Life poems
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Names Upon a Stone: (Inscribed to G. L. Fagan, Esq.)
© Henry Kendall
ACROSS bleak widths of broken sea
A fierce north-easter breaks,
A Judgment In Heaven
© Francis Thompson
Athwart the sod which is treading for God * the poet paced with his
splendid eyes;
Paradise-verdure he stately passes * to win to the Father of
Paradise,
Through the conscious and palpitant grasses * of inter-tangled
relucent dyes.
St. Valentine's Day
© Edgar Albert Guest
Let loose the sails of love and let them fill
With breezes sweet with tenderness to-day;
Scorn not the praises youthful lovers say;
Romance is old, but it is lovely still.
Not he who shows his love deserves the jeer,
But he who speaks not what she longs to hear.
Integer Vitae
© Thomas Campion
THE man of life upright,
Whose guiltless heart is free
From all dishonest deeds,
Or thought of vanity;
Grandmother Tenterden
© Francis Bret Harte
I mind it was but yesterday:
The sun was dim, the air was chill;
Below the town, below the hill,
The sails of my son's ship did fill,--
My Jacob, who was cast away.
The City Dead-House
© Walt Whitman
BY the City Dead-House, by the gate,
As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor,
Thoughts on Predestination and Reprobation : Part III.
© John Byrom
Whereas, this Reprobation Doctrine, here,
Not only Sense and Reason would cashier;
To A Young Lady, Who Was Fond Of Fortune-Telling
© Matthew Prior
You, Madam, may, with safety go
Decrees of destiny to know;
The Purple Cow Parodies
© Carolyn Wells
I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one.
The Divine Right Of Kings
© Edgar Allan Poe
The only king by right divine
Is Ellen King, and were she mine
I'd strive for liberty no more,
But hug the glorious chains I wore.
Song Of The Highest Tower
© Arthur Rimbaud
Idle youth
Enslaved to everything,
By being too sensitive
I have wasted my life.
Ah ! Let the time come
When hearts are enamoured.
Sunny New South Wales
© Anonymous
We often hear men boast about the land which gave them birth,
And each one thinks his native land the fairest spot on earth;
Interlude
© William Ernest Henley
O, the fun, the fun and frolic
That The Wind that Shakes the Barley
Scatters through a penny-whistle
Tickled with artistic fingers!
Yeshwant Rao
© Arun Kolatkar
Are you looking for a god?
I know a good one.
His name is Yeshwant Rao
and he's one of the best.
look him up
when you are in Jejuri next.
The Flower.
© Robert Crawford
I.
The flower in its own scent breathes till it dies
As if the scent its very birth-breath were
(As love is life's) which, while it occupies
Youth And Age.
© Robert Crawford
The last fruit off a tree is oft more sweet
And finely flavoured than the first, and so
Within life's autumn men may pleasures pluck
As sweet as youth's, and more sufficing than
The rank and rare enjoyments of the boy.
Self-Portrait by Zozan Hawez: American Life in Poetry #198 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate 2004-2006
© Ted Kooser
Now, in the city of rain,
I try to forget my past,
But memories never fade.
The Building Of The Temple
© Sir Henry Newbolt
O Lord our God, we are strangers before Thee, and sojourners, as were
all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is
none abiding.
