Life poems
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Reflections - I.
© Samuel Rogers
Man to the last is but a froward child;
So eager for the future, come what may,
And to the present so insensible!
Oh, if he could in all things as he would,
In Imitation of Dr. Swift : The Happy Life of a Country Parson
© Alexander Pope
Parson, these things in thy possessing
Are better than the Bishop's blessing.
Sonnet XVIII: Genius in Beauty
© Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Beauty like hers is genius. Not the call
Of Homer's or of Dante's heart sublime,
To Asra
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Are there two things, of all which men possess,
That are so like each other and so near,
Father, Child, Water by Gary Dop: American Life in Poetry #178 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2
© Ted Kooser
We mammals are ferociously protective of our young, and we all know not to wander in between a sow bear and her cubs. Here Minnesota poet Gary Dop, without a moment's hesitation, throws himself into the water to save a frightened child.
Father, Child, Water
To a Little Invisible Being Who is Expected Soon to Become Visible
© Bliss William Carman
Germ of new life, whose powers expanding slow
For many a moon their full perfection wait,—
Haste, precious pledge of happy love, to go
Auspicious borne through life's mysterious gate.
Ode, Inscribed to William H. Channing
© Ralph Waldo Emerson
Though loath to grieve
The evil time's sole patriot,
I cannot leave
My honied thought
For the priest's cant,
Or statesman's rant.
The Eye Of Love
© George Moses Horton
I know her story-telling eye
Has more expression than her tongue;
And from that heart-extorted sigh,
At once the peal of love is rung.
Speeding
© Katharine Tynan
Requiescat is not my bidding,
That is the weary man's right speeding;
You, O Child, full of life and laughter,
Joy to you now and long days hereafter!
The Candle Of The Lord
© Ada Cambridge
Our spirit-ay, our own!-the tree whose fruits
Have never fail'd-the sign upon the door
'Twixt us and God's intelligent dumb brutes,
That parts us evermore!
Only a Dad
© Edgar Albert Guest
Only a dad, with a tired face,
Coming home from the daily race,
Bringing little of gold or fame,
To show how well he has played the game,
But glad in his heart that his own rejoice
To see him come, and to hear his voice.
The Calm
© John Donne
Our storm is past, and that storm's tyrannous rage,
A stupid calm, but nothing it, doth 'suage.
A Man May Change
© Marvin Bell
As simply as a self-effacing bar of soap
escaping by indiscernible degrees in the wash water
(Keep me fully glad...)
© Anselm Hollo
II
Keep me fully glad with nothing. Only take my hand in your hand.
In the gloom of the deepening night take up my heart and play with it as you list. Bind me close to you with nothing.
Dedication
© Henry Kendall
To her who, cast with me in trying days,
Stood in the place of health and power and praise;
