1. Marianne Moore (35) - written by e.e. cummings
Read 6958 times on American Poems.

M	in a vicious world-to love virtue
A	in a craven world-to have courage
R	in a treacherous world-to prove loyal
I	in a wavering world-to stand firm

A	in a cruel world-to show mercy
N	in a biased world-to act justly
N	in a shameless world-to live... (Read full poem)

Whether what we sense of this world
is the what of this world only, or the what 
of which of several possible worlds
--which what?--something of what we sense 
may be true, may be the world, what it is, what we sense.
For the rest, a truce is... (Read full poem)

3. The World And I - written by Laura Riding Jackson
Read 2319 times on American Poems.

This is not exactly what I mean
Any more than the sun is the sun.
But how to mean more closely
If the sun shines but approximately?
What a world of awkwardness!
What hostile implements of sense!
Perhaps this is as close a meaning
As perhaps becomes... (Read full poem)

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
   Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
   Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black... (Read full poem)

5. Looking, Walking, Being - written by Denise Levertov
From Sands of the Well. Published in 1996. Read 1092 times on American Poems.

"The World is not something to
look at, it is something to be in."
Mark Rudman

I look and look.
Looking's a way of being: one becomes,
sometimes, a pair of eyes walking.
Walking wherever looking takes one.

The eyes
dig and burrow into the... (Read full poem)

A Sickness of this World it most occasions
When Best Men die.
A Wishfulness their far Condition
To occupy.

A Chief indifference, as Foreign
A World must be
Themselves forsake -- contented,
For Deity.(Read full poem)

7. Interior - written by Hart Crane
Published in 1919. Read 1396 times on American Poems.

It sheds a shy solemnity,
This lamp in our poor room.
O grey and gold amenity, --
Silence and gentle gloom!

Wide from the world, a stolen hour
We claim, and none may know
How love blooms like a tardy flower
Here in the day's after-glow.

And even... (Read full poem)

We have now won two world-wars, neither of which concerned us, we were 
slipped in. We have levelled the powers
Of Europe, that were the powers of the world, into rubble and 
dependence. We have won two wars and a third is comming.

This one--will... (Read full poem)

9. Dream Song 74: Henry hates the world. What the world to Henry - written by John Berryman
From 77 Dream Songs. Published in 1964. Read 867 times on American Poems.

Henry hates the world. What the world to Henry
did will not bear thought.
Feeling no pain,
Henry stabbed his arm and wrote a letter
explaining how bad it had been
in this world.

Old yellow, in a gown
might have made a difference, 'these... (Read full poem)

One day, Haroun Al Raschid read
A book wherein the poet said:-- 

"Where are the kings, and where the rest
Of those who once the world possessed? 

"They're gone with all their pomp and show,
They're gone the way that thou shalt go.... (Read full poem)

11. Lives he in any other world - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1280 times on American Poems.

Lives he in any other world
My faith cannot reply
Before it was imperative
'Twas all distinct to me --(Read full poem)

THESE Carols, sung to cheer my passage through the world I see, 
For completion, I dedicate to the Invisible World.(Read full poem)

13. The going from a world we know - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1815 times on American Poems.

The going from a world we know
To one a wonder still
Is like the child's adversity
Whose vista is a hill,
Behind the hill is sorcery
And everything unknown,
But will the secret compensate
For climbing it alone?(Read full poem)

Huffy Henry hid     the day,
unappeasable Henry sulked.
I see his point,—a trying to put things over.
It was the thought that they thought
they could do it made Henry wicked & away.
But he should have come out and talked.

All the world like... (Read full poem)

15. Antimatter - written by Russell Edson
Read 1590 times on American Poems.

On the other side of a mirror there's an inverse world, 
where the insane go sane; where bones climb out of the 
earth and recede to the first slime of love.

  And in the evening the sun is just rising.

  Lovers cry because they are a day younger,... (Read full poem)

If ever the lid gets off my head
And lets the brain away
The fellow will go where he belonged --
Without a hint from me,

And the world -- if the world be looking on --
Will see how far from home
It is possible for sense to live
The soul there --... (Read full poem)

17. I lost a World -- the other day! - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 4162 times on American Poems.

I lost a World -- the other day!
Has Anybody found?
You'll know it by the Row of Stars
Around its forehead bound.

A Rich man -- might not notice it --
Yet -- to my frugal Eye,
Of more Esteem than Ducats --
Oh find it -- Sir -- for me!(Read full poem)

Spring comes on the World --
I sight the Aprils --
Hueless to me until thou come
As, till the Bee
Blossoms stand negative,
Touched to Conditions
By a Hum.(Read full poem)

19. Careless Philosopher's Soliloquy - written by Major Henry Livingston, Jr.
Read 534 times on American Poems.

I rise when I please, when I please I lie down,
Nor seek, what I care not a rush for, renown;
The rattle called wealth I have learnt to despise,
Nor aim to be either important or wise.

Let women & children & children-like men
Pursue the false... (Read full poem)

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader... (Read full poem)

21. Ernest Hyde - written by Edgar Lee Masters
Read 719 times on American Poems.

My mind was a mirror: 
It saw what it saw, it knew what it knew. 
In youth my mind was just a mirror 
In a rapidly flying car, 
Which catches and loses bits of the landscape. 
Then in time 
Great scratches were made on the mirror, 
Letting... (Read full poem)

(For John Bunker)

The roar of the world is in my ears.
Thank God for the roar of the world!
Thank God for the mighty tide of fears
Against me always hurled!
Thank God for the bitter and ceaseless strife,
And the sting of His chastening... (Read full poem)

23. This is my letter to the World - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 15096 times on American Poems.

This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me --
The simple News that Nature told --
With tender Majesty

Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see --
For love of Her -- Sweet -- countrymen --
Judge tenderly -- of Me(Read full poem)

Am
I know not whence I came, 
I know not whither I go; 
But the fact stands clear that I am here
In this world of pleasure and woe.
And out of the mist and the murk
Another truth shines plain –
It is my power each day and hour
To add to its... (Read full poem)

25. Turn, O Libertad. - written by Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass. Published in 1900. Read 5143 times on American Poems.

TURN, O Libertad, for the war is over, 
(From it and all henceforth expanding, doubting no more, resolute, sweeping the world,) 
Turn from lands retrospective, recording proofs of the past; 
From the singers that sing the trailing glories of the... (Read full poem)