Life poems
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The Visible Creation
© James Montgomery
The God of nature and of grace
In all His works appears;
His goodness through the earth we trace,
His grandeur in the spheres.
Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward
© John Donne
Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this,
The intelligence that moves, devotion is,
What The Auld Fowk Are Thinkin
© George MacDonald
The bairns i' their beds, worn oot wi' nae wark,
Are sleepin, nor ever an eelid winkin;
The auld fowk lie still wi' their een starin stark,
An' the mirk pang-fou o' the things they are thinkin.
Youth
© Robert Laurence Binyon
When life begins anew,
And Youth, from gathering flowers,
From vague delights, rapt musings, twilight hours,
Turns restless, seeking some great deed to do,
The Triumph of Time
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
Before our lives divide for ever,
While time is with us and hands are free,
The House of Life: 22. Heart's Haven
© Dante Gabriel Rossetti
And Love, our light at night and shade at noon,
Lulls us to rest with songs, and turns away
All shafts of shelterless tumultuous day.
Like the moon's growth, his face gleams through his tune;
And as soft waters warble to the moon,
Our answering spirits chime one roundelay.
The Goddess In The Wood
© Rupert Brooke
Till a swift terror broke the abrupt hour.
The gold waves purled amidst the green above her;
And a bird sang. With one sharp-taken breath,
By sunlit branches and unshaken flower,
The immortal limbs flashed to the human lover,
And the immortal eyes to look on death.
Mirabeau Bridge
© Guillaume Apollinaire
Under Mirabeau Bridge the river slips away
And lovers
Must I be reminded
Joy came always after pain
from Dante Études: Book Three: In My Youth Not Unstaind
© Robert Duncan
Now, upon old age: “Our life
has a fixt course and a simple path”
I would not avoid, “that of our right nature”
—then Dante adds, himself quoting:
“and in every part of our life
place is given for certain things”:
His Shield
© Marianne Clarke Moore
The pin-swin or spine-swine
(the edgehog miscalled hedgehog) with all his edges out,
echidna and echinoderm in distressed-
pin-cushion thorn-fur coats, the spiny pig or porcupine,
the rhino with horned snout
everything is battle-dressed.
The Amenities
© Heather McHugh
I owe you an explanation.
My first memory isn’t your own
of an empty box. My babyhood cabinets held
a countlessness of cakes, my backyard
rotted into apple glut, windfalls of
money-tree, mouthfuls of fib.
Vita Nova
© Louise Gluck
I remember sounds like that from my childhood,
laughter for no cause, simply because the world is beautiful,
something like that.
Sir Peter Harpdon's End
© William Morris
John Curzon
Of those three prisoners, that before you came
We took down at St. John's hard by the mill,
Two are good masons; we have tools enough,
And you have skill to set them working.
There Is a Safe and Secret Place
© Henry Francis Lyte
There is a safe and secret place,
Beneath the wings divine,
Reserved for all the heirs of grace;
O be that refuge mine!
The Small Vases from Hebron
© Naomi Shihab Nye
Tip their mouths open to the sky.
Turquoise, amber,
the deep green with fluted handle,
pitcher the size of two thumbs,
tiny lip and graceful waist.
Swift
© Delmore Schwartz
What shall Presto do for pretty prattle
To entertain his dears? Sunday: lightning fifty times!
This week to Flanders goes the Duke of Ormond!
Shall hope of him, although he loves me well!
Morning By The Seaside
© Frances Anne Kemble
With these two kisses on thine eyes
I melt thy sleep awayarise!
Lines On A Sleeping Child
© Frances Anne Kemble
O child! who to this evil world art come,
Led by the unseen hand of Him who guards thee,
