A Paradise of Poems
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
The More Loving One W. H. Auden
08 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell, But on earth indifference is the least We have to dread from man...
Tobacco Kiosk by Fernando Pessoa
04 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
I am nothing I shall always be nothing I cannot wish to be anything. Aside from that, I have within me all the dreams of the world. Windows of my room...
I Like For You To Be Still by Pablo Neruda
04 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
I like for you to be still It is as though you are absent And you hear me from far away And my voice does not touch you It seems as though your eyes h...
When Death Comes by Mary Oliver
23 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; w...
As I Walked Out One Evening by W. H. Auden
23 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As I walked out one evening, Walking down Bristol Street, The crowds upon the pavement Were fields of harvest whea...
Letter to his fiancée Lee by Gerald Durrell
18 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
I have seen a thousand sunsets and sunrises, on land where it floods forest and mountains with honey coloured light, at sea where it rises and sets li...
ONE ART by Elizabeth Bishop
18 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every d...
How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
12 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends o...
I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You by Pablo Neruda
12 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
I do not love you except because I love you; I go from loving to not loving you, From waiting to not waiting for you My heart moves from cold to fire....
If Tomorrow Starts Without Me by David Romano
05 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If tomorrow starts without me, and I'm not there to see, If the sun should rise and find your eyes all filled with tears for me; I wish so much you wo...
What You Need to Be Warm: Neil Gaiman
05 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A baked potato of a winter’s night to wrap your hands around or burn your mouth. A blanket knitted by your mother’s cunning fingers. Or your grand...
Genius by Mark Twain
31 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If he throws away every opportunity in life and crushes the affection and the patience of his friends and then protests in sickly rhymes of his hard l...
Song of the Open Road by Walt Whitman
31 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons, It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth. Here a great personal deed ...
Darkness by Lord Byron
26 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathle...
I Said to Poetry by Alice Walker
26 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
I said to Poetry: “I’m finished with you.” Having to almost die before some weird light comes creeping through is no fun. “No thank you, Creat...
Caged Bird by Maya Angelou
22 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the ...
Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley
22 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sun...
Mind and Heart by Charles Bukowski
18 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
unaccountably we are alone forever alone and it was meant to be that way, it was never meant to be any other way– and when the death struggle begins...
Lead by Mary Oliver
18 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Here is a story to break your heart. Are you willing? This winter the loons came to our harbor and died, one by one, of nothing we could see. A friend...
Gacela of the Dark Death by Federico García Lorca
14 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
I want to sleep the dream of the apples, to withdraw from the tumult of cemetries. I want to sleep the dream of that child who wanted to cut his heart...
Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower by Rainer Maria Rilke
14 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Quiet friend who has come so far, feel how your breathing makes more space around you. Let this darkness be a bell tower and you the bell. As you ring...
Gacela Of The Remembrance Of Love by Federico Garcia Lorca
09 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Do not carry your remembrance. Leave it, alone, in my breast, tremor of a white cherry tree in the torment of January. There divides me from the dead ...
On the Beach at Night Alone by Walt Whitman
09 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On the beach at night alone, As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song, As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of ...
The Journey by David Whyte
28 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Above the mountains the geese turn into the light again Painting their black silhouettes on an open sky. Sometimes everything has to be inscribed acro...
Roll the Dice by Charles Bukowski
28 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
if you’re going to try, go all the way. otherwise, don’t even start. if you’re going to try, go all the way. this could mean losing girlfriends,...
A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore
25 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney wit...
City That Does Not Sleep Federico García Lorca
19 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody. Nobody is asleep. The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins. The living iguanas ...
All Things will Die by Alfred Lord Tennyson
19 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
All Things will Die Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing Under my eye; Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing &...
On His Blindness by John Milton
15 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodg'd with me useless,...
Death, be not proud (Holy Sonnet 10) John Donne
15 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not,...
The Chilean Forest by Pablo Neruda
08 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Under the volcanoes, beside the snow-capped mountains, among the huge lakes, the fragrant, the silent, the tangled Chilean forest… My feet sink down...
It Troubled Me As Once I Was by Emily Dickinson
08 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It troubled me as once I was — For I was once a Child — Concluding how an Atom — fell — And yet the Heavens — held — The Heavens weighed t...
Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan
01 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human bein...
Crossing the Bar by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
22 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea, But such a tide as moving seems asl...
Bright Star by John Keats
22 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art— Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night, And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's pa...
My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson
14 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, And what can be the use of him is more than I can see. He is very, very like me from the heels up...
Endymion (Excerpt) by John Keats
09 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I Will trace the story of Endymion. The very music of the name has gone Into my being, and each pleasant scen...
A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
04 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What The Heart of The Young Man Said to the Psalmist. Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers...
A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe
04 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow — You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet ...
A Father To His Son By Carl Sandburg
27 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A father sees his son nearing manhood. What shall he tell that son? "Life is hard; be steel; be a rock." And this might stand him for the storms and s...
Former Ode on the Red Cliffs by Su Shi 前赤壁赋
22 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
苏子愀然，正襟危坐，而问客曰：“何为其然也？”客曰：“月明星稀，乌鹊南飞，此非曹孟德之诗乎？西望夏口...
The Tyger by William Blake
22 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies....
The Lantingji Xu by Wang Xizhi 兰亭集序
18 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
永和九年，岁在癸丑，暮春之初，会于会稽山阴之兰亭，修禊事也。群贤毕至，少长咸集。此地有崇山峻岭，茂林...
A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTH by Maya Angelou
11 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We, this people, on this small and drifting planet Whose hands can strike with such abandon That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living Yet th...
Because I could not stop for Death by Emily Dickinson
11 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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,...
September 1, 1939 by W. H. Auden
04 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings ...
The Last Rose of Summer by Thomas Moore
04 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Tis the last rose of summer Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions Are faded and gone; No flower of her kindred, No rosebud is nigh, To reflec...
Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley
29 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep, au...
Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold
29 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of Englan...
SINGULARITY by Marie Howe
22 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity we once were? so compact nobody needed a bed, or food or money — nobody hiding in the school bat...
Burnt Norton by T. S. Eliot
11 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither ar...
Twenty-One Love Poems by Adrienne Rich
11 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
No one’s fated or doomed to love anyone. The accidents happen, we’re not heroines, they happen in our lives like car crashes, books that change us...
Sometimes by David Whyte
29 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes if you move carefully through the forest, breathing like the ones in the old stories, who could cross a shimmering bed of leaves without a s...
Everything Is Waiting for You by David Whyte
29 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone. As if life were a progressive and cunning crime with no witness to the tiny hidden transg...
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
21 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly nappi...
One Art by Elizabeth Bishop
21 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every d...
Dark August by Derek Walcott
14 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
So much rain, so much life like the swollen sky of this black August. My sister, the sun, broods in her yellow room and won't come out. Everything go...
A Cool Morning In Mid August by Laughingpoet
14 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A cool morning in mid August has the quietude that follows a rain storm except for the distant white noise of highway traffic. There is no breeze, th...
As I Grew Older by Langston Hughes
08 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It was a long time ago. I have almost forgotten my dream. But it was there then, In front of me, Bright like a sun— My dream. And then the wall rose...
Songs for the People by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
08 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Let me make the songs for the people, Songs for the old and young; Songs to stir like a battle-cry Wherever they are sung. Not for the clashing of sab...
Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe
31 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know &...
Alone by Edgar Allan Poe
31 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
From childhood's hour I have not been As others were; I have not seen As others saw; I could not bring My passions from a common spring. From the same...
A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns
24 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
O my Luve is like a red, red rose That’s newly sprung in June; O my Luve is like the melody That’s sweetly played in tune. So fair art thou, my bo...
When We Two Parted by George Gordon Byron
17 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When we two parted In silence and tears, Half broken-hearted To sever for years, Pale grew thy cheek and cold, ...
Tula [“Books are door-shaped”] by Margarita Engle
13 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Books are door-shaped portals carrying me across oceans and centuries, helping me feel less alone. But my mother believes that girls who read too much...
All The World's A Stage By William Shakespeare
13 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many par...
If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda
04 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near...
Tonight I Can Write (The Saddest Lines) by Pablo Neruda
04 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, 'The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.' The night wind r...
My Heart's In The Highlands by Robert Burns
27 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here, My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer; Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe, M...
Gazing on Mount Tai Du Fu (English and Chinese)
20 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
O peak of peaks, how high it stands! One boundless green o’erspreads two States. A marvel done by Nature’s hands, O’er light and shade it domina...
Alone and Drinking Under the Moon by Li Bai (English and Chinese)
20 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Amongst the flowers I am alone with my pot of wine drinking by myself; then lifting my cup I asked the moon to drink with me, its reflection and mine ...
If, After I Die by Fernando Pessoa
13 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If, after I die, they should want to write my biography, There's nothing simpler. I've just two dates - of my birth, and of my death. In between the o...
Amazing Grace by John Newton
12 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see. ’Twas grace that ...
Everything is Going to Be Alright by Derek Mahon
08 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How should I not be glad to contemplate the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window and a high tide reflected on the ceiling? There will be dying, th...
Love After Love by Derek Walcott
08 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome...
Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
23 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness u...
If By Rudyard Kipling
23 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allow...
I’d Love to Have a Picnic with You at Hyde Park by Camellia Yang (English and Chinese version)
21 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
I’d love to have a picnic with you at Hyde Park, Carrying a bamboo basket, Spreading out our blanket, Enjoying this long cherished afternoon tea mom...
Without A Trace by Walid Salem
21 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We are born, We breath, We grow, And then we are gone. Without a trace. Maybe our laughter continues to echo in a Lover’s ear, maybe our words, writ...
I Carry Your Heart With Me By E.E. Cummings (English &Chinese)
15 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my ...
When You Are Old by William Butler Yeats (English and Chinese version)
09 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had o...
But You Didn't By Merrill Glass
01 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Remember the time you lent me your car and I dented it? I thought you'd kill me... But you didn't. Remember the time I forgot to tell you the dance w...
Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith
01 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning. Poor chap, he always lo...
Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare
22 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease ...
Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas
13 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at t...
No Man is an Island by John Donne
13 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
No man is an island, Entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the l...
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth
09 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake,...
Renovation of the Yueyang Building by Fan Zhongyan
07 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
庆历四年春，滕子京谪守巴陵郡。越明年，政通人和，百废具兴，乃重修岳阳楼，增其旧制，刻唐贤今人诗赋于其...
O Captain! My Captain! BY WALT WHITMAN
07 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, ...
Alone With Everybody Poem by Charles Bukowski
07 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
the flesh covers the bone and they put a mind in there and sometimes a soul, and the women break vases against the walls and the men drink too much an...
Down By the Salley Gardens by William Butler Yeats
07 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet; She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet. She bid me take love easy, as the leaves...
Bluebird by Charles Bukowski
07 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
There's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out But I'm too tough for him I say, stay in there I'm not going to let anybody see you There's a blu...
And The People Stayed Home By Kitty O’Meara
07 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of bei...