Children poems
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The Great Blue Heron
© John Betjeman
M.A.K. September, 1880-September, 1955
As I wandered on the beach
The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue
© Geoffrey Chaucer
But for to tellen yow of his array,
His hors weren goode, but he was nat gay;
Of fustian he wered a gypon
Al bismótered with his habergeon;
For he was late y-come from his viage,
And wente for to doon his pilgrymage.
John Brown: A Paradox
© Louise Imogen Guiney
Compassionate eyes had our brave John Brown,
And a craggy stern forehead, a militant frown;
He, the storm-bow of peace. Give him volley on volley,
The fool who redeemed us once of our folly,
And the smiter that healed us, our right John Brown!
The Secret Garden
© Rita Dove
I was ill, lying on my bed of old papers,
when you came with white rabbits in your arms;
and the doves scattered upwards, flying to mothers,
and the snails sighed under their baggage of stone . . .
Poverty
© Jane Taylor
I saw an old cottage of clay,
And only of mud was the floor;
It was all falling into decay,
And the snow drifted in at the door.
To a Reason
© Arthur Rimbaud
A tap of your finger on the drum releases all sounds and initiates the new harmony.
A step of yours is the conscription of the new men and their marching orders.
You look away: the new love!
You look back,—the new love!
Victims of the Latest Dance Craze
© Cornelius Eady
And mothers letting their babies
Be held by strangers.
And the bus drivers
Taping over their fare boxes
And willing to give directions.
The Bitterness of Children
© Thomas Lux
Foreseeing typographical errors
on their gravestones, the children
from infancy—are bitter.
Little clairvoyants, blond, in terror.
To Kathleen, after Neruda
© Craig Erick Chaffin
your hips formed in India, your face
barely imagined by Da Vinci.
Your eyes threaten green lightning
from the Atlantic. You could crush me
Blue Ridge
© Ellen Bryant Voigt
Up there on the mountain road, the fireworks
blistered and subsided, for once at eye level:
The Way to the River
© William Stanley Merwin
The way to the river leads past the names of
Ash the sleeves the wreaths of hinges
Through the song of the bandage vendor
After Disappointment
© Mark Jarman
To lie in your child’s bed when she is gone
Is calming as anything I know. To fall
For We Are Thy People
© Pierre Reverdy
For we are thy people, and thou art our God;
We are thy children and thou our father.
Nancy Jane
© Charles Simic
A dark little country store full of gravedigger’s
children buying candy.
(That’s how we looked that night.)
Eating the Pig
© Donald Hall
Then a young woman cuts off his head.
It comes off so easily, like a detachable part.
With sudden enthusiasm we dismantle the pig,
we wrench his trotters off, we twist them
at shoulder and hip, and they come off so easily.
Then we cut open his belly and pull the skin back.
Late March
© Edward Hirsch
Saturday morning in late March.
I was alone and took a long walk,
though I also carried a book
of the Alone, which companioned me.
The Loneliness of the Military Historian
© Margaret Atwood
But it’s no use asking me for a final statement.
As I say, I deal in tactics.
Also statistics:
for every year of peace there have been four hundred
years of war.
Power
© Elizabeth Daryush
The difference between poetry and rhetoric
is being ready to kill
yourself
instead of your children.
