Life poems
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By The Grave
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
THIS is the place--I pray thee, friend,
Leave me alone with that dread grief,
Whose raven wings o'erarch the grave,
Closed on a life how sad and brief!
Green River
© William Cullen Bryant
When breezes are soft and skies are fair,
I steal an hour from study and care,
And hie me away to the woodland scene,
Where wanders the stream with waters of green,
The Centennial Year
© Christopher Pearse Cranch
A Hundred years and she had sat, a queen
Sheltering her children, opening wide her gates
To all the inflowing tribes of earth. At first
Storms raged around her; but her stumbling feet
To Mary, On Receiving Her Picture
© George Gordon Byron
This faint resemblance of thy charms,
(Though strong as mortal art could give,)
My constant heart of fear disarms,
Revives my hopes, and bids me live.
Perhaps
© Gamaliel Bradford
He who knows what life and death is
Walks superior to fate.
Every word that Fortune saith is
Just accordant to his state.
Inscriptions
© James Russell Lowell
I call as fly the irrevocable hours,
Futile as air or strong as fate to make
Your lives of sand or granite; awful powers,
Even as men choose, they either give or take.
An Urban Convalescence
© James Merrill
As usual in New York, everything is torn down
Before you have had time to care for it.
Head bowed, at the shrine of noise, let me try to recall
What building stood here. Was there a building at all?
I have lived on this same street for a decade.
Intimations
© Madison Julius Cawein
Is it uneasy moonlight,
On the restless field, that stirs?
Or wild white meadow-blossoms
The night-wind bends and blurs?
Possessions
© Ken Smith
They spent my life plotting against me.
With nothing to do but cultivate themselves,
but to be there, aligning their shadows,
they were planning to undo me,
wanting to own me completely.
Her Eyes
© Madison Julius Cawein
In her dark eyes dreams poetize;
The soul sits lost in love:
There is no thing in all the skies,
To gladden all the world I prize,
Like the deep love in her dark eyes,
Or one sweet dream thereof.
Cliff Swallows-Missouri Breaks by Debra Nystrom: American Life in Poetry #29 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet L
© Ted Kooser
Many of you have seen flocks of birds or schools of minnows acting as if they were guided by a common intelligence, turning together, stopping together. Here is a poem by Debra Nystrom that beautifully describes a flight of swallows returning to their nests, acting as if they were of one mind. Notice how she extends the description to comment on the way human behavior differs from that of the birds.
Cliff Swallows
-Missouri Breaks
Here They Trysted, And Here They Strayed
© William Ernest Henley
Here they trysted, here they strayed,
In the leafage dewy and boon,
To Alexander H. Stephens
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
Through thy frail form, there burn divinely strong
The antique virtues of a worthier day;
Thy soul is golden, if thy head be gray,
No years can work that lofty nature wrong;
They set to concords of ethereal song
A life grown holier on its heavenward way.
Senex To His Friend
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
YOUR hair is scant, my friend, and mine is scanter,
On heads snowed white by Time, the disenchanter;
In place of joyous beams and jovial twinkles,
Behold, old boy, our faces scored with wrinkles!
Now Moses
© Henry Clay Work
Now Moses, you'll catch it! Now Moses, don't touch it!
Now Moses, don't you hear what I say? (don't you hear it?)
'Tis thus without stopping, the music keeps dropping,
For night after night, and for day after day.
The Truce And The Peace
© Robinson Jeffers
(NOVEMBER, 1918)
Peace now for every fury has had her day,
The Borough. Letter XV: Inhabitants Of The Alms-House. Clelia
© George Crabbe
Another term is past; ten other years
In various trials, troubles, views, and fears:
Of these some pass'd in small attempts at trade;
Houses she kept for widowers lately made;
For now she said, "They'll miss th' endearing
The Shepherd's Week : Tuesday; or, the Ditty
© John Gay
Marian.
Young Colin Clout, a lad of peerless meed,
Whitsunday
© John Keble
When God of old came down from Heaven,
In power and wrath He came;
Before His feet the clouds were riven,
Half darkness and half flame:
