Poems

Baudelaire

Harmonie du soir, https://fleursdumal.org/poem/142

Voici venir les temps où vibrant sur sa tige
Chaque fleur s'évapore ainsi qu'un encensoir;
Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir;
Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige! ...

Longfellow

Longfellow's [Excelsior:

THE SHADES of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!...

Langdon Smith

Evolution ( https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/int/evolution.html; see also https://reason.com/volokh/2021/01/18/poetry-monday-evolution-by-langdon-smith/)

When you were a tadpole and I was a fish
In the Paleozoic time,
And side by side on the ebbing tide
We sprawled through the ooze and slime,
Or skittered with many a caudal flip
Through the depths of the Cambrian fen,
My heart was rife with the joy of life,
For I loved you even then…