Cool poems
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When June Is Here
© James Whitcomb Riley
When June is here--what art have we to sing
The whiteness of the lilies midst the green
Contemplations
© Anne Bradstreet
1 Sometime now past in the Autumnal Tide,
2 When Ph{oe}bus wanted but one hour to bed,
3 The trees all richly clad, yet void of pride,
4 Were gilded o're by his rich golden head.
In The Lane
© Madison Julius Cawein
When the hornet hangs in the hollyhock,
And the brown bee drones i' the rose;
And the west is a red-streaked four-o'clock,
And summer is near its close-
It's oh, for the gate and the locust lane,
And dusk and dew and home again!
Self-Portrait At 28
© David Berman
If squeezed for more information
I can remember old clock radios
with flipping metal numbers
and an entree called Surf and Turf.
The Wrangler.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
ONE day a shameless and impudent wight
Went into a shop full of steel wares bright,
Arranged with art upon ev'ry shelf.
He fancied they were all meant for himself;
June.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Soon between us rise to sight
Valleys cool, with bushes light,
Streams and meadows; next appear
A Parable.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I PICKED a rustic nosegay lately,
And bore it homewards, musing greatly;
When, heated by my hand, I found
The heads all drooping tow'rd the ground.
Horace, Book I. Ode XXXVIII. (2)
© William Cowper
Boy! I detest all Persian fopperies,
Fillet-bound garlands are to me disgusting;
Summer
© Samuel Johnson
O Phoebus! down the western sky,
Far hence diffuse thy burning ray,
Thy light to distant worlds supply,
And wake them to the cares of day.
The Spectral Attitudes
© André Breton
I attach no importance to life
I pin not the least of life's butterflies to importance
The German Parnassus.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
With her modest pinions, see,
Philomel encircles me!
In these bushes, in yon grove,
A Retrospective Review
© Thomas Hood
Oh, when I was a tiny boy,
My days and nights were full of joy,
My mates were blithe and kind!
No wonder that I sometimes sigh,
And dash the tear-drop from my eye,
To cast a look behind!
Premature Spring.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
DAYS full of rapture,Are ye renew'd ?--
Smile in the sunlightMountain and wood?Streams richer ladenFlow through the dale,
Are these the meadows?Is this the vale?Coolness cerulean!Heaven and height!
Fish crowd the ocean,Golden and bright.Birds of gay plumageSport in the grove,
Such, Such Is He Who Pleaseth Me.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In the wood where thou thy flight didst wing.
Fly, dearest, fly! He is not nigh!
Never rests the foot of evil spy.
The Spagnoletto. Act IV
© Emma Lazarus
Night. RIBERA'S bedroom. RIBERA discovered in his dressing-gown,
seated reading beside a table, with a light upon it. Enter from
an open door at the back of the stage, MARIA. She stands
irresolute for a moment on the threshold behind her father,
watching him, passes her hand rapidly over her brow and eyes,
and then knocks.
Ode to Marbles by Max Mendelsohn: American Life in Poetry #163 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2
© Ted Kooser
I have always enjoyed poems that celebrate the small pleasures of life. Here Max Mendelsohn, age 12, of Weston, Massachusetts, tells us of the joy he finds in playing with marbles.
Ode to Marbles
Dedication.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
By new-born flow'rs that full of dew-drops hung;
The youthful day awoke with ecstacy,
And all things quicken'd were, to quicken me.
Old Age.
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
OLD age is courteous--no one more:
For time after time he knocks at the door,
But nobody says, "Walk in, sir, pray!"
Yet turns he not from the door away,
But lifts the latch, and enters with speed.
And then they cry "A cool one, indeed!"
