Children poems
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Hermann And Dorothea - IV. Euterpe
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Mother," he said in confusion:--"You greatly surprise me!" and quickly
Wiped he away his tears, the noble and sensitive youngster.
"What! You are weeping, my son?" the startled mother continued
"That is indeed unlike you! I never before saw you crying!
Say, what has sadden'd your heart? What drives you to sit here all lonely
Under the shade of the pear-tree? What is it that makes you unhappy?"
The Gift
© David Lehman
"He gave her class. She gave him sex."
-- Katharine Hepburn on Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers He gave her money. She gave him head.
He gave her tips on "aggressive growth" mutual funds. She gave him a red rose
and a little statue of eros.
A Town
© Jane Taylor
A BUSY town mid Britain's isle,
Behold in fancy's eye ;
With tower, and spire, and civic pile,
Beneath a summer sky :
Many Are Called
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Queen of my life! I do not love you less
Because you choose not me to cast your woes on.
It is enough for me you once said ``Yes.''
Many are called by Love, but few are chosen.
The Swan Song of Parson Avery
© John Greenleaf Whittier
When the reaper's task was ended, and the summer wearing late,
Parson Avery sailed from Newbury, with his wife and children eight,
Dropping down the river-harbor in the shallop "Watch and Wait."
Sonnet XXVIII: You That With Allegory's Curious Frame
© Sir Philip Sidney
You that with allegory's curious frame,
Of others' children changelings use to make,
With me those pains for God's sake do not take:
I list not dig so deep for brazen fame.
Of The Nature Of Things: Book VI - Part 01 - Proem
© Lucretius
And since I've taught thee that the world's great vaults
Are mortal and that sky is fashioned
Of frame e'en born in time, and whatsoe'er
Therein go on and must perforce go on
Castile
© Louise Gluck
I met my love under an orange tree
or was it an acacia tree
or was he not my love?
The Pond
© Louise Gluck
Night covers the pond with its wing.
Under the ringed moon I can make out
your face swimming among minnows and the small
echoing stars. In the night air
the surface of the pond is metal.
Injustice of the Courts
© Lizelia Augusta Jenkins Moorer
Whites alone upon the jury in a number of the states,
Thus they crush a helpless Negro with their prejudicial hates;
Legal ills they thrust upon him, and the tale is passing sad
Equal rights with white men? Never! Color-phobia makes them mad.
Early Darkness
© Louise Gluck
How can you say
earth should give me joy? Each thing
born is my burden; I cannot succeed
with all of you.
Horse
© Louise Gluck
I watch you when you are alone,
When you ride into the field behind the dairy,
Your hands buried in the mare's
Dark mane.
Channing
© John Greenleaf Whittier
Not vainly did old poets tell,
Nor vainly did old genius paint
God's great and crowning miracle,
The hero and the saint!
Inferno (English)
© Dante Alighieri
CANTO I
ONE night, when half my life behind me lay,
I wandered from the straight lost path afar.
Through the great dark was no releasing way;
Trout Fishing in America
© Richard Brautigan
KNOCK ON WOOD (PART TWO)
One spring afternoon as a child in the strange town of Portland,
