Great poems
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Almon Keefer
© James Whitcomb Riley
Ah, Almon Keefer! what a boy you were,
With your back-tilted hat and careless hair,
And open, honest, fresh, fair face and eyes
With their all-varying looks of pleased surprise
And joyous interest in flower and tree,
And poising humming-bird, and maundering bee.
An Apple Tree In France
© Edgar Albert Guest
An apple tree beside the way,
Drinking the sunshine day by day
Meeting and Passing
© Robert Frost
As I went down the hill along the wall
There was a gate I had leaned at for the view
And had just turned from when I first saw you
As you came up the hill. We met. But all
Conversation
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
We were a baker's dozen in the house-six women and six men
Besides myself; and all of us had known
Written to be Spoken by Mrs. Siddons
© Samuel Rogers
Yes, 'tis the pulse of life! my fears were vain!
I wake, I breathe, and am myself again.
Still in this nether world; no seraph yet!
Nor walks my spirit, when the sun is set,
An Empty Threat
© Robert Frost
I stay;
But it isn't as if
There wasn't always Hudson's Bay
And the fur trade,
An Epistle Of The Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole
© Richard Savage
As the rich cloud by due degrees expands,
And show'rs down plenty thick on sundry lands,
Thy spreading worth in various bounty fell,
Made genius flourish, and made art excel.
Sonnet 136: "If thy soul check thee that I come so near,..."
© William Shakespeare
If thy soul check thee that I come so near,
Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will,
Raking by Tania Rochelle: American Life in Poetry #87 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
The first poem we ran in this column was by David Allan Evans of South Dakota, about a couple washing windows together. You can find that poem and all the others on our website, www.americanlifeinpoetry.org. Here Tania Rochelle of Georgia presents us with another couple, this time raking leaves. I especially like the image of the pair âbent like parentheses/ around their brittle little lawn.â?
The Trial by Existence
© Robert Frost
Even the bravest that are slain
Shall not dissemble their surprise
On waking to find valor reign,
Even as on earth, in paradise;
Evening Hymn
© Henry Kendall
The crag-pent breezes sob and moan where hidden waters glide;
And twilight wanders round the earth with slow and shadowy stride.
The Hill Wife
© Robert Frost
One ought not to have to care
So much as you and I
Care when the birds come round the house
To seem to say good-bye;
Orpheus
© Edith Wharton
Love will make men dare to die for their beloved. . . Of this
Alcestis is a monument . . . for she was willing to lay down her
life for her husband . . . and so noble did this appear to the gods
that they granted her the privilege of returning to earth . . . but
Orpheus, the son of OEagrus, they sent empty away. . .
The Bear
© Robert Frost
The bear puts both arms around the tree above her
And draws it down as if it were a lover
And its choke cherries lips to kiss good-bye,
Then lets it snap back upright in the sky.
Snow
© Robert Frost
The three stood listening to a fresh access
Of wind that caught against the house a moment,
Gulped snow, and then blew free againthe Coles
Dressed, but dishevelled from some hours of sleep,
Meserve belittled in the great skin coat he wore.
Paul's Wife
© Robert Frost
To drive Paul out of any lumber camp
All that was needed was to say to him,
"How is the wife, Paul?"--and he'd disappear.
Some said it was because be bad no wife,
After The Fashion of An Old Emblem
© George MacDonald
I have long enough been working down in my cellar,
Working spade and pick, boring-chisel and drill;
I long for wider spaces, airy, clear-dark, and stellar:
Successless labour never the love of it did fill.
New Hampshire
© Robert Frost
Just specimens is all New Hampshire has,
One each of everything as in a showcase,
Which naturally she doesn't care to sell.
My Butterfly
© Robert Frost
When that was, the soft mist
Of my regret hung not on all the land,
And I was glad for thee,
And glad for me, I wist.
