Life poems
/ page 105 of 844 /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.
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.
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,
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.
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?
My Cousin From Pall Mall
© Arthur Patchett Martin
Theres 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 mea cousin, by the way.
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?
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.
III: To Sir Robert Wroth
© Benjamin Jonson
How blest art thou, canst love the countrey, Wroth,
Whether by choyce, or fate, or both!
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,
Song of the Sannyasin
© Swami Vivekananda
There is but OneThe FreeThe KnowerSelf!
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!"
A Family Record
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
WOODSTOCK, CONN., JULY 4, 1877
NOT to myself this breath of vesper song,
Meditation On A Cold, Dark, And Rainy Night
© George Moses Horton
Sweet on the house top falls the gentle shower,
Gruffmoody Grim
© William Barnes
Aye, a sad life his wife must ha' led,
Vor so snappish he's leätely a-come,
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.
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:
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?
Narrara Creek
© Henry Kendall
From the rainy hill-heads, where, in starts and in spasms,
Leaps wild the white torrent from chasms to chasms
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,