Life poems
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France
© Rudyard Kipling
Broke to every known mischance, lifted over all
By the light sane joy of life, the buckler of the Gaul,
Furious in luxury, merciless in toil,
Terrible with strength that draws from her tireless soil;
I, Being Born A Woman And Distressed
© Edna St. Vincent Millay
I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
The Adirondacs
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wise and polite,--and if I drew
Their several portraits, you would own
Chaucer had no such worthy crew,
Nor Boccace in Decameron.
In Response
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
SUCH kindness! the scowl of a cynic would soften,
His pulse beat its way to some eloquent words,
Alas! my poor accents have echoed too often,
Like that Pinafore music you've some of you heard.
The Ancient Banner
© Anonymous
In boundless mercy, the Redeemer left,
The bosom of his Father, and assumed
Shelley's Centenary
© William Watson
Within a narrow span of time,
Three princes of the realm of rhyme,
At height of youth or manhood's prime,
From earth took wing,
To join the fellowship sublime
Who, dead, yet sing.
Subway by Barry Goldensohn: American Life in Poetry #125 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
The American poet, Ezra Pound, once described the faces of people in a rail station as petals on a wet black bough. That was roughly seventy-five years ago. Here Barry Goldenson of New York offers a look at a contemporary subway station. Not petals, but people all the same.
Nonpareil
© Matthew Prior
Let others from the Town retire,
And in the fields seek new delight;
My Phillis does such joys inspire,
No other objects please my sight.
George Rolleston
© George MacDonald
Dead art thou? No more dead than was the maid
Over whose couch the saving God did stand-
"She is not dead but sleepeth," said,
And took her by the hand!
The Secret Draught of Wine
© Shams al-Din Hafiz
Like Hafiz, drain the goblet cheerfully
While minstrels touch the lute and sweetly sing,
For all that makes thy heart rejoice in thee
Hangs of Life's single, slender, silken string.
My Hometown by Donal Heffernan : American Life in Poetry #276 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-20
© Ted Kooser
I live in Nebraska, where we have a town named Homer. Such a humble, homely name and, as it happens, the poet Donal Heffernan is from Homer, and heres his hymn to the town and its history. Long live Homer. And while were celebrating Nebraska towns, lets throw in Edgar, too.
No Room For Hate
© Edgar Albert Guest
We have room for the man with an honest dream,
With his heart on fire and his eyes agleam;
We have room for the man with a purpose true,
Who comes to our shores to start life anew,
But we haven't an inch of space for him
Who comes to plot against life and limb.
A Servian Legend
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Long, long ago, ere yet our race began,
When earth was empty, waiting still for man,
Before the breath of life to him was given
The angels fell into a strife in heaven.
Continued
© George Meredith
How smiles he at a generation ranked
In gloomy noddings over life! They pass.
The Song Of Hiawatha VI: Hiawatha's Friends
© Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Two good friends had Hiawatha,
Singled out from all the others,
At One Again
© Jean Ingelow
Two angry men-in heat they sever,
And one goes home by a harvest field:-
"Hope's nought," quoth he, "and vain endeavor;
I said and say it, I will not yield!
