Age poems
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91. The Vision
© Robert Burns
And wear thou thisshe solemn said,
And bound the holly round my head:
The polishd leaves and berries red
Did rustling play;
And, like a passing thought, she fled
In light away. [To Mrs. Stewart of Stair Burns presented a manuscript copy of the Vision. That copy embraces about twenty stanzas at the end of Duan First, which he cancelled when he came to print the price in his Kilmarnock volume. Seven of these he restored in printing his second edition, as noted on p. 174. The following are the verses which he left unpublished.]
293. The Whistle: A Ballad
© Robert Burns
I SING of a Whistle, a Whistle of worth,
I sing of a Whistle, the pride of the North.
Was brought to the court of our good Scottish King,
And long with this Whistle all Scotland shall ring.
54. Man was made to Mourn: A Dirge
© Robert Burns
WHEN chill Novembers surly blast
Made fields and forests bare,
One evning, as I wanderd forth
Along the banks of Ayr,
Jacqueline
© Samuel Rogers
'Twas Autumn; thro' Provence had ceased
The vintage, and the vintage-feast.
The sun had set behind the hill,
The moon was up, and all was still,
The Dream Of The World Without Death
© William Cosmo Monkhouse
NOW, sitting by her side, worn out with weeping,
Behold, I fell to sleep, and had a vision,
Runnamede, A Tragedy. Acts I.-II.
© John Logan
Yet lost to fame is virtue's orient reign;
The patriot lived, the hero died in vain,
Dark night descended o'er the human day,
And wiped the glory of the world away:
Whirled round the gulf, the acts of time were tost,
Then in the vast abyss for ever lost.
Fareweel To A'Our Scottish Fame
© Robert Burns
Fareweel to a' our Scottish fame,
Fareweel our ancient glory;
Fareweel ev'n to the Scottish name,
Sae famed in martial story!
Where They Lived by Marge Saiser: American Life in Poetry #104 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2
© Ted Kooser
At some time many of us will have to make a last visit to a house where aged parents lived out their days. Here Marge Saiser beautifully compresses one such farewell.
Where They Lived
Lydia Dick
© Eugene Field
When I was a boy at college,
Filling up with classic knowledge,
Frequently I wondered why
Old Professor Demas Bently
Used to praise so eloquently
"Opera Horatii."
395. Sonnet on the Authors Birthday
© Robert Burns
SING on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough,
Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain,
See aged Winter, mid his surly reign,
At thy blythe carol, clears his furrowed brow.
Life Is A Dream - Act II
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
CLOTALDO. Reasons fail me not to show
That the experiment may not answer;
But there is no remedy now,
For a sign from the apartment
Tells me that he hath awoken
And even hitherward advances.
To India
© Sarojini Naidu
O YOUNG through all thy immemorial years!
Rise, Mother, rise, regenerate from thy gloom,
And, like a bride high-mated with the spheres,
Beget new glories from thine ageless womb!
The Past
© Louisa Stuart Costello
I have number'd all the sorrows this tortured heart has
known;
I have counted each delight I would ever call my own;
But the moments are so woven, that the guiding clew is
gone,
And the sorrow and the pleasure blended into one.
The Indiscreet Confessions
© Jean de La Fontaine
BLITHE Damon for her having felt the dart,
The belle received the offer of his heart;
So well he managed and expressed his flame.
That soon her lord and master he became,
By Hymen's right divine, you may conceive,
And nothing short of it you should believe.
Extracts from a Medical Poem. The Stability of Science
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
I tell their fate, though courtesy disclaims
To call our kind by such ungentle names;
Yet, if your rashness bid you vainly dare,
Think of their doom, ye simple, and beware.
Sketches In The Exhibition
© William Lisle Bowles
How clear a strife of light and shade is spread!
The face how touched with nature's loveliest red!
The eye, how eloquent, and yet how meek!
The glow subdued, yet mantling on thy cheek!
M----ve! I mark alone thy beauteous face,
But all is nature, dignity, and grace!
Moeurs Contemporaines
© Ezra Pound
And by her left foot, in a basket,
Is an infant, aged about 14 months,
The infant beams at the parent,
The parent re-beams at its offspring.
The basket is lined with satin,
There is a satin-like bow on the harp.
