Life poems
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Mogg Megone - Part III.
© John Greenleaf Whittier
Ah! weary Priest! - with pale hands pressed
On thy throbbing brow of pain,
A Sailor's Life
© Harry Kemp
Oh, a sailor hasn't much to brag -
An oilskin suit and a dunnage bag.
But, howsoever humble he be,
By the Living God, he has the sea!
The Wind Chimes by Shirley Buettner: American Life in Poetry #37 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004
© Ted Kooser
Painful separations, through divorce, through death, through alienation, sometimes cause us to focus on the objects around us, often invested with sentiment. Here's Shirley Buettner, having packed up what's left of a relationship.
Children Of The War
© Katharine Lee Bates
SHRUNKEN little bodies, pallid baby faces,
Eyes of staring terror, innocence defiled,
She Was A Phantom Of Delight
© William Wordsworth
She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
Aspiration
© Archibald Lampman
Yet we perchance, for all that flesh and mind
Of many ills be marked with many a trace,
Shall find this life more sweet more strangely kind,
Than they of that dim-hearted earthly race,
Who creep firm-nailed upon the earth's hard face,
And hear nor see not, being deaf and blind.
The Truce of Piscataqua
© John Greenleaf Whittier
"Let your ears be opened wide!
He who speaks has never lied.
Waldron of Piscataqua,
Hear what Squando has to say!
Unknown Warrior
© Elizabeth Daryush
Not that broad path chose he, which whoso wills
May tread, if he by pay the fatal price,
And for such sweet as earthly life extils,
Slaughter his heaven-born soul in sacrifice.
To Poesy
© Charles Harpur
Ah, misery! what were then my lot
Amongst a race of unbelievers
Sordid men who all declare
That earthly gain alone is fair,
And they who pore on bardic lore
Deceived deceivers.
The Nightingale Has A Lyre Of Gold
© William Ernest Henley
The nightingale has a lyre of gold,
The lark's is a clarion-call,
And the blackbird plays but a boxwood flute,
But I love him best of all.
Bayswater.W.
© Arthur Henry Adams
About me leagues of houses lie,
Above me, grim and straight and high,
They climb; the terraces lean up
Like long grey reefs against the sky.
Veils
© Wilcox Ella Wheeler
Veils, everywhere float veils; veils long and black,
Framing white faces, oft-times young and fair,
But, like a rose touched by untimely frost,
Showing the blighting marks of sorrow's track.
Hudibras - The Lady's Answer to The Knight
© Samuel Butler
We are your guardians, that increase
Or waste your fortunes how we please;
And, as you humour us, can deal
In all your matters, ill or well.
A Familiar Epistle To A Friend
© James Russell Lowell
Yes, this _is_ life! And so the bard
Through briny deserts, never scarred
Since Noah's keel, a subject seeks,
And lies upon the watch for weeks;
That once harpooned and helpless lying,
What follows is but weary trying.
Lines Written In August
© Thomas Babbington Macaulay
The day of tumult, strife, defeat, was o'er;
Worn out with toil, and noise, and scorn, and spleen,
I slumbered, and in slumber saw once more
A room in an old mansion, long unseen.
The Deans Reasons For Not Building At Drapiers-Hill
© Jonathan Swift
I will not build on yonder mount;
And, should you call me to account,
Consulting with myself, I find
It was no levity of mind.
To H. W. Longfellow
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
OUR Poet, who has taught the Western breeze
To waft his songs before him o'er the seas,
Will find them wheresoe'er his wanderings reach
Borne on the spreading tide of English speech
Twin with the rhythmic waves that kiss the farthest beach.
Woodmanship
© George Gascoigne
My worthy Lord, I pray you wonder not
To see your woodman shoot so oft awry,
