Life poems
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Fulfilment
© Robert Nichols
Was there love once? I have forgotten her.
Was there grief once? Grief yet is mine.
Other loves I have, men rough, but men who stir
More grief, more joy, than love of thee and thine.
To Wordsworth
© Hartley Coleridge
THERE have been poets that in verse display
The elemental forms of human passions;
Psalm VII.
© John Milton
Lord my God if I have thought
Or done this, if wickedness
Be in my hands, if I have wrought
Ill to him that meant me peace,
Or to him have render'd less,
And fre'd my foe for naught;
'Bound for the Lord-Knows-Where'
© Henry Lawson
'Where are you going with your horse and bike,
And the townsfolk still at rest?
Bluebeard
© Harry Graham
Yes, I am Bluebeard, and my name
Is one that children cannot stand;
Yet once I used to be so tame
I'd eat out of a person's hand;
So gentle was I wont to be
A Curate might have played with me.
The Old Man's Counsel
© William Cullen Bryant
Long since that white-haired ancient slept--but still,
When the red flower-buds crowd the orchard bough,
And the ruffed grouse is drumming far within
The woods, his venerable form again
Is at my side, his voice is in my ear.
The Little Country Bus
© Edgar Albert Guest
Theres no lock upon your door,
And the polish that you wore
Corned Beef and Cabbage by George Bilgere: American Life in Poetry #205 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laurea
© Ted Kooser
Memories have a way of attaching themselves to objects, to details, to physical tasks, and here, George Bilgere, an Ohio poet, happens upon mixed feelings about his mother while slicing a head of cabbage.
Corned Beef and Cabbage
The Rose
© Madison Julius Cawein
So by those words of yours I'm led
To send it you this day you wed.
Look well upon it. You, as I,
Should ask it now, without a sigh,
If love can lie as it lies dead.--
You have forgot.
The Cure
© Rudyard Kipling
To-day? God knows where he may lie-
His Cross of weathered beads above him:
But one not worthy to untie
His shoe-string, prays you read-and love him!
A Complaint On The Miseries Of Life
© James Thomson
I loathe, O Lord, this life below,
And all its fading fleeting joys;
'Tis a short space that's fill'd with woe,
Which all our bliss by far outweighs.
The Missionary - Canto First
© William Lisle Bowles
Three hundred brandished spears shone to the sky:
We perish, or we leave our country free;
Father, our blood for Chili and for thee!
The mountain-chief essayed his club to wield,
And shook the dust indignant from the shield.
Then spoke:--
Despair
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
And canst thou mock mine agony, thus calm
In cloudless radiance, Queen of silver night?
Can you, ye flow'rets, spread your perfumed balm
Mid pearly gems of dew that shine so bright?
To Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
I.
Mine eyes were dim with tears unshed;
Yes, I was firm -- thus wert not thou;--
My baffled looks did fear yet dread
The Ranger
© John Greenleaf Whittier
ROBERT RAWLIN!--Frosts were falling
When the ranger's horn was calling
Through the woods to Canada.
Dedication
© Charles Churchill
To Churchill's Sermons.
The manuscript of this unfinished poem was found among the few papers
The Diamond Hitch
© Arthur Chapman
When camp is moved, at break of day,
Then comes old Packer Bill--a king
Italy : 52. A Farewell
© Samuel Rogers
And now farewell to Italy -- perhaps
For ever! Yet, methinks, I could not go,
I could not leave it, were it mine to say,
'Farewell for ever!' Many a courtesy,
The Shepherds Calendar - July (2nd version)
© John Clare
July the month of summers prime
Again resumes her busy time
Scythes tinkle in each grassy dell
Where solitude was wont to dwell
