Life poems

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FIRST GIPSY. But still at the end of the vital line
A secret untold remains to divine.
Give again, sweet Babe! thy palm to spell,
And a charming secret we can tell.
But, first, the tester we must hold;
Without it, nothing can be told.

Driving Through by Mark Vinz: American Life in Poetry #91 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006

© Ted Kooser

How many of us, when passing through some small town, have felt that it seemed familiar though we've never been there before. And of course it seems familiar because much of the course of life is pretty much the same wherever we go, right down to the up-and-down fortunes of the football team and the unanswered love letters. Here's a poem by Mark Vinz.

Driving Through

The Dying Kid

© William Shenstone

Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi
Prima fugit-… ~Virg.
Imitation.
Ah! wretched mortals we! - our brightest days
On fleetest pinions fly.

Hudibras: Part 1 - Canto III

© Samuel Butler

Quoth RALPHO, Truly that is no
Hard matter for a man to do,
That has but any guts in 's brains,
And cou'd believe it worth his pains;
But since you dare and urge me to it,
You'll find I've light enough to do it.

To My First Born

© Charles Harpur

MY beautiful! For beautiful thou art

To me thy father, as the morning light

Winter Sleep

© Edith Matilda Thomas

I KNOW it must be winter (though I sleep)
I know it must be winter, for I dream
I dip my bare feet in the running stream,
And flowers are many, and the grass grows deep.

The Stream Of Life

© William Cullen Bryant

Oh silvery streamlet of the fields,

That flowest full and free!

Guy Of The Temple

© John Hay

Night hangs above the valley; dies the day
In peace, casting his last glance on my cross,
And warns me to my prayers. _Ave Maria!
Mother of God! the evening fades
On wave and hill and lea_,

Learn To Smile

© Edgar Albert Guest

The good Lord understood us when He taught us how to smile;
He knew we couldn't stand it to be solemn all the while;
He knew He'd have to shape us so that when our hearts were gay,
We could let our neighbors know it in a quick and easy way.

Celebration Of Peace

© Friedrich Hölderlin

The holy, familiar hall, built long ago,

Is aired, and filled with heavenly,

Expostulation and Reply

© William Wordsworth

Why, William, on that old gray stone,
Thus for the length of half a day,
Why, William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?

The Borough. Letter IV: Sects And Professions In Religion

© George Crabbe

"SECTS in Religion?"--Yes of every race

We nurse some portion in our favour'd place;

Blake

All beauty to pourtray,
Therein his duty lay,
And still through toilsome strife
Duty to him was life
Most thankful still that duty
Lay in the paths of beauty.

Italy : 24. Florence

Of all the fairest Cities of the Earth
None is so fair as Florence. 'Tis a gem
Of purest ray; and what a light broke forth,
When it emerged from darkness! Search within,

"A Widow in Black..."

A widow in black -- the crying fall
Covers all hearts with a depressing cloud...
While her man's words are clearly recalled,
She will not stop her lamentations loud.