Tiger Poems
Green Chile
by Jimmy Santiago Baca
I prefer red chile over my eggs
and potatoes for breakfast.
Red chile ristras decorate my door,
dry on my roof, and hang from eaves.
They lend open-air vegetable stands
historical grandeur, and gently swing
with an air of festive welcome.
I can hear them talking in the wind,
haggard, yellowing, crisp, rasping
tongues of old men, licking the breeze.
......
Elegy Upon Tiger
by Jonathan Swift
Her dead lady's joy and comfort,
Who departed this life
The last day of March, 1727:
To the great joy of Bryan
That his antagonist is gone.
And is poor Tiger laid at last so low?
O day of sorrow! -Day of dismal woe!
Bloodhounds, or spaniels, lap-dogs, 'tis all one,
When Death once whistles -snap! -away they're gone.
......
The Four Winds
by Aleister Crowley
The South wind said to the palms:
My lovers sing me psalms;
But are they as warm as those
That Laylah's lover knows?
The North wind said to the firs:
I have my worshippers;
But are they as keen as hers?
The East wind said to the cedars:
......
In Love For Long
by Edwin Muir
I've been in love for long
With what I cannot tell
And will contrive a song
For the intangible
That has no mould or shape,
From which there's no escape.
It is not even a name,
Yet is all constancy;
Tried or untried, the same,
......
Three And One
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Sometimes she seems so helpless and mild,
So full of sweet unreason and so weak,
So prone to some capricious whim or freak;
Now gay, now tearful, and now anger-wild,
By her strange moods of waywardness beguiled
And entertained, I stroke her pretty cheek,
And soothing words of peace and comfort speak;
And love her as a father loves a child.
Sometimes when I am troubled and sore pressed
......
Tiger Lily Wood
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
Meadow gold
yields a mass of blooms.
Lily scents.
Striped tiger
ambles among the flowers,
as birds sing summer.
Orange sun
touches everything.
Butterflies!
......
Delilah
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
In the midnight of darkness and terror,
When I would grope nearer to God,
With my back to a record of error
And the highway of sin I have trod,
There comes to me shapes I would banish –
The shapes of the deeds I have done;
And I pray and I plead till they vanish –
All vanish and leave me, save one.
That one, with a smile like the splendour
......
Three And One
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Sometimes she seems so helpless and mild,
So full of sweet unreason and so weak,
So prone to some capricious whim or freak;
Now gay, now tearful, and now anger-wild,
By her strange moods of waywardness beguiled
And entertained, I stroke her pretty cheek,
And soothing words of peace and comfort speak;
And love her as a father loves a child.
Sometimes when I am troubled and sore pressed
......
Travel
by Robert Louis Stevenson
I should like to rise and go
Where the golden apples grow;--
Where below another sky
Parrot islands anchored lie,
And, watched by cockatoos and goats,
Lonely Crusoes building boats;--
Where in sunshine reaching out
Eastern cities, miles about,
Are with mosque and minaret
Among sandy gardens set,
......
I Shall Not Burn
by Robert William Service
I have done with love and lust,
I reck not for gold or fame;
I await familiar dust
These frail fingers to reclaim:
Not for me the tiger flame.
Not for me the furnace glow,
Rage of fire and ashen doom;
To sweet earth my bones bestow
Where above a lowly tomb
......
