-like, on either hand 
I see its solemn waste expand; 
It climbs...
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 A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.

When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;
With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who...
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 CHORUS
Come we shepherds whose blest sight
Hath met love's noon in nature's night;
Come lift we up our loftier song
And wake the sun that lies too long.

To all our world of well-stol'n joy
He slept, and dreamt of no such thing,
While we found out heav'n's fairer eye,
And kiss'd the cradle of our King.
Tell him he rises now too late
To show us aught worth looking at.

Tell him we now can show him more
Than he e'er show'd to mortal sight,
Than he himself e'er saw before,
Which to be seen needs not his light.
Tell him, Tityrus, where th' hast been;
Tell him, Thyrsis, what th' hast seen.
TITYRUS

Gloomy night embrac'd the place
Where the Noble Infant lay;
The Babe look'd up and show'd his face,
In spite of darkness, it was day.
It was thy day, Sweet! and did rise
Not from the east, but from thine eyes.
CHORUS

It was thy day, Sweet! and did rise
Not from the east, but from thine eyes.
THYRSIS

Winter chid aloud, and sent
The angry North to wage his wars;
The North forgot his fierce intent,
And left perfumes instead of scars.
By those sweet eyes' persuasive pow'rs,
Where he meant frost, he scatter'd flow'rs.
CHORUS

By those sweet eyes' persuasive pow'rs,
Where he meant frost, he scatter'd flow'rs.
BOTH

We saw thee in thy balmy nest,
Young dawn of our...
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 There's many a schoolboy's bat and ball that are gathering dust at home, 
For he hears a voice in the future call, and he trains for the war to come; 
A serious light in his eyes is seen as he comes from the schoolhouse gate; 
He keeps his kit and his rifle clean, and he sees that his back is straight. 

But straight or crooked, or round, or lame – you may let these words take root; 
As the time draws near for the sterner game, all boys should learn to shoot, 
From the beardless youth to the grim grey-beard, let Australians ne'er forget, 
A lame limb never interfered with a brave man's shooting yet. 

Over and over and over again, to you and our friends and me, 
The warning of danger has sounded plain – like the thud of a gun at sea. 
The rich man turns to his wine once more, and the gay to their worldly joys, 
The "statesman" laughs at a hint of war – but something has told the boys. 

The schoolboy scouts of the White Man's Land are out on the hills to-day; 
They trace the tracks from the sea-beach sand and sea-cliffs...
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