Who's that Pokémon? -- Short Poems & Excerpts Flashcards
What is this poem called and who wrote it?
Lord, with what care hast thou begirt us round!
Parents first season us; then schoolmasters
Deliver us to laws; they send us bound
To rules of reason, holy messengers,
Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow-dogging sin,
Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes,
Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in,
Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,
Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness,
The sound of glory ringing in our ears,
Without, our shame, within, our consciences,
Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears.
Yet all these fences and their whole array
One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away.
“Sin (I)” by George Herbert
What is this poem called and who wrote it?
Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part.
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;
And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free.
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again,
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of Love’s latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies;
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes—
Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou might’st him yet recover!
Idea 61 by Michael Drayton
What is this poem called and who wrote it?
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, hélas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I may spend his time in vain.
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about:
“Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.”
[“Whoso list to hunt”] by Thomas Wyatt
What is this poem called and who wrote it?
Penelope for her Ulisses sake,
Deviz’d a Web her wooers to deceave:
In which the worke that she all day did make
The same at night she did again unreave:
Such subtile craft my Damzell doth conceave,
Th’ importune suit of my desire to shonne:
For all that I in many dayes doo weave,
In one short houre I find by her undonne.
So when I thinke to end that I begonne,
I must begin and never bring to end:
For with one looke she spils that long I sponne,
And with one word my whole years work doth rend.
Such labour like the Spyders web I fynd,
Whose fruitless worke is broken with least wynd.
Amoretti 23 by Edmund Spenser
What is this poem called and who wrote it?
boooooooo. spooky ripplings of icy waves. this
umpteenth time she returns—this invisible woman
long on haunting short on ectoplasm
“you’re a good man, sistuh,” a lover sighed solongago.
“keep your oil slick and your motor running.”
wretched stained mirrors within mirrors of
fractured webbings like nests of manic spiders
reflect her ruined mien (rue wiggles remorse
squiggles woe jiggles bestride her). oozy Manes spill
out yonder spooling in night’s lofty hour exudes
her gloom and spew in rankling odor of heady dour
as she strives to retrieve flesh to cloak her bones
again to thrive to keep her poisoned id alive
usta be young usta be gifted—still black
American Sonnet 35 by Wanda Coleman
What is this poem called and who wrote it?
When last I saw thee, I did not thee see,
It was thine image which in my thoughts lay
So lively figured, as no times delay
Could suffer me in heart to parted be.
And sleep so favorable is to me,
As not to let thy loved remembrance stray:
Lest that I waking might have cause to say,
There was one minute found to forget thee.
Then, since my faith is such, so kind my sleep,
That gladly thee presents into my thought,
And still true lover-like thy face doth keep,
So as some pleasure shadow-like is wrought.
Pity my loving, nay of consience give
Reward to me in whom thy self doth live.
Pamphilia to Amphilanthus 21 by Lady Mary Wroth
What is this poem called and who wrote it?
I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs
By the known rules of ancient liberty,
When straight a barbarous noise environs me
Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes and dogs:
As when those hinds that were transform’d to frogs
Rail’d at Latona’s twin-born progeny
Which after held the sun and moon in fee.
But this is got by casting pearl to hogs,
That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,
And still revolt when truth would set them free.
Licence they mean when they cry liberty;
For who loves that, must first be wise and good.
But from that mark how far they rove we see,
For all this waste of wealth and loss of blood.
Sonnet 12 by John Milton
What is this poem called and who wrote it?
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 hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare
Where is this excerpt from and who wrote it?
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you
shall have the suffrage of the world. I remember an answer which when quite young I was
prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old
doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I
live wholly from within? my friend suggested, — “But these impulses may be from below, not
from above.” I replied, “They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil’s child, I will
live then from the Devil.”
“Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Where is this excerpt from and who wrote it?
A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? . . . . I do not know what it is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child . . . . the produced babe of the vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.
Song of Myself by Walt Whitman
What is this poem called and who wrote it?
As if I asked a common Alms,
And in my wondering hand
A Stranger pressed a Kingdom,
And I, bewildered, stand—
As if I asked the Orient
Had it for me a Morn—
And it should lift its purple Dikes,
And shatter Me with Dawn!
[“As if I asked a common Alms”] by Emily Dickinson
What is this poem called and who wrote it?
The Brain — is wider than the Sky —
For — put them side by side —
The one the other will contain
With ease — and You — beside —
The Brain is deeper than the sea —
For — hold them — Blue to Blue —
The one the other will absorb —
As Sponges — Buckets — do —
The Brain is just the weight of God —
For — Heft them — Pound for Pound —
And they will differ — if they do —
As Syllable from Sound —
[“The Brain — is wider than the Sky —”] by Emily Dickinson
What is this poem called and who wrote it?
I never lost as much but twice,
And that was in the sod.
Twice have I stood a beggar
Before the door of God!
Angels—twice descending
Reimbursed my store—
Burglar! Banker – Father!
I am poor once more!
[“I never lost as much but twice–”] by Emily Dickinson
What is this poem called and who wrote it?
The Zeros taught Us – Phosphorus –
We learned to like the Fire
By handling Glaciers – when a Boy –
And Tinder – guessed – by power
Of Opposite – to equal Ought –
Eclipses – Suns – imply –
Paralysis – our Primer dumb
Unto Vitality –
[“The Zeros taught Us – Phosphorus –”] by Emily Dickinson
Where is this excerpt from and who wrote it?
The aria sinking,
All else continuing, the stars shining,
The winds blowing, the notes of the bird continuous echoing,
With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning,
On the sands of Paumanok’s shore gray and rustling,
The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the face of the sea almost touching,
The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the atmosphere dallying,
The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultuously bursting,
The aria’s meaning, the ears, the soul, swiftly depositing,
The strange tears down the cheeks coursing,
The colloquy there, the trio, each uttering,
The undertone, the savage old mother incessantly crying,
To the boy’s soul’s questions sullenly timing, some drown’d secret hissing,
To the outsetting bard.
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking by Walt Whitman
What is this poem called and who wrote it?
Much Madness is divinest Sense –
To a discerning Eye –
Much Sense – the starkest Madness –
’Tis the Majority
In this, as all, prevail –
Assent – and you are sane –
Demur – you’re straightway dangerous –
And handled with a Chain –
[“Much Madness is divinest Sense –”] by Emily Dickinson
