Potential Titles: Less/Lesser

[somethingdarker]

But by degrees they grew less bright - "Abroad"

Not even an atom, much less Adam, could find itself inside - Duane and Cathy Ackerson "Mirror Man"

An air less rare than longing might - Leonie Adams "A Gull Goes Up"

Be less lavish with her kisses rare - Ellen Tracy Alden "Neighbor Edith"

The more time I make, the less you have - Mike Allen "How I Will Outwit the Time Thieves"

Makes the cane ash sting less in my throat - Keisha-Gaye Anderson "We Dreamed You"

Felt less closeted than doored - Atom Atkinson "closet with the letter 'd' on either end"

Weaves it with less gaudy dyes - Benjamin West Ball "The Cemetery in Summer"

Feel a little less, know a little more - Catherine Barnett "Epistemology"

less temperamental than red - Elizabeth Bartlett "time is a palette"

And makes us less divisible than stone - Stephen Vincent Benet "Positively the Last Performance!"

Less separate at dusk - Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge "Listening"

Less wise than true - Anne Bradstreet "The Author to Her Book"

& less than infinite - Andres Cerpa "Parkinson's Disease: Autumn"

Less rain means more salt - Killarney Clary "[Backlit by the glitter-chopped horizon,]"

Not less lonely for our partnership - Leonard Cohen "Queen Victoria and Me"

And birds sought regions less severe - Palmer Cox "The Brownies' Garden"

And think them less forsaken - Adelaide Crapsey "The Mourner"

As something less or more than mortal - Jan Cronos "She Remains"

Less envenomed than the mouth of Truth - Countee Cullen "The Shroud of Color"

In no less than six languages - Diane DeCillis "Falling in Love at the Speed of the William Tell 'Overture'"

Came with less of fear - Emily Dickinson "Book 3: Life XV: The Inevitable"

Some less threatening visions - Chris Dombrowski "Partial Eclipse / N 46.677, W 114.244"

No less important than the light - Chris Dombrowski "Vespers Beginning as Sheep Tallow in the Hands of a Priest"

Perhaps one less, perhaps one more - "Fairy's Album: II. The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe"

Endure with less fragility - Maxwell E. Foster "Five Sonnets 2 (February 1923)"

Less math more muscle memory - Denice Frohman "Shooting in the Dark"

Less congenial to the seeing eye - Linda Gregerson "Elegant"

Less than an island between them - Kimberly Grey "The Functions of X and Y"

Adamant no less than wax - Hafiz "The Divan IV" (translated by H. Bicknell)

Less of myself and more of the sun - Hazel Hall "Flash"

Less dazzling in her twilight dress - Fitz-Greene Halleck "Twilight"

Attracted none the less - Robert Hayden "[American Journal]"

Arrives again no less familiar - S*an D. Henry-Smith "us girls"

Dreaming of a day less dim, dreaming of a time less far - Ralph Hodgson "The Bull"

Tomorrow I shall miss you less - A.E. Housman "Last Poems XVIII"

Less celestial with each swallow - Amaud Jamaul Johnson "Midnight Special"

Using the world less and words more - Rodney Jones "The Language of Love"

No power can make this kingdom less - Henry Killigrew "Song [While Morpheus thus does gently lay]"

Less mindful of its worth - Kim Unsong "Sojourn"

Yet leave them no less dead - Maxine Kumin "The Burners, the Buriers"

Less innocent joys and hopes - Henry S. Leigh "Mother"

Less swayed by savage passion - Amy Levy "Medea"

His country less than gold - Henry Lushington "To the Memory of Pietro d'Alessandro"

Those depths matter less - Airea D. Matthews "Altitude"

More or less a business matter - Harry McCann "Killed in Action" [The Anzac Book: Written and Illustrated in Gallipoli by the Men of Anzac, 1916]

Counts less than raindrops in the sea - H.P. McKnight "Hope--Eternity"

Autumn is no less on me - Edna St Vincent Millay "Eight Sonnets: VIII"

Had Helen been less fair - Edna St Vincent Millay [untitled sonnet]

Less affected by rainbows - Grace Paley [untitled]

Less that shame exists - Carl Phillips "Blow it Back"

Less like singing than remembering - Carl Phillips "Tell Me a Story"

Trusting less to earthly things - Adelaide A. Proctor "Judge Not"

Nor the bobolink's trill the less laughs - Kate Putnam "Excuse" [The Continental Monthly v.6 no.4, August 1864]

Horn and scale both less and more than dead - Paisley Rekdal "Philip Larkin's Koan"

Less weight than resting moonlight - Lola Ridge "Adelaide Crapsey"

Less weight than moonbeams - Lola Ridge "Firehead part III: Judas 2: Madness in the Field"

Meadow-lark no less than nightingale - James Whitcombe Riley "Three Singing Friends"

less savior than common sense calling - Ed Roberson "Come On in the Song of the Changes"

Less than are the downward years - Edwin Arlington Robinson "Eros Turannos"

Eyes dazzled see less wisely - Alice Wellington Rollins "Thought"

Reaching daylight less alive - Sam Rush "Sonnet for what ages and does not"

A man sunken to less than cinders - Carl Sandburg "Pool"

Or less than your own - May Sarton "Best Friend"

Not less though shorter lived - James Marcus Schuyler "Poem [The wind tears up the sun]"

The plums could have been less bitter - Elizabeth Shvarts "Nothing More to Say"

Apparition less of mist than hunger - Ann K. Schwader "Ammutseba Rising"

Our dreams hold less of hope - Ann K. Schwader "On Any Given Midnight"

Trust a little less in certainties so fragile - Ann K. Schwader "Void Music"

Old men of less truth than tongue - William Shakespeare "Sonnet XVII"

Less substance, more rind - Brenda Shaughnessy "Artless"

Less than any broken glass - Clark Ashton Smith "Forgetfulness"

Less than the measure of desire - Clark Ashton Smith "Nero"

No less in the winter - Sara Teasdale "Sappho"

Less mighty than my mind had dreamed - Edward Thomas "There Was a Time"

Less than the unmade, the never-was - Emma Trelles "How We Lived"

And the whole is less than the half - "Turvey Top"

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn - William Wordsworth "The World Is Too Much With Us"

Less kind than the gray twilight - W.B. Yeats "Into the Twilight"

no less binding for being silken - Monica Youn "Blueacre"

Trees whose blossoms shine no less - Francis Brett Young "Song [I made a song in my love's likeness]"


Where errors were not lessened - Anne Bradstreet "The Author to Her Book"

With the lessened light and darkened days - Caris Brooke "Before Parting"

One's gain was not the other lessened - Jane Hirshfield "Solstice"

Which earns but lessened gravity - Mary Karr "Lifecycle Stairmaster"


Breaks time's lesser flow - MacKnight Black "Corliss Engine"

Lesser chances and inferior hopes - Arthur Hugh Clough "Dipsychus"

A lesser rank of victors - Emily Dickinson "Book 2: Time and Eternity XXXIX: Saved!"

Forgets to interpret to a lesser sense - "False Estimations" [The Continental Monthly v.3 no.3, March 1863]

Variables of lesser consequence - Christopher Kondrich "Previously Forgotten"

To footnote lesser evils - Adrienne Rich "Camino Real"

Bathed in earth's lesser light - Alice Wellington Rollins "Indian Summer"


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