Cool poems
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A Happy Childhood
© William Matthews
No one keeps a secret so well as a child
Victor Hugo
My mother stands at the screen door, laughing.
“Out out damn Spot,” she commands our silly dog.
I wonder what this means. I rise into adult air
Pharaoh and the Sergeant
© Rudyard Kipling
Said England unto Pharaoh, "I must make a man of you,
That will stand upon his feet and play the game;
Ich Weiss Nicht, Was Soll Es Bedeuten
© Heinrich Heine
I dont know what it could mean,
Or why Im so sad: I find,
Strathcona's Horse
© William Henry Drummond
O I was thine, and thou wert mine, and
ours the boundless plain,
Grandfather Bridgeman
© George Meredith
'Heigh, boys!' cried Grandfather Bridgeman, 'it's time before dinner to-day.'
He lifted the crumpled letter, and thumped a surprising 'Hurrah!'
Up jumped all the echoing young ones, but John, with the starch in his throat,
Said, 'Father, before we make noises, let's see the contents of the note.'
The old man glared at him harshly, and twinkling made answer: 'Too bad!
John Bridgeman, I'm always the whisky, and you are the water, my lad!'
Three Women
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
My love is young, so young;
Young is her cheek, and her throat,
And life is a song to be sung
With love the word for each note.
Its Like This
© Stephen Dobyns
for Peter Parrish
Each morning the man rises from bed because the invisible
cord leading from his neck to someplace in the dark,
the cord that makes him always dissatisfied,
has been wound tighter and tighter until he wakes.
House of Shadows. Home of Simile
© Eavan Boland
One afternoon of summer rain
my hand skimmed a shelf and I found
an old florin. Ireland, 1950.
The Deserted Village
© Mark van Doren
Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheared the labouring swain,
The Scholar-Gipsy
© Matthew Arnold
Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill;
Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes!
A Summer Pastoral
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
It's hot to-day. The bees is buzzin'
Kinder don't-keer-like aroun'
Walking Parker Home
© Bob Kaufman
Sweet beats of jazz impaled on slivers of wind
Kansas Black Morning/ First Horn Eyes/
The Picture, Or The Lover's Resolution
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Through weeds and thorns, and matted underwood
I force my way; now climb, and now descend
O'er rocks, or bare or mossy, with wild foot
Crushing the purple whorts; while oft unseen,
Song of the Witches
© William Shakespeare
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.
Paradise Lost: Book IV
© Patrick Kavanagh
"Which of those rebel Spirits adjudg'd to Hell
Com'st thou, escap'd thy prison? and, transform'd,
Why satt'st thou like an enemy in wait,
Here watching at the head of these that sleep?"
The Banished Spirit's Song
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
Beautiful clime, where I've dwelt so long,
In mirth and music, in gladness and song!
Fairer than aught upon earth art thou-
Beautiful clime, must I leave thee now?
A narrow fellow in the grass (1096)
© Emily Dickinson
A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
The Hut by the Black Swamp
© Henry Kendall
Now comes the fierce north-easter, bound
About with clouds and racks of rain,
And dry, dead leaves go whirling round
In rings of dust, and sigh like pain
Across the plain.
