Children poems
/ page 155 of 244 /
What We Need
© Edgar Albert Guest
We were settin' there an' smokin' of our pipes, discussin' things,
Like licker, votes for wimmin, an' the totterin'thrones o' kings,
When he ups an' strokes his whiskers with his hand an' says t'me:
"Changin' laws an' legislatures ain't, as fur as I can see,
Goin' to make this world much better, unless somehow we can
Find a way to make a better an' a finer sort o' man.
Maha-Bharata, The Epic Of Ancient India - Book X - Karna-Badha - (Fall Of Karna)
© Romesh Chunder Dutt
After the death of Karna, Salya led the Kuru troops on the eighteenth
and last day of the war, and fell. A midnight slaughter in the Pandav
camp, perpetrated by the vengeful son of Drona, concludes the war.
Duryodhan, left wounded by Bhima, heard of the slaughter and died
happy.
The Things That Make A Soldier Great
© Edgar Albert Guest
The things that make a soldier great and send him out to die,
To face the flaming cannon's mouth, nor ever question why,
Are lilacs by a little porch, the row of tulips red,
The peonies and pansies, too, the old petunia bed,
The grass plot where his children play, the roses on the wall:
'Tis these that make a soldier great. He's fighting for them all.
Pheidippides
© Robert Browning
First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock!
Gods of my birthplace, daemons and heroes, honour to all!
Then I name thee, claim thee for our patron, co-equal in praise
--Ay, with Zeus the Defender, with Her of the aegis and spear!
Also, ye of the bow and the buskin, praised be your peer,
The Tear
© George Gordon Byron
'O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros
Ducentium ortus ex animo; quater
Felix! in imo qui scatentem
Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit.'~GRAY
The Vision Of Piers Plowman - Part 05
© William Langland
The Kyng and hise knyghtes to the kirke wente
To here matyns of the day and the masse after.
At Midnight
© Virna Sheard
Turn Thou the key upon our thoughts, dear Lord,
And let us sleep;
Give us our portion of forgetfulness,
Silent and deep.
The Dream: (For my Father)
© Katharine Tynan
Over and over again I dream a dream,
I am coming home to you in the starlit gloam;
Long was the day from you and sweet 'twill seem
The day is over and I am coming home.
The Horse Show
© William Carlos Williams
Constantly near you, I never in my entire
sixty-four years knew you so well as yesterday
Stupid
© Raymond Carver
It's what the kids nowadays call weed. And it drifts
like clouds from his lips. He hopes no one
The Three Christmas Waits
© William Makepeace Thackeray
"When this black year began,
This Eighteen-forty-eight,
I was a great great man,
And king both vise and great,
And Munseer Guizot by me did show
As Minister of State.
The Famine In Ireland
© James Brunton Stephens
THEY shall not perish! Not if help can save
Our hunger-stricken brethren from the grave!
Death In A Ball-Room
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Oh many, many thus have died, alas,
Children, poor things! The grave will have its prey.
Some flowers must still be mown down with the grass,
And in life's wild quadrille the dancers gay
Must trample here and there a weak one in their way.
The Great Beech
© Norman Rowland Gale
With heart disposed to memory, let me stand
Near this monarch and this minstrel of the land,
Now that Dian leans so lovely from her car.
Illusively brought near by seeming falsely far,
In yon illustrious summit sways the tangled evening star.
The Prologues Of Euripides
© Aristophanes
_AEschylus_--And by Jove, I'll not stop to cut up your verses
word by word, but if the gods are propitious I'll spoil
all your prologues with a little flask of smelling-salts.
Sunday Brunch at the Old Country Buffet by Anne Caston: American Life in Poetry #45 Ted Kooser, U.S.
© Ted Kooser
Poets are experts at holding mirrors to the world. Here Anne Caston, from Alaska, shows us a commonplace scene. HavenÃt we all been in this restaurant for the Sunday buffet? Caston overlays the picture with language that, too, is ordinary, even sloganistic, and overworn. But by zooming in on the joint of meat and the belly-up fishes floating in
butter, she compels us to look more deeply into what is before us, and a room that at first seemed humdrum becomes rich with inference.
Evangeline: Part The Second. IV.
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
FAR in the West there lies a desert land, where the mountains
Lift, through perpetual snows, their lofty and luminous summits.
