Life poems
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The Owl and The Bell
© George MacDonald
Bing, Bim, Bang, Bome!
Sang the Bell to himself in his house at home,
High in the church-tower, lone and unseen,
In a twilight of ivy, cool and green;
With his Bing, Bing, Bim, Bing, Bang, Bome!
Singing bass to himself in his house at home.
The Child Of The Islands - Summer
© Caroline Norton
I.
FOR Summer followeth with its store of joy;
That, too, can bring thee only new delight;
Its sultry hours can work thee no annoy,
The Crystal Lithium
© James Schuyler
The smell of snow, stinging in nostrils as the wind lifts it from a beach
Eve-shuttering, mixed with sand, or when snow lies under the street lamps and on all
Leave-Taking
© Louise Bogan
I do not know where either of us can turn
Just at first, waking from the sleep of each other.
Ave, Caesar!
© William Ernest Henley
From the winter's grey despair,
From the summer's golden languor,
Death, the lover of Life,
Frees us for ever.
Complaining
© George Herbert
Do not beguile my heart,
Because thou art
My power and welcome. Put me not to shame,
Because I am
Thy clay that weeps, thy dust that calls.
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
© Oscar Wilde
He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby gray;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.
Summer near the River
© John Betjeman
I am as monogamous as the North Star,
But I don’t want you to know it. You’d only take advantage.
While you are as fickle as spring sunlight.
All right, sleep! The cat means more to you than I.
I can rouse you, but then you swagger out.
I glimpse you from the window, striding toward the river.
A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day
© John Donne
'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
The Reef
© Aldous Huxley
My green aquarium of phantom fish,
Goggling in on me through the misty panes;
My rotting leaves and fields spongy with rains;
My few clear quiet autumn days--I wish
Peacock Display by David Wagoner: American Life in Poetry #11 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-20
© Ted Kooser
Here David Wagoner, a distinguished poet living in Washington state, vividly describes a peacock courtship, and though it's a poem about birds, haven't you seen the males of other species, including ours, look every bit as puffed up, and observed the females' hilarious indifference?
Peacock Display
He approaches her, trailing his whole fortune,
Perfectly cocksure, and suddenly spreads
The huge fan of his tail for her amazement.
Lines. "In visions countless as the golden motes"
© Frances Anne Kemble
In visions countless as the golden motes
That dance upon the sun's earth-kissing beams,
The Knight Of Toggenburg
© Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller
. "I Can love thee well, believe me,
As a sister true;
To John Donne
© Benjamin Jonson
Donne, the delight of Phoebus and each Muse
Who, to thy one, all other brains refuse;
The Candidate
© Charles Churchill
This poem was written in , on occasion of the contest between the
Earls of Hardwicke and Sandwich for the High-stewardship of the
To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare
© Benjamin Jonson
To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,
Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
