Life poems
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Idyll XXIII. Love Avenged
© Theocritus
A lad deep-dipt in passion pined for one
Whose mood was froward as her face was fair.
Lovers she loathed, for tenderness she had none:
Ne'er knew what Love was like, nor how he bare
A bow, and arrows to make young maids smart:
Proof to all speech, all access, seemed her heart.
A Valentine
© Madison Julius Cawein
My life is grown a witchcraft place
Through gazing on thy form and face.
The Eye's Treasury
© James Russell Lowell
Gold of the reddening sunset, backward thrown
In largess on my tall paternal trees,
Contentment
© Ada Cambridge
Then vice be with us, although blood be shed.
No pact with powers partizan and blind;
No peace with Custom that makes right of wrong.
We shall content us when the starved are fed
When men and brothers are agreed and kind,
And there is fair play between weak and strong.
IV: Rouge Gagne
© Emily Dickinson
'Tis so much joy! 'Tis so much joy!
If I should fail, what poverty!
And yet, as poor as I,
Have ventured all upon a throw;
Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so
This side the Victory!
Nine stages towards Knowing
© Benjamin Jonson
Abstracted in art,
in architecture,
in scholars detail;
A Father To His Son
© Carl Sandburg
A father sees his son nearing manhood.
What shall he tell that son?
Tale IX
© George Crabbe
course,"
Replied the Youth; "but has it power to force?
Unless it forces, call it as you will,
It is but wish, and proneness to the ill."
"Art thou not tempted?"--"Do I fall?" said
The Studio
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
YOU walk my studio's modest round,
With slowly supercilious air;
While in each lifted eyebrow lurks,
The keenness of an ambushed sneer.
A Meeting Of The Birds
© Paul Hamilton Hayne
OF a thousand queer meetings, both great, sir, and small
The bird-party I sing of seemed oddest of all!
How they come to assemble--a multiform show--
From all parts of the earth, is--well--more than I know.
Ben Allah Achmet, or, the Fatal Tum
© William Schwenck Gilbert
I once did know a Turkish man
Whom I upon a two-pair-back met,
His name it was EFFENDI KHAN
BACKSHEESH PASHA BEN ALLAH ACHMET.
What the Frost Casts Up by Ed Ochester: American Life in Poetry #150 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate
© Ted Kooser
There's a world of great interest and significance right under our feet, but most of us don't think to look down. We spend most of our time peering off into the future, speculating on how we will deal with whatever is coming our way. Or dwelling on the past. Here Ed Ochester stops in the middle of life to look down.
What the Frost Casts Up
Since Shade Relents
© Paul Verlaine
Since shade relents, since 'tis indeed the day,
Since hope I long had deemed forever flown,
Wings back to me that call on her and pray,
Since so much joy consents to be my own,-
Dancing Adairs
© Conrad Aiken
Behold me, in my chiffon, gauze, and tinsel,
Flitting out of the shadow into the spotlight,
And into the shadow again, without a whisper!-
Firefly's my name, I am evanescent.
The Progress Of The Rose
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
The days of old, the good old days,
Whose misty memories haunt us still,
Demand alike our blame and praise,
And claim their shares of good and ill.
Some Boys are Born to Wander by Walter McDonald: American Life in Poetry #48 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet L
© Ted Kooser
Every parent can tell a score of tales about the difficulties of raising children, and then of the difficulties in letting go of them. Here the Texas poet, Walt McDonald, shares just such a story.
Some Boys are Born to Wander
From Michigan our son writes, How many elk?
How many big horn sheep? It's spring,
and soon they'll be gone above timberline,
