Life poems
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The Thrush In February
© George Meredith
I know him, February's thrush,
And loud at eve he valentines
On sprays that paw the naked bush
Where soon will sprout the thorns and bines.
Sonnet XCIV: Michelangelo 's Kiss
© Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Great Michelangelo, with age grown bleak
And uttermost labours, having once o'ersaid
Fainting by the Way
© Henry Kendall
Swarthy wastelands, wide and woodless, glittering miles and miles away,
Where the south wind seldom wanders and the winters will not stay;
The Wreck Of Rivermouth
© John Greenleaf Whittier
Rivermouth Rocks are fair to see,
By dawn or sunset shone across,
Inflexible As Fate
© Alfred Austin
When for one brief dark hour Rome's virile sway
Felt the sharp shock of Cannae's adverse day,
Upon The Hour Glass
© John Bunyan
This glass, when made, was, by the workman's skill,
The sum of sixty minutes to fulfil.
No Use Sighin'
© Edgar Albert Guest
No use frettin' when the rain comes down,
No use grievin' when the gray clouds frown,
No use sighin' when the wind blows strong,
No use wailin' when the world's all wrong;
Only thing that a man can do
Is work an' wait till the sky gets blue.
The Battle of Life
© Charles Harpur
Rail not at Fate: if rightly you scan her,
Theres none loves more strongly the heart that endures:
On, in the heros calm resolute manner,
Still bear aloft your hopes long-trusted banner,
And the day, if you do but live through it, is yours.
An Allegory
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
I.
A portal as of shadowy adamant
Stands yawning on the highway of the life
Which we all tread, a cavern huge and gaunt;
The Fan : A Poem. Book II.
© John Gay
But see, fair Venus comes in all her state;
The wanton Loves and Graces round her wait;
With her loose robe officious Zephyrs play,
And strow with odoriferous flowers the way.
In her right hand she waves the fluttering fan,
And thus in melting sounds her speech began.
The Law Of Death
© John Hay
But when she saw her child was dead,
She scattered ashes on her head,
And seized the small corpse, pale and sweet,
And rushing wildly through the street,
She sobbing fell at Buddha's feet.
Grant At Rest-- August 8, 1885
© James Whitcomb Riley
Sir Launcelot rode overthwart and endlong in a wide forest, and held no
path but as wild adventure led him... And he returned and came again to his
horse, and took off his saddle and his bridle, and let him pasture; and
unlaced his helm, and ungirdled his sword, and laid him down to sleep upon
his shield before the cross. --Age of Chivalary
Sonnet XXVIII. To Friendship
© Charlotte Turner Smith
THOU! whose name too often is profaned;
Whose charms celestial, few have hearts to feel;
Unknown to Folly--and by Pride disdain'd!
--To thy soft solace may my sorrows steal!
Captain Von Esson of the Sebastopol
© Henry Lawson
Till each was sunk that the Russians leftwhile the buildings reeled with the shock,
Save the last of the Russian ships of warthe Sebastopolin dock.
And this is the reasontold in a linewhy there is a tale to tell:
The Sebastopol had a man for boss, and a crew that knew it well.
Between The Gates
© John Greenleaf Whittier
Between the gates of birth and death
An old and saintly pilgrim passed,
With look of one who witnesseth
The long-sought goal at last.
Love Like Salt by Lisel Mueller: American Life in Poetry #16 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-200
© Ted Kooser
There are thousands upon thousands of poems about love, many of them using predictable words, predictable rhymes. Ho-hum. But here the Illinois poet Lisel Mueller talks about love in a totally fresh and new way, in terms of table salt.
Love Like Salt
It lies in our hands in crystals
too intricate to decipher
My Spectre Around Me Night and Day
© William Blake
i
My spectre around me night and day
Like a wild beast guards my way;
My Emanation far within
Weeps incessantly for my sin.
