Life poems

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Encouragement

© Paul Laurence Dunbar

WHO dat knockin' at de do'?
Why, Ike Johnson, -- yes, fu' sho!
Come in, Ike. I's mighty glad
You come down. I t'ought you's

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Life's Tragedy

© Paul Laurence Dunbar

It may be misery not to sing at all,
And to go silent through the brimming day;
It may be misery never to be loved,
But deeper griefs than these beset the way.

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Weekend Glory

© Maya Angelou

Some clichty folks
don't know the facts,
posin' and preenin'
and puttin' on acts,
stretchin' their backs.

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Touched by An Angel

© Maya Angelou

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

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This Life

© Grace Paley

the people who usually look up
and call jump jump did not see him
the life savers who creep around the back staircases
and reach the roof's edge just in time
never got their chance he meant it he wanted
only one person to know

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The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo

© Edward Lear

I On the Coast of Coromandel
Where the early pumpkins blow,
In the middle of the woods
Lived the Yonghy-Bonghy-B?.

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Not Heaving from My Ribb’d Breast Only.

© Walt Whitman

NOT heaving from my ribb’d breast only;
Not in sighs at night, in rage, dissatisfied with myself;
Not in those long-drawn, ill-supprest sighs;
Not in many an oath and promise broken;

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As Consequent, Etc.

© Walt Whitman

AS consequent from store of summer rains,
Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing,
Or many a herb-lined brook’s reticulations,
Or subterranean sea-rills making for the sea,

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From Far Dakota’s Cañons.

© Walt Whitman

FROM far Dakota’s cañons,
Lands of the wild ravine, the dusky Sioux, the lonesome stretch, the silence,
Haply to-day a mournful wail, haply a trumpet-note for heroes.

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Ah Poverties, Wincings and Sulky Retreats.

© Walt Whitman

AH poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats!
Ah you foes that in conflict have overcome me!
(For what is my life, or any man’s life, but a conflict with foes—the old, the
incessant

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Savantism.

© Walt Whitman

THITHER, as I look, I see each result and glory retracing itself and nestling close,
always
obligated;
Thither hours, months, years—thither trades, compacts, establishments, even the most

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Thou Reader.

© Walt Whitman

THOU reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I,
Therefore for thee the following chants.

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In Former Songs.

© Walt Whitman

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IN former songs Pride have I sung, and Love, and passionate, joyful Life,
But here I twine the strands of Patriotism and Death.

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Ox Tamer, The.

© Walt Whitman

IN a faraway northern county, in the placid, pastoral region,
Lives my farmer friend, the theme of my recitative, a famous Tamer of Oxen:
There they bring him the three-year-olds and the four-year-olds, to break them;
He will take the wildest steer in the world, and break him and tame him;

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Song of the Exposition.

© Walt Whitman

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AFTER all, not to create only, or found only,
But to bring, perhaps from afar, what is already founded,
To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free;

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As Toilsome I Wander’d.

© Walt Whitman

AS toilsome I wander’d Virginia’s woods,
To the music of rustling leaves, kick’d by my feet, (for ’twas autumn,)
I mark’d at the foot of a tree the grave of a soldier,
Mortally wounded he, and buried on the retreat, (easily all could I understand;)

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Or from that Sea of Time.

© Walt Whitman

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OR, from that Sea of Time,
Spray, blown by the wind—a double winrow-drift of weeds and shells;
(O little shells, so curious-convolute! so limpid-cold and voiceless!

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Eidólons.

© Walt Whitman

I MET a Seer,
Passing the hues and objects of the world,
The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense, To glean Eidólons.
Put in thy chants, said he,

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Sing of the Banner at Day-Break.

© Walt Whitman

POET.
O A NEW song, a free song,
Flapping, flapping, flapping, flapping, by sounds, by voices clearer,
By the wind’s voice and that of the drum,

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As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free.

© Walt Whitman

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AS a strong bird on pinions free,
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
Such be the thought I’d think to-day of thee, America,