Life poems

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The Flâneur

© Oliver Wendell Holmes

Boston Common, December 6, 1882 during the Transit of Venus

I love all sights of earth and skies,

The Snail

© William Cowper

To grass, or leaf, or fruit, or wall,
The snail sticks close, nor fears to fall,
As if he grew there, house and all
Together.

The Lilies Of The Field

© Felicia Dorothea Hemans

Flowers! when the Saviour's calm benignant eye

Fell on your gentle beauty; when from you

Over and Over Tune

© Ioanna Carlsen

You could grow into it,
that sense of living like a dog,
loyal to being on your own in the fur of your skin,
able to exist only for the sake of existing.

The Cry Of A Lost Soul

© John Greenleaf Whittier

In that black forest, where, when day is done,
With a snake's stillness glides the Amazon
Darkly from sunset to the rising sun,

The King Of Brentfords Testament

© William Makepeace Thackeray

The noble King of Brentford
Was old and very sick,
He summon'd his physicians
To wait upon him quick;
They stepp'd into their coaches
And brought their best physick.

We Sing to Thee, Thou Son of God

© Augustus Montague Toplady

We sing to Thee, Thou Son of God,
Fountain of life and grace;
We praise Thee, Son of Man, whose blood
Redeemed our fallen race.

A Day on the Big Branch

© Howard Nemerov

Still half drunk, after a night at cards,

with the grey dawn taking us unaware

Prayer

© Wilcox Ella Wheeler

Give us the open mind, O God,
The mind that dares believe
In paths of thought as yet untrod;
The mind that can conceive
Large visions of a wider way
Than circumscribes our world to-day.

The Poplar Field

© Caroline Norton

"The poplars are fell'd: farewell to the shade,
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade;
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.

Modern Love XXX

© George Meredith

What are we first? First, animals; and next

Intelligences at a leap; on whom

From the Plane by Anne Marie Macari : American Life in Poetry #211 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 20

Some of you are so accustomed to flying that you no longer sit by the windows. But I'd guess that at one time you gazed down, after dark, and looked at the lights below you with innocent wonder. This poem by Anne Marie Macari of New Jersey perfectly captures the gauziness of those lights as well as the loneliness that often accompanies travel.

From the Plane

Interim

© Margaret Widdemer

I HAVE a little peace today,
And I can pause and see
How life is filled with golden things
And gracious things for me;

Immortality

© Matthew Arnold

Foil'd by our fellow-men, depress'd, outworn,
We leave the brutal world to take its way,
And, Patience! in another life, we say
The world shall be thrust down, and we up-borne.

All Quiet Along the Potomac

"All quiet along the Potomac to-night!"

Except here and there a stray picket

Synopsis for a German Novella

© John Fuller

The Doctor is glimpsed among his mulberry trees.
The dark fruits disfigure the sward like contusions.
He is at once aloof, timid, intolerant
Of all banalities of village life,
And yet is stupefied by loneliness.

The House of Life: 73. The Choice, III

Nay, come up hither. From this wave-wash'd mound
Unto the furthest flood-brim look with me;
Then reach on with thy thought till it be drown'd.
Miles and miles distant though the last line be,
And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond,—
Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea.

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry: American Life in Poetry #17 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureat

© Ted Kooser

Nearly all of us spend too much of our lives thinking about what has happened, or worrying about what's coming next. Very little can be done about the past and worry is a waste of time. Here the Kentucky poet Wendell Berry gives himself over to nature.

The Peace of Wild Things