Poetry Archives

A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Dorothy Parker

Unseemly are the open eyes
  That watch the midnight sheep,
That look upon the secret skies
  Nor close, abashed, in sleep;

That see the dawn drag in, unbidden,
  To birth another day—
Oh, better far their gaze were hidden
  Below the decent clay.

Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Death and Taxes | Written c. 1931

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Tags, sometimes called “folksonomies,” are words that describe or categorize a poem, like “20th century modernism” or “Italian sonnet”. Tags can help you find poems that have something in common, based on how other people classify them.

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