After great pain, a
formal feeling comes
– (372)
BY  EMIL Y DIC KI NS ON
After great pain, a formal feeling
comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like
Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He,
that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries
before’?
The Feet, mechanical, go round –
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –
This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the
Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the
letting go –
“Hope” is the thing
with feathers - (314)
BY  EM IL Y DIC KI NS ON
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words
-
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
 I rise
Still I Rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
BY  M A Y A A N G E L O U I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
You may write me down in history
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
Does my sassiness upset you?
I rise
Why are you beset with gloom?
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
gave,
Pumping in my living room.
I am the dream and the hope of the
slave.
Just like moons and like suns,
I rise
With the certainty of tides,
I rise
Just like hopes springing high,
I rise.
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

 The Passionate Shepherd
to His Love
BY  C H R I S T O P H E R M A R L O W E
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the Rocks,

Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow Rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing Madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of Roses

And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty Lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and Ivy buds,

With Coral clasps and Amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and

sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.