* * *
Don't say he loves me as before,
That, as before, he treasures me...
no! He callously destroys my life,
Although I see the knife shake in his hand.

Daughter by James P. Lenfestey: American Life in Poetry #186 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-20

© Ted Kooser

Every child can be seen as a miracle, and here Minnesota poet James Lenfestey captures the beautiful mystery of a daughter.

Daughter

Der Vetter Und Die Muhme

© Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

O fluche, Freund, nicht alles Wetter
Auf deinen eigensinngen Vetter.
Schmaelt er manchmal; so lass es sein.
Er hat ja guten Wein.

Dolce Far Niente

© Paul Hamilton Hayne

LET the world roll blindly on!
Give me shallow, give me sun,
And a perfumed eve as this is:
Let me lie,

Disenchanted

© Augusta Davies Webster

Alas, I thought this forest must be true,

And would not change because of my changed eyes;

Of all the doctors I could cite you to in this-'ere town
Doc Sifers is my favorite, jes' take him up and down!
Count in the Bethel Neighberhood, and Rollins, and Big Bear,
And Sifers' standin's jes' as good as ary doctor's there!

Dedication: To M. C. M. C.

© Padraic Colum

THE well-
They come to it and take
Their cupful or their palmful out of it.

Dream-Love

© Christina Georgina Rossetti

Young Love lies sleeping

In May-time of the year,

Drifting Away: A Fragment

© Charles Kingsley

Eversley, 1867.They drift away. Ah, God! they drift for ever.
I watch the stream sweep onward to the sea,
Like some old battered buoy upon a roaring river,
Round whom the tide-waifs hang-then drift to sea.

'Dichterliebe'

© Gwen Harwood

So hungry-sensitive that he
craves day and night the pap of praise,
he'll ease his gripes or fingerpaint
in heartsblood on a public page.
The ordinary world must be
altered to circumvent his rage.

De Stove Pipe Hole

Dat's very cole an' stormy night on Village St. Mathieu,
W'en ev'ry wan he's go couché, an' dog was quiet, too--
Young Dominique is start heem out see Emmeline Gourdon,
Was leevin' on her fader's place, Maxime de Forgeron.