Life poems
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When the Ladies Come to the Shearing Shed
© Henry Lawson
THE LADIES are coming, the super says
To the shearers sweltering there,
To Edward Dowden: On Receiving From Him A Copy Of "The Life Of Shelley"
© William Watson
First, ere I slake my hunger, let me thank
The giver of the feast. For feast it is,
Hay
© Ted Hughes
The grass is happy
To run like the sea, to be glossed like a minks fur
By polishing wind.
Her heart is the weather.
She loves nobody
Least of all the farmer who leans on the gate.
Isabella; Or, The Pot Of Basil: A Story From Boccaccio
© John Keats
I.
Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel!
Where My Sight Goes
© Yvor Winters
Who knows
Where my sight goes,
What your sight shows--
Where the peachtree blows?
The Crown Of Thorns
© Ada Cambridge
In bitterest sorrow did the ground bring forth
Its fatal seed. Thine eye beheld the birth-
Beheld the travail of accursèd earth;
E'en then, O Lord! in greater love than wrath!
Lines. Oh! To Some Distant Scene
© William Cowper
Oh! to some distant scene, a willing exile
From the wild roar of this busy world,
Hope Is Not For The Wise
© Robinson Jeffers
Hope is not for the wise, fear is for fools;
Change and the world, we think, are racing to a fall,
Pure Imagination
© Roald Dahl
Come with me and you'll be
In a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you'll see
Into your imagination
Barbershop Quartet, East Village Grille by Sebastian Matthews: American Life in Poetry #207 Ted Koos
© Ted Kooser
People singing, not professionally but just singing for joy, it's a wonderful celebration of life. In this poem by Sebastian Matthews of North Carolina, a father and son happen upon a handful of men singing in a cafe, and are swept up into their pleasure and community.
Barbershop Quartet,
Stanzas
© George Gordon Byron
Could Love for ever
Run like a river,
And Time's endeavour
Be tried in vain
Womans Love
© Frances Anne Kemble
A maiden meek, with solemn, steadfast eyes,
Full of eternal constancy and faith,
Seven Poems
© John Masefield
VI
I went into the fields, but you were there
Waiting for me, so all the summer flowers
Were only glimpses of your starry powers;
Beautiful and inspired dust they were.
Winter
© Samuel Johnson
No more the morn with tepid rays
Unfolds the flower of various hue;
Noon spreads no more the genial blaze,
Nor gentle eve distills the dew.
A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment
© Anne Bradstreet
My head, my heart, mine eyes, my life, nay, more,
My joy, my magazine of earthly store, storehouse
Preparatory Meditations - Second Series: 12
© Edward Taylor
Dull, dull indeed! What, shall it e'er be thus?
And why? Are not Thy promises, my Lord,
Rich, quick'ning things? How should my full cheeks blush
To find me thus? And those a lifeless word?
My heart is heedless: unconcerned hereat:
I find my spirits spiritless and flat.
The Opening Run
© William Henry Ogilvie
The rain-sodden grass in the ditches is dying,
The berries are red to the crest of the thorn ;
Green-Striped Melons by Jane Hirshfield : American Life in Poetry #227 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureat
© Ted Kooser
Jane Hirshfield, a Californian and one of my favorite poets, writes beautiful image-centered poems of clarity and concision, which sometimes conclude with a sudden and surprising deepening. Here’s just one example.
Green-Striped Melons
They lie
Children in a Field by Angela Shaw: American Life in Poetry #27 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-
© Ted Kooser
In this lovely poem by Angela Shaw, who lives in Pennsylvania, we hear a voice of wise counsel: Let the young go, let them do as they will, and admire their grace and beauty as they pass from us into the future.
Children in a Field
