Knowledge poems
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Learning to Read
© Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Very soon the Yankee teachers
Came down and set up school;
But, oh! how the Rebs did hate it,—
It was agin’ their rule.
A Dialogue between Caliban and Ariel
© John Fuller
Ar. Now you have been taught words and I am free,
My pine struck open, your thick tongue untied,
And bells call out the music of the sea.
The Pleasures of Imagination: Book The Second
© Mark Akenside
Till all its orbs and all its worlds of fire
Be loosen'd from their seats; yet still serene,
The unconquer'd mind looks down upon the wreck;
And ever stronger as the storms advance,
Firm through the closing ruin holds his way,
Where nature calls him to the destin'd goal.
The Recluse - Book First
© William Wordsworth
HOME AT GRASMERE
ONCE to the verge of yon steep barrier came
A roving school-boy; what the adventurer's age
Hath now escaped his memory--but the hour,
Paradise Lost: Book IX (1674)
© Patrick Kavanagh
To whom the Virgin Majestie of Eve,
As one who loves, and some unkindness meets,
With sweet austeer composure thus reply'd,
The Laws of Motion
© Nikki Giovanni
(for Harlem Magic)
The laws of science teach us a pound of gold weighs as
much as a pound of flour though if dropped from any
undetermined height in their natural state one would
reach bottom and one would fly away
Leda and the Swan
© William Butler Yeats
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
A Prayer for Rain
© Paul Eluard
Let it come down: these thicknesses of air
have long enough walled love away from love;
Maud; A Monodrama (from Part II)
© Alfred Tennyson
O that 'twere possible
After long grief and pain
To find the arms of my true love
Round me once again!
Honours -- Part II.
© Jean Ingelow
As one who, journeying, checks the rein in haste
Because a chasm doth yawn across his way
Too wide for leaping, and too steeply faced
For climber to essay-
Insomnia and the Seven Steps to Grace
© Joy Harjo
At dawn the panther of the heavens peers over the edge of the world.
She hears the stars gossip with the sun, sees the moon washing her lean
darkness with water electrified by prayers. All over the world there are those
who can't sleep, those who never awaken.
from The Prelude: Book 2: School-time (Continued)
© André Breton
Fare Thee well!
Health, and the quiet of a healthful mind
Attend thee! seeking oft the haunts of men,
And yet more often living with Thyself,
And for Thyself, so haply shall thy days
Be many, and a blessing to mankind.
The Idols
© Robert Laurence Binyon
I.2
The Forests of the Night awaken blind in heat
Of black stupor; and stirring in its deep retreat,
I hear the heart of Darkness slowly beat and beat.
OEnone
© Alfred Tennyson
"Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
He smiled, and opening out his milk-white palm
Disclosed a fruit of pure Hesperian gold,
That smelt ambrosially, and while I look'd
And listen'd, the full-flowing river of speech
Came down upon my heart.
T o W.H.H.
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
How like a mighty picture, tint by tint,
This marvellous world is opening to thy view!
Wonders of earth and heaven; shapes bright and new,
Strength, radiance, beauty, and all things that hint
The Troubadour. Canto 1
© Letitia Elizabeth Landon
There is a light step passing by
Like the distant sound of music's sigh;
It is that fair and gentle child,
Whose sweetness has so oft beguiled,
Like sunlight on a stormy day,
His almost sullenness away.
Literary
© Kenneth Fearing
I sing of simple people and the hardier virtues, by Associated Stuffed Shirts & Company, Incorporated, 358 West 42d Street, New York, brochure enclosed
of Christ on the Cross, by a visitor to Calvary, first class
art deals with eternal, not current verities, revised from last week's Sunday supplement
guess what we mean, in The Literary System, and a thousand noble answers to a thousand empty questions, by a patriot who needs the dough.
Magnitudes
© Howard Nemerov
Earth’s Wrath at our assaults is slow to come
But relentless when it does. It has to do
