Poems

Find and share the perfect poems.

find poems find poets poem-a-day library (texts, books & more) materials for teachers poetry near you

To The Sonnet

Ameen Rihani - 1876-1940

Though cribbed and gyved, thou canst within thy
walls
Unfold a wondrous wealth of worlds unseen,
And flood the soul’s abyss with moon-light sheen,
As well as darken passions’ gilded halls ;
Thy fourteen outlets are so many falls
From which gush out the prisoned joy, or
spleen—
The silvery cascades, or the billows green,
And either a sea of bliss or grief recalls.
Thou goddess of the gems of Fancy’s deep,
Though few thy facets, they reflect the whole
Of inner-self in multi-shaded hues ;
Thou art the couch of dreams that never sleep ;
Thou art the phoenix of the poet’s soul,
As well the crystal palace of his muse.

From Myrtle and Myrrh (The Gorham Press, 1905) by Ameen Rihani. This poem is in the public domain.

More by Ameen Rihani

A Peasant's Song

O, thou, who loved me once,
From thy Pagoda glance ;
Shoot down a poisoned lance :
All’s well that comes from thee.

Look back, look down once more ;
Dear was to thee this shore ;
I see thee nevermore
Beneath the olive tree.

Remains my station low,
Whilst thou dost greater grow ;
Ah, fate hath struck the blow
That parted thee and me.

How can I bear my fate,
How can I loveless wait
In this most sorry state,
When thou art far and free?

Far from the soul that swore
On love’s abysmal door
To cling forevermore
To none on earth but thee ;

Free from the sacred plight
Which, to dispel the night,
Thou madest, when I quite
Fell near thy bended knee.

Dost thou not still remember
Love’s May and Love’s December?
Both burned their sacred ember
In our sweet company.

Dost hear the echoes fall
Within thy gilded hall?
Dost thou not ever recall
The day thou wert like me?

When all thy gardens bloom,
Look out into the gloom ;
There does the flame consume
Thy budless lilac tree.

There often thou didst play
A-mindless of the day
When soul to soul would say :
“No more of thee and me.”

And when withers thy rose,
Throw to the wind that blows
This way a leaf ; who knows
What therein I can see.

And till my course is run
I’ll count them one by one—
These leaves ; and may the sun
Of joy ne’er set on thee.

Ameen Rihani

1905

The Brass Bed

I love thy color and thy symmetry ;
I love the art that wrought thy glittering arms.
Thy canopy, thy satin portieres too ;
I love the silks and feathers on thy breast—
The cushions and the pillows and the quilts :
I love thine every part.
Yet still more do I love to rest in thee—
To dream of art’s perfection in thy frame ;
Of paths as smooth, as shining as thy limbs ;
Of scenes as exquisite as thy coils ;
Of nooks as warm as thine hospitable bosom,
As cool and as refreshing as thy veinless naked arms,
I dream of all beneath thy soothing mantle.

But O, I love my dreams much more than thee,
And one sad soul much more than all my dreams.

If thou hadst but an eye to see,
To look upon the guest that lay upon thy floor
Beneath thy silken ceiling !
O, hadst thou but an ear to hear
The plaintive chirpings of this swallow-soul.
Couldst thou but feel her forehead
Moistened with the sweat of hope and pain.
For forty moons she lay within thine arms,
Rubbing her erstwhile rosy cheeks
Against the ulcers of Ayoub of yore.
Couldst thou but see, O Bed of Brass,
Couldst thou but hear, couldst thou but feel,—

Of what use all thy showy stuff—
Thy glittering brass, the filigree of art,
Thy floor of down and feather cushions all,
Thy snow-white mantles, satin tapestries?

Beauty and Pain!
Death will not come with thee, O Pain!
Life will not come with thee, O Beauty!
The fires of hell are but a taper’s flame compared to this.

Thy guest, O Bed of Brass,
Looks on thee with a yearning glance,
And vet her soul, bearing the torch of Pain,
Is searching all the worlds for Death.

Ameen Rihani

1905

Her First Sorrow

’T is but a score of hours when he didst swear
My sorrow and my joy to share.
Despite the fates, fore’er ;
But now he’s gone to cash again his lie ;
Others his shame with me will wear,
Why should I die?

Last night his lips my very feet didst burn ;
His kisses dropt, my love to earn,
Whichever way he’d turn ;
But now he’s gone another soul to rob,
Another heart to lure and spurn,
Why should I sob?

He did not kiss me when he said good-bye ;
I let him go, not asking why,
Nor do I for him sigh ;
He’s gone another virgin breast to tear.
He’s gone on other lips to die,
Why should I care?

Ameen Rihani

1905

Related Poems

Advice to a Young Poet

^{“What is poetry which does not save nations or people?”

– Czesław Milosz}

Ask the question.
Not once but forty-nine times.
And, perhaps at the fiftieth,
you will make an answer.
Or perhaps not. Then
ask it again. This time
till seventy times seven. Ask
as you open the door
of every book of poems that you enter.
Ask it of every poem,
regardless of how beautiful,
that whispers: “Lie with me.”
Do not spare your newborn.
If the first cry, first line
is not a wailing for an answer,
abandon it. As for the stillborn,
turn the next blank white sheet over,
shroud it. Ask the clamouring procession
of all the poems of the ages –
each measured, white-haired epic,
every flouncing free verse debutante –
to state their names, where they have come from
and what their business is with you.
You live in the caesura of our times,
the sound of nations, persons, breaking around you.
If poetry can only save itself,
then who will hear it after it has fled
from the nations and the people that it could not save
even a remnant of for a remembering?

Kendel Hippolyte

2012

Poetry

I too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.
   Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers that there is in
   it after all, a place for the genuine.
      Hands that can grasp, eyes
      that can dilate, hair that can rise
         if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because they are
   useful; when they become so derivative as to become unintelligible, the
   same thing may be said for all of us—that we
      do not admire what
      we cannot understand. The bat,
         holding on upside down or in quest of something to

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf under
   a tree, the immovable critic twinkling his skin like a horse that feels a flea, the base—
   ball fan, the statistician—case after case
      could be cited did
      one wish it; nor is it valid
         to discriminate against “business documents and

school-books”; all these phenomena are important. One must make a distinction
   however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry,
   nor till the autocrats among us can be
     “literalists of
      the imagination”—above
         insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, imaginary gardens with real toads in them, shall we have
   it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand, in defiance of their opinion—
   the raw material of poetry in
      all its rawness, and
      that which is on the other hand,
         genuine, then you are interested in poetry.

Marianne Moore

1919

Duplex

A poem is a gesture toward home.
It makes dark demands I call my own.

Memory makes demands darker than my own:
My last love drove a burgundy car.

My first love drove a burgundy car.
He was fast and awful, tall as my father.

Steadfast and awful, my tall father
Hit hard as a hailstorm. He’d leave marks.

Light rain hits easy but leaves its own mark
Like the sound of a mother weeping again.

Like the sound of my mother weeping again,
No sound beating ends where it began.

None of the beaten end up how we began.
A poem is a gesture toward home.

Jericho Brown

2019

poets.org

Poems

To The Sonnet

More by Ameen Rihani

A Peasant's Song

The Brass Bed

Her First Sorrow

Related Poems

Advice to a Young Poet

Poetry

Duplex

poets.org

academy of american poets

national poetry month

american poets

Poems

To The Sonnet

Newsletter Sign Up

Support Us

Follow Us