Life poems
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Satires of Circumstance in Fifteen Glimpses VIII: In the Study
© Thomas Hardy
He enters, and mute on the edge of a chair
Sits a thin-faced lady, a stranger there,
A type of decayed gentility;
And by some small signs he well can guess
That she comes to him almost breakfastless.
Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle II: To a Lady on the Characters of Women
© Alexander Pope
Nothing so true as what you once let fall,
"Most Women have no Characters at all."
Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear,
And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair.
The Knife
© Jean Valentine
In my sleep:
Fell at his feet wanted to eat him right up
would have but
even better
he talked to me.
from An Explanation of America: A Love of Death
© Robert Pinsky
The child’s heart lightens, tending like a bubble
Towards the currents of the grass and sky,
The pure potential of the clear blank spaces.
Theories of Time and Space
© Natasha Trethewey
You can get there from here, though
there’s no going home.
Ravens Hiding in a Shoe
© Robert Bly
There is something men and women living in houses
Don’t understand. The old alchemists standing
Near their stoves hinted at it a thousand times.
Autumn III
© Thomas Hood
The Autumn is old,
The sere leaves are flying;
He hath gather'd up gold,
And now he is dying;
The Missionary - Canto Second
© William Lisle Bowles
The night was still and clear, when, o'er the snows,
Andes! thy melancholy Spirit rose,--
A shadow stern and sad: he stood alone,
Upon the topmost mountain's burning cone;
And whilst his eyes shone dim, through surging smoke,
Thus to the spirits of the fire he spoke:--
The Columbiad: Book VIII
© Joel Barlow
On fame's high pinnacle their names shall shine,
Unending ages greet the group divine,
Whose holy hands our banners first unfurl'd,
And conquer'd freedom for the grateful world.
Paradise Regain'd: Book II (1671)
© Patrick Kavanagh
MEan while the new-baptiz'd, who yet remain'd
At Jordan with the Baptist, and had seen
Be Still. The Hanging Gardens were a Dream
© Trumbull Stickney
Be still. The Hanging Gardens were a dream
That over Persian roses flew to kiss
Death Of Queen Mercedes
© James Russell Lowell
Hers all that Earth could promise or bestow,--
Youth, Beauty, Love, a crown, the beckoning years,
For I Will Consider Your Dog Molly
© David Lehman
For it was the first day of Rosh Ha'shanah, New Year's Day, day of remembrance, of ancient sacrifices and averted calamities.
For I started the day by eating an apple dipped in honey, as ritual required.
Her Eyes Twin Pools
© James Weldon Johnson
Her eyes, twin pools of mystic light,
The blend of star-sheen and black night;
O'er which, to sound their glamouring haze,
A man might bend, and vainly gaze.
A Sequence of Sonnets on the Death of Robert Browning
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
The works of words whose life seems lightning wrought,
And moulded of unconquerable thought,
And quickened with imperishable flame,
Stand fast and shine and smile, assured that nought
May fade of all their myriad-moulded fame,
Nor England's memory clasp not Browning's name.
In Degree
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
THY life is full of motion, perfume, grace;
Mine, a low blossom in a shaded place,
Whereto the zephyrs whisper, only they,
Through the long lapses of the lonesome day.
Sacred And Profane Love
© Alfred Austin
Profane Love speaks
``I am the Goddess mortals call Profane,
Yet worship me as though I were divine;
Over their lives, unrecognised, I reign,
For all their thoughts are mine.
Beowulf (Old English version)
© Pierre Reverdy
Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
