Category: Poetry

A Vision of the End

  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
Abstract photo of sea waves in tones of dark blue

I once beheld the end of time! 
   Its stream had ceased to be. 
The drifting years, all soiled with crime, 
   Lay in the filthy sea. 

The prospect o’er the recking waste 
   Was plain from where I stood. 
From shore to shore the wreckage faced 
   The surface of the flood. 

There all that men were wont to prize 
   When time was flowing on, 
Seemed here to sink and there to rise 
   In formless ruin blown. 

In slimy undulations rolied 
   The glory of the brave; 
The scholar’s fame, the rich man’s gold, 
   Alike were on the wave. 

There government, a monstrous form 
   (The sea groaned ’neath the load), 
A helpless mass blown by the storm, 
   On grimy billows rode. 

The bodies of great syndicates 
   And corporations, trusts, 
Proud combinations, and e’en states 
   All beasts of savage lusts. 

With all the monsters ever bred 
   In civilization’s womb, 
Lay scattered, floating, dead, 
   Throughout that liquid tomb. 

It was the reign of general death, 
   Wide as the sweep of eye, 
Save two vile ghosts that still drew breath 
   Because they could not die. 

Ambition climbed above the waves 
   From wreck to wreck he strove; 
And as they sank to watery graves, 
   He on to glory rode. 

And there was Greed—immortal Greed— 
   Just from the shores of time. 
Of all hell’s hosts he took the lead, 
   A monarch of the slime. 

He neither sank below, nor rose 
   Above the brewing flood; 
But swam full length, down to his nose, 
   And steered where’er he would. 

Whatever wreckage met his snout 
   He swallowed promptly down— 
Or floating empire, or redoubt, 
   Or drifting heathen town. 

And yet, it seemed in all that steaming waste 
There nothing so much gratified his taste 
As foetid oil in subterranean tanks, 
And cliffs of coal untouched in nature’s banks, 
Or bits of land where cities might be built, 
As foraging plats for vileness and guilt; 
Or fields of asphalt, soft as fluent salve 
Or anything the Indian asked to have. 

I once beheld the end of time! 
   Its stream had run away; 
The years all drifted down in slime, 
   In filth dishonored lay.

Too-qua-stee (1829 – 1909) was an American poet, short story writer, and essayist born in the Cherokee Nation. He was also known as DeWitt Clinton Duncan.


To read more poems, click here.



The Bluebird

  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
A bluebird

A winged bit of Indian sky
Strayed hither from its home on high.

Alexander Posey (1873 – 1908) was an American poet, journalist, and politician in the Creek Nation.


To read more poems, click here.



Hope Is the Thing with Feathers

  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
French Vintage Drawing

‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.


Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886) was one of the most original American poets. She is considered one of the most important American poets of the 19th century, along with Walt Whitman.


To read more poems, click here.



Success Is Counted Sweetest

  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
Abstract photo of a field with the sea in the background

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne’er succeed.

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need.



Not one of all the purple Host

Who took the Flag today

Can tell the definition

So clear of victory



As he defeated – dying –

On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumph

Burst agonized and clear!

Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886) was one of the most original American poets. She is considered one of the most important American poets of the 19th century, along with Walt Whitman.


To read more poems, click here.



Answer July

  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
Bumblebee

Answer July— 
Where is the Bee— 
Where is the Blush— 
Where is the Hay? 

Ah, said July— 
Where is the Seed— 
Where is the Bud— 
Where is the May— 
Answer Thee—Me— 

Nay—said the May— 
Show me the Snow— 
Show me the Bells— 
Show me the Jay! 

Quibbled the Jay— 
Where be the Maize— 
Where be the Haze— 
Where be the Bur? 
Here—said the Year—

Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886) was one of the most original American poets. She is considered one of the most important American poets of the 19th century, along with Walt Whitman.


To read more poems, click here.



Mad Song

  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
Dark stormy clouds

The wild winds weep, 

         And the night is a-cold; 

Come hither, Sleep, 

         And my griefs infold: 

But lo! the morning peeps 

         Over the eastern steeps, 

And the rustling birds of dawn 

The earth do scorn. 

Lo! to the vault 

         Of paved heaven, 

With sorrow fraught 

         My notes are driven: 

They strike the ear of night, 

         Make weep the eyes of day; 

They make mad the roaring winds, 

         And with tempests play. 

Like a fiend in a cloud 

         With howling woe, 

After night I do croud, 

         And with night will go; 

I turn my back to the east, 

From whence comforts have increas’d; 

For light doth seize my brain 

With frantic pain.

William Blake (1757–1827) English engraver, artist, and poet. He is now considered one of the most original of the Romantic poets, but in his lifetime he was largely neglected.


To read more poems, click here.



Because I Could Not Stop for Death

  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
Lake with water lilies

Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—  
And Immortality.

We slowly drove—He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility—

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess—in the Ring—
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—

Or rather—He passed us—
The Dews drew quivering and chill—
For only Gossamer, my Gown—
My Tippet—only Tulle—

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
The Cornice—in the Ground—

Since then—’tis Centuries—and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads 
Were toward Eternity—

Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886) was one of the most original American poets. She is considered one of the most important American poets of the 19th century, along with Walt Whitman.


To read more poems, click here.



There Is a Solitude of Space

  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End

There is a solitude of space
A solitude of sea
A solitude of death, but these
Society shall be
Compared with that profounder site
That polar privacy
A soul admitted to itself—
Finite infinity.

Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886) was one of the most original American poets. She is considered one of the most important American poets of the 19th century, along with Walt Whitman.


To read more poems, click here.



He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
Night sky photo with aurora borealis
Photo by Spenser Sembrat on Unsplash

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

William Butler Yeats (1865–1939), Irish poet considered one of the greatest English-language poets of the 20th century. Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.


To read more poems, click here.



The Kraken

  1. Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
  2. From Blossoms
  3. Wild Geese
  4. The Peace of Wild Things
  5. My Gift to You
  6. Departing Spring
  7. The Skylark
  8. What a Strange Thing!
  9. Although The Wind …
  10. The Old Pond
  11. Spring Is Like A Perhaps Hand
  12. Hast thou 2 loaves of bread …
  13. Youth and Age
  14. A Postcard From the Volcano
  15. The Kraken
  16. He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
  17. There Is a Solitude of Space
  18. Because I Could Not Stop for Death
  19. Mad Song
  20. Answer July
  21. Success Is Counted Sweetest
  22. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
  23. The Bluebird
  24. A Vision of the End
Kraken, abstract photo

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892) is often considered the leading poet of the Victorian era in England.


To read more poems, click here.