Life poems
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The Day Of Days
© William Morris
Each eve earth falleth down the dark,
As though its hope were oer;
Yet lurks the sun when day is done
Behind to-morrows door.
To Lynette.
© Robert Crawford
God knows that I love you, I love you, and yet
He knows, too, I'm weary, Lynette, O Lynette!
He gave me the love-feeling, the tired feeling, too;
Will He take them together, and part me from you?
Ballad of the Breadman
© Charles Causley
Mary stood in the kitchen
Baking a loaf of bread.
An angel flew in the window
Weve a job for you, he said.
Genesis BK XVII
© Caedmon
(ll. 1002-1005) Then the Lord of glory spake unto Cain, and asked
where Abel was. Quickly the cursed fashioner of death made
answer unto Him:
To Play Pianissimo by Lola Haskins: American Life in Poetry #43 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-
© Ted Kooser
Lola Haskins, who lives in Florida, has written a number of poems about musical terms, entitled "Adagio," "Allegrissimo," "Staccato," and so on. Here is just one of those, presenting the gentleness of pianissimo playing through a series of comparisons
To Play Pianissimo
Does not mean silence.
The absence of moon in the day sky
for example.
Cradle-Song For My Son Carl
© Carl Michael Bellman
Little Carl, sleep soft and sweet:
Thou'lt soon enough be waking;
Book Eleventh: France [concluded]
© William Wordsworth
But indignation works where hope is not,
And thou, O Friend! wilt be refreshed. There is
One great society alone on earth:
The noble Living and the noble Dead.
A Good Soldier
© Edgar Albert Guest
He writes to us most every day, and how his letters thrill us!
I can't describe the joys with which his quaint expressions fill us.
He says the military life is not of his selection,
He's only soldiering to-day to give the Flag protection.
But since he's in the army now and doing duties humble,
He'll do what all good soldiers must, and he will never grumble.
At The Last.
© Robert Crawford
The sky grows white with the moon,
And the sea yearns up to the night
As the soul to an unknown height,
Drawn thence by a starry rune.
Phantasies
© Emma Lazarus
Rest, beauty, stillness: not a waif of a cloud
From gray-blue east sheer to the yellow west-
No film of mist the utmost slopes to shroud.
The Defence of Lucknow
© Alfred Tennyson
I
BANNER of England, not for a season, O banner of Britain, hast thou
February Morning
© Robert Laurence Binyon
Peacefully fresh, O February morn,
Thy winds come to me: quiet the light slants
Through silver--bosomed clouds, that slowly borne
Across the wide heath, endlessly advance.
The Deserted House
© Alfred Tennyson
Life and Thought have gone away
Side by side,
Leaving door and windows wide.
Careless tenants they!
To A Baby Born Without Limbs
© Kingsley Amis
This is just to show you whose boss around here.
Itll keep you on your toes, so to speak,
Make you put your best foot forward, so to speak,
And give you something to turn your hand to, so to speak.
Earth's Secret
© George Meredith
Not solitarily in fields we find
Earth's secret open, though one page is there;
Ghost Villanelle by Dan Lechay: American Life in Poetry #187 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-20
© Ted Kooser
I thought that we'd celebrate Halloween with an appropriate poem, and Iowa poet Dan Lechay's seems just right. The drifting veils of rhyme and meter disclose a ghost, or is it a ghost?
Ghost Villanelle
We never saw the ghost, though he was thereâ
we knew from the raindrops tapping on the eaves.
We never saw him, and we didn't care.
A Legend Of The Lily
© Madison Julius Cawein
Pale as a star that shines through rain
Her face was seen at the window-pane,
Her sad, frail face that watched in vain.
