Great Short Poems from Around the World

NoteAbu'l-Ala al-Ma'rri "Thus they have passed, and we shall follow soon"Yamabe Akahito"Like the mists that ever rise"Anna Akhmatova"One can never mistake true tenderness"The MuseRichard AldingtonEveningThe RiverAmalfiThomas Bailey AldrichMemoryWilliam AllinghamFour Ducks on a PondAlpheius of Mytilene"Unhappy they whose life is loveless"AnacreonNature's LawsBall Game Anonymous "The way down to Hades""Young Men dancing, and the old""Caught, Thrasybulus, in the net of a boy's love""The love of women touches not my heart""Persistent Love""My name?my country?what are they to thee?" "Poor in my youth, and in life's later scenes" The Scribe: "A Hedge of Trees" "As the moon sinks on the mountain-edge""The cloud clings" "While with my sleeves I sweep the bed""The nightingale on the flowering plum""Moonlight" Three Triads "Ah, would that I could hide within my songs"Grief Song ("Since you love me and I love you")Cuckoo Song "Adam lay ybounden"Youth and Age Westphalian Song"Western wind, when wilt thou blow?" "Give justice, O blue sky""O sleep, fond Fancy, sleep, my head thou tirest"Madrigal ("My Love in her attire doth shew her wit")I see the snowy winter sky Quail Magpie SongBlack HairSpring SongSong of the Trees The Approach of the Storm A Loon I Thought It WasEnvoyButterfly SongPtarmigan You Have No Horses Minnow and Flowers"I took up my lament"Yaqui Song The Rising of the Buffalo MenAsclepiades"Thou hoardest still thy maidenhead's hid treasure" "Sweet to the thirsty"Matsuo Basho"The quiet pond" "Sleeping at noon""The roadside thistle""Will you turn toward me?"Charles BaudelaireThe VoyageGustavo Adolfo BécquerRhyme 10Rhyme 21Rhyme 30Rhyme 38Rhyme 50Bhartrihari"The silvery laughter; eyes that sparkle bold""Brightly the hearth-fire leap, and the lit lamp""But to remember her my heart is sad""The sportive Love-god in this worldly sea"BhasaThe Moon Elizabeth BishopSongWilliam BlakeThe FlyBertolt BrechtThe Mask of Evil Emily Bronte"The night is darkening round me"Robert BrowningBad Dreams Pippa's SongYosa Buson "struck by a raindrop"Lord Byron, George Gordon"So, we'll no more go a roving"CallimachosElegy for HeraclitusJoseph CampbellThe Old Woman The Hills of Cualann Thomas Campion"When to her lute Corinna sings" "Though you are young and I am old"Catullus"Thou saidst that I alone thy Heart could move""Lesbia for ever on me rails" Gutierre de CetinaMadrigal Wang Chi Tell Me Now T'ao Ch'ien"A long time ago"Po Chu-iResignation Illness Matthias ClaudiusDeath and the Maiden Abraham Cowley The Epicure John ClareThe Secret Adelaide CrapseyNovember Night The Guarded Wound On Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees Robert CreeleyI Know a Man Dakiki"O would that in the world there were no night"Samuel Daniel"Love is a sickness full of woes" Emily Dickinson"I'm Nobody! Who are you?" "The Soul selects her own Society""There's a certain Slant of light"Dilsoz"If the proud girl I love would cast a glance behind her"Digby Mackworth DolbenRequests H. D. (Hilda Doolittle)SongPaul Laurence DunbarSilence Compensation Theology T. S. EliotMorning at the Window Juan EscrivaWelcome Death EuenusThe Vine to the Goat FirdawsiReproach John Gould FletcherKurenai-ye (or "Red Picture") Memory and Forgetting Changing Love Fugitive Beauty F. S. FlintCones Terror Robert FrostFire and Ice Nothing Gold Can StayJohann Wolfgang von Goethe Calm at Sea "All the time a man is sober" Wanderer's Night SongBarnabe GoogeA Posy Of Money Jehudah HaleviOphraThomas HardyHer Initials I Look into My Glass An Upbraiding John HaringtonThe Author to His Wife, of a Woman's Eloquence Comparison of the Sonnet and the Epigram Heinrich Heine"I wish that all my love-songs" "Your eyes of azure violets""Ah, yes, my songs are poisoned"Religion "The old dream comes again to me""I love this white and slender body" "From pain, wherein I languish"George HerbertThe Quiddity Robert HerrickUpon Julia's Clothes Her Legs Upon Some To God, on His SicknesseHermann Hesse"I love women who a thousand years ago" Nazim Hikmet I Love You Optimistic Man After Release From Prison Princess Hirokawa"The sheaves of my love-thoughts" "I thought there could be" Friedrich HolderlinSocrates and Alcibiades Langston HughesPersonal Death of an Old Seaman The Negro Speaks of Rivers T. E. HulmeAutumn Kobayashi Issa"Hey! Don't swat" "Thud-thud" Juan Ramon JiménezYellow Spring Ben JonsonEpitaph on Elizabeth, L. H. Why I Write Not of LoveThe Hourglass"Still to be neat, still to be dressed" On My First Daughter "Swell me a bowl with lusty wine"Kabir "A sore pain troubles me day and night" "Within this earthen vessel are bowers and groves"Kasa Kanamura"A sojourner in Mika's plains"Empress Kogyoku"From the age of the gods"Alfred KreymborgClay Screen Dance: For Rihani Walter Savage LandorIantheEmily LawlessIn SpainD. H. LawrenceBrooding Grief NonentityNew Year's Eve Luis de LeonOn Leaving Prison Mikhail LermontovGratitude "Land of masters, land of slaves" Detlev von LiliencronFour in Hand Federico Garcia LorcaHour of Stars (1920) Lucilius"When Ulysses after twenty years"Lady MaisunShe Scorns Her Husband the Caliph Taylor MaliBecause My Students Asked Me Jorge ManriqueSong Manzei"To what shall I liken this life?" Martial"To read my book the Virgin she""He unto whom thou art so partial"Mayura"With her left hand doing up her heavy hair" "Who is this maiden" "Who is this timid gazelle"Meleager Mosquitoes"The cup rejoiceth in its pride" "Oh, ye bitter waves of Love" "I made haste to escape from Love" "Pain has begun to touch my heart"George Meredith"They have no song, the sedges dry"Czeslaw MiloszGift Otomo Miyori"You seem to have lived, my lady"Thomas MooreAn Argument Edward MorikeThink of It, My Soul! Arakida Moritake"A fallen blossom"Nikolai NekrasovThe Capitals Are Rocked In My Country (The Serf Speaks) Farewell Ivan Savvich NikitinA Night in a Village Princess Nukada"While waiting for you" Abu Nuwas"Four things banish grief and care""Ho! a cup, and fill it up, and tell me it is wine" Nikolay OgarevThe Road Prince Otsu and Lady Ishikawa"Waiting for you"Octavio PazTouchGeorge PeeleSong of Bethsabe BathingGyorgy Petri To Be Said Over and Over Again "I am stuck, Lord, on your hook" Caius Petronius"Doing, a filthy pleasure is, and short"Li PoTaking Leave of a Friend Still Night Thoughts A Night with a Friend Autumn Cove Ezra PoundIn a Station of the MetroCoupletThe GarretΤο Καλον [title in Greek letters]AlbaChanson ArabeAlexander PushkinI Loved You WorkFrancis QuarlesOn the WorldRafi of MervThe Roses of Thy Cheeks Anthony RafteryI Am Raftery Walter RaleighEpitaph Mathurin RegnierHis EpitaphAbraham ReisenHealing Rainer Maria RilkeThe PantherArthur RimbaudDeparture Sensation Theodore RoethkeHeard in a Violent Ward Emile RoumerThe Peasant Declares His Love Conrado Nale RoxloThe Unforseen Rufinus"I am armed with the breastplate of reason" Edna St. Vincent MillayFirst Fig Eel-Grass Lady Otomo no Sakanoye"My heart, thinking" Carl SandburgFog SapphoA Young Bride"My muse, what ails this ardor?"William Shakespeare"Where the bee sucks, there suck I" "Under the greenwood tree""Full fathom five thy father lies"Percy Bysshe ShelleyTo ??Masoka Shiki"Snow's falling" James ShirleyGood-night On Her DancingPhilip SidneyThe Bargain Iio Sogi "Everything that was" Yamazaki Sokan "O Moon!"Georgios SourisOde to CoffeeGertrude SteinI Am Rose Alan StephensWatching the Shorebirds That Winter Here A Last Time Wallace StevensThe Worms at Heaven's Gate Anecdote of the Jar Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock The Wind Shifts Strato"How shall I know when the prime""Seek not to hide our love" "How long shall we steal kisses" "Happy little book" "Perchance someone in future years"John SucklingSongJonathan SwiftVerses Made for Women Who Cry Apples, etc.Otomo TabitoIn Praise of Sake Torquato Tasso"I would like to be a bee"Sara TeasdaleThe KissAlfred, Lord Tennyson"Come not, when I am dead" Henry David ThoreauMy Life Has Been the Poem John TodhunterSong Marina Tsvetaeva"I do not think, or argue, or complain" "They fly?quick-wrought and quickly written" "The gypsy passion of parting!"Su Tung-p'oSpring Night On the Birth of His Son Fyodor Tyutchev Holy Russia Paul VerlaineAutumn SongGil VicenteSong Edmund WallerOn a Girdle Wang WeiDeer Fence Duckweed Pond Walt WhitmanThe Last InvocationOscar WildeRequiescat William Carlos WilliamsThe Red Wheelbarrow The Young Housewife Pastoral Willow PoemTo Waken an Old Lady The ThinkerThe Lonely StreetThe Great FigureJohn WilsonPapa's Alba Three HaikuWilliam Wordsworth"A slumber did my spirit seal"My Heart Leaps Up Emperor Wu-tiLiu Ch'eThe Autumn Wind Li Fu-Jen Otomo Yakamochi"What pain and distress" Mei Yao-ch'enAt Night, Hearing Someone Sing in the House Next Door William Butler YeatsHe Wishes for the Cloths of HeavenA Drinking Song Down by the Salley Gardens Shen YoDreaming of Her Bibliography Alphabetical List of Titles and First Lines