Life poems
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Greatness
© Charles Harpur
That man is truly great, and he alone
Who venerates, of present things or past
Sonnett - IX
© James Russell Lowell
My Love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die;
Albeit I ask no fairer life than this,
The Maids Of Attitash
© John Greenleaf Whittier
In sky and wave the white clouds swam,
And the blue hills of Nottingham
Through gaps of leafy green
Across the lake were seen,
Ben Nevis: A Dialogue
© John Keats
There was one Mrs. Cameron of 50 years of age and the fattest woman in all Inverness-shire who got up this Mountain some few years ago -- true she had her servants -- but then she had her self. She ought to have hired Sisyphus, -- "Up the high hill he heaves a huge round -- Mrs. Cameron." 'Tis said a little conversation took place between the mountain and the Lady. After taking a glass of W[h]iskey as she was tolerably seated at ease she thus began --
Mrs. C.
The Poets Choice
© Caroline Norton
I.
'Twas in youth, that hour of dreaming;
Round me, visions fair were beaming,
Golden fancies, brightly gleaming,
The Sisters Of Charity
© Arthur Rimbaud
That bright-eyed and brown-skinned youth,
The fine twenty-year body that should go naked,
That, brow circled with copper, under the moon,
An unknown Persian Genie would have worshipped;
A Girl Was Singing In A Church Choir
© Alexander Blok
A girl was singing in a church choir
Of the weary people on foreign soil,
Of all the ships that sailed aspired,
Of all, who have forgotten their joy.
Salmacis and Hermaphroditus.
© Francis Beaumont
MY wanton lines doe treate of amorous loue,
Such as would bow the hearts of gods aboue:
The Solitary
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
I.
Darst thou amid the varied multitude
To live alone, an isolated thing?
To see the busy beings round thee spring,
The Longest Day
© William Wordsworth
Let us quit the leafy arbor,
And the torrent murmuring by;
For the sun is in his harbor,
Weary of the open sky.
The Roman Centurion's Song
© Rudyard Kipling
Legate, I had the news last night -my cohort ordered home
By ships to Portus Itius and thence by road to Rome.
I've marched the companies aboard, the arms are stowed below:
Now let another take my sword. Command me not to go!
Creation
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
The impulse of all love is to create.
God was so full of love, in his embrace
She Shall Not Guess
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Even if I died no sound should tell it her.
Death babbles, but the calm of her dear eyes
In vain would ask, no tell--tale breath should stir
The lips still treasuring a thought unwise.
Over The Eyes Of Gladness
© James Whitcomb Riley
"The voice of One hath spoken,
And the bended reed is bruised--
The golden bowl is broken,
And the silver cord is loosed."
Old Woman in a Housecoat by Georgiana Cohen: American Life in Poetry #14 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laure
© Ted Kooser
Often everyday experiences provide poets with inspiration. Here Georgiana Cohen observes a woman looking out her window and compares the woman to the sunset. The woman's "slumped" chin, the fence that separates them, and the "beached" cars set the poem's tone; this is clearly not a celebration of the neighborhood. Yet by turning to clouds, sky, and breath, Cohen underscores the scene's fragile grace.
Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, D.S.P.D.
© Jonathan Swift
Dear honest Ned is in the gout,
Lies rack'd with pain, and you without:
How patiently you hear him groan!
How glad the case is not your own!
Dream Song 324
© John Berryman
Henry in Ireland to Bill underground:
Rest well, who worked so hard, who made a good sound
constantly, for so many years:
your high-jinks delighted the continents & our ears:
you had so many girls your life was a triumph
and you loved your one wife.
Hezekiah
© Thomas Parnell
From the bleak Beach and broad expanse of sea,
To lofty Salem, Thought direct thy way;
Mount thy light chariot, move along the plains,
And end thy flight where Hezekiah reigns.
Book Ninth [Residence in France]
© William Wordsworth
EVEN as a river,--partly (it might seem)
Yielding to old remembrances, and swayed
