Life poems
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Down the River
© Barcroft Henry Thomas Boake
Hark the sound of it; drawing nearer! Clink of hobble and brazen bellMark the passage of stalwart shearer, Bidding Monaro soil farewell
The Digger's Song
© Barcroft Henry Thomas Boake
Scrape the bottom of the hole: gather up the stuff! Fossick in the crannies, lest you leave a grain behind!Just another shovelful and that'll be enough-- Now we'll take it to the bank and see what we can find
To One on her Birthday
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
How shall I choose to wish you happinessOn this day or another? Your life's wayHas passed already far beyond our guess,Who only watch and wait for you and pray
The Mockery of Life
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
God! What a mockery is this life of ours!Cast forth in blood and pain from our mother's womb,Most like an excrement, and weeping showersOf senseless tears: unreasoning, naked, dumb,The symbol of all weakness and the sum:Our very life a sufferance
Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
© Bland James A.
Carry me back to old Virginny,There's where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow,There's where the birds warble sweet in the spring-time,There's where the old darkey's heart am long'd to go,There's where I labored so hard for old massa,Day after day in the field of yellow corn,No place on earth do I love more sincerelyThan old Virginny, the state where I was born
Europe: A Prophecy
© William Blake
The nameless shadowy female rose from out the breast of Orc,Her snaky hair brandishing in the winds of Enitharmon;And thus her voice arose:
America: A Prophecy
© William Blake
The shadowy Daughter of Urthona stood before red Orc,When fourteen suns had faintly journey'd o'er his dark abode:His food she brought in iron baskets, his drink in cups of iron:Crown'd with a helmet and dark hair the nameless female stood;A quiver with its burning stores, a bow like that of night,When pestilence is shot from heaven: no other arms she need!Invulnerable though naked, save where clouds roll round her loinsTheir awful folds in the dark air: silent she stood as night;For never from her iron tongue could voice or sound arise,But dumb till that dread day when Orc assay'd his fierce embrace
The Reformer
© Binyon Heward Laurence
August from a vault of hollow brassSteep upon the sullen city glares.Yellower burns the sick and parching grass,Shivering in the breath of furnace airs.
Angered Reason
© Binyon Heward Laurence
Angered Reason walked with meA street so squat, unshapen, bald,So blear-windowed and grimy-walled,So dismal-doored, it seemed to be
An Incident in the Early Life of Ebenezer Jones, Poet, 1828
© John Betjeman
"We were together at a well-known boarding-school of that day (1828), situated at the foot of Highgate Hill, and presided over by a dissenting minister, the Rev
"I am Small and of no Reputation; Yet do I not Forget thy Commandments"
© Benson Arthur Christopher
How small a thing am I, of no repute, Whirled in the rush of these eternal tides; Spun daily round upon this orb that ridesAmong its peers, itself how most minute!
London II
© Bell Julian Heward
Emptiness unsatisfiedThe hollow wind shifts inside.So life is this? well, I shall tryA little longer: take my share;And then resume more native airAnd let this world of things go by.
The Minstrel; or, The Progress of Genius
© James Beattie
THE FIRST BOOK (excerpts) The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar! Ah! who can tell how many a soul sublime Hath felt the influence of malignant star, And wag'd with Fortune an eternal war! Check'd by the scoff of Pride, by Envy's frown, And Poverty's unconquerable bar, In life's low vale remote hath pin'd aloneThen dropt into the grave, unpitied and unknown!
And yet, the languor of inglorious days Not equally oppressive is to all
The View at Gunderson's
© Beach Joseph Warren
Sitting in his rocker waiting for your tea,Gazing from his window, this is what you see:
Into my Pocket
© Barwin Gary
things are more like they are now than they ever were beforethe streets are safeit's only the people that make them dangerous
To Mrs. P********, with some Drawings of Birds and Insects
© Anna Lætitia Barbauld
The kindred arts to please thee shall conspire,One dip the pencil, and one string the lyre. (Pope)
To a Little Invisible Being Who is Expected Soon to Become Visible
© Anna Lætitia Barbauld
Germ of new life, whose powers expanding slowFor many a moon their full perfection wait,--Haste, precious pledge of happy love, to goAuspicious borne through life's mysterious gate.
A Thought on Death: November, 1814
© Anna Lætitia Barbauld
When life as opening buds is sweet,And golden hopes the fancy greet,And Youth prepares his joys to meet,--Alas! how hard it is to die!
The Caterpillar
© Anna Lætitia Barbauld
No, helpless thing, I cannot harm thee now;Depart in peace, thy little life is safe,For I have scanned thy form with curious eye,Noted the silver line that streaks thy back,The azure and the orange that divideThy velvet sides; thee, houseless wanderer,My garment has enfolded, and my armFelt the light pressure of thy hairy feet;Thou hast curled round my finger; from its tip,Precipitous descent! with stretched out neck,Bending thy head in airy vacancy,This way and that, inquiring, thou hast seemedTo ask protection; now, I cannot kill thee
