Mythology Poems
Hymn to Apollo
by Callimachus
What force, what sudden impulse thus can make
The laurel-branch, and all the temple shake!
Depart ye souls profane; hence, hence! O fly
Far from this holy place! Apollo's nigh;
He knocks with gentle foot; The Delian palm
Submissive bends, and breathes a sweeter balm:
Soft swans, high hov'ring catch the auspicious sign,
Wave their white wings, and pour their notes divine.
Ye bolts fly back; ye brazen doors expand,
Leap from your hinges, Phoebus is at hand.
......
Theseus and Ariadne
by Edward Robeson Taylor
Within the labyrinth's depths the Minotaur,
Slain by the sword she gave, lay stark and dead,
And with his finger following her thread
He issued forth to see the heavens once more.
Then Theseus swiftly from the hated shore
With Ariadne on his bosom fled,
Still hearing, as toward Naxos on they sped,
King Minos' cries above the ocean's roar.
Deep-nested in love's softest down they lay
When she to him: 'Through me alone thy way
......
Like the very gods in my sight is he
by Sappho
Like the very gods in my sight is he who
sits where he can look in your eyes, who listens
close to you, to hear the soft voice, its sweetness
murmur in love and
laughter, all for him. But it breaks my spirit;
underneath my breast all the heart is shaken.
Let me only glance where you are, the voice dies,
I can say nothing,
......
On Perseus and Medusa
by Richard Chenevix Trench
In what fierce spasms upgathered, on the plain
Medusa's headless corpse has quivering sunk,
While all the limbs of that undying trunk
To their extremest joint with torture strain;
But the calm visage has resumed again
Its beauty- the orbed eyelids are let down,
As though a living sleep might once more crown
Their placid circlets, guiltless of all pain.
And thou- is thine the spirit's swift recoil,
Which follows every deed of acted wrath,
......
Agua y Rocío
by Aurelia Lucina Wealthberg
Seda y rosas en el camino,
corazón vacío de pena y sentido,
me llevan la corriente y el rocío.
Me voy al mar,
con mis dolores y penas,
con una sonrisa en la cara,
y alegría en la mano,
libre al fin de las esposas del “en vano”.
......
The Greats
by Tyler Morello
All artists strive to be like the Greats.
No shame in vying to be someone's Van Gogh,
Going, going, gone, Homer
with his Odysseys and Iliads
and to all, a million ears lent.
Just as Romans did to Antony in Caesar.
Shakespeare's sonnets sold out theatres,
but I grasp at the same words as he.
I pin them to the walls.
I paint them on the mirror.
......
Metamodern Tantalus
by Tyler Morello
"It's alright to feel behind,"
What they told me when they learned
I had never slept with anyone.
"You're not missing out on anything, really.
Not the electric rush of skin on skin,
Not the satisfaction of man's most primal urge,
Certainly not the burning of carnal fuel
And the fumes that follow,
No, none of that is quite important.
You just keep doing you."
......
Chiron
by Pierpaolo Gobbi
Oleanders, heavy with flowers
branching out in the cold mist
to witness an ungodly scene.
All around us the air stood still
not a blow on the mount
as if Zephyrus himself was waiting.
Tragedy in my arms
while I teach my murderer
......
the river sticks
by Grace McDonough
Eternal nothing would be a gift
Why do i spend this time fearing it
It could be a welcomed feeling
I’d let it in
And brush its cheek
Let it enter me--
Bear it.
The river will guide me down
To the hell
......
Cupid's Roundelay
by Sameen Shakya
The God of love grew sick searching
For his muse, sad to be lurking
While his subjects got to loving
He sat sordid overthinking
Curse the powers that be for linking
His job with what he was missing
While his subjects got to loving
He sat sordid overthinking
Love to the humans bestowing
......
