Life poems

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Tuesday In Whitsun-Week

© John Keble

"Lord, in Thy field I work all day,
I read, I teach, I warn, I pray,
And yet these wilful wandering sheep
Within Thy fold I cannot keep.

By an Evolutionist

© Alfred Tennyson

The Lord let the house of a brute to the soul of a man,
And the man said, Am I your debtor?
And the LordNot yet; but make it as clean as you can,
And then I will let you a better.

Mongrel Heart by David Baker: American Life in Poetry #44 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006

Unlike the calculated expressions of feeling common to its human masters, there is nothing disingenuous about the way a dog praises, celebrates, frets or mourns. In this poem David Baker gives us just such an endearing mutt.
Mongrel Heart

Up the dog bounds to the window, baying
ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ like a basset his doleful, tearing sounds
ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ ï¿½ from the belly, as if mourning a dead king,

Roses Rising

© Renee Vivien

My brunette with the golden eyes, your ivory body, your amber
Has left bright reflections in the room
Above the garden.

Sonnet VI: The Kiss

© Dante Gabriel Rossetti

What smouldering senses in death's sick delay

Or seizure of malign vicissitude

Naples

© John Greenleaf Whittier

Fold her, O Father, in Thine arms,
And let her henceforth be
A messenger of love between
Our human hearts and Thee.

Mid Atlantic

© Robert Laurence Binyon

If this were all!--A dream of dread
Ran through me; I watched the waves that fled
Pale--crested out of hollows black,
The hungry lift of helpless waves,

A Death in the Bush

© Henry Kendall

For, ere the early settlers came and stocked
These wilds with sheep and kine, the grasses grew
So that they took the passing pilgrim in
And whelmed him, like a running sea, from sight.

Again Rejoicing Nature Sees

© Robert Burns

In vain to me the cowslips blaw,
In vain to me the vi'lets spring;
In vain to me, in glen or shaw,
The mavis and the lintwhite sing.
And maun I still…

The Return Of Peace

© Paul Hamilton Hayne

They could not quell the grieved and shuddering air,
That breathed about me its forlorn despair:
It almost seemed as if stern Triumph sped
To one whose hopes were dead,
And flaunting there his fortune's ruddier grace,
Smote--with a taunt--wan Misery in the face!

The Baptism

© France Preseren

(an excerpt from the epic The Baptism at The Savica)

The warring clouds have vanished from the skies;

Life's Slacker

© Edgar Albert Guest

The saddest sort of death to die

Would be to quit the game called life

The Better Lot

© Madison Julius Cawein

Her life was bound to crutches: pale and bent,
But smiling ever, she would go and come:
For of her soul GOD made an instrument
Of strength and comfort to an humble home.

Of Death

© John Bunyan

Death, as a king rampant and stout
The world he dare engage;
He conquers all, yea, and doth rout
The great, strong, wise, and sage.

The Voice of the Negro

All ye nations, pause a moment! listen to the Negro's voice,
Coming up from all vocations where his life has made a choice!
Listen to each rank or station, as you cross the sea of time,
It is heard in ev'ry nation, any race and ev'ry clime.

The Dancer by David Tucker: American Life in Poetry #63 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006

© Ted Kooser

Remember those Degas paintings of the ballet dancers? Here is a similar figure study, in muted color, but in this instance made of words, not pigment. As this poem by David Tucker closes, I can feel myself holding my breath as if to help the dancer hold her position.

The Dancer

Before The Mirror

WHERE in her chamber by the Southern sea,
Her taper's light shone soft and silvery,
Fair as a planet mirrored in the main,
Fresh as a blossom bathed by April rain,