Children poems

Report From The Besieged City

© Zbigniew Herbert

I am supposed to be exact but I don't know when the invasion began
two hundred years ago in December in September perhaps yesterday at dawn 
everyone here suffers from a loss of the sense of time

Thoughts on Imputed Righteousness - Occasioned by Reading Theron and Aspasio : Part II.

© John Byrom

To shun much novel sentiment and nice,

I take the thing from its apparent rise;

Pen-Y-GWRYDD: To Tom Hughes, Esq.,

© Charles Kingsley

There is no inn in Snowdon which is not awful dear,

Excepting Pen-y-gwrydd (you can't pronounce it, dear),

Lara. A Tale

© George Gordon Byron

Proud Otho on the instant, reddening, threw
His glove on earth, and forth his sabre flew.
"The last alternative befits me best,
And thus I answer for mine absent guest."

Our Souls Have Touched Each Other

© Mathilde Blind

Our souls have touched each other,
 Two fountains from one jet;
Like children of one mother
 Our leaping thoughts have met.

After A Lecture On Wordsworth

© Oliver Wendell Holmes

COME, spread your wings, as I spread mine,
And leave the crowded hall
For where the eyes of twilight shine
O'er evening's western wall.

'The Aeneid of Virgil: Book 6

© Publius Vergilius Maro

HE said, and wept; then spread his sails before  

The winds, and reach’d at length the Cumæan shore:  

The Question Whither

© George Meredith

I

When we have thrown off this old suit,

King Bibler's Army

© Henry Clay Work

It was ten years ago when the belle of the village

Gave here her hand to the young millionaire,

On A Seven-Day Diary

© Alan Dugan

Oh I got up and went to work

and worked and came back home

Buckdancer’s Choice

© James Dickey

So I would hear out those lungs,
The air split into nine levels,
Some gift of tongues of the whistler

Life is but a Dream

© Lewis Carroll

A boat, beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July

At Long Last

© Ada Cambridge

Late, late, the prize is drawn, the goal attained,
The Heart's Desire fulfilled, Love's guerdon gained.
Wealth's use is past, Fame's crown of laurel mocks
The downward-drooping head and grizzled locks.
The end is reached-the end of toil and strife-
The end of life.

Correspondances (Correspondences)

© Charles Baudelaire

La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.

Patriotism

© Edgar Albert Guest

I think my country needs my vote,

I know it doesn't need my throat,

Dawn

© Federico Garcia Lorca

Dawn in New York has
four columns of mire
and a hurricane of black pigeons
splashing in the putrid waters.

There is a calm for those who weep,

© James Montgomery

There is a calm for those who weep,
A rest for weary pilgrims found:
They softly lie, and sweetly sleep,
Low in the ground.

This World

© George MacDonald

Thy world is made to fit thine own,
A nursery for thy children small,
The playground-footstool of thy throne,
Thy solemn school-room, Father of all!
When day is done, in twilight's gloom,
We pass into thy presence-room.

Twenty-One Love Poems V

© Adrienne Rich

The Lady Of La Garaye - Part III

© Caroline Norton

And either tries to hide the thoughts that wring
Their secret hearts; and both essay to bring
Some happy topic, some yet lingering dream,
Which they with cheerful words shall make their theme;
But fail,--and in their wistful eyes confess
All their words never own of hopelessness.