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by
Emily Dickinson
Heaven is what I cannot reach!
The apple on the tree,
Provided it do hopeless hang,
That "heaven" is, to me.
The color on the cruising cloud,
The interdicted ground
Behind the hill, the house behind, --
There Paradise is found!
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by
Richard Brautigan
Forget love
I want to die
in your yellow hair
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by
Robert Frost
It is blue-butterfly day here in spring,
And with these sky-flakes down in flurry on flurry
There is more unmixed color on the wing
Than flowers will show for days unless they hurry.
But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:
And now from having ridden out desire
They lie closed over in the wind and cling
Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.
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by
Matsuo Basho
Winter solitude--
in a world of one color
the sound of wind.
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by
Sylvia Plath
Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new
Whose name you meditate --
April snowdrop, Indian pipe,
Little
Stalk without wrinkle,
Pool in which images
Should be grand and classical
Not this troublous
Wringing of hands, this dark
Ceiling without a star.
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by
Robert Frost
Inscription for a Garden Wall
Winds blow the open grassy places bleak;
But where this old wall burns a sunny cheek,
They eddy over it too toppling weak
To blow the earth or anything self-clear;
Moisture and color and odor thicken here.
The hours of daylight gather atmosphere.
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by
Sylvia Plath
Color of lemon, mango, peach,
These storybook villas
Still dream behind
Shutters, thier balconies
Fine as hand-
Made lace, or a leaf-and-flower pen-sketch.
Tilting with the winds,
On arrowy stems,
Pineapple-barked,
A green crescent of palms
Sends up its forked
Firework of fronds.
A quartz-clear dawn
Inch by bright inch
Gilds all our Avenue,
And out of the blue drench
Of Angels' Bay
Rises the round red watermelon sun.
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by
Emily Dickinson
An ignorance a Sunset
Confer upon the Eye --
Of Territory -- Color --
Circumference -- Decay --
Its Amber Revelation
Exhilirate -- Debase --
Omnipotence' inspection
Of Our inferior face --
And when the solemn features
Confirm -- in Victory --
We start -- as if detected
In Immortality --
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by
Adrienne Rich
Stripped
you're beginning to float free
up through the smoke of brushfires
and incinerators
the unleafed branches won't hold you
nor the radar aerials
You're what the autumn knew would happen
after the last collapse
of primary color
once the last absolutes were torn to pieces
you could begin
How you broke open, what sheathed you
until this moment
I know nothing about it
my ignorance of you amazes me
now that I watch you
starting to give yourself away
to the wind
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by
W S Merwin
For Galway Kinnell
The rust a little pile of western color lies
At the end of its travels
Our instrument no longer.
Those who believe
In death have their worship cut out for them.
As for myself we
Continue
An old
Scar of light our trumpet
Pilgrims with thorns
To the eye of the cold
Under flags made by the blind
In one fist
Their letter that vanishes
If the hand opens:
Charity come home
Begin.
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by
Sylvia Plath
Color floods to the spot, dull purple.
The rest of the body is all washed-out,
The color of pearl.
In a pit of a rock
The sea sucks obsessively,
One hollow thw whole sea's pivot.
The size of a fly,
The doom mark
Crawls down the wall.
The heart shuts,
The sea slides back,
The mirrors are sheeted.
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by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The odor from the flower is gone
Which like thy kisses breathed on me;
The color from the flower is flown
Which glowed of thee and only thee!
A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form,
It lies on my abandoned breast;
And mocks the heart, which yet is warm,
With cold and silent rest.
I weep--my tears revive it not;
I sigh--it breathes no more on me:
Its mute and uncomplaining lot
Is such as mine should be.
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by
Emily Dickinson
Color -- Caste -- Denomination --
These -- are Time's Affair --
Death's diviner Classifying
Does not know they are --
As in sleep -- All Hue forgotten --
Tenets -- put behind --
Death's large -- Democratic fingers
Rub away the Brand --
If Circassian -- He is careless --
If He put away
Chrysalis of Blonde -- or Umber --
Equal Butterfly --
They emerge from His Obscuring --
What Death -- knows so well --
Our minuter intuitions --
Deem unplausible --
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by
Federico García Lorca
In the green morning
I wanted to be a heart.
A heart.
And in the ripe evening
I wanted to be a nightingale.
A nightingale.
(Soul,
turn orange-colored.
Soul,
turn the color of love.
)
In the vivid morning
I wanted to be myself.
A heart.
And at the evening's end
I wanted to be my voice.
A nightingale.
Soul,
turn orange-colored.
Soul,
turn the color of love.
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by
Wanda Phipps
I close my eyes
and there it is
a concrete walkway
leading out of a
small village
hugging the sides
of a green green
tree filled mountainside
and to the right
a pipe railing
paited the color
of oxidized metaland even firther
to my right
a small beach
costline-an ocean
all under a pale blue sky
all there when my eyelids
close and the shutters open
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by
Emily Dickinson
"Heaven" -- is what I cannot reach!
The Apple on the Tree --
Provided it do hopeless -- hang --
That -- "Heaven" is -- to Me!
The Color, on the Cruising Cloud --
The interdicted Land --
Behind the Hill -- the House behind --
There -- Paradise -- is found!
Her teasing Purples -- Afternoons --
The credulous -- decoy --
Enamored -- of the Conjuror --
That spurned us -- Yesterday!
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by
Emily Dickinson
Summer begins to have the look
Peruser of enchanting Book
Reluctantly but sure perceives
A gain upon the backward leaves --
Autumn begins to be inferred
By millinery of the cloud
Or deeper color in the shawl
That wraps the everlasting hill.
The eye begins its avarice
A meditation chastens speech
Some Dyer of a distant tree
Resumes his gaudy industry.
Conclusion is the course of All
At most to be perennial
And then elude stability
Recalls to immortality.
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by
Paul Eluard
She is standing on my eyelids
And her hair is in my hair
She has the color of my eye
She has the body of my hand
In my shade she is engulfed
As a stone against the sky
She will never close her eyes
And she does not let me sleep
And her dreams in the bright day
Make the suns evaporate
And me laugh cry and laugh
Speak when I have nothing to say
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by
Edward Lear
There was a Young Lady whose eyes
Were unique as to color and size;
When she opened them wide, people all turned aside,
And started away in surprise.
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by
Emily Dickinson
The Color of a Queen, is this --
The Color of a Sun
At setting -- this and Amber --
Beryl -- and this, at Noon --
And when at night -- Auroran widths
Fling suddenly on men --
'Tis this -- and Witchcraft -- nature keeps
A Rank -- for Iodine --
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by
Ogura Hyakunin Isshu
Color of the flower
Has already passed away
While on trivial things
Vainly I have set my gaze,
In my journey through the world.
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by
Emily Dickinson
Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat?
Then crouch within the door --
Red -- is the Fire's common tint --
But when the vivid Ore
Has vanquished Flame's conditions,
It quivers from the Forge
Without a color, but the light
Of unanointed Blaze.
Least Village has its Blacksmith
Whose Anvil's even ring
Stands symbol for the finer Forge
That soundless tugs -- within --
Refining these impatient Ores
With Hammer, and with Blaze
Until the Designated Light
Repudiate the Forge --
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by
Richard Brautigan
It's night
and a numbered beauty
lapses at the wind,
chortles with the
branches of a tree,
giggles,
plays shadow dance
with a dead kite,
cajoles affection
from falling leaves,
and knows four
other things.
One is the color
of your hair.
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by
Edward Lear
There was a Young Lady of Dorking,
Who bought a large bonnet for walking;
But its color and size so bedazzled her eyes,
That she very soon went back to Dorking.
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by
Jennifer Reeser
In my dream, Celebrity, four pianos
scored the room, and you -- on an antique sofa
near two dark-haired innocents -- asked that I play
something immortal.
Dust motes grayed the air, and a sage-green shadow
draped the walls in color like sifted powder.
I agreed, but wandered, untold, too many
keys to consider.
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