Best Famous Steadied Poems

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Written by Philip Levine | The Negatives On March 1, 1958, four deserters from the French Army of North Africa, August Rein, Henri Bruette, Jack Dauville, & Thomas Delain, robbed a government pay station at Orleansville. Because of the subsequent confession of Dauville the other three were captured or shot. Dauville was given his freedom and returned to the land of his birth, the U.S.A. AUGUST REIN: from a last camp near St. Remy I dig in the soft earth all afternoon, spacing the holes a foot or so from the wall. Tonight we eat potatoes, tomorrow rice and carrots. The earth here is like the earth nowhere, ancient with wood rot. How can anything come forth, I wonder; and the days are all alike, if there is more than one day. If there is more of this I will not endure. I have grown so used to being watched I can no longer sleep without my watcher. The thing I fought against, the dark cape, crimsoned with terror that I so hated comforts me now. Thomas is dead; insanity, prison, cowardice, or slow inner capitulation has found us all, and all men turn from us, knowing our pain is not theirs or caused by them. HENRI BRUETTE: from a hospital in Algiers Dear Suzanne: this letter will not reach you because I can't write it; I have no pencil, no paper, only the blunt end of my anger. My dear, if I had words how could I report the imperfect failure for which I began to die? I might begin by saying that it was for clarity, though I did not find it in terror: dubiously entered each act, unsure of who I was and what I did, touching my face for fear I was another inside my head I played back pictures of my childhood, of my wife even, for it was in her I found myself beaten, safe, and furthest from the present. It is her face I see now though all I say is meant for you, her face in the slow agony of sexual release. I cannot see you. The dark wall ribbed with spittle on which I play my childhood brings me to this bed, mastered by what I was, betrayed by those I trusted. The one word my mouth must open to is why. JACK DAUVILLE: from a hotel in Tampa, Florida From Orleansville we drove south until we reached the hills, then east until the road stopped. I was nervous and couldn't eat. Thomas took over, told us when to think and when to ****. We turned north and reached Blida by first dawn and the City by morning, having dumped our weapons beside an empty road. We were free. We parted, and to this hour I haven't seen them, except in photographs: the black hair and torn features of Thomas Delain captured a moment before his death on the pages of the world, smeared in the act. I tortured myself with their betrayal: alone I hurled them into freedom, inner freedom which I can't find nor ever will until they are dead. In my mind Delain stands against the wall precise in detail, steadied for the betrayal. "La France C'Est Moi," he cried, but the irony was lost. Since I returned to the U.S. nothing goes well. I stay up too late, don't sleep, and am losing weight. Thomas, I say, is dead, but what use telling myself what I won't believe. The hotel quiets early at night, the aged brace themselves for another sleep, and offshore the sea quickens its pace. I am suddenly old, caught in a strange country for which no man would die. THOMAS DELAIN: from a journal found on his person At night wakened by the freight trains boring through the suburbs of Lyon, I watched first light corrode the darkness, disturb what little wildlife was left in the alleys: birds moved from branch to branch, and the dogs leapt at the garbage. Winter numbed even the hearts of the young who had only their hearts. We heard the war coming; the long wait was over, and we moved along the crowded roads south not looking for what lost loves fell by the roadsides. To flee at all cost, that was my youth. Here in the African night wakened by what I do not know and shivering in the heat, listen as the men fight with sleep. Loosed from their weapons they cry out, frightened and young, who have never been children. Once merely to be strong, to live, was moral. Within these uniforms we accept the evil we were chosen to deliver, and no act human or benign can free us from ourselves. Wait, sleep, blind soldiers of a blind will, and listen for that old command dreaming of authority.

Written by Walt Whitman | As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free 1 AS a strong bird on pinions free, Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving, Such be the thought I’d think to-day of thee, America, Such be the recitative I’d bring to-day for thee. The conceits of the poets of other lands I bring thee not, Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long, Nor rhyme—nor the classics—nor perfume of foreign court, or indoor library; But an odor I’d bring to-day as from forests of pine in the north, in Maine—or breath of an Illinois prairie, With open airs of Virginia, or Georgia, or Tennessee—or from Texas uplands, or Florida’s glades, With presentment of Yellowstone’s scenes, or Yosemite; And murmuring under, pervading all, I’d bring the rustling sea-sound, That endlessly sounds from the two great seas of the world. And for thy subtler sense, subtler refrains, O Union! Preludes of intellect tallying these and thee—mind-formulas fitted for thee—real, and sane, and large as these and thee; Thou, mounting higher, diving deeper than we knew—thou transcendental Union! By thee Fact to be justified—blended with Thought; Thought of Man justified—blended with God: Through thy Idea—lo! the immortal Reality! Through thy Reality—lo! the immortal Idea! 2 Brain of the New World! what a task is thine! To formulate the Modern.....Out of the peerless grandeur of the modern, Out of Thyself—comprising Science—to recast Poems, Churches, Art, (Recast—may-be discard them, end them—May-be their work is done—who knows?) By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the mighty past, the dead, To limn, with absolute faith, the mighty living present. (And yet, thou living, present brain! heir of the dead, the Old World brain! Thou that lay folded, like an unborn babe, within its folds so long! Thou carefully prepared by it so long!—haply thou but unfoldest it—only maturest it; It to eventuate in thee—the essence of the by-gone time contain’d in thee; Its poems, churches, arts, unwitting to themselves, destined with reference to thee, The fruit of all the Old, ripening to-day in thee.) 3 Sail—sail thy best, ship of Democracy! Of value is thy freight—’tis not the Present only, The Past is also stored in thee! Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone—not of thy western continent alone; Earth’s résumé entire floats on thy keel, O ship—is steadied by thy spars; With thee Time voyages in trust—the antecedent nations sink or swim with thee; With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes, epics, wars, thou bear’st the other continents; Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination-port triumphant: —Steer, steer with good strong hand and wary eye, O helmsman—thou carryest great companions, Venerable, priestly Asia sails this day with thee, And royal, feudal Europe sails with thee. 4 Beautiful World of new, superber Birth, that rises to my eyes, Like a limitless golden cloud, filling the western sky; Emblem of general Maternity, lifted above all; Sacred shape of the bearer of daughters and sons; Out of thy teeming womb, thy giant babes in ceaseless procession issuing, Acceding from such gestation, taking and giving continual strength and life; World of the Real! world of the twain in one! World of the Soul—born by the world of the real alone—led to identity, body, by it alone; Yet in beginning only—incalculable masses of composite, precious materials, By history’s cycles forwarded—by every nation, language, hither sent, Ready, collected here—a freer, vast, electric World, to be constructed here, (The true New World—the world of orbic Science, Morals, Literatures to come,) Thou Wonder World, yet undefined, unform’d—neither do I define thee; How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future? I feel thy ominous greatness, evil as well as good; I watch thee, advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the past; I see thy light lighting and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire globe; But I do not undertake to define thee—hardly to comprehend thee; I but thee name—thee prophecy—as now! I merely thee ejaculate! Thee in thy future; Thee in thy only permanent life, career—thy own unloosen’d mind—thy soaring spirit; Thee as another equally needed sun, America—radiant, ablaze, swift-moving, fructifying all; Thee! risen in thy potent cheerfulness and joy—thy endless, great hilarity! (Scattering for good the cloud that hung so long—that weigh’d so long upon the mind of man, The doubt, suspicion, dread, of gradual, certain decadence of man;) Thee in thy larger, saner breeds of Female, Male—thee in thy athletes, moral, spiritual, South, North, West, East, (To thy immortal breasts, Mother of All, thy every daughter, son, endear’d alike, forever equal;) Thee in thy own musicians, singers, artists, unborn yet, but certain; Thee in thy moral wealth and civilization (until which thy proudest material wealth and civilization must remain in vain;) Thee in thy all-supplying, all-enclosing Worship—thee in no single bible, saviour, merely, Thy saviours countless, latent within thyself—thy bibles incessant, within thyself, equal to any, divine as any; Thee in an education grown of thee—in teachers, studies, students, born of thee; Thee in thy democratic fetes, en masse—thy high original festivals, operas, lecturers, preachers; Thee in thy ultimata, (the preparations only now completed—the edifice on sure foundations tied,) Thee in thy pinnacles, intellect, thought—thy topmost rational joys—thy love, and godlike aspiration, In thy resplendent coming literati—thy full-lung’d orators—thy sacerdotal bards—kosmic savans, These! these in thee, (certain to come,) to-day I prophecy. 5 Land tolerating all—accepting all—not for the good alone—all good for thee; Land in the realms of God to be a realm unto thyself; Under the rule of God to be a rule unto thyself. (Lo! where arise three peerless stars, To be thy natal stars, my country—Ensemble—Evolution—Freedom, Set in the sky of Law.) Land of unprecedented faith—God’s faith! Thy soil, thy very subsoil, all upheav’d; The general inner earth, so long, so sedulously draped over, now and hence for what it is, boldly laid bare, Open’d by thee to heaven’s light, for benefit or bale. Not for success alone; Not to fair-sail unintermitted always; The storm shall dash thy face—the murk of war, and worse than war, shall cover thee all over; (Wert capable of war—its tug and trials? Be capable of peace, its trials; For the tug and mortal strain of nations come at last in peace—not war;) In many a smiling mask death shall approach, beguiling thee—thou in disease shalt swelter; The livid cancer spread its hideous claws, clinging upon thy breasts, seeking to strike thee deep within; Consumption of the worst—moral consumption—shall rouge thy face with hectic: But thou shalt face thy fortunes, thy diseases, and surmount them all, Whatever they are to-day, and whatever through time they may be, They each and all shall lift, and pass away, and cease from thee; While thou, Time’s spirals rounding—out of thyself, thyself still extricating, fusing, Equable, natural, mystical Union thou—(the mortal with immortal blent,) Shalt soar toward the fulfilment of the future—the spirit of the body and the mind, The Soul—its destinies. The Soul, its destinies—the real real, (Purport of all these apparitions of the real;) In thee, America, the Soul, its destinies; Thou globe of globes! thou wonder nebulous! By many a throe of heat and cold convuls’d—(by these thyself solidifying;) Thou mental, moral orb! thou New, indeed new, Spiritual World! The Present holds thee not—for such vast growth as thine—for such unparallel’d flight as thine, The Future only holds thee, and can hold thee.

Written by Marriott Edgar | Goalkeeper Joe Joe Dunn were a bobby for football He gave all his time to that sport, He played for the West Wigan Whippets, On days when they turned out one short. He’d been member of club for three seasons And had grumbled again and again, Cos he found only time that they’d used him, Were when it were pouring with rain! He felt as his talents were wasted When each week his job seemed to be No but minding the clothes for the others And chucking clods at referee! So next time selection committee Came round to ask him for his sub He told them if they didn’t play him, He’d transfer to some other club. Committee they coaxed and cudgelled him But found he’d have none of their shifts So they promised to play him next weekend In match against Todmorden Swifts. This match were the plum of the season An annual fixture it stood, ‘T were reckoned as good as a cup tie By them as liked plenty of blood! The day of the match dawned in splendour A beautiful morning it were With a fog drifting up from the brick fields And a drizzle of rain in the air. The Whippets made Joe their goalkeeper A thing as weren’t wanted at all For they knew once battle had started They’d have no time to mess with the ball! Joe stood by the goal posts and shivered While the fog round his legs seemed to creep 'Til feeling neglected and lonely He leant back and went fast asleep. He dreamt he were playing at Wembley And t’roar of a thundering cheer He were kicking a goal for the Whippets When he woke with a clout in his ear! He found 'twere the ball that had struck him And inside the net there it lay But as no one had seen this ‘ere ‘appen He punted it back into play! 'Twere the first ball he’d punted in anger His feelings he couldn’t restrain Forgetting as he were goalkeeper He ran out and kicked it again! Then after the ball like a rabbit He rushed down the field full of pride He reckoned if nobody stopped him Then ‘appen he’d score for his side. ‘Alf way down he bumped into his captain Who weren’t going to let him go by But Joe, like Horatio Nelson Put a fist to the Captain’s blind eye! On he went 'til the goal lay before him Then stopping to get himself set He steadied the ball, and then kicked it And landed it right in the net! The fog seemed to lift at that moment And all eyes were turned on the lad The Whippets seemed kind of dumbfounded While the Swifts started cheering like mad! 'Twere his own goal as he’d kicked the ball through He’d scored for his foes ‘gainst his friends For he’d slept through the referee’s whistle And at half time he hadn’t changed ends! Joe was transferred from the West Wigan Whippets To the Todmorden Swifts, where you’ll see Still minding the clothes for the others And chucking clods at referee!

Written by Elizabeth Bishop | A Miracle For Breakfast At six o'clock we were waiting for coffee, waiting for coffee and the charitable crumb that was going to be served from a certain balcony —like kings of old, or like a miracle. It was still dark. One foot of the sun steadied itself on a long ripple in the river. The first ferry of the day had just crossed the river. It was so cold we hoped that the coffee would be very hot, seeing that the sun was not going to warm us; and that the crumb would be a loaf each, buttered, by a miracle. At seven a man stepped out on the balcony. He stood for a minute alone on the balcony looking over our heads toward the river. A servant handed him the makings of a miracle, consisting of one lone cup of coffee and one roll, which he proceeded to crumb, his head, so to speak, in the clouds—along with the sun. Was the man crazy? What under the sun was he trying to do, up there on his balcony! Each man received one rather hard crumb, which some flicked scornfully into the river, and, in a cup, one drop of the coffee. Some of us stood around, waiting for the miracle. I can tell what I saw next; it was not a miracle. A beautiful villa stood in the sun and from its doors came the smell of hot coffee. In front, a baroque white plaster balcony added by birds, who nest along the river, —I saw it with one eye close to the crumb— and galleries and marble chambers. My crumb my mansion, made for me by a miracle, through ages, by insects, birds, and the river working the stone. Every day, in the sun, at breakfast time I sit on my balcony with my feet up, and drink gallons of coffee. We licked up the crumb and swallowed the coffee. A window across the river caught the sun as if the miracle were working, on the wrong balcony.

Written by Andrew Barton Paterson | Mulligans Mare Oh, Mulligan's bar was the deuce of a place To drink, and to fight, and to gamble and race; The height of choice spirits from near and from far Were all concentrated on Mulligan's bar. There was "Jerry the Swell", and the jockey-boy Ned, "Dog-bite-me" -- so called from the shape of his head -- And a man whom the boys, in their musical slang, Designated the "Gaffer of Mulligan's Gang". Now Mulligan's Gang had a racer to show, A bad un to look at, a good un to go; Whenever they backed her you safely might swear She'd walk in a winner, would Mulligan's mare. But Mulligan, having some radical views, Neglected his business and got on the booze; He took up with runners -- a treacherous troop -- Who gave him away, and he "fell in the soup". And so it turned out on a fine summer day, A bailiff turned up with a writ of "fi. fa."; He walked to the bar with a manner serene, "I levy," said he, "in the name of the Queen." Then Mulligan wanted, in spite of the law, To pay out the bailiff with "one on the jaw"; He drew out to hit him; but ere you could wink, He changed his intention and stood him a drink. A great consultation there straightway befell 'Twixt jockey-boy Neddy and Jerry the Swell, And the man with the head, who remarked "Why, you bet! Dog-bite-me!" said he, "but we'll diddle 'em yet. "We'll slip out the mare from her stall in a crack, And put in her place the old broken-down hack; The hack is so like her, I'm ready to swear The bailiff will think he has Mulligan's mare. "So out with the racer and in with the screw, We'll show him what Mulligan's talent can do; And if he gets nasty and dares to say much, I'll knock him as stiff as my grandfather's crutch." Then off to the town went the mare and the lad; The bailiff came out, never dreamt he was "had"; But marched to the stall with a confident air -- "I levy," said he, "upon Mulligan's mare." He watched her by day and he watched her by night, She was never an instant let out of his sight, For races were coming away in the West And Mulligan's mare had a chance with the best. "Here's a slant," thought the bailiff, "to serve my own ends, I'll send off a wire to my bookmaking friends: 'Get all you can borrow, beg, snavel or snare And lay the whole lot against Mulligan's mare.'" The races came round, and the crowd on the course Were laying the mare till they made themselves hoarse, And Mulligan's party, with ardour intense, They backed her for pounds and for shillings and pence. But think of the grief of the bookmaking host At the sound of the summons to go to the post -- For down to the start with her thoroughbred air As fit as a fiddle pranced Mulligan's mare! They started, and off went the boy to the front, He cleared out at once, and he made it a hunt; He steadied as rounding the corner they wheeled, Then gave her her head -- and she smothered the field. The race put her owner right clear of his debts; He landed a fortune in stakes and in bets, He paid the old bailiff the whole of his pelf, And gave him a hiding to keep for himself. So all you bold sportsmen take warning, I pray, Keep clear of the running, you'll find it don't pay; For the very best rule that you'll hear in a week Is never to bet on a thing that can speak. And whether you're lucky or whether you lose, Keep clear of the cards and keep clear of the booze, And fortune in season will answer your prayer And send you a flyer like Mulligan's mare.

Written by William Butler Yeats | News For The Delphic Oracle I There all the golden codgers lay, There the silver dew, And the great water sighed for love, And the wind sighed too. Man-picker Niamh leant and sighed By Oisin on the grass; There sighed amid his choir of love Tall pythagoras. plotinus came and looked about, The salt-flakes on his breast, And having stretched and yawned awhile Lay sighing like the rest. II Straddling each a dolphin's back And steadied by a fin, Those Innocents re-live their death, Their wounds open again. The ecstatic waters laugh because Their cries are sweet and strange, Through their ancestral patterns dance, And the brute dolphins plunge Until, in some cliff-sheltered bay Where wades the choir of love Proffering its sacred laurel crowns, They pitch their burdens off. III Slim adolescence that a nymph has stripped, Peleus on Thetis stares. Her limbs are delicate as an eyelid, Love has blinded him with tears; But Thetis' belly listens. Down the mountain walls From where pan's cavern is Intolerable music falls. Foul goat-head, brutal arm appear, Belly, shoulder, bum, Flash fishlike; nymphs and satyrs Copulate in the foam.

Written by Edgar Lee Masters | Butch Weldy After I got religion and steadied down They gave me a job in the canning works, And every morning I had to fill The tank in the yard with gasoline, That fed the blow-fires in the sheds To heat the soldering irons. And I mounted a rickety ladder to do it, Carrying buckets full of the stuff. One morning, as I stood there pouring, The air grew still and seemed to heave, And I shot up as the tank exploded, And down I came with both legs broken, And my eyes burned crisp as a couple of eggs. For someone left a blow-fire going, And something sucked the flame in the tank. The Circuit Judge said whoever did it Was a fellow-servant of mine, and so Old Rhodes' son didn't have to pay me. And I sat on the witness stand as blind As Jack the Fiddler, saying over and over, "l didn't know him at all."

Written by Edgar Lee Masters | Searcy Foote I wanted to go away to college But rich Aunt Persis wouldn't help me. So I made gardens and raked the lawns And bought John Alden's books with my earnings And toiled for the very means of life. I wanted to marry Delia Prickett, But how could I do it with what I earned? And there was Aunt Persis more than seventy, Who sat in a wheel-chair half alive, With her throat so paralyzed, when she swallowed The soup ran out of her mouth like a duck -- A gourmand yet, investing her income In mortgages, fretting all the time About her notes and rents and papers. That day I was sawing wood for her, And reading Proudhon in between. I went in the house for a drink of water, And there she sat asleep in her chair, And Proudhon lying on the table, And a bottle of chloroform on the book, She used sometimes for an aching tooth! I poured the chloroform on a handkerchief And held it to her nose till she died. -- Oh Delia, Delia, you and Proudhon Steadied my hand, and the coroner Said she died of heart failure. I married Delia and got the money -- A joke on you, Spoon River?

Written by Andrew Barton Paterson | Tommy Corrigan You talk of riders on the flat, of nerve and pluck and pace -- Not one in fifty has the nerve to ride a steeplechase. It's right enough, while horses pull and take their faces strong, To rush a flier to the front and bring the field along; Bur what about the last half-mile, with horses blown and beat -- When every jump means all you know to keep him on his feet. When any slip means sudden death -- with wife and child to keep -- It needs some nerve to draw the whip and flog him at the leap -- But Corrigan would ride them out, by danger undismayed, He never flinched at fence or wall, he never was afraid; With easy seat and nerve of steel, light hand and smiling face, He held the rushing horses back, and made the sluggards race. He gave the shirkers extra heart, he steadied down the rash, He rode great clumsy boring brutes, and chanced a fatal smash; He got the rushing Wymlet home that never jumped at all -- But clambered over every fence and clouted every wall. You should have heard the cheers, my boys, that shook the members' stand Whenever Tommy Corrigan weighed out to ride Lone Hand. They were, indeed, a glorious pair -- the great upstanding horse, The gamest jockey on his back that ever faced a course. Though weight was big and pace was hot and fences stiff and tall, "You follow Tommy Corrigan" was passed to one and all. And every man on Ballarat raised all he could command To put on Tommy Corrigan when riding old Lone Hand. But now we'll keep his memory green while horsemen come and go; We may not see his like again where silks and satins glow. We'll drink to him in silence, boys -- he's followed down the track Where many a good man went before, but never one came back. Amd, let us hope, in that far land where the shades of brave men reign, The gallant Tommy Corrigan will ride Lone Hand again.