Life poems
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The Heart Of Joy
© Edith Nesbit
Wide is the world, and so many would sigh for you,
Long for and cry for you,
Weep for and die for you,
You being you.
The Idols
© Robert Laurence Binyon
I.2
The Forests of the Night awaken blind in heat
Of black stupor; and stirring in its deep retreat,
I hear the heart of Darkness slowly beat and beat.
The Eolian Harp
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic Harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of all?
O Thou Dread Power
© Robert Burns
O Thou dread Power, who reign'st above,
I know thou wilt me hear,
When for this scene of peace and love
I make this prayer sincere.
To Katharine: At Fourteen Months by Joelle Biele: American Life in Poetry #174 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet
© Ted Kooser
I'd guess you've all seen a toddler hold something over the edge of a high-chair and then let it drop, just for the fun of it. Here's a lovely picture of a small child learning the laws of physics. The poet, Joelle Biele, lives in Maryland.
Walt Whitman at Bear Mountain
© Louis Simpson
. . . life which does not give the preference to any other life, of any
previous period, which therefore prefers its own existence . . .
Ortega y Gasset
Lohengrin
© Emma Lazarus
THE holy bell, untouched by human hands,
Clanged suddenly, and tolled with solemn knell.
Between the massive, blazoned temple-doors,
Thrown wide, to let the summer morning in,
The Immediate Life
© Paul Eluard
Whats become of you why this white hair and pink
Why this forehead these eyes rent apart heart-rending
The great misunderstanding of the marriage of radium
Solitude chases me with its rancour.
The Cloth of the Tempest
© Kenneth Patchen
These of living emanate a formidable light,
Which is equal to death, and when used
The Truly Great
© Stephen Spender
I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history
The Seventh Inning
© Donald Hall
1. Baseball, I warrant, is not the whole
occupation of the aging boy.
Rain After A Vaudeville Show
© Stephen Vincent Benet
The last pose flickered, failed. The screen's dead white
Glared in a sudden flooding of harsh light
Amusing Our Daughters
© John Betjeman
after Po Chü-i,
for Robert Creeley
We don’t lack people here on the Northern coast,
But they are people one meets, not people one cares for.
So I bundle my daughters into the car
And with my brother poets, go to visit you, brother.
Life
© Paul Laurence Dunbar
Acrust of bread and a corner to sleep in,
A minute to smile and an hour to weep in,
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble,
And never a laugh but the moans come double;
And that is life!
The Imperfect Enjoyment
© John Wilmot
Naked she lay, clasped in my longing arms,
I filled with love, and she all over charms;
The Ballad of the Anti-Puritan
© Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Envoi
Prince, Bayard would have smashed his sword
To see the sort of knights you dub-
Is that the last of them-O Lord
Will someone take me to a pub?
I Cannot Pay That Premium
© Franklin Pierce Adams
Beside a frugal table, though spotless clean and white,
A loving couple they did sit and all seemed pleasant, quite;
They did not have no servant the things away to take,
For he was but a broker who much money did not make.
Epitaph
© Katherine Philips
On her Son H.P. at St. Syths Church where her body also lies interred
What on Earth deserves our trust?
Heart by Rick Campbell: American Life in Poetry #169 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
I remember being scared to death when, at about thirty years of age, I saw an x-ray of my skull. Seeing one's self as a skeleton, or receiving any kind of medical report, even when the news is good, can be unsettling. Suddenly, you're just another body, a clock waiting to stop. Here's a telling poem by Rick Campbell, who lives and teaches in Florida.
Heart
