My Interests

Poetry

Some of my favourite poems.

The Red Wheelbarrow - William Carlos WIlliams

so much depends upon

a red wheelbarrow

glazed with rainwater

beside the white chickens

All the World's a stage - William Shakespeare

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 parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms; And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lin’d, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion; Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

The road not taken - Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

You Foolish Men - Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

You foolish men who lay the guilt on women, not seeing you're the cause of the very thing you blame;

if you invite their disdain with measureless desire why wish they well behave if you incite to ill.

You fight their stubbornness, then, weightily, you say it was their lightness when it was your guile.

In all your crazy shows you act just like a child who plays the bogeyman of which he's then afraid.

With foolish arrogance you hope to find a Thais in her you court, but a Lucretia when you've possessed her.

What kind of mind is odder than his who mists a mirror and then complains that it's not clear.

Their favour and disdain you hold in equal state, if they mistreat, you complain, you mock if they treat you well.

No woman wins esteem of you: the most modest is ungrateful if she refuses to admit you; yet if she does, she's loose.

You always are so foolish your censure is unfair; one you blame for cruelty the other for being easy.

What must be her temper who offends when she's ungrateful and wearies when compliant?

But with the anger and the grief that your pleasure tells good luck to her who doesn't love you and you go on and complain.

Your lover's moans give wings to women's liberty: and having made them bad, you want to find them good.

Who has embraced the greater blame in passion? She who, solicited, falls, or he who, fallen, pleads?

Who is more to blame, though either should do wrong? She who sins for pay or he who pays to sin?

Why be outraged at the guilt that is of your own doing? Have them as you make them or make them what you will.

Leave off your wooing and then, with greater cause, you can blame the passion of her who comes to court?

Patent is your arrogance that fights with many weapons since in promise and insistence you join world, flesh and devil.