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Best Famous Wet Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Wet poems. This is a select list of the best famous Wet poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Wet poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of wet poems.

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Written by Muhammad Ali | Create an image from this poem

Last night I had a dream

Last night I had a dream, When I got to Africa,
I had one hell of a rumble.
I had to beat Tarzan’s behind first,
For claiming to be King of the Jungle.
For this fight, I’ve wrestled with alligators,
I’ve tussled with a whale.
I done handcuffed lightning
And throw thunder in jail.
You know I’m bad.
just last week, I murdered a rock,
Injured a stone, Hospitalized a brick.
I’m so mean, I make medicine sick.
I’m so fast, man,
I can run through a hurricane and don't get wet.
When George Foreman meets me,
He’ll pay his debt.
I can drown the drink of water, and kill a dead tree.
Wait till you see Muhammad Ali.


Written by Shel Silverstein | Create an image from this poem

I cannot go to school today!

"I cannot go to school today"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.

My mouth is wet, my throat is dry.
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox.

And there's one more - that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut, my eyes are blue,
It might be the instamatic flu.

I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke.
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in.

My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My toes are cold, my toes are numb,
I have a sliver in my thumb.

My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.

My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.

I have a hangnail, and my heart is ...
What? What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is .............. Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!"
Written by Edward Estlin (E E) Cummings | Create an image from this poem

Love is more thicker than forget

Love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

It's most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

Love is more always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less litter than forgive

It's most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky
Written by Sylvia Plath | Create an image from this poem

Letter In November

 Love, the world
Suddenly turns, turns color. The streetlight
Splits through the rat's tail
Pods of the laburnum at nine in the morning.
It is the Arctic,

This little black
Circle, with its tawn silk grasses - babies hair.
There is a green in the air,
Soft, delectable.
It cushions me lovingly.

I am flushed and warm.
I think I may be enormous,
I am so stupidly happy,
My Wellingtons
Squelching and squelching through the beautiful red.

This is my property.
Two times a day
I pace it, sniffing
The barbarous holly with its viridian
Scallops, pure iron,

And the wall of the odd corpses.
I love them.
I love them like history.
The apples are golden,
Imagine it ----

My seventy trees
Holding their gold-ruddy balls
In a thick gray death-soup,
Their million
Gold leaves metal and breathless.

O love, O celibate.
Nobody but me
Walks the waist high wet.
The irreplaceable
Golds bleed and deepen, the mouths of Thermopylae.
Written by Walt Whitman | Create an image from this poem

To Think of Time

 1
TO think of time—of all that retrospection! 
To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward! 

Have you guess’d you yourself would not continue? 
Have you dreaded these earth-beetles? 
Have you fear’d the future would be nothing to you?

Is to-day nothing? Is the beginningless past nothing? 
If the future is nothing, they are just as surely nothing. 

To think that the sun rose in the east! that men and women were flexible, real, alive!
 that
 everything was alive! 
To think that you and I did not see, feel, think, nor bear our part! 
To think that we are now here, and bear our part!

2
Not a day passes—not a minute or second, without an accouchement! 
Not a day passes—not a minute or second, without a corpse! 

The dull nights go over, and the dull days also, 
The soreness of lying so much in bed goes over, 
The physician, after long putting off, gives the silent and terrible look for an answer,
The children come hurried and weeping, and the brothers and sisters are sent for, 
Medicines stand unused on the shelf—(the camphor-smell has long pervaded the rooms,) 
The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the dying, 
The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying, 
The breath ceases, and the pulse of the heart ceases,
The corpse stretches on the bed, and the living look upon it, 
It is palpable as the living are palpable. 

The living look upon the corpse with their eye-sight, 
But without eye-sight lingers a different living, and looks curiously on the corpse. 

3
To think the thought of Death, merged in the thought of materials!
To think that the rivers will flow, and the snow fall, and fruits ripen, and act upon
 others as
 upon us now—yet not act upon us! 
To think of all these wonders of city and country, and others taking great interest in
 them—and we taking no interest in them! 

To think how eager we are in building our houses! 
To think others shall be just as eager, and we quite indifferent! 

(I see one building the house that serves him a few years, or seventy or eighty years at
 most,
I see one building the house that serves him longer than that.) 

Slow-moving and black lines creep over the whole earth—they never cease—they are
 the
 burial lines, 
He that was President was buried, and he that is now President shall surely be buried. 

4
A reminiscence of the vulgar fate, 
A frequent sample of the life and death of workmen,
Each after his kind: 
Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf—posh and ice in the river, half-frozen mud in
 the
 streets, a gray, discouraged sky overhead, the short, last daylight of Twelfth-month, 
A hearse and stages—other vehicles give place—the funeral of an old Broadway
 stage-driver, the cortege mostly drivers. 

Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell, the gate is pass’d, the
 new-dug grave is halted at, the living alight, the hearse uncloses, 
The coffin is pass’d out, lower’d and settled, the whip is laid on the coffin,
 the
 earth is swiftly shovel’d in,
The mound above is flatted with the spades—silence, 
A minute—no one moves or speaks—it is done, 
He is decently put away—is there anything more? 

He was a good fellow, free-mouth’d, quick-temper’d, not bad-looking, able to
 take his
 own part, witty, sensitive to a slight, ready with life or death for a friend, fond of
 women,
 gambled, ate hearty, drank hearty, had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited
 toward
 the last, sicken’d, was help’d by a contribution, died, aged forty-one
 years—and
 that was his funeral. 

Thumb extended, finger uplifted, apron, cape, gloves, strap, wet-weather clothes, whip
 carefully chosen, boss, spotter, starter, hostler, somebody loafing on you, you loafing
 on
 somebody, headway, man before and man behind, good day’s work, bad day’s work,
 pet
 stock, mean stock, first out, last out, turning-in at night;
To think that these are so much and so nigh to other drivers—and he there takes no
 interest in them! 

5
The markets, the government, the working-man’s wages—to think what account they
 are
 through our nights and days! 
To think that other working-men will make just as great account of them—yet we make
 little
 or no account! 

The vulgar and the refined—what you call sin, and what you call goodness—to
 think how
 wide a difference! 
To think the difference will still continue to others, yet we lie beyond the difference.

To think how much pleasure there is! 
Have you pleasure from looking at the sky? have you pleasure from poems? 
Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business? or planning a nomination and
 election? or with your wife and family? 
Or with your mother and sisters? or in womanly housework? or the beautiful maternal cares?

—These also flow onward to others—you and I flow onward,
But in due time, you and I shall take less interest in them. 

Your farm, profits, crops,—to think how engross’d you are! 
To think there will still be farms, profits, crops—yet for you, of what avail? 

6
What will be, will be well—for what is, is well, 
To take interest is well, and not to take interest shall be well.

The sky continues beautiful, 
The pleasure of men with women shall never be sated, nor the pleasure of women with men,
 nor
 the pleasure from poems, 
The domestic joys, the daily housework or business, the building of houses—these are
 not
 phantasms—they have weight, form, location; 
Farms, profits, crops, markets, wages, government, are none of them phantasms, 
The difference between sin and goodness is no delusion,
The earth is not an echo—man and his life, and all the things of his life, are
 well-consider’d. 

You are not thrown to the winds—you gather certainly and safely around yourself; 
Yourself! Yourself! Yourself, forever and ever! 

7
It is not to diffuse you that you were born of your mother and father—it is to
 identify
 you; 
It is not that you should be undecided, but that you should be decided;
Something long preparing and formless is arrived and form’d in you, 
You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes. 

The threads that were spun are gather’d, the weft crosses the warp, the pattern is
 systematic. 

The preparations have every one been justified, 
The orchestra have sufficiently tuned their instruments—the baton has given the
 signal.

The guest that was coming—he waited long, for reasons—he is now housed, 
He is one of those who are beautiful and happy—he is one of those that to look upon
 and be
 with is enough. 

The law of the past cannot be eluded, 
The law of the present and future cannot be eluded, 
The law of the living cannot be eluded—it is eternal,
The law of promotion and transformation cannot be eluded, 
The law of heroes and good-doers cannot be eluded, 
The law of drunkards, informers, mean persons—not one iota thereof can be eluded. 

8
Slow moving and black lines go ceaselessly over the earth, 
Northerner goes carried, and Southerner goes carried, and they on the Atlantic side, and
 they
 on the Pacific, and they between, and all through the Mississippi country, and all over
 the
 earth.

The great masters and kosmos are well as they go—the heroes and good-doers are well, 
The known leaders and inventors, and the rich owners and pious and distinguish’d, may
 be
 well, 
But there is more account than that—there is strict account of all. 

The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not nothing, 
The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing,
The common people of Europe are not nothing—the American aborigines are not nothing, 
The infected in the immigrant hospital are not nothing—the murderer or mean person is
 not
 nothing, 
The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as they go, 
The lowest prostitute is not nothing—the mocker of religion is not nothing as he
 goes. 

9
Of and in all these things,
I have dream’d that we are not to be changed so much, nor the law of us changed, 
I have dream’d that heroes and good-doers shall be under the present and past law, 
And that murderers, drunkards, liars, shall be under the present and past law, 
For I have dream’d that the law they are under now is enough. 

If otherwise, all came but to ashes of dung,
If maggots and rats ended us, then Alarum! for we are betray’d! 
Then indeed suspicion of death. 

Do you suspect death? If I were to suspect death, I should die now, 
Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward annihilation? 

10
Pleasantly and well-suited I walk,
Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good, 
The whole universe indicates that it is good, 
The past and the present indicate that it is good. 

How beautiful and perfect are the animals! 
How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing upon it!

What is called good is perfect, and what is called bad is just as perfect, 
The vegetables and minerals are all perfect, and the imponderable fluids are perfect; 
Slowly and surely they have pass’d on to this, and slowly and surely they yet pass
 on. 

11
I swear I think now that everything without exception has an eternal Soul! 
The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea have! the animals!

I swear I think there is nothing but immortality! 
That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it, and the cohering is
 for
 it; 
And all preparation is for it! and identity is for it! and life and materials are
 altogether
 for it


Written by Richard Aldington | Create an image from this poem

Childhood

 I 

The bitterness. the misery, the wretchedness of childhood 
Put me out of love with God. 
I can't believe in God's goodness; 
I can believe 
In many avenging gods. 
Most of all I believe 
In gods of bitter dullness, 
Cruel local gods 
Who scared my childhood. 

II 

I've seen people put 
A chrysalis in a match-box, 
"To see," they told me, "what sort of moth would come." 
But when it broke its shell 
It slipped and stumbled and fell about its prison 
And tried to climb to the light 
For space to dry its wings. 

That's how I was. 
Somebody found my chrysalis 
And shut it in a match-box. 
My shrivelled wings were beaten, 
Shed their colours in dusty scales 
Before the box was opened 
For the moth to fly. 

III 

I hate that town; 
I hate the town I lived in when I was little; 
I hate to think of it. 
There wre always clouds, smoke, rain 
In that dingly little valley. 
It rained; it always rained. 
I think I never saw the sun until I was nine -- 
And then it was too late; 
Everything's too late after the first seven years. 

The long street we lived in 
Was duller than a drain 
And nearly as dingy. 
There were the big College 
And the pseudo-Gothic town-hall. 
There were the sordid provincial shops -- 
The grocer's, and the shops for women, 
The shop where I bought transfers, 
And the piano and gramaphone shop 
Where I used to stand 
Staring at the huge shiny pianos and at the pictures 
Of a white dog looking into a gramaphone. 

How dull and greasy and grey and sordid it was! 
On wet days -- it was always wet -- 
I used to kneel on a chair 
And look at it from the window. 

The dirty yellow trams 
Dragged noisily along 
With a clatter of wheels and bells 
And a humming of wires overhead. 
They threw up the filthy rain-water from the hollow lines 
And then the water ran back 
Full of brownish foam bubbles. 

There was nothing else to see -- 
It was all so dull -- 
Except a few grey legs under shiny black umbrellas 
Running along the grey shiny pavements; 
Sometimes there was a waggon 
Whose horses made a strange loud hollow sound 
With their hoofs 
Through the silent rain. 

And there was a grey museum 
Full of dead birds and dead insects and dead animals 
And a few relics of the Romans -- dead also. 
There was a sea-front, 
A long asphalt walk with a bleak road beside it, 
Three piers, a row of houses, 
And a salt dirty smell from the little harbour. 

I was like a moth -- 
Like one of those grey Emperor moths 
Which flutter through the vines at Capri. 
And that damned little town was my match-box, 
Against whose sides I beat and beat 
Until my wings were torn and faded, and dingy 
As that damned little town. 

IV 

At school it was just as dull as that dull High Street. 
The front was dull; 
The High Street and the other street were dull -- 
And there was a public park, I remember, 
And that was damned dull, too, 
With its beds of geraniums no one was allowed to pick, 
And its clipped lawns you weren't allowed to walk on, 
And the gold-fish pond you mustn't paddle in, 
And the gate made out of a whale's jaw-bones, 
And the swings, which were for "Board-School children," 
And its gravel paths. 

And on Sundays they rang the bells, 
From Baptist and Evangelical and Catholic churches. 
They had a Salvation Army. 
I was taken to a High Church; 
The parson's name was Mowbray, 
"Which is a good name but he thinks too much of it --" 
That's what I heard people say. 

I took a little black book 
To that cold, grey, damp, smelling church, 
And I had to sit on a hard bench, 
Wriggle off it to kneel down when they sang psalms 
And wriggle off it to kneel down when they prayed, 
And then there was nothing to do 
Except to play trains with the hymn-books. 

There was nothing to see, 
Nothing to do, 
Nothing to play with, 
Except that in an empty room upstairs 
There was a large tin box 
Containing reproductions of the Magna Charta, 
Of the Declaration of Independence 
And of a letter from Raleigh after the Armada. 
There were also several packets of stamps, 
Yellow and blue Guatemala parrots, 
Blue stags and red baboons and birds from Sarawak, 
Indians and Men-of-war 
From the United States, 
And the green and red portraits 
Of King Francobello 
Of Italy. 

V 

I don't believe in God. 
I do believe in avenging gods 
Who plague us for sins we never sinned 
But who avenge us. 

That's why I'll never have a child, 
Never shut up a chrysalis in a match-box 
For the moth to spoil and crush its brght colours, 
Beating its wings against the dingy prison-wall.
Written by Wallace Stevens | Create an image from this poem

Sunday Morning

1
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passion of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

2
Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in the comforts of sun,
In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measures destined for her soul.

3
Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind
He moved among us, as a muttering king,
Magnificent, would move among his hinds,
Until our blood, commingling, virginal,
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star.
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

4
She says, "I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?"
There is not any haunt of prophecy,
Nor any old chimera of the grave,
Neither the golden underground, nor isle
Melodious, where spirits gat them home,
Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm
Remote as heaven's hill, that has endured
As April's green endures; or will endure
Like her rememberance of awakened birds,
Or her desire for June and evening, tipped
By the consummation of the swallow's wings.

5
She says, "But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss."
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths,
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness,
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

6
Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receeding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set the pear upon those river-banks
Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?
Alas, that they should wear our colors there,
The silken weavings of our afternoons,
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning bosom we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

7
Supple and turbulent, a ring of men
Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn
Their boisterous devotion to the sun,
Not as a god, but as a god might be,
Naked among them, like a savage source.
Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,
Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,
The windy lake wherein their lord delights,
The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,
That choir among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

8
She hears, upon that water without sound,
A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirits lingering.
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay."
We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsered, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Abiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.
Written by Nazim Hikmet | Create an image from this poem

Things I Didnt Know I Loved

 it's 1962 March 28th
I'm sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train 
night is falling
I never knew I liked
night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain 
I don't like
comparing nightfall to a tired bird

I didn't know I loved the earth
can someone who hasn't worked the earth love it 
I've never worked the earth
it must be my only Platonic love

and here I've loved rivers all this time
whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills
European hills crowned with chateaus
or whether stretched out flat as far as the eye can see
I know you can't wash in the same river even once
I know the river will bring new lights you'll never see
I know we live slightly longer than a horse but not nearly as long as a crow
I know this has troubled people before
 and will trouble those after me
I know all this has been said a thousand times before 
 and will be said after me

I didn't know I loved the sky 
cloudy or clear
the blue vault Andrei studied on his back at Borodino
in prison I translated both volumes of War and Peace into Turkish 
I hear voices
not from the blue vault but from the yard 
the guards are beating someone again
I didn't know I loved trees
bare beeches near Moscow in Peredelkino
they come upon me in winter noble and modest 
beeches are Russian the way poplars are Turkish 
"the poplars of Izmir
losing their leaves. . .
they call me The Knife. . .
 lover like a young tree. . .
I blow stately mansions sky-high"
in the Ilgaz woods in 1920 I tied an embroidered linen handkerchief 
 to a pine bough for luck

I never knew I loved roads 
even the asphalt kind
Vera's behind the wheel we're driving from Moscow to the Crimea 
 Koktebele
 formerly "Goktepé ili" in Turkish 
the two of us inside a closed box
the world flows past on both sides distant and mute 
I was never so close to anyone in my life
bandits stopped me on the red road between Bolu and Geredé
 when I was eighteen
apart from my life I didn't have anything in the wagon they could take 
and at eighteen our lives are what we value least
I've written this somewhere before
wading through a dark muddy street I'm going to the shadow play 
Ramazan night
a paper lantern leading the way
maybe nothing like this ever happened
maybe I read it somewhere an eight-year-old boy
 going to the shadow play
Ramazan night in Istanbul holding his grandfather's hand 
 his grandfather has on a fez and is wearing the fur coat
 with a sable collar over his robe
 and there's a lantern in the servant's hand
 and I can't contain myself for joy
flowers come to mind for some reason 
poppies cactuses jonquils
in the jonquil garden in Kadikoy Istanbul I kissed Marika 
fresh almonds on her breath
I was seventeen
my heart on a swing touched the sky 
I didn't know I loved flowers
friends sent me three red carnations in prison

I just remembered the stars 
I love them too
whether I'm floored watching them from below 
or whether I'm flying at their side

I have some questions for the cosmonauts 
were the stars much bigger
did they look like huge jewels on black velvet
 or apricots on orange
did you feel proud to get closer to the stars
I saw color photos of the cosmos in Ogonek magazine now don't 
 be upset comrades but nonfigurative shall we say or abstract 
 well some of them looked just like such paintings which is to 
 say they were terribly figurative and concrete
my heart was in my mouth looking at them 
they are our endless desire to grasp things
seeing them I could even think of death and not feel at all sad 
I never knew I loved the cosmos

snow flashes in front of my eyes
both heavy wet steady snow and the dry whirling kind 
I didn't know I liked snow

I never knew I loved the sun
even when setting cherry-red as now
in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors 
but you aren't about to paint it that way
I didn't know I loved the sea
 except the Sea of Azov
or how much

I didn't know I loved clouds
whether I'm under or up above them
whether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts

moonlight the falsest the most languid the most petit-bourgeois 
strikes me
I like it

I didn't know I liked rain
whether it falls like a fine net or splatters against the glass my 
 heart leaves me tangled up in a net or trapped inside a drop 
 and takes off for uncharted countries I didn't know I loved 
 rain but why did I suddenly discover all these passions sitting 
 by the window on the Prague-Berlin train
is it because I lit my sixth cigarette 
one alone could kill me
is it because I'm half dead from thinking about someone back in Moscow
her hair straw-blond eyelashes blue

the train plunges on through the pitch-black night
I never knew I liked the night pitch-black
sparks fly from the engine
I didn't know I loved sparks
I didn't know I loved so many things and I had to wait until sixty 
 to find it out sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train 
 watching the world disappear as if on a journey of no return

 19 April 1962
 Moscow
Written by William Cowper | Create an image from this poem

The Castaway

 Obscurest night involv'd the sky,
Th' Atlantic billows roar'd,
When such a destin'd wretch as I,
Wash'd headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left.

No braver chief could Albion boast
Than he with whom he went,
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast,
With warmer wishes sent.
He lov'd them both, but both in vain,
Nor him beheld, nor her again.

Not long beneath the whelming brine,
Expert to swim, he lay;
Nor soon he felt his strength decline,
Or courage die away;
But wag'd with death a lasting strife,
Supported by despair of life.

He shouted: nor his friends had fail'd
To check the vessel's course,
But so the furious blast prevail'd,
That, pitiless perforce,
They left their outcast mate behind,
And scudded still before the wind.

Some succour yet they could afford;
And, such as storms allow,
The cask, the coop, the floated cord,
Delay'd not to bestow.
But he (they knew) nor ship, nor shore,
Whate'er they gave, should visit more.

Nor, cruel as it seem'd, could he
Their haste himself condemn,
Aware that flight, in such a sea,
Alone could rescue them;
Yet bitter felt it still to die
Deserted, and his friends so nigh.

He long survives, who lives an hour
In ocean, self-upheld;
And so long he, with unspent pow'r,
His destiny repell'd;
And ever, as the minutes flew,
Entreated help, or cried--Adieu!

At length, his transient respite past,
His comrades, who before
Had heard his voice in ev'ry blast,
Could catch the sound no more.
For then, by toil subdued, he drank
The stifling wave, and then he sank.

No poet wept him: but the page
Of narrative sincere;
That tells his name, his worth, his age,
Is wet with Anson's tear.
And tears by bards or heroes shed
Alike immortalize the dead.

I therefore purpose not, or dream,
Descanting on his fate,
To give the melancholy theme
A more enduring date:
But misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another's case.

No voice divine the storm allay'd,
No light propitious shone;
When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
We perish'd, each alone:
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he.
Written by Dylan Thomas | Create an image from this poem

Poem In October

 It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
 And the mussel pooled and the heron
 Priested shore
 The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
 Myself to set foot
 That second
 In the still sleeping town and set forth.

 My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
 Above the farms and the white horses
 And I rose
 In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
 Over the border
 And the gates
 Of the town closed as the town awoke.

 A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
 Blackbirds and the sun of October
 Summery
 On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
 To the rain wringing
 Wind blow cold
 In the wood faraway under me.

 Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
 With its horns through mist and the castle
 Brown as owls
 But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
 There could I marvel
 My birthday
 Away but the weather turned around.

 It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
 Streamed again a wonder of summer
 With apples
 Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
 Through the parables
 Of sun light
 And the legends of the green chapels

 And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
 These were the woods the river and sea
 Where a boy
 In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
 And the mystery
 Sang alive
 Still in the water and singingbirds.

 And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
 Joy of the long dead child sang burning
 In the sun.
 It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
 O may my heart's truth
 Still be sung
 On this high hill in a year's turning.

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry