All Poems
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The Lamp Of Greece
© Robert Laurence Binyon
The mind has flowered where she wooed the seed
Up from the darkness into beauty: there
Love listens, divine music fills the air,
Though we by glimpses only understand
Who in the present anguish of our need
Long for the light as for our native land.
A Banjo Song
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
OH, dere's lots o' keer an' trouble
In dis world to swaller down;
Democracy
© Arthur Rimbaud
"The flag goes with the foul landscape,
and our jargon muffles the drum."
In the great centers we'll nurture
the most cynical prostitution.
We'll massacre logical revolts.
A Un Imposible
© Ramon Lopez Velarde
Me arrancaré, mujer, el imposible
Amor de melancólica plegaria,
Y aunque se quede el alma solitaria
Huirá la fe de mi pasión risible.
Long Yearning
© Li Po
Long yearning,
To be in Chang'an.
The grasshoppers weave their autumn song by the golden railing of the well;
Frost coalesces on my bamboo mat, changing its colour with cold.
The Ugly Princess
© Charles Kingsley
My parents bow, and lead them forth,
For all the crowd to see-
Ah well! the people might not care
To cheer a dwarf like me.
Song (Untitled #13)
© George Meredith
Under boughs of breathing May,
In the mild spring-time I lay,
Lonely, for I had no love;
And the sweet birds all sang for pity,
Cuckoo, lark, and dove.
Reste, Reste Avec Nous
© André Marie de Chénier
Reste, reste avec nous, ô père des bons vins!
Dieu propice, ô Bacchus! toi dont les flots divins
Versent le doux oubli de ces maux qu'on adore;
Toi, devant qui I'amour s'enfuit et s'évapore,
Comme de ce cristal aux mobiles éclairs
Tes esprits odorants s'exhalent dans les airs.
The Origin of Cupid -- A Fable
© Mary Darby Robinson
MARS first his best excuses made,
War his delight and ancient trade;
Old NEPTUNE vow'd at such an age,
In state affairs he'd not engage:
BACCHUS preferr'd a draught of nectar
To any monarch's crown and sceptre.
Hay-Cutters
© William Stafford
Time tells them. They go along touching
the grass, the feathery ends. When it feels
just so, they start the mowing machine,
leaving the land its long windrows,
and air strokes the leaves dry.
Epilogue
© William Ernest Henley
These, to you now, O, more than ever now -
Now that the Ancient Enemy
Planting the Sand Cherry by Ann Struthers: American Life in Poetry #171 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laurea
© Ted Kooser
Sometimes I think that people are at their happiest when they're engaged in activities close to the work of the earliest humans: telling stories around a fire, taking care of children, hunting, making clothes. Here an Iowan, Ann Struthers, speaks of one of those original tasks, digging in the dirt.
Planting the Sand Cherry
John Underhill
© John Greenleaf Whittier
A score of years had come and gone
Since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth stone,
When Captain Underhill, bearing scars
From Indian ambush and Flemish wars,
Left three-hilled Boston and wandered down,
East by north, to Cocheco town.
Heat-Lightning
© James Whitcomb Riley
"'_If the darkened heavens lower,
Wrap thy cloak around thy form;
Though the tempest rise in power,
God is mightier than the storm!_'"
The Eye-Mote
© Sylvia Plath
Blameless as daylight I stood looking
At a field of horses, necks bent, manes blown,
Tails streaming against the green
Backdrop of sycamores. Sun was striking
White chapel pinnacles over the roofs,
Holding the horses, the clouds, the leaves
To A Skylark
© George Meredith
O skylark! I see thee and call thee joy!
Thy wings bear thee up to the breast of the dawn;
I see thee no more, but thy song is still
The tongue of the heavens to me!
Improvisations: Light And Snow: 07
© Conrad Aiken
The day opens with the brown light of snowfall
And past the window snowflakes fall and fall.
An Offering
© George Herbert
Come, bring thy gift. If blessings were as slow
As men's returns, what would become of fools?
What hast thou there? a heart? but is it pure?
Search well and see, for hearts have many holes.
Yet one pure heart is nothing to bestow:
In Christ two natures met to be thy cure.
