Life poems
/ page 234 of 844 /
The Mirror Of Diana
© Mathilde Blind
Mild as a metaphor of Sleep,
Immaculately maiden-white,
The Queen Moon of ancestral night
Beholds her image in the deep:
As if a-gaze she beams above
Lake Nemi's magic glass of love.
At The End Of The Road
© Madison Julius Cawein
THIS is the truth as I see it, my dear,
Out in the wind and the rain:
They who have nothing have little to fear,
Nothing to lose or to gain.
A Thanksgiving For F. D. Maurice
© George MacDonald
The veil hath lifted and hath fallen; and him
Who next it stood before us, first so long,
We see not; but between the cherubim
The light burns clearer: come-a thankful song!
The Two Loves
© John Greenleaf Whittier
Smoothing soft the nestling head
Of a maiden fancy-led,
Thus a grave-eyed woman said:
In the Wings
© Bliss William Carman
THE play is Life; and this round earth
The narrow stage whereon
We act before an audience
Of actors dead and gone.
Written In Germany On One Of The Coldest Days Of The Century
© William Wordsworth
A PLAGUE on your languages, German and Norse!
Let me have the song of the kettle;
And the tongs and the poker, instead of that horse
That gallops away with such fury and force
On this dreary dull plate of black metal.
Poor Patriarch by Susie Patlove : American Life in Poetry #245 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2
© Ted Kooser
I love the way the following poem by Susie Patlove opens, with the little rooster trying to “be what he feels he must be.” This poet lives in Massachusetts, in a community called Windy Hill, which must be a very good place for chickens, too.
Poor Patriarch
The rooster pushes his head
Tale II
© George Crabbe
frame.
Yes! old and grieved, and trembling with decay,
Was Allen landing in his native bay,
Willing his breathless form should blend with
On Dreaming
© John Newton
When slumber seals our weary eyes,
The busy fancy wakeful keeps;
The scenes which then before us rise,
Prove something in us never sleeps.
Unrest
© Archibald Lampman
All day upon the garden bright
The suns shines strong,
But in my heart there is no light,
Or any song.
The Coffins by Michael Chitwood : American Life in Poetry #262 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2
© Ted Kooser
When we hear news of a flood, that news is mostly about the living, about the survivors. But at the edges of floods are the dead, too. Here Michael Chitwood, of North Carolina, looks at what’s floating out there on the margins.
The Coffins
Two days into the flood
Blossom.
© Arthur Henry Adams
A LONE rose in a garden burned a quivering flame,
But yesterday blindly from out the bud it came;
And now an envious wind with itching fingers leant
And touched its lingering beauty, and the petals went
A Thanksgiving and Prayer for the Nation
© Thomas Traherne
From A Serious and Pathetical Contemplation of the Mercies of God
O Lord, the children of my people are Thy peculiar treasures,
The Relief Of Lucknow
© Robert Traill Spence Lowell
Oh, that last day in Lucknow fort!
We knew that it was the last;
That the enemy's mines crept surely in,
And the end was coming fast.
To The Fourth Of July
© Swami Vivekananda
Behold, the dark clouds melt away,
That gathered thick at night, and hung
So like a gloomy pall above the earth!
Rhymed Plea For Tolerance - Prefatory Dialogue
© John Kenyon
Ye, thus who write in spite of critic law,
How had their satire kept your freaks in awe!
And, to sole sway controlling her pretence,
Bound Fancy down to compromise with Sense!
The Old Liberators by Robert Hedin: American Life in Poetry #185 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004
© Ted Kooser
When I was a boy, there were still a few veterans of the Spanish American War, and more of The Great War, or World War I, and now all those have died and those who served in World War II are passing from us, too. Robert Hedin, a Minnesota poet, has written a fine poem about these people.
The Old Liberators
