Potential Titles: Before

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Our parents who unravel before us - Anne Carly Abad "Exchange"

Before they themselves are swallowed by the sky - Duane Ackerson "Bird Seed"

Before the paperboys can deliver the day wrapped in plastic - Duane Ackerson "The Great Gnome Escape"

A red rose just before it's dipped in liquid nitrogen - Duane Ackerson "Operation Macbeth"

Before they can tempt any passerby into rescuing them - Duane Ackerson "Trawling for Trolls"

As though we had not gone before them - Mary Alexandra Agner "Children of Breath"

With drums before and roses showered after - Conrad Aiken "Romance"

Who tried to warn us once before - Mike Allen "Ascending"

Before he left the black and white of Russia - Mike Allen "Chagall's Lamp"

Long before time really got rolling - Mike Allen "The Journey to Kailash"

That will which existed before consciousness - Mike Allen "Pulse"

Even before the bird cracked its brittle tough shell - Mouna Ammar "Bold as a Feather"

Winter casts its shade before it - William Anderson "Landscape Lyrics No.X--Autumn, in its Second Aspect"

Before a door of chance - Maya Angelou "On Diverse Deviation"

Long before their ruination - Homero Aridjis (transl. by George McWhirter) "The last night of the world"

Stop entranced before some tempting shop - Martin Armstrong "Miss Thompson Goes Shopping"

Lie before us like a land of dreams - Matthew Arnold "Dover Beach"

an origami placed before a calcified wind - Wale Ayinla "To Disappear into a Song Wide Enough to Drown"

Sanctuary before the sky - James Baldwin "Staggerlee wonders"

Before the zephyrs sail - Benjamin West Ball "Agimur Fatis"

In the moment before we decide - Taneum Bambrick "Saying I Am a Survivor in Another Language"

The splintered ends of what went before - Mary Jo Bang "Green Earth"

Hopes that fall like leaves before the wind - Maurice Baring "Diffugere Nives, 1917"

Destroyed before the birth of Babylon - Maurice Baring "Le Prince Errant"

before our eyes were covered - Elizabeth Bartlett "grass flesh"

before the old leaves go - Elizabeth Bartlett "tropic time"

before night creeps along the mist - Elizabeth Bartlett "washday in the tropics"

always before the final terror - Elizabeth Bartlett "weather forecast"

Your lost days unroll before me - Charles Baudelaire "The Little Old Women" transl. not credited

Before they became wayweeds - Cal Bedient "Expulsion"

Before the candles are lit - Kyce Bello "Far Country"

An angry dream before the Sphinx's feet - Stephen Vincent Benet "The Last Vision of Helen"

And the drums of defeat before me - Stephen Vincent Benet "The Retort Discourteous"

Pours each sparkling hope before me - Stephen Vincent Benet "Two More Muses"

Before whom the future outspreads - C. E. de la Poer Beresford "A Happy New Year"

Any bright object before sunrise - Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge "Listening"

Into another pause before corruption - Max Bodenheim "Poem to a Policeman"

Stark before a whip of weather - Arna Bontemps "Blight"

And I have broken down before the wind - Arna Bontemps "Nocturne of the Wharves"

Words that die before meaning - Sara Borjas "Decolonialish Self-Portrait"

A snow-white butterfly dancing before the fitful gale - Richard Bowen "Genius" [The Continental Monthly v.6 no.6, Dec. 1864]

Faint before the truth - Anne Bronte "The Narrow Way"

Before me truth can stand alone - Anne Bronte "The Three Guides"

Before tornadoes whistle damage down - Molly McCully Brown and Susannah Nevison "Recovery"

Recoil before that sorrow - Elizabeth Barrett Browning "A Drama of Exile"

Before that dread apocalypse of soul - Elizabeth Barrett Browning "The Soul's Expression"

Crystalline before November sun - Anthony Butts "The Distance from Here to There"

Birches white before the moon - Witter Bynner "The New World VIII"

The many whispers before rain - Witter Bynner "The New World IX"

See that first line before you cross it - Scott Cairns "Embalming"

Before the supreme audience appear - Tommaso Campanella "XIII. The World's a Stage" transl. by John Addington Symonds

Stationed before the same absence - Julie Carr "A Fourteen-Line Poem on Heteronymic"

Where echo is heard before the song - David Cecil "The Shadow Land"

Before we can be colorless and new - Wendy Chen "Rites"

Before the Roman came to Rye - G.K. Chesterton "The Rolling English Road"

Before Pompeii was hot - Dan Chiasson "Tackle Football"

Ten poles before their palisades - G.K. Chesterton "The Ballad of the White Horse: Book V. Ethandune: The First Stroke"

Before adolescence reached me - Chrysanthemum "Aubade for the Habana Inn"

Before the nightjar sounds his autumn note - "The Ch'u Tz'u: Encountering Sorrow" transl. by Burton Watson

Long dead before Hollywood dividends could ever come - G. O. Clark "Mary Has a Prophetic Vision"

edge of before and after - Lucille Clifton "scar"

To fall before the gilded beast - Arthur Hugh Clough "The New Sinai"

Before they sawed the world in half - Leonard Cohen "For E.J.P."

Before biting winter comes - Hilda Conkling "Bluebird"

Dance before the song runs out - CAConrad "Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return"

Stands appalled before its dark abyss - Martha Walker Cook "The Dove" [The Continental Monthly v.5 no.6, June 1864]

On rapid wings before the snow - Susan Coolidge "Easter Lilies"

Turning as with serious purpose before stupid winds - Stephen Crane "The Black Riders"

Before desire shall meet desire - Adelaide Crapsey "Birth-Moment"

All repair before the throne of Lucifer - Rev. William Crowe "The Spleen"

Skipping high-heeled flames courtesied before my eyes - E. E. Cummings "Amores (I)"
The famished arrow sang before - E. E. Cummings "Songs (V)"

Let us be merry before we go - John Philpot Curran "The Deserter's Meditation"

Have flung my worship before your feet - H.D. "Toward the Piraeus"

Who drove harnessed scorpions before her - H.D. "The Walls Do Not Fall"

Before these hands were my hands - Maggie Damken "Before I Opened My Eyes"

A million years before the blooming sun - John Davidson "Thirty Bob a Week"

Before me goes a shield to guard - Mary Carolyn Davies "Love Song"

Before the sweeping threat of summer thunderstorms - Geffrey Davis "What I Mean When I Say Farmhouse"

The haunting has killed before - Kwame Dawes "It Bruises, Too"

A sip of coffee before I knew bitter - Monica de la Torre "Equivalences"

We were brave before memory - Toi Derricotte "In Knowledge of Young Boys"

This net will break before they tire - Babette Deutsch "Hibernal"

Before the hills like hindered rubies - Emily Dickinson "Book 2: Nature IV: Day's Parlor"

Before tumultuous chattering knaves - Eric Dickinson "Three Sonnets II"

Before the chime for Babylon - Eric Dickinson "Three Sonnets II"

Even the Saxons bowed before you - Dark Eileen "Dirge on the Death of Art O'Leary, Shot at Carraganime, Co. Cork, May 4, 1773" transl. by Eleanor Hull

Before sweeping the shards skyward - Chris Dombrowski "Early June, Missoula, Year of the Sheep"

Bright tapestry of boulders before the melt - Chris Dombrowski "Heron Rookery Aubade"

Curious flowers, before unknown - Lord Alfred Douglas "Two Loves"

Right before it breaks - Cheryl Dumesnil "Prayer for Beginning"

The moment before loss - Stephen Dunn "The Gambler at Home"

Before I set foot in life's forest - Hemantabālā Dutt "Open Thou Thy Door of Mercy" transl. by Miss Whitehouse

Before the woodman's fatal stroke - Pliny Earle, M.D. "Soliloquy of an Octogenarian"

A thrill before it passes - Max Eastman "Sea-Shore"

Brace before the rain - Katherine Edgren "The Gift of Warning"

Before the knowing and the naming - Katherine Edgren "Lost and Found"

Said my name before the mirror - Joshua Effiong "3D Presentation of a Body Undergoing Catharsis in a Transterrestrial Habitat"

Arriving beyond view before the thought of it - Eric Ekstrand "Family Solo"

before shame became my native tongue - Safia Elhillo "Transport"

Kneels before an empty fireplace - Ansel Elkins "Someone Forgot to Whisper Your Death to the Bees"

Blank before the lightening sky - Claudia Emerson "The Practice Cage"

Before cold shrines and at dead altars kneel - George Allan England "Ricordatevi Di Mi!"

Grain bends before your roar - Enheduana "The Exaltation of Inana" transl. by Sophus Helle

All its armies march before you - Enheduana "The Exaltation of Inana" transl. by Sophus Helle

All its troops disband before you - Enheduana "The Exaltation of Inana" transl. by Sophus Helle

The nothingness before the storm - Hannah Ensor and Laura Wetherington "Feel Piece 4"

Fell before the whip and steel - Martin Espada "How We Could Have Lived or Died This Way"

A good night's sleep before deadly fame - Hazem Fahmy "Interrogation of an Alternate Timeline"

Would spin a web before your eyes - Eugene Field "Heigho, My Dearie"

For you were my children before them - George Blackstone Field "The Breaker of the Trail"

Rain rolls its tides before us - Jennifer Elise Foerster "Origin of Planets"

Tourists before the separate, chiseled ruin - Katie Ford "Koi"

Before it could devour me whole - Rudy Francisco "Water"

Before the daisy and the sorrel buy their brightness back - John Freeman "The Wakers"

Once more before we meet elsewhere - Robert Frost "The Generations of Men"

A little bird before the mystery of glass - Robert Frost "The Hill Wife"

Unveiled before the light was spent - Zona Gale "By My Side All Day Another Went"

The truth of life before him laid - Charles Gibson "Sonnets III"

Before the knees of time - Louis Golding "Derwentwater"

In worship before the poet kings - Louis Golding "Skylark Noon"

All warning before rupture comes - Kevin Goodan "Spot Weather Forecast"

Before winter knows us - Rae Gouirand "Fig Suite"

Waiting hours, before the brazen frenzy starts - Julian Grenfell "Into Battle"

Before the wick rejects the flame - Jessica Guzman "Predictions of the Material"

Before a colony of clouds - Nathalie Handal "Santo Domingo"

Before the country was ash - Myronn Hardy "Solemnity"

Before our sands had run - Thomas Hardy "On the Tune called the Old-Hundred-and-Fourth"

Before my heart's closed door - Frances E.W. Harper "The Refiner's Gold"

On one sore knee before beauty - Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser "Braided Creek"

Before you sip strange whiskey - Terrance Hayes "We Should Make a Documentary About Spades"

Crouch before the wintry blast - Felicia Hemans "The Aged Indian"

Through paths before untrod - Felicia Hemans "The Sceptic"

Bring our fear there before the singing - Lance Henson "Untitled [Here is a place where nothing can die]"

Work his will, and bow before his rod of iron - Oliver Herford "How the Lion Became King"

One more Toast before we go - Oliver Herford "Mephisto"

Before accelerating toward the speed of light - Jim Heston "All Things Being Relative"

Before your gates at early morning - Mary E. Hewitt "Green Spots in the City" [The Knickerbocker v.22 no.4, Oct. 1843]

Was shame in you born before beauty? - Brenda Hillman "1951"

The balm of distance recedes before your steps - Ellen Hinsey "Epistle"

Before the terms are defined - Zoe Hitzig "I Looked on My Right Hand and Beheld"

Stood before the iron sleet - Charles Fenno Hoffman "Monterey"

Before he became a saint - Marietta Holley "The Lament of the Mormon Wife"

Before all the firmament starts to fall apart - Bob Holman "Van Gogh's Violin"

Seven burning years before I remembered - fahima ife "shamanism"

Were experts on stars before astronomy had a name - Tracina Jackson-Adams "Shepherds in the Night"

In the beginning before light began - Robinson Jeffers "The Truce and the Peace"

Before daylight crosses his mind - Allison Eir Jenks "Sleepwalking"

Even before metal could think - Tamara Jerée "Warship Captain Application [Section 29.2 Saved as Draft in SAIS]"

And fractioned them apart before they could reach their destinations - Tamara Jerée "Warship Captain Application [Section 29.2 Saved as Draft in SAIS]"

Before the time of flowers - Lionel Johnson "Ash Wednesday"

Before the sun is born - Lionel Johnson "Moel Fammau"

Before becoming music - Taylor Johnson "Derrida/Coleman"

A vacant hour before the sun - Devin Johnston "Aubade"

I stand before my routine reflection - Parneshia Jones "What Would Gwendolyn Brooks Do"

Have to hear before they see - Rodney Jones "The Language of Love"

Before I teach myself retaliation - June Jordan "I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies"

Jewels harvested before sun-up - Zilka Joseph "Man hu? Man Hu?"

Who danced wordless before God - Ilya Kaminsky "Such Is the Story Made of Stubbornness and a Little Air"

Before returning to its sticky jigsaw - Mary Karr "Diogenes Invents a Game"

Piled up before her on a banquet table - Laura Kasischke "Near misses"

Before stumbling into stinging nettles - Janet Kauffman "Dodder Is No Daughter"

Die before the shears of Atropos - Julia Kavanagh "Sonnet"

Before the crystal heavens darken - John Keats "Endymion, Book I [A thing of beauty is a joy for ever]"

Before his singing time is done - Joyce Kilmer "The Clouded Sun"

Sue before your crystal throne - Joyce Kilmer "For a Birthday"

Step out before the endgame - John Kinsella "Reptile in Roof Space"

In the final minutes before remorse - Nate Klug "Jasmine"

Came not before an apple tree - Snigdha Koirala "Fragments on Naturalization"

The road before this of blood - Snigdha Koirala "Fragments on Naturalization"

Just before the air itself turns to snow - Nick Laird "Miscegenation"

Tied to everyone before and after me - Alexis LaMantia "Waiting"

Terror went before him - "The Lament of Queen Maev" (Translation by T.W. Rolleston)

Stony before I was laid in stone - Deborah Landau "Ecstasies"

Before that Wall's forestalling future - Rickey Laurentiis "Tall Lyric for Palestine (Or, The Harder Thinking)"

Before the glaciers were gathered up - D.H. Lawrence "Grapes"

Of the world before the floods - D.H. Lawrence "Grapes"

Before my heart stops beating - D.H. Lawrence "St Matthew"

Dreamlike before me floating - Emma Lazarus "Fog"

The hush before monsoon season - Aimee Le "Theft"

Snow is the dream we had before the sky - Ruth Lechlitner "A Winter's Tale"

Before the sky became hell's house - Ruth Lechlitner "A Winter's Tale"

Before the rest of time unfolds - Katy Lederer "Attention Deficit"

Before our names were fix'd - Henry S. Leigh "The Twins"

Melted before I remembered my name - R.B. Lemberg "Stone Listening: Prelude"

At my lips before darkness - Denise Levertov "Midnight Gladness"

Before the dark whispers the last word - Philip Levine "Unholy Saturday"

Have knelt too long before you - Amy Levy "Medea"

Love has been here before - Amy Levy "New Love, New Life"

Powerless before the dawn-borne rains - Li Yu "[Blossoms of the wood have scattered]" transl. by Burton Watson

No one lived here before me - Ada Limon "The Worth of a Thing That Is Not a Thing But a Number"

Who drove the coiling dragons like doves before her - Vachel Lindsay "Dancing for a Prize"

The feast begins before the guests arrive - Angela Liu "The Machine Family"

Inner darkness before ceremony - Manny Loley "Let There Be"

To burn our souls before altars dim - Amy Lowell "New York at Night"

Satisfied before bread-breaking - Mina Loy "The Dead"

Up before the rooster calls - Lu Yu "Autumn Thoughts" transl. by Burton Watson

A tree that genuflected before the wind - Leopoldo Lugones "Journey" (translated by Muna Lee)

Sending his herald thoughts before - Denis Florence MacCarthy "Alice and Una"

Went leaping on a hundred yards before - Thomas MacDonagh "The Night Hunt"

Before a further future elsewhere - danilo machado "(telling)"

As a wreath of snow before the sun - James MacPherson "Fragments of Ancient Poetry: VI"

Before the ignorant lion of exile - Ricardo Alberto Maldonado "A Few Things Are Explained To Me"

Trying to outrun it before it breaks - Arthur H. Manners "Now You Know"

Rush past the bewildered lives before us - Sally Wen Mao "Resurrection"

Before the cliffs jag downward - Sally Wen Mao "The Toll of the Sea"

A light from worlds before and after - Edwin Markham "Poetry"

Before their conquering word - Don Marquis "Chant of the Changing Hours"

Before the diamond is bright its night of carbon is long - José Martí "Simple Verses" transl. by Anne Fountain

Before sandpaper juiced the metal - David Tomas Martinez "The Only Mexican"

Before losing love against itself - J. Michael Martinez "Death to Paint Us"

A wasp bowing before significance - J. Michael Martinez "Meister Eckhart's Sermon on Flowers and the Philosopher's Reply"

The boundary seen before the signature - J. Michael Martinez "Treaty of Guadalupe"

Before the smile upon the Sphinx was cold - John Masefield "Lollingdon Downs"

Just a quick inhale before I tiptoed out - Adrian Matejka "17 Kinds of Hungry"

The names of the leaves before they change - Jamaal May "A Brief History of Hostility"

That flee before a blowing wind - Theodore Maynard "To a Bad Atheist"

Before the choirs of angels - Theodore Maynard "To Any Saint"

The breath of those gone before - Shara McCallum "Fury"

Long before the day's surrender - Harry McCann "Killed in Action" [The Anzac Book: Written and Illustrated in Gallipoli by the Men of Anzac, 1916]

In the seconds before a tornado - John McCarthy "Garnett, Kansas"

Before the land was tamed by industry - Brandy Nālani McDougall "Pō"

Before the cane knife's rust - Brandy Nālani McDougall "Pō"

Before the centripetal spin of galaxies - Brandy Nālani McDougall "Pō"

Before the thieving ravens evicted them - Colleen J. McElroy "The Lost Breath of Trees"

Purple rose before the thorn - Campbell McGrath "Charlie Parker (1980)"

Before thy blazing light - Claude McKay "Poetry"

Before the sun comes warm - Claude McKay "To O.E.A."

Before usurping Mammon seized the throne - J. Fairfax McLaughlin writing as Pasquino "The American Cyclops, the Hero of New Orleans, and Spoiler of Silver Spoons"

While justice yields before remorseless power - J. Fairfax McLaughlin writing as Pasquino "The American Cyclops, the Hero of New Orleans, and Spoiler of Silver Spoons"

Time's onward stream may flow before the aching light - "Memory" [Southern Literary Messenger v.II no.1 Dec. 1835-6]

Before the laughing mirror - George Meredith "Love in the Valley"

The eggshell of dark before - W.S. Merwin "The Curlew"

In the dark before I remember - W.S. Merwin "Just This"

Before the grey gate closes - Charlotte Mew "Jour des Morts (Cimetiere Montparnasse)"

Make sure the orb is glowing before I return - Lincoln Michel "Another Tuesday Afternoon"

Before my life's first gleam - R. Monckton Milnes "Unspoken Dialogue"

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year - John Milton "Lycidas"

What was once lost now leaps before you - Rajiv Mohabir "Why Whales Are Back in New York City"

The world before highlighter's applied - Carol Moldaw "Meditation on the Veranda"

Reeling before the Rapture - Kamilah Aisha Moon "Angel"

Before I was a notion - Kamilah Aisha Moon "Fannie Lou Hamer"

And joy of that last mile before I reach the sea - William Moore "Expectancy"

Long before the lonely night comes on - Henry Morford "The Children in the Wood" [The Continental Monthly v.2 no.3, Sept. 1862]

Before I drop my farewell tear - Henry Morford "The Record of December" [Graham's Magazine v.XXII no.12, Dec. 1848]

Before whose shrine the spells of Death are vain - Sarojini Naidu "Imperial Delhi"

Before it all goes up in flames - Paul Gregory Nauert "Leaping Through the Centuries"

Before I woke up wanting - Marilyn Nelson "Texas Protection"

Song before two thousand uneven ears - Pablo Neruda "Still Another Day: XVII" transl. by William O'Daly

The heir of the silence before - Pablo Neruda "Stones from the Sky: XIX" transl. by James Nolan

Before the old rose grew pale - E. Nesbit "True Love and New Love"

Feeds on what went before - Robbi Nester "Rot"

And go back to the time before blame - Caroline Harper New "Garden of Eve"

Just before they crawl into a honey-hungry sleep - Aimee Nezhukumatathil "Heliophilia"

A time before the rose - Meredith Nicholson "Sweetheart Time"

A bud before the flower - Meredith Nicholson "Sweetheart Time"

And silver mist before me lay - Sarah Noble-Ives "An Early Start"

Rose before the silent conqueror - Alfred Noyes "Aristotle"

The echo right before dawn - Naomi Shihab Nye "Alien Rescue"

Three secret hours before dawn - Naomi Shihab Nye "Muchas Gracias por Todo"

Leaning on what came before - Naomi Shihab Nye "The Tent"

long before the buzzard comes - Brandon O'Brian "Population Changes"

Before I was nobody - Grace Paley [untitled]

Before your anger crushed the doors - Eva Papasoulioti "Red Rite"

Before the curtsying hollyhocks - Dorothy Parker "Story of Mrs. W--"

Had heard their shadowy step before - Thomas W. Parsons "Stanzas"

Before a single leaf has changed - Linda Pastan "The Blackbirds"

In some time before remembrance - Kiki Petrosino "In Louisa"

Arrives before honesty - Carl Phillips "As for that Piece of Sundown You've Been Wanting"

Let the nights unfurl before them - Carl Phillips "On Mistaking the Sound of Spurs for Bells Approaching"

Before I indulge your gentleness - Xan Forest Phillips "You and I"

Before we struggled to hold light - Jon Pineda "Delayed Harvest"

As my Hopes have flown before - Edgar Allan Poe "The Raven"

Before the smile of Ceres - E.J. Pratt "Flashlights and Echoes"

Fruit before the time of leaves - E.J. Pratt "Magnolia Blossoms"

Other spirits exhaled before dawn - Minnie Bruce Pratt "Red String"

With the ghosts of the before and the after - Yousif M. Qasmiyeh "Function of inhabiting"

Before that last time breaking - Khadijah Queen "Disposed"

Kneel before a new & ruthless circumstance - Jeremy Radin "Evening"

Before they made the red carpet shine - Ishmael Reed "Skin Tight"

Caught in a before and after - Susan Rich "Shadowbox"

At dawn before the locusts - Lola Ridge "The Alley"

As a white goat before the slaughter - Lola Ridge "Death Ray"

Shall blaze before I darken - Lola Ridge "Firehead part VII: Thaddeus the Unborn 1: The Call"

Little white runners before the dawn - Lola Ridge "To the Free Children"

Before our line of leaping steel - Charles G.D. Roberts "Cambrai and Marne"

This last of nights before the last of days - Edwin Arlington Robinson "John Brown"

When heaven's great scroll is spread before us - Fayette Robinson "Supplication.--Two Sonnets" [Graham's Magazine v.XXXIII no.5, Nov. 1848]

Ere she stood before the queen Persephone - Rennell Rodd "A Roman Mirror"

Testing each new path that has bloomed before me - Hester J. Rook "Stepping the Path Trod by the Moon"

Before the stern destroyer all shall bow - Kenneth Rookwood "The Ruins of Burnside" [The Knickerbocker Feb. 1844]

Before the paling of the stars - Christina Rossetti "A Christmas Carol [Before the paling of the stars]"

Before the phantom of Pale Winter died - Helen Rowland "The Rubáiyát of a Bachelor"

kneeling before repressed desires - Abu Bakr Sadiq "Mona Lisa's Abecedarian to Leonardo da Vinci"

paradise a bullet undresses before the body - Abu Bakr Sadiq "POST MASSACRE PSYCHE EVALUATION"

Before I undress another thought - Ira Sadoff "Self-Portrait"

Catch all the auroras before they fall - Abdulrazaq Salihu "Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis"

Before the temple of the Night - Robert Alden Sanborn "To a Child Falling Asleep"

Inscribed by those who came before - Erika L. Sanchez "All of Us"

No one goes back to before - Reg Saner "What Wilderness Tells You"

Before all else was desire - Sappho "XII" (translated by Bliss Carman)

Before a Solon had devised the laws - Friedrich Schiller "The Artists" transl. not credited

Stood before hell's mighty czar - Friedrich Schiller "The Hypochondriacal Pluto"

Before their needles took us - Ann K. Schwader "Cave Bear Dreams"

Before the sovereignity of sharper gales - Ann K. Schwader "Lavinia in Autumn"

As the breath before ashes - Teresa J. Scollon "Death and the Photocopier"

Heroes before each fatal sweep fell thick - Sir Walter Scott "The Field of Waterloo"

That rings like rain before it falls - Tim Seibles "Ode to My Hands"

Before I lie down in bed with my coins and shroud - Alexandra Seidel "Seven Truths and the In-Between"

Who bend before Apollo's shrine - "Sequel to The Belles of Williamsburg"

In ghostly solitude before a flame - P. Seshadri "Thoughts"

All raptures known before were vain - Edward Shanks "The Return"

Before the truth of a portent - Prageeta Sharma "My Poem for My Stepdaughter"

Before their pathway shall be lost - Evalyn Callahan Shaw "October"

Before this stoic mockery - W.M. Shields "Once More the Dream"

Fly before you to find us shelter - Joyce Sidman "Blessing on the Downtrodden"

A terrible gulf between before and after - Joyce Sidman "When Death Comes"

In the edges before they join - Cedar Sigo "Struggle Itself"

Hiding kisses before they grieve - Sue William Silverman "If the Girl Escapes a Bosch Painting"

A black thread before the mystery - Charles Simic "First Thing in the Morning"

Before the shadows converge - Charles Simic "Matches"

Swirl the leaves before the tempest - "The Sleep-Song of Grainne Over Dermuid" transl. by Eleanor Hull

Before we severed our own wings - Lyz Soto "Today I Am Full of Birds"

A cup in the moment before the tea - Elizabeth Spires "Tea"

The world before the deluge - Edmund Clarence Stedman "Flood-Tide"

A scarlet shell before his feet - George Sterling "Duandon"

Before his doom-bewildered eyes - George Sterling "Duandon"

Swept by winds that never blew before - George Sterling "The Last of Sunset"

Before the sapphire altar of the sea - George Sterling "With the Strength of Dreams"

A mist before Time's sun - George Sterling "Yosemite"

A shivering pool before the door - Robert Louis Stevenson "The House Beautiful"

Before that spirit die - Robert Louis Stevenson "The Task of Happiness"

Beheld the Past before me - R.H. Stoddard "Rome"

Before the eagle furls his pinion - Alfred B. Street "The Loon: Tupper's Lake"

One moment see that which before me lies - Alan Sullivan "Confession, Creed, and Prayer"

Three hours before the moon - Algernon Charles Swinburne "August"

A herald soul before its master's flying - Algernon Swinburne "Autumn and Winter"

Though my leaves shut before the sunflower - Algernon Charles Swinburne "The Complaint of Lisa" [inspired by Bocaccio's Decameron X.7]

Before our lives divide for ever - Algernon Charles Swinburne "The Triumph of Time"

What tortured nights have gone before - Carmen Sylva "A Debtor"

In prostrate homage bowed before her shrine - Sylvester "The Dream" [Southern Literary Messenger v.II no.1 Dec. 1835-6]

Touch comes before sight - Arthur Sze "Sleepers"

That evaporate before they strike - Arthur Sze "Xeriscape"

Before the heart discarded October pomegranates - Maral Taheri "Asylum Seeker" transl. Hajar Hussaini

Undo the pain before you speak - Öykü Tekten "mountain language"

Have dropped before thy sight - Eloise Bibb Thompson "Ode to the Sun"

To any who divined it not before - James Thomson "The City of Dreadful Night"

Before the wolf becomes invisible - Russell Thorburn "Tracking the Wolf"

Before an epoch's sun declines - Jean Toomer "Song of the Son"

that time before with this time now - Edwin Torres "In Each Look Our Years"

enter the sweat of what falls before I catch it - Edwin Torres "The Law of the Apple"

rescue the outcome before it lands - Edwin Torres "The Law of the Apple"

Before Tomorrow sees him - Edwin Torres "A Story for America"

Stand before the gate of brass - Iris Tree "Streets"

when prayer kneels before poverty - Évelyne Trouillot "A Rain of Stars" [excerpts] transl. by Danielle Legros Georges

Before their avalanches of farewell - Chase Twichell "To the Reader: If You Asked Me"

Before I bury it all under - Leah Umansky "Come, Pioneer"

Before the wind's majestic feet - Louis Untermeyer "Midnight--By the Open Window"

Before the wind of joy - Louis Untermeyer "Thanks"

before sin might reek of permanence - upfromsumdirt (Ron Davis) "This Kiln Isn't For Everyone"

The leaves that every autumn drives before - Mark Van Doren "Waterfall Sound"

Before the giant champions of shame - Henry van Dyke "Richard Watson Gilder: In Memoriam"

Built before the rising of this world's sun - Morgan L. Ventura "Dispatch from a Ruin in Mitla, the Town of Souls"

Before the astonished augurs - Derek Walcott "A Propertius Quartet III"

Before you start regretting - Derek Walcott "Tomorrow, Tomorrow"

Before the next season consumes them - T.D. Walker "Iris"

And lurked before the walls of Elsinore - Jo Walton "The Godzilla Sonnets: ii) Godzilla in Shakespeare"

Reeling before that fierce recoil - E. A. Warriner "Battle of the Wilderness" [The Continental Monthly v.6 no.2, August 1864]

Before the sun has spoken - Marjory Wentworth "(Loving) the World and Everything in It: Celebrating Mary Oliver"

The old sorrow we loved before - John Hall Wheelock "Sorrowful Freedom"

Before the light went by - Margaret Widdemer "The Factories"

And Horror stalked before each man - Oscar Wilde "The Ballad of Reading Gaol"

The ruined splendor before evil - C. K. Williams "Pandora"

Before the spectacle of our lives - William Carlos Williams "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower" [excerpt]

To make roses stand before thorns - William Carlos Williams "The Ivy Crown"

Before the red star strikes again - Humbert Wolfe "Shylock Reasons with Mr. Chesterton"

Before the senses harden - Humbert Wolfe "Sometimes When I Think of Love"

Before the thief who would be king - Cecilia Woloch "Prayer for 2018"

In the time before the thrush - William Wordsworth "To the Small Celandine"

As the procession before me fled - Lynn Xu "[And as the procession]"

Before the thread began - W.B. Yeats "His Bargain"

Before I had well finished - W.B. Yeats "The Wild Swans at Coole"

To kneel before the heart - Yi Lei "A Single Woman's Bedroom" transl. by Tracy K. Smith and Changtai Bi

Before a smoldering star's song - Ray Young Bear "Four Hinterland Abstractions"

Before declaring myself a better failure - Maged Zaher "Untitled"

What I need before evaporation - Felicia Zamora "Devil's Tongue"

Before daylight without a name - Matthew Zapruder "Poem for Ferlinghetti"

Its sunlit reins bucking at before and after - Cynthia Zarin "Summer"

Go back before the first hydrogen - Hal Y. Zhang "Majorana, Back Again"

Poised like butterflies before you - Veronica Zondek "cold fire 4" transl. by Katherine Silver


Since faith knows its way before hand - Baron Wormser "Anecdotes"


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