"somewhere I have never traveled" by E. E. Cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near


your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose


or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;


nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing


(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

E. E. Cummings

"America for Me" by Henry Van Dyke

'TIS fine to see the Old World, and travel up and down
    Among the famous palaces and cities of renown,
    To admire the crumbly castles and the statues of the kings,—
    But now I think I've had enough of antiquated things. 

           So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
           My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be,
           In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars,
           Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars! 

 

    Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in the air;
    And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair;
    And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's great to study Rome;
    But when it comes to living there is no place like home. 

    I like the German fir-woods, in green battalions drilled;
    I like the gardens of Versailles with flashing fountains filled;
    But, oh, to take your hand, my dear, and ramble for a day
    In the friendly western woodland where Nature has her way! 

    I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something seems to lack:
    The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back.
    But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free,—
    We love our land for what she is and what she is to be. 

           Oh, it's home again, and home again, America for me!
           I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling sea,
           To the bléssed Land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,
           Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of star.

--Henry Van Dyke, 1909

The Hortatory Subjunctive (More Prufrock by T.S.Eliot)

The hortatory subjunctive is what makes a sentence a suggestion and an exhortation, but not a command. In English, we use "Let [subject] [verb]." That is a bizarre construction, but it works for us. One of my favorite poems in the universe starts out with this:

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question ...

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo. 

 

--T.S. Eliot