Good poems
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Delicatessen
© Joyce Kilmer
Why is that wanton gossip Fame
So dumb about this man's affairs?
Why do we titter at his name
Who come to buy his curious wares?
Little Ballads Of Timely Warning; II:
© Ellis Parker Butler
Little Ballads Of Timely Warning; II: On Malicious Cruelty To Harmless Creatures
The cruelty of P. L. Brown
(He had ten toes as good as mine)
Was known to every one in town,
And, if he never harmed a noun,
He loved to make verbs shriek and whine.
Martin
© Joyce Kilmer
When I am tired of earnest men,
Intense and keen and sharp and clever,
Pursuing fame with brush or pen
Or counting metal disks forever,
Dave Lilly
© Joyce Kilmer
There's a brook on the side of Greylock that used
to be full of trout,
But there's nothing there now but minnows; they say it is all fished
out.
One Who Loved Nature
© Madison Julius Cawein
He was most gentle, good, and wise;
A simpler heart earth never saw:
His soul looked softly from his eyes,
And in his speech were love and awe.
To A Young Poet Who Killed Himself
© Joyce Kilmer
When you had played with life a space
And made it drink and lust and sing,
You flung it back into God's face
And thought you did a noble thing.
The Judge's Song
© William Schwenck Gilbert
When I, good friends, was called to the Bar,
I'd an appetite fresh and hearty,
Response
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
I said this morning, as I leaned and threw
My shutters open to the Spring's surprise,
"Tell me, O Earth, how is it that in you
Year after year the same fresh feelings rise?
Queen Mab: Part VII.
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
'Even the murderer's cheek
Was blanched with horror, and his quivering lips
Scarce faintly uttered-"O almighty one,
I tremble and obey!"
The Proud Poet
© Joyce Kilmer
(For Shaemas O Sheel)One winter night a Devil came and sat upon my bed,
His eyes were full of laughter for his heart was full of crime.
"Why don't you take up fancy work, or embroidery?" he said,
"For a needle is as manly a tool as a pen that makes a rhyme!"
The Robe of Christ
© Joyce Kilmer
(For Cecil Chesterton)At the foot of the Cross on Calvary
Three soldiers sat and diced,
And one of them was the Devil
And he won the Robe of Christ.
Nimium Fortunatus (The Good Life)
© Robert Seymour Bridges
I have lain in the sun
I have toil'd as I might,
I have thought as I would,
And now it is night.
Old Poets
© Joyce Kilmer
(For Robert Cortez Holliday)If I should live in a forest
And sleep underneath a tree,
No grove of impudent saplings
Would make a home for me.
Roofs
© Joyce Kilmer
(For Amelia Josephine Burr)The road is wide and the stars are out
and the breath of the night is sweet,
And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet.
But I'm glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my
On Rabbi Kook's Street
© Yehuda Amichai
There are smells of baking from inside the shanty,
there's a shop where they distribute Bibles free,
free, free. More than one prophet
has left this tangle of lanes
while everything topples above him and he becomes someone else.
Rondel
© George MacDonald
I know thy love unspeakable-
For love's sake able to send woe!
To find thine own thou lost didst go,
And wouldst for men thy blood yet spill!-
How should I know thy final will,
Godwise too good for me to know!
Try To Remember Some Details
© Yehuda Amichai
Try to remember some details. Remember the clothing
of the one you love
so that on the day of loss you'll be able to say: last seen
wearing such-and-such, brown jacket, white hat.
