The Modern PoetFor your words and others.
Release 15
Always tinkering.

I use this place too. I keep finding things to add, change, or make a little better.

Latest check: 1,242 passed. Regular checks, ongoing improvements.

This round: quieter reading, book-style chapters, and one HH throughout.

THE MODERN POET

I meant to have but modest needs

By Emily Dickinson

I meant to have but modest needs, Such as content, and heaven; Within my income these could lie, And life and I keep even. But since the last included both, It would suffice my prayer But just for one to stipulate, And grace would grant the pair. And so, upon this wise I prayed, -- Great Spirit, give to me A heaven not so large as yours, But large enough for me. A smile suffused Jehovah's face; The cherubim withdrew; Grave saints stole out to look at me, And showed their dimples, too. I left the place with all my might, -- My prayer away I threw; The quiet ages picked it up, And Judgment twinkled, too, That one so honest be extant As take the tale for true That "Whatsoever you shall ask, Itself be given you." But I, grown shrewder, scan the skies With a suspicious air, -- As children, swindled for the first, All swindlers be, infer.

Original source ↗

Poetry data from PoetryDB, curated by The Combed Thunderclap · metadata CC BY 4.0 · Public-domain poem text (USA)

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Box one belongs to works shared here—pictures, poems, or both—with a new selection each hour. The other three change one at a time every fifteen minutes. One is a Halloween poem through October. Skip any card, or pause while you read.

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