Family poems
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Cicely
© Francis Bret Harte
Cicely says you're a poet; maybe,--I ain't much on rhyme:
I reckon you'd give me a hundred, and beat me every time.
Poetry!--that's the way some chaps puts up an idee,
But I takes mine "straight without sugar," and that's what's the matter with me.
The Rape Of Lucrece
© William Shakespeare
TO THE
RIGHT HONORABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY,
Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Tichfield.
Italy : 38. Foreign Travel
© Samuel Rogers
It was in a splenetic humour that I sat me down to my
scanty fare at Terracina ; and how long I should have
contemplated the lean thrushes in array before me, I
cannot say, if a cloud of smoke, that drew the tears
Ode To The Moon
© Thomas Hood
I
Mother of light! how fairly dost thou go
Over those hoary crests, divinely led!
Art thou that huntress of the silver bow,
The Golden Legend: III. A Street In Strasburg
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
_Crier of the dead (ringing a bell)._ Wake! wake!
All ye that sleep!
Pray for the Dead!
Pray for the Dead!
The Duel (The Gingham Dog And The Calico Cat)
© Eugene Field
The gingham dog and the calico cat
Side by side on the table sat;
A tall, strapping shot, you, considerate hunter...
© Boris Pasternak
A tall, strapping shot, you, considerate hunter,
Phantom with gun at the flood of my soul,
Do not destroy me now as a traitor,
As fodder for feeling, crumbled up small!
Homage To Sextus Propertius - V
© Ezra Pound
2
Yet you ask on what account I write so many love-lyrics
And whence this soft book comes into my mouth.
Neither Calliope nor Apollo sung these things into my ear,
My genius is no more than a girl.
Inscription under the Picture of an Aged Negro-woman
© James Montgomery
Art thou a woman? - so am I; and all
That woman can be, I have been, or am;
To the Memory of My Beloved Author, Mr. William Shakespeare
© Benjamin Jonson
To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
Unchangeable Mother
© Edgar Albert Guest
Mothers never change, I guess,
In their tender thoughtfulness.
Family Album by Diane Thiel: American Life in Poetry #41 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Those photos in family albums, what do they show us about the lives of people, and what don't they tell? What are they holding back? Here Diane Thiel, who teaches in New Mexico, peers into one of those pictures.
Family Album
I like old photographs of relatives
in black and white, their faces set like stone.
They knew this was serious business.
My favorite album is the one that's filled
with people none of us can even name.
The Miller's Maid
© Robert Bloomfield
Near the high road upon a winding stream
An honest Miller rose to Wealth and Fame:
The noblest Virtues cheer'd his lengthen'd days,
And all the Country echo'd with his praise:
His Wife, the Doctress of the neighb'ring Poor,
Drew constant pray'rs and blessings round his door.
Thespis: Act II
© William Schwenck Gilbert
Jupiter, Aged Diety
Apollo, Aged Diety
Mars, Aged Diety
Diana, Aged Diety
Mercury
Coquette [Among The Family Portraits.]
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
Therefore, sweet flesh and blood, I trust
That, ere ye passed to senseless dust,
Your beauty played a worthier part--
The love-rôle of the loyal heart.
. . . . .
Satyr II. To T:--- M.---y. On Law.
© Thomas Parnell
That angry Justice to her heaven went
There seems not so confessd an argument,
As Lawyers thriving in her name below,
When were she here again, again she'd go.
Thus courtiers, if a Kings from care wthdrawn,
Rise without meritt, & with fraud rule on.
The Game
© Charles Baudelaire
Old courtesans in washed-out armchairs,
pale, eyebrows blacked, eyes tender, fatal,
simpering still, and from their skinny ears
loosing their waterfalls of stone and metal:
The Four Seasons : Summer
© James Thomson
From brightening fields of ether fair disclosed,
Child of the Sun, refulgent Summer comes,
In pride of youth, and felt through Nature's depth:
He comes attended by the sultry Hours,
