Life poems

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Effigy Of A Nun

© Sara Teasdale

Infinite gentleness, infinite irony
Are in this face with fast-sealed eyes,
And round this mouth that learned in loneliness
How useless their wisdom is to the wise.

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Hellenistics

© Robinson Jeffers

I look at the Greek-derived design that nourished my infancy
this Wedgwood copy of the Portland vase:
Someone had given it to my father my eyes at five years old
used to devour it by the hour.

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Virtue and Happiness in the Country

© Michael Bruce

How blest the man who, in these peaceful plains,

Ploughs his paternal field; far from the noise,

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The Reverend Simon Magus

© William Schwenck Gilbert

A rich advowson, highly prized,
For private sale was advertised;
And many a parson made a bid;
The REVEREND SIMON MAGUS did.

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Margaret Love Peacock, for her tombstone, 1826

© Thomas Love Peacock

Long night succeeds thy little day;
  Oh blighted blossom! can it be,
That this grey stone, and grassy clay,
  Have clos'd our anxious care of thee?

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My Cousin From Pall Mall

© Arthur Patchett Martin

There’s nothing so exasperates a true Australian youth,
Whatever be his rank in life, be he cultured or uncouth,
As the manner of a London swell. Now it chanced, the other day,
That one came out, consigned to me—a cousin, by the way.

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To The Lacedemonians

© Allen Tate

  Go you tell them
That we their servants, well-trained, gray-coated
And haired (both foot and horse) or in
The grave, them obey . . . obey them,
What commands?

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The Shortness Of Life

© Francis Quarles

And what's a life? A weary pilgrimage,
Whose glory in one day doth fill the stage
With childhood, manhood, and decrepit age.

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III: To Sir Robert Wroth

© Benjamin Jonson

How blest art thou, canst love the countrey, Wroth,

 Whether by choyce, or fate, or both!

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Monody On The Death Of Dr. Warton

© William Lisle Bowles

Oh! I should ill thy generous cares requite

  Thou who didst first inspire my timid Muse,

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Song of the Sannyasin

© Swami Vivekananda

There is but One—The Free—The Knower—Self!
Without a name, without a form or stain.
In Him is Maya dreaming all this dream.
The witness, He appears as nature, soul.
Know thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say—
"Om Tat Sat, Om!"

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A Family Record

© Oliver Wendell Holmes

WOODSTOCK, CONN., JULY 4, 1877

NOT to myself this breath of vesper song,

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Meditation On A Cold, Dark, And Rainy Night

© George Moses Horton



Sweet on the house top falls the gentle shower,

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Gruffmoody Grim

© William Barnes

Aye, a sad life his wife must ha' led,

  Vor so snappish he's leätely a-come,

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Burning Leaves in Spring

© Christopher Morley

WHEN withered leaves are lost in flame
Their eddying gosts, a thin blue haze,
Blow through the thickets whence they came
On amberlucent autumn days.

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Ninth Sunday After Trinity

© John Keble

In troublous days of anguish and rebuke,
While sadly round them Israel's children look,
  And their eyes fail for waiting on their Lord:
While underneath each awful arch of green,
On every mountain-top, God's chosen scene,
  Of pure heart-worship, Baal is adored:

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Love

© Fitz-Greene Halleck

……….. The imperial votress passed on
In maiden meditation, fancy free.
Midsummer Night's Dream,
Shall I never see a bachelor of three-score again?

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Narrara Creek

© Henry Kendall

From the rainy hill-heads, where, in starts and in spasms,

Leaps wild the white torrent from chasms to chasms—

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Behind The Arras

© Bliss William Carman

  I hardly know which room I care for best;
  This fronting west,
  With the strange hills in view,
  Where the great sun goes,—where I may go too,
  When my lease is through,—

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The Funny Little fellow

© James Whitcomb Riley

'Twas a Funny Little Fellow

  Of the very purest type,