𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

24 Jul 2025 18:02

'All Is Change! The Night The Day'

By Charlotte Brontë

All is change! the night the day
Winter, summer; cloud & sun
Early flourish—late decay
So the years, the ages run.

Beats the heart with bliss awhile
Soon it throbs to agony
Where a moment beamed the smile
Soon the bitter tear shall be
This is Nature's great decree—
None can 'scape it for on all
Drops the sweet, distills the gall
All are fettered, all are free!

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

22 Jul 2025 18:00

'A Busy Man'

By Robert William Service

This crowded life of God's good giving
No man has relished more than I;
I've been so goldarned busy living
I've never had the time to die.
So busy fishing, hunting, roving,
Up on my toes and fighting fit;
So busy singing, laughing, loving,
I've never had the time to quit.
II
I've never been one for thinking
I've always been the action guy;
I've done my share of feasting, drinking,
And lots of wenching on the sly.
What all the blasted cosmic show meant,
I've never tried to understand;
I've always lived just for the moment,
And done the thing that came to hand.
III
And now I'll toddle to the garden
And light a good old Henry Clay.
I'm ninety odd, so Lord, please pardon
My frequent lapses by the way.
I'm getting tired; the sunset lingers;
The evening star serenes the sky;
The damn cigar burns to my fingers . . .
I guess . . . I'll take . . . time off . . . to die.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

18 Jul 2025 18:00

'A Farewell'

By Charles Kingsley

My fairest child, I have no song to give you;
— No lark could pipe to skies so dull and gray:
Yet, if you will, one quiet hint I'll leave you
For every day.

I'll tell you how to sing a clearer carol
— Than lark who hails the dawn on breezy down;
To earn yourself a purer poet's laurel
Than Shakespeare's crown.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;
— Do noble things, not dream them, all day long:
And so make Life, and Death, and that For Ever
One grand sweet song.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

16 Jul 2025 18:01

'There Was A Strife 'Twixt Man And Maid'

By Rudyard Kipling

The Naulahka: A Story of West and East

There was a strife 'twixt man and maid —
Oh, that was at the birth of time!
But what befell 'twixt man and maid,
Oh, that's beyond the grip of rhyme.
'Twas, "Sweet, I must not bide with you,"
And, "Love, I cannot bide alone ";
For both were young and both were true,
And both were hard as the nether stone.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

14 Jul 2025 18:00

From 'The Talking Animals'

By Giovanni Battista Casti

At their head stood the Vampire,
Once financier, then royal advocate,
Adept at weaving plots,
A master schemer and sucker
An ultramarine, four-footed beast of flight,
Resembling a large bat.

He is a beast, in malign and twisted form,
Who softly licks and draws the blood away
From heedless Americans, asleep, unwary,
Unfeeling as he drains him dry and destroys him:
Thus, those who see portents in everything
Deem him a blood sucking specter.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

10 Jul 2025 18:01

From 'The Taming Of The Shrew'

By William Shakespeare

Act 4, Scene 5

KATHARINA

Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,
Whither away, or where is thy abode?
Happy the parents of so fair a child;
Happier the man, whom favourable stars
Allot thee for his lovely bed-fellow!

PETRUCHIO

Why, how now, Kate! I hope thou art not mad:
This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, wither'd,
And not a maiden, as thou say'st he is.

KATHARINA

Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes,
That have been so bedazzled with the sun
That everything I look on seemeth green:
Now I perceive thou art a reverend father;
Pardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

08 Jul 2025 18:02

'Strange Fits Of Passion Have I Known'

By William Wordsworth

Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the lover's ear alone,
What once to me befell.

When she I loved looked every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening-moon.

Upon the moon I fixed my eye,
All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.

And now we reached the orchard-plot;
And, as we climbed the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucy's cot
Came near, and nearer still.

In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature's gentlest boon!
And all the while my eye I kept
On the descending moon.

My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopped:
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the bright moon dropped.

What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
Into a Lover's head!
'O mercy!' to myself I cried,
'If Lucy hould be dead!'

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

04 Jul 2025 18:01

'Ts'ai Chi'h'

By Ezra Pound

The petals fall in the fountain,
the orange-coloured rose-leaves,
Their ochre clings to the stone.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

02 Jul 2025 18:00

'Farewell'

By Yu Xuanji

Water fits itself to the vessel that contains it.
Clouds drift artlessly, not thinking of return.
Spring breezes bear sorrow over the Chu river at dusk:
separated from the flock, a lone duck is flying.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

30 Jun 2025 18:01

'A Lecture Upon The Shadow'

By John Donne

Stand still, and I will read to thee
A lecture, love, in love's philosophy.
These three hours that we have spent,
Walking here, two shadows went
Along with us, which we ourselves produc'd.
But, now the sun is just above our head,
We do those shadows tread,
And to brave clearness all things are reduc'd.
So whilst our infant loves did grow,
Disguises did, and shadows, flow
From us, and our cares; but now 'tis not so.
That love has not attain'd the high'st degree,
Which is still diligent lest others see.

Except our loves at this noon stay,
We shall new shadows make the other way.
As the first were made to blind
Others, these which come behind
Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes.
If our loves faint, and westwardly decline,
To me thou, falsely, thine,
And I to thee mine actions shall disguise.
The morning shadows wear away,
But these grow longer all the day;
But oh, love's day is short, if love decay.
Love is a growing, or full constant light,
And his first minute, after noon, is night.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

26 Jun 2025 18:01

'Excuse'

By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Thou dost complain of woman for changing from one to another?

Censure her not: for she seeks one who will constant remain.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

24 Jun 2025 18:02

'A Forgotten Miniature'

By Thomas Hardy

There you are in the dark,
Deep in a box
Nobody ever unlocks,
Or even turns to mark;
—Out of mind stark.

Yet there you have not been worsed
Like your sitter
By Time, the Fair's hard-hitter;
Your beauties, undispersed,
Glow as at first.

Shut in your case for years,
Never an eye
Of the many passing nigh,
Fixed on their own affairs,
Thinks what it nears!

—While you have lain in gloom,
A form forgot,
Your reign remembered not,
Much life has come to bloom
Within this room.

Yea, in Time's cyclic sweep
Unrest has ranged:
Women and men have changed:
Some you knew slumber deep;
Some wait for sleep.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

20 Jun 2025 18:01

'Where Have All the Flowers Gone?'

By Pete Seeger

(Inspired by an old Cossack folk song 'Koloda-Duda')

Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone
Long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
The girls have picked them every one
Oh, when will you ever learn?
Oh, when will you ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young girls gone
Long time ago?
Where have all the young girls gone?
They've taken husbands every one
Oh, when will you ever learn?
Oh, when will you ever learn?

Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone
Long time ago?
Where have all the young men gone?
They're all in uniforms
Oh, when will you ever learn?
Oh, when will you ever learn?


🕊

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

18 Jun 2025 18:00

'A Thunder Storm'

By Emily Dickinson

The wind begun to rock the grass
With threatening tunes and low,—
He flung a menace at the earth,
A menace at the sky.

The leaves unhooked themselves from trees
And started all abroad;
The dust did scoop itself like hands
And throw away the road.

The wagons quickened on the streets,
The thunder hurried slow;
The lightning showed a yellow beak,
And then a livid claw.

The birds put up the bars to nests,
The cattle fled to barns;
There came one drop of giant rain,
And then, as if the hands

That held the dams had parted hold,
The waters wrecked the sky,
But overlooked my father's house,
Just quartering a tree.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

16 Jun 2025 18:00

'The Day Ap­proach­eth'

By Philip Doddridge

The day approaches, O my soul!
The great decisive day,
Which from the verge of mortal life
Shall bear thee far away.

Another day more awful dawns,
And, lo, the Judge appears.
Ye heav'ns, retire before his face;
And sink, ye darken'd stars.

Yet does one short preparing hour,
One precious hour remain:
Rouse thee, my soul, with all thy pow'r,
Nor let it pass in vain.

With me, my brethren soon must die,
And at his bar appear:
Then be our intercourse improv'd
To mutual comfort here.

For this, thy temple, Lord! we throng:
For this, thy board surround.
Here may our service be approv'd,
And in thy presence crown'd.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

23 Jul 2025 18:04

'A Bastard Peace'

By William Carlos Williams

— where a heavy
woven-wire fence
topped with jagged ends, encloses
a long cinder-field by the river —
A concrete disposal tank at
one end, small wooden
pit-covers scattered about — above
sewer intakes, most probably —

Down the center's a service path
graced on one side by
a dandelion in bloom — and a white
butterfly —

The sun parches still
the parched grass. Along
the fence, blocked from the water
leans the washed-out street —

Three cracked houses —
a willow, two chickens, a
small boy, with a home-made push cart,
walking by, waving a whip —

Gid ap! No other traffic or
like to be.
There to rest, to improvise and
unbend! Through the fence

beyond the field and shining
water, 12 o'clock blows
but nobody goes
other than the kids from school —

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

21 Jul 2025 18:03

'The Winter Evening Settles Down'

By Thomas Stearns Eliot

The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o'clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

17 Jul 2025 18:00

'Good Counsel Of Chaucer'

By Geoffrey Chaucer

Flee from the press, and dwell with soothfastness;
Suffice thee thy good, though it be small;
For hoard hath hate, and climbing tickleness,
Press hath envy, and weal is blent o'er all,
Savour no more than thee behove shall;
Read well thyself, that other folk canst read;
And truth thee shall deliver, it is no dread.

Paine thee not each crooked to redress,
In trust of her that turneth as a ball;
Great rest standeth in little business:
Beware also to spurn against a nail;
Strive not as doth a crocke with a wall;
Deeme thyself that deemest others' deed,
And truth thee shall deliver, it is no dread.

What thee is sent, receive in buxomness;
The wrestling of this world asketh a fall;
Here is no home, here is but wilderness.
Forth, pilgrim! Forthe beast, out of thy stall!
Look up on high, and thank thy God of all!
Weive thy lust, and let thy ghost thee lead,
And truth thee shall deliver, it is no dread.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

15 Jul 2025 18:00

'Grasses'

By Bai Juyi

Boundless grasses over the plain
Come and go with every season;
Wildfire never quite consumes them —
They are tall once more in the spring wind.
Sweet they press on the old high- road
And reach the crumbling city-gate….
O Prince of Friends, you are gone again….
I hear them sighing after you.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

11 Jul 2025 18:00

'Dieu Qu'il La Fait'

By Ezra Pound

God! that mad'st her well regard her,
How she is so fair and bonny;
For the great charms that are upon her
Ready are all folks to reward her.

Who could part him from her borders
When spells are alway renewed on her?
God! that mad'st her well regard her,
How she is so fair and bonny.

From here to there to the sea's border,
Dame nor damsel there's not any
Hath of perfect charms so many.
Thoughts of her are of dream's order:
God! that mad'st her well regard her.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

09 Jul 2025 18:02

'The Wounded Hare'

By Robert Burns

Inhuman man! curse on thy barb'rous art,
And blasted by thy murder-aiming eye;
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,
Nor never pleasure glad thy cruel heart!

Go live, poor wanderer of the wood and field,
The bitter little of life that remains!
No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains
To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield.

Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest,
No more of rest, but now of dying bed!
The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head,
The cold earth with thy bloody bosom Crest.

Oft as by winding Nith I, musing, wait
The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn,
I'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn,
And curse the ruffian's aim, and mourn thy hapless fate.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

07 Jul 2025 18:00

'A Rose In Water'

By Walter de la Mare

A rose, in water, to its stem
Decoys a myriad beads of air;
And, lovely with the light on them,
Gives even its thorns their share.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

03 Jul 2025 18:02

'Eyes A Fragment'

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

How eloquent are eyes!
Not the rapt poet's frenzied lay
When the soul's wildest feelings stray
Can speak so well as they.
How eloquent are eyes!
Not music’s most impassioned note
On which Love’s warmest fervours float
Like them bids rapture rise.

Love, look thus again,--
That your look may light a waste of years,
Darting the beam that conquers cares
Through the cold shower of tears.
Love, look thus again!

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

01 Jul 2025 18:00

'From An Album Of 1604'

By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Hope provides wings to thought, and love to hope.
Rise up to Cynthia, love, when night is clearest,
And say, that as on high her figure changeth,
So, upon earth, my joy decays and grows.
And whisper in her ear with modest softness,
How doubt oft hung its head, and truth oft wept.
And oh ye thoughts, distrustfully inclined,
If ye are therefore by the loved one chided,
Answer: 'tis true ye change, but alter not,
As she remains the same, yet changeth ever.
Doubt may invade the heart, but poisons not,
For love is sweeter, by suspicion flavour'd.
If it with anger overcasts the eye,
And heaven's bright purity perversely blackens,
Then zephyr-sighs straight scare the clouds away,
And, changed to tears, dissolve them into rain.
Thought, hope, and love remain there as before,
Till Cynthia gleams upon me as of old.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

27 Jun 2025 18:00

'A Child's Grace'

By Robert Burns

Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

25 Jun 2025 18:00

'I Have A Thousand Men'

By Rudyard Kipling

"I have a thousand men," said he,
"To wait upon my will;
And towers nine upon the Tyne,
And three upon the Till."

"And what care I for your men?" said she,
"Or towers from Tyne to Till?
Sith you must go with me," said she,
"To wait upon my will."

"And you may lead a thousand men
Nor ever draw the rein,
But before you lead the Fairy Queen
'Twill burst your heart in twain."

He has slipped his foot from the stirrup-bar,
The bridle from his hand,
And he is bound by hand and foot
To the Queen of Fairy Land.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

23 Jun 2025 18:02

'A Song Of The Degrees'

By Ezra Pound

I

Rest me with Chinese colours,
For I think the glass is evil.

II

The wind moves above the wheat—
With a silver crashing,
A thin war of metal.

I have known the golden disc,
I have seen it melting above me.
I have known the stone-bright place,
The hall of clear colours.

III

O glass subtly evil, O confusion of colours!
O light bound and bent in, O soul of the captive,
Why am I warned? Why am I sent away?
Why is your glitter full of curious mistrust?
O glass subtle and cunning, O powdery gold!
O filaments of amber, two-faced iridescence!

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

19 Jun 2025 18:01

'By Old Abie Goldstein's Pawnshop'

By Robert Ervin Howard

By old Abie Goldstein’s pawn shop where the ghetto meets the quay
There’s a shabbis goy a waiting and I know she thinks of me.
For she sings a song in Yiddish as the synagogue bells say,
“Come you back you kosher soldier, come you back to Rachel Shea!
“Come you back to Rachel Shea where the cantors sing all day,
“Can’t you hear them all gevalting down along the Great White Way?
“Come you back to Rachel Shea, I hear the kibitzers say,
“Maybe gets him now a shikra, and the air he gives you, eh?”

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

17 Jun 2025 18:01

From 'On The Nature Of Things'

By Titus Lucretius Carus

You can best test the man when he is in doubt and danger, and when he is amid adversity learn who he really is. For then, and not until then, are the words of truth are forced out from the bottom of his heart. His mask is torn off, and the reality is left. Avarice and blind lust for honors lead unhappy men to overstep the bounds of right, and as partners and agents of crime to strive night and day with tremendous effort to struggle up to the summit of power. Such sores of life are in no small measure fostered by the dread of death. For foul scorn and knawing [sic] needs are seen to be far removed from a life of pleasure and security, and are thought to be the same as loitering before the gates of death.

𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲'𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐎𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲

13 Jun 2025 18:01

'Farewell'

By Yu Xuanji

I spent those nights of comfort in the Qin Tower
without ever realising my lover had to go…
Waking now, I don’t ask where the clouds have gone;
round the lamp, now almost spent, a wild moth is circling.